The second those words left Craig’s mouth, the buzzing crowd dropped to dead silence.
The name Craig had just announced… was Jack?
“Hey! Any of you know a Jack around here?”
Viktor spun on his heel and barked at the onlookers. He’d sooner write it off as a random namesake than swallow that Jack had actually taken first place.
X, by contrast, stayed perfectly composed. He didn’t waste time clinging to that flimsy same-name fantasy. He lifted his chin and spoke to Craig in a low, even tone.
“Mr. Craig, forgive me for speaking bluntly, but I see no evidence whatsoever that justifies Jack claiming first place. As the finest knight in Lord Lawrence’s service, I trust you won’t send us away with this hanging over our heads.”
Craig glanced at X and nodded. “Of course I’ll explain. Jack hunted and killed over twenty Ironhide Behemoths—” “Impossible!” X cut him off immediately. “ Ironhide Behemoths are devastatingly strong. There’s no way Jack could take down twenty of them back-to-back.” “Let me finish.” Craig’s voice was cold, edged with a quiet warning. X instantly realized he’d overstepped, and clamped his mouth shut.
“However, those twenty-odd
Ironhide Behemoths were killed with assistance from Ms. Saria’s… involvement. After discussing with the city lord, we’ve decided not to count those kills.”
“Knew it.”
Viktor shot Jack a look of pure, unfiltered contempt. The expression said it all: Jack was just some useless fraud leeching off someone else’s hard work.
Then Craig spoke again, and his next words froze every single person in place.
“Beyond those twenty
Ironhide Behemoths, Jack also hunted and killed the offspring of the Gale Ape. It was originally a C-rank beast, but dropped to D-rank due to a curse: a Gale Ape Cub. Per the city lord’s personal evaluation, Jack is the undisputed first-place winner of this Wasteland expedition.”
“What?”
X could barely believe his own ears. He stared wide-eyed at Craig, muttering under his breath.
“Impossible… that can’t be.”
“This assessment was run personally by the city lord using specialized tools. There is zero room for error.”
Clearly fed up with X’s repeated pushback, Craig’s tone was openly impatient this time.
“Jack. You may now present yourself to the city lord to claim your reward.”
Craig’s gaze fell on Jack, holding a measure of approval and a flicker of curiosity. He’d heard the rumors from the Awakening Ceremony: this kid Jack had been the undisputed rising star of his cohort, only to awaken the most useless profession there is—Scavenger. When Craig first heard the news, he’d even felt a twinge of pity for him.
Yet now, in barely any time at all, Jack had pulled himself back up.
Somehow he’d even advanced to D-rank, reclassed as a Wreck Reaper. Neither Craig nor Lord Lawrence found that miraculous jump all that hard to swallow. Everyone got their lucky breaks, after all. Profession breakthroughs weren’t unheard of across the planet—Jack was far from the first case.
“What about the carcass?”
Jack pointed at the Gale Ape corpse behind Craig. He had zero intention of letting that thing go without a fight. A beast that had once been B-rank, dropped to C-rank by a curse? Its value was off the charts. For certain niche research fields, it was even more valuable than a standard B-rank monster carcass.
“The carcass…”
Craig paused for a beat, glancing at the obvious discontent written all over Viktor and X’s faces. After a second of thought, he spoke slowly.
“Viktor and X placed second and third in this expedition. Split the Gale Ape carcass in two and award it to them as an extra reward.”
X and Viktor lit up instantly. But Jack frowned, cutting in before anyone could react.
“Did the posted expedition decree say anything about that?”
“What?”
Craig almost thought he’d misheard. He stared at Jack in plain disbelief. But Jack’s face stayed perfectly calm, his voice steady.
“The rules never stated second or third place would get extra rewards. The Gale Ape carcass is fair game for whoever claimed the kill.”
Craig paused, then a rare smile tugged at the corner of his usually cold mouth. He clapped his hands, chuckling softly.
“Not bad. A real strongman claims every resource he’s earned. That’s the law of survival around here.”
He turned to X and Viktor, jerking his chin at them.
“Either of you got the guts to challenge Jack for it?”
“I’d love nothing more than to smash that little prick into paste right now!”
Viktor snarled, grinding his teeth so hard the sound was audible.
X nodded slightly, his tone cold.
“I’ve wanted to teach Jack a lesson for a while now.”
“Good.”
Craig nodded, then flicked his wrist and stowed the Gale Ape carcass inside his storage ring.
“Ownership of the carcass will be decided by a match I’ll arrange personally. As for the location…”
A mysterious glint flashed in his eyes as he spoke slowly.
“That stays under wraps for now.”
One blink, and Craig was gone, vanished from sight entirely.
“Saria, Mr. Craig’s got a pretty weird vibe, doesn’t he,” Jack muttered to the woman beside him.
Saria seemed to think of something, lowering her voice.
“Wait till you meet the city lord. Then you’ll know what real weird looks like.”
With Craig gone, no one felt like hanging around. The crowd split into small groups, drifting back toward
Frostveil City. X and Viktor even ended up walking side by side, heads bent together—they were already plotting how to take Jack down, obvious as day.
Jack, who’d headed into the Wasteland alone, now had a companion for the trip back: Saria. Truth be told, he didn’t want to get too close to her. This woman was way too secretive, kept every card close to her chest and told him nothing. It put him on edge.
As they neared the
Frostveil City gates, Jack spotted a dense crowd packed in front of the entrance. Almost all of them were relatives of people who’d joined the Wasteland expedition. They’d waited here day and night for their kids to come home in one piece. It was a local custom: every family gathered at the gate to welcome their kid back from their first ever Wasteland run.
Jack’s parents were there too, of course. But if you looked close
, something was off. The whole area in front of the gate was crammed shoulder to shoulder, but a wide, empty circle had opened up around Jack’s parents. Neither of them seemed to care. They stood hand in hand, quiet, waiting for him to come back.
A heavyset middle-aged man finally shoved his way through the crowd, and spotted the open space near the couple. He made to push right into it, but his friend grabbed his arm hard, hissing furiously.
“Are you crazy? His son’s a Scavenger. You wanna get close enough to catch their bad luck?”
The heavyset man flinched, nodding gratefully.
“Good thing you stopped me. I almost walked right into a curse.”
His friend sighed, shaking his head.
“A Scavenger dumb enough to actually go into the Wasteland? He’s probably already been torn to shreds by monsters by now.”
The heavyset man snickered, nodding along.
“Monsters probably wouldn’t even bother eating a lowlife Scavenger’s corpse.”
They were still piling on the insults when Jack’s father, Rick, walked over.
“What did you just say? Say it again.”
Rick grabbed the heavyset man by the collar. His voice was calm, but under it raged a storm of fury.
The heavyset man shoved Rick away hard, sneering.
“I said your son’s a worthless, bottom-feeding Scavenger. Even monsters wouldn’t touch him. You got a problem with that?!”
The words were barely out of his mouth before Rick’s fists came down like a hailstorm…