Every move you make, and every vow you break,
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake, I'll be watching you
— Excerpt from "Every Breath You Take" by The Police

Fourth of July 1996, Meteor City

After a flash of light, Martin Harvie found himself in a dark and dirty alley. He cautiously moved to a nearby wall to peek through the corner.

With no one in sight, he exited the alley while careful not to make too much sound. It was in the middle of midnight and with no light in sight which successfully hid the cloaked figure of Martin.

Before he was transferred in the area, he requested the system to procure him a change of clothes consisting of white long sleeve shirts and dark-blue jeans, a dark cloak, two pairs of sunglasses to hide his eyes which was kept in his trousers at the moment, and three days' worth of food kept in the knapsack he was carrying right now.

A couple more minutes of skulking and he came out of the residential area and into what seems to be a mountain of junk which he judged from the chaotic mess of the silhouette and the strong stench of garbage permeating throughout the area.

For some reason, he can notice multiple signs of life courtesy of his newly enhanced senses. Some are far away; about 10-20 meters while the others had taken notice of his arrival.

He did not panic and calmly strode through the road, careful not to give away that he's a foreigner. Fortunately, they merely followed him with their eyes.

A few hours of walking in the junk-filled zone has taken him into another area with rows of makeshift wooden houses. His feeling of being observed has never left ever since he first felt it. Rather, it was stronger now after hours of waking. It was strange that they were only following and not attacking considering the unlawful nature of this area.

Unknown to Martin, his observers were carefully hiding in the corners of the area where they thought they could hide, not noticing that they were already discovered earlier. They were sweating and nervous despite their confidence in area and numbers.

"Fuck! The hell's that bastard?" grumbled one of them, careful not to be heard by their target. Some of them sharply stared at his direction as if to shut him up.

"We should let him be! Doesn't look like that thing wants anything to do wit' us" carefully convinced of the few girls in their group, which signifies her disposition for being able to survive in this unlawful area.

"The hell, Zaza!? Don' tell me ya's scared?" gruffly questioned by the one who grumbled earlier.

"Shut up! Zaza's right, we're going to return!" hissed the one in charge. He was given an order by one of the elders to scout the stranger. The order is to eliminate the threat if he's a danger to their turf and at the moment, he was leaning towards retreating. His survival instincts are screaming to let this man go, that his man is very dangerous. He listened to his instincts this time as there's no advantage to be taken in this situation aside from the information.

He also based his decision on what seemed to be the goal of this intruder, and that is to find the exit of the city which is right now in sight.

Despite the grumbling of his subordinates, he took them away from the area, careful not to anger the predator in the area. Any consequences of this action can be dealt later.

Exiting through the entrance to Meteor City, he welcomed the sight of a road, naturally created by the tracks of people and vehicles enlightened by the break of dawn, and with it was the absence of his followers. He was uncertain of what happened but he was glad that there are no stragglers at his footsteps.

While it would have been better to have stayed the night in the city, Martin thought that he rather go through the hardship of walking the arduous road in the middle of the night instead of uncertainty of being killed in the dark of an alley, regardless of his superhuman body. He cleared his thoughts on the matter and walked the first steps of what will be a long journey.

Two day later.

It was the afternoon of the second day in this world and it has been awhile since he encountered the paved road that he was walking on the side. While he was happy to finally see some other people that would not potentially kill you, it was unfortunate that they did not seem to want companionship.

On a happy note, the sunglasses was enough to block out his [Evil Eye (False)] as the people did not have any discernible negative reaction after looking at me, aside from getting creeped out by my staring of course.

I trained [Judas Priest] when there are no people and [Footwork] skills that carefully paced my movements while on the road. Right now, [Judas Priest] is on Lv.4 and [Footwork] at Lv.13.

A few hours later, I've now caught sight of a silhouette of buildings in the distance and there's a noticeable increase of people on the way to the city.

Since I'm already near, I might as well ask what city this is I'm going, and that's why I approached a man who seemed to be a traveler going by his clothes and how he's saddling a big backpack on his back.

"Hey Bro! Excuse me!" That immediately caught his attention, along with the few people near him. He seemed weirded out by my approach as he immediately stopped to ask me.

