Chapter 28: The Show-Off

The enormous reinforced doors of O.R.D.O. Headquarters slid apart, and Jet stepped back into the busy plaza with both hands buried inside the pockets of his tactical hoodie.

The morning sun had climbed considerably higher while he was inside, casting long reflections across the surrounding glass towers and filling the Awakener District with the usual rush of traffic, advertisements, pedestrians, and armed Awakeners moving between businesses.

Jet barely paid attention to any of it.

He had made it less than twenty meters from the entrance before his right hand slipped back into his pocket and pulled out the two cards he had already examined at least five times since receiving them.

The Raider License rested on top, its dark metallic crimson surface catching the sunlight as Jet tilted it between his fingers.

A small holographic security emblem shimmered above one corner before disappearing whenever he changed the angle, while his photograph and registration information remained perfectly visible across the front.

He turned the card over, examined the embedded O.R.D.O. verification strip, flipped it back again, and found himself staring at the same information for absolutely no reason.

O.R.D.O. — RAIDER LICENSE

Name: Jethro Saint-Clair

Star Rank: 1-Star

Raider Rank: F

Jet’s mouth gradually curved upward.

He slid the Raider License underneath the Walker License and repeated almost the exact same pointless examination.

The black-violet card carried his name, photograph, Star Rank, F-Rank Walker classification, and active registration status. It was ridiculous. They were only two pieces of identification, yet Jet couldn’t stop looking at them.

For ten years, he had watched professional Awakeners casually flash cards like these at security checkpoints while he stood somewhere behind them carrying bags, supplies, monster-processing equipment, or whatever else the Guild had decided he was useful for that day. Back then, he had pretended not to care.

After all, what was the point of envying something he could never obtain?

Now he had both.

A Raider.

A Walker.

Jet looked at his name again and smiled so foolishly that a passing woman gave him a strange glance before continuing on her way. He immediately cleared his throat, returned both licenses to his pocket, and forced his expression back into something resembling normal.

"They’re just licenses," he muttered beneath his breath as he started walking across the plaza. He made it approximately fifteen steps before touching his pocket again to make sure they were still there.

His phone suddenly vibrated.

Jet pulled it out, glanced at the caller identification, and saw Frey’s name across the screen.

He answered while weaving around a group of armored Raiders heading toward the O.R.D.O. entrance. "What’s up?"

"Where the hell are you?" Frey’s voice immediately blasted through the speaker with enough volume that Jet instinctively pulled the phone slightly away from his ear.

There was noise in the background, followed by what sounded suspiciously like an engine accelerating. "I’ve called you twice already. Don’t tell me you disappeared into the Beyond again without saying anything."

"I was inside O.R.D.O. registering," Jet replied, glancing back toward the monolithic tower behind him. "I just finished. I’m outside the headquarters in the Awakener District."

There was a short pause before Frey immediately responded, "Perfect. Don’t move. Actually, forget that. There’s a coffee shop about two blocks east of O.R.D.O., right across from the Valorian Guild building. Go there, order something, sit your ass down, and wait for me. I’m coming."

Jet’s eyebrows pulled together. "Why? Where are you right..."

The call disconnected.

Jet lowered the phone and stared at the screen.

"...This idiot."

There was no point calling him back. Jet knew from experience that Frey would either ignore the call simply to annoy him or answer and say something even more useless.

With a resigned shake of his head, Jet slipped the phone away and followed the street signs eastward. He found the coffee shop without much difficulty, occupying the ground floor of a sleek commercial building opposite a towering Guild headquarters.

The place was considerably more expensive-looking than the neighborhood café where Miriam had dumped him a month ago, with warm wooden interiors, dark leather seating, polished stone counters, and an entire glass wall overlooking the avenue.

Judging by the weapons casually resting beside several customers, the café primarily catered to Awakeners and the corporate workers surrounding the district.

Jet chose a table beside the glass wall after ordering a large black coffee and enough pastries to make the cashier look at him twice. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the smell of warm bread reached him.

His body had been through an absurd amount of punishment during the last two days, and although the System had somehow accelerated the recovery of the wounds he suffered against the Vorpal Bunny, the energy required to rebuild damaged muscle, skin, and tissue had apparently left his appetite completely unreasonable.

He demolished one pastry before his coffee had even cooled, reached for another, and leaned back into the chair as he watched the Awakener District moving outside.

Now that his registration was complete, the immediate list of problems waiting for him had become painfully obvious. Money was still near the top.

The millions he had borrowed before the Second Red Moon had served their purpose, but loans didn’t magically disappear just because his gamble had succeeded.

His apartment was mortgaged, he had borrowed five million from Frey, and several far less respectable lenders were probably already wondering when Jethro Saint-Clair intended to begin making payments.

Fortunately, he now had something he hadn’t possessed when he took those debts.

Access.

