This world needs a new god to curb the rising problems. If not, the damage that the world has to face would be a lot.
There are many things that are happening in the world that commoners and low-level awakeners were unaware of.
This world is not at peace as everyone thought so. There are many battles ongoing but they are happening far away from common people and the higher-ups were able to keep the news a secret to avoid panic among the masses.
Mass Panic is the greatest danger to a society than any actual disaster.
At least after a disaster, people would come together to help each other out but if the news of a disaster comes prematurely before the officials are sufficiently prepared for then, the dangers are more than should be.
If a mass panic happens before the disaster, whether the disaster is real or not, the damage to society would be very visible.
People would become bandits looting everything that they can. Many psychos would come out and destroy whatever they can just for the fun of it.
It's not robberies and vandalism, but assaults and murders too. Panic can make a human turn into a monster or bring out the monster inside of them as during times like that there would be not much protection compared to normal times.
So the higher-ups covered up many things from common people.
Only after being awakened, one would start to come into contact with these dangers. There are many awakened who die every year because of these disasters.
Most are covered up but not all can and in recent years, the higher-ups are losing ways to cover up and it is slowly becoming known to even low-level awakeners about the dangers.
The battles that were once only fought in far-away lands, have now been spreading to the interior lands of the federation.
It has been a hundred years since many of the cities have seen any serious dangers. Sure, there are monster tides every once in a while, which almost everyone knows about.
The change was what happened a hundred years ago. Back then, the people were not in danger because of monsters but also from the attacks of alien races and traitorous cults that devoted themselves to monsters or alien races.
After the rise of the fifth god of humanity, they slowly disappeared from the minds of humans. Now humans face only monsters and that's what they believe as their sole enemies.
Though the Alliance didn't scrub history, it didn't divulge the ongoing battles with Alien races and numerous cults.
There are still some cults that are spread across the world known to humans but they are very few in number and they won't act out easily. So their danger level is very low for many humans.
The appearance of Mary Hinter's SS-Rank profession would have brought those cult members out for a hunt and it did but the school and the officials are well prepared. They destroyed them before those cult members could inflict damage on Mary or her family but her details were already forwarded to their higher-ups.
Even those cultists died, they were sure that the girl might not survive what was to come.
It is the reason why the higher officials are making her progress faster. As long as she reaches a higher rank, these fools wouldn't be a problem for her. She can eliminate them on her own.
The problem with those cults was the numerous low-ranking members. If a high-ranking member tries to make a move then it would be like a broadcast to the alliance higher-ups. They would easily blockade them but the unknown low-ranking ones are always the issue.
The alliance can't track them. So they can only guard Mary for now and deal with those traitors as they appear. As long as Mary remains a low-ranked individual, she will remain as bait.
Once she reaches mid-rank, then the alliance wouldn't need to be afraid for her safety. While the high-ranking alliance members can block the higher-ranking cultists, she can easily take care of the low-ranking ones.
This is why her protection would end after she reaches Rank-4, though minimum protection would still be around for her parents. Moreover, at Rank-4, she can actually afford the cost. It was a good plan for protection as long as there were no anomalies.
So far there were none but now that Mary is going to the capital, things may change. Whether the outcome would be better or worse, no one can say about that.
When Mary's name came up, so did Aaron.
Mary awakened the SS-Rank profession, while Aaron awakened the S-Rank profession. Normally, they both should have been on the hit list. It was not that common for humans to awaken an S-Rank profession.
Due to the presence of SS-Rank, one may forget how rare is S-rank profession. Most of the high-ranked awakened are ones with A-Rank professions. There are very few S-Rank professions as many died due to assassinations or premature death because they underestimated the enemy.
So, the cultists should have marked Aaron too but those idiots excluded Aaron because of his profession as Death Mage, which was a blessing in disguise for Aaron.
If those cultists ever finds out the talent that Aaron had awakened, they might slap themselves to death for ignoring a potential god, but there was nothing that could be done. They were already dead but the higher-ups may resurrect them and slap them to death if Aaron's talent was ever known.
These low-level cultists ignored him and only marked Mary and sent her details to the higher-ups before their ultimate demise. Rock City is just a Tier-1 city. It may be bigger and better than towns and villages but it is still on the lower spectrum.
So the number of cultists in the city was less than twenty, who were wiped out when they tried to attack Mary. Now, because of their stupidity, their cults are going to pay the ultimate price, Death.