The notification popped up on Rama Kusuma's phone at 6:47 AM.
[Guild Notice: Emergency Raid - D-Rank Gate - Participants Needed]
He stared at it for three seconds before deleting it. Not because he didn't want to go. Because he knew exactly what would happen if he tried.
"Darling~"
Rama nearly dropped his phone.
Sekar's voice came from behind him, sweet as honey and just as sharp. Her arms wrapped around his waist, chin resting on his shoulder as she peered at his screen.
"What are you looking at so early?" she purred.
"Nothing important. Just spam."
Her grip tightened. Just slightly. Just enough.
"Mm. Good. You know how I worry when you look at guild notifications." She pressed a kiss to his neck. "You're not thinking about joining another raid, are you?"
"Of course not."
"Good boy."
She released him and glided toward the kitchen in her silk nightgown. Even first thing in the morning, Sekar Aditya was breathtaking: long black hair down her back, skin without a single flaw, eyes that could melt steel or freeze your soul depending on her mood.
Rama's wife. The S-Rank Hunter. Guild Master of Eternal Bond, one of Indonesia's top five guilds.
And Rama? An E-Rank Tank. Famous for being her husband, and for nothing else.
"I'm making breakfast," Sekar announced, already pulling ingredients from the fridge. "Nasi goreng, extra eggs."
"You don't have to."
"I want to." She glanced back, smile radiant. "Besides, you're going to the market today. Remember?"
Right. The market. His weekly assignment. While other Hunters cleared gates and fought monsters, Rama Kusuma bought vegetables.
"I remember."
"Perfect. I'll make you a list."
Rama watched her cook. This beautiful, terrifying woman who somehow loved him, who'd married him when they were both ordinary people, before the Gates changed everything. Before she became a goddess and he became a joke.
His phone buzzed. A different notification.
[Hunter's Forum - New Post]
Subject: "Why Does the S-Rank Stay With That Trash?"
He should have ignored it. He always ignored it. His thumb moved anyway.
"Sekar Aditya could have anyone. Why stick with an E-Rank who can't clear a D-Rank gate without a full party babysitting him."
"Money, probably. Living off her income like a leech."
"I heard he failed his last three raids. How do you fail a D-Rank raid?"
Rama's jaw clenched. His fingers tightened around the phone until the case creaked.
"Rama?"
He looked up. Sekar was watching him, spatula in hand, eyes narrowed.
"Your aura spiked," she said quietly. "What's wrong?"
Even his emotions leaked. S-Rank Hunters had perception abilities that made hiding anything nearly impossible.
"Nothing."
"Don't lie to me." She crossed the kitchen in three steps, hand cupping his face. "Who do I need to kill?"
She said it so casually. So sweetly. Like she was asking what he wanted for dinner.
"Nobody. Just forum trolls. It's fine."
"Show me."
"Sekar."
"Show me."
He handed her the phone.
Her expression didn't move as she read. Didn't flicker. But the temperature in the room dropped, and her aura, that overwhelming S-Rank pressure, leaked out like poison gas. The windows rattled. The lights flickered.
"I see," she said softly, and handed back his phone, and returned to the stove like nothing had happened.
But Rama knew better. Somewhere in Jakarta, three people had just made a terrible mistake. By tonight, their accounts would be gone. By next week, if they were Hunters, they'd be blacklisted from every major guild in Indonesia.
Sekar Aditya didn't tolerate disrespect toward her husband.
They ate in silence. Rama picked at his food, trying not to think about the forum posts. About the truth in them.
He was weak. He was useless in raids. He was the S-Rank's worthless husband.
Every word was accurate.
"I have a meeting at noon," Sekar said. "Guild business, high-rank gate discussion with the Jakarta Hunter Association. Home by eight."
"Okay."
"You'll be safe? You won't do anything dangerous?"
"I'm going to the market. The most dangerous thing there is overpriced mangoes."
She didn't laugh. "Promise me."
The weight in those two words was suffocating. Not a request. A command wrapped in concern, backed by power that could level a city block.
"I promise."
Only then did she relax. She stood, kissed his forehead. "Good. I'll see you tonight, darling. I love you."
"Love you too."
She left in a swirl of perfume and lingering threat, her guild coat forming around her shoulders as she reached the door. The Eternal Bond emblem, two clasped hands wrapped in chains, glinted gold on her back.