Jet’s fingers tapped lightly against his coffee cup as he thought about the contents of his System Inventory. Monster Cores were valuable, even at the Lesser grade.

The harvested materials from the Vorpal Bunny could also be sold, although he would need to check current market prices before allowing some merchant to cheat him.

Then there was the Vorpal Blade. Selling the Relic wasn’t even under consideration. A weapon capable of reducing wind resistance and accelerating his attack line by twenty-five percent was far more valuable in his hands than whatever amount of money someone offered him for it.

Beyond that, he needed proper equipment before returning to the Thousand Boughs. His first Descent had been reckless enough to qualify as attempted suicide.

He had entered an unknown wilderness wearing ordinary clothes and carrying absolutely nothing, then fought multiple monsters using a broken piece of ironwood because he hadn’t even bothered to buy a knife.

If the Vorpal Bunny had been slightly stronger, Inez would have spent yesterday waiting for a brother who was never coming home.

Jet’s expression tightened briefly at the thought before he took another drink of coffee.

"Armor, medical supplies, survival equipment, harvesting tools..." he murmured, mentally constructing a list. "And I need to figure out exactly what these cores can do before I waste any of them."

He had barely finished the thought when an unusual commotion began outside.

At first, Jet ignored it. The Awakener District was filled with expensive vehicles, famous Raiders, Guild personnel, and enough strange sights that people stopping on the sidewalk wasn’t particularly unusual.

Then several customers inside the café started turning toward the glass wall. A young woman sitting two tables away abruptly raised her phone, and another customer stood from his chair to get a better view.

Jet frowned and looked outside.

A hypercar was slowly pulling toward the curb.

Even Jet, whose interest in luxury vehicles was almost nonexistent, had to admit that the machine looked ridiculous. Its body sat extremely low to the ground, shaped around a sharp aerodynamic frame with almost no unnecessary edges.

The paint was a deep midnight purple that appeared completely black whenever it passed through shadow, only revealing the violet undertone when sunlight moved across the panels.

Two narrow crimson headlights stretched along the aggressive front profile like narrowed eyes, while enormous exposed silver rims rotated slowly beneath the wheel arches. Near the rear, a Mana-assisted exhaust system released a faint blue-white shimmer that distorted the air behind it.

The car didn’t produce the violent mechanical roar Jet expected. Instead, its Mana-hybrid engine gave off a deep turbine-like growl that seemed to travel through the pavement more than the air, drawing even more attention as it stopped directly outside the café.

Two young men on the sidewalk immediately froze.

"Holy shit, is that a Vanta XR-9?" one of them blurted, already pulling out his phone as he stepped closer to the curb.

His friend stared at the car for several seconds before shaking his head. "No way. An Asterion Vanta XR-9? They only made five hundred of those."

"Five hundred? Bro, forget that and look at the rear Mana-drive." The first guy zoomed his camera toward the back of the vehicle, excitement rising in his voice. "That’s the Blackline configuration. You can’t even order that normally."

The second guy lowered his phone just enough to glance sideways at him. "How much does something like this even cost?"

"More than your house."

"...Fuck you."

More phones appeared around them. People slowed down, and several pedestrians openly began recording as the hypercar sat there humming quietly beneath the morning sun.

Jet stared through the glass.

For some reason, a terrible suspicion had already entered his mind.

Then both doors moved.

They rose upward in a smooth mechanical motion, spreading above the vehicle like wings.

A polished black shoe touched the pavement first.

A young man stepped out.

He was tall enough to stand out without appearing bulky, his physique lean and athletic beneath an expensive cream-colored jacket worn over a fitted black shirt.

Dark tailored trousers fell neatly over polished shoes, while several thin rings decorated the fingers of his left hand. His black hair had been styled into the kind of deliberate mess that probably required an unreasonable amount of time to make look effortless.

A long silver cross-shaped earring hung from his left ear, swaying gently when he turned his head, and his face possessed the irritatingly clean features of someone who had spent his entire life being told he was handsome.

Then he smiled.

A single gold tooth flashed between perfectly white teeth.

Several girls standing near the entrance audibly gasped.

"Oh my God..."

"He’s so handsome."

"Is he a Raider?" 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

One girl was already recording him when the young man noticed her phone. Rather than becoming uncomfortable like a normal human being, he immediately turned toward the camera, raised two fingers beside his face, and gave her a perfect grin.

The girl squealed.

That only encouraged him.

He blew a kiss toward another group of women, casually leaned against the side of his absurdly expensive hypercar for several seconds as people took photographs, then straightened his jacket and waved at the growing crowd as though he had just arrived at a movie premiere specifically organized in his honor.

Jet watched the entire performance from behind the café glass without moving.

His coffee remained halfway toward his mouth.

Several long seconds passed.

He slowly lowered the cup onto the table and stared at his childhood friend shamelessly posing beside the Asterion while another girl screamed after receiving a wink.

Jet closed his eyes and shook his head.

"...What a fucking show-off."