Monster Hunter: Broke to Boss

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: MEMORY LANE

Two heavily armored guards escorted Leo down a narrow, dimly lit hallway. The walls were a sterile white, but the flickering overhead lights cast long, eerie shadows along the floor, making every step feel like a march toward execution.

At the end of the hall stood a thick, metallic door — massive, imposing, humming faintly with energy.

One of the guards stepped forward, pressed his hand against a glowing blue panel.

With a hydraulic hiss, the door slid open, revealing the Memory Analysis Chamber.

Leo’s breath hitched.

The room was like something out of a science fiction nightmare.

Cold. Metallic. Inhuman.

Banks of monitors lined the far walls, displaying static-ridden images and streams of unreadable data.

The scent of disinfectant was so strong it stung his nostrils. At the center of the room was the chair.

It wasn’t just any chair — it looked like a mechanical throne, dark steel with thick leather straps dangling ominously from the armrests and footrests.

Above it, a spider-like array of silver tendrils—wires, tubes, and glowing nodes—hung like a waiting predator, ready to latch onto its prey.

Near the back of the room, several technicians in lab coats prepared the machinery, their faces pale and tight with focus.

Leo's skin crawled.

Director Varnes entered after him, whispering heatedly with one of the technicians.

Kale, thankfully, had been barred from entering—Leo caught the glimpse of him seething behind the glass observation panel outside.

Haruki Chuu strolled into the chamber last, the steel door thudding closed behind him.

"Please," Haruki said, gesturing to the chair, "have a seat."

Leo hesitated.

Every instinct screamed at him to run.

Still, he forced his legs to move, one heavy step at a time, until he stood before the mechanical monstrosity.

Swallowing hard, he lowered himself onto the chair.

It was ice cold.

Almost instantly, the technicians moved in, adjusting his limbs, inserting his arms into slots lined with bio-scanners. The chair hummed to life, the thin hum of an engine building deep in the floor.

Above him, the spider-like device descended slowly.

Leo watched it with wide, distrustful eyes as a smooth band of metal extended from the main arm, wrapping itself snugly around his forehead.

He flinched violently.

Haruki raised a hand.

"It won't hurt," he said in a soothing voice. "It’s just a memory extraction scan. Think of it like... watching a home movie."

He sat heavily in the examination chair, its cold frame leeching the warmth from his skin. Thick restraints clicked into place around his wrists and ankles.

He forced his muscles to stay loose.

"Stay calm," Leo told himself. "Stay small. Stay forgettable."

A faint chime echoed through the room.

The chair vibrated beneath Leo’s body.

"Neural link established," someone announced.

The air shimmered around him, and suddenly Leo was falling — plunging headfirst into the vault of his own mind.

The Rift.

The first memory wrenched free of him like a thread yanked from cloth.

He was back at the threshold, staring into that swirling abyss of black and violet mist. The air had been choked with the scent of sulfur and blood, the ground beneath him cracked and trembling.

The technicians watched, slack-jawed, as the monitors lit up.

The Rift’s entrance expanded on the holographic screens around them, giving the observers a front-row seat into a place most sane people would never dare to glimpse.

And then came the Nightscale Crawlers.

The creatures burst from the mist with terrifying speed — monstrous, twelve-legged beasts with glistening black scales and burning crimson eyes.

Haruki stiffened. Even through the projection, he could feel the bloodlust radiating from the creatures.

Leo fought. No, he ripped through them.

The scene unfolding on the monitors was a violent ballet — Leo moving with an efficiency, a ferocity that had no business belonging to an F-Class hunter.

Every swing of his blade was clean. Every dodge was preternaturally precise. He wasn't fighting for survival — he was dominating.

Haruki's hands tightened slightly behind his back.

Varnes’ mouth dropped open a fraction. Even the lead technician, a man who had worked countless memory extractions, gaped at the impossible scene.

But then—

As Leo clashed with the largest Nightscale Crawler, a flicker tore across the memory feed.

Static. Interference.

The monitors glitched violently.

The technicians scrambled, hands flying across keyboards.

"Sir, something’s jamming the signal!"