Seven days since the combined portal went quiet and Lemurian had decided that was good enough to start going back to normal.
The portal was still there, standing in the north of the city, dark and silent, shrinking by maybe a few meters each day. Slowly and it couldn't be bothered to disappear quickly. The other portals, the regular ones, had gone back to how they always were. Hunters assigned, dungeons cleared, bosses killed, mana crystals collected. The Association running its usual operation like the last two weeks hadn't happened.
On the news everyone had the same three questions. What happened and Who stopped it? What comes next what will be the next move of the Hunter association? Nobody had answers so they just kept asking louder.
Rei had been awake for what looked like thirty hours. Empty cups everywhere, Seventeen browser tabs open and notes covering half the wall of his room.
"The Second Opening ended," Rei said without looking up, "and nobody wrote down how. Not in any official record. Not in any country that was involved in containment. Nothing." He looked up at Aaron. "Which means either someone destroyed whatever was causing it and didn't tell anyone, or the records were removed, or—"
"Or both," Aaron said.
"Yeah." Rei rubbed his face. "Yeah, probably both. Which is a fun thing to think about at three in the morning."
Aaron looked at the wall of notes. Portal incident reports. News archives going back eighteen years. Academic papers on the Second Opening that said a lot of careful words about nothing.
"The Director wants to meet me today," Aaron said.
Rei put down his cup.
"The Director," he said. "Of the entire Hunter Association. Wants to meet you."
"That's what the Association members said when they came to the house yesterday."
"They came to the house." Rei said this slowly like he was explaining it to himself. "Association members. Came to your house. To find you. Because the Director of the entire Hunter Association wants to meet you personally."
"Yes."
"And uncle Theren?"
"Made them tea," Aaron said.
Rei stared at him. "He made them tea."
"He's very calm under pressure."
"Aaron that is not a normal situation that tea fixes!" Rei stood up. "Are you going? You're going aren't you. You've already decided."
Aaron picked up his jacket.
"Though I need to go somewhere else so bye for now," he said.
The Director was already standing when Aaron walked into the room.
Chief Leo Park to his left. Leader Jude Kwon on the right. The Northreach Authority manager at the far end of the table, a man Aaron had seen on the news who was now looking at him with the specific expression of someone who had been told something unbelievable and was still deciding whether to believe it.
In the center of the room sat a measuring device, larger and more complex than anything from the Academy testing halls, clearly built for something the standard equipment couldn't handle.
"Aaron," the Director said. Like a confirmation. Like he had been waiting eighteen years to say that specific name to that specific face.
"Director," Aaron said.
"I want to ask you to show us what you have," the Director said. "Your abilities. Whatever you're willing to show in this room."
Aaron looked at the device. At the team. At the Northreach manager who had flown here from another country and was clearly already regretting it based on his expression.
"If my abilities break your equipment," Aaron said, "that's your problem."
The Northreach manager made a sound that was not quite a word.
The Director said "understood" like he had already calculated that outcome and was fine with it.
Aaron reached.
The mark burned dark purple then full black and the shadows spread outward from his feet across the floor and the Mountain King rose first, stone hide, the floor cracking slightly under its weight. Then the Void Serpent, low and fast. Then the Stone Titan. Then the dungeon shadows one by one, the mana beast, the others, filling the room with a presence that made the air feel like it was running out of space.
The device spiked. Flatlined. Made a sound nobody in the room had heard it make before.
The Northreach manager stepped back without deciding to.
"He can summon more than this," the Northreach manager said carefully. Less question, more statement he was hoping someone would correct.
Aaron looked at him.
Then summoned the rest.
The Demon Lord's shadow rose last.
The room felt it immediately. The Northreach manager put his hand flat on the table behind him. Leader Jude Kwon, who had run the Association for eleven years and had not visibly reacted to anything in recent memory, looked at the shadow army filling the room and took one slow breath through his nose.
"His mana output," the Northreach manager said, voice coming out slightly unsteady. "That is a full S rank reading. That is an S rank level mana output from someone who was listed as null in the system two weeks ago."
The Director looked at Aaron.
"More than S rank," the Director said quietly. "Much more."
The Northreach manager looked at the shadow army. At Aaron. At the shadow army again.
"Well," he said. "Shit."
The press was outside when Aaron came out.
Cameras. Questions being shouted across the barrier line. His name, which somehow they already had, being called from three different directions at once.
His phone was going.
Rei: AARON
Rei: THE NEWS IS SAYING NEW S RANK HUNTER IDENTIFIED
Rei: IS THAT YOU
Rei: AARON RESPOND RIGHT NOW
Rei: I AM COMING DOWN THERE
Rei: AARON I SWEAR TO GOD
Aaron put his phone back in his pocket and looked at the new ID card the Director had handed him before he left the room.
S rank, his name and The Association seal.
*Finally*, he thought. *Now I can actually buy something decent.*
He walked down the steps and through the crowd and nobody stopped him because nobody had connected the unremarkable person walking through them to the name being shouted at the barrier line.
Theren was in the kitchen.
He looked up when Aaron came in. Aaron set the ID card on the table between them.
Theren picked it up. Looked at it. His hands, scarred from twelve years of portal work at a rank that should have killed him several times over, holding his nephew's S rank identification card.
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Your parents," Theren said. He stopped. Tried again. "They would have—" He stopped again.
Aaron said nothing because there was nothing to say that was better than that.
Theren set the card down carefully.
"I'm making tea," he said, standing up.
Aaron sat down and looked at the ID card and thought about a console that had said null and a room that had moved on before he stepped back from it and every single thing that had happened between that moment and this one sitting in this kitchen.
Then his screen fired. Four notifications stacking fast.
[QUEST COMPLETE : Courage of the Weak]
[REWARD : The Great Spell Caster Kandiaru's Blessing]
[Long-lasting Buff : Health and Longevity]
[Immunity : Disables toxic and abnormal conditions]
[Improved regenerative capacity]
[ITEM ACQUIRED : Venom Fang : Upgraded]
[CATEGORY : Dagger, ATK +25]
[Paralysis : Opponent cannot move for set duration]
[Drain : HP -1% per second]
[Leveled Up!]
[Leveled Up!]
[4TH STAGE ADAPTED PLAYER]
[Shadow Army Update : All bound entities have leveled up]
Aaron stared at the last notification for a long moment.
*The Demon Lord leveled up too*, he thought. *If we fought right now I'm genuinely not sure which one of us wins.*
He looked at the ID card on the table.
Then at his screen.
*Fourth Stage*, he thought. *And I didn't even notice it happening.*
Theren set a cup of tea next to him.
Aaron looked up at him.
"Uncle," he said. "I think I need to go test something tonight."
Theren looked at him with the expression of a man who had survived twelve years of active portal work by knowing exactly when not to ask follow-up questions.
"Drink your tea first," Theren said.