Oldyork of the Walking World

The Headquarters of the Super Natural Division

"A hundred days. A hundred. Why have we still not received the tunnel result?" The question cut across the conference room.

The conference room sat full. Every senior officer of the SND occupied a chair around the long table, faces drawn, fingers tapping at folders that no longer held anything new.

The woman at the head of the table did not match the mood of the room.

Salma Al Mansari watched the others without expression. Acting mayor of Old York. A Gold-ranked Crusader.

Her presence in the walking world was itself a signal. Crusaders of her tier did not waste their time on mortal affairs. The mutation of a Red-difficulty tunnel into an Apocalypse had pulled her here on direct order from the World Government.

She leaned back in her chair and reread the file on the tunnel before the mutation. Her eyes moved across the details with calm precision.

A labyrinth of veins. A path that led to the mouth of a dead creature.

Tunnels of this type were rare even inside the Crusade. The rewards for clearing one ran high, sometimes high enough to include a bone fragment of the original creature.

A single bone fragment could shift the balance of a war.

Humanity needed that.

The war with the Ghouls had dragged on too long. Losses had piled up. The Ghouls had not stopped pressing along the deep frontier, and every additional source of power was worth its weight in blood.

That was why the World Government had marked this tunnel as a priority, even if it belonged to Runner-class entrants.

Across the Crusade, the most talented Runners from the established factions had begun preparing.

The standard protocol allowed a second wave of challengers to enter once a tunnel reopened, granted that the original cohort failed to clear it.

Salma had cancelled that chance in a breath. Runners from the walking world started at a disadvantage. Tunnel breaks did not occur on Earth; the walking world stayed relatively peaceful precisely because of this.

Its Runners, however, never gained the practical experience that Runners from the Crusade collected from childhood.

By the time a Crusade-born Runner attempted his Shell-Breaking challenge, he had already crossed Level 20 and survived a dozen real fights.

By the time a walking-world Runner attempted his first tunnel, he had survived only training drills.

Here, they walked in blind.

Her gaze shifted to the list of participants.

C-grade. D-grade.

Weak and also unprepared.

Then one name stood apart.

Kenji.

She opened his file again, though she had already read it twice. His name appeared in three different reports, each one filed with a slightly different shade of disappointment.

A trait that had shattered the awakening stone on contact. A grade that the Academy’s instruments had failed to measure cleanly, then settled on as S-plus when forced to settle.

A boy who had walked into a Red-ranked tunnel for his first run with the talent of a generational prodigy.

Her fingers tapped once against the table.

Talent without a mind to use it. He had chosen a Red tunnel, the weakest for a safe path. This alone made him useless to train in her head. Her eyes cooled slightly.

"What a waste."

The words stayed in her mind. Talent without resolve meant nothing. Power without intent meant nothing. She closed the file.

Around her, the officers continued their quiet tension. No one spoke. No one wanted to repeat the question. The silence stretched.

Then—

A glaring chime broke across the table. Every head in the room turned. The communication device at the center of the table flared white, then resolved into a projected face: the officer stationed at the mouth of the tunnel.

His face was flushed. His eyes were wide. His breath had not settled.

"Report."

The man swallowed.

"T-the tunnel..." The words broke apart in his mouth.

"...has been cleared."

For a full second, no one moved. The folders stopped shifting. The air conditioner hummed without competition. Even Salma’s posture, which had not changed in twenty minutes, lifted by a fraction of an inch.

"Repeat that," Salma said.

"The tunnel. Cleared, Mayor. The portal is open. Runners are emerging."

"How many?"

"Six confirmed alive. Two of them on their feet. The other four are unconscious but breathing."

"Names."

"Kenji is on his feet, Mayor. The other four are Kael, Sora, Elara, and Jaxon. Outer Walls cohort."

Salma waited. The officer did not say the sixth name.

"And the last one."

The officer’s voice tightened. "We do not know, Mayor. Female. Silver hair. Gold eyes. She is not on any registry. She is the second one on her feet. She is the one carrying the others."

The room did not breathe. Salma’s eyes narrowed.

"Did she come out of the tunnel?"

"Yes, Mayor. She came out alongside Kenji. They emerged together."

"Then she went in."

"She must have, Mayor. There is no other way. But there is no record of her entering."

Salma set her file down on the table. The motion was small and final. The officers around her had served under her long enough to know that the file would not be picked up again until the matter was resolved.

"Lock the area. No one approaches the cohort. Detain the silver-haired one for questioning. Use minimum force. If she resists, retreat and call me directly."

"Understood, Mayor."

"And Kenji."

"Yes, Mayor."

"Bring him to me. Personally."

The projection cut. The room exhaled at once. Several of the officers began speaking at the same time. Salma raised one hand and the room fell silent again.

She turned to the officer on her left, a thin woman with a Bronze rank pin on her collar.

"What does the system say about the clearance?"

The Bronze-ranked officer tapped at her tablet. The data resolved on the projector at the center of the table.

Apocalypse Tunnel: Veins of the Devourer.

Status: Cleared.

Cohort: 6 Runners.

Survivors: 6.

Primary contributor: Unregistered.

Secondary contributor: Kenji (registered).

The room read the screen in silence. The Bronze-ranked officer’s voice came out smaller than she meant it to.

"Mayor. The primary contributor is unregistered. The system has never logged that before. A Runner cannot clear a tunnel without being registered."

"I know." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"Then how?"

"I do not know."

Salma rose from her chair. Her presence shifted as she stood. The officers in the room sat up straighter.

"I will speak with the boy first. Then with the girl. Have my transport ready in five minutes."

"Yes, Mayor."

She walked to the door. At the threshold, she paused. The officers did not see her face. They only saw the back of her head, dark hair tied back in a working knot.

"Veins of the Devourer," she said quietly, mostly to herself. "Whose veins did they walk through?"

The door closed behind her.

*

* *

At the mouth of the tunnel, Ayla stood beside Kenji. Sora hung from her left arm, Elara from her right. Both girls breathed slowly.

She turned her head toward Kenji. The light in her pupils caught the daylight and refracted it. Inside the gold, two small molten cores burned, the color of stars folded down to fit a human eye.

"Who am I?" she whispered near his ear.

Kenji’s hazel eyes flickered. A small struggle moved behind them. Then the struggle settled. His expression smoothed into something calm and certain.

"You are the illegitimate daughter of my father. The reason I chose this Red-difficulty tunnel was to find you and bring you home."

Ayla’s smile widened. The dimples returned to her cheeks.

"Good boy."