The sky over the wall of Patrain was the color of a fresh bruise—purples and deep, charcoal grays swirling in a turbulent dance.
High above, the Gryphon King let out a final, telepathic rumble that vibrated in Arthur's very marrow.
It was not a goodbye, but a pact; a promise of a future throne whispered in a language of wind and predator's pride.
Then, with a beat of wings that created a localized dust storm, the beast ascended, its golden plumage catching the last dying rays of the sun before it vanished into the cloud bank.
Arthur stood alone in the center of the settling dust. The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the whistling of the wind through the nearby basalt crags. He closed his eyes, drawing a long, jagged breath.
Inside him, it felt as if he were swallowing a star. The 'Red Energy'—the legacy of the Saharan Founder—was a molten, turbulent heat that paced within his chest like a caged lion. He concentrated, visualizing a dampening field, a layer of cold ash over a white-hot forge.
To the world, the titan who had just shaken the foundations of the mountain had ceased to exist. In his place stood a man in soot-stained rags. His tunic was dirty, his skin was smeared with the grime of magical fallout, and his posture was intentionally slumped. He looked like a man who had been chewed up and spat out by the very earth itself.
He flicked his wrist, summoning his interface. The screen exploded with a chaotic mess of flashing red notifications. The haptic feedback on his wrist was a constant, frantic vibration.
[Jinho (Lv. 197): ARTHUR!!! Where are you? How are you alive?!]
[Jinho: WHY ARE YOU LEVEL 10?! THE SYSTEM SAYS YOU'RE IN PATRAIN!]
[Taeshik (Lv. 201): Hey, man... we're at the Gravelmark. We just respawned. We lost a level and some gear. We're so sorry... we didn't know the quest was bugged.]
[Beomsuk (Lv. 200): Answer us, Arthur! Are you okay?]
Arthur exhaled a plume of frosty air, a faint, sardonic smirk playing on his lips. It was the smile of a ghost.
"Ciel," he whispered, "check the visibility. Can they see the Legendary Class? Can they sense the 'legacy of Saharan'?"
"Good," Arthur muttered, adjusting the tattered collar of his tunic to hide the pulsing vein in his neck. "Let's go and chat with the 'bus drivers.' I have a role to play."
The small plaza near the Gravelmark mountains was a scene of mourning. Jinho, Taeshik, and Beomsuk and two other players—the self-proclaimed "experts" who had promised to power-level Arthur—were the picture of abject misery.
Their high-tier plate armor, once gleaming and etched with proud guild insignia, was now scorched black and pitted with acidic burns from the Draconian breath.
They sat on the stone rim of a dried-up fountain, their shoulders slumped. The bravado that had defined them two hours ago had evaporated, replaced by the hollow stare of players who had stared into the abyss and realized the abyss didn't care about their item level.
"I'm telling you, it was a glitch!" Taeshik argued, his voice cracking with frustration as he gestured wildly toward the northern peaks. "The scaling was broken. No Level 300 elites should have been that deep in the scouting zone! It was a death trap! And Arthur..." He trailed off, rubbing his face with gauntleted hands. "God, poor Arthur. He's dead. He has to be. He was only Level 172. Look at his tag... it says Level 10. He must have been spawn-camped by those lizards until his character nearly deleted itself. I've never seen a level drop that aggressive."
"Then explain how he's still active on my friend list!" Jinho snapped. His face was pale, his eyes darting around the plaza. "If his character was being deleted or if he had force-quit, his name would be greyed out. He's alive, and the GPS says he's miles away in Patrain."
At that moment, a ping resonated in their private group chat. A video call request.
Arthur's face appeared on their HUDs. He looked pathetic. The lighting was dim, casting deep shadows under his eyes. His movements in the frame were sluggish—a perfect imitation of the 'Stat Penalty' debuff that usually followed a massive level loss.
"Arthur!" Jinho jumped up so abruptly he nearly tripped over his own scorched shield. "You... you're alive! Man, we thought we'd lost you for good! But your level... 162 levels? In two hours? How is that even possible? Did you get hit with a 'Curse of Regression'?"
