The walk home felt longer than the dungeon itself. My boots, still caked in the drying, grey sludge of the sewer, made a heavy thud-clack against the cracked pavement of the industrial district. Every time a car drove past, its headlights catching the tattered, blood-stained edges of my hoodie, I flinched, pulling my shoulders inward.
I was ¥15,000 richer, but I felt like a ghost walking through a city that had already forgotten I existed.
I reached my apartment—a "shoebox" unit in a building that looked like it was held together by rust and prayer. I didn't even bother turning on the flickering overhead light. I just sat on the edge of my thin, lumpy mattress, the smell of wet dog, copper, and stagnant sewer water filling the cramped space. The silence of the room was heavy, broken only by the scratching of my swarm beneath my clothes.
"I can't keep living like this," I whispered to the dark. "Barely alive. Running from N-Rankers in cafes. Scraping for pennies in K-Rank holes while the world moves on without me."
I pulled out my phone, the cracked screen stinging my thumb with every swipe. I started searching for something—anything—that wasn't the sanitized, useless garbage in the Association's official handbooks. I dug through obscure, bottom-tier forums, past the gloating of Country-Rankers and the gear-check threads for people with more money than sense. I looked for anything on how a Skill actually grows when you don't have the funds for high-tier artifacts.
Most of it was nonsense from people who had never stepped foot in a Gate. Then, I saw it. A thread on a fringe board titled: [LMAO LOOK AT THIS CRAZY GEEZER IN SHINJUKU].
The post was a video of an old, homeless man sitting on a cardboard crate near the west exit of the station. He was surrounded by piles of trash, his eyes clouded over with thick, milky cataracts. The comments were all mocking him, calling him a "Kino-tier loon."
"He told me the world is gonna end soon. Then he told me to 'stop swinging my sword and start being the sword.' What a nutcase." "He's been there for weeks. Sits at [Address in Shinjuku]. Claims he knows things about the future."
"Stop swinging... start being."
The words echoed in my head, over and over. It was a long shot. A crazy, desperate shot. But it was the only lead I had that didn't involve a bank account I didn't possess.
The train ride to the Shinjuku district was a blur of neon advertisements and "Civilian Only" zones. I stood in the corner of the carriage, my arms crossed tightly over my chest to hide the pulsing movement of the forty-eight rats tucked into the folds of my hoodie. When I arrived at the address, the city's roar narrowed down into a quiet, shadowed alleyway tucked behind a massive, gleaming skyscraper.
There he was.
The old man looked like he was carved out of ancient driftwood. His skin was a map of deep wrinkles, and his white hair was a tangled nest of filth and age. He wasn't begging for change. He was just... sitting. His mouth moved in a silent, rhythmic chant that sent a chill down my spine.
"We're all going to die," he muttered as I approached. "The sky will break, and the floor will rot. We're all going to die."
I stopped five feet away. The air in the alley felt cold, as if the shadows themselves were pressing in on us.
"Why?" I asked. My voice sounded small against the backdrop of the city. "Why will we all die?"
The old man's head snapped toward me with a speed that didn't match his frail frame. He was blind—I could see the milky film over his pupils—but he didn't just look at me. He looked through me. He stared at the space where my heart was, as if he could see the very essence of my Skill.
"The future is set," he said, his voice surprisingly clear and authoritative. "The gates aren't just opening, boy; they're leaking. And the leak is becoming a flood that will drown the world."
He went back to his muttering, but I stepped closer, my fists clenched. "Wait. I saw the post. People said you know things. I need to know... how do I get stronger? My mastery is stuck. I'm a Kino. I'm nothing in this world."
The old man chuckled, a dry, wheezing sound that turned into a cough. "How do you get stronger? It's simple, really. Simple, and yet none of you 'Hunters' can do it because you're all so obsessed with your toys. You treat your skills like tools. Like hammers or screwdrivers."
He leaned forward, those sightless eyes pinning me to the spot.
