Standing naked in a field was, paradoxically, a moment of clarity for Noctar. The furious heat of Byte's betrayal cooled into a solid, determined core. He had a mission, an impossible one, but a mission nonetheless. And to complete it, he needed to understand the system he was now trapped in.
He ignored the flustered stares of the adventurers, the way Lyra's eyes kept darting back to him and to his lower half, and the way Elara was trying, and failing, to look professionally disinterested in his chest muscles. Instead, he focused on the data S.A.R.A. was streaming into his mind, a full system dump from the local Gaia network.
// WORLD_SCAN_COMPLETE: ETHRON.
// APOCALYPSE_EVENT: 'The Emergence' - 30 years ago. Simultaneous global appearance of dungeons.
// SYSTEM_GAIA: Came online in response, granting humanity the means to fight back.
// CURRENT_STATUS: Stalemate. Humanity contains dungeons but cannot stop their emergence. Society reoriented entirely around dungeon economy.
So, this wasn't a world that had conquered its monster problem. It was a world permanently on war footing, its entire technological and social progress funneled into one thing: survival. It explained the mix of magic and mundane. It also explained to Noctar why they had cars but no flying vehicles. All the R&D went into better swords and sturdier mana shields.
Borin, grumbling and red-faced, eventually tossed him a spare pair of trousers from his pack. "For the love of the gods, cover yourself. You're causing a public disturbance."
Noctar pulled them on. They were rough-spun and too short, ending just above his ankles. On his divine frame, they looked like something a barbarian king might wear on a casual day of pillaging, doing very little to diminish his imposing, almost offensive handsomeness.
The car ride to the Hunter's Authority was a quiet affair. Noctar sat in the back, sandwiched between a glowering Borin and a deeply uncomfortable Finn, his mind racing. `S.A.R.A., can you fabricate a plausible backstory for me? One that will explain my... anomalies?`
// Already on it, boss. Scanned local historical records. The early days of the Emergence were chaotic. Lots of people went missing, presumed dead in dungeons. We can use that.
The Hunter's Authority building was a stark, utilitarian fortress of concrete and steel. Noctar was immediately separated from the party and escorted to a medical and evaluation wing to check for any contamination and to affirm his status as a human being.
A stern-faced technician handed him a set of cheap grey gym clothes. "Change. Then we begin the physical and mana assessment."
The examination room was a cold, sterile place filled with machines that looked like they were built for torture, not testing. They were gigantic and seemed very strong. S.A.R.A quickly informed Noctar of their specs, these machines were meant to test awakened humans.
"Punch the reinforced plate on the impact analyzer," the technician instructed, pointing to a massive, pillar-like machine with a heavily dented metal plate.
Noctar looked at the machine, then at his fist. He didn't know his own strength. He'd been killing monsters with guns and wind, not his fists. He decided to tap it lightly.
He threw what he considered a 10% jab.
KABOOM!
The entire plate shattered into a thousand pieces. The machine behind it screeched, sparks flying, before going dark. The technician stared, his clipboard clattering to the floor. The figures the screen showed before it shut down were astronomical.
"Right..." the man stammered, leading him to a mag-lev treadmill. "Let's... test your speed. Just run until you feel comfortable."
Noctar started jogging. The machine whirred. He increased his pace to a run. The machine screamed. He pushed a little more, curious. The display, which had been tracking his speed, flashed ERROR: EXCEEDS DESIGN PARAMETERS before the belt snapped with a sound like a gunshot, nearly throwing him through the wall.
The final test was the mana crystal. "Just channel your mana into it. It will measure your capacity and affinity. Try not to break it, it's quite expensive."
Noctar placed his hand on the crystal. He willed a tiny trickle of energy, the same amount he used for a Wind Cutter. The mana flowed into the crystal and after seeing no reaction except the bright glow, the technician smiled. He directed Noctar to a seat but then...
The crystal started to vibrate and hum. The technician looked back horrified and Noctar looked back silently hoping it remains intact.
It exploded.
The blast was small but potent, shattering the housing and sending shards of mana-conductive crystal embedding themselves in the ceiling.
Alarms blared throughout the facility. Within seconds of the alarm, the door to the examination room was thrown open. A woman stood there, clad in form-fitting, enchanted plate armor that gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
A crimson cape was clasped at her shoulders, and a sword of impossible sharpness was strapped to her back. Her hair was the color of spun silver, and her eyes were a piercing, judgmental gold. She was the head of security for the Hunter's Authority , and she looked like she personally escorted troublemakers to the afterlife.
Her gaze swept over the destroyed equipment, the blaring alarm, the terrified technician, and finally landed on Noctar, who stood amidst the wreckage in his ill-fitting gym clothes, looking utterly unimpressed.
"Who," she demanded, her voice a whip-crack of authority, "are you?"
Noctar met her golden gaze, his ice-blue eyes projecting a weary, ancient honesty. It was the same look he'd used when telling the deceased Vilheims their project timelines were delusional.
"My name is Noctar Ville," he said, his voice low and steady. "Thirty years ago, when the first dungeons emerged, I was a researcher at a quantum physics facility. One opened inside the lab. I was pulled in. I've been trapped in a temporal stasis dungeon until today. The world I knew... is gone."
He let the words hang in the air, heavy with the weight of lost time.
The female knight's stern expression didn't change, but a flicker of something—not belief, but a reassessment—crossed her features. It was a lie so audacious, so perfectly tailored to explain his anachronistic lack of records, his impossible power, and his complete ignorance of modern Ethron, that it was almost impossible to disprove.
He was no longer just a strange S-Rank. He was a relic. A living fossil from the day the world ended.
And for the first time since he'd arrived, Noctar felt the code of this new reality bending to his will.