Her entire body radiated heat.
Tino let out a small groan as she twisted her frame, fighting the dull aches that had shot through her body in the wake of her awakening.
The soft bed enveloping her did nothing to ease the pain. She stretched her neck and poked her head out from under the covers, and the spartan furnishings of the small room she rented near the Clan House drifted into her blurry vision.
*"If you can't do it in training, there's no way you can do it in a real fight."* That was her master's favorite saying.
Pushing past the brink of death—learning to control the power that could only be unleashed at the razor's edge between life and death. Every time she took part in what her master cheerfully called "sparring sessions," Tino endured what could only be described as hell.
Quite a bit of time had passed since her first real combat training, yet there was no sign of it getting any easier.
Suppressing the scream her body wanted to let loose behind her dour expression, Tino managed to sit up on the bed.
In the full-length mirror hanging on the wall, she caught sight of a scowling girl with disheveled hair and thoroughly rumpled clothes.
Most likely, after the training left her on the verge of collapse, her master had hosed her down, thrown whatever clothes were handy onto her limp body, and dumped her into bed.
At first, even that much hadn't been done—she'd simply been left at the training ground. But after the Master had stepped in, unable to stand by and watch any longer, the aftercare had become a bit more thorough.
It was still rough handling, but anything was better than being left on display for Clan members to gawk at for hours on end.
There were no visible wounds on the body reflected in the mirror. The pajama top had come wide open, revealing smooth, pale skin that looked as though it had never so much as heard of rough living.
Had her body naturally regenerated while she was unconscious? Had she been soaked in a potion before being hosed off? Or had her master—who never held back—finally learned a technique for beating people up without leaving marks?
Whatever the case, she was grateful that nothing showed on the surface.
The remaining aches would fade before long, too. Tino had absorbed enough Mana Material for that much, at least.
Her body still felt heavy, and fatigue lingered, but she dragged herself to the bathroom and stood under a cold shower, letting the stream of water jolt her awake.
The cold water cut through her feverish flesh. She narrowed her eyes in pleasure at the soothing sensation of the dull pain being cooled, and at the same time checked how her body felt.
Physical conditioning and management were essential skills for any Hunter. Especially with a master who pushed training sessions on her without the slightest regard for how she was feeling, Tino had learned to be vigilant on her own. She ran her hands along her arms, following the water sliding off her shoulders, and muttered to herself with a resigned sigh.
"As expected of big sis… not a single bruise…"
Thieves were, by nature, a low-attack-power class. But for Tino right now, even a single strike from Liliz Smart—even if she managed to block it—hit hard enough that walking away unscathed was out of the question.
At least Liliz didn't use weapons, which made it marginally better. But she threw not just punches but kicks as well, and she targeted joints without a shred of hesitation. One wrong read, and it would be a killing blow. Several bones should have been broken. The fact that she didn't have a single burst blood vessel struck her as a minor miracle.
Her memories were muddled. She closed her eyes, trying to recall the training, but her consciousness had been coming and going, and almost nothing came back. Still, she must have performed well enough. She must have fought for her life parrying every strike.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have woken up like this, alive and in one piece.
The capital had no shortage of places to learn combat techniques. Quite a few were run by retired, top-tier Hunters who served as instructors. There were even schools.
Almost every Hunter at Level 3 or above had received training at some kind of institution.
But did other Hunters endure training this grueling?
Crawling on the ground, coughing up blood, breaking bones—while being showered with killing intent so intense it could only be genuine?
Tino had come to study under Liliz Smart of her own free will.
Tino had asked, and Liliz had initially refused. She was too busy to teach anyone, she said. The fact that Tino was now Liliz's sole disciple was simply the result of luck.
If the Master, who happened to be nearby at the time, hadn't intervened to persuade her, Tino probably wouldn't have made it as a Hunter.
People told her she was strong. They praised her for honing herself so thoroughly at such a young age.
Before she knew it, giving her all had become second nature.
The training was lethal. Some even called it torture. But Tino had no intention of quitting. She was tempted to break often enough—yet she never had. At least not yet.
But had she actually reached the goal her master had set for her?
A sudden thought made her shoulders shiver, and Tino reached out with trembling hands to shut off the shower.
§ After getting dressed, Tino headed for the Clan House as usual.
Because it was close, the house she rented was only a ten-minute walk to the Clan House.
