Chapter 266: Preparing the City
The streets of Mythal were unusually quiet before sunrise. Only patrol hunters, city guards, and workers preparing for the day were awake yet, a cool breeze drifting through streets still lit by softly glowing lanterns.
Kai walked toward the central training grounds with Mayor Ko, neither saying much. The peaceful quiet didn’t last long.
As they rounded the final corner, hundreds of hunters were already waiting. Not just Abyssal Guild. Stormclaw. Silver Vanguard. Smaller guilds Kai barely recognized by crest. Independent hunters standing off to the side. Association personnel. Support classes. Medical teams. Communication officers. Supply teams. Several guild leaders stood scattered among the crowd.
Kai whistled low. "...I wasn’t expecting this many."
Mayor Ko smiled. "I announced voluntary drills." He gestured at the assembled crowd. "They decided on the rest themselves."
Kai looked out across the field. Nobody complained. Nobody looked half asleep. Everyone stood ready.
"...Good," Kai said.
Mayor Ko stepped onto a raised platform, and the field went quiet almost instantly. He let the silence sit for a moment before speaking.
"This morning, nobody here is training to become stronger."
A few younger hunters blinked in confusion.
"Strength is earned inside Gates," he continued, pointing back toward the city behind him. "What we’re training today is survival."
He scanned the crowd slowly. "When Disaster arrives, it won’t ask your level. It won’t care which guild crest you wear. It won’t wait for you to finish preparing."
Silence.
"It will simply begin."
The weight of that settled over the field.
Mayor Ko folded his hands behind his back. "So today, we prepare to make sure Mythal survives it."
The crowd answered together, voices carrying across the training ground. "Yes, Mayor!"
Large maps of Mythal unrolled across several tables, colored markers indicating districts, supply depots, medical stations, evacuation routes, Authority relay locations. Mayor Ko walked among the tables instead of standing at the front, pointing at the western district.
"Communication lost."
He looked toward one team captain. "What do you do?"
"Send runners."
"They don’t arrive."
Silence.
Another hunter offered, "Signal flares."
"Smoke’s already blocking visibility."
The hunter thought again, frowning.
A support-class hunter near the back raised her hand. "Relay through neighboring districts instead."
Mayor Ko smiled. "Correct." He tapped the map. "The first solution should never be your only solution."
The scenarios kept coming. A destroyed bridge. A disabled mana network. An unconscious Authority holder. A delayed supply convoy. Every answer created a new complication, every complication sparking fresh discussion across the crowd.
Kai watched quietly from the side. Mayor Ko wasn’t testing what people already knew. He was teaching them how to keep thinking under pressure.
Kai smiled faintly. "...No wonder this city follows him."
Once the communication drills wound down, Kai stepped forward himself, drawing a rough outline of Tiamat into the dirt with the tip of his sword. The field grew quiet again.
Kai looked around at all of them. "...First lesson."
"If you see this—" he pointed at the outline, "—run."
A few younger hunters laughed nervously.
Kai didn’t. "I’m serious."
Silence.
"If your assignment is evacuation, evacuate. If it’s defense, defend. If it’s communication, deliver the message." He looked around the crowd. "Don’t invent a new mission because you think it sounds heroic."
A hunter raised his hand. "What if we think we can help somewhere else?"
Kai answered immediately. "The fastest way to get someone killed is abandoning the one job you were actually assigned to do."
The hunter slowly lowered his hand.
Kai nodded. "If everyone does their job, the city survives."
Mayor Ko smiled quietly beside him, exactly the lesson he’d hoped Kai would end up teaching without being told to.
He clapped once, sharp. "Positions."
The training grounds erupted into movement immediately.
The first scenario called out a dragon sighting in the eastern district. Support teams began moving, shield users forming defensive lines, communication officers sprinting toward relay stations, medical teams falling in behind them.
Kai watched, unimpressed. "...Too slow."
They reset and ran it again. This time noticeably faster, formations locking into place with less confusion.
The second scenario declared an Authority relay destroyed. Several teams hesitated, unsure who was closest.
Kai called out immediately, "Who’s nearest?"
One hunter answered, "We are!"
"Then stop waiting."
The team adjusted on the spot, and Mayor Ko nodded approvingly. "Initiative saves lives."
The third scenario blocked an evacuation route with trapped civilians. Hunters redirected traffic toward alternate paths without needing to be told twice, support classes coordinating smoothly with city guards this time.
Mayor Ko smiled. "...Better."
The fourth scenario eliminated the acting commander mid-drill, and the entire formation froze in place, nobody stepping up.
Kai shook his head. "...Again."
They reset once more, and this time another team member immediately took command the moment the "commander" dropped out, the formation continuing to move without missing a beat.
Kai nodded. "...Exactly."
Mayor Ko announced the final exercise a while later. "No guild formations this time."
A few surprised looks rippled through the crowd.
"You’re now fighting beside strangers," Kai added.
Teams got shuffled randomly, Abyssal mixed with Stormclaw, Silver Vanguard paired with independent hunters, support classes scattered wherever they landed.
At first, communication felt awkward. Several hunters gave conflicting orders within the same team, nobody sure who was actually leading.
Kai stopped the exercise almost immediately. "...Talk."
The mixed teams started introducing themselves properly, sharing abilities, discussing strengths and weaknesses out loud before trying again.
The second attempt flowed completely differently. Archers naturally covered shield users without being told to. Support classes called out their mana reserves unprompted. Healers rotated coverage on their own.
Kai smiled quietly. "...Much better."
Nearby, Mayor Ko watched one mixed team work through a difficult scenario entirely on their own initiative, and he didn’t interrupt, letting them finish it start to finish.
"...They’ve started trusting each other," he said quietly.
The drills finally wound down as the first rays of sunlight spread across Mythal, the city slowly waking around them. Market stalls opened one by one. Children headed toward school, backpacks bouncing. Merchants set up their displays for the day.
None of them realized hundreds of hunters had already spent hours preparing to protect exactly this, an ordinary morning that most of the city would never think twice about.
Kai watched it unfold quietly.
Mayor Ko walked beside him. "I always wanted it this way."
Kai glanced over.
"They shouldn’t have to wake up every day worrying whether today’s the day everything ends," Mayor Ko said.
Kai nodded slowly. "...We’ll keep giving them mornings like this, then."
As they prepared to leave, something unexpected caught their attention.
Nobody was going home.
Several guild leaders had gathered off to one side. "...Let’s run that communication drill again."
Another nodded. "Our response time was still too slow on the third scenario."
Support teams reorganized on their own initiative. Shield users volunteered for another round without prompting. Medical teams started practicing patient transport drills nobody had assigned them.
Nobody had told them to keep going.
They simply did.
Kai watched, quiet. "...Looks like they aren’t finished yet."
Mayor Ko smiled, proud. "They’ve stopped training because we asked them to."
He looked out over the still-bustling grounds. "...Now they’re training because they actually believe in it."
Kai watched hundreds of hunters continuing to prepare together, entirely voluntarily. Not for glory. Not for rewards. Not because any System notification had told them to.
Because they wanted their city to actually survive whatever came next.
He smiled faintly. "...Then when Disaster finally shows up—"
Mayor Ko finished the thought, watching the same crowd Kai was. "—it won’t be facing a handful of strong hunters."
"It’ll be facing an entire city that chose to prepare for it."