The rain came down in cold, slanting sheets, turning District 7's cracked sidewalks into black mirrors of neon and sodium light. Tareme stepped out of the Elysium Residences lobby and didn't look back. The glass doors hissed shut behind him like a final exhale. No dramatic slam—just quiet finality.
His old boots splashed through shallow puddles. The duffel bag hung heavy on one shoulder, but his body didn't feel the weight. Nothing hurt. No ribs grinding, no leg dragging, no blood seeping through bandages. The golden-red fire that had surged through him in the hallway still simmered under his skin, low and steady, like a pilot light that would never go out.
He walked three blocks before the adrenaline crash tried to hit. Tried—and failed. Every time fatigue crept in, a warm pulse rolled from his core and pushed it back. He felt… alive. Not just surviving. Thriving.
He turned into the narrow service alley behind Mama Kim's Ramen Haven. The stall was shuttered for the night, metal grate down, only the red "Closed" sign flickering. Trash bins lined one wall; a single sodium bulb buzzed overhead. Private enough.
Tareme leaned his back against the damp brick and let the duffel slide to the ground.
"System," he said aloud. His voice came out rough but steady.
The interface ignited instantly—blue holographic panels blooming in his vision like frost on glass, crisp and undeniable.
[Host: Tareme]
[Class: Fire Monarch (Seed Form – Rank 1)]
[Level: 1]
[Flame Seed Progress: 12% (Betrayal Rage Bonus Applied)]
[Vitality: 240/240 (Regenerating @ 300% baseline)]
[Strength: 28 (+16 from allocation)]
[Endurance: 22]
[Agility: 19]
[Mana Affinity (Fire): 35]
[Free Stat Points: 0]
[Active Skills]
・Flame Burst (Rank 1) – Launch a concentrated projectile of golden-red flame. Damage scales with rage and Flame Seed %. Mana cost: 15 per cast.
・Ember Regeneration (Passive) – Minor wounds convert to Flame Seed fuel. Severe damage accelerates healing via fire infusion.
[Passive Protocols]
・Harem Marking – Touch-based imprint. Target loyalty increases over repeated contact/pleasure. Betrayal history accelerates conversion to 100%. Current candidates: 0.
・Betrayed Flame (Title) – +50% damage vs. those who have wronged you. Emotional pain temporarily boosts all fire-based stats by up to 200%.
Tareme exhaled slowly. The words weren't just text—they carried weight, heat, promise.
He raised his right hand, palm up. A tiny ember sparked to life in the center—golden-red, no bigger than a coin, dancing without burning his skin. He focused, willing it brighter. The flame swelled to the size of an apple, heat radiating outward but never scorching him. He flicked his wrist.
The ember shot forward, struck an empty soju bottle leaning against the dumpster, and detonated in a perfect sphere of fire. Glass vaporized. The bottle simply ceased to exist. No shards. No scorch mark on the concrete. Just clean, hungry flame that ate itself out in seconds.
Tareme stared at his hand. No burn. No recoil.
"Holy shit."
He spent the next forty minutes experimenting.
Flame Burst at minimum power: a thin dart of fire that punched a neat hole through a metal trash-can lid.
At medium: a roaring basketball-sized orb that melted the lid into slag in three seconds.
At maximum (he only tried once): a roaring comet that slammed into the far wall, carved a basketball-sized crater, and left the brick glowing cherry-red for almost a minute.
Every cast fed the Flame Seed. Progress ticked up—13%… 14%… 15%.
Ember Regeneration kicked in when he deliberately cut his palm on a jagged dumpster edge. Blood welled—then the wound glowed faintly. Heat rushed in. Skin knit in under ten seconds. The blood on his hand evaporated in wisps of golden smoke.
[Flame Seed Progress: +3% (Self-inflicted wound fuel)]
He laughed—short, jagged, the first real sound of joy he'd made in years.
"Okay," he muttered. "Money first. Power second. Revenge third. Empire… forever."
He pulled out his cracked phone. The screen flickered to life—battery at 100% despite three days of coma and no charger. System perk, apparently.
Public raid boards were public for a reason. He scrolled the hunter app:
・Gate 19-B – Grade 4-5 estimated. Public 10-man call. Base pay 500,000 credits + loot split. Tomorrow 11:00. Solo applications accepted (meat-shield roles open).
Perfect. Low enough that a "Grade 1" could slip in. High enough payout to get him off the street for a month. He submitted the application under his hunter ID. No one would check credentials until the gate opened.
He kept scrolling, reading system notifications as they popped.
[Daily Quest Unlocked: "First Step Toward Dominion"]
・Objective: Clear one Gate (any rank) within 72 hours.
・Reward: 500 Stat Points, Flame Seed +10%, Random Skill Shard.
・Bonus: Solo or near-solo carry increases rewards exponentially.
Tareme's lips curled.
He slung the duffel back over his shoulder and started walking again. No destination yet—just movement. The rain had eased to a drizzle. Neon signs reflected in every puddle: hunter guilds promising "Power Beyond Limits," Gate insurance ads showing smiling families, recruitment posters with beautiful female hunters in skin-tight suits.
One caught his eye—a billboard of three women in matching crimson armor, silver hair, platinum blonde, raven black. The tagline: "Join the Crimson Valkyries – Where Beauty Meets Annihilation."
His mind flashed to Audrey—her silver hair swinging as she rode Kang.
Then to the Harem Marking protocol.
He imagined that billboard trio kneeling before him, eyes glassy, begging. The Flame Seed pulsed hotter in response.
"Not yet," he whispered. "But soon."
He found a capsule hotel two blocks later—Neon Rest Pods, 8,000 credits a night. Cheap, clean enough, private. He paid with the last of his raid advance (System had somehow auto-deposited the hospital discharge stipend). The pod was coffin-sized: narrow bed, dim LED strip, soundproof walls.
He stripped to boxers, lay back, and stared at the curved ceiling.
The interface hovered above him like a private constellation.
He navigated menus for another hour—inventory (empty except for duffel contents), quest log, achievement tracker. There was even a "Harem Dashboard" showing zero entries but promising detailed loyalty meters, pleasure-link buffs, and shared stat pools once marked.
He closed his eyes.
For the first time in years, sleep came easily. No nightmares of goblins. No echoes of Audrey's moans through a thin door.
Instead he dreamed of fire.
Golden-red infernos swallowing entire Gates. Women—dozens, hundreds—kneeling in circles around him, silver hair and black and gold and crimson, all whispering his name. All marked. All his.
And in the center of the dream, Audrey—on her knees, tears streaking her perfect face, begging for forgiveness, begging to be claimed, begging to watch while he took the others.
The Flame Seed burned brighter in his sleep.
Progress ticked to 18%.
Somewhere in the dark, the System whispered:
[Host… your first conquests begin tomorrow.]
[Burn bright.]
Tareme smiled in his sleep.
The weakest hunter was already dead.
What woke in the morning would be something else entirely.