Chapter 339: Bring Them Home

Morning came quietly to Mythal. There was no disaster waiting above the city, no crimson lightning, no black water, no frozen streets, no fire spreading across the horizon, no enormous objects falling from the sky. Just sunlight and rubble.

Kai stood on a damaged rooftop overlooking the city.

For the first time, he had enough time to actually look. Not glance. Not fight through it. Not run past it. Look.

Mythal was devastated.

The main roads were still recognizable, but huge sections had been torn apart, some streets split down the middle with deep cracks running through the pavement, others simply disappeared beneath collapsed buildings.

Several blocks were nothing more than piles of stone, metal, broken glass, and shattered wood. The defensive towers that had once stood over the city were damaged beyond recognition, some leaning dangerously to one side, others reduced to their foundations, the remaining ones blackened and cracked, their mana cores either empty or flickering weakly.

The floating relay platforms were in even worse condition, some fallen into buildings, others hanging crookedly in the air, barely functioning, a few simply vanished.

His eyes moved farther. The western district had suffered from the Black Flood, black stains still covering the lower streets, buildings that had once stood three or four stories high missing entire floors. The eastern district had been scarred by Burning Earth, the pavement warped and cracked, some sections melted into dark glass.

The northern streets were still covered in patches of White Frost, ice clinging to walls and broken machinery despite the sunlight.

Then there were the cuts, huge clean wounds carved across buildings and streets from the Golden Arsenal’s six spectral swords, some structures sliced straight through.

He stared at one building where half of the upper floor was simply gone. "...Damn."

He had seen all of it during the battle, but from the ground, surrounded by chaos, it had been different. Now he could see the scale. Mythal hadn’t just been damaged. It had been torn apart.

Footsteps approached behind him, and Mayor Ko stopped beside him, and for several seconds neither spoke, Ko looking across the city with an expression that stayed calm even as his eyes didn’t.

"How bad?" Kai asked.

"You already know," Ko said, letting out a slow breath.

"I want your assessment."

He looked toward the western district. "Twenty-three percent of the city’s major structures are either completely destroyed or structurally unsalvageable."

Kai’s eyebrows rose. "Twenty-three?"

"That’s the preliminary estimate." He pointed farther away. "Another thirty percent have significant structural damage."

"And the rest?"

"Standing." He paused. "Not necessarily safe."

"What about the roads?"

"Major routes are mostly damaged. Some can be repaired. Others will have to be rebuilt."

"The defensive network?"

"Functional."

"That’s a generous definition," Kai said.

Ko smiled faintly. "Very generous."

They stood in silence while below them workers moved through the streets, not rebuilding yet, not properly, surveying, measuring, clearing dangerous debris, marking unstable structures. A team of engineers argued over whether part of a collapsed building could be salvaged.

A group of Hunters carried enormous pieces of broken stone away from a major road, and another team pulled twisted metal from the remains of a defensive tower. The city had begun the long process of figuring out what could be saved.

A few streets away, Mira walked through what had once been a residential district and stopped beside a collapsed apartment building, the entire front section fallen inward, a few rooms still visible through the broken wall. A bed. A table. A child’s bookshelf.

She stared for a moment. One of the workers beside her lowered his head. "That building had forty-two apartments."

"Any survivors?"

"Everyone was evacuated before it collapsed."

"Good." She looked at the rubble again. "Then mark it for complete removal."

"All of it?" the worker asked, hesitating.

"All of it."

He nodded and began writing. Mira moved on, building after building, and everywhere she looked there were pieces of lives scattered through the ruins, a broken sign from a restaurant, a crushed vehicle, a shattered Hunter shop, a family photograph lying beneath a piece of concrete, a child’s toy covered in dust, a Hunter’s damaged shield, a street lamp bent nearly in half.

None of them were important individually. Together, they told the story of what had happened.

She stopped near a group of exhausted Hunters, one holding a clipboard. "How many blocks?"

"Six surveyed."

"And?"

"Three can be repaired." He pointed toward the street. "Two need partial reconstruction." Then he looked toward the enormous pile of rubble ahead. "One is..." He didn’t finish.

"Total loss?" she asked, and he nodded.

