The Hero Who Wasn't:Lord of Kingdoms

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Title: The Spider Quest… and the Mountain that Wept

Arion stared at the "Spider Cleaning" quest paper in his hand, then lifted his eyes to the terrified face of Guildmaster Valerius. He felt like a Level 1 player who'd just been asked to defeat the final boss of the entire game.

"A catastrophe?" Arion asked, his voice coming out deeper and calmer than he actually felt. Inside, he was screaming: "Please say it's the spiders! Just say it's really big spiders!"

Valerius leaned closer and whispered, as if even the walls of the guild might overhear. "It's the Crying Anvil Golem! In Ash Mountain!"

Arion stayed silent—because he had absolutely no idea what that meant.

Valerius mistook his silence for stoic resolve. "The golem, as you know, Arion, is the heart of the mountain that gifts our city its precious metals. It's an ancient being, usually asleep. But for some reason, it has… 'awakened'. And it's… crying!"

"Crying?" Arion thought. "Did it break up with its girlfriend?"

"Its tears are not water," Valerius continued. "They're floods of enchanted mud that are drowning the mines and threatening to collapse them! It's destroying our economy! The city lord demanded an immediate solution. We sent our best A-rank adventurers, but their swords can't even scratch the golem! We sent our strongest mages, but their fireballs only made it sadder and angrier! Lord Arion, this isn't brute force—it's a spiritual crisis! You, who soothed a raging beast with a hum, who cleansed an ancient curse with a stew—you alone have the spiritual depth to understand the mountain's sorrow and heal its soul!"

Arion felt the urge to sit down on the floor and cry too. "Comfort a mountain? Do they think I'm some geological therapist? My skills are humming, cooking, and moving very tiny objects! What am I supposed to do—hum the mountain to sleep?"

He was forced to accept the quest. Refusing would mean the end of his fake legend and the start of a humiliatingly normal life in the city. "I'll go," he said at last. "But… I need to prepare."

"Prepare" meant buying rope and food, because he was 99% sure he'd just run away and hide in a cave somewhere.

This time, he decided to test something. He left his famous cloak at home and put on plain, ordinary clothes. Walking through the market, he was just another young man—nobody paid him any mind.

He stepped into a shop selling climbing gear. The shopkeeper, a broad-shouldered man, looked down at him with disdain. "What do you want, boy?"

"Some strong rope."

"15 copper per meter," the shopkeeper said, overcharging him immediately.

While Arion haggled, another customer entered, wearing a brown cloak with the hood up. The shopkeeper spotted him instantly. "Well, well! Look everyone! He looks just like Lord Arion!"

And that's when Arion realized something incredible. "They don't know my face… they know… the cloak!"

He hurried home, put on the cloak, and went back to the same shop.

The moment he walked in, the shopkeeper's face turned white. "L-Lord Arion!" he stammered. "Forgive me! I didn't see you! What do you need?"

"Some strong rope," Arion repeated coolly.

"Of course! The finest rope in the city! Take it! Take all of it! Free of charge! It's an honor for me that you even touch it!"

Arion left the shop with a massive coil of premium rope—and a new sense of relief and dread at the same time. "My secret identity… is my real face. This is the strangest thing that's happened to me yet."

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He arrived at the mining camp at the foot of Ash Mountain. The place was chaos. Mud was everywhere, workers were fleeing, and Valerius and a group of A-rank adventurers were waiting for him.

They looked at him with reverence, as if expecting the arrival of a savior.

Arion looked up at the mountain—huge, towering. From two massive cave-like "eyes" near the summit, rivers of mud poured down, accompanied by a deep, mournful groaning.

"I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do," Arion admitted to himself. "Time to stall."

He found a flat rock and slowly, solemnly walked over to it. He sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.

"He's meditating!" one of the adventurers whispered. "He's communing with the mountain's spirit!"

In reality, Arion was going through a list of excuses to run away. "Maybe I'll say the mountain is sad because no one celebrates its birthday? No, that's too stupid…"

While he "meditated," he felt something sharp and annoying pressing into his back—a tiny pebble in exactly the wrong spot. He tried to ignore it, but it ruined his focus on escape plans.

"Damn this pebble!" he thought angrily. "I can't move or I'll ruin this whole 'wise meditation' act."

Then he remembered. [Minor Telekinesis].

"Finally! A real use for this stupid skill!"

Arion focused with all his might. It wasn't easy sitting like that, but after a moment of intense concentration, he felt the tiny pebble lift from his back. He nudged it away with his mind and flicked it aside.

It was a simple move. No one noticed.

But that pebble wasn't just a pebble.

By sheer cosmic coincidence, it was a "key" pebble blocking a delicate ancient energy channel deep inside the mountain. For centuries, the blocked channel had built up enormous spiritual pressure inside the golem—like a kettle about to burst. That pressure was why it was "crying."

[Continued in the next chapter directly]