My Class is Null, But I Always Get the Best Outcome

Chapter 155: Building Something Better

Kai and Elden simply started walking without any destination in mind. Evening had settled over the city and for a while neither of them said anything.

The silence was not the silence of two people who did not know each other. It was the other kind. Elden walked with his hands in his pockets and he looked unusually quiet. Kai was curious about what he wanted to say and felt that if he didn’t start the conversation.

Elden was going to delay it for a long while.

Kai glanced at him. "You’ve been thinking about something since we left the restaurant."

Elden laughed. "Was it obvious?"

"You followed me."

"Fair point." The laugh settled and the thoughtful quality returned. "Victor," he said.

Kai looked at him.

"I’m sure you figured out what he represented." Elden said.

"Those in power being corrupted?"

"The possibility for a top ranking guild to utilize their power to suppress others and used their members." He looked at a group of hunters coming out of a side street, three of them mid-conversation, moving with the ease of people who were comfortable with each other. "Victor wasn’t the first person like that and won’t be the last."

Kai slowly nodded as a big part of why Victor could create trouble for him. Was because of the power he had from his guild and Uncle connection.

"You think there will be others like that... Or are there already ones like him now?"

"I don’t think, I know... because it’s always like that. This new era grants us hunters alot of power but more than that. It grants top ranking guilds enough power to control even an entire city."

"Or more if it keeps growing."

"Exactly. I wouldn’t mind if the guild would improve the city but..."

"There a chance they will always make it worst just to be able to exercise their power and status?"

"Yes... I keep thinking there will be a new Victor. Someone smarter," Elden said. "Someone who does more of what Victor did well and less of what made him visible." He looked at a training facility they were passing, lights still on inside, the sound of impacts audible through the walls. "The conditions that created Victor are still here. Strong guilds that can recruit others and make them grow... All they need to do is follow orders."

Kai looked at the training facility.

The hunters inside were practicing late. The gate phase had done something to the city’s relationship with training schedules. Everyone understood now that the gap between being prepared and not being prepared was too dangerous to ignore.

"The city keeps surviving," Elden said.

Kai looked at him.

Elden was looking at the training facility with an expression that was something other than simple observation. "It’s been through the C-rank gates countdown, the Mythical gates, and now we are going through the B-Rank gates... And we have been doing well but–"

"You think things will get even worse to the point the city won’t be able to rely on only us?"

"Yes." Elden clenched his fist and said. "Even if we can clear the dungeons, we can’t be everywhere at once... Imagine if there was ten or even twenty of those Mythal Gates?"

"Alot more districts would have been destroyed and people might even start dying the longer delayed."

"Yes... And this is just for a promotion to get B-Rank Gates. What about A-Ranks? Or S-Rank? Or what if more gates keep appearing?"

"I doubt the city will be able to survive without constant rebuilding."

"I agree as well... Maybe it won’t even survive and we have to evacuate everyone."

"What are you thinking about building?" Kai said.

Elden looked at him sideways. "How did you know I was thinking about building something?"

"You didn’t come after me to discuss Victor."

Elden smiled. The easy version. "No," he said. "I didn’t." He was quiet for a moment. "A guild. Maybe. Something like one." He said it with the specific uncertainty of someone exploring a thought out loud rather than presenting a finished idea. "I don’t want to build what Victor built. I don’t want another generation of hunters thinking that’s what a guild looks like, that the tradeoffs are normal, that the cost of protection is that someone gets to use you."

They passed a small restaurant.

Through the window Kai could see a family having dinner, someone saying something that made the others laugh, the motion of it visible through the glass.

Elden had been watching it too before looking away.

"A place where new hunters actually learn," he said. "Not just how to fight. How to make good decisions. How to read a gate. How to work with people. The things that keep you alive that aren’t on any ranking board." He walked for a moment. "A place where someone can ask for help without it becoming a transaction."

Kai thought about his own early weeks in the gate phase and the learning curve everyone had to experience. They walked another block. The city continued around them at its evening pace.

"Why come to me?" Kai said. "This sounds more up Mira avenue or you can just create it yourself."

Elden answered without pause. "Because people follow you."

Kai looked at him. "No they don’t," he said.

Elden stopped walking.

Kai stopped too.

Elden looked at him with the expression of someone encountering something they had not expected. Then he laughed, the genuine version, the one that had surfaced several times at dinner. "That’s actually worse," he said.

"What is?"

"The fact that you actually believe that." He shook his head. "Kai. People have been following you since your first livestream. Your team... The hunters who looked to you during the countdown of C-Rank missions.... The city itself when you became the number one rank hunter and cleared the final Mythal Dungeon when we were out of commission."

"They see you as hope." He started walking again. "And the funny thing is, you’re not doing it on purpose. Which is probably why it works."

Kai looked at the street ahead.

"I don’t need an answer," Elden said. "I’m not asking you to commit to anything. I’m thinking out loud and you were available."

"You followed me."

"Available and nearby."

Kai looked at him.

Elden’s expression was the easy one but the thoughtfulness was still running underneath it. "I’ve been watching you since the early gates," he said. "The way you operate. The decisions you make. The fact that you’re thinking about things beyond the immediate dungeon." He looked at the street. "Whatever you’re working toward, I don’t know specifically what it is. But it’s pointed in the right direction."

Kai thought about the Archive. The Candidate. The word that the man had used. Caretakers. He thought about Mira at dinner saying we’ve been lucky. About Lily rolling her eyes and saying of course we’re going to survive. About the photograph Mira had taken and the expression on her face when she looked at it.

"If you build something," Kai said, "what does it look like in five years?"

Elden was quiet for a moment. "A training structure that finds people with potential before they figure it out alone. A place where the middle-tier hunters, the ones between talented beginner and top rank, actually have support and development rather than just running dungeons until something clicks or it doesn’t." He looked at the training facility they had moved past several minutes ago. "A guild that’s known for what it produces rather than who runs it."

Something about the last part landed hard because his two younger siblings will eventually have to become hunters as well.

They reached a crossroads.

Elden stopped. "I don’t need an answer," he said again. "Just think about it."

He smiled.

Then he turned and walked in the other direction.

Kai watched him go and stood at the crossroads for a moment. His mind flashed to what the Candidate showed him and various civilizations that failed. And then Elden words making him realize the city couldn’t rely on only them.

A change needed to happen.

His phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. Blue text, brief, there and then not there.

STATUS: EVALUATION COMPLETE.

Then: CANDIDATE CONFIRMATION IN PROGRESS.

Gone.

The screen returned to normal. He put the phone in his pocket and looked at the city. The next phase had started already.