Chapter 36: Seeing Mira Again

The golden text lingered in the sky for a full sixty seconds before slowly dissolving back into the night, taking the blinding light with it and plunging the forest back into darkness.

Leon sat perfectly still in his hollow.

"Anonymous," he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Right. Because announcing to a hundred million desperate people that a single player just solo-cleared a Level 30 Boss on day ten won’t cause a massive panic."

He could only imagine what the safe zones looked like right now. Most players were likely still huddled in groups, fighting Level 5 and Level 6 monsters, meticulously rationing their mana and trading coins for stale bread.

And the system had just informed them that someone out there was already killing kings.

The sun was high in the sky the following day when Leon finally walked out of the forest and saw the imposing stone walls of the Eastern Checkpoint.

The atmosphere around the settlement had completely changed.

When he had left yesterday, the checkpoint had been bustling but orderly. Now, it was chaos. The road leading to the gates was packed with players. Guild recruiters were shouting from the tops of overturned crates, merchants were drastically inflating the prices of their healing potions, and heavily armed parties were arguing intensely in the center of the square.

The global announcement had acted like a thrown rock in a hornet’s nest.

Leon pulled the hood of the Sovereign’s Mantle over his head. The shadow-absorbing properties of the cloak immediately did their work, blurring his features and dampening the sound of his footsteps. He slipped through the crowded gate without drawing a single glance, looking like just another rogue in a world suddenly obsessed with finding the phantom powerhouse of Sector 4.

He moved toward the merchant quarter, intending to offload the thousands of low-tier monster materials clogging his inventory for more Eternal Coins.

As he approached a familiar trading post, he stopped.

Standing near the bounty board, arguing aggressively with a pair of heavily armored players, was a tall woman in skin-tight, dark leathers, her silver hair pulled back into a loose braid.

Mira.

"I don’t care what your guild leader thinks," Mira was saying, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "The valley is completely dead. I checked it myself this morning. The altar is gone. It crumbled into dust. There is no hidden dungeon entrance, there is no secret loot stash, and I’m not guiding your party out there just so you can stare at a pile of rocks."

"Our leader is paying five hundred coins for a guide," one of the armored men insisted, leaning forward in an attempt to use his size to intimidate her. It didn’t work. "We just need someone who knows the exact coordinates of where the gate used to be. The guy who killed the boss might still be in the area."

"If the guy who killed the boss is still in the area, the last thing you want to do is go looking for him," Mira shot back, crossing her arms beneath her chest. "Unless you think your Level 8 iron swords are going to intimidate someone who just soloed a Level 30 Zone. Use your brain, assuming you have one."

The armored man scowled, his hand drifting toward the hilt of his weapon.

Before he could draw it, a shadow fell over the bounty board.

"I’d listen to her," a calm, unhurried voice said from beneath a midnight-black hood. "She gives remarkably good advice. Even if she is a bit pessimistic."

Mira froze.

The two armored men turned, glaring at the newcomer. "Who the hell are you?"

Leon didn’t look at them. He simply released a fraction of the pressure he had been keeping tightly coiled inside his chest. He didn’t use Alpha’s Roar or Domain of the Dead. He just let his raw Level 27 stats bleed into the air for a single, suffocating second.

The two armored players choked. The color drained from their faces as every instinct in their bodies suddenly screamed at them to run. They didn’t say another word. They backed away slowly, turned, and disappeared into the crowd as fast as their legs could carry them.

Mira hadn’t moved. She was staring at the man in the black cloak, her eyes wide, tracking the familiar lines of his jaw visible beneath the hood. Her gaze dropped to the Fanghide Battleplate, to the silver sword at his hip, and finally to the Platinum-Rank mantle draped over his shoulders—a mantle radiating an aura of suppressed, terrifying power.

"You," Mira breathed, the word barely escaping her throat.

Leon reached up and pulled the hood back, offering her a faint, familiar smile.

"Me."

"You’re dead," she said, her voice entirely flat, though her eyes were frantically scanning him for injuries. "I watched you walk into a Level 22 dungeon."

"I did mention I wasn’t planning on being a cautionary tale."

Mira took a step forward, her eyes darting from his face to the sky, as if expecting the global announcement to appear again. "The valley. The altar. The system announcement last night..." She stopped, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. The air rushed out of her lungs. "It was you. You’re the anonymous player."

"Anonymous is a strong word," Leon deflected smoothly. "I prefer quietly overconfident."

"You killed a Level 30 Zone Boss," she hissed, stepping closer and dropping her voice so the surrounding crowd couldn’t hear. "On day ten. Are you insane? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Half the major guilds in Sector 4 are currently tearing the region apart trying to find you!"

"Which is why I’m keeping the hood up," Leon noted, tapping the fabric of the mantle. "Though I have to admit, seeing you argue with those two was too good an opportunity to pass up."

Mira stared at him, genuinely lost for words for the first time since he had met her. She had prided herself on being ahead of the curve. She had ground herself into the dirt to reach Level 9. And the man standing in front of her, the one she had called an idiot and a dead man walking, had just casually broken the ceiling of the world.

"What level are you?" she finally asked, her tone entirely devoid of its usual sarcasm. It was a genuine plea for sanity.

Leon considered her for a moment. She had tried to save his life despite having absolutely no reason to care whether he lived or died. And since she already knew he had entered the dungeon last, she obviously had a good idea of his current level anyway. There was little point in trying to hide it from her.

"Twenty-seven," Leon said quietly.

Mira closed her eyes. She let out a long, slow breath, pinching the bridge of her nose as if trying to stave off a sudden, violent headache.

"I hate you," she muttered.

"I know." Leon chuckled. "Are you still offering advice to idiots with death wishes, or are you free for the afternoon? I have about a hundred thousand coins worth of loot to sell, and I suspect you know exactly which merchants won’t try to rip me off."

Mira opened her eyes, looking at his calm, utterly unbothered expression. The chaos of the checkpoint swirled around them, an entire region thrown into a frenzy by his actions, and Leon looked like he was asking her for directions to a tavern.

Despite herself, the corner of her mouth twitched.

"Ten percent," she said firmly. "I want a ten percent cut of whatever you sell, purely as compensation for the emotional damage you caused me yesterday."

"Five percent," Leon countered, adjusting the strap of his sword. "And I’ll buy lunch."

Mira studied him for a long moment, then let out a resigned sigh.

"Deal. But if a guild leader figures out who you are and tries to murder you in the street, I’m using my talent to go invisible and leaving you to die."

"That sounds entirely fair," Leon said, pulling the hood of the Sovereign’s Mantle back over his head. "Lead the way."