"Embody your skill, boy. Don't just use it and its abilities. Focus on its name. Focus on its class. Train with it instead of training it. Respect your skill like you respect yourself. If you are the Rat King, then stop being the boy who commands rats. Be the King."
I blinked, my mind racing. I wanted to ask what that even meant in practice. "But how do I—"
"And for your next question," the old man interrupted, his voice cutting through my thoughts, "I answered the second one because I saw you ask it three minutes ago in the threads of what is to come."
I froze. I hadn't even opened my mouth to ask how he knew my second question. My blood ran cold.
"My skill is Foresight," he said, waving a gnarled hand as if dismissing a fly. "Now go. I've told you everything you need to know to get stronger. The rest is just... work. And blood."
He slumped back against the brick wall and closed his eyes. I stood there for a long time, the weight of his words sinking into my bones. Embody the skill. Be the King.
I didn't take the train back. I ran. I ran until my lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass, my mind looping over his advice.
When I got back to my apartment, I didn't go to sleep. I let all forty-eight rats out. They flooded the tiny floor, a living, breathing sea of grey fur. Usually, I just gave them mental pings—attack this, jump here, form a weapon.
"No," I whispered, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "We aren't tools."
I picked up one rat. A small one with a notched ear. I didn't force it to do anything with a command. I just looked at it. I tried to feel its pulse, the raw, physical reality of its existence.
"Jump," I said aloud. No mental trigger. Just the intent.
The rat tilted its head, its whiskers twitching. I focused on the idea of a jump. Not the "Rat Jump" ability, but the essence of the animal's natural movement. The rat chirped and leaped—not just a normal hop, but a focused, explosive burst that hit the ceiling with a dull thud.
"Again. But together."
I spent hours in that dark room. I didn't sleep. I pushed them to do unique, complex tasks. I made one group weave themselves into a "Rat Net" while another practiced "Rat Jump" horizontally off the peeling wallpaper. I tried to maintain a Rat Blade while simultaneously using a Rat Jump with my legs—feeling the raw physical strain of holding a weapon while my muscles were coiled for a launch. Without any magical buffer to help, it was pure, agonizing mental willpower and physical grit.
It was grueling. My head throbbed, and my eyes felt like they were being pushed out of my skull. But I felt the "threads" between me and the swarm thickening. They weren't just following orders anymore; they were anticipating my needs.
Mastery: 41.7% -> 44.5%
Only 0.4% after six hours of hellish training. But this felt different. It felt dense. It felt earned.
As the sun began to peek through the grime of my single window, casting a pale light over the sea of rats, I stood up. My body was stiff and my joints popped, but I felt a strange, quiet confidence. I needed to test this. I couldn't stay in this room.
I stepped out of my apartment, the rusty door creaking on its hinges. The industrial zone was quiet, the smell of burnt rubber and old grease hanging in the morning air. I took one step toward the street—just one.
The air in front of me didn't crack. It ripped.
A rift of jagged, violet-black energy tore open directly in the path of my next footstep. My heart stopped. I recognized that color instantly from the manuals. Light blue was Y-Rank. Dark blue was K-Rank.
This was a deep, pulsing, blood-red.
"Wha—!?"
I couldn't stop my momentum. I stepped directly into the crimson void. The sensation was like being pulled through a meat grinder. The grey concrete of the alleyway vanished, replaced by a suffocating, metallic atmosphere. The air was frigid, tasting of iron and old oil.
I turned around, but the portal was gone. There was no way out. In this world, any Gate N-Rank or above was a one-way trip until the Boss was dead.
I looked at my hands. I had forty-eight rats, a tattered hoodie, and a mastery of 44.5%. No artifacts. No backup. Just a K-Ranker trapped in a dark red nightmare.
"Fine," I whispered, the Rat Blade beginning to form on my arm with a speed and precision I'd never felt before. The rats interlocked their bodies with a metallic click, mirroring my resolve. "I'll be the King."