"There have been cases of missing people in this district lately," the woman said, voice smooth as polished alloy. "Have you seen anything strange? Anyone suspicious?"
Shun felt his pulse ease, the sharp edge of panic dulling to a low hum.
"Isn't that a cop's job?"
"The missing are Kinrara's best employees. The contract is clear: if they vanish after a set period, the company retrieves them."
Shun grunted, the rumor familiar from shadowed forum threads.
"If you notice anything, call us." The woman slipped a card from her wallet and pressed it firmly against his shoulder.
His hand twitched with the urge to slap hers away. He mastered the impulse with effort, jaw tight. Unnecessary attention was the last thing he needed. Still, the desire to crumple the card into a useless ball burned in his fingers.
"Oh," she added with a light smile, "and don't wander off alone. You never know—you could be next."
Shun's lips curled. "You should worry more about the perpetrator. If I find him first, he'll be lucky to have a single bone left unbroken." He chuckled low. "Better catch them before I do. This is my neighborhood."
"The perpetrator isn't our concern," the man replied coolly. He removed his glasses, polished them on the sleeve of his suit, breathed on the dark lenses, and slid them back into place. "The contract only requires us to recover the employees. Nothing more."
"Now move." An arm thick as Shun's head shoved him aside. Shun staggered, catching his balance at the last moment.
He watched them with cold eyes as they vanished through the emergency stairwell door.
*Fucking corpo dogs.* Shun clicked his tongue in disgust. Then realization struck like a live wire. *How did they know my name?*
His eyes widened, thoughts racing through a thousand dark possibilities.
*Have they uncovered my secrets?* The idea tightened his chest—then reason throttled the panic. *No. If they had, Kinrara would have already flooded this place with elite hunters and Machno's strongest magiteck mechas.*
Shun stared at the card. His brows drew together until they nearly touched.
*No fingerprints?*
Just then his neighbor stepped out of his unit, still adjusting his shoes. The man's gaze landed on the card and his face split into a grin.
"Yo, Shun! How's it going?" Without waiting for an answer, he leaned in. "No way—Kinrara sent a talent scout to you? My man! I knew you'd make it. Those golden fingers of yours make machinery sing. It was only a matter of time!"
"Talent scout?"
"Yeah, that card. They hand them out to people they think have real talent."
Shun's voice stayed flat. "Did they knock on your door asking about missing Kinrara employees?"
The neighbor blinked, confused. "What? No. Even for important staff, they usually send merchants or licensed hunters from the official guilds."
The hallway seemed to shrink. Shun's gut screamed warning. He turned and bolted toward the emergency stairs.
"Hey! Walking away mid-conversation is rude, you know!"
"Sorry—errands!"
He shoved open the stairwell door. His eyes swept the concrete for footprints, scuffs, anything. Nothing. But the air felt… wrong. A faint mana disturbance lingered, the fabric of space still knitting itself back together, weak and fading.
*Magiteck teleportation?*
Impossible. The corporations were still years away from perfecting it. Which left only one answer.
*Artifacts…*
The thought settled cold in his stomach. Everyone seemed to be using teleportation artifacts these days, yet the implications chilled him. He was in danger.
*Damn it. Who are they? How much do they know about me?*
They clearly knew far too much about him. He knew nothing about them. Prey, blind to the predator stalking from the shadows.
An ominous crawl moved beneath his skin the longer the unknowns lingered. There was nothing he could do about it right now.
The only lead was their disguise as Kinrara talent scouts. He could try tracking the missing suits, hack a few CCTVs… but they might have made the uniforms themselves. His gaze dropped back to the card as an idea formed.
He stepped out of the stairwell. His neighbor was still there, thumbing through his phone.
"Hey. Quick question—is the card real?"
The neighbor looked up. "Yeah, flip it over. There's a code on the back. Scan it and it gives you their direct line."
Shun turned the card. No code. His faint hope died.
"Damn. Fake." He crumpled the card into a tight ball and flicked it to the floor. "Sorry you got boozled, man. They try to sell you cheap knock-off magiteck too?"
"Always say no, seriously. The medical bills if it cripples you are worse than buying the real thing."
Shun gave him a flat look. "You seriously saying that to me?"
"Right, right. You're the magiteck genius." The neighbor laughed, suddenly remembering. "Wanna head to school together?"
"Sure." He had no reason to refuse.
They boarded the packed morning train. As it snaked through the city, scenery blurring past the windows, Shun pulled up the hidden logs inside the cube he had dismantled the night before.
Most of the data was ordinary. One entry, however, changed everything.
The cube's true purpose was to store a hunter's ability. The original owner had sacrificed his own power to create it—and died in the process. Whoever used the cube could access the stored ability up to three times before it became nothing more than an ornate paperweight.
Human tinkering had changed the rules. Now it could be used infinitely, but each activation lasted only two minutes instead of the original ten. After use, the artifact required six hours to recharge.
*Truly a masterpiece of this era,* Shun thought, a spark of genuine admiration cutting through the tension.
*If the other races ever learned of it, they'd tear up the peace accords and enslave every last human to claim these artifacts.*
He closed the logs. The floating interface vanished from his vision, revealing the familiar faces across the train.
"Hey, aren't those your classmates?" his neighbor asked, pointing at a group of four. "Must be nice. You're so lucky!"
"Lucky?"
"Yeah!" The neighbor's eyes gleamed with excitement. "Those four are sons and daughters of seriously influential families."
"Meaning?"
His neighbor clicked his tongue in playful reproach. "Tch tch, Shun, my dear Shun. You might be a genius with magiteck, but you're hopeless with social cues. It means you can build connections. Maybe even work under them one day."
*I'm well aware,* Shun thought dryly. *It's just more entertaining to hear a boot-licker say it out loud.*
"Some rumors even say Rinne comes from one of the ancient families!"
"Who's Rinne?" Shun asked, eyes half-lidded.
"Eh? They're your classmates and you don't even know their names?"
Shun turned his head. "Do I look like I should care?"
"Alright, alright. I get it—you're the 'I don't care about anyone' type. Don't look so annoyed." The neighbor paused, as if finished, then continued smoothly. "Rinne's the one with the purple hair."
An exhausted sigh slipped from Shun's lips. His neighbor clearly wasn't done talking, and there was nothing better to do on the ride anyway.
"Ancient families or not," Shun said, "most hunters start with the same mana capacity and recovery rate. Getting strong is decided by the System, not bloodline. No fancy techniques or rare stones can speed that up beyond what the System allows."