Chapter 1
I spent three years in the squad — three years carrying them to the top of the S-rank hero league. And their reward? They decided my B-rank rating wasn't good enough, and brought in an A-rank support to replace me. Fine. I'm done pretending. The truth is, I'm S-rank.
Chapter 1
The toxic rain over Crimson City had just let up, leaving the C-rank mutation zone reeking of sulfur.
"Chad! Suppressive fire, three o'clock! Chloe, fall back five meters and reload!"
I knelt in the muddy rubble, one eye locked on the red blips crawling across the holographic tactical radar, while my other hand sent a freshly prepared high-grade adrenaline booster sliding across the ground toward the heavy assault fighter up front.
Five years. For five years, it had been my job to haul a sixty‑kilogram supply pack at the rear of the formation, read the battlefield, and hold everything together. Five years as the B‑rank logistics support of Alpha Squad.
The sweep was almost over. Three aerial drones were broadcasting our victory live to the entire globe from every angle, no blind spots. Then the holo‑radar let out a piercing shriek.
Beep — ! Warning! Unidentified high‑energy entity has breached the perimeter!
My head snapped up. From a warped pocket of space on the right, a creature covered in invisible scales — a Stealth Slayer — tore its camouflage wide open. With calculated cunning, it sidestepped Chad at the front and launched itself straight at me at the back of the formation.
"Victoria!" The shout tore out of me on instinct.
Less than ten meters away, suspended in midair, was the squad leader herself — Victoria, the A‑rank elemental mage her fans worshipped as the Nation's Goddess. At her casting speed, a single raised hand would send an ice lance through that creature's skull before it could blink. She could pull me out of this.
I watched her turn her head.
Those beautiful eyes reflected the monster's slashing claws. They reflected me, a heartbeat away from death.
She didn't move.
She didn't just fail to move — she turned away entirely, tilting her profile toward the close‑up drone in the perfect angle, as if she hadn't heard a thing.
Schhhk — !
The sound of flesh tearing apart rang in my ears.
The Slayer's claws punched through my abdomen like a red‑hot lance. A shock of agony exploded through me, cold and total, flooding straight to my brain. A grunt escaped me. A mouthful of blood — thick with fragments of things that should never see daylight — surged up and spilled across the gleaming Alpha Squad emblem on my chest, staining it red.
The force of the impact pinned me to a collapsed load‑bearing wall.
My vision was going dark from blood loss when a brilliant bolt of lightning finally cracked open the air above me.
"Arthur, hold on — I'm coming for you!"
Victoria's voice rang out, full of urgency and noble resolve. The lightning struck true, hitting the Stealth Slayer square in the back, reducing the creature to ash in an instant.
I slid down the wall and crumpled to the ground. My hands clamped over the through‑and‑through wound in my stomach, and I gasped, great heaving breaths. Blood poured out of me without slowing, pooling beneath me in a spreading dark‑red hollow.
"Live broadcast signal terminated." The automated alert chimed in the tactical channel.
The tears on Victoria's face — performed so flawlessly for the cameras just moments ago — vanished the instant the red indicator light went dark. She smoothed a crease from her robe that wasn't there, walked over to me, and looked down.
"You disappoint me, Arthur." Her voice was as cold as a piece of broken equipment being signed off for disposal. "You really do."
I held her gaze through eyes that were shot through with blood.
The pain in my abdomen was nearly enough to strip my mind bare, but the rage burning in my chest — and the chill underneath it — hurt worse than the wound.
"You... That was deliberate. You could have saved me. You wanted the camera angle. You wanted an excuse—"
"An excuse? Do I need an excuse? Look at yourself. A B‑rank logistics support who couldn't dodge a C‑rank creature's ambush — slow reflexes, clumsy footing, nearly making the entire squad look incompetent on a live global broadcast. Alpha Squad enters the S‑rank league next month. There is no room in this squad for dead weight like you."
As her words settled, Chad and Chloe pulled back from the front. Behind them walked a girl with golden hair and a pretty face, dressed in top‑tier A‑rank support gear, a healing staff of the highest grade in her hand, and the core insignia of the Apex conglomerate pinned to her chest.
"Darling, is this the geezer you mentioned? The one who's been taking up a slot in the back row?" The girl covered her mouth with a giggle, casting a fastidious glance at the blood pooled on the ground. "God, he's made such a mess."
"This is Serena. The next‑generation A‑rank amplifier the conglomerate has assigned to us." Victoria delivered her verdict without a flicker of hesitation. "Arthur. Hand over your access card and leave Alpha Squad."
I sat there holding my bleeding wound, looking at these people I had fought beside for five years, and felt something shift inside me — a profound absurdity, and a laugh rising up through it.
