Evan’s score kept climbing.
Not gradually, not at the steady pace of soone accumulating points one beast at a ti. It jumped, in blocks, in bursts, as if whoever was on the other end of the bracelet was clearing beasts by the handful rather than individually.
The adventurers nearest to him noticed first. Then word spread, the way it always does on a battlefield where adrenaline makes people pay attention to exactly the wrong details.
Who was that guy?
They knew who he was, how could they not.
He was the one who had spent the past several days clearing mission after mission at the Association, building a quiet reputation that was becoming harder to ignore.
Fourteen years old. E-Rank Advanced Stage. One of the newcors to the city who had made a na for himself before anyone had had ti to learn his na.
So admired it. Others doubted it. Others sat in quiet resentnt and waited for him to make a mistake.
But nobody could explain how a E-Rank was accumulating points at that rate, when the D-Rank beasts, the ones that individually justified those kinds of numbers, had only just arrived, and nobody else had managed to kill one yet.
***
In the command room on the upper floor of the Association building, Elena Greymark had a view of the battlefield that the fighters below couldn’t afford.
The room was wide and functional, maps updated in real ti across the central tables, a row of communication crystals aligned along the right wall, each linked to a different defensive point along the city’s periter. Staff moved through it with quiet efficiency, gathering reports, routing information, flagging anomalies.
Elena moved between the tables with the sa ease. She read, decided, gave orders, and moved to the next without losing the thread of any of it.
Force deploynt. Defensive repositioning. Reserve allocation. The machine ran because soone kept it running, and right now that soone was her.
It was while scanning the report for the eastern sector that she noticed sothing odd in the rit point rankings.
The na at the top didn’t register imdiately. But the gap between it and the next entry did. Nobody accumulated points at that rate during the opening phase of a tide, not without engaging higher-rank beasts, and the D-Rank creatures had only just entered the picture.
It should be noted that for each F-rank kill, the Assotication awarded 5 points, or 10 points if it was at the advanced stage.
For E-rank, the points started ranging from 50 to 150.And for D-rank, points started directly from 500 and could go up to a maximum of 2000 for that rank.
Evan was already close to 3000 points, while the second place participant was only at 940.
Didn’t that an he was already taking on stronger beasts, perhaps even D-rank ones?
"Who is this?" she asked, not looking up from the map, addressing no one in particular.
A nearby staff mber still answered without being prompted, his tone carrying the exact clarity she expected from her subordinates.
"Fourteen years old. Male. Approximately one ter eighty. D-Rank, early stage, recently advanced. One of the newer arrivals in the city, he quickly built a solid reputation among the adventurers."
Elena looked up.
The staff mber handed her the sheet. A photograph was attached.
A flicker of recognition crossed her face, quick, barely there.
’Oh? What a surprise.’ She recalled the incident in the Association hall from just over a week ago. ’To think it was that boy... Seems my read on him wasn’t entirely off.’
What had left an impression on her then wasn’t his strength, he hadn’t been strong enough to warrant attention on that alone. It was sothing else entirely.
He hadn’t shown any fear. Not the cringing, eager-to-please kind she had grown used to from people who recognized who she was and imdiately adjusted their behavior. No bowing. No scrambling.
Just calm. A disconcerting amount of it. And the distinct air of soone sizing up what stood before him, not like a man looking at a woman he finds attractive, but like a predator trying to categorize sothing it doesn’t yet understand.
That kind of behavior would normally have irritated her. She wasn’t used to that sort of attention from soone who had no right to direct it at her.
But it hadn’t. Instead, she had found herself curious about him, briefly wondering whether he even knew who she was. Probably not, she had concluded at the ti, and let it go.
She set the thought aside just as quickly now. It wasn’t relevant, not at this mont. And yet it lingered, the way certain impressions did even when one refused to acknowledge them.
’Let’s see what else you’ve got.’
A faint half-smile crossed her face, the kind that would have made hearts falter, only to fade monts later.
She went back to work.
Reports kept coming in. The first front was holding, losses within expected margins, reserves in position. The first wave was burning itself out, which ant the second was about to begin.
Then one of the communication crystals lit up with a signal different from the rest. The staff mber managing it listened for a few seconds, then turned toward her.
"Lady Elena. Report from the eastern sector. A C-Rank beast approaching."
Elena set down the paper she was holding.
"A beastlord?"
"Yes. A C-Rank (mid-stage) Grawlwood."
She was quiet for a mont.
A Beast Lord. A beast capable of commanding smaller creatures, a mini-boss, in other words. Its appearance this early ant only one thing: the scale of this fight was about to escalate.
Not the worst possible news, but serious enough to alter the calculations.
"Send the heavy unit forward," she said in the sa tone she would have used for any other order. "Keep updated."
"Understood."
’Things are about to get more complicated’ she thought.
Her expression didn’t change.
A Beast Lord appearing this early was concerning, but not yet beyond what their preparations had accounted for.
Still, one thing was clear.
If they had already reached this level in under an hour, then the truly powerful ones, would soon make their appearance.
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