The sound of camera shutters and shouting reporters echoed outside the Cindrel Hall of Justice.
Only seven or eight reporters had gathered, along with a few curious passersby, but the atmosphere was tense enough to make it feel like a crowd. Guild staff stood in a neat line around a man wearing a smug smile, shielding him like bodyguards protecting a celebrity.
Enzo looked every bit the part.
He wore an expensive suit, silver jewelry glinting under the afternoon light, and his sleek black hair was combed back neatly. As he faced the reporters, his expression never once wavered. If anything, the flashes of the cameras only made his smile wider.
"Mr. Enzo! What exactly happened inside? Did you win the case?" one of the reporters shouted.
Enzo brushed a hand through his hair and gave a confident laugh.
"Of course I won the case," he said. "I told everyone from the beginning, it was an accident. Casualties are expected during a Fallen Break. Hunters aren't gods. We can't save everyone. Besides, I'm only a D-Rank Hunter. In that situation, I did everything I could to save as many people as possible."
"But according to our sources, the monsters involved were only E-Rank goblins," another reporter cut in. "As a D-Rank Hunter, your stats and skills should have been more than enough to handle a dozen of them. Are you saying you couldn't?"
At that, the other reporters leaned forward. Microphones were raised. Cameras zoomed in.
Enzo saw it all.
He noticed the tightening grip on their equipment, the anger hidden behind their questions, the bitterness in their voices.
But he never lost his composure.
Why would he?
To Enzo, normal people were insects. He was a Hunter chosen by the System. There was no reason for him to lower himself to people like them.
He had expected this question from the start.
"I could handle a dozen E-Rank goblins," he replied smoothly. "That would've been easy. But at the time, I had to respond to another area immediately. The police were already there. I had every reason to believe they could handle the rest."
"So you left a woman alone with a goblin?" another reporter asked, her voice quieter than the others, but much colder. "Do you even care about normal people? And if you do, why did you leave her there?"
"Of course I care about normal people." Enzo frowned, putting on the expression of a man insulted by the accusation. "But like I said, I had to respond to another emergency. By the time I realized she was still there, it was already too late."
The guild staff beside him nodded in satisfaction.
He was following the script perfectly.
A few more questions followed, each sharper than the last. The reporters were clearly trying to corner him, trying to pry out one mistake, one wrong word, anything they could use against him.
Enzo's smile slowly began to stiffen.
Then one of them went too far.
"From what we've gathered, you only saved three people," a male reporter said. "Three young women. After that, you left the scene with them and never returned to help fight the remaining Fallen Monsters. We also have photos of you entering and leaving a hotel with those same women."
He raised a phone.
"So tell us, Mr. Enzo, does your concern for ordinary people usually involve checking into a love hotel?"
The smile vanished from Enzo's face.
"You fucking reporters!"
A burst of red aura exploded from his body, violent enough to make several people step back in fear.
"If I wasn't innocent, do you think I would've won the case?!" he roared. "I'm standing here because I won! I won the fucking case! You lowly pieces of shit should shut your mouths and accept the truth!"
His eyes burned with contempt.
"You will never stand above us!"
Silence crashed over the scene.
No one spoke.
The cameras were still recording, but the hands holding them trembled.
The reporters clenched their fists. The passersby lowered their heads. Some looked angry. Some looked disgusted.
But no one dared say anything else.
Because he was right.
No matter how furious they were, no matter how much they wanted to spit in his face, they all knew the same thing.
Hunters stood above ordinary people.
Even a D-Rank Hunter held more power than they ever would.
And a man like Enzo knew it.
...
"You fucking reporters!"
"If I wasn't innocent, do you think I would've won the case?! I'm standing here because I won! I won the fucking case! You lowly pieces of shit should shut your mouths and accept the truth! You will never stand above us!"
Theo Flitcher stared at the screen of his phone, watching the man who had killed his wife scream at the reporters outside the courthouse.
He looked nothing like the detective Cindrel City once respected.
His black suit was wrinkled. His tie hung loose around his neck. His white shirt was half untucked. His lips were cracked, his hair was a mess, and his eyes were empty.
Only one word could describe him now.
Ruined.
Theo's grip tightened around the bottle in his hand until his knuckles turned white.
Then he raised it and took another swallow.
He sat alone on a wooden bench beside a wide lake. Ducks drifted lazily over the water. Birds circled overhead. It should have been peaceful.
But peace meant nothing to him now.
The sky above Cindrel was dim despite the time. It was almost one in the afternoon, yet only thin strands of sunlight managed to break through the clouds.
Theo slowly lifted his head.
Floating in the heavens above the city was an island so massive it could cover nearly half of Cindrel in shadow. Smaller Floating Islands drifted farther away, some hanging above distant districts, others barely visible on the horizon.
Anyone else might have looked at them with awe.
Theo looked at them with red, bloodshot eyes.
Then the tears came.
They slid down his face silently at first.
His wife's smile.
Her laughter.
The sound of her voice.
The little habits he used to find adorable.
They flashed through his mind one after another, like a film he had no power to stop.
Then came the memory of the call.
Two weeks ago, a Fallen Break had occurred.
Monsters spilled out from one of the Floating Islands. Most of them were F-Rank and E-Rank, with only a few D-Rank threats mixed in. By every standard, it had been classified as a minor incident. The kind of break that would be cleaned up quickly and forgotten by the public within days.
