Finally, one of them shorter, leaner, with a scar down his chin spoke up, his tone dripping with skepticism.
"What exactly are you?"
Lucas exhaled, tilting his head slightly. "Tired."
No one laughed.
The leader's gaze hardened. "Don't play games with me."
Lucas's smirk faded.
His hand itched toward his weapon, but he resisted. They were outnumbered, and these weren't dungeon monsters. These were people. People with training, discipline, and a clear willingness to kill first, ask later.
André finally spoke.
"If Jack made it out alive," he said, his voice low and calm, "then he ran before the real fight started."
A simple statement.
But the way he said it?
It sent a ripple through the hunters.
A shift in the air
The man with the scar on his chin scoffed. "Bullshit."
Lucas could feel it now their instincts screaming at them.
They were hunters. They knew what it meant when someone… or something… stood before them with impossible survival stories.
"You expect us to believe that?" the leader asked. His voice was even, but his body was tense
Lucas sighed. "I really don't give a damn what you believe."
Another bad answer.
A mistake.
Because the next second, the leader lifted his hand.
A signal.
The hunters moved.
In an instant, rifles were raised, fingers hovering over triggers.
A heartbeat away from violence.
Lucas felt it. The edge of something inevitable.
He had seconds less.
André?
Didn't even flinch.
His red eyes burned like dying embers. And when he finally spoke again, it was slow. Measured.
"You don't want to do this."
The leader hesitated.
For the first time, something uncertain flickered in his expression.
Lucas caught it immediately. That hesitation? It was their only opening.
He stepped forward, just enough to draw attention, just enough to shift the focus away from André's glowing eyes.
"Look," Lucas said, his voice calm, controlled. "We're not your enemies. We're just two guys who made it out of that hellhole. And if you're smart, you'll realize that means we might have information you actually want."
The leader's gaze didn't waver.
"You expect me to just take your word for it?"
Lucas smirked. "No. I expect you to stop waving your guns around like you're about to execute us for surviving."
Another silence.
---
The silence stretched, heavy and deliberate, before the man with the scar finally spoke.
His voice was cold. Cautious. Calculating.
"My name is Cain."
Around him, the hunters exchanged quick glances, their hands never straying far from their weapons. They were veterans men who had seen enough death to recognize when something didn't add up.
Cain's sharp gaze locked onto Lucas and André, scrutinizing every detail.
Then, his question came.
"What are your classes?"
Lucas exhaled slowly. He glanced at André for a fraction of a second before replying with deceptive ease.
"We're Class C."
The reaction was immediate.
Cain's eyebrow twitched upward.
The skepticism in his expression was almost palpable.
"Class C?" His voice was flat, unreadable. "How the hell did two Class C hunters clear a Class B dungeon?"
Lucas didn't answer right away.
Instead, he looked toward André.
André's face remained expressionless. His red eyes, dim under the moonlight, betrayed nothing.
But then he spoke.
"I'm B-rank."
A single statement.
A simple truth.
And yet
Cain's frown deepened, his fingers drumming against his belt in quiet thought.
"Hmmm… that's impossible," he muttered.
Then, he lifted his gaze, his eyes narrowing.
"Even if you're B-rank, you couldn't have cleared a dungeon that difficult alone."
Lucas smirked.
"That's what I have."
The answer was flippant, almost dismissive, but there was something dangerous about the way he said it.
Cain studied him for a moment.
Then Lucas added, his tone shifting to something more practical, more calculated:
"We can go to the Hunter Center and check his class if you want."
Another beat of silence.
Cain considered.
Finally he gave a slow nod.
"Well… let's see if you're telling the truth."
They moved out quickly.
The Hunter Center was a two-hour trek away, but none of them suggested waiting for daylight. There was an unspoken urgency in the air.
The group traveled in silence for the first twenty minutes.
Lucas could feel the tension pressing in from all sides.
Every now and then, one of the hunters would glance back at them. Suspicious. Uncertain.
He didn't blame them.
What they had done was unnatural. Two Class C hunters surviving a Class B dungeon? Impossible.
Unless
Unless they weren't normal.
And that was the problem, wasn't it?
Lucas knew how these people thought.
Hunters feared what they couldn't explain.
If they started thinking André was something else
They wouldn't escort them to the Hunter Center.
They'd execute them in the woods.
Lucas glanced at André, keeping his voice low.
"Be careful what you say from now on."
André didn't respond, but his red eyes flicked toward Lucas for a moment before returning to the path ahead.
He understood.
Halfway through the journey, one of the hunters Jace finally broke the silence.
"You didn't answer Cain's question," he said, adjusting his rifle.
Lucas arched an eyebrow. "Which one?"
Jace didn't smile. "How did you two survive?"
Lucas sighed. "We got lucky."
Jace snorted. "Bullshit."
Cain, who had been walking ahead, turned his head slightly. "Enough."
But Jace wasn't done. "I don't like unknown variables." His gaze flicked between the two of them. "And I really don't like people who lie."
Lucas tilted his head slightly, a lazy smirk tugging at his lips. "Then you must hate yourself."
Jace stiffened. "What the hell did you say?"
Cain shot Lucas a warning look.
Don't push it.
Lucas held up his hands. "Relax. We're all friends here, right?"
Jace scowled, but didn't say anything else.
But Lucas could see it in his eyes.
The hunters weren't just suspicious anymore.
They were waiting for a reason.
A reason to turn their guns on them.
They reached the outskirts of the Hunter Center just before dawn.
The facility was massive a towering structure fortified with thick metal walls and armed guards stationed at every entrance.
Lucas could feel eyes watching them from the security towers.
Cain gestured for them to stop. "Stay here."
Then, he turned to one of the guards and muttered something under his breath.
The guard hesitated. Then he nodded and walked inside.
Minutes passed.
Then
The doors slammed open.
A woman strode out.
She was tall, dressed in a sleek black uniform, with silver-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
Her expression was unreadable.
But her eyes?
They locked onto André immediately.
"You," she said. "Step forward."
André did.
Lucas tensed slightly as she pulled out a sleek, tablet-like device.
She tapped a few buttons, then pressed the scanner against André's wrist.
The screen flickered.
Cain noticed immediately. "What is it?"
The woman hesitated.
Then she turned the screen around for them to see.
[Class: B]