I walked onto the field with my hands up, F-rank still displayed.
Players near the shelter door shouted. Some aimed weapons. Serena turned toward me, spear lowered but ready. Grace watched from the stands, probably wondering whether I had a plan or had finally become as dumb as my haircut.
Owen's voice told everyone not to let me near the safe zone crystal.
So I walked straight toward it.
A nervous C-rank threw a fireball at my feet. It was not an attack meant to kill, so the system did not mark him red. Good. I did not want innocent panic punished.
I stopped, raised one finger, and changed my rank.
F. The crowd gasped. Then E. More gasps. Whispers rippled across the stadium. Grace smiled despite herself. Serena's eyes narrowed.
Owen's screens could not hide it. Every camera angle showed the same thing. Owen had accused an F-rank who was not an F-rank at all. More importantly, I had changed my rank openly without attacking anyone. I was not running from the crystal. I was using it as a spotlight.
Then I lowered back to F and pointed at the speakers.
Owen lost control of the crowd before I touched him. That made him angry. Angry people rushed the stage.
A sniper bolt came from the lighting booth. It aimed for my back. Serena moved first, but I was closer to my own shadow. I dropped into it, appeared on top of the lighting booth, caught the bolt in my chain blade, and revealed S directly in front of the shooter.
The shooter's red mark flared like a flare gun. He tried to jump away. I hooked his belt with the chain blade and swung him out over the field like a ridiculous banner. The stadium crystal caught him midair and pulled him into a cell.
The crowd roared.
Owen did not show himself. Of course he didn't. But he had shown me his rhythm. He liked traps inside traps. He liked making good people look dangerous. He liked using fear as a weapon.
That meant I could bait him the same way I baited everyone else. I just needed better bait.
After the stadium wave, Serena approached me under the broken scoreboard. Up close, she looked less like a goddess and more like someone who had been awake for two days and hated being inspirational. Her S-rank shone clean and steady above her head. Mine was already hidden again.
She asked why I kept pretending to be weak.
I told her monsters run at weakness, but bad people sprint.
She almost smiled. Almost. Then she warned me that Owen would not fall for the same trick twice.
I told her that was fine. I had more than one trick.
The next week turned into a race. Not a race against the system. A race against human greed.
Dungeons opened faster. Safe zones became crowded. Food gained value. Monster cores became money. Some players trained. Some protected others. Some discovered that the apocalypse did not create their cruelty. It just gave them a costume.
I made it my hobby to remove costumes.
My rank kept climbing, because my battles were always unfair in the funniest direction.
I entered a flooded parking garage as an F-rank and let a gang chase me on floating car doors, then revealed S and used the chain blade to turn the water into a spinning trap that wrapped them all in seat belts.
I entered a burned library dungeon as a D-rank so a corrupt team would invite me as disposable bait, then switched to F at the last second so they became confident enough to shove me into the boss room. The boss attacked. They laughed. Then I revealed S and used the boss's own shadow to appear behind it, making the corrupt team realize they had volunteered to watch their own replacement. When they tried to steal the loot, red marks appeared. The jail crystal enjoyed that delivery.
I used a C-rank disguise once to sneak into a recruitment camp where strong players were pressuring low ranks to join dangerous raids. Grace was there. Not running it, just observing. She saw through me faster that time, but she did not expose me. Maybe she wanted to see what would happen. Maybe she liked chaos when it was aimed away from her.
The camp leader announced that every C-rank had to prove loyalty by dueling an F-rank prisoner.
I volunteered to be the prisoner.
Grace rubbed her forehead like I had physically hurt her patience. They put a wooden training sword in my hand and told me not to cry. I lowered my visible rank to F. The crowd laughed.
The first duelist swung with full strength while pretending it was training. Red sparks.
I did not reveal S right away. I stayed F.
That scared him more, because I blocked. A fake F-rank should not block a C-rank power slash with a wooden sword. I blocked the next one too, and the next. Each time, my wooden sword cracked but did not break, because Riley had secretly reinforced it with bone dust and spite.
The duelist got desperate. He activated a fire skill and swung for my neck. The red mark deepened.
Then I revealed S.
The pressure knocked the training dust off the ground in a ring. I tapped his forehead with the wooden sword. He flew backward through three practice dummies and landed in a laundry basket.
The camp went silent. I looked at the rest of the recruiters and asked who wanted to train next.
Several red marks appeared when they attacked as a group. Several cells filled soon after.
Grace laughed for the first time that day, and I decided it was a dangerous sound.