SSSSS-Rank: Negative Leveling

There was a knock on the door.

Marco froze, his steak halfway to his mouth. Pola set down his knife and fork.

"Who is that?"

"A delivery, maybe? Did you order the new console?"

"No."

The knock came again, louder this time.

Pola got up, walked to the door, and opened it.

A man in a black suit stood in the hallway.

'Ah, shit. It's him. Jax's personal secretary. We are so, so screwed.'

Pola straightened his back. "Sir. How can we help you?"

The man in the suit looked past them. "Pola, Marco. The President of the Association, and the master of the Fist King Guild, wish to have a word with you."

The words were plain, but they hit Marco like a punch reinforced with mana.

'The President?! And Jax?! No, no, no, no! It's because of that man! Luthra! They know we helped him sell the cores! We're accomplices! We're going to be stripped of our licenses! They'll throw us in the Association's prison! I'm too pretty for prison!'

Pola put a hand on Marco's shoulder and squeezed. "We understand. We will come with you."

Marco's steak fell from his fork and hit the plate with a wet smack.

The man in the suit just nodded and stepped aside. Marco stumbled out of his chair, his legs feeling like overcooked noodles, and followed Pola out the door.

---

In the main meeting room, President Paulas, Jax, and Liona were at a holographic table. A video of Luthra and the fox woman played on its surface. Pola and Marco stood in the middle of the room.

'That's the President! And Jax! And Liona! The top three! Why are they all here?! This is a national security meeting, and we're the criminals!'

Jax slammed his hand on the table. "You two! You filed the subjugation report for the Omafo gate incident!"

Pola bowed. "Yes, Guild Master Jax. That is correct."

Marco tried to bow, but his legs were shaking. 'Don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me…'

Jax pointed at them. "That report was a lie! It was him, wasn't it?! The man in this video! He cleared the outside!"

Pola's posture did not change. "Our report stated the external area had already been cleared upon our arrival. We proceeded to clear the interior and subjugate the boss, fulfilling our mission parameters."

"Don't play games with me!" Jax yelled. "You covered for an unregistered hunter! And not just any unregistered, but this anomaly! Then, you helped him again! We have records showing you processed the sale of over two hundred thousand credits worth of monster cores for him!"

'Two hundred thousand credits! When he says it like that it sounds so much worse! It sounds like a federal crime! We're going to jail forever! They'll put us in a cell with a D-rank psycho who eats people!'

He felt a sharp pain in his side from Pola's elbow.

President Paulas spoke. "Tell me everything you know about this man. Luthra. Start from the beginning. Do not leave out a single detail."

Pola began to speak. "We first encountered him at the Omafo gate. The street was covered in monster corpses, orcs and hobgoblins. He was sitting on the corpse of an orc chieftain, eating a protein bar."

Marco began to panic. 'Don't mention the chain, don't mention the chain, please god don't mention the chain…'

"He was armed with a long industrial chain," Pola said.

'He mentioned the chain!'

Pola recounted the entire event: Luthra's lack of mana, his overwhelming presence, how he had just told them to finish the job and left. He then described the encounter in the Association lobby, and how Luthra had asked them to sell the cores for a fifteen percent commission.

When he finished, Liona spoke. "No mana signature? And yet he single-handedly defeated a horde that should have required a E-7 rank party? That aligns with what we are seeing here. But it makes no sense."

Jax interrupted. "He's clearly using some kind of hidden artifact to conceal his power. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated."

President Paulas looked at Marco.

"Marco."

Marco flinched. "Y-yes, Mr. President, sir!"

"Your partner has provided the facts. Now, I want your impression of the man. What did you feel when you were near him? Speak freely."

Marco's brain was a high-speed train wreck.

'My impression?! What kind of question is that?! My impression is that I'm going to have a heart attack and die right here on this very expensive-looking floor! If I say he was terrifying, Jax will call me a coward! If I say he wasn't, Jax will call me a liar and probably have me executed for treason! There's no right answer here! I'm completely screwed!'

He could feel Pola's stare boring into the side of his head, a silent command to not say anything stupid.

'But what am I supposed to say?! The man was a walking natural disaster! He broke a D-rank gate's worth of monsters and then just complained that we were late! He treated us like we were insects!'

Then, a different image flashed in his mind.

It was Luthra, sitting on the corpse of that huge orc. Not gloating, not looking like he was the shit. Just calmly eating a cheap protein bar like he was on his lunch break. Then another image, in the lobby. He didn't threaten them. He just offered them a business deal. A very, very good business deal.

'Wait… calm down. Think.'

He was terrifying, yes. The pressure he gave off was real. But what did he actually do? He killed monsters. He sold their cores. He registered as a hunter. He never actually threatened them directly. He just… existed, and his existence was on a completely different level from theirs.

He took a shaky breath.

"He was scary. Incredibly scary. His presence was so heavy it felt like my lungs were going to collapse just by being near him."

Jax nodded, a smirk on his face. "See? A threat. The boy is a coward, but he's not a complete idiot."

"But…"

Everyone in the room looked at him.

"But he wasn't malicious," he said, the words coming out in a rush. "When he talked to us, it wasn't a threat. It was just… a transaction. He needed something done, and he offered us a fair price to do it. He even let Pola negotiate for a bigger cut. He didn't have to do that."

He looked at the image of Luthra on the hologram.

"When he walked away, he just looked… I don't know. He wasn't arrogant. He wasn't proud. He was just a guy walking home after a long day of work. And his eyes… they were empty. It was like he was completely, utterly alone."

The room was silent.

Jax was the first to break it, scoffing loudly. "Loneliness?! Are you an idiot?! We're talking about a national security threat, not some sad boy in a storybook! He's a monster who is hiding his power!"

Liona did not say anything, she just tapped her finger on the holographic display, right on Luthra's face.

President Paulas leaned forward, his hands clasped together on the table. He looked at the unranked hunter on the screen, then back at Marco and Pola.

He made a decision.

"The hunt for this man is now cancelled."

Jax's head snapped toward him. "President! What are you saying?!"

"This is no longer a subjugation mission," Paulas continued, his voice calm but absolute. He pointed at the screen. "From this moment forward, Luthra is to be re-classified. He is not an unknown variable. He is a person of interest."

He looked at his assistant.

"Issue a new directive to all Association branches, effective immediately. The standing order is no longer to apprehend. It is to observe and, if possible, to recruit."

Then he looked directly at Jax.

"And Jax. Tell your hunters to stand down. This man is now under my personal jurisdiction. If any harm comes to him, I will hold you personally responsible."