SSS-Rank Awakening: My Infinite Absorption System

Chapter 21: The Gray Reaper

Fin watched twelve seconds of footage loop across his burner screen while breakfast bubbled beside him.

The wounded archer’s leaked shoulder footage showed Fin’s hatchet cutting through steam on the Submerged Foundry catwalk.

Before sunrise, the lower-city forums stamped the unknown fighter with a name: the Gray Reaper.

’That name sounds like a cheap comic book,’ he thought, counting the apartment windows visible across the alley to see who might recognize his sill.

The footage caught his daggers in reverse grip, displaying speed beyond anything expected of an E-rank porter.

He remembered Overclock taking forty stamina, buying the twelve seconds that killed the Magma Troll. The forum users were already arguing whether the fighter was an unranked anomaly or a high-tier prodigy testing an uncatalogued mobility skill.

He stirred the broth, calculating how long the moderators could keep corporate scouts from tracing his address.

The video froze, replacing his movement with a buffering ring while the comments vanished below it.

Every mirror link disappeared, followed by three backup channels carrying copies of the fight.

He refreshed the index three times as an administrative key erased every mention of the alias. Even the school’s chat group disappeared, taking thirty student posts with it in four breaths.

’Someone upstairs has faster fingers than the neighborhood,’ he thought, setting his bowl onto the table beside the salt shaker.

Children chanted his nickname outside the landing while footsteps climbed from the ground floor. The apartment door clicked open on its hinges, letting his little sister return with the bread she collected from the corner shop.

"The whole second-year group chat is repeating that stupid title," she said, pulling her small black notebook from her pocket while kicking off her shoes.

"Sit down and eat your stew," he answered, pushing the warm bowl toward her chair before she could begin an audit of his morning.

She wrote the nickname beneath his unpaid window jump, adding another entry to the debt column.

"You owe me an explanation for the disappearing knives, and now you owe me for having a neighborhood alias," she noted, tapping the open page.

"I pack protein boxes and haul salvage crates," he said, turning the burner down to a gentle simmer with his right thumb.

"Someone with government clearance is scrubbing your footage from every server," she replied, chewing her tender beef with the focus of a forensic auditor.

"Then let them spend their own credits on the bandwidth," he answered, picking up his empty bowl to rinse under the running tap.

"Take the long route from the subway today," she warned, pointing her spoon at his chest while adjusting her glasses with her left hand.

"I always take the long route, kiddo," he answered, pulling his jacket from the coat rack by the door before stepping onto the landing.

He left ten minutes later, raising his collar against the draft as he stepped onto the sidewalk.

Merchants shouted cabbage prices along the boulevard while delivery carts rattled between their stalls. He paused outside a bakery window, using the reflection to study the street behind him without turning his shoulders toward the curb.

His enhanced Sense stat hummed behind his collarbone, painting a clear silhouette stalking forty paces behind him through the crowded fruit stalls. The tracker wore a gray jacket without a guild insignia or hunter badge.

His follower matched his pace across three crosswalks, never looking straight at his back.

’No corporate scout walks with feet that quiet,’ he thought, turning off the main avenue into the narrow lanes behind the old market.

He led the silent tracker through two winding passages, deliberately picking a path that avoided municipal traffic cameras and open shopfronts. The shortcut ended behind the shuttered dye works, enclosed by walls and a locked loading door.

He turned the corner, flattening his back against the rough surface while slipping both hands into the pockets of his worn jacket. The tracker rounded the corner with his chin lowered, searching the alley for the runner.

Fin emerged from the recess, pinning the man’s collar against the wall with two fingers.

"Who pays for a ghost?" he asked, staring into the man’s eyes while his fingers kept the rough fabric locked in place.

The tracker kept his hands still, closing his jaw around something hidden beneath his tongue. A capsule cracked between his teeth, releasing a hiss as his pupils widened.

’That isn’t poison,’ he realized, watching the man’s breathing remain steady while the light faded from behind the dilated black centers.

The failsafe burned through memory and operational instructions, leaving the body standing without a response. The man’s knees loosened, his weight sliding slowly down the wall until he sat resting against the ground with slack cheeks.

"The harvest... cannot be stopped," the hollow voice muttered, the words trailing off into meaningless clicks of the tongue before falling silent.

He stepped back from the breathing shell, storing his tension away while the phrase settled into his teeth like an unpaid debt.

"Sleep it off then," he whispered, wiping a speck of gray dust from his sleeve before checking the empty lane for witnesses.

He checked his system menu with a silent blink, noting that his experience bar remained locked at twenty thousand five hundred points. The harvest phrase tasted like spoiled copper in his mouth, reminding him that the forced gate breaks were never random occurrences.

He reached a public call box, reporting the unconscious man to municipal triage. The operator accepted the address without requesting a license, dispatching medics within twenty minutes.

"Stay on the line," the operator told him. "Is he breathing?"

"Yes. No response when I speak. There was something in his mouth."

"Do not give him water. Keep the route clear for the crew."

Fin watched the man’s chest rise while passing workers slowed near the alley.

"Medical pickup," he told them. "Give the stretcher room when it arrives."

He waited across the entrance until the medics took over the patient’s care.

’Someone spent money making sure this man could not answer questions. That does not tell me what he knew.’

One medic asked his name while the other secured the man’s airway.

"Fin. I made the call."

He gave the time and the location without inventing an explanation for the capsule.

’A dead trail is still a person. Their employers can pay for their own disposal service.’

He walked back toward Halden Street, feeling the phrase circle inside his skull while the noon sirens sounded across the lower district.

Jolly was sitting at the small kitchen table when he unlocked the apartment door, her homework spread across the clean laminate surface.

"Did you shake the tail?" she asked, without looking up from the geometry diagram she was measuring with her yellow ruler.

"He took an early retirement on the pavement," he replied, sitting down across from her while resting his palms on the table.

She turned the black notebook toward him, showing a fresh sentence written in dark ink beneath the tally of their weekly expenses.

"Someone is managing us," she said, tapping the words with the back of her pen while watching his face for a reaction.

"Let them manage," he answered, closing the notebook with a calm tap of his index finger before standing to check the window.

Across the alley, a traffic camera turned toward the wall as static swallowed its feed.