Chapter 157: Candidates
The blue was everywhere.
Every screen on every surface.
Every phone in every hand.
The displays in restaurant windows, the large screens on building faces, and the personal devices that people had been holding when the announcement began.
[System Notice.]
[Greetings, City of Mythal.]
The city went completely still.
Nobody moved.
[Authority Selection Process: Initiated.]
Confusion spread through the street before the system continued. The phrase did not explain itself. Kai stared at the word that looked harmless but held the future of the city in its grasp.
[The following individuals have been designated as Authority Candidates for Mythal City.]
A display appeared over the city.
Six portraits.
Then seven.
Kai looked at his own face in the display. Then at Sera’s. Lily. Mira. Raze. Elden and then at the seventh.
Victor Hale.
The image was the official guild record photograph, the composed version, the one that had appeared on ranking boards and in guild directories throughout the Mythical phase.
The portrait was there for approximately three seconds.
Then the text appeared beneath it.
Status: Deceased.
A black marker crossed through the image.
The city erupted in multiple directions simultaneously. The confusion about Authority was mixed immediately with the confusion about Victor’s name appearing on a live system announcement two months after his death.
Kai could hear it from the street, voices from nearby buildings, someone in the restaurant behind him saying Victor’s name in the specific tone of someone who had heard it and could not decide what it meant.
The system continued before the confusion was resolved.
[Authority governs the development of cities, regions, and populations. The following examples demonstrate Authority’s application.]
The display changed.
A city appeared in the projection.
Not Mythal, but a generic representation, the kind the system used when demonstrating mechanics. The projection showed road networks. Hospital placement. Emergency response infrastructure.
Numbers appeared alongside each element, the efficiency metrics shifting as the demonstration ran.
[Authority may improve city infrastructure efficiency.]
...
Elden was not on the street Kai was standing on, but he was somewhere in the city watching the same projection. He looked at the emergency response numbers.
The road networks.
He thought about the months since the gates appeared and the specific way that Mythal had been building its response structures in real time, each crisis revealing another gap, the coordination improving because it had to.
It wasn’t about being mayor.
It was about making the city stronger before disaster arrived. Building the road, everyone else walked without waiting for someone to give permission.
He looked at the display and understood for the first time why this had been created by the people who had created it.
...
The projection changed.
Schools. Housing distribution. Resource allocation across districts. Population growth rates are shifting as the underlying conditions improve.
[Authority may influence city growth and resource distribution.]
Lily was watching from somewhere in the city with the focused quality she brought to anything that contained numbers. She was not thinking about the power version of what the system was: better schools.
Better hunters.
Fewer deaths.
Stronger cities.
The cycle reinforced itself.
Not because individuals became exceptional. Because the conditions were arranged correctly.
Lily nodded. "Efficient."
[Authority may regulate gate development and promotion timing.]
...
The projection showed a city progressing through gate ranks.
F to E. E to D.
The pace of progression shown against population readiness indicators, the system demonstrates a city moving to the next rank before the readiness indicators are satisfied. The results are visible in the casualty rates that followed.
Then, in the same city, the pace adjusted, the progression delayed until the indicators reached the threshold. The outcome is different.
Raze was somewhere in the city watching this with an expression that was not the grin he usually produced, but something more specific.
He thought about the weeks before the B-rank territories appeared. The city did not know they were coming. The volunteer team had gone below the recommended range because there was no choice but to have someone go.
Authority could decide when. Not react to when. Decide.
He thought about the volunteer team.
They never should have needed to enter that gate.
Authority could stop that.
That was worth earning.
...
The projection changed again.
Gate density across a city. The frequency shifting. Specific zones are becoming more or less active. Recovery periods between major events are increasing.
[Authority may regulate gate appearance frequency within the city.]
Mira watched this and went completely still.
She remembered the first weeks.
Nobody was ready.
F-rank gates had disappeared with the system’s progression. The entry level for hunters now was higher than it had been.
But if the gate frequency could be adjusted. If the density in specific zones could be managed. If beginners could have the training environment they needed, rather than being pushed into what was available.
She thought about every new hunter who came after them.
...
The projection changed a final time.
A simple number. A figure that had appeared in the system since the beginning as a fixed parameter.
Hunter Eligibility Age: 18.
Then an arrow.
The number changed.
[Authority may adjust hunter eligibility regulations.]
Kai saw it.
Kai stopped hearing the city around him.
The number is changing.
The eligibility age is not fixed. Someone with the standing to adjust it could move it in either direction.
Up or down.
Children are being classified as eligible and entering gates.
He was thinking about Leo.
Leo, who had been asking about every dungeon since the first week of the gate phase. Leo, who would absolutely, without question, test an eligibility limit that had been lowered.
The Candidate had said. "Authority takes options away."
Kai finally understood.
The wrong person could lower the age. Leo would be forced into the gates.
...
The street exploded with conversation.
The system waited, and then the final text appeared.
[Authority Candidates may challenge one another.]
[Victory Conditions: Defeat, surrender, or elimination.]
The city went a different kind of still.
Sera was looking at the candidate names.
Not at the victory conditions first. At the names. Kai. Lily. Mira. Raze. Elden. People she had stood beside in gates and on rooftops and in the Territory. People she had run with. People who knew how she moved.
Then she read the conditions.
Elimination.
Sera remembered the Candidate’s warning.
Do not win.
Now she understood.
This wasn’t a tournament. They might have to fight each other. And maybe even kill each other depending on what the system considered as defeat.
Or even how far the others were willing to go for their goals.
...
The blue has faded slightly.
One final message.
[Selection begins immediately. Candidates may issue challenges at any time.]
The displays faded completely.
The city came back.
The sounds of it returned in stages. Voices. Movement. Someone nearby is saying Victor’s name again. Someone else is asking what elimination means for a system process.
Kai looked up at the empty sky where the display had been.
He looked at his phone. On the candidate list that had been saved, the displays faded. Seven names. One crossed out.
Six remaining.
He thought about Leo’s age, the eligibility number, and what it would mean to not hold this. He thought about the Candidate in the room at the bottom of the Archive. He thought about the people in Kei’s apartment a few hours ago. Dorn missing fishing. Kei saying I’m glad we’re all still alive.
The city around him had already changed. Everything that came next was going to be different from everything before it.
For the first time since the gates appeared...
The greatest threat wasn’t inside a dungeon.
It was another name on the list.
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