The holographic display stabilized with a sound like cracking ice, letters burning themselves into existence with cruel clarity against the afternoon sky.
KAEL VOSS — E-RANK
For a single heartbeat, the plaza held its breath—thousands of people processing what they'd just witnessed, reconciling expectations with reality, calculating the social mathematics of an Ashford bride engaged to bottom-tier trash.
Then the whispers started.
"E-Rank? The Voss boy got E-Rank?"
"Didn't his mother awaken at C-Rank? How did she produce an E-Rank child?"
"The Ashford engagement is finished. No way Lord Aldric lets his A-Rank daughter marry that."
Kael stood motionless on the platform, his hand still resting on the Orb of Revelation, and observed the crowd's reaction with the detached interest of a scientist watching bacteria multiply in a petri dish. The laughter started in pockets—cruel, delighted laughter from those who fed on the misfortune of others—and spread like infection through the gathered masses.
But Kael wasn't listening to the crowd.
He was staring at something they couldn't see.
The moment the public display had stabilized, something else had flickered into existence at the edge of his vision—a second interface, darker and more angular than the World System's clean holographic aesthetic, rendered in deep purples and blacks that seemed to drink the surrounding light rather than emit it.
[DUNGEON MASTER SYSTEM - ACTIVATED]
[SCANNING HOST... COMPLETE]
[TRUE AWAKENING RESULT DETECTED]
The text pulsed with an energy that felt fundamentally different from the World System's clinical evaluation, something older and hungrier and far more interested in him specifically. Kael kept his expression carefully neutral as more text materialized, visible only to whatever internal perception had awakened alongside this hidden interface.
[PUBLIC DESIGNATION: E-RANK BEAST TAMER]
[Status: ACTIVE - Visible to World System and all standard detection methods]
[PRIVATE DESIGNATION: SSS-RANK ZERG OVERLORD (INSECTOID - UNIQUE)]
[Status: CONCEALED - Invisible to all external observation]
[NOTE: The Dungeon Master System has intervened in the Awakening process to protect Host identity. The World System detected anomalous power signature and attempted to display true result. Intervention successful. Public record shows E-Rank Beast Tamer only.]
Kael read the text three times, his mind racing behind the mask of his composed features. SSS-Rank—he'd watched enough awakenings to understand that S-Rank was legendary, that SS-Rank was the stuff of myths and history books, that SSS-Rank wasn't supposed to exist.
And yet here it was, hidden behind a convenient lie that painted him as the lowest of the low.
[QUERY: Does Host wish to review Zerg Overlord capabilities?]
[Y/N]
Not here, Kael thought, and somehow the system seemed to hear him, because the query minimized itself into a small icon at the corner of his vision—a stylized insectoid sigil that pulsed with patient hunger.
[Acknowledged. Full system tutorial available when Host is in secure location.]
[Welcome, Overlord. The Swarm awaits.]
The hidden interface faded to transparency, leaving only that small icon as proof it had ever existed, and Kael finally lifted his hand from the orb's surface. The officiant was staring at him with an expression caught somewhere between professional sympathy and personal relief that she didn't have to deal with whatever had caused the display to glitch so dramatically.
"You may descend," she said, her voice carefully neutral in the way of someone who had delivered bad news to thousands of disappointed candidates. "The ceremony continues."
Kael inclined his head politely and turned toward the stairs.
The descent from the platform felt longer than the climb, each step carrying him deeper into a gauntlet of contemptuous stares and barely-concealed mockery. The crowd had rearranged itself in his absence, those who had been politely indifferent now clustering in groups to watch the E-Rank trash make his walk of shame.
"Look at him—doesn't even have the decency to look ashamed."
"Cold fish, that one. Maybe that's why he got E-Rank. No fire in him at all."
"Someone should tell the Ashford girl she's dodged an arrow. Imagine being stuck with that for a husband."
Kael let the words wash over him without reaction, his face maintaining the same neutral expression he'd worn through countless corporate reviews and performance evaluations in his previous life. These people didn't matter—their opinions were wind against stone, meaningless noise from individuals who would never be relevant to his actual existence.
What mattered was the icon pulsing at the edge of his vision, the promise of power that made their mockery not just bearable but almost amusing.
SSS-Rank, he thought, allowing himself a moment of private satisfaction. They're laughing at someone who could probably destroy this entire plaza if he understood how to use what's been given to him.
Not that he would, of course. These people weren't his enemies—they were simply ignorant, reacting to incomplete information with the predictable cruelty of crowds throughout human history. His enemies, when he identified them, would receive a very different kind of attention.
"E-Rank trash! Hey, E-Rank! How's it feel to be worthless?"
The voice came from somewhere to his left, young and male and dripping with the particular venom of someone who needed to push others down to feel tall. Kael didn't bother looking for the speaker, didn't break stride, didn't give any indication that he'd heard at all.
