Ashen Hollow felt busy in a way that meant the town was starting to work. SMU squads stood near the gate and spoke to people in plain words, not orders. A few officers paired solo players into parties and walked them to safer hunting areas.
Two soldiers calmed a shouting match and guided both sides to the notice board, where simple rules were carved into wood. A small team escorted a shaken woman toward the square after taking her report.
No one carried clipboards or checked gear; there were no modern tools here. They helped with fights, kept eyes on assault cases, and tried to hold a little order together with voice and presence.
Haeun stepped out of the spawn light and sent a short message to Minjoo, ordering her to come quickly. As she walked, people's heads turned naturally.
She cut across to a quiet corner, opened her ring, and swapped into better pieces from the Minotaur and advanced some of her skills. She did it quickly and without fuss, hands sure.
Minjoo jogged up a minute later, hairline damp, cheeks flushed.
"Your timing is perfect, my lady. I just came back from hunting," she said between breaths.
"Give me a report of the things that went on while I was gone."
"As you ordered, I kept pushing levels with my party. I gave the uncommon loot to the others to sell and kept the rare ones for our teams, and sold some of it to the officials who recently came here. And—Mr. Loki came by earlier."
Hauens' ears perked up when Loki's name came up.
"He dropped another batch to sell. There was more Rare loot than last time, and I have not sold it all yet. But I think we can get very good numbers."
Haeun watched her face while she talked. "Where did Mr. Loki go after giving you the loot? Did he say when he plans to come back to collect the TLE?"
Minjoo shook her head. "I think he went hunting outside. And he didn't say when he would return."
Hauen opened her friendlist and saw that he was online. She was about to contact him but decided not to disturb him.
"Understood. Let's check buyers after we take a turn inside the forest. I need to check my damge with the new skills and equipment."
They had barely cleared the square when a voice carried clean across it.
"Haeun."
Seo Mingyu came on with the kind of poise that made space open for him without anyone saying a word.
The men with him moved like practiced shadows, not flashy, just placed right. At his side walked a woman in ritual black with a copper-red fall of hair and a staff that turned heads when it caught the light.
"You told me to come quickly," Min-gyu said, warmth easy in his voice. "So I did. My father and mother will join us when their town gates open. But what are you gathering us here for anyway?"
"My father asked me to gather the other family heads," Haeun said. "He didn't state the full plan, but if I had to guess, he wants us all to work together."
Min-gyu nodded, thinking out loud. " That is a very good idea, considering uncle's information network and connections in the government."
He tipped his chin toward the woman with the staff. "Before anything else, this is Shin Eunha. She joined my team recently. She is a healer with an Epic-tier class."
Haeun's gaze tracked the staff head, the faint aura, the way the woman's shoulders carried the weight. "Nice to meet you, Miss Eunha," she said with a small nod.
"Please, call me PrettiestPriestess here," Eunha said, face composed.
Minjoo's lips jumped before she caught them with the back of her hand. Min-gyu's ears also went red.
Haeun's expression stayed neutral. Inside, she marked this person as weird and put her in the same category as those other two with the weird names.
She kept the thought to herself.
"Hey, if you're free, then let's go hunting right now," Min-gyu said, a small smile forming. "No reason to waste time standing still. We can hunt till the others gather."
"Sure, I was about to head out as well.", Haeun said and asked Minjoo to prepare.
They moved into the trees. The air smelled of wet bark and old smoke. Fallen needles softened the ground between black roots. Haze lay between the trunks like old breath.
They cut through a band of common mobs cleanly and kept moving until a Rare drew itself out of the gloom.
Min-gyu turned to Eunha, almost playful. "Shall we take this one? Just us two."
Eunha's mouth quirked. "You want to show off, heh. Fine, let's do it."
"Leave this to us, Haeun. Let me show you what I can do", said Min-gyu.
Haeun stepped aside with Minjoo, palms open. "Go ahead."
Min-gyu, Stellar Regent (Heroic), rose a handspan off the ground. Pale star rings spun at his wrists and ankles. He marked the Rare with a star-bright mote and snapped a shot. The mote struck and blew white-blue, staggering the lesser creatures away from the main body. He held the hover long enough to work clean lanes from above and then settled, voice steady as he called the next rhythm.
Eunha worked closely. A red thread tied her to Min-gyu, another to the boss. She took measured life from one, gave it to the other, never dragging anyone under. Wherever blood touched the ground, she shaped it into low, glassy bubbles. When Min-gyu cut through one, he felt wounds healing and a cool wash of mana return as the bubble turned clear and vanished. When the boss passed through them, they exploded causing damage.
His entourage stayed back under the branches. They watched, clapped in bursts, and called timing when asked.
The fight ran long. Min-gyu took hits and got them back. Eunha kept him standing with clean, precise trades. The Rare bled strength in steady steps and finally broke to light after an hour.
For a moment, both bent at the waist, palms on knees, breathing hard. Then they straightened and looked at each other.
"You did a good job with the healing," Min-gyu said, honest and a little breathless.
"Of course I did. You also did well to keep the pressure off me when it mattered. Well done," Eunha answered, smoothing a stray hair behind her ear.
Min-gyu laughed under his breath and lifted his head to share the moment with his people.
He had seen rare monsters wipe out parties. And he had taken down one with just two people.
'Hauen must be impressed by my performance, ' he thought.
But every face was turned away from him, eyes fixed deeper in the trees.
"Huh? What are you all looking at?", he asked when he got close.
"Boss…" one of the men said, voice thin. He pointed. "Over there."
Not far off, in a clearing open to a strip of pale sky, Haeun and Minjoo were already fighting a Rare of their own.
