"I'm not an idiot," Izzy laughs. More and more viewers urge him to touch the fog—or the rippling surface. Izzy just keeps shaking his head.
I try to add up how much money they're offering him in total. It has to be in the millions by now. But the streamer holds his ground. Instinctively, he seems to know that this would be a very stupid idea.
"Seriously, guys, I'm not suicidal. I think I'm going to end the stream for now. If television wants the location—get in touch with me."
As he speaks, he steps backward a little to bring the oval into better focus behind him.
Suddenly, the camera tilts.
No. He tilts.
We see him scream, flailing his arms. Then the glowing surface rushes closer. Blue lightning crackles and flickers.
Then it goes dark.
The stream cuts off abruptly.
I can barely watch. Of course I know this is how the footage ends, but it shocks me every single time. He must have been terrified. Even now, I feel his fear settle heavy in my stomach.
And then there's something else.
Ever since my dream a few days ago, I can't stop thinking about it. And just now, something in the video made me pause.
The hum.
I hadn't told Lissy. But in my dream, I felt that rhythm too. The pounding behind my temples—the beat that dictates how fast my heart is allowed to go.
Since the Worldrise, we no longer feel it. Except for those who enter a portal.
And that realization, burning so brightly in my mind that it almost hurts, scares me.
Someone shifts beside me, and my attention snaps back to the room, to the black screen on the wall.
I often wonder whether he's still alive somewhere.
Of course, I know the odds are effectively nonexistent. The Labyrinth is deadly. Always. Without exception.
Everyone who entered it died—whether on their first descent, or on their last.
"Izzy was the first person to enter a portal," the agent says, tapping on his tablet again as a presentation appears on the screen. "However, we assume that he did not survive. Like many others who followed after him. As you all know, it took five years to bring the situation somewhat under control. Monsters emerged from portals that remained open too long and became unstable."
Yeah. That was the problem.
We couldn't go in—but the things from below could come out.
Portals were not permanently fixed to one location. They formed through mana fluctuations, when — for some reason — more mana accumulated in one place than elsewhere.
But like everything in the world, mana seeks homogeneity.
Which means that the gathered mana wants to redistribute itself. And that is the moment when a portal becomes unstable.
A kind of negative pressure forms, allowing monsters to break through from the other side. Luckily, these were only creatures from the uppermost levels of the Labyrinth.
And those could be eliminated with military weapons.
"Eliminated" didn't mean clean.It just meant finished.
While my mind drifts off yet again, the agent keeps talking.
"Luckily, we quickly realized that the mana pulse created by the Worldrise changed some of us humans."
"The Hunters," someone breathes behind me.
The word spreads through the room like a prayer.Or a curse.
I can't stop myself from shuddering in disgust. How could anyone long for a life that would inevitably kill you? Sure, the Hunters protect us. All of us. But it's a suicide mission. I have the utmost respect for anyone who enters a portal—but wanting it that badly is beyond me.
I know I'm pretty much alone with that opinion here.But I don't want to become a Hunter.
I want a quiet, boring life.
Suddenly, I remember where I am and force myself to listen. Because even if I don't want to — it could happen to me too.
Or… has already happened to me.
The thought slips in uninvited — and refuses to leave.
No.
I shake my head. Stop spiraling.
"At first, there was a lot of confusion about what was happening," the agent continues, "but some very clever people—"
"Geeks," the guy next to me mutters. "He means geeks. Only a nerd would come up with a system that looks like a video game in the middle of a catastrophe."
I glance at him, irritated, as he nudges my side with his elbow. I push my glasses back up my nose. They slipped from the impact.
"Well," I say curtly, "the similarities to game-style character design were pretty obvious."
"Leave it to gamers," someone mutters, "to turn the apocalypse into a skill tree."
I refocus on the agent.
"Basically, everyone receives one active and one passive ability. The first has to be consciously activated by the Hunter, while the second is always active and triggered by individual signals."
"What's your passive ability?" someone calls out.
Honestly, I'd like to know too. Even if I don't want to become a Hunter, the abilities everyone gets fascinate me.
The agent grins.
"I can read minds."
The room goes very, very still.
Then a murmur ripples through the crowd. I swallow. Abilities that invade my privacy are not cool. But then again almost every ability does that in some way. Someone who can burn down an entire apartment block with a single thought is just as dangerous to my personal safety.
"Oh shit! Does he know what I've got on me?" the guy whispers. He has dirty blond curls and a scar across the bridge of his nose.
"No one gives a damn about your weed" I mutter.
Then the agent's gaze sweeps over us.
He looks way too good for someone locked in a room with a bunch of candidates.
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
And now I'm the one widening my eyes.
Shit.
Had I just thought that?
Had he read my mind?
The grin deepens, and I panic, desperately trying to think of something else.
Rhinos. Yes. Rhinos.
Very fascinating animals.
Thick skin.
Small brains.
Perfect.
His gaze lingers on me again for a brief moment, and I feel myself blush. Heat gathers in my cheeks. I'd like nothing more than to sink into the floor out of sheer embarrassment.
Oh, stop it. I'm allowed to find whoever I want attractive!
"Please calm down. Of course I don't read all thoughts all the time. That would require far too much mana and would completely overload my brain."
Liar, I think.
He looks like someone who enjoys knowing more than he should.If it's a passive skill, you can't consciously turn it on—or off. Which means he hears things no one ever agreed to share.
"Is he even allowed to say that?" the careless guy next to me whispers. I've decided to simply call him the guy. I've never met anyone the word fit so perfectly. I shrug. I'm more interested in what he did to end up giving an introductory lecture to a room full of candidates.
Mind-reading is almost certainly a Class B ability. Depending on what his active skill is, he might even be an A-class Hunter.
Okay. Fine. I'll admit it.Abilities fascinate me. A lot.
So much so that I've read everything I could find about them.
Basically, it's quite simple:
Since the Worldrise, our world has been permeated by mana. The monsters living in the Labyrinth also use mana as their source of power. The deeper they originate from within the Labyrinth, the more mana they carry—and the stronger and more dangerous they are.
We humans started categorizing monsters. And of course, manga and anime fans took the lead here. They were thrilled that something they had previously only read about had suddenly become reality. Crazy people.(Yes. Okay. I'm one of them.)
Like in many fictional stories, the weakest class is F. The stronger a monster, the higher its class, up to A. After that comes only S, which stands for superior. No idea who came up with that.
So far, we haven't encountered a monster rated higher than B. Which sounds reassuring. However, it's assumed that an A-class monster could wipe out an entire city. Luckily, that hasn't happened — since no monster stronger than D has ever exited a portal.
Hunters are classified based on which monsters they can eliminate on their own. If you can kill a goblin by yourself, you're an F-class Hunter.
Abilities, however, are also divided into categories. That depends on their rarity and on how much mana they require to be used.
And this is where things get interesting.
Because it can happen that you receive an ability that requires more mana than you actually have.
In the best case, it simply doesn't activate.
In the worst case, it does activate—burns through all your mana, then your life energy, and if that still isn't enough… well.
And as morbid as it sounds—that is exactly what fascinates me.
How exactly is it decided which abilities someone gets?
Why does the agent have the power to read minds?
I stare at him, but the answer stubbornly refuses to manifest in my head.