Chapter 2
Now Three months had passed since Rachel's death, yet the silence she left behind only grew heavier with each passing day. The apartment still smelled faintly of her lavender soap, warm tea, the scent of mornings that no longer came.
Now, that scent lingered like a ghost, fading more each dawn.
The walls felt closer than ever, suffocating in their quiet. The hum of the old heater, the ticking clock, the soft clatter of rain on the window every sound only reminded Renji of the absence that filled everything.
Sometimes, when Lily laughed a high, fragile sound that danced through the room .. he almost forgot. For a heartbeat, it was as if Rachel might step out from the kitchen again, scolding them gently for playing before dinner. But the illusion always broke too soon.
Her laughter never lasted long. It was a candle flame trembling against a storm.
And so every night, Renji found himself drawn to the oak tree on the edge of town the place where they had buried her.
Rain, wind, or sun, he would kneel by her grave, hands in the mud, whispering the same vow into the cold earth:
"Protect her. No matter the cost."
He said it until his voice went hoarse.
Until his knees went numb.
Until the words felt like both a prayer and a curse.
But vows didn't fill empty stomachs.
Love didn't pay rent.
And the world didn't care for the powerless.
The Hunter Bureau was his only option. Not as a Hunter he had no mana, no ranking, no spark of the divine energy that made men into gods. The Bureau had no place for ghosts like him.
But for those with nothing, they offered a pit to crawl into. A place at the bottom.
The work was simple. Brutal. Degrading.
He carved the flesh from monsters slain in the Gates — colossal beasts whose blood shimmered faintly with mana, whose bones were worth more than his life.
Monster hides were boiled into armor. Scales melted into plates for weapons. Tendons turned into strings for enchanted bows. Even their meat, thick and bitter, was sold to nobles who believed eating it granted them vitality.
Renji's role was to cut. To scrape. To handle what was left behind when heroes were done basking in glory.
The first day nearly destroyed him.
The smell was unbearable a mix of blood, acid, and burning mana that clawed down his throat. The corpses twitched sometimes, mana still sparking inside their decaying nerves. He could feel their hatred like static against his skin.
Every thrust of his blade into that corrupted flesh sent shivers down his spine. The blood hissed against the steel, eating at it. By the time the sun set, his hands were blistered, his clothes soaked in gore, and his soul hollowed.
The overseer laughed as he staggered.
"Don't faint now, rat. These corpses are worth more than you ever will be."
The Hunters walked past him, gods among insects.
Their armor shimmered with reforged scales, their weapons pulsed with power. One's gauntlet crackled with lightning; another's sword burned with a living flame.
They barely looked at him except to sneer.
To them, he was invisible.
To the world, he was expendable.
In this world, power was law.
Mana decided who lived in comfort and who starved. Hunters were ranked like deities on a ladder that stretched to the heavens:
D-Rank: Cannon fodder. Scouts. Bait. Their lives measured in missions survived.
C-Rank: The backbone. Reliable, replaceable, unremarkable.
B-Rank: Commanders. Mercenaries with names known in their provinces.
A-Rank: Elites. Nobles courted their favor; kings offered them gold.
S-Rank: Calamities. Their presence could silence a city.
SS-Rank: Nations trembled beneath their power
SSS-Rank: The apex predetors Eight in the world and one in Japan mostly nicknamed the pillars of humanity with each of them having the power to manipulate a fraction of reality
And beneath all of them beneath even D-Ranks and beggars existed those like Renji.
The Unranked.
The Mana-less.
The Forgotten.
The mere Humans who categories themselves with the huntera
Still, he endured.
Because Lily needed him.
He cut until his fingers split open, until the bones in his hands felt like rusted gears grinding against each other. Even when his vision swam, even when his lungs filled with the reek of mana-flesh, he kept working.
"Faster, rat!" the overseer barked.
"That hide won't scrape itself. You want your sister starving tonight?"
Renji said nothing.
He just tightened his grip on the knife.
He thought of Lily's smile bright, unbroken and Rachel's whisper beneath the oak.
And he endured.
At night, when he returned home, his body trembled from exhaustion. His pay barely covered bread and thin broth, but Lily always ate first. She was ten ..all small hands and big dreams.
"Welcome home, Oni-chan!" she said, running to him, her arms wrapping around his blood-stained clothes.
He smiled, though his lips barely obeyed him. "I'm home."
She would wrinkle her nose, giggling. "You smell funny."
"I smell strong," he teased, ruffling her hair.
They'd eat together bread dipped in soup, the last of the broth saved for her. She talked about her day, about a cat she saw, about the drawing she made of the oak tree.
Her laughter filled the silence again, and for a few fleeting moments, the world felt merciful.
When she slept, Renji sat by the window, staring at the distant oak under the pale moonlight.
The city lights below flickered like dying stars, and he whispered to the night:
"I haven't broken my vow. I won't."
But each day, the weight pressed harder.
His body weakened. His cough grew worse flecks of red staining his palms when no one watched.
The Bureau offered no pity. The world didn't even notice.
He was a shadow in the belly of the city ..forgotten, faceless, replaceable.
And yet, beneath the rot, something refused to die.
"If I had even a fraction of power," he whispered one night, fingers trembling, eyes burning with quiet fury,
"I'd never let this world take anything from us again."
Three months after Rachel's death, Renji's world was blood and ash.
But in that darkness, one fragile light still burned
Lily's smile.
The only thing keeping him alive.