"Yep, that's him."
"Yeah."
Two young men kneel beside a severed head, studying it under the dim light. The man had been on the Hunted list, brought in by a newcomer who claimed it was his first job as a manhunter.
"What did you say your name was again?"
"Shu— Black Hood. That's my hunter name."
Shuku wastes no time after leaving the Guild. Guided by Ama, he heads toward the Furnace. It takes a while on foot, even though it's in the same district.
When he arrives, he's surprised by how ordinary it looks. The place where human remains are processed feels almost alive, filled with heat and motion. People move in and out constantly, and it's easy to tell who they are at a glance.
Men covered in soot and coal dust. Hunters dressed in fine, colorful clothes, their weapons and armor stained with red.
The air tastes of iron and ash. A long stone corridor leads to the cremation hall. Metal trays slide along rails into open furnaces. The red glow of fire paints the walls while smoke drifts upward in slow waves. Sparks float in the haze like dying fireflies.
Chains rattle above. Steam hisses. Shovels strike coal. Workers in leather aprons move like ghosts through the smoke, faces blackened, eyes dull and lifeless.
At the inspection table, Shuku stands still. Reynard's severed head rests in an iron tray before him, its features gray and empty. Two junior examiners lean close, whispering to each other, then nod toward the man behind them.
Ken steps forward. Middle-aged, with a goatee, his skin slick with sweat and soot. His eyes are calm and unreadable. He has seen too many corpses to be moved by one more.
"Looks right," Ken says, voice rough from the smoke. "You the one who brought it?"
"Yeah."
"First hunt?"
Shuku nods once.
Without another word, Ken lifts the tray and walks toward the furnace mouth. A worker pulls a steel rail out. Ken sets the tray on it and gives it a push. The tray slides smoothly along, carried on the heated dark metal.
Reynard's head moves into the furnace, glowing red in the firelight. Ken slams the heavy furnace door shut. The flames rise quickly, and their light reflects on Shuku's face through the glass. The fire consumes the head of the man he killed.
The smell of ash thickens in the air, and the sound of burning fills the hall. Shuku watches in silence as Reynard's face slowly disappears into the flames. He cannot help but hear Arila's voice in his mind, faint and haunting.
"Please spare him. If you have to kill anyone, kill me instead."
Her words echo through his memory, heavy and painful. He imagines her alone in that house, surrounded by fear and regret.
But that sympathy burns away as Reynard's head melts beyond recognition. Shuku finally exhales and gathers himself.
Ken wipes his hands with a rag. "All right. Next part."
He reaches for a metal rod from the forge, long and heavy, engraved with the Guild insignia. Its tip glows white-hot, searing the air.
"Take off your shirt," Ken orders.
Shuku hesitates for a moment but obeys as he realizes what is coming. From Ken's view, Shuku's back is lean and scarred, his skin pale compared to most men his age. There must be a reason he chose this life.
"Hold still."
Ken presses the rod against Shuku's shoulder.
SZZZHHH.
The sizzle cuts through the air. Smoke rises as the rod burns its mark deep into his skin. Shuku flinches, teeth clenched, tongue clicking once in pain, but he endures without a sound.
When Ken pulls the rod away, a raw red mark remains — the Guild's emblem, burned deep into his flesh. Ken tosses the rod back into the coals.
"That's your print," he says. "You're an official manhunter now. This will be your proof of identity, so you can't lie to the Guild or act outside the rules."
He opens a drawer and counts twelve gold coins into a small leather pouch, each one gleaming faintly in the furnace light.
"One, two, three, four..." Ken mutters. "Twelve hundred Apomis dollars. Wanted dead. Job completed."
He slides the pouch across the counter. Shuku takes it silently and nods once. "Thanks."
"I'll tell you something, kid," Ken says. Shuku is surprised he noticed his age. "Don't get cocky, or you'll end up in one of those trays."
"... Okay. Appreciate it."
Ken waves him off. "Next."
The next hunter steps forward, dragging a heavy bag that leaves a smear of blood on the floor.
Outside, the air is cold. Shuku walks into the open street, the sky washed gray above the smoke-stained rooftops.
He opens the pouch.
Gold gleams inside, pure and bright. Each coin catches the light like a small sun.
For a moment, his reflection stares back from the metal, bloodstained, hollow-eyed, smiling faintly.
