"Big brother, hurry and let go, or I’m going to be late for school!" Inez’s clear voice echoed across the living room, completely filled with impatience.
"Okay... just give me a few more minutes..." Jet’s muffled voice boomed from the back of the hallway.
"Hmph." Inez snorted loudly as she sat back down on the edge of the fabric couch.
She was dressed neatly in her crisp academy uniform, a cute little backpack resting against her shoulders. Her long, vibrant platinum hair had been meticulously tied up into a high, swinging ponytail, with two thick, loose bangs left to fall over her temples, framing her round face. Her small leather shoes tapped rhythmically against the floorboards as she checked the time.
A few minutes later, the bedroom door clicked open, and Jet walked into the living room. Inez instantly turned her head, her large white pupils widening as she looked her brother up and down with a completely weird, bewildered expression.
"Why are you dressed like a hooligan? Are you going to go rob a bank or something?" Inez stood up from the sofa, circling around Jet as she scanned his outline with deep confusion in her eyes.
The corners of Jet’s eyes twitched slightly when he heard her blunt assessment.
He rolled his eyes, adjusting the heavy dark fabric settling over his shoulders. "And what exactly is wrong with the way I’ve dressed, Inez?"
"Everything is wrong," Inez snorted, crossing her small arms over her chest. "You look more like a street thug in those clothes than a real Awakener."
Jet couldn’t help but look down at his reflection in the glass surface of the television console, wondering if her critique was actually true.
He was dressed in absolute black from head to toe. He wore a pair of long, heavy-duty black cargo pants crafted from a thick, flame-retardant material, fitted with multiple utility straps and reinforced knee panels that completely obscured the muscular frame of his legs.
Over his torso was a plain, heavy cotton black t-shirt, completely covering the massive laceration across his chest from the Vorpal Bunny encounter, which had thankfully been mostly healed by the system. Over the t-shirt, he wore an unzipped, long-sleeved tactical hoodie made of dense black canvas, the deep hood hanging loosely down his upper spine. His feet were secured inside thick, heavy-soled black combat shoes designed for traction.
Most notably, his head was completely wrapped in a tight, dark fabric bandana that covered his forehead, ears and hairline entirely. To lock the profile down, he had pulled a solid black cap low over the bandana, leaving only a few small strands of his stark platinum hair visible near the nape of his neck.
He looked like an absolute silhouette.
"Is it because of your tattoos?" Inez asked suddenly, rubbing her little chin with her hand as if trapped in deep, analytical thoughts.
Jet reached down, lightly pinching her soft, chubby cheek with a faint smile. "You’re too smart, Inez. Yes, it’s precisely because of my tattoos. I will be in a massive amount of trouble if the authorities or the public find out the exact nature of the tattoos I have on my skin. It’s better to cover everything up for now."
Jet let out a quiet, controlled sigh as he adjusted the brim of his black cap. He didn’t particularly want to parade around the city streets looking like an underground mercenary, but his current survival situation left him with absolutely zero choice. If the public got to know that he possessed ten Divine Runes, it would trigger an immediate uproar.
Furthermore, every single one of those ten tattoos was now an SSS-Rank Divine Rune.
Even a single SSS-Rank Divine was an event that took the entire world order by storm, drawing the immediate, intense scrutiny of national governments and trillion-dollar global conglomerates. If word leaked out that an unbacked eighteen-year-old kid was harboring ten of them simultaneously within a single body, he would be abducted, dissected, and killed without a burial place in a matter of hours.
If he had been born into a powerful First-Generation family, inherited a major global Guild, or possessed some massive political background, he wouldn’t mind the exposure at all.
In fact, he would have gladly held a massive global press conference to show off his skin, because a powerful background would provide him with the military and legal teeth to back up that kind of arrogance.
But Jet didn’t have that kind of luxury. He was entirely alone, operating out of a mortgaged apartment with a seven-year-old sister to feed. Hiding his tattoos for the meantime was the only logical sound move. When he finally accumulated enough power to protect himself and Inez, then he would no longer be afraid to display his full strength.
Currently, he could only afford to show the Eight-Armed Asura, and even then, the true SSS-Rank details would remain hidden from the general registry.
"Okay... I understand," Inez nodded seriously, her expression turning firm as she reached out and grabbed Jet’s black sleeve, pulling him toward the entrance door. "Let’s hurry up and go before it gets too late. I can’t wait to show off to all my classmates that my older brother is officially a real Awakener now!"
Jet smiled warmly, his expression softening completely beneath his low cap as he let himself be pulled out into the corridor.
The brother and sister walked out of the apartment complex, locking the heavy iron doors securely behind them.
About half an hour later, after securing a local automated transit taxi through the bustling morning streets, Jet and Inez arrived at the front gates of her academy.
The institution Inez attended was one of the most prestigious, high-end private academies in the central corporate district. Almost ninety percent of the wealthy middle-class families sent their children to this specific campus.
It was an elite enclave for the wealthy. The only reason an ordinary orphan like Inez was able to attend such a school was due to the courtesy of their deceased parents. Before the disaster, their parents had performed a significant personal favor for the school’s principal, ensuring Inez was granted a lifetime enrollment slot before they passed away.
The wide entrance plaza of the academy was packed with luxury vehicles dropping off children. The private parking lot was filled with an endless sea of expensive imported cars and sports utility vehicles.
Amidst this display of high-end wealth, Jet and Inez, who had just stepped out of a basic municipal taxi, stood out like a sore thumb. Jet’s all-black, concealed thug-like attire made the contrast even sharper.
It wasn’t a surprise to anyone in the vicinity; the regular drivers and wealthy parents had been watching Jet drop off his little sister in the exact same manner for the past three years now. But as they walked down the paved sidewalk, they still received several sharp, disdainful glances thrown their way by the passing elite.
Jet and Inez remained completely immune to the silent judgment. They didn’t even turn their heads. After a decade of surviving in the lower depths of society in his past life, Jet had learned that reacting to petty societal discrimination was a waste of cognitive energy.
In whatever part of human history, the masses would always isolate and dislike you simply because you were different from their established collective. It didn’t matter. The only metric that truly mattered in this world was the strength of one’s rune.
"Alright, Inez. Hurry up and head inside," Jet grinned down at her, his voice low beneath his cap as they reached the security barrier. "Make sure to study hard today and learn everything you can. Get this older brother of yours out of poverty, okay?"
Inez instantly puffed out her small chest, her little face filled with an adorable, absolute pride as she looked up at him. "Don’t worry, big brother! This sister of yours will become incredibly successful in the future. I’ll make a fortune and buy you a massive mansion!"
"Well, then I definitely look forward to it," Jet’s grin widened even more, his white eyes crinkling. "Okay, go on. Don’t let the morning bell catch you."
"Okay! Goodbye, big brother! I love you!" Inez skipped happily toward the main entrance archway, running straight toward the designated line of teachers waiting by the doors.
"Goodbye. I love you too," Jet murmured softly, waving his hand as he stood perfectly still by the concrete pillar.
He watched her retreating figure with absolute intensity, his white eyes tracking her movements until she successfully entered the inner lobby and greeted her homeroom teacher.
Only when her platinum ponytail vanished completely behind the reinforced glass doors did Jet slowly turn around to leave the plaza.He adjusted his bandana, pulling his black cap lower over his eyes as his expression shifted into a cold, business-like focus.
He looked past the surrounding skyscrapers, his gaze anchoring onto a massive, monolithic structure that loomed in the distant horizon, its peak piercing straight through the clouds.
"Alright," Jet muttered to himself, his combat shoes hitting the concrete with a heavy, purposeful rhythm. "Let’s go and register my official Raider License."