The Hunter Association building looked like a temple.
Not the small, humble kind where Elder Kim lived. This was the other type—the grand monuments that ancient humans built to impress gods rather than worship them.
Glass and steel formed a structure that stretched fifteen stories high, its entrance flanked by statues of heroic figures mid-battle. Screens on the facade displayed rotating images of famous Hunters, their names and ranks glowing beneath smiling faces.
Veltharion stood across the street, watching humans stream in and out like ants serving a queen.
'I could just leave.'
The thought was tempting. Seoul was large. There had to be other ways to find followers. Ways that didn't involve entering a building full of bureaucrats, filling out forms, and pretending to be something he wasn't.
But Seo-yeon would be inside. And despite his better judgment, her underdeveloped blessing intrigued him. A human with potential, stuck at the lowest rank, frustrated with a system that couldn't see her worth.
If he could figure out why her awakening was incomplete, perhaps he could offer something the other gods couldn't.
'One step at a time. First, survive the paperwork.'
He crossed the street and entered the building.
The lobby was chaos organized into queues. Dozens of people waited in lines that snaked toward various counters, each marked with signs he didn't fully understand.
"Registration."
"Rank Assessment."
"Gate Assignment."
"Equipment Licensing."
"Insurance Claims."
Insurance. Hunters needed insurance. The modern world had truly lost its way.
"First time?"
Veltharion turned. A young man stood beside him—early twenties, cheerful face, wearing a uniform that marked him as Association staff. His name tag read "Assistant Park."
"That obvious?"
"You've got the look. Confused but trying to hide it."
Assistant Park smiled without mockery.
"Registration is Line 3. Assessment is Line 7, but you'll need to complete registration first. Whole process takes about four hours if you're lucky."
Four hours. Veltharion had once slept through the extinction of an entire species. Four hours should be nothing.
It felt like eternity.
Line 3 moved at the pace of continental drift. Each applicant ahead of him required extensive documentation—identification, medical records, emergency contacts, next of kin, blood type, allergy information. The forms were endless, the questions invasive, and the staff member processing applications typed with two fingers.
By the time Veltharion reached the counter, his vessel had developed a headache. He hadn't known human bodies could produce pain from sheer boredom.
"Name?"
"Vel Theron."
The clerk—a middle-aged woman with glasses and the dead eyes of someone who had processed ten thousand identical applications—typed without looking up.
"Age?"
"Twenty-four."
"Previous combat experience?"
'I've killed things that would shatter your sanity.'
"Some."
"Any formal training?"
'I predate the concept of formal training.'
"Self-taught."
"Awakening date?"
This one gave him pause. Awakening—the moment a human's blessing activated, granting them supernatural abilities. He wasn't awakened. He was a god wearing a human suit.
"Recently," he said.
"I need a specific date."
"I don't remember the exact day."
The clerk finally looked up, suspicion flickering behind her glasses.
"You don't remember becoming a Hunter?"
"It was traumatic. I blocked it out."
For a moment, he thought she might press further. Then her expression shifted to tired acceptance.
Clearly, she had heard stranger excuses.
"Fine. I'll mark it as 'undetermined.' Sign here, here, and here."
He signed. The pen felt awkward in his fingers, the act of writing his false name somehow making the deception more real.
"Proceed to Line 7 for assessment. Next!"
Line 7 was shorter but slower. Each applicant disappeared through a set of heavy doors, emerging twenty to thirty minutes later with a card displaying their rank. Most looked disappointed. A few looked devastated. One young man walked out crying.
The Hunter life, apparently, was not for everyone.
When Veltharion's turn came, an examiner led him through the doors into a large gymnasium-like space.
Equipment lined the walls—weights, targets, strange machines covered in sensors. In the center, a circular platform glowed with faint runes.
"Step onto the platform," the examiner instructed. She was a stern woman in her forties, carrying a tablet and radiating professional disinterest.
"The assessment measures your mana capacity, physical enhancement, and special abilities. Just relax and let your power flow naturally."
'Naturally.'
This was the tricky part.
Veltharion's true power would shatter the measuring equipment. Probably the building too. He needed to suppress everything.
Clamp down on his divine essence until only the barest trickle remained.
He stepped onto the platform.
The runes activated, blue light scanning him from head to toe. He felt the assessment probing at his vessel, searching for the blessing that should be there.
'Less. Show them less.'
He tightened his control. Divine essence compressed into the smallest possible space, hidden behind walls of deliberate restraint. The platform's light flickered, struggled, then stabilized.
"Interesting," the examiner muttered, studying her tablet.