What he sees is not the boy he once was, bruised and begging for help. It is a man shaped by fire, confident with blood on his hands.
With the weight of his work resting in his palm, he smiles.
"I think I just found a gold mine."
At first, it is only excitement, a quiet pulse in his chest. A whisper asks, How much more can I do? How much more can I kill?
The thought lingers, warm and dangerous.
His first hunt is over.
He is already moving toward the next.
Not long after leaving the Furnace, still carrying the faint scent of iron on his skin, Shuku walks back to the Guild. His steps are slow and measured. He stops at the bulletin wall, rows of Wanted Dead posters, hundreds of faces staring back. Murderers. Thieves. Sorcerers. Names printed beneath their crimes like epitaphs waiting to be claimed.
He reads each one carefully. Then he picks a target. A copy is stamped, folded, and handed to him.
Without rest, he goes out again.
It takes days. The second hunt is a game of patience, a puzzle. The target is an old man with white hair, accused of harassing young girls and killing a boy who tried to defend his sister.
A coward hiding behind magic.
His ability lets him deform his face, change his features, even his hair. That is why no one finds him for months. But all magic has limits. When the disguise weakens, he becomes what he truly is again, frail, slow, human.
Shuku waits for that moment.
He knows men who prey on the weak always seek comfort after. They drink, they gamble, they try to forget. So he watches. Each night he sits near the taverns by the southern gate, the ones that smell of ale, smoke, and loneliness.
He listens.
On the third night, he hears a voice that does not match its words, a man who pays in silver but speaks like a beggar. Hair dyed black. Face younger. But the limp remains. The scratching at the neck remains.
Some truths, Shuku thinks, even magic cannot hide.
He follows, silent.
Through dripping alleys and wet stone until dawn creeps gray across the sky. When the man reaches the outer wall, his spell begins to fade. Wrinkles surface. Hair pales.
That is enough.
Shuku moves behind him, one hand steady, one blade ready. The strike is quick, a clean cut to the neck while covering the victim's mouth to stop the scream. A gasp, then silence. The body folds in place, dead before it hits the ground.
Second hunt, complete.
He brings the corpse to the Furnace at sunrise. Ken raises an eyebrow but says nothing. He counts fifteen gold coins, one thousand five hundred Apomis dollars.
Shuku thanks him, leaves, and that same afternoon buys himself a meal: a thick hamburger and an omelet, steaming with butter and spice. He eats in silence. Before the plate cools, he returns to the wall.
The next target is a woman.
Her crime is burning her husband and child alive in their own home after catching him with another woman. The bounty is high. The risk is higher.
She is a pyromaniac, and worse, she has fire magic.
By the time Shuku finds her, she is already fighting other manhunters in the middle of a crowded street. Flames twist and spiral, devouring the air. The crowd runs. The manhunters freeze. No one dares to move.
Except him.
What he faces is not strategy but madness. He grabs a bucket, fills it with water, and walks straight toward her. She notices him only when the water splashes across her shoulder.
For a moment her eyes widen in confusion, then rage.
"You dare put out my precious fire?!" she screams, and flames burst from her hands.
Shuku does not move.
The fire hits him full on. His coat burns away, his skin blisters. He lets himself fall, letting her think she has won. The air fills with the crackle of burning flesh and his faint, broken breath.
She smiles, satisfied with what she has done. Then his shadow moves.
From the smoke, the black-suited man rises again. His skin heals before her eyes. Steam hisses from the wounds as they close. His face stays calm, then twists into a faint smile. Even as the victim, he wants to know what it feels like to burn alive.
Shuku raises his hand. A thin red blood thread unravels from his palm, weaving silently across the ground beneath her feet. While she focuses on burning him, the thread coils around her legs, climbs upward, binds her wrists, and locks her hands before she can summon more fire.
He pulls her close. She gasps, eyes wide. The knife flashes before she can react. Her throat opens, and blood sprays across the cobblestone.
She collapses instantly, the flames dying with her.
Third hunt, complete.
But he does not stop there.
The days blur into blood and clashes. He hunts a rogue manhunter who murders his partner out of anger. A boy who drowns another child out of jealousy. A smuggler who slits throats for fun. Each one tracked, cornered, and cut down cleanly, efficiently, without hesitation.
Sometimes he kills with a knife, but most of the time he uses the bloodblade. From rooftops to alleys to rivers, it makes no difference.
Each kill is another spark feeding the fire inside him.
