Yujin stared into the bowl of stew sitting in front of him. The steam rose in a slow, lazy swirl, catching the light from the hanging bulb. For a second, the ripples on the surface of the broth looked like the gray, hollow face he’d seen in the bathroom mirror every morning two years ago.

Back then, he didn’t look like a man. He looked like a ghost that had forgotten to stop walking.

“Two years ago,” Yujin began, his voice dropping into a low, weary register. “Hana was gone. The Association had stopped looking. They’d written her off as another casualty of a mountainous dungeon collapse. I was alone. Francis was the only one who didn't stop calling.”

He shifted his weight, the empty sleeve of his shirt rustling against the table.

The winter that year had been a jagged, relentless thing. The residential district they lived in wasn't a place that handled the cold well. The pipes froze in the walls, the heaters groaned and died, and the electricity flickered like a dying pulse. Yujin was a D-Rank hunter, a man whose mana was just high enough to be useful for manual labor but too low to ever make a real living.

The debt didn't care about his rank. It just grew.

“I couldn't pay the rent,” Yujin said. He didn't look up from the bowl. “Mina was working two jobs, but it wasn't enough. The landlord was a man who enjoyed the sound of his own fist hitting the door. Every morning I woke up expecting to see my belongings on the curb. I was a hunter who couldn't even afford the mana stones needed to keep his own house warm.”

Francis had been in a worse spot.

His mother was sick, the kind of sickness that required expensive mana-filtered treatments that the Association only subsidized for B-Ranks and above. For a C-Rank porter like Francis, it was a death sentence written in hospital bills. They were two men drowning in a city built on gold and glass, and nobody was throwing them a rope.

The flashback hit Yujin with a physical weight.

He remembered sitting in a cramped, dimly lit ramen shop with Francis. The air smelled of cheap grease and damp coats. Francis had leaned over the table, his eyes bloodshot and his hands shaking as he clutched a cup of cold tea.

“We can’t keep doing this, Yujin,” Francis had whispered. “The legal raids... the Association takes forty percent. The taxes take another twenty. We’re risking our lives to make enough for a bowl of noodles and a bus pass. We’re bait, man. In every A-Rank raid we porter for, we’re just the bait that hasn't been eaten yet.”

Yujin had looked at his hands. They were calloused, scarred, and perpetually cold. He thought of Hana. He thought of the empty room in the apartment.

“What are you saying?” Yujin had asked.

“There are people who don't care about the Association,” Francis said, his voice a frantic, desperate hiss. “People who run gates that don't exist on any map. No taxes. No fees. You bring out a stone, you get the full price in black money. No questions. No paperwork.”

It was the start of the descent.

They began with small things. Moving stolen gear. Acting as lookouts for raids that happened in the middle of the night in abandoned warehouses. The money was fast, and it was dangerous, and it was the first time in years that Yujin felt like he was actually breathing instead of just gasping for air.

But black money came with black shadows.

The debt collectors were replaced by men with scarred knuckles and cold eyes. The shame of poverty was replaced by the constant, grinding fear of being caught by the Association or, worse, being betrayed by the very people they were working for.

“We were desperate,” Yujin said, his fingers tightening around the spoon. “Desperation makes you stupid. It makes you think you’re the one in control when you’re really just a fly in a web. Francis needed the money for the surgery. I needed the money to keep a roof over Mina’s head. We decided to go for the big one.”

It was a rainy Tuesday. The sky was a bruised purple, the rain coming down in thick, gray sheets that turned the streets into a river of soot. Francis had met Yujin under the bridge in the Reiswan District, near the shipyard.

A man was waiting for them there.

He didn't look like a criminal. He wore a clean, dark coat and held a black umbrella that looked like it cost more than Yujin’s entire apartment. He was smoking a pipe, the scent of a sweet, herbal mix cutting through the smell of the damp harbor.

“You’re the two Arslan mentioned,” the man said.

He had a smile that didn't reach his eyes. It was a practiced, clinical expression. He looked at them not as people, but as equipment. He assessed their mana levels, their gear, and the desperation etched into their faces with a single, sweeping glance.

“I have a gate,” the man said. “It’s a special one. High yield. Very lucrative. But it requires people who aren't afraid of the dark. People who don't exist to the world above.”

Francis had stepped forward, his jaw set in a hard, stubborn line. “We’re in. We just want the stones.”

The man laughed. It was a soft, melodic sound that chilled Yujin to the bone.

“You’ll get your stones,” the man said. “And much more. My name is Arslan. And I’m the man who is going to make you rich. Or at least, I’m the man who is going to give you a chance to survive.”

Yujin looked up from the bowl of soup now, his gaze meeting Hana’s. The warmth of the apartment felt fake. The incense was a thin, sweet veil over a memory that smelled of blood and salt.

“We thought it was the end of our problems,” Yujin whispered. “We thought Arslan was the answer to every prayer we’d ever made. We didn't know that the shipyard wasn't a place for boats. It was a place for people to disappear.”

The silence in the room was absolute. Even the crickets outside seemed to have stopped their song.

I looked at Seraphina. She was staring at Yujin, her eyes dark and unreadable. I looked at Hana. She was gripping her brother's hand, her face pale.

The story was only half-finished, but the part that remained was the part that had cost Yujin his arm and Francis his soul.