The Hero Who Wasn't:Lord of Kingdoms

As soon as they entered the heart of the marsh, the whispers turned into a hostile hiss, and the water around them exploded. The Marsh Stalkers—those ghostly giant crocodiles—lunged from the mist. While the team sprang into battle, Arion monitored their HP and MP bars like he was playing a strategy game:

> Robert: HP ▼ 9,120/9,500 | Stamina ▼ 1,050/1,200

Leo: HP ▼ 5,200/5,200 | Focus ▼ 820/900

Selene: MP ▼ 10,100/11,000

"Robert took a hit but barely felt it—spent a bit of stamina to block. Leo's using his focus for pinpoint shots. Selene burned 900 mana in seconds to fire off a barrage of Frost Spears! That's bad, it's way too costly!"

Robert became a human fortress. He roared, using Battle Taunt to pull three stalkers onto himself. He blocked their slashes with his massive shield glowing with Iron Wall, then retaliated with a Heavy Sword Strike that cleaved one beast in half.

Leo moved like a wraith through the dead trees. He activated Hawk Eye, his eyes gleaming silver as weak points appeared through the fog. His arrows found throats and eyes with lethal precision.

But Selene was the real storm. She raised her hands and whispered, "Blizzard Storm!"

A wave of frost erupted outward, turning the swamp into an icy field. The stalkers froze in place, only to be shattered by a rain of merciless ice spears.

Arion watched their resources drain at an alarming rate.

> Robert: HP ▼ 7,800 | Stamina ▼ 450 (Critical!)

Leo: HP ▼ 4,950 | Focus ▼ 310 (Near exhaustion!)

Selene: MP ▼ 4,900 (Less than half!)

"They're drained!" he screamed internally. "Robert's almost out of stamina for his defensive skills! Leo's focus is nearly gone! And Selene burned through half her mana!"

Suddenly…the ground shook. The Stalker Alpha emerged—an enormous beast, almost the size of a house, roaring with an ear-splitting bellow.

"They can't handle another fight! What do I do?! What do I do?!" His mind spun in blind panic.

Then he remembered… his ridiculous secret weapon.

When the monster opened its jaws to attack, Arion hurled his Sympathy Doll straight into its mouth!

Everything stopped. For a moment, the beast stared blankly into the void, then its massive limbs buckled, and it collapsed snoring into the swamp.

The silence that followed was louder than any roar.

Robert and Leo stared slack-jawed. "He…he put it to sleep? Just like that? That's power beyond comprehension!"

Selene, though, was different.

---

An Unsolvable Mystery

Selene stepped forward slowly, her violet eyes gleaming with a scientist's obsessive curiosity—no fear, no awe, only questions.

"How did you do that?" she asked, her voice sharp as a blade of ice.

Arion, who had no answer, spoke the only line that might save him:

"Some principles… can't be described with formulas."

Selene paused, weighing his words. Her reaction was nothing like Arion expected. She didn't scoff. She didn't dismiss it. Instead, she grew even more focused.

"My instruments detected an unknown energy emission! Not offensive, not defensive—something else entirely! It doesn't follow any arcane laws or physical principles! What is this technique?!"

Before Arion could respond, she continued, "At first, I thought you were a fraud. Just a lucky man exploiting others' stupidity."

"She's onto me!" Arion panicked internally.

"But I was wrong." she said, eyes glinting dangerously. "Fraud can be exposed and explained. But what you just did… that's not fraud. That's an anomaly. A scientific phenomenon that defies explanation."

Her entire view shifted. Arion was no longer a con man to be exposed—he was now a scientific puzzle that must be solved. A phenomenon to be studied… and dissected. For Arion, this was far worse than being unmasked.

"I survived the monsters…" he thought, feeling Selene's piercing stare burn through his cloak, "but will I survive the curiosity of a mad witch?"

An awkward, unsettling silence fell over the marsh. The giant alpha beast snored softly, sending bubbles drifting through the murky water. Robert and Leo gaped at the scene like they'd witnessed a miracle, while Selene scribbled frantically in a tiny notebook she'd produced from nowhere, her violet eyes glittering with unhinged scientific hunger.

Arion, still coated in mud, felt every eye on him. He had to do something—say something—to reclaim even a shred of control over this absurd situation. He pointed his trembling finger deeper into the fog and said the only word he could think of: "We move."

Selene immediately resumed her "research" as she walked beside him. "My Lord," she began in the tone of a forensic pathologist analyzing a living anomaly, "the energy that item released… did it have a specific spectral frequency? What was its transmission medium—ether? A focused psychic wave? Is it reproducible under lab conditions?"

"Spectral frequency?!" Arion screamed inside. "I threw a plush toy! She's asking me for its technical specs?!"

He answered with all the cold, fake mystique he could muster: "It's… innate."

"Innate…" Selene repeated, jotting it down. "So you're saying it's a primal force, operating at a level beyond current arcane theories. Fascinating."

Arion felt like he'd just submitted a PhD thesis on magic that didn't even exist.

All he really wanted now was to get out of this cursed swamp and forest as fast as humanly possible. Fear was his only fuel. So he strode ahead at a pace just shy of a full-on sprint, never once looking back.

The team, still recovering from their brutal fight, had no choice but to keep up.

"My Lord," Leo called, panting slightly, "Shouldn't… shouldn't we rest a bit? The team's burned through a lot of energy."

"Danger doesn't rest," Arion said—an epic line he'd shamelessly stolen from an old video game.

Leo and Robert asked no more questions. They understood the "lesson."

"He's pushing us to our limits!" Robert whispered to Leo in awe. "He's teaching us that rest is a luxury we can't afford when the threat is near! He's not just forging our bodies—he's forging our souls!"

Selene, however, had her own theory. "Does he not tire? Impossible. He must have some legendary self-recovery skill. Or… he's running from something. But a being like him… what could he possibly be fleeing from?"

And so, the forced march continued. Arion ran from his fear, while his team ran after him—convinced they were part of an elite, soul-forging boot camp led by one of the greatest tactical minds in history.