Minjoo moved like she was following a beat only she could hear—step in, set the angle, strike, step back with the guard up. Haeun's lines were clean and mean, each lance on time, nothing wasted.
"Sigh, I'd expect nothing less of Hauen. She is amazing even here," Min-gyu said, already walking, Eunha at his side.
They reached the edge of the clearing as the Rare came apart to light. Minjoo crouched to gather drops.
But before anyone could speak, a second Rare took shape where the first had fallen, drawn in by sound.
"Shit! It's another one. All of you move in to help Haeun", Min-gyu said in panic and was about to run when one of his men stopped him.
"What the fuck are you doing?! She must be exhausted after her fight. We need to move in to help."
"Bo-boss, that was their second one.", one said hasidently.
"Huh, second? What are you saying?", Min-gyu asked, confused.
Haeun, on the other hand, did not look surprised by the monster. She gated out, and Minjoo took the front, drawing the mosters agroo.
Min-gyu's entourage started whispering in the way people do when they cannot help themselves.
"Are they… going to take on another one?"
"It hasn't even been ten minutes since they took down the other."
"Boss, this is their third one," another blurted, voice cracking.
"T-they did one before we even got eyes on them. Then the second they killed just now. And now— now it's the thrid one."
"Third?" Min-gyu repeated, but it came out soft, like he had forgotten how to make the word carry.
Eunha watched without comment, hands resting on her staff. Her face stayed calm, but the skin at the jaw tightened for a moment and her grip shifted higher on the wood.
The third Rare broke to light with the same brutal tidiness as the second.
Haeun walked back through the falling motes as if the ground belonged to her. There was nothing of a strut in it, just a straight spine and a pace that never hurried. Minjoo came a step behind and half a step to the side, eyes moving, shoulders square, the look of a knight whose job was simple and absolute.
At the edge of the clearing, Haeun snapped her fingers; a red mantle settled across her arms as if it had been waiting just out of sight. She lifted her chin to speak and only then seemed to notice Min-gyu's group.
Min-gyu's mouth was a little open. Heat climbed his neck into his face, and he shut his lips on nothing.
"That was… amazing," he said finally, but his voice did not quite find its usual place. His eyes, despite himself, traced the line of the mantle and the way it framed her.
Eunha's lashes lowered a fraction. She tilted her head and fixed a polite smile in place, the kind that showed nothing and meant less.
"Oh, you're finished," Haeun said, stopping in front of them. Her breathing had already settled. "Good. Let's move on."
Minjoo suppressed a grin and glanced once at Min-gyu's entourage, who were still trying to decide whether to clap or keep quiet.
Min-gyu swallowed. "Yes. Of course," he said, pulling himself back together.
...
When Loki came to, his head was in someone's lap.
Warm cloth under his cheek with some cool metal here and there.
He blinked up, and his view was all fabric and the deep line of her chest—close enough that it filled everything for a second.
Then the jolt hit: his mask and hood weren't on.
He tried to sit but nothing answered. Limbs heavy, like after a long fever. Panic nipped at the edge of his breath.
The woman noticed and let out a small, soft laugh. Her hand slid through his hair once, slow and steady, like she was smoothing a child's brow. The touch wasn't forceful; it just said Stay a moment.
His pulse eased. Strength started coming back in waves: fingers first, then wrists, then shoulders. He tested his toes. They moved. He tried again, and this time his body listened.
She let him go when he pushed up. He sat, a little unsteady, heat creeping into his ears that he chose to ignore. He tapped his chin for the mask, drew the hood up, and felt the familiar seal click into his world again.
"Thank you," he said, plain.
She only watched him, calm, hands folded in her lap.
"Who are you? And where, exactly, is this?"
She did not answer.
She rose and went to kneel before the empty altar, like that was all there was.
'What is she? An NPC?A monster?'
Loki tried to check again, but all he got was the same result.
[*****]
'Is the GFS system broken or is it only her?' he thought and opened his status to check.
[Alias: Loki]
[Class: GODSLAYER]
[Level: 7]
— Life Essence —
[TLE: 25,438]
[NTLE: 28,239]
— Core Attributes —
[Strength: 28](16 base +3 class +10 weapon)
[Constitution: 54](16 base +2 class +10 coat +3 gauntlets +5 boots +8 legs +10 weapon)
[Agility: 71](16 base +10 class +34 allocated +5 hood +6 legs)
[Intelligence: 29](16 base +3 class +10 legs)
— Special Stats —
[Critical Rate: +25%]
[Critical Damage: +300%]
[Stealth: +1]
[Aether: 10] (+10)
— Points —
[Free Attribute Points: 4] (+4)
[Evolution Points: 17] (+16)
[Reputation Points: 12]
"Everything seems fi-"
He stopped when he saw a change in his status that he was not expecting.
[Aether: 10]
He clicked [Aether], and a description popped up.
[Aether]
Aether is the word for what sits behind the world. A divine substrate. A fifth element, the "pure" medium beyond earth/air/fire/water. The space between spaces used by portals, summons, and astral walks. A thin layer where will, soul, and omen touch.
"What?"
The description only made him even more confused. None of it helped him right now. He closed the panel.
'This woman seems to know something, but why won't she speak?'
He tried talking to her again, but still there was no response.
He looked up at the empty niche. The scraped mounting pins. The socket where something had once sat.
"There is nothing to worship here anymore. Why don't you come with me and we get out of here?"
Finally, she turned her head and met his eyes. The air between them changed like a page turning.
[Use 5 Aether to take *****]
He read it once. He read it again.
"Huh?"