Chapter 231: A Stronger Mythal
Morning broke over Mythal, and the streets were busier than they’d been in weeks. Hunters moved with purpose instead of just habit. Merchants shouted over each other trying to be heard first. Somewhere in the distance, blacksmith hammers rang out in overlapping rhythm across the district.
Nobody was rushing because they were afraid.
They were rushing because there was finally something worth rushing toward.
Outside Abyssal Watchers headquarters, a crowd had already gathered beneath a large wooden sign strung above the entrance.
Abyssal Watchers Equipment Exchange
Rows of weapons stretched behind it, armor stacked by size, monster materials sorted into labeled bins, accessories and healing supplies laid out with clearly written prices on every table.
A rookie picked up a sword near the front, checked the tag, then checked it again.
"...That can’t be right."
The woman beside him shook her head. "It isn’t. It’s cheaper."
A blacksmith laughed from behind the counter. "They supplied half the materials. I don’t have to charge nearly as much anymore."
The rookie gripped the sword tighter, standing there for several seconds just smiling at it like it might disappear if he looked away.
Nearby, another hunter finally bought a proper shield instead of patching his old one again. A Support Hunter bought healing potions without having to choose between potions and food this week. A girl hugged a set of new armor to her chest, and her father smiled beside her.
"You don’t have to wear broken gear anymore."
She nodded, practically bouncing.
Kai hadn’t made himself stronger this month. He’d made everyone else stronger instead.
...
A long line stretched across the plaza, but this one wasn’t for equipment. It was for books.
Lily stood behind a mountain of freshly printed guides, placing one down on the table with visible pride.
Beginner Dungeon Survival Guide
Written by the Abyssal Watchers
Hunters grabbed copies as fast as she could hand them out. One rookie flipped his open immediately, scanning past boss attack patterns, recommended levels, party formations, emergency signals, weak points, hidden traps, retreat conditions, supply checklists.
He looked up, stunned. "...This is free?"
Lily smiled. "We already paid for those mistakes. You shouldn’t have to."
Silence for a second. The rookie closed the book carefully, like it weighed more than it looked. "...Thank you."
Not dramatic. Just sincere.
A veteran hunter nearby watched the whole exchange, laughing quietly to himself. "If we’d had this five months ago, half my party would still be alive."
The smile on his face didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Lily noticed. "Then let’s make sure nobody else loses theirs."
He nodded once. "...Yeah."
A younger hunter tugged at Lily’s sleeve before she could move to the next customer. "Is there a version for C-Rank? Everyone keeps saying B-Rank is where it gets dangerous, but I nearly died on a C-Rank last month."
Lily blinked, then grabbed a pen off the table. "...That’s actually a good point. We should have a separate one for that." She scribbled a note to herself. "Give me two weeks."
The hunter grinned. "I’ll wait."
Nearby, small groups had already sat down together, reading, arguing over interpretation, copying notes into their own journals. Even a couple of guild representatives quietly bought extra copies, not because anyone made them, but because the information was simply worth having.
...
The training grounds were packed, more crowded than Kai had seen them in months.
Raze stood in the center, already shouting. "Again!"
A rookie Warrior charged forward and won cleanly.
Raze whistled. "Congratulations. You survived."
The rookie grinned, proud of himself.
Then Raze pointed behind him. "The healer would’ve died. The Scout got surrounded. The Mage ran out of mana two exchanges ago."
The rookie’s face fell slowly as it clicked. "...We all died."
Raze grinned wider. "Exactly."
Everyone around them laughed.
Sera taught positioning a few yards away, walking calmly through spacing, communication, timing, retreat signals. One of her students asked, "How do you stay calm during all of that?"
Sera smiled. "I don’t. I just don’t let panic decide for me."
Half the group immediately wrote that down word for word.
Another student raised a hand. "What do you do when your whole party panics at the same time? Not just one person, everyone."
Sera considered that for a second. "Then you’re the only calm person left, whether you feel calm or not. Someone has to fake it long enough for it to become real for everyone else too."
The student nodded slowly, filing that away.
Every experienced hunter in the yard had a rookie team of their own now, not just one pair here and there but dozens scattered across the grounds. An A-Rank hunter adjusted a teenager’s stance without a hint of impatience. A veteran Scout crouched low, showing someone how to read footprints in loose dirt. A Mage walked a nervous student through mana conservation one careful step at a time.
Nobody was charging for any of it. Nobody was showing off.
Experience had stopped being something people hoarded.
...
Lily unveiled another board near the training grounds, this one labeled Party Matching, columns for class, level, experience, preferred role, dungeon, and availability.
Hunters began writing their names down one after another. A Support Hunter walked over, hesitated at the edge of the board, then started to turn away. Nobody had ever invited him onto a team before.
A frontliner noticed and called out. "Hey."
The Support Hunter froze.
"You looking for a party?"
"...Me?"
"Yeah. We need someone to keep us alive."
He blinked, then slowly smiled. "I’d like that."