Within three weeks, he stacks more kills than most manhunters do in a year. The Guild's bounty board begins to empty. Jobs vanish overnight, taken by him before others can even move.
He can do this because he has no fear of death, no wound bad enough that he cannot heal, no need for rest, nothing to lose, and no one to protect. The pain and the fights thrill him, pushing him to hunt more.
And with that come the rumors.
A man in black. A hunter who never rests and kills without pause. They call him Black Death.
The name spreads through taverns and alleys, whispered between drinks and fear. Ama hears it first at the counter. Ken hears it next, shaking his head as he counts the payments. Both know the truth but say nothing.
Only this city knows the legend of the man who kills like a machine, who fights as if that is his only purpose, whose body defies every law of nature.
When Shuku returns to the Guild one evening, he sits at a corner table, eating a premium meal paid with hard-earned money: roasted emu meat, buttered bread, and hot soup. Around him, other hunters gather, laughing and arguing, their voices rough with alcohol and pride.
He listens without meaning to.
"He cuts clean, not a single blood trace left," one man says. "Almost ten kills this month. All clean deaths."
"If he's real," another mutters, "he'll hit top twenty soon."
Shuku chews slowly, eyes on his plate.
He does not know they are speaking of him. He does not care. The words drift past like smoke. Only one lingers — ranking.
Arila mentioned it once, long ago. He never looked. He never needed to.
Now, as he finishes the last bite, the word stays with him, faint but restless. Still, he does not check. There are more names on the wall, more gold to earn, more blood to take.
And so the spree goes on, as he indulges himself in the thrill and joy of the bloodbath, killing and torturing those he believes deserve justice. The madness grows, feeding itself, until the third week of his career as a manhunter.
Rain beats against the Guild roof, running down the tall windows in trembling lines. Inside, the air is thick with voices. Dozens of hunters crowd shoulder to shoulder, their laughter and shouting rising like thunder.
Banners hang from the rafters, painted with the Guild's crest. A board beside the reception counter glows under torchlight, still hidden beneath a cover.
Ama stands in front of it, her hand gripping the cloth.
"All-time Manhunter Rankings," she announces, her voice cutting through the noise. "Kingdom-wide. This cycle's update."
She pulls the cloth away.
The room falls silent as every eye turns to the board.
1. Hellfire - 50 hunted
2. Greyhound - 44 hunted
3. Nobody - 30 hunted
4. Green Arrow - 27 hunted
5. Chord Eye - 22 hunted
6. Chi Master - 20 hunted
7. The Purger - 20 hunted
8. Kunaive - 18 hunted
9. Bell - 10 hunted
10. Black Hood - 10 hunted
11. Banger - 10 hunted
...
The list continues to the top twenty.
When the crowd realizes what is new, the silence deepens. For months, the top ranks have barely changed. The same names, the same order. But now, a new name appears.
Black Hood.
Hunters exchange looks as murmurs rise like sparks. Some scoff, others grin. A few turn toward the door, their instincts already awake.
Then they see him.
A man dressed head to toe in black, a dark hood covering his head. A figure stands just inside the entrance. His coat drips with rain. A faint smear of red stains his gloves. Everything about him matches the name on the board.
Shuku stands still, the storm still clinging to him. His boots leave small pools on the floor.
The hall goes completely quiet.
Dozens of heads turn. The crowd parts slightly, not from fear or respect but from calculation. Whispers slip through the air.
"That's him. The Black Death!"
"Black Hood..."
"Ten kills in one month."
"If I take him down, his rank becomes mine."
The words ripple through the hall like a current. Beneath the surface, something shifts, heavy and dangerous.
Ama feels it from behind her desk. Her hand trembles on the parchment, eyes flicking from face to face. She knows what is coming. She has seen it before. The Guild has seen it before, when fame turns against the hunters themselves, when they begin preying on each other for rank.
Shuku senses it too.
He exhales once, slow and sharp. His eyes narrow beneath the hood. His stance lowers, feet light, hands near the knife at his belt, ready to move. The room holds its breath.
A single drop of water slides from his sleeve and hits the floor with a soft tap. No one moves.
For the first time in weeks, Shuku feels something he thought he had lost: fear, unease, anxiety. Not from the danger itself, but from what could come.
In this world, a hunter's name is worth as much as his life. Once it is known, his blood becomes currency, a trophy for others to take.