When The System Spoils You For No Reason-Chapter 30 - Thirty Courting Aggro

"I know life is a bitch and she don’t fight fair," Zeke sang, his voice cutting cleanly through the low, tense hum of a hundred gathered hunters.

The dry, mineral-scented wind of the Outback moved through the crowd in slow, restless gusts, carrying fine dust and the particular weight of people sizing each other up and finding reasons not to like what they see. Zeke stood leaning against a sun-bleached petrified monolith, looking thoroughly bored, his metallic grey eyes moving across the assembly with the unhurried interest of someone cataloguing a menu.

"Stop singing, you’re drawing aggro," Kai muttered, close to his ear. He could already feel the looks shifting their way—cold assessments from some, naked irritation from others.

"That’s the plan." Zeke didn’t lower his voice. His gaze had already settled on a group roughly fifty yards out. White-and-gold armor, immaculate despite the dust, a sun motif embossed on every breastplate. The kind of pristine that required someone else to maintain it. Their postures did the rest of the introduction.

"House Aurelius," Jude said.

Before Kai could follow up on that, a voice arrived ahead of its owner—cool, precisely weighted with condescension, and loud enough to carry.

"Is there a problem, vagrant?"

A young man had separated himself from the Aurelius group, taking several deliberate steps forward. Blond hair that appeared structurally immune to wind. A jawline that looked like it had been chiseled by someone with strong opinions. His hand rested on the pommel of a sword that was almost certainly worth more than most of the hunters present. "Some of us are here to achieve glory. Not to suffer the caterwauling of street performers."

The air shifted. Around them, boots scuffed on dry earth as nearby hunters quietly widened their berths. Spectators recognizing the shape of something about to happen.

Zeke pushed off the monolith, slow and unhurried, and turned to his friends with a theatrical sigh. "You hear that? ’Caterwauling.’ Five syllables for singing. Must’ve swallowed a dictionary along with the silver spoon. Or was it gold?"

"That would depend," Jude said flatly, eyes still on the Aurelius retinue, "on his relevance to the family."

A ripple of stifled laughter moved through the nearest onlookers. The young man’s jaw tightened, color rising fast in his face.

"You dare mock me?" The composure cracked like overloaded ice. "I am Cassian of House Aurelius. You will show respect."

"Cassian," Zeke repeated, rolling it around thoughtfully, like something he was deciding whether to spit out. "Sounds like a decorative fountain. I’m Zeke."

{Peak. Absolute peak. Keep cooking,} Zero buzzed in his skull, practically vibrating.

Cassian’s grip on the pommel tightened until the leather of his glove creaked audibly. "Your insolence is a stain on this gathering. Perhaps you need a lesson in humility before the real trials begin."

The signal was wordless. Two of Cassian’s larger retainers stepped forward, their auras rising with the dense, oppressive pressure of high B-Rank strength. The message required no translation.

"Zeke." Aaron’s palm met his own forehead with a flat, resonant smack.

"Relax." Zeke raised a dismissive hand toward him without looking back, already stepping forward—one easy, unhurried step that placed him squarely between his friends and the advancing pair. He looked the lead retainer dead in the eye. The smile on his face was open, almost vacant, like a man waiting for a bus. "You sure about this? You have insurance, right?"

The retainer—broad, scarred, the kind of solid that came from years of being rewarded for hitting things—didn’t break stride. He wound back and threw a punch meant to end the conversation immediately, knuckles aimed directly at Zeke’s smiling face.

Crack.

The sound was sharp and dry, the kind that made people’s teeth clench. A collective flinch moved through the crowd.

The retainer stumbled back with a choked, guttural cry, clutching a hand that now bent at an angle hands were not designed to bend. Zeke hadn’t moved. He stood exactly where he had been, head tilted a fraction to one side, the same expression on his face.

"See?" he said, tone conversational. "Bitch don’t fight fair."

Silence, then the crowd exhaled. Cassian’s mouth hung open. The second retainer had stopped mid-step, whatever confidence he’d arrived with quietly dissolving.

"Bullying weaker opponents." A new voice entered the space—calm, unhurried, carrying the particular weight of someone accustomed to being listened to. "Must be entertaining."

A blond young man walked toward them through the crowd, which parted without being asked. He didn’t radiate the blunt force of raw power. What he radiated was harder to quantify—the air of someone who had never needed to raise his voice to be taken seriously. His gaze moved first to the retainer cradling his shattered wrist, then to Cassian, and settled there with something worse than anger.

Disappointment.

"And you." His voice dropped, quieter and heavier for it. "You shame the family. Picking fights with strangers. What have you been taught?" He let that sit for a moment. "We’ll have a conversation when we return."

Cassian said nothing. His face had shifted well past red into something paler.

Zeke’s smile widened with genuine interest. "Are you the final boss? The ultimate young master?"

The blond turned to look at him. His expression didn’t change. "I’ve heard of you." A measured pause. "It would be more satisfying to put you in your place in there." He raised one hand and pointed—not at Zeke, but at the dungeon portal behind him, shimmering with restless energy. A silent challenge, cleanly issued.

Then the gong sounded.

It came from everywhere at once, a deep resonant note that moved through the ground and up through the soles of their boots. The portal responded immediately—the dormant shimmer erupting into violent, churning light, pulsing like something that had been waiting to be born.

The Expanse was open.

Whatever remained of the confrontation dissolved instantly, replaced by something more primal. A hundred hunters surged forward as a single wave, auras flaring, boots hammering dry earth, everyone simultaneously remembering why they were actually here.

"The name is Enel."

He said it without turning around, already moving toward the portal with the unhurried composure of a man walking into a room he owned, the current of rushing hunters parting around him like water.

Zeke watched him go for exactly one second. Then he turned his back on House Aurelius—cleanly, completely, the way you dismiss something that no longer requires attention—and looked at his friends.

His smirk carried an edge now. Something anticipatory and faintly predatory that hadn’t been there before.

"Well." He rolled his neck, vertebrae cracking like split wood. "Shall we go steal some treasures?"