Let them talk. Let them assume. Let them build their expectations around an E-Rank Beast Tamer with no future and no prospects.
When the truth eventually emerged—if it ever did—their surprise would be all the sweeter for their current contempt.
He'd almost reached the staging area when she appeared.
Lyra pushed through the crowd with the determined grace of someone who had grown up learning to navigate social gatherings without ever appearing to rush, but there was nothing composed about the set of her jaw or the fierce light burning in her ice-blue eyes. People parted for her instinctively—A-Rank presence already beginning to manifest, perhaps, or simply the recognition that an Ashford on a mission was not to be obstructed.
She stopped directly in front of him, close enough that he could see the rapid pulse beating in her throat, close enough that everyone watching could see exactly what she was about to do.
"Lyra," he said quietly, "you don't have to—"
She took his hand.
Not a subtle gesture, not a private comfort hidden from observers—she reached out and interlaced her fingers with his in full view of the thousand eyes tracking her every movement, her grip firm and her expression daring anyone to comment.
The whispers shifted in tone, surprise replacing mockery as the crowd processed what they were seeing.
"She's... she's still holding his hand?"
"Is she mad? An A-Rank with an E-Rank? Her father will never allow it."
"Maybe she feels sorry for him. It'll pass once the shock wears off."
"That's not pity on her face. That's... that's something else entirely."
Lyra ignored them all, her attention focused entirely on Kael. When she spoke, her voice was pitched low enough that only he could hear, but her words carried the weight of absolute conviction.
"I told you the result wouldn't change anything between us, and I meant it. My parents will have opinions, the nobles will whisper, and half the city will think I've lost my mind—but I know who you are, Kael Voss, and a letter grade doesn't change that." Her fingers tightened around his, cool against his skin but warming where they pressed. "We're leaving. Together. And anyone who has a problem with that can address it to my face."
Kael looked at her—really looked, seeing past the beautiful features and noble bearing to the steel core beneath, the woman who would stand beside E-Rank trash because she'd decided his worth for herself rather than accepting the World System's judgment.
She doesn't know, he thought. She doesn't know what I really am, what's hiding behind the mask the System created for me. She's choosing to stand by someone she thinks is worthless.
The realization stirred something in his chest that had nothing to do with the hidden power lurking at the edge of his consciousness, something warmer and more human than the calculating pragmatism that had carried him through his first life.
"Thank you," he said, and meant it more than he'd meant anything in either of his existences.
Lyra's expression softened for just a moment before hardening again as she turned to face the crowd, pulling him along beside her. "Don't thank me yet. My mother is going to have opinions, and she's considerably more frightening than any of these idiots."
They walked through the plaza hand in hand, and the crowd parted before them like water before a ship's prow—some from respect for Lyra's newly confirmed A-Rank status, others simply too shocked by the display to interfere. The whispers followed them, of course, a constant susurrus of speculation and judgment that would probably continue for weeks or months or however long it took for some new scandal to capture the public's attention.
Kael didn't mind. He had larger concerns than social reputation—namely, the icon pulsing patiently at the edge of his vision, promising answers to questions he was only beginning to formulate.
SSS-Rank Zerg Overlord, Dungeon Master System, The Swarm awaits.
What did any of that mean? What were Zerg, and why was he their Overlord? What was the Dungeon Master System, and why had it intervened to hide his true rank from the World System's evaluation?
The questions multiplied faster than he could process them, each one spawning a dozen more, and beneath them all lurked the fundamental mystery that he'd been avoiding since the moment he'd opened his eyes in this borrowed body.
Why me? Why here? Why now?
He'd died on a crosswalk in Tokyo, unremarkable to the end, and awakened in a fantasy world at the precise moment his new body was being evaluated for magical potential. That wasn't random chance—that was precision, purpose, design.
Someone or something had put him here, in this body, at this moment.
And they'd given him the power of a rank that shouldn't exist, hidden behind a mask of weakness that would let him move through this world without attracting attention.
The question, Kael thought as Lyra led him through the thinning crowd toward whatever awaited them beyond the ceremony grounds, is whether that's a gift or a trap.
As if in response to his thought, the icon at the edge of his vision pulsed once—a slow, patient rhythm that felt almost like a heartbeat.
Or a promise.
[The Hive Nexus awaits, Overlord.]
[Your Broodmother stirs.]
[The Swarm is ready to be born.]
Kael kept walking, kept his expression neutral, kept Lyra's hand warm in his own.
But somewhere in the depths of his soul, in spaces that hadn't existed before the Orb of Revelation had illuminated them, something vast and ancient and utterly inhuman began to wake.
The ceremony was over.
His real awakening was just beginning.