It should have been simple.
It should have been easy.
And yet his wife had died in that "small incident."
Theo had been told it was an accident.
A Hunter had been forced to leave the area to respond elsewhere. He simply hadn't noticed there was still one woman trapped behind. That was the explanation they gave him.
That was the lie they tried to bury her with.
But Theo was a detective.
The moment he heard the details, something inside him twisted.
He investigated the case himself. He dug through witness statements, security footage, patrol records, and dispatch logs. He chased every inconsistency, every loose thread, every detail that didn't sit right.
And after a week, the truth surfaced.
Enzo had seen her.
He had known she was there.
And he had still chosen to leave.
He hadn't even left to save more people.
That bastard had abandoned the scene and gone to a hotel with three women while Lara begged for help and died alone.
Theo shut his eyes.
Even now, knowing the truth made his chest feel like it was being torn open all over again.
So he had done what he believed was right.
He took the evidence to court.
He brought everything.
The witness accounts. The timeline. The footage. The contradictions in Enzo's testimony.
He had believed that if he laid the truth bare, justice would follow.
What a joke.
Everyone had warned him not to do it.
His coworkers.
His superiors.
Even the people closest to him.
They all told him the same thing.
Don't fight this.
Don't make it worse.
Don't be stupid.
"Theo, you're acting foolishly."
His superior's voice echoed in his mind, bitter and sharp.
"Foolishly..." Theo laughed weakly, tears slipping down his face. "Yeah. I was foolish."
Foolish enough to believe the law still meant something.
Foolish enough to believe evidence could outweigh status.
Foolish enough to believe a dead woman mattered more than a living Hunter.
Theo lowered the bottle and stared at the lake with blurred eyes.
He had solved hundreds of cases in his career.
Cases people thought were impossible.
Cases abandoned by others.
Cases the department had already given up on.
Again and again, he had dragged the truth into the light and closed them with his own hands.
But now, when it was his wife lying dead, when the truth was obvious, when the evidence was undeniable...
Nothing.
The killer walked free.
Theo's case was thrown aside. His name was dragged through the dirt. His credibility as a detective had been destroyed. And judging by the silence from the Cindrel Investigator Department, he already knew what it meant.
They had cut him off.
Whether out of fear or pressure from the Hermes Guild backing Enzo, the result was the same.
He had been abandoned.
Hunters are the front line.
They protect humanity.
We owe them our gratitude.
Casualties are inevitable.
There is nothing the court can do.
The judge's words rang through his skull like a curse.
Theo bent forward and covered his face with one hand, shoulders shaking.
"It's not fair..." he whispered.
Then louder.
"It's not fair!"
He staggered to his feet and hurled the empty bottle into the lake. It struck the water with a sharp splash before sinking beneath the surface.
"My wife died!" he shouted at the sky. "She died, and that bastard is still out there smiling like nothing happened!"
His voice cracked.
"Why?! Why do Hunters get to stand above everyone else?! Why does someone like him get to walk free while I'm the one left here like this?! Why?!"
No one answered.
Only the wind.
Only the slow ripples on the lake.
Only the towering Floating Islands drifting above the city like silent gods watching from beyond reach.
Theo's breathing turned ragged.
He looked down at his hands.
Calluses lined his palms, the result of years spent chasing criminals, writing reports, collecting evidence, and clawing truth out of a broken city.
How many sleepless nights had he spent doing his job?
How many times had he thrown himself into danger just to make sure justice was served?
He had given his life to the system.
And when he finally needed that system to do one simple thing, it failed him.
No.
It did worse than fail him.
It mocked him.
"Lara..." he whispered, voice hoarse and broken. "I miss you..."
Then the memory came back again.
The footage.
Enzo turning away.
Lara pleading for help.
The goblin rushing toward her.
Theo's jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
Alcohol was supposed to numb pain, but all it had done was make the memories sharper.
"Arghhh!"
He threw his head back and screamed, not at the city, not at the lake, but at the sky itself.
At the Floating Islands.
At the world.
At whatever ruled above them all.
"I swear to whatever the hell is out there!" he roared. "I'll bring justice to this rotten world! I'll avenge my wife! I'll drag every bastard who thinks they're above the law down with my own hands!"
His voice thundered across the lake.
No normal human had ever challenged Hunters like that.
Not truly.
Not in a world where power decided what was right.
But Theo didn't care anymore.
He didn't know how he would do it.
He didn't know what it would cost him.
But he would find a way.
Even if it killed him.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then the sky rumbled.
Theo froze.
A deep vibration rolled across the city, so heavy it seemed to come from the bones of the world itself.
His eyes widened as he looked up.
Every Floating Island above Cindrel had begun to glow.
Not one.
All of them.
Blinding white light spread across their surfaces, growing brighter and brighter until the entire sky looked like it was splitting apart.
The rumbling intensified.
People across the city began to scream.
Theo stumbled back a step.
Then lightning fell.
A deafening crack tore through the heavens as a pillar of white slammed downward, swallowing him whole.
His body convulsed.
The smell of something burning filled the air.
"What the fu..."
He couldn't even finish the sentence.
The world vanished into light.
Theo Flitcher lost consciousness.
And just before the darkness took him, he heard a voice.
Cold.
Distant.
Distorted.
A voice that sounded less like a person and more like a verdict.
[Ding! Scales of Judgment System has activated!]