Raze Dawg sat in a secluded chamber deep inside Mountain Risen Monster Hunter Academy, in a cave where darkness swallowed the walls and carried every sound in slow ripples.

The chamber stood far from the academy’s training halls, beast pens, and hunter shrines. It had been made for silence, but tonight, that silence only made the guild feed harder to ignore.

Even the academy’s stone seemed to listen with him. The cave did not offer comfort or privacy anymore; it turned every mistake into something Raze Dawg had to hear twice.

Voices cut through the dark. Shouts carried farther than they should have, and every final command bounced off the cave walls before returning harder to dismiss.

After warning his guild about Emperoar, Raze Dawg had listened without saying another word.

At first, he tried to follow the battlefield through sound alone. He picked out the second shotcaller’s orders, the tanks calling positions, the rangers marking targets, the supports begging players not to scatter, and the sudden curses whenever Ao Tenshin changed the water again.

The more he listened, the clearer the truth became.

He did not have a live view of the battlefield. He could not see who was overextended, who had slipped from the stone, who needed a pull, or which lane was already lost. Some commands needed instant reactions, and if he pushed himself into the command flow now, he would only make the second shotcaller hesitate.

So he stayed quiet and listened as Just Die fell apart.

[Fuck! We can’t handle this turtle!]

[Emperoar’s elusive as hell, too!]

[Night Espresso is playing around him so well!]

[Left side is gone! The current split us!]

[Supports, pull the marked players back before he opens distance!]

[We can’t! The ridge has sight on us!]

[Cut the praise and focus! We’re taking down as many as we can!]

As many as you can... so we failed, huh.

Raze Dawg stared into the darkness ahead of him.

A winning side did not give orders like that. Only a force already staring at defeat tried to make the enemy pay on the way down.

All we can do now is lower their numbers and increase the chance that they still fail the expansion quest.

His hands curled into fists, and the echo came back hard enough to make his jaw tighten.

Losing the West Bank hurt more than losing his legendary weapon.

The sword had been proof that he stood above ordinary players and ordinary hunters. Losing it to Emperoar had humiliated him alone. Now his mistake had dragged the entire West Bank force down with him.

If he had told the others to come with him back then and wipe out those undergeared, underleveled players, none of this might have happened. He had looked at them and seen only a minor problem, a few weak players trying to survive beyond their weight class.

He had treated Emperoar like prey.

Now that prey had returned with a dragon turtle, drowned the battlefield, and turned Just Die’s formation into a broken raid encounter.

If he had killed Emperoar when he had the chance...

Footsteps echoed through the cave.

Raze Dawg did not turn right away because the footsteps were too calm. They carried no hurry, no panic, and no anger to match the defeat unfolding through the guild feed. Only a measured rhythm crossed the stone behind him, as though the person approaching had already decided how this conversation would end.

"It’s rare to see self-loathing on you," a woman said.

Raze Dawg looked up.

A woman with short white hair and emerald-green eyes stared at him with a gaze that made him feel as though she could see every thought he wanted to hide.

Victoria wore black hunter attire that looked nothing like the rugged gear most monster hunters favored. Her outfit had been tailored closer to a noblewoman’s battle dress than academy armor, with a high collar, fitted sleeves, and a corset-like waist that made her posture look even straighter. Emerald lines ran through the fabric in thin, deliberate patterns, matching her eyes whenever the cave caught a trace of light.

The lower half of the outfit split into layered panels over dark thigh-high boots, letting her walk without losing either elegance or command. It revealed enough to be dangerous without looking careless, as if even her allure had been planned, measured, and sharpened into another weapon.

Silver clasps crossed her chest and throat like restraints she had chosen for herself. A black glove covered one hand, while the other remained bare, pale fingers relaxed at her side. Nothing about her seemed prepared for a battlefield, yet Raze Dawg knew that was the point. Victoria did not dress like someone afraid of being touched. She dressed like someone certain no one would dare.

Her expression betrayed none of her feelings, and her voice carried an authority he could not overcome with any level, skill, or item.

She was not even half his level, yet his back straightened on instinct. His fingers loosened from their fists. The anger in his chest did not vanish, but it sank lower beneath the weight of her presence.

Stats had nothing to do with that pressure. Every member of Just Die knew exactly who she was.

She was the guild leader of Just Die.

[Victoria Lv. 17]

"Sorry, boss. We lost," Raze Dawg confessed. "Despite all your preparations and the other guilds you involved, this is on me. I’ll accept any punishment."

Victoria stared at him.

The silence stretched until it felt like the longest one of Raze Dawg’s life.

She did not sigh, curse, or ask how it had happened, even though the battlefield was still screaming the answer into her ear. Her silence was worse than anger.

"You’ve already been punished," Victoria said.

Raze Dawg gritted his teeth.

"By that loss, I mean," she continued. "I’ll punish you if you commit the same mistake twice."

"...Got it, boss." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Raze Dawg lowered his head and nodded.

"Emperoar is... like a monster boss, isn’t he?" she asked.