[Mutation points acquired: 2.]
Raphael exhaled slowly and got off the bed before the grime on his skin could reach the sheets. He made it to the bathroom first.
Hot water. He stood under it and let it run.
The reflection in the mirror when he'd passed it was leaner than he remembered, not that there had been much to spare before.
The muscle definition was clean, the kind that came from years of work and not a gram of anything unnecessary.
He stood in the steam and breathed and felt, for the first time since the evening had started, like something that had been compressed was decompressing.
Level 2.
The difference wasn't incremental. It was qualitative, he could feel it in the way his mind processed the room, the way his body responded to small shifts in his weight, the clarity behind his eyes that hadn't been there before.
Like the difference between a window with dirt on it and a window that had been cleaned.
He pulled up the parameters panel.
Physical resistance: Lv1. Still.
"That doesn't auto-scale with level?"
He focused on the stat. A prompt appeared immediately.
[Consume 1 mutation point to raise Physical Resistance to Lv2?]
He looked at the four base parameters and the two points he had to spend. Full coverage wasn't possible.
Spending evenly would leave him mediocre across the board, and mediocre had nearly gotten him killed tonight by a Lv4 opponent with a dissolving flesh trick.
The vampire gave him regeneration. The Flesh Bishop's imprisoned soul gave him access to two skills when he needed them. What he needed was a sharper edge, not a rounder profile.
He spent both points without hesitating.
[Sinner's Hunting System.]
[Hunter: Raphael Alanster.]
[Cardinal Sin: Superbia.]
[Level: 2.]
[Sin: 0.3 / 60.]
[Sin-Fruit: 60.]
[Mutations: 2.]
[Physical Functions elevated to: Lv3.]
[Physical Resistance: Lv1.]
[Arcane Reserve elevated to: Lv2.]
[Arcane Resistance: Lv1.]
Lv3 baseline. Blood Frenzy at double. Full moon amplification on top of that.
In the right conditions, Lv6 physical functions.
He stood there a moment with that number in his head.
Then he entered the First Hunting Ground.
The wasteland received him the same way it always did, wind cutting across the open ground, thunder rolling somewhere behind the horizon, the soil underfoot soft with moisture and grey with everything else. He looked around.
A small patch of ground had changed.
It wasn't much, a loose arrangement of rocks, modest and unpolished, the kind of marker that had been made by hand rather than purchased.
Between the stones, a gap, and through the gap a glimpse of color. Vivid even here, even in this washed-out place.
A small football.
The headstone had Rick's name on it. Simple marks, as though carved in a hurry or with the wrong tool. The vampire's execution stake still stood nearby.
Everything else was empty. The undead Jason had sent weren't anywhere in the ground.
"Strange." He turned it over. "The system flagged them as artificial undead, same classification as Henry. So why aren't they here?"
Jason had talked about his undead body as a discarded vessel. Something he'd evacuated rather than occupied.
Empty shells. No souls to anchor them. Nothing for the hunting ground to take in.
It was a hypothesis, not a conclusion. He'd need more evidence before it meant anything.
He let it rest and crouched beside Rick's grave. His hand moved across the headstone and came away with dust on it, which he brushed off methodically.
"Little one. I'm going to borrow your strength for a month." He kept his voice low and steady, the same tone he'd used in the nursery. "After that, I'll let you go."
The grave didn't answer. Rick had found his rest, whatever he'd carried was gone. But the system had claimed the power he'd left behind, and here it was.
[Demon Contract: Wraith.]
[Demon Level: 2.]
[Cardinal Sin: Invidia.]
[Low sin compatibility. Partial mutation abilities extracted.]
[Wraith Form: Consume arcane energy to partially manifest as a wraith. Form becomes semi-transparent. Can pass through thin materials. Passing through a living body inflicts cold stiffness and cognitive delay.]
[Contract Cost: Emotional suppression.]
He read the contract cost twice. Then made a short sound.
"Emotional suppression. That's the cost." He picked up the quill that had appeared in his hand and considered it. "I already don't express emotions. This is the same as no cost at all."
He signed. The ground began to tremble at the far edge of the wasteland, and he was already gone before whatever lived there decided to investigate.
Back in his room, he didn't rush toward the Second Hunting Ground.
The gains from tonight were already considerable.
There was no urgency in stacking more on top, better to process what he had, let the body consolidate the changes, and approach the next one with a clear head.
The A-9 unit's rooms were clustered around the conference room. Four of them, one per team member. Evelyn's was next door to his.
He knocked.
A pause. Then a muffled sound from inside, low and slightly blurred at the edges.
"Mm... Raphael? Come in..."
Her voice had the particular texture of someone who had been asleep very recently and hadn't finished leaving it. He could hear the small unfocused sounds underneath the words.
"Sorry to disturb you."
He pushed the door open and closed it behind him out of habit.
He had questions about the team's direction, the next assignment, structural gaps, what the unit's operational rhythm looked like now that they had a full roster again. He turned to ask.
The words didn't come.
She was sitting up against the headboard, both hands pressed to her eyes, rubbing them with the unselfconscious thoroughness of someone who had forgotten they had a visitor.
Her hair was loose and going in several directions.
The sleep clothes she wore were soft and lightweight and did relatively little in the morning light that was coming through the gap in the curtains.
The collar had come open at some point during the night, one side of it fallen off her shoulder entirely, leaving it bare.
Raphael turned. Crossed to the window in three steps and pulled it open, leaving only the curtains as a filter.
"You're still doing this." He kept his voice level. "Sleeping with the window sealed. The whole room smells like the furniture."
Evelyn lowered her hands from her face. Her eyes opened halfway, the green of them catching the shifted light, clear even half-asleep.
She looked at him standing in front of the window, the white shirt he'd changed into doing a reasonable but not comprehensive job of concealing the fact that he was built like someone who had been trained since childhood to be difficult to kill.
The sunlight found the angles of his face and found nothing much changed from years ago. Time had made no particular impression on him.
"Mm." A soft sound, almost amused. "Ha... Raphael."
She said his name the way you say something you've been thinking about without meaning to.
"You're exactly the same. Like a strict teacher. Everything has to be correct, everything has to be reasonable."
She murmured it without criticism, the words coming out slow and warm in the way words do first thing in the morning. "Always have been."
Something occurred to her, he could see it in the small shift of her expression, the way her eyes curved slightly at the corners. She slipped out of bed quietly, her feet finding the floor without sound.
He heard the fabric move behind him. He didn't turn, she was Evelyn, and whatever she was doing, it wasn't a threat, and he looked out at the base grounds and let his mind move back over the fight.
He always did this after. Reconstructed the sequence, found the errors, catalogued what could be improved.
"Evelyn, I've been thinking about tonight, the approach to the Bishop, there were two points where..."
He turned.
The warmth hit him first. Soft pressure against his chest, thin cotton between it and him, and a familiar scent that had always been hers specifically.
Something clean, something faintly floral, the particular quality of it that didn't belong to any perfume he could have named.
"Aw..."
Her face was against his chest, both arms wrapped around his waist, her voice coming out low and slightly muffled.
"I wanted to come up behind you. Surprise you." A small, theatrical sound of disappointment. "You turned around at exactly the wrong moment."
She lifted her chin. Her eyes found his, unhurried, the sleepiness still at the edges of them.
"Is this reasonable? We're colleagues, we're not supposed to..." She tilted her head slightly, mouth curving.
"Is it correct? A hug, when you came in here to discuss the team's tactical future? Probably not."
Her gaze didn't move from his face.
"But I wanted to."