Free Web NovelChapter 22: Criteria Has Been Met!
David and Holly ended up on the same bench where they’d first met, the park quieter now, streetlights flickering on one by one along the path.
She sat with her knees pulled slightly toward her chest, arms wrapped loosely around them, gaze fixed somewhere out ahead rather than on him.
David dropped down beside her, close enough that the bench creaked slightly under the shift in weight. For a moment neither of them said anything.
"So," he said finally, "you gonna explain what that was back there?"
Holly didn’t look at him right away. "What was what."
"You know what. You grabbed my shoulder like you thought I was stepping towards my death or something."
She let out a short breath through her nose — not quite a laugh. "Because you were about to do something worse than that."
David turned to face her properly. "I had it handled."
"Did you?" She finally met his eyes, one eyebrow raised. "Walk me through the plan, then. What was step one?"
"I don’t know, I hadn’t gotten that far—"
"Right. Exactly." She shook her head, some of the earlier tension bleeding into frustration now.
"David, his name’s Leon. He’s an E-rank Hunter. Do you actually understand what that means? That’s not some guy you can handle because you did push-ups for three days straight."
"I wasn’t trying to prove anything," David said, voice rising slightly before he caught himself and dropped it back down.
"I just— that guy was beating someone half to death, in broad daylight, and everyone just kept walking like it was completely normal. This whole—"
He stopped himself mid-sentence, jaw tightening, some instinct flagging that he was one word away from saying too much.
Holly caught it instantly, head tilting. "This whole what?"
"Nothing." David looked away, focusing hard on a crack running through the pavement in front of them.
"David."
"Just — drop it. Please."
She studied him a moment longer, clearly unconvinced, but let it go, exhaling slowly and looking back out toward the darkening park instead. A long silence settled between them, punctuated only by a car passing somewhere behind the fence line.
"I didn’t stop you because I think you’re weak," she said eventually, quieter now. "Or stupid, or whatever you’re probably telling yourself right now."
David glanced sideways at her. "Then why?"
She hesitated, fingers picking absently at a loose thread on her sleeve. "Because I care what happens to you. And I didn’t want you getting hurt before you even had a real shot at any of this."
Something in her voice made him actually look at her properly. "How do you know him? Leon. You said his name like you actually know the guy."
Holly went quiet, longer this time, her fingers stilling against the fabric. "He trained me," she said finally.
"Back when I was hoping to Awaken."
David blinked. "Wait — you wanted to be a Hunter?"
She nodded slowly, eyes fixed on some point past the fence now, somewhere that clearly wasn’t the park at all.
"Since I was about fifteen. Trained hard for it, actually — martial arts, conditioning, all of it. Figured if I made it, I could give my mom and my little sister an actual life. Get us out of here."
"You never told me any of this."
"Nobody knows," she said, glancing at him pointedly. "So it stays between us."
"Okay," David said quietly. "Yeah. Of course."
She gave him a small, tired smile, and let the conversation settle there, the two of them sitting in the quiet a moment longer. David didn’t push further, though something about the practiced, careful way she’d laid it all out — smooth, complete, no loose edges — sat oddly in his chest.
She wasn’t telling him everything. He was sure of that much.
David sat there for a moment after she’d finished, turning the whole explanation over in his head like a puzzle piece that almost fit but not quite.
’I can’t just ask her to be completely honest with me and expect her to do so.’ he thought.
’Hell, she could even deny it with all her heart and might.’
Still, he couldn’t shake the sense that she’d handed him a version of the truth, polished smooth at the edges, with something deliberately left out.
He glanced sideways at her, considering. She had, admittedly, saved him from a genuinely bad decision back there — realistically, what was he even planning to do against an E-rank with the combat experience of a guy who’d started training his physique three days ago?
’Fair point, honestly.’ The thought settled something in him, some of the earlier defensiveness easing off.
’But, what now?’ He turned it over. Holly had trained under someone before, knew real martial arts, actual conditioning — she was exactly the kind of training partner he needed if he wanted this whole "becoming a Hunter" thing to go anywhere beyond bench presses and treadmill humiliation.
Maybe the smart move wasn’t confrontation. Maybe it was just staying close, training with her, letting the truth surface on its own terms instead of forcing it. ƒrēewebnovel.com
But underneath that reasoning sat something else, something that had been building in him since the alley — a genuine, uncomfortable disgust at how the lower side just absorbed things.
Nobody looked twice at a man getting beaten in broad daylight. Nobody intervened.
They’d just learned to live like that, like garbage that had stopped expecting to be taken out.
’I actually have something now,’ he thought.
’A real shot at changing that, and that starts here, by starting the motion to end this cycle of suffering.’
He glanced at Holly again, quiet resolve settling into his chest, fingers tightening slightly against the hem of his shirt without him fully noticing he was doing it.
’Is this the right time?’ He weighed it a second longer, uncertain, before deciding. ’Yeah. I think it is.’
’System, I want to use my skill- Oathbound gaze’
His eyes settled on her, steady, and a faint notification flickered into view at the edge of his vision. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
[Ding!]
[Criteria for Skill Activation has been met!]
[Skill: Outbound Gaze — Active.]
***
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For every 200 powerstones I’ll release 10+ bonus Chapters...so, if you find it worth while, you can make your decision. Thank you.🫠