Elsewhere along the board, a lone Scout finally paired with a Defender who’d been looking for exactly that skill set. A wandering Mage joined two Warriors who clearly needed someone with ranged options. Within minutes the nearly empty board filled up with complete, balanced teams.
Lily watched it happen, satisfied. "...Much better."
...
A rookie party stepped up to a dungeon gate later that day, nothing special about any of them. No hidden talent, no rare Class between the four of them.
Just a Warrior, a Scout, a Mage, and a Support, the same four faces that had been reading guides and running drills all week.
They stepped through the gate nervously, tension thick in the air around them. The Warrior had Lily’s guide half-memorized already. The Scout kept Sera’s positioning lessons running through his head with every step. The Mage rationed mana carefully instead of burning through it early. The Support remembered Raze’s voice in her ear from training. Don’t heal panic.
The boss appeared, and for a second everyone froze.
Then the Warrior said quietly, "Formation Three."
Everyone moved immediately, exactly the way they’d practiced it a dozen times that week. The boss charged, the shield held, the Scout drew its attention wide, the Mage found the weak point Lily’s guide had described almost exactly, and the Support timed her heal to the second.
Minutes later, the boss went down.
Silence. Nobody moved for a moment.
The Warrior looked around at the others. "...We actually did it."
All four of them erupted at once, laughing, cheering, someone’s helmet flying off in the celebration.
Outside the gate, their families had been waiting anxiously the whole time. The moment the portal opened and all four of them walked out smiling, a little girl tackled her older sister in a hug hard enough to nearly knock her over.
"I knew you’d come back!"
An elderly hunter nearby watched the reunion quietly. "They survived because someone finally taught them."
Word of the clear spread faster than any of them expected. Someone in the crowd had recorded the reunion on their phone, and by evening the clip of the little girl’s flying tackle hug had made its way across half of Mythal’s social feeds, captioned simply first clear. People who’d never met any of the four rookies were commenting on it by the dozens, more moved by an ordinary family reunion than by any dramatic dungeon footage they’d seen all month.
...
Snapshots kept piling up across the city over the following days.
Weaker hunters finally spoke with something like hope in their voices. "I can finally afford equipment." "I actually understand dungeons now." "I don’t feel left behind anymore."
Average hunters felt the shift too, training grounds growing even more crowded as people pushed themselves harder just to keep pace. "If they’re improving, I need to improve too."
Even the strongest hunters in the city started training with a new edge to it. "If we stop growing, they’ll catch us."
Blacksmiths saw business double almost overnight, materials arriving constantly, orders that never seemed to stop coming in. At the Academy, students were already copying the new guidebooks by hand, teachers rewriting entire lesson plans around them, practice parties forming in every open courtyard. Elden walked through it all with quiet, unmistakable pride.
One mother watched her son leave for training instead of crying the way she used to. "...Come home safely."
He nodded, confident in a way he hadn’t been a month earlier. "I will."
Even guild leaders started paying attention. One finally admitted it out loud to his own officers. "If we don’t change too, we’ll be left behind."
The whole city felt like it was finally moving in the same direction instead of a hundred separate ones.
...
Kai walked through it all alone one afternoon, nobody noticing him at first as he simply watched.
Hunters reading guides over lunch. A blacksmith thanking Mara personally for the material shipment. Raze correcting another rookie’s stance with theatrical patience. Sera surrounded by a small crowd of students all asking questions at once. Lily arguing cheerfully with three hunters over the exact wording of one line in a guide. Elden scribbling excited notes while watching a training match.
Children played nearby, and this time they weren’t pretending to defeat some B-Rank boss.
They were pretending to organize a party.
"I’m the Support!" one shouted proudly.
"Then don’t leave formation!" another immediately fired back.
Kai laughed quietly to himself. Months ago, every kid on this street had dreamed about becoming stronger alone.
Now they were pretending to work together instead, and that small, unremarkable shift told Kai more than any status report ever could have.
The city wasn’t just getting stronger.
It was getting smarter.
...
Kai returned to headquarters that evening, and everyone was already waiting for him.
Lily bounced on her heels. "So... Archive?"
Kai smiled. "...Archive."
Elden already had a stack of empty notebooks under one arm. "I’ve prepared separate journals. One for history. One for technology. One for monster biology."
Lily stared at the stack. "...You brought three?"
"...Six."
Raze had packed enough supplies for a week-long expedition. Mara had already organized storage bags by category. Sera laughed at all of it.
Mayor Ko arrived last, looking around the room before allowing himself a small smile. "Mythal can manage without us for a few days."
Kai looked around at everyone gathered there. A few weeks ago, none of this would have been possible, the whole city grinding to a halt the moment its leaders stepped away.
Now it could keep improving even while they were gone, because everyone understood exactly what they were building together.
Kai opened the headquarters door. "...Let’s uncover humanity’s forgotten past."
The group stepped out together, and behind them headquarters stayed exactly as busy as it had been all week. Hunters kept arriving. Equipment kept selling. Mentors kept teaching. The city kept growing, entirely on its own, without Kai standing there to make it happen.
He smiled to himself at that.
More than anything else that had happened all week, that was the proof they were finally moving in the right direction.