The Clan House towered far above the surrounding buildings, so sticking her head out of her room window, Tino could make out its peak. Her eyesight wasn't good enough to see any details, but according to her master, from that window the top floor of the Beginning Footprint's Clan House—the Clan Master's room—was visible.
That had been one of the reasons Tino rented this particular place.
Some Hunters didn't settle on a fixed base, staying at inns instead, but Tino had no plans to leave the capital for the time being, so renting made more sense.
Tino was still only a half-finished Hunter. Her Level was 4—placing her solidly in the mid-tier—and she did venture into Treasure Halls, but Liliz hadn't acknowledged her yet.
The reason Tino barely left the capital, and the reason she worked as a Solo when Hunters were typically recommended to form Parties, was that she was still in training.
For Tino, her entire life revolved around practice.
Liliz was both her master and a Hunter. The time she had to receive instruction from her capricious, free-spirited "big sis" was, in truth, quite limited.
Vanishing without a word was a daily occurrence. So whenever Tino knew for certain that her master was in the capital, she made sure to stay nearby.
In front of the Clan House, an unusual number of carriages stood parked.
Large carriages, each big enough to carry many passengers. Unlike noble-owned ones, these iron-framed vehicles bore no decorative flourishes, giving them an almost warlike impression.
Hitched to them were sturdy horses, bred specifically for traversing lands where Monsters and Phantoms roamed, pawing the ground with obvious impatience.
Inside the Clan House—in the lobby—dozens of Hunters had gathered.
An expedition, perhaps? Even the normally spacious lobby looked cramped with this many people crowding it.
The Hunters assembled here varied in occupation, appearance, and Level, but they all shared one thing in common: they belonged to this Clan—the Beginning Footprint.
Every one of them was an armed Treasure Hunter. The sight was reminiscent of soldiers assembling before a march to war.
Tino frowned at the scene.
The Beginning Footprint boasted one of the largest Hunter memberships of any Clan in the capital. But it was rare for this many members to assemble in one place.
Clans, by their nature, were closer to mutual-aid societies. They weren't supposed to bind their members' movements.
Even the Clan Master, nominally at the top of the hierarchy, didn't hold that much power.
Rules varied from Clan to Clan, but within the Beginning Footprint, the Master had zero authority to command its members. Some said that was precisely what had allowed the Beginning Footprint to grow as large as it had.
Tino had been with the Clan since its founding, so she knew most of the Hunters by sight.
She approached a swordsman nearby.
"What's going on?"
"Hm? Oh—Tino. You haven't heard? There was a summons yesterday. A joint operation with the Explorer's Guild. Apparently we're storming the White Wolf's Den."
"With this many people?"
Her eyes widened at the familiar name of the Treasure Hall, and she looked around the lobby again.
An impressive roster had assembled. Just counting heads, roughly half the Footprint's membership was here. Many members were out on expeditions, so nearly every Hunter currently in the capital might have been called in.
They had no obligation to obey orders, yet the Master had managed to gather this many…
Even as that thought struck her, the question lingered.
True, the White Wolf's Den had been troublesome, but the Footprint's members were elite. Plenty outranked Tino herself.
She had heard talk of an investigation, but this was far beyond investigation scale. This level of Hunter mobilization could only mean something catastrophic had occurred.
The boss had already been dealt with. It would revive once enough Mana Material accumulated, but a Phantom that powerful shouldn't spawn that frequently.
Reading the puzzled look on Tino's face, the swordsman lowered his voice conspiratorially.
"Just between us… the Master originally wanted to send Ark."
"…Come again?"
What was this guy talking about?
Tino forgot to even blink, staring at his face, but there was no trace of a joke.
At her reaction, the man grinned in satisfaction.
"Heh heh heh. Sounds ridiculous, right? Assigning this Clan's top Hunter to clear what's basically a Level 3 Treasure Hall…"
"…"
"But Ark is away right now. So everyone gathered here… is the substitute."
At those words, Tino finally realized why the assembled Hunters all seemed so on edge.
They were all Clan members, so no open disputes had broken out, but their expressions conveyed an intense tension—as though they were deep inside a Treasure Hall rather than standing in the safety of the capital.
Ark Rodan. He was one of the most famous Hunters in the capital.
A man promised the stature of a hero, born under the blessings of every deity in the heavens.