"Leave..." I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached, the muscles in my face twitching with barely controlled fury. "Victoria. Hand on your heart — who, in these five years, was actually dragging whom down?"
"Shut up." Victoria's brow creased. She looked at me with open disgust.
"Five years ago." I forced myself upright out of the pool of blood, pushing past the agony of my wound. I swayed — but my spine stayed straight. "Five years ago, your father, old Monte, ignored my tactical plan and went charging ahead solo trying to grab a high‑grade mutation core. He walked straight into a corpse‑swarm trap because he couldn't keep his greed in check. He died gripping my hand, begging me — his youngest brother in arms — to get you out of the slums. Begging me to look after you."
A violent cough racked through me. I looked at Victoria, whose face had gone alternately white and gray, and kept going, each word dragged up from somewhere deeper than my lungs.
"For that one dying request — for that single act of misplaced faith — I spent five years as this squad's invisible shield. Every red‑zone incursion: who was out front taking the hits so you didn't have to? Who was up all night plotting the retreat routes? I brought you here, to the threshold of the S‑rank leagues. And this is how you repay it — letting a monster run me through on a live broadcast and then kicking me out the door while I'm still bleeding?"
Silence fell over the group.
Chad's rough brow furrowed. His eyes slid away. Chloe's gaze drifted somewhere to the left of me. Everyone there knew the truth: without me as their tireless support backbone, this pampered roster of all‑stars would have died more times than they could count.
But guilt, it turned out, had the shelf life of wet paper.
Victoria drew a long breath, and the last trace of warmth left her eyes entirely. "So what? I paid you a premium salary for five years. Without the Alpha Squad name behind you, a B‑rank nobody with no connections is worth less than the mutant rats in Crimson City's sewer system. Whatever debt I owed my father — I've repaid it, with interest. We're moving forward now. You have no right to keep bleeding us dry."
Bleeding them dry.
I laughed.
The movement pulled at the muscles around my wound, and a fresh trickle of blood ran free — but I couldn't feel it anymore. Because whatever remained of my feeling for this squad had just died with those words, cleanly and completely.
I didn't beg. I didn't bargain.
I raised my blood‑soaked right hand, grabbed the steel second‑in‑command badge on my chest, and ripped it free.
It hit the rubble at Victoria's feet with a small, hollow ring.
"You're right. Today is exactly the day our five‑year contract expires." There was no humility on my pale face — only the cold, unyielding resolve that belongs to veterans who've seen too much to flinch. "From this moment on, my life is my own. I kept my promise to old Monte. Alpha Squad — we owe each other nothing."
I took one long last look at all of them, then turned, pressed one hand to my abdomen, and walked into the dark red fog. My steps were heavy. They didn't waver.
Behind me, a brief moment of unease broke the surface.
"Captain..." Chad's eyes followed my retreating figure, and something instinctive stirred in him. "With Arthur gone — the camp night watches, the monster weakness analysis, the tactical radar maintenance — how do we handle all that?"
"Chad, what are you worrying about?"
Serena smiled brightly. She gave her expensive staff a casual wave, and a warm, golden A‑rank healing aura bloomed outward, washing over everyone, lifting the exhaustion from their bones.
"With an A‑rank support right here, who needs logistics planning? My detection skills are a hundred times better than that old man's busted radar!"
The healing energy settled into Chad's muscles. He relaxed visibly, patted his stomach, and let out a broad, dismissive laugh.
"Ha! She's right! Dragging around a washed‑up B‑rank geezer and he actually started thinking he was something special! Captain, forget him — let him bleed out alone in the red zone!"
"Exactly. All that dramatic staggering around. He won't make it two kilometers before the wild dogs pick him clean." Chloe's sneer followed close behind.
Their mockery drifted after me on the cold wind, in broken pieces, and I let it wash past without a ripple. I kept walking, steady, toward the safety zone.
Out near the dangerous edge of the red zone, the blood pouring from my abdomen was steadily pulling the warmth from my body. Death was close enough to whisper in my ear.
But inside, I was remarkably calm.
And in the depths of the retina of my left eye, something that no one else could ever see began to stir — a faint, eerie glow, cold and blue as a deep‑sea current.
Rule Modification — wound regeneration rate: increased by a factor of one hundred.
In an instant, the bleeding stopped. Flesh and tissue knit themselves back together at a speed the eye couldn't follow. In less than a minute, the wound was gone without a trace — nothing left but a combat suit with a large hole torn through it, and blood that had already dried, the only testimony to Alpha Squad's betrayal.
No one in the squad ever knew. My real ability wasn't B‑rank combat support.
It was S‑rank Rule Modification.