She looked at the destroyed street. "Then don’t waste time trying to save it."

"But—"

"We’re not rebuilding the old city," she said, turning toward him. "We’re rebuilding Mythal."

He stared at her, then slowly nodded. "Understood."

Elsewhere, in front of a damaged defensive relay, hair still messy from the disaster and dark circles beneath her eyes, Lily argued with three engineers, a tablet in hand.

"No."

"No?" one engineer frowned.

"The relay isn’t repairable."

"We can replace the core."

"That isn’t the problem." She pointed toward the damaged structure. "The frame is warped."

"We can reinforce it."

"Then the power distribution will be uneven."

"We can compensate."

"Then it’ll overload during the next disaster."

The three engineers fell silent.

"Don’t repair something just because we’re emotionally attached to it," Lily said.

One engineer looked at the destroyed relay. "...We built that."

"I know."

"We spent six months on it."

"I know." He looked miserable, and she softened. "I know." She placed a hand against the damaged structure. "But if it can’t protect people anymore, then we build something better."

He nodded. "Right."

She looked toward the ruined skyline. "Version Four."

The others looked at her, and she smiled tiredly. "Apparently we’re already working on it."

Nearby, maps spread across tables, construction estimates covering several boards, mana-flow diagrams pinned to walls, Elden had taken over an entire section of the main road.

A young engineer looked exhausted. "How long?"

He studied the figures. "Without additional assistance?"

"Yes."

He sighed. "At least eighteen months." Then he crossed something out. "Two years."

Another engineer looked at the map. "And that’s assuming we don’t get another Disaster."

Nobody said anything. That possibility had been sitting in everyone’s minds since the System first awakened. Another Disaster. Another attack. Another reason to rebuild only to watch everything collapse again.

Elden rubbed his forehead, and when he looked up, Kai was walking toward him, Mayor Ko following behind. "What happened?"

Kai looked at the maps. "How long?"

"Two years."

"Two years to rebuild everything?"

"That’s the optimistic estimate."

Kai nodded slowly, then remembered something. "Mayor. There was another reward. From the Third Disaster." Elden immediately looked up. "The System gave me six options. I could choose three."

"Go on," Ko said.

Kai told them. The Hunter equipment had already been upgraded, that part they had seen. The Guardian Core had strengthened the city’s defensive network, that had already begun showing results. But there had been one more reward. He opened his System interface.

[Mythal Reconstruction Authority]

For the next twelve months, construction and reconstruction within Mythal will receive System assistance. Construction speed increased by 300%. Material efficiency increased by 50%. Structural stability increased by 100%. Damaged infrastructure connected to the city’s defensive network may be automatically restored when sufficient materials are provided.

Elden stared. Ko read it twice, then a third time. "...Three hundred percent?"

"Construction speed," Kai said.

"Material efficiency?"

"Fifty percent."

"Structural stability?"

"Double."

Elden slowly turned toward the city, his entire expression changing. "Do you understand what this means?"

"Faster rebuilding?" Kai shrugged.

"Much faster." He grabbed the nearest calculations. "If we had to rebuild everything normally, we’d be looking at around two years."

"And with this?" Ko asked.

Elden began recalculating, his fingers moving rapidly across the tablet. "If the System assistance applies to all major construction... Eight months." He kept going. "Maybe less. With enough workers, enough materials, and the old plans..." His expression shifted into excitement. "Six."

"Six months?"

"Possibly." He looked toward the ruined city. "The material efficiency means our existing stockpiles go further. We can salvage more, rebuild faster, reinforce structures while they’re being reconstructed instead of doing separate reinforcement afterward. And the structural stability increase means we don’t just rebuild what was there." His smile widened. "We can build it better."

Ko remained silent, still staring across Mythal.

"Mayor?"

Six months. Maybe less. A city that had been expected to spend years recovering could potentially be standing again before the year was over. Not perfectly. Not untouched. But alive.

He slowly smiled. "Then we aren’t waiting."

"For what?"

"The builders." Ko nodded. "Bring them back."

