I was brushing my teeth with a glass of water in my hand as I walked to the window of my apartment. As I opened the curtains and looked down at my plants, my eyes once again saw a face that I recognized quite clearly.

  Ronnie stood there in a suit with a car behind him. Once again, he was busy tapping away at his watch as he looked at the time and then back up at my window. When he saw me standing there, he took in a tired, almost annoyed breath and spoke out loud.

  “Hunter Elara, congratulations on your promotion.”

  “Thank you?” I said, foam still on my lip.

  “There is actually a vetting for your new rank. We have to go to a dungeon with some members of the Hunter Association soon.”

  I kept brushing while listening to him. He seemed to think that was a little rude as I saw his brows furrow, but I ignored that. Fuck you, Ronnie. You couldn’t really say anything to me anymore either way.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said, spitting into the sink and rinsing quickly. “What exactly are we supposed to do?”

  “It’s a pretty busy schedule. And I am forced to accompany you all day…” Ronnie sighed out loud with those words and I held in a chuckle.

  Alright. This definitely worked. He was my superior at work just a few days ago, and now look at him.

  I waved at him and closed the curtains. Then, after finishing up the rest of my chores and changing into more comfortable clothes—along with my gear—I went out of the building and into the car below.

  This car was quite different from Seraphina’s escort; it was a simple sedan with all the seats visible to each other. Ronnie looked through the rearview mirror at me and spoke up.

  “Are you prepared for this?”

  “Of course,” I said. “They are just testing my capabilities.”

  I was, honestly, a little worried during the renewal examination, but that was also because I had failed it so many times. A dungeon raid was something F-Rank Hunters got to indulge in the most. Since we lacked raw power, we were dependent on volume and tactics more than anything. Which meant I was pretty comfortable with going into dungeons.

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  “The target today is an E-Ranked Gate. There will be hunters from the Association here to inspect us. We also had to add your new position and responsibility as part of our report to the Hunter Association; they will be stringent on you in that regard as well.”

  “Is that so?” I said.

  An E-Rank Dungeon would not be very difficult. I had confidence in handling this. Ronnie turned to the back and handed me a tablet phone. I took the giant screen from him and scrolled through the information report on the dungeon I was supposed to clear.

  A simple cave-type dungeon, it was full of kobolds and goblins with a hobgoblin settlement at its core. This was not a difficult request… Or so I wanted to say, but as we neared the dungeon my feet started to feel a little lighter.

  Regardless of everything.

  I was still nervous. Just a girl! Why make me do all this? I'm just a girl…

  Hah.

  The gate was in a closed-off shopping district near the western part of the city called Grenme. It was a district that was frequented by shady individuals and was pretty popular for the amount of shady casinos that were around here, including a lot of illegal games and black market trading. That said, when the authorities were here, especially those of the Hunter Association, all of them had no choice but to keep quiet. We were almost unbothered, minus the few dozen stares we constantly received from the people who stayed here during the day.

  Yellow tape had sealed off the area where the gate had appeared, and there was a computer system and a small tent set up next to the swirling portal leading to the fracture in the dimension.

  It was almost surreal to think that there was a time before all of this. I still couldn’t imagine a world without gates properly, but I did try sometimes while reading old books or hearing stories from my parents.

  It must have been a good time.

  “Hunter Elara,” a man in a suit walked up to me. It was a pretty-looking gent, and along with him was a very handsome woman in a long business skirt and a very natural, genteel smile. Both of them seemed graceful.

  “We have heard a fair bit about you recently,” the woman said, stretching her hand out. I shook her hand back. “Hunter Elara, I am Mia from the Association.”

  “Durand,” the man said, introducing himself too. “You should know Hunter Ronnie would not be allowed to accompany you inside the gate. I would request you to put on this camera and wear these devices on your wrist as you enter for your screening test. The gate here is a persistent type and won’t be disappearing whether you finish it or not, so don’t worry about that.”

  “I get it.”

  With the devices on me, I got changed into my gear inside the tent and finally moved over to the entrance of the gate.

  It was going to be a simple raid. Dungeons were all about strategy at the end of the day, and I was very confident in that sense.

  I stepped ahead and moved through the blue portal. Blue energy filled my body and pushed my skin back, a sensation like walking through heavy water, and the next thing I knew, I was inside the dungeon.

  And right in front of me, was already a hobgoblin.

  The same species that should have been at the very end of the dungeon.

  My eyes widened.

  The hobgoblin turned to me.

  “GRRRRR!?”