Chapter 262: Training The Others
Morning found the Abyssal Guild training grounds overflowing, hunters filling nearly every section. Some practiced swordsmanship in pairs. Others fired arrows at rotating targets.
A cluster of shield users ran the same formation drill over and over. Support classes worked through healing exercises off to one side, and instructors from several smaller guilds watched from the sidelines, taking notes as they went.
Kai walked through it all quietly, noticing something immediately.
Nobody stood around idle. Everyone was training.
He smiled to himself. "It’s changed."
Mira walked over, clipboard in hand. "Morning."
Kai nodded. "Busy?"
She looked around at the packed grounds. "Very."
Raze approached next, crimson greatsword resting across his shoulder. "We’ve got almost twice as many people today."
Kai raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Word spread," Mira said. "People heard the Abyssal Guild was personally training hunters now, not just clearing dungeons for their own gain."
Kai chuckled. "Guess we’re popular."
Raze laughed loudly. "About time."
Raze gathered nearly thirty melee hunters into the central arena, looking them over with a grin. "Who’s scared?"
Silence. Nobody raised a hand.
Raze grinned wider. "Good. You should be."
Everyone laughed nervously.
He pointed toward the open space in front of him. "Come at me."
Five hunters rushed him at once, weapons drawn in every direction, one sword, one spear, one axe, two shields.
Raze didn’t move. He blocked everything with simple, minimal motion, not overpowering any of them, correcting each mistake as it happened.
He stopped a swordsman’s overhead swing with a flat palm. "Too stiff."
He tapped his own chest, watching another hunter’s eyes. "You’re staring at my weapon. Watch the shoulders instead."
He redirected an incoming spear thrust with a small twist of his wrist. "Don’t fight strength. Fight balance."
Slowly, the hunters started adjusting, and one of them finally landed a clean hit against his forearm.
Raze smiled. "There. Again."
Another landed one. Then another. By the end of the round, nearly every one of them had connected at least once, and the crowd watching from the sidelines broke into applause.
One young hunter stood there breathing hard, staring at his own hands. "I finally understand."
Raze clapped him on the shoulder. "Good. Now do it a thousand more times."
The whole training ground laughed.
Across the yard, Mira had gathered a group of defenders, shield users and heavy weapon fighters clustered together. Unlike Raze, she barely spoke, walking slowly among them and correcting small details as she passed.
"Too high."
"Lower."
"Relax your shoulders."
"Again."
One hunter finally asked, "How do you block attacks stronger than you?"
Mira smiled slightly. "You don’t."
Everyone blinked.
She raised her own shield, and another instructor swung a heavy strike toward her. Instead of stopping it head-on, she angled her shield at the last instant, guiding the blow harmlessly past her shoulder.
"Strength doesn’t decide defense," she said. "Position does."
She demonstrated it again, slower this time, and the hunters immediately started practicing the redirect themselves, one after another improving with each repetition.
Kai watched from a short distance. "She’s good."
Raze laughed under his breath. "She scares me more than any dungeon does."
Mira heard him without turning around. "Good."
Raze immediately looked away. "I wasn’t talking."
Kai laughed.
Later that morning, Raze clapped his hands together, calling for attention. "Field exercise."
Cheers went up across the training ground. Nearly thirty hunters gathered, several guilds mixing together into combined teams rather than staying separated, exactly the outcome Kai had been working toward for months.
The Association’s notification appeared a moment later.
[C-Rank Dungeon Found.]
[C-Rank Dungeon: Crystal Veins.]
It had been chosen deliberately, manageable in difficulty but demanding enough real coordination to actually test everything they’d been drilling that morning.
Before anyone stepped through, Raze looked over the assembled group. "Nobody’s getting carried in there."
Mira nodded beside him. "We’ll only step in if someone’s about to die. Otherwise, you’re on your own."
Several hunters swallowed nervously.
Kai smiled from the edge of the group. "Good luck."
He stayed outside, arms crossed, watching them file through the Gate one at a time. Today wasn’t his lesson to teach.
Monsters attacked the moment the group crossed through, Crystal Wolves and Crystal Beetles breaking cover almost immediately, a Crystal Burrower tunneling up from beneath the loose stone floor.
The first engagement turned messy fast. Formations collapsed under pressure. A healer froze mid-cast, panicking. A shield user blocked too early, opening a gap behind him. An archer hesitated a half-second too long on a clear shot.
Raze didn’t step in. "Think."
Slowly, the hunters started remembering their morning drills. Shield users pulled back into a proper front line. Archers repositioned onto higher ground for better lines of sight. The mages in the group started actually coordinating their spell timing instead of firing independently.
Mira watched closely, only moving once, when a Crystal Burrower nearly ambushed a young hunter from behind. One punch, and the fight was over before it started.
She looked down at him. "Learn from that."
He nodded quickly. "Yes."
The difference became obvious as the dungeon continued. Hunters started warning each other before danger arrived instead of after. They covered blind spots without being asked. One young shield user, remembering Mira’s lesson from that morning, redirected a charging Crystal Beast straight into a stone wall instead of trying to block it head-on.
The group cheered.
Mira smiled quietly, watching from a distance. "Good."
Raze watched another cluster of hunters clear a nest of Crystal Wolves with clean, coordinated strikes. "Not bad."
The hunters heard him, and several grinned despite their exhaustion. Being praised by Raze, even briefly, felt like an actual achievement.
Near the dungeon’s exit, the final elite Crystal Guardian went down under a combined assault, and blue windows started blooming across the group all at once.
One hunter froze, staring at his own status screen. "Level fifty."
Another looked down at his own. "Me too."
A third, quieter: "Finally."
More windows kept appearing. Five. Eight. Twelve. Nearly half the expedition crossed the same threshold within seconds of each other.
Silence held for a moment.
Then the dungeon erupted into cheers, some hunters laughing, one openly crying, another simply sitting down on the crystal floor, staring at his own hands like he didn’t quite believe it.
"I actually made it."
Raze walked over. "Told you."
The young hunter laughed, wiping his eyes. "You did."
The group emerged from the dungeon a while later, the gate collapsing into scattered light behind them the moment the last hunter cleared it. Families waiting nearby rushed forward immediately, parents wrapping arms around their kids, friends slapping each other on the back. Guild recruiters had already started approaching several of the newly Level 50 hunters, offering positions on the spot.
An Association employee nearby quietly updated the city’s records. More Level 50 hunters. Another C-Rank cleared cleanly. Another team with real, tested coordination behind it.
The city was getting stronger, one expedition at a time.
Back at Abyssal Headquarters, a large board tracking the city’s overall progress updated with a fresh number, the count of hunters above Level 50 climbing noticeably higher than it had been that morning.
Raze crossed his arms, satisfied. "Now that’s what I like seeing."
Mira nodded. "They’re finally catching up."
Kai arrived just as the celebration was picking up, looking out over the crowded, buzzing training grounds. Hunters smiled, talked over each other, already planning their next dungeon run before they’d even finished celebrating this one.
Nobody in that crowd was waiting for Kai to save them anymore. They were out there working to save themselves.
Kai smiled quietly. "Good."
Raze looked out past the training grounds, toward the city stretching beyond the walls. "When Disaster finally shows up—" he grinned, "—it won’t just be meeting six strong hunters standing in the way."
Mira finished the thought, watching the crowd below. "It’ll be meeting an entire city that refused to stay weak."