The laughter in the guild hall was a physical thing, a wave of ridicule that washed over me. It didn't sting. It was just… noise. The meaningless chatter of a world that judged power by the glow of a magic rock.
Devika looked utterly crushed. Her faith had been met with mockery, her eyewitness account dismissed as the ravings of a traumatized girl. "No," she whispered, shaking her head. "You're all wrong. He's… he's incredible."
The bearded adventurer, whose name I learned was Korgan, sauntered over, a tankard of ale sloshing in his meaty fist. He was a mountain of a man, clad in steel plate armor that had seen better days. He looked me up and down, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. He was a C-Rank, a veteran who thought he'd seen it all.
"Incredibly delusional, maybe," Korgan boomed, his voice echoing in the hall. "Listen, savage. We have rules here. Ranks mean something. A Rank F like you breathing the same air as us is an insult." He took a long swig of his ale, then leaned in close, his breath a foul mix of booze and garlic. "Why don't you do us all a favor? Take your little token and crawl back into whatever hole you came from."
He reached out and flicked the F-Rank token on the counter. It skittered across the wood and fell to the floor.
I didn't look at him. My eyes were on the quest board.
They were all there, pinned to the corkwood:
'Goblin Nest Extermination, Rank E.'
'Lost Cat Retrieval, Rank F.'
'Caravan Escort to the Silver Peaks, Rank D.'
And then I saw it. Tucked away in a corner, covered in dust, was a parchment with stark, crimson lettering. The paper itself seemed to hum with a dark energy.
URGENT: S-RANK THREAT
Grave-Wyrm sighted in the Black Quarry.
Guild-wide alert. Do not engage alone.
Reward: 50,000 Gold. Title of 'Dragon-Slayer.'
An S-Rank quest. A monster so powerful it threatened the entire region, a beast that entire teams of elite adventurers wouldn't dare face. It was a notice of impending doom, not a real quest.
Elara the receptionist followed my gaze, a flicker of fear in her eyes before she scoffed. "Don't even think about it, F-Rank. Looking at that paper is probably enough to get you killed."
Korgan roared with laughter again. "The savage wants to fight the Grave-Wyrm! Maybe we should let him! It'll save us the trouble of burying the body!"
I finally turned my head, my gaze shifting from the board to Korgan. I still didn't speak. I simply held his stare.
"What?" he snarled, puffing out his chest. The laughter in the hall died down as everyone sensed the shift in the atmosphere. "You got something to say, you worthless piece of—"
"You talk too much," I said. My voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the din like a razor.
Korgan's face turned purple with rage. "Why you little—!"
He swung his fist, a haymaker fueled by ego and ale. It was a sloppy, telegraphed punch, but the raw power behind it was real. For a normal man, it would have shattered a jaw.
I didn't move. I didn't dodge. I didn't even blink.
I just lifted my hand and caught his fist in my open palm.
The sound was like a thunderclap muffled by a pillow. A shockwave of displaced air rippled out from the point of impact, kicking up dust from the floorboards and making the quest papers flutter on the board.
The entire guild hall fell into a stunned, deathly silence.
Korgan's eyes were wide with shock, his arm trembling violently. He was trying to pull his fist back, but it was trapped, held effortlessly in my grip. It was like a child trying to wrestle with a statue.
"My… my arm…" he whimpered, sweat pouring down his face. The bones in his hand hadn't broken. They had simply been compressed, the sheer force of my grip turning them into something resembling dust within his gauntlet.
I let him go.
He stumbled back, cradling his now useless hand, his face pale with a terror that went beyond pain. He was looking at me not as a man, but as a primordial force of nature.
I ignored him and the fifty other slack-jawed adventurers in the room. I walked over to the quest board.
With two fingers, I plucked the S-Rank quest from the corkwood. The dark energy humming from the parchment washed over me, a chilling aura that would have paralyzed a lesser man. To me, it felt… warm.
I walked back to the counter and placed the crimson-lettered quest in front of the frozen, pale-faced receptionist.
Elara stared at the parchment, then up at me, her freckled face a mask of utter disbelief. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
"I'll take this one," I said.
The silence that followed was different. It wasn't mockery. It wasn't even shock.
It was the kind of silence that falls over a kingdom when a god descends from the heavens and declares war.
Devika was the first to find her voice. It was a choked whisper, filled with a terrifying, exhilarating realization.
"He's not a man," she breathed, staring at my back. "He's a calamity."
I turned and walked towards the exit, the S-Rank quest held loosely in my hand. The crowd of adventurers parted before me like water before the hull of a warship.
Just before I stepped out into the sunlight, I paused and looked back at Elara.
"By the way," I said, my voice calm and even. "My rank. You made a mistake."
I held up my wooden token. The one with the 'F' carved into it.
Then, with a gentle squeeze of my thumb and forefinger, the solid chunk of wood disintegrated into fine, powdery dust that drifted to the floor.
"It's S. For Shera."