They met again on the rooftop.
Same rusted fence, same broken chair, same cold wind slicing over the edge of the buildings like it had business with someone.
Taesung didn't say anything when he saw her. Just nodded, sat down, and pulled his jacket tighter.
Harin handed him a canned coffee, still warm from her coat.
"You look like you've been thinking again," she said.
He cracked the tab open. "Is it that obvious?"
"You get this look. Like your brain's ten seconds ahead of your mouth and still deciding if it wants to let you talk."
"I don't know if that's a compliment."
"It's not."
She grinned, and for a second it was easier to breathe. The sky overhead was that color right before the sun dipped flat and golden, a little bruised around the edges.
Taesung took a sip of the coffee. Too sweet. Too hot. Perfect.
"I've been thinking about what you said," he said finally. "About the system being wrong."
Her grin faded, but the seriousness didn't feel heavy. Just real.
"Yeah. I remember."
"Are there actual rules? For Hunters, I mean. Not just laws. I mean the real ones. The ones people actually follow."
She looked at him for a long time. Not judging just deciding.
Then she nodded once.
"Okay," she said. "But if I tell you, you have to understand something first."
"What?"
"None of this is official. No books. No briefings. No one stands in front of a classroom and explains it. You just... pick it up. Usually the hard way."
"I can handle that."
"I'm not sure you can," she said quietly. "But you're here, so you might as well hear it."
She held up a finger.
"One. Never trust your Rank."
Taesung blinked. "What?"
"I mean it. Never trust it. Yours, theirs doesn't matter. Rank is a guess. A prediction. It's how the system thinks you'll turn out. Not what you are. Some high-ranks never grow. Some low-ranks never stop."
He let that sit for a moment. It didn't make him feel better. But it made sense.
"Okay. What else?"
"Two." Another finger. "Your first party matters more than your first hunt. Who you go with? That decides everything. Your habits, your expectations, how you think a fight should feel. Get in with the wrong team, and even if you survive, you come out wrong."
She said it so plainly. Like she'd seen it happen. Like maybe it had happened to her.
"Got it."
"Three. Don't expect anyone to save you."
"Even in a party?"
"Especially in a party. Most people are in it for themselves. They'll protect you if it benefits them. If not… you're just another liability."
"That's bleak."
"It's not bleak," she said. "It's honest."
The sky was going purple now, bruising into blue.
"Four," she continued, voice quieter. "There's no such thing as a safe Rift."
"But they're ranked. Aren't there D or E-class ones that barely"
"Doesn't matter. All it takes is one variable to change, one anomaly to slip through, one assumption to go wrong. The second you stop being nervous, you get killed."
He didn't reply.
"Five," she said. "Control matters more than power."
That one hit harder.
He looked at her sideways. "You think I have either?"
"I think you have something. You just don't know how to steer it yet."
He let out a breath, but it wasn't quite a laugh.
"And six?"
She paused. "Six is the one most people break first."
She looked him in the eye.
"Never use your power if you don't know what it's doing."
He blinked. "Isn't that what training is for?"
"You'd be surprised how many people get a skill and just start testing it. On dummies. On animals. On friends. They think it's harmless until it's not. There are Hunters out there who've hurt people without ever meaning to. And there are people who never became Hunters because of what someone else did trying to 'figure things out.'"
A long silence followed.
Somewhere below, a train passed. The sound rumbled up through the building, then faded.
Taesung stared at his coffee can.
"Have you ever broken that rule?"
Harin didn't answer immediately.
Then she said, very quietly, "Once."
"What happened?"
She looked away. "Nothing I can undo."
He didn't press.
He just nodded, because that was what people did when they didn't know what to say but didn't want to leave the moment hanging, either.
The wind rose and fell again.
"You're not trying to scare me off, are you?" he asked finally.
"If I was, I'd be doing a bad job."
"Why are you telling me this then?"
She took a long breath. "Because I think you're going to need it sooner than you expect."
Later that night, Taesung sat alone in his room, the can of coffee now empty on the windowsill.
The six rules replayed in his mind, slow and steady.
Never trust your Rank.
That one stuck the hardest.
He had spent his entire life quietly believing the opposite. That the Rank he got—C—meant he was just not enough. That it wasn't a mistake. That it was the truth he hadn't earned the right to question.
But what if it wasn't the whole story?
He turned off the lights.
Let the dark settle.
He didn't try to activate anything. Didn't reach for his power, or force it, or stare himself down in the mirror.
He just sat in the silence.
And waited.
Not for something big.
Just… for whatever was trying to grow inside him to have a chance to breathe.
Somewhere else in the city, in a quiet basement of a private guild office, someone read a flagged report. A single line buried in routine Rift-sensor feedback. An anomaly in a low-risk zone. No spike, no breach. Just a distortion.
Unclassified.
Unranked.
Unclaimed.
The man folded the report, slid it into a red folder, and tucked it into a locked drawer.
He made no calls.
Not yet.
But he remembered the name.
Yoon Taesung.