Chapter 2: Publicity

March 23rd, 2034

New York, New York, MNT Dressing Room

"Stay still," Christina instructed me as she put on a light layer of makeup for the interview. Her face was uncomfortably close to my own, leaving me unsure where I was supposed to look.

"I don't see much of a need for this stuff. Isn't my face handsome enough as-is?" I shuddered as my assistant poofed my cheeks with blush. It was all horribly demeaning.

"You know it doesn't work that way," she said as she was wrapping up. "All right, take a look in the mirror."

Well, a good look in the mirror had never hurt anyone. I happily hopped out of the chair and stood tall in front of my reflection. It framed me as a handsome man wearing a white suit with a blue tie. My short, black hair was neatly trimmed and my face was shaved to perfection. If I were to complain, I was starting to look a bit thin I supposed.

"I'd say I'm looking pretty sharp. What do you think?"

"Respectfully, you look like a dandy."

I shrugged. "Good. Appearances are important. Now, how much time until we're on air?" As I was speaking, I started to walk toward the exit.

Christina, following me, responded, "You're on in 4."

We parted ways at the broadcasting room and I exchanged quick pleasantries with the anchorman before the show started.

With a silent countdown to zero, we were live in front of thousands of people. I didn't feel too anxious, though; it wasn't my first time and I had prepared what I wished to speak about.

"Mr. Eaton, is it true that the reappearance of Seounu Kim in India has inspired you to take drastic actions with your company?" the anchorman asked, a mask of friendliness coating his face.

I flinched when he mentioned Wrath's name, though I tried to mitigate the reaction.

"Somewhat." I half-coughed the reply. "Wrath was an awe-inspiring individual. I think somewhere deep down, him showing up again has prompted me to take action, yes."

"And is it true that Mr. Kim indeed went mad with power that day, as Lucian Merrileth reported? If so, do you consider Mr. Kim a threat to mankind?"

I smiled politely as I gritted my teeth as covertly as possible. It was a dangerous question, one I elected to sidestep.

"Well, I believe it's hard to theorize about Wrath's intentions. It's been a long time; who knows what could have happened to cause his return? He could be an entirely different person by now. I believe that, if possible, I wouldn't wish to inflict harm upon one of my past teammates."

I spoke like a damn politician, but if that was what was required, then so be it. It would be convenient if I were to be able to allow Christina to speak on my behalf, but that would show weakness.

I continued, "That does bring me to the main point of this press conference. My company, Sol, specializes in defense contracts. With the 15 Divines now whole once more, I feel that our presence in other countries and on the West Coast is becoming unnecessary. Instead, our aspirations are to focus our power here in New York to sharpen the East Coast's defenses. The conglomeration of all of our strongest hunters should have a good influence on them all, as well—a healthy amount of competition."

The rest of the interview didn't go anywhere particularly noteworthy. Ideally, I would get a bit of publicity and I won't be having journalists hounding me, asking what I'm doing wherever I go.

I returned to my office without incident and asked Christina how things were going on her end.

"Well, it's going about as smoothly as it could have," she responded. "Most of the executives are freaking out about it."

"Good enough." I shrugged. "They don't really matter, anyway. Just a bunch of penny pushers and sycophants. So if that's going well, can you set up a wormhole raid for me? The strongest one you can get."

She lamented, "You are going to work me to death."

"Just drink more caffeine, like me."

"You think caffeine is strong enough to put up with you?"

"Well, I think our insurance plan covers sleep deprivation and its related effects. So, work hard."

She grumbled something and left the room, pulling out her phone.

I was considering hiring a second assistant at this rate. Admittedly, it wouldn't do me any good to have an assistant with stomach ulcers and chronic insomnia. Hell, I didn't even pay Christina. If I remembered correctly, she got work credit from her college or something. It would be good to try to find someone else like that.

A few hours later, I was standing in front of the wormhole our broker was able to get. It had been a few years since I had personally delved into one this strong, so I had a bit of a cold sweat as I stared at the entrance of the subspace.

Wormholes, or portals, were very strange to look at in the sense of comprehending one's visual stimuli. It was somewhat like gazing into a warped mirror at a funhouse, but the reflection you saw wasn't anything concrete. It was Lovecraftian, esoteric nonsense.

This wormhole in particular was one of the stronger ones readily found. While "supermassive" ones held the strongest opponents one could face, there were different types of wormholes that indicated how powerful their contained subspaces were. Some called them A-E ranked, with supermassive being "S-ranked" and others called them tiers 1-5.

The one I was standing in front of was a B-rank wormhole, enough to warrant only myself going in. Still, the idea was to give me a rough time of it. I wouldn't grow through being complacent and obsessively careful.

"Fuck."

I stepped through the miasma and looked for indications of what sort of subspace I was entering.

Before my vision cleared, I felt an oppressive pressure push me down. I reckoned that gravity here was roughly 2.5 times as strong as on Earth, making me weigh roughly 200 kilograms. With a grunt, I raised my head and looked around me.

The space around me was a distorted mess. Stray lines were swirling around and the walls were twisting like a cotton candy machine. Focusing, it looked like I was in a cylindrical cavern roughly a few meters in radius. And, weirdly enough, the entire thing looked like it was made of asphalt. At least, it would have if the walls weren't spiraling around me.

"All right," I spoke softly to myself before starting my descent. The ground in front of me seemed to gradually slope downward, and behind me was a dead end. I carefully kept stepping forward as the slope continued to decline before eventually leveling off, opening up into a larger cavern.

I kept quiet as I looked around, looking for enemies. Before long, I noticed a strange creature. It had an extended, proboscis-like mouth that would periodically open up by splitting into 4 different parts, each with hundreds of jagged teeth lining its insides.

The creature was roughly anthropomorphic, shambling around with two legs that each split at the knee into two calves, leading to hooves. It was hard to ascertain what it was doing, but I didn't feel like giving it the chance to do anything meaningful.

With my will, I unleashed a wave of fire and sent it toward this creature. It was burnt to charcoal without an iota of resistance.

+396 XP

That was one of the boons granted by my class, "Aspect of Sun"—it gave me innate control over fire. It furthermore allowed me to create certain amounts of fire, limited by my mana pool. Due to those abilities, I didn't have to cast a spell in order to turn that weak thing into ash.

Of course, if I wished to create an explosion or form a more specific shape, a spell would usually have to be involved. Compared to the skill, a spell had the drawbacks of being more intricate and time-consuming.

The downside of being the Aspect of Sun was that I was unable to learn spells that required a type of mana other than fire. I was also unable to learn any skills not provided passively by the class.

In fact, not everyone had a class, nor was every class beneficial. They were all about trade-offs—good for min-maxing, bad for the casual hunter. Normally, people would need a certain threshold of divinity to counteract the detriments of a class.

I was certain that not every member of the Divines held a class. In fact, I knew that most of them weren't chosen by some esoteric force to be represented. I was a minority in that regard.

Call me weak, call it borrowed power—it didn't matter. I had come to an understanding with myself, the system, and my powers over the last few years. My epiphany after all of that time had been simple.

"This is a tool for slaughter." I laughed at the pile of carbon that had been that bizarre creature. Knowing that at the least the entrance of this subspace was weakly defended, I lazily strolled through the cavern, burning every bit of resistance I came across.