An all-purpose Hunter who had mastered every form of magic and technique. His sword flash was said to split the world like ten thousand bolts of lightning.
The most complete Hunter—hailed as the rising star of the next generation.
He had fervent followers both in the Empire's upper echelons and here within the Footprint. He was also a rival of Tino's masters.
He was not the sort of man you deployed—or were even supposed to deploy—for a Level 3 Treasure Hall anomaly.
There was such a thing as an appropriate response to any given situation.
The Explorer's Guild stipulated that Hunters should explore Treasure Halls appropriate to their Level.
If a high-Level Hunter tore through a low-Level Treasure Hall, slaughtered every Phantom and seizing every Treasure Weapon, it would leave lower-Level Hunters destitute.
There was even the possibility that a high-Level Hunter would be unavailable when they were truly needed.
The Master would know this, of course.
Which meant that something was happening inside that Treasure Hall—something so severe that Ark Rodan himself had to be deployed.
Tino, who was no prophet, couldn't begin to imagine what that might be. But if she had been standing in the same position as the Hunters around her, she'd probably be writing her last will and testament with the same grim expression.
Whatever was in there, it was certainly more dangerous than any Phantom she had recently encountered.
No—if she ran into her big sis right now, there was even a chance she'd end up in this very gathering…
"With… with just this many people, will it even work?"
"Oh come on, don't insult us. …Or I'd like to say, but yeah…"
The swordsman scratched his jaw, turning Tino's anxious question over.
Ark Rodan was beyond doubt one of the strongest Hunters in the capital.
Magic and swordsmanship—mastering either one alone would make you a top-tier Hunter, but that man, sometimes called a hero, had fused both at an extraordinarily high level.
His power was great enough that even Tino's master—who prided herself on being the strongest—acknowledged it.
If the other members of his Party, the Holy Spirit's Children, had possessed even seventy percent of Ark's power, the title of strongest young Party might well have belonged to them.
Individual strength varied enormously among Treasure Hunters. Numbers had their limits as a substitute.
But the man forced a strained smile, one that showed both fierce fighting spirit and a sliver of fear.
"Well, we'll muddle through somehow, right? I hear Parties outside the Footprint are coming too—"
He was cut off mid-sentence as a stir rippled through the lobby.
Every gaze converged on the young man descending the stairs with measured steps.
Thousand Transformations. The man at the head of the Footprint, possessed of the power to see through all things. At his side, the Vice-Master—his second-in-command—stood ramrod straight, her keen eyes scanning the assembled crowd with an assessing gaze.
The murmur died in an instant. Everyone waited for the Master to speak.
Unlike the casual getup he'd worn when he'd come to rescue them at the Treasure Hall, the Master stood fully armed—and against the backdrop of these taut, wired-up Hunters, he stood out all the more.
"Hm? Oh? What's this? Why's everyone gathered here like this? Did I miss a festival?"
"Krai, this is about the matter Gaark, the branch chief, mentioned."
"Ah, that thing. But this many people—"
"You had requested Ark, sir, but Ark is unavailable. So I issued the summons instead. By my calculations, we've assembled sufficient combat power."
At Eva's words, Krai's eyes went wide.
Many ordinary people misunderstood the true scale of a Hunter's power.
Every year, a certain number of civilians ventured into Treasure Halls—convinced that since they were all human, a little caution would keep them safe—and never came back. It was the tragedy born of naive thinking.
Eva wasn't a Hunter, but she knew the Footprint's Hunters better than anyone—better even than the Master.
The fact that nobody had voiced a single complaint spoke volumes: her calculations were sound.
Krai stared at the assembled force, the numbers unanimously accepted, but wore an expression that was hard to read.
"Huh!? ……Ah, yeah. Yeah yeah, right. So that's how it is… this many, huh…"
"If there are any… shortcomings in the arrangement, please let me know."
The lobby went silent. Ark was the single most powerful individual combatant in this entire Clan—head and shoulders above the rest.
No one in the Footprint didn't know the extent of his singular strength. The only people who could look at Ark and still claim to be the strongest were members of the Mourning Specter.
Nobody had objected to the lineup. Krai tilted his head and studied them for a moment, then offered an uncertain smile.
"Hmm… we're nothing but elites around here, aren't we? I think half of us should be able to handle it."