Beomsuk leaned into the frame, his brow furrowed. "Did they kill you multiple times? But that shouldn't be... two consecutive deaths within a ten-minute window usually triggers a forced login restriction for several hours. How could you dropped to level 10?"
Arthur allowed his lip to tremble slightly, the image of a broken man. "I... I had a legendary item," he lied, his voice raspy as if his throat were filled with glass. "The 'Amulet of the Boundless.' I couldn't risk dropping it upon death. When the Draconians closed in, I used a Forbidden Teleportation Scroll I'd been saving for an emergency."
He paused, letting a heavy silence hang in the air. "Since I didn't have the mana to fuel the scroll's cost, the item offered a 'Soul Sacrifice' bypass. I was supposed to sacrifice ten levels to power the jump. But in my panic... I must have misread the prompt. I set the sacrifice to '10 levels remaining' instead of '10 levels lost.'"
The five high-level players gasped in unison. The horror of such a mechanical mistake was the ultimate nightmare for any gamer. To lose months, of progress in a single, panicked click was a tragedy beyond words.
"Maybe it's karma," Arthur said quietly, looking down at his soot-stained hands. "I wanted to gain five easy levels for doing nothing, so the system took everything else instead. I was greedy. I thought I could walk among giants when I was just a pauper."
"Don't say that," Beomsuk said, his voice thick with genuine guilt. "We're the ones who brought you there. We were the ones who said it was safe. We'll pay you back, Arthur. We'll pool our gold. We'll buy you the best materials, we'll power-level you back to 150 in a week—"
"No," Arthur interrupted, raising a hand. "I need to do this my way. The 'Stat Penalty' from the sacrifice is too heavy. If I party up now, the XP-leech penalty will nerf you guys too. I'll catch up soon enough. For now, I just need to get back to my work. My blacksmithing skills are all I have left. They didn't take my masteries, just my strength."
"We're sending you 5,000 gold," Jinho said firmly, his fingers already flying across his menu. "Don't argue. It's for the materials. We'll check on you in a few days. We're so sorry, man."
"I know," Arthur whispered. "I'll see you around."
He disconnected the call. The moment the HUD vanished, the "pathetic" slouch vanished. His spine straightened, and the dullness in his eyes replaced by a cold, calculating brilliance. He had them. Not only were they not suspicious, they were now his primary financiers, driven by a guilt that would keep them from asking too many questions.
Inside, Arthur was a block of ice. He had to maintain this facade. If word got out that a player had triggered the Saharan Founder's ego, the Red Knights wouldn't just search the mountains; they would purge every city in the kingdom, looking for the one who carried the 'Sun.' To protect the [Prince of the Eternal Sun], the [Blacksmith Arthur] had to be a failure.
With 5,000 gold—a small fortune for a "Level 10"—burning a hole in his inventory, Arthur moved through the market district of Patrain with a renewed sense of purpose.
He didn't look at the weapons. He didn't glance at the enchanted staves or the polished armor sets that players were haggling over. He headed straight for the industrial quarter, the place where the air smelled of sulfur and the rhythm of hammers provided the city's heartbeat.
He stepped into the shop of a bulk material wholesaler, a burly man with a beard stained orange by iron dust.
"I need two crates of Oricalcum," Arthur stated, slamming a heavy bag of gold onto the scarred wooden counter. The sound of the coins was heavy, final. "And four cords of ironwood, seasoned for high-temp forging. Throw in five barrels of high-quality anthracite coal."
The merchant raised an eyebrow, looking Arthur up and down. He saw the rags, the soot, and the 'Level 10' tag floating over his head. "That's a lot of weight for a whelp, lad. Are you on your Master's errand?"
"Planning on breaking Mero Company's Monopoly on materials in Winston." Arthur replied. For a split second, he let a fraction of his intent leak out—a momentary flash of ruby intensity in his eyes that made the merchant flinch and take a half-step back.
"R-right," the merchant stuttered, suddenly losing his urge to mock the 'low-level' player. "Oricalcum is in high demand because of the Yatan Zelatos sightings. It'll take a week for the full order to arrive from the southern mines. Come back then."
"A week," Arthur conceded. "I'll be waiting."