"Ah, yes. By the way, aren't you hot in those clothes?" As usual, the system automatically translates to my native language which is very convenient.

I took a look at my get up and I don't think there's any problem with it. While it's in the middle of the day and the sun is up high in the sky, I only felt the heat in a more pleasant way. No sweat and not tired except mentally from skill use.

"No, No, I'm okay. Please don't worry." I immediately assuaged his curiosity while I asked what city is in the distance.

Once again, he looked at me with furrowed brows, to which I quickly added, "I'm new in this parts." And as that seemed to have answered a question, he immediately gave me what I'm hoping to hear.

Yorknew City.

It's one of the settings I remembered reading in the comics (on the web). I was actually excited to come to a place I know the name of.

I normally walked into the direction of the city while in the company of Urogen, the man I asked earlier. After he warmed up to me, he excitedly talked about meaningless topics like the bad weather before coming here, how hard the journey was, about the people he came across, etc.

Of course such topics are not meaningless to me. I've gathered various bits of information and it included the reason why so many people are gathering in the city at this time.

It was the annual auctions that will be happening in Yorknew City on September 1st to 10th including the world's largest auction, the Southernpiece Auction. As a merchant himself, Urogen was hoping to win it big by buying and selling at the marketplace that's more down-to-earth and like a silent auction that's more like garage sale and a flea market in one. For that, he needed to prepare earlier as it'll be crowded in the city on the event itself.

Arriving in the city, my first impression was that it was more crowded than I imagined. Contrary to the lack of cars he saw on the way here, a reasonable flow of traffic exists inside the city. There were about as many buildings as he had expected and looked more and more like his world's New York the more he looked around. There are more high rise buildings towards the center of the city and one particular building stands out among the rest.

Urogen called it the Cemetery Building and it was where the annual Underground Auction is always held. Not like its name, it emits its royal splendor a mile away and it seems to be this world's version of Empire State Building.

Before we part ways, I asked Urogen where I could acquire a Hunter Exam Application. He was not surprised as I've mentioned before that I wanted to become a Hunter and since I have five years in this world, I might as well complete as much objectives as possible.

I was surprised to find out that there's no such thing as 'Hunter Exam' application as all you have to do was fill a normal Job Application form along with a 1x1 picture and to mail it to the Hunter Association Headquarters. I shamelessly begged him for a few bucks and out of the goodness of his heart; he gave me five thousand jennies which was more than enough to procure a picture and to pay for the post. I was asked to pay it back double before giving me his contact information and wishing me good luck and to such, I gratefully accepted after thanking him for everything. He directed me to the direction of the post office where I could also get a blank job application form. It was located one block before Saloma Mall which was here downtown.

After a few minutes of walking, I caught sight of the mall which I entered hope to find a shop that could take my picture. A few minutes later, I walked out of the mall straight into the direction of the post office after I've kept the eight copies of my 1x1 pictures which cost me eight hundred jennies, in my trouser pocket.

One block later, I was at the post office filling out a job application with my picture stapled at the place where it was supposed, and this time, it'll not be an application to be a convenience store clerk but a Hunter. Finished with the form, I sealed it in an envelope addressed to the Hunter's Association and took it to the counter and paid one thousand jennies for the service which left me with more than three thousand bucks in the pocket.

Finished with my business, I got out of the building and suddenly… I've felt a pair of eyes directed at me from somewhere near but, no matter what I did; I can't seem to find it.

I scratched the back of my head in confusion as I gave up searching and decided that it was just my paranoia acting out and set to find lodging for the night.

In an undisclosed location near the Salome Mall was a black haired girl hiding in the dark. Surprisingly, her mischievous eyes seemed to glow in the dark until its pupils narrowed into slits like, akin to that of a cat.

"Nyahaha, What a close call, I almost got caught! That's a promising rookie right there…" *tsk-tsk* The cat-eyed girl clicked her tongue in surprise while keeping her unnaturally slim body in a navy-blue rider suit sticking to the wall and once again, cautiously peered at the corner of the wall and this time fully hiding her presence with an expertly executed Zetsu, her eyes wide as if finding herself new favorite toy.

"I just hope that we don't cross path while on the mission or else… Nyahaha" after uttering such an ominous phrase, she was gone with a laugh, as if she was never there.