The city had sent many of its construction teams away before the disasters. It had been necessary. Builders, architects, engineers, stoneworkers, metalworkers, relic technicians, people who could repair what Hunters could not, had been sent to other cities because Mythal couldn’t risk having all of its skilled workers caught inside the city if another Disaster struck. They had been waiting elsewhere, waiting for word, waiting to find out whether Mythal had survived.

Mayor Ko walked into the central command building, and officials turned toward him. He didn’t sit. "Open the construction registry."

An assistant immediately pulled it up. Thousands of names appeared. Every builder. Every architect. Every engineer. Every craftsman who had once called Mythal home.

"Should we call back only the senior teams?" an official asked carefully.

He shook his head. "All of them."

"All?"

He looked toward the window, beyond it the ruined city. "I want every builder."

"Some of them have already found temporary work elsewhere."

"Then contact them."

"Some may have families with them."

"Then bring their families too."

"Yes, Mayor."

He looked at the registry again. "Tell them Mythal survived." A quiet smile appeared on his face. "Tell them their city is waiting for them." Nobody spoke. Then he gave the final instruction. "Tell them to come home."

The message went out, one after another. Calls, letters, Hunter Association communications, government channels, private messages. Every construction team scattered across the continent received the same words.

MYTHAL SURVIVED. RECONSTRUCTION WILL BEGIN IMMEDIATELY. RETURN HOME.

In Astran Port, a construction team received the message while eating breakfast, and one of the workers froze staring at his communication device. "What?" the person beside him asked.

He slowly turned the screen around. "Read this."

The others leaned closer. Silence. Then someone whispered, "...Mythal survived."

"We knew they would," another worker smiled, and the woman at the end of the table stood immediately. "When do we leave?"

In Virelia City, an architect stared at the same message for several seconds. "Home."

His wife looked at him. "You’re going back?"

"Of course."

She laughed. "You haven’t even finished your coffee."

He stood. "I can drink it on the way."

In Hollow Reach, a group of engineers gathered around their message, and one of them frowned. "Six months? The reconstruction estimate." He read it again. "How?" Nobody knew. Then one engineer smiled. "Does it matter?" He picked up his bag. "My city needs engineers."

In Nexum City, a relic technician received the message while working in a laboratory, staring at it, then looking around, then back at the message.

Her supervisor noticed. "Go."

"Sir?"

"Go home."

"But the project—"

"We’ll find another technician." He smiled. "You’ve been talking about Mythal for months."

"...Yeah."

"Then stop talking." He waved toward the door. "Go rebuild it."

She laughed. "Thank you."

Back in Mythal, Mayor Ko stood at the window of the command building, watching the first rubble-clearing teams still at work below, carts moving through the streets, Hunters carrying debris, engineers marking structures, medical teams finishing their final inspections, civilians slowly returning to damaged homes. Nothing had been rebuilt yet, not really, and the city still looked broken. But for the first time since the Disaster, Ko wasn’t looking at the ruins. He was looking past them, at what would come after.

Kai stood beside him. "You sure?"

"About what?"

"Bringing everyone back."

Ko smiled. "You gave us the ability to rebuild faster. The System gave us the opportunity." He looked at Kai. "But the people are the ones who will rebuild it."

"That’s what I was hoping you’d say."

Ko chuckled. "You thought I was going to ask you to do it?"

"No."

"Good." He turned back toward the window. "You’re already doing enough." For a moment, neither spoke. Then he looked at the ruined skyline again. "Mythal doesn’t belong to one Hunter." His voice was quiet. "It doesn’t belong to the City Leader." He smiled. "It belongs to everyone who lives here."

Below them, another cart rolled through the street, and a worker shouted, "Clear!" as the rubble was pulled aside, the road beneath it appearing, broken, cracked, but still there.

Ko watched, then smiled. "We survived." He straightened. "Now we rebuild."

Outside, another message was delivered, another builder received it, another worker packed their belongings, another architect booked a route home, another engineer closed their suitcase.

Across the continent, people who had left Mythal began turning back toward it, not because they had been ordered to, not because they had been summoned as soldiers, but because their city was calling them home.

Mayor Ko looked toward the ruined skyline one last time. "Bring them home." Then he turned away from the window. "We’re rebuilding Mythal."