"He allowed me to leave after the investigation was over...."
"But.... damn, that was the worst*
....
"You can leave if you want," Leo spoke, lighting a cigarette.
"Thank you!" Kuro spoke.
Kuro left immediately and walked forward.
"Good that the investigation is over. Now I need to get out of here and talk to__"
"Wait a minute, how do I get out of here?"
"Do I use the same entrance route?"
Kuro looked back and saw it was completely closed.
"Damn, I must use another exit route. But where?"
Kuro was standing in the middle of the path, walking. There were many agents walking in different directions. He felt completely lost, and he saw...
"Hey, this path no one takes, maybe it's the way out of here!" he thought.
As Kuro walked in that direction, some people gave him strange looks and sighed.
"Hmm, what's wrong with their looks? They're looking at me not with hatred but with pity? That's weird.... why?"
Kuro walked on, not noticing a danger sign, and continued forward. He reached a vast white room containing many dolls and toys scattered all over the place.
"Strange, what's all this? Did I go the wrong way? Damn! Just where?__"
"You!" a voice shouted.
"Yes? What? Who__"
Kuro looked and glanced down, seeing an 8-year-old girl staring at him with innocent curiosity.
"A kid? Why is a little girl like her here?" Kuro thought.
"Cat boy!" the girl shouted joyfully.
"Hey, what the__"
In the blink of an eye, she reached him, grabbed his tail, and hugged him tightly.
"It's so furry," the girl spoke.
"What the hell, let me go," Kuro spoke, trying to get her away from his tail.
"What the hell, I can't get her off!?!".... Is that girl... could she be a hunter? And at such a young age?" Kuro was shocked.
Kuro's expression changed slightly, and he calmed down a bit, letting out a silly sigh.
"You?" Kuro spoke quietly.
"Mmmm," the girl mumbled.
"You, little girl, are a hunter, right?"
"Ahmm," the girl replied.
"I'm a hunter too (Kuro pointed to himself). So, can you tell me where__"
"You're a hunter!" she interrupted him, got in front of him in an instant, and grabbed his cheeks, looking at his face.
"Yes, I'm a hunter. Can you show me__"
"Really!?"
"Yes.....?" Kuro answered.
"What can you do?! Can you fly? Can you breathe fire?!"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down a little. Hunters aren't superheroes."
"Whhaaat? But he told me they were like heroes."
"They aren't exactly superheroes. They do that thanks to their Awakened abilities or by using magic. They are hunters. If it were like that, the name would be superheroes, not hunters."
"That's boring. Hey, did you say magic? Does that mean you can use magic?"
"Yes, but I can barely use it. I'm a complete beginner in this field."
"Can you show me magic? Please? Please? Please?" the girl begged.
"Alright, but can you step back a little?" Kuro spoke.
"Oh, okay," the girl replied.
Kuro formed a snowflake the size of a baseball in his palm, and then it popped.
"Wow, show me more! More?" she spoke.
"Will you tell me where the exit is? If I do this?" Kuro asked.
"Umm..." the girl thought and spun around before turning back to Kuro. "Yes! Just show me how?"
"Okay, this will be the last time," Kuro spoke.
Kuro showed her magic orbs of ice, fire, lightning, water, darkness, light. He made them fly up about two meters and then popped them in the air like small fireworks. After Kuro finished, he was sweating profusely and very tired.
"Damn___ oh my god, this is so tiring. I can barely do this."
"Wow!" the girl clapped, completely amazed.
"I wish I could do that."
"You know you're a hunter, right? So surely you can use magic," Kuro asked.
"I can do that?! Please tell me how," she begged while hugging his leg.
"Hmm, it's a bit complicated, and I'm bad at teaching...."
"Well, magic is like... a thought, yes, a thought. You feel like there's something like water flowing through your body, right? Move it with your will, then visualize the thing you want in your imagination, and it will materialize."
"Oooooooh," the girl spoke as if she understood what he meant.
"Yeah, good. So please, can you tell me where the exit is?"
"Ah, go left to a big yellow room, then go to the elevator."
"Thank you, goodbye."
As Kuro was leaving, the girl grabbed him.
"What?" Kuro asked, worried she would ask for something else.
"You haven't told me your name yet?" the girl asked innocently.
"My name is Kuro, girl. And you?" Kuro answered.
"Nina, my name is Nina Fisher."
"Okay, Nina. Time is up."
"Can't you come back to play with me?" Nina asked.
"Why? You can go out from here. Don't you know the exit? Go out and play as you like," Kuro spoke.
"No, the adults said I'm dangerous, and... and... people were scared of me. Everyone is scared of me," Nina spoke.
"Well, maybe that's because you're a hunter," Kuro spoke.
"Is that a bad thing?" Nina asked.
"It's not about what others think of you."
"It depends on what you think of yourself, Nina. What do you think you are?"
"I... maybe a monster," Nina spoke sadly.