"Your mana signature is... unusual. Faint but dense. I've never seen a pattern quite like this."
'Because you've never scanned a god before.'
"Is that a problem?"
"Not necessarily. Just uncommon." She tapped her tablet.
"Physical assessment next. Please lift the weight to your right."
A barbell sat on a rack nearby. According to the markings, it weighed 200 kilograms. Veltharion could lift a mountain if he wanted. Instead, he wrapped his hands around the bar and struggled.
Not convincingly at first—he overacted, grunting too loudly, shaking too much. The examiner's eyebrow rose with suspicion.
He adjusted. More subtle. A genuine effort against genuine resistance, just... limited. Human-level strength, perhaps slightly above average.
The bar rose. His arms trembled with manufactured strain. He set it down with visible relief.
"Above civilian baseline," the examiner noted.
"But not exceptional. Combat assessment now."
A training dummy emerged from the floor—humanoid, armored, equipped with sensors. "Strike it with your primary ability. Don't hold back."
Veltharion considered his options. Decay Touch was too distinctive. Anyone who had witnessed the Gate incident might connect the abilities. Micro Stasis was subtle enough to pass as a weak temporal skill.
He placed his palm against the dummy's chest and activated a sliver of power.
The effect was barely visible—a slight shimmer in the air, the dummy's movements slowing by perhaps ten percent before returning to normal.
"Time manipulation," the examiner said, her tone suggesting she'd seen this before.
"Low output. Minimal combat application at current levels."
'Perfect.'
"Based on your assessment results, you qualify for E-Rank." She typed something on her tablet.
"Lowest official classification. You may participate in E-Rank Gate raids and take corresponding missions. Advancement requires either reassessment after demonstrated growth or verified contribution to higher-rank operations."
E-Rank. Exactly what he wanted.
"Any questions?"
"Is there paperwork?"
"Three more forms. Sign here."
He signed.
***
The E-Rank card felt weightless in his pocket—a small plastic rectangle that declared him officially the weakest category of Hunter. Veltharion walked through the Association's halls with something almost resembling satisfaction.
Low rank meant low expectations. Low expectations meant freedom to operate without scrutiny. Freedom meant less effort.
The plan was working.
"You actually came."
Seo-yeon leaned against a pillar near the main hall, arms crossed, expression caught between surprised and pleased. She wore different clothes today—still practical, but newer. Her equipment baton hung at her hip.
"You invited me."
"I invited a mysterious stranger who killed a Gate monster with his bare hands. I didn't expect him to actually register as E-Rank."
She pushed off from the pillar, falling into step beside him.
"What's your game?"
"Game?"
"Don't play dumb. I saw what you did last night. That wasn't E-Rank power. That wasn't even A-Rank power. So either the assessment is broken, or you tanked it on purpose."
Clever. He had underestimated her observational skills.
"Perhaps I'm inconsistent. Strong in emergencies, weak otherwise."
"That's not how awakening works."
"Then perhaps I'm special."
Seo-yeon stopped walking, forcing him to stop as well. Her eyes searched his face with an intensity that made his vessel uncomfortable.
"I'm going to figure you out," she said finally.
"Whatever secret you're hiding, I'll find it."
"And then?"
"Depends on what the secret is."
A fair answer. Honest. He appreciated honesty—it was rarer than people assumed.
"In the meantime," she continued, "I still need party members for a Gate run tomorrow. E-Rank mission. Easy enough that even a 'weak' Hunter should survive."
An invitation wrapped in a challenge. She was testing him, trying to provoke a reaction that would reveal more than he intended to show.
Veltharion considered refusing. The smart play was to distance himself, find less observant people to recruit as followers, avoid anyone who asked too many questions.
But Seo-yeon's blessing pulsed beneath her skin—a trapped flame, desperate for fuel.
Whatever god had touched her had done so carelessly, leaving the job half-finished. If he could understand why, perhaps he could fix it.
And someone whose power he unlocked might feel grateful enough to believe in him.
"Tomorrow," he agreed. "What time?"
"Six AM. Don't be late."
"I'm never late."
"You look like someone who's late to everything."
"Appearances deceive."
She snorted, clearly unconvinced, and walked toward the building's exit. At the threshold, she paused and glanced back.
"Vel Theron. Weird name."
"Family name."
"Sure it is."
Then she was gone, swallowed by the crowd of Hunters flowing in and out of the Association's doors.
Veltharion stood alone in the lobby, surrounded by ambitious humans chasing power they barely understood, blessed by gods who treated them as tools.