The news?
Of course.
There was probably talk about the A-rank dungeon breach everywhere.
Shane didn’t respond to the text nor check the news. Instead, he went to take a shower first.
After taking off the bandages, he stood under the spray for a long time, watching the water swirl around his feet. It ran pink at first, then dark red as the dried blood rehydrated and spiraled down the drain like old memories.
He leaned his forehead against the cool wall, closing his eyes.
Feeling the familiar grinding exhaustion fighting a losing war against his [Insomnia] made him feel both wired and completely hollowed out at the same time.
After twenty minutes, he turned the water off.
He dressed in fresh sweats and moved to the living room... that was also technically his bedroom. He gathered the dirty bandages, the ruined shirt, and the bloody rags into a plastic bag. Then he methodically scrubbed the bloodstains from the floor until everything was clean.
He lifted the bag, intending to toss it out, but stopped. It occurred to him that just throwing this out might raise some questions with his neighbors.
The half-transparent bag looked like someone was trying to cover up a crime scene.
He took the bag to the small kitchenette, glanced up at the small plastic smoke detector on the ceiling, then at the range hood over his stove. That would have to do.
He grabbed the only metal pot he owned, placed it on the back burner, and turned the exhaust fan on to its highest setting. The fan rattled and roared, as if warning him not to do whatever he was about to do.
Shane began feeding the bloody bandages into the pot, a few at a time, then held his palm over the metal rim.
A concentrated bead of heat, no bigger than a marble, flickered into existence in his palm, and it dropped in the pot.
His miniature [Fireball] instantly incinerated the fabric. The controlled heat turned the material to fine ash in a minute. A thin wisp of smoke tried to escape, but the roaring fan devoured it.
He repeated the process until the entire bag was gone, leaving nothing but a pot full of ash. He let it cool for some time before dumping it into the regular trash can.
Shane plopped onto his bed, finally ready to face the digital world. And opened the System menu.
The Awakened community on the System was, as expected, blowing up.
Since the battle hadn’t been recorded by the System—which only uploaded raids inside dungeons—the forums were a chatoic soup of hearsay. People who claimed they were there were arguing with people who called them liars. The threads were full of bragging and trolling and wild conspiracy theories.
Just then, his phone vibrated with a text from another number.
347-XXX-XXXX: Hello, this is Henry Stone. Is this the right number for Shane Ashwell? If so, I’m sorry for contacting you like this… (Read More)
347-XXX-XXXX: Oh, and I’m also contacting you to let you know that there will be a press conference soon.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
That bastard’s been selling my number around…
Thinking of Luke made his headache worse.
A press conference.
It was a government-sponsored event, basically a PR campaign to show off a fresh batch of “heroes” in front of the cameras to calm the public.
They were in the original game, too, usually in the form of a tedious mini-game. For the players, it was a chance to drive up their market value, or Reputation Points, before joining a guild.
A higher public profile meant more leverage in contract negotiations.
That’s why it was always better to join a guild later. Getting a raise after you’d already signed was slow work, but if you walked in the front door with CNN and the New York Times chanting your name, your starting pay added a few extra zeros.
Shane had used the same method to get the best deals back when he played.
In other words, every newspaper and broadcast station in the country would be there.
After playing the game for so long, even the reporters’ names were familiar to him. Reporters trying to get a scoop, reporters who were there out of respect for the heroes… a whole mob of people with different agendas, all throwing out questions.
It was a hectic minigame, and just thinking about navigating it made him tired.
It didn’t matter to Shane if they called him a hero or not.
Thanks to [Honor Mode], he couldn’t even join a guild even if he wanted to. Increasing his market value was useless if he couldn’t sell himself.
Also, he wasn’t even fit to run a dungeon yet. What he needed was a few days in bed, not another battlefield.
He felt a brief flash of regret.
I should’ve taken it easier.
He really shouldn’t have absorbed Henry’s wounds. What was so special about these people anyway? They weren’t from his world.
Just as he was about to put on his [Mistveil Combat Boots] again, another text from an unknown number came in.
212-XXX-XXXX: You. Don’t tell me somebody else got to break you in.
Shane stared at the screen for a second, then let out a long, suffering breath.
It was obviously the number two rookie, Troy Winter.
The text might seem random to an outsider, but Shane knew exactly what it meant.
“How dare you have fun in a dungeon breach without me?”
It brought back old memories. Back in the game, he’d be in the middle of a raid, and Troy would just show up, ignore the boss, and start shooting ice missiles at Shane for no reason.
Surely Troy wouldn’t be that much of an idiot in real life.
He re-read the text.
It sounded an awful lot like, If you’re going to get your ass kicked, it better be by me, not some random monster.
And this raised another question.
How many people had his number now?
If they thought it was fine to pass his contact info around like a pamphlet, then they’d better be fine with theirs getting leaked, too.
Shane tapped Troy’s phone number.
The number two rookie’s phone number was going to be useful, so he saved it.
But then he saw the area code and realized it wasn’t Troy’s business line for the Wynn Guild. This was his private number.
Shane found that odd, but it just meant he could sell it for a higher price later.
Nice.
He pocketed the phone and stood up, finally reaching for his pack of cigarettes when another text came in.
I must be seeing things. There’s no way…
917-XXX-XXXX: Hello, this is Josh Miller. How have... (Read More)
And right below the short, polite explanation was an attached file.
…Don’t tell me it’s a guild contract.
He tapped it without thinking.
The large words [Wynn Guild Membership Contract] filled his screen.
His hands started to shake.
He had never been offered a contract with terms like these at this stage of the game. Of course, he’d gotten better offers later on, but he’d only been in this world for barely a month.
Shane ghosted the message. Then felt stupidly sad about it.
If he joined a guild, he could get so many buffs. The bigger and more famous the guild, the bigger the buffs. The contract terms danced in front of his eyes.
“Whatever,” he said to himself.
If he could join a guild, he would have aimed for the number one guild anyway. No need to settle for the second best guild in the country.
He thought of the number one rookie hunter, who was closer to being sane than Troy by a mile.
Yes, Aiden Daniels had also failed to reach what Shane defined as “sanity.”
He checked the news feed on his tablet. There was a headline he had seen earlier: [Vanguard Guild Expels A-Rank Hunter for Civilian Assault].
If it weren’t for [Honor Mode], Shane could have used the fame from this A-rank breach to slide right into that empty spot in the country’s top guild! Things like this were all about timing. But he couldn’t.
Screw it.
He made up his mind.
Because no matter how famous you got overnight, it never lasted. There were always plenty of other hunters to grab the public’s attention.
So if he didn’t go to this press conference, this whole thing would just be forgotten as a minor incident. People are prone to forgetting shenanigans like this if there were no major casualties.
And he would have been right.
If the full video of the A-rank dungeon breach hadn’t been leaked online.