"Pfftt, hahaha," Kuro laughed heartily.
"What are you laughing at!" Nina pouted.
"Girl, you're talking to a wolf boy and a hunter. What do you think people see me as? Everyone who faces me sees me as a demon. What about you? Maybe they see you as nothing more than a child, but a monster?"
"Girl, you've never seen the outside world even once, have you?"
"No! I have been outside before."
"But it wasn't for long."
The girl looked down.
"Listen, there are monsters out there beyond your imagination. I can't even describe them to you," Kuro spoke.
"So what should I do?" Nina asked.
"I don't know. Do what you want. It's your life. Decide for yourself," Kuro answered as he left.
As Kuro was leaving, there was a camera monitoring his entire interaction with that little girl.
"Now this is interesting," Leo spoke while in a room with surveillance cameras monitoring everything in this place.
"Colonel Leo, how did you know he would go there?" the camera operator asked.
"Going in a different direction that people don't take is an unconscious feeling a person does when thinking about an exit route, even if they are a hunter."
"I see. But wasn't it a dangerous gamble that you did this? What if he did something to her?"
"As if he could do anything to her. Everyone knows what that girl is capable of. She could wipe out the city if she wanted to," Leo spoke confidently.
"You're right, but why did you make them meet?"
"She hasn't interacted well with people. Whenever they interacted with her, they were either scared or cautious. Continuing her life inside this place will make her completely isolated from the outside."
"And it occurred to me, since he's the person who helped us, why not make them meet? I wanted to see how they would interact, but this is unexpected."
"For a moment, I thought he would be afraid of her, but he didn't. Either he was confident, or he simply didn't notice her magical energy."
"But he told her the method, even if it was a bit wrong. Do you think she will learn magic?"
"Maybe, but that's after many years. Learning magic takes years, even for geniuses. I've lived and seen hunters take years to learn magic."
"I mean, look at him. He can barely use magic, even though it flows through his body so easily."
"You're right."
...
"Finally, welcome home___"
Kuro saw that his room was completely destroyed.
"Oh crap, I forgot about this," Kuro thought.
"Kuro Lancern," a voice spoke from behind him.
"Oh, hello Mr. Olson. Don't worry about me trying to skip payment. Here's my card with 10,000 U.G.C," Kuro replied confidently.
"But it doesn't cover the destruction costs you caused during the fight," Olson replied.
"Wait, what? How much does that cost?" Kuro asked worriedly.
"Here is the bill." He gave him the bill.
"Let me see.... What? What the hell, how am I going to pay all this!?" Kuro shouted in shock.
"I'll give you two weeks," Olson replied as he left.
"You monster!" Kuro shouted.
"Kuro, just go outside and clear some Gates."
"But there are no more Gates!" Kuro shouted.
"There's always one. You know which one," Olson replied coldly.
"Isn't there another option?" Kuro asked.
"Stop being lazy now. You dealt with those; it's not hard for you to deal with them," Olson answered.
"Fair enough," Kuro spoke.
"And also, your new room is on the second floor, apartment number 213."
"Thank you," Kuro answered.
"Don't thank me. Thank me when you finish your work," Olson spoke as he left.
"(Sigh) Alright."
.....
In The Dog Pit...
Nina was sitting in her room, which looked like a large nursery. She was looking at her hands, thinking about something.
"Decide for yourself."
"I.... what should I decide for myself?"
"To live here, or....."
Inhale....
Nina took a deep breath and thought about what Kuro said.
"Just imagine, Nina, what do I want to do?"
Whoosh! Suddenly, a massive ice storm formed, growing every second and freezing almost everything. Everyone was shocked by what happened here.
[Warning]
[Warning]
[Warning]
"I want... to talk to people. I want to laugh with people."
Nina stepped forward and disappeared from the camera's view in an instant, appearing somewhere outside the facility, on top of the Freedom Tower.
"I.... I want freedom."
...
"What just happened?!" Leo shouted.
"It's Nina, sir. She's gone."
"Gone? What do you mean she's gone?" Leo asked.
"She disappeared. There are no signs of her on the cameras," the camera operator spoke.
"Do you mean she went outside again?"
"No, sir. She used magic!" the camera operator spoke.
"What??!!!?!?!" Leo asked in shock.
"Did she learn magic just from taking a small piece of advice!?"
"But it was just an idea, and yet she applied it so easily?!"
"Sir, what should we do?"
"This is the worst. I didn't expect that he would make her like this. That girl could accidentally destroy the city. She is...."
"Nina Fisher, a hunter of Rank X."
.....
And somewhere else....
There was a boy with orange hair and bandages on his head, looking at the Olson apartment building with an excited and suspicious expression.
"Waaah, (sneeze) So this is the place where I can draw my destiny, Orange Man?"
"Yes..." a voice spoke from his head.
"Well, here we go!"
It was the beginning of change, and the beginning of a new era.