Rama sat alone in the penthouse her money had paid for and stared at his reflection in the black screen of his phone. Twenty-two years old. Reasonably fit. Not bad-looking. Completely, utterly powerless.
He pulled up his official Hunter status.
[HUNTER STATUS - JAKARTA BRANCH]
Name: Rama Kusuma
Age: 22
Rank: E
Class: Tank
Guild: Eternal Bond (Affiliate Member)
STATS:
Strength: 12
Agility: 8
Vitality: 47
Intelligence: 10
Mana: 15
Skills: [Taunt - Rank F] [Iron Skin - Rank E] [Last Stand - Rank E]
The numbers mocked him. Vitality was his only decent stat, a fat HP pool for a punching bag. Everything else was what you'd expect from someone who awakened and got handed the worst outcome on the board.
He closed the window and stood. The market could wait. He had something else to do first.
The Hunter's District was alive even this early, guild towers looming over the old city skyline, billboards flashing dungeon services and recruitment drives. Rama walked through all of it invisible. Nobody looked at E-Ranks. Especially not E-Rank Tanks.
He reached The Iron Gate, a mid-tier guild hall that hired freelancers for low-level raids.
"Kusuma!" The raid leader, a C-Rank named Darma, grinned when he saw him. "Didn't think you'd show. Your wife finally let you out of the house?"
The other Hunters laughed. Five of them, C-Rank or higher, looking at him like a charity case.
"I'm here," Rama said flatly. "What's the job?"
"D-Rank gate. Goblin nest. Easy money." Darma clapped his shoulder. "Need a Tank to soak hits while we do the real work. You're perfect for it."
A meat shield. That's all he was to them.
"Payment?"
"Split six ways. About two hundred thousand rupiah for you."
Pocket change. A single D-Rank gate core sold for millions. E-Ranks didn't get cores. They got scraps.
"Fine."
The gate stood in an abandoned warehouse in East Jakarta, a shimmering purple portal six meters tall. Officially safe for C-Rank parties. For an E-Rank, it was suicide he'd survived a dozen times already.
They entered.
The warehouse vanished, replaced by a cavern stinking of rot and blood. Torches guttered along the walls. Somewhere ahead, goblins chittered.
"Standard formation," Darma ordered. "Kusuma up front, soak the damage. Everyone else, DPS."
Rama summoned his shield, a battered slab of metal from his inventory, and moved to the front.
The goblins came fast, small and vicious, armed with rusty knives. Rama triggered [Taunt]. Every yellow eye in the cavern locked onto him, and they charged.
He braced. Blocked. Absorbed. A knife slammed his shield, a blade scored his thigh. Behind him, fireballs and ice spears turned the horde into corpses, and Rama stood there bleeding while the real Hunters did the killing.
"Good job, meat shield," someone called.
They pushed deeper. More goblins. Goblin warriors. A hobgoblin that nearly caved his ribs in before the party burned it down. His HP dropped to thirty percent, then twenty. He drank his own potions to stay upright. Nobody wasted theirs on the Tank.
The boss chamber waited at the end.
A Goblin Chief, three meters of muscle and a spiked club the size of a tree trunk.
"Kusuma, lock it down!"
Rama charged. The club came down like a falling roof. He got his shield up in time to save his skull and nothing else. The impact shattered the shield, threw him backward, and cracked him into the cavern wall hard enough to crack the stone too.
His HP bar hit five percent.
Through blurred vision he watched the party finish the boss without him. Watched them loot it. Watched them celebrate.
Why am I even here?
"Kusuma! You alive?"
He coughed blood and forced himself up. "Yeah. I'm alive."
"Cool. Here's your cut." Darma tossed him a small pouch. "Good work, meat shield."
They left through the gate. Rama followed, limping, clutching two hundred thousand rupiah that wouldn't cover his medical potions.
His phone buzzed. One message from Sekar: How's the market, darling? Don't forget the mangoes! ❤️
He stared at it, then laughed, a bitter sound that echoed off the empty warehouse walls.
This was his life. This was all he'd ever be.
He should have gone home. Bought the mangoes. Kissed his wife when she walked through the door. Let the forum comments rot where they belonged.
Instead he looked past the warehouse gate, past the guild towers, toward the gray shape of the Jakarta Gate Management Bureau rising against the morning haze, and his feet started moving.
Not toward the market.
Not toward home.