Winston was once a whisper on the wind, a remote village tucked away in the rugged folds of Earl Steim's northern territory.
But as the King's roads stretched like veins across the Eternal Kingdom, Winston became the heart that pumped life into the frontier.
Hunting grounds teeming with monsters of every tier, unique specialty products that could only be found in its crisp mountain air, and quests that promised both fame and gold—Winston had it all.
In the bustling real world, broadcasting stations featured Winston in the top 10 of "New Villages where I want to Start."
People looked at the glossy footage of its evolving stone streets and envied the residents, imagining every blacksmith and baker sitting on a mountain of gold as land prices skyrocketed twenty-fold.
But for those living behind the curtain, Winston was not a dream. It was a gilded cage, and the bars were made of the Mero Company's gold.
Valmont, the leader of the Mero Company, was a man who possessed the predatory insight of a shark. Long before the first road was paved, he had seen the village's potential and bought the land for copper.
Now, almost every signpost in town bore the name 'Mero.' The residents, once proud landowners, were now tenants in their own homes, suffering from a poverty that was systematically engineered.
Valmont was happy. He lived in a cocoon of luxury, feasting on delicacies while the village starved. But like a pebble in a silk slipper, one thing irritated him: Khan's Smithy.
By royal decree, a village level place could legally house only one smithy—a measure designed to prevent local lords from amassing private armories.
Khan owned that monopoly, and he refused to sell it. Valmont had tried astronomical bribes; Khan refused, citing seven generations of family honor. Valmont tried intimidation; Khan stood like an ancient oak.
Finally, Valmont had turned to his chief strategist, Rabbit, to architect a slow, agonizing ruin.
They had flooded the market with cheap, mass-produced Taji weapons. They had hired a "friend" of Khan to lure him into a high-interest loan scam.
The plan was perfect. Khan was supposed to collapse under the weight of a snowballing debt, drown himself in the bottles Valmont provided, and hand over the keys.
"Huhuhu, that smithy will be mine in the near future," Valmont would often toast to the empty air.
But today, the air in Valmont's manor was thick with tension.
"Where are they?" Valmont growled, pacing the length of his dining hall. "I told those gangsters to be firmly prepared. This was the day! This was the final push!"
He had warned the outlaws—Veil, Johnson, and the rest—that if they failed this time, they wouldn't just lose their pay; they would lose their lives. He expected them to come crawling back with a signed contract and Khan's tears.
Instead, a messenger arrived, trembling. "My Lord… they're missing."
"Missing?!"
Chachachang!
Valmont flipped his table laden with roasted pheasant and fine wine. Shards of crystal flew through the air as he roared. "Those damn bastards! Did they take my advance and run?!"
"And that's not the only thing!" Valmont grumbled, pacing the wreckage of his meal like a caged beast.
He began to chew on his thumb, a nervous habit that appeared whenever his bottom line was threatened. "The Bandit Mines… my secret treasury. Gone! Hundreds of thousands of gold in potential profit, vanished because of a traitorous rat!"
Only one subordinate had possessed the exact coordinates of the newly discovered Bandit Mines—a vein of minerals so rich it would have funded Valmont's influence in the capital for a decade.
That subordinate had vanished and it's almost a month! Not only that he took with him an advance of 10,000 gold coins, payable to the bandits and the location of the mine.
"Ten thousand gold in cash! Hundreds of thousands in minerals! And now five of my enforcers go missing at a simple smithy?!"
Valmont grabbed a chair and smashed it against the wall. "Is the world conspiring to bankrupt me?!"
"Bring Biel here!" Valmont screamed.
Moments later, a man named Biel was dragged into the room. He had served Valmont for ten years, working like a loyal dog to expand the Mero Company's reach.
"Weren't you the one who recommended those gangsters?" Valmont asked, his voice dangerously low. "You said they were the most notorious scum in the neighborhood. Now they've vanished with my money and without the smithy. How will you take responsibility?"
"I-I'm so sorry, Master! I-I don't know what happened! They're local men, they have families here, they wouldn't just—"
"I don't need your excuses," Valmont interrupted, his eyes cold. "I need my money. Give me the advance they stole, plus compensation for my wasted time."
"I don't have that much!" Biel sobbed, clutching Valmont's boots. "Please, one more chance!"
"If you don't have the money, create it," Valmont sneered, kicking him away. "Otherwise, I'll sell you and your family to the slave market. Remove this trash."
Biel was dragged out, screaming for mercy that would never come. It was a cruel, efficient decision. Valmont didn't believe in loyalty; he believed in dividends.
Once the room was quiet, only one man remained: Rabbit, his strategist.
Rabbit was the reason Valmont was still alive and wealthy. While Valmont was a blunt instrument of greed and violence, Rabbit was the whetstone.
He was a man of cold, surgical logic who suppressed his emotions to produce results. He didn't like Valmont's cruelty, but he liked the profit it generated.
"It is hard to believe those gangsters ran away," Rabbit spoke, his voice calm amidst the wreckage of the dining room. "They live here in Winston. To flee would be to lose everything they own. It is more likely they didn't run. They were stopped."
Valmont paused. "Stopped? By whom? That drunkard Khan?"
"For now, it is the most appropriate assumption," Rabbit replied. "They entered the smithy this morning. They never left. We have eyes on the front and back. Something happened inside that forge."
"Where is Khan now?" Valmont demanded.
"He is still in the smithy," Rabbit said. "But he is not alone anymore."
An informant rushed into the room at that moment, bowing deeply. "Report! A witness saw a young man carrying Khan to the back of the smithy two hours ago. Later The old man looked… different. He wasn't staggering. He looked like he was walking with a purpose."
"A young man?" Valmont's brow furrowed. "The blacksmith's apprentice?"
"No," the informant said. "A traveler. Silver-haired. He was under Khan to learn blacksmithing, to carry forward Khan's legacy at least."
Valmont's rage cooled into a sharp, focused hatred. "A traveler. Some self-righteous hero playing at justice. Rabbit, I am done with these half-measures. I will leave the business of the smithy entirely to you. Take the knights. Take the private security. Take care of anyone who stands in the way of our monopoly."
"As you wish," Rabbit said, bowing his head.
Rabbit stepped out of the manor, the cool Winston air hitting his face. He didn't feel anger like Valmont did. He felt curiosity.
Whoever this "silver-haired young man" was, he had managed to erase five Level 35 outlaws in the span of a single morning without making enough noise to alert the street guards. That wasn't the work of a common traveler. That was the work of a specialist.
Rabbit checked the ledger in his mind. The Mero Company had hundreds of soldiers, connections to the local Lord, Baron Lowe, and a bottomless treasury. No matter how high the traveler's level was, no one could stand against an entire economic machine.
'Arthur,' Rabbit thought, having heard the name whispered by some of the town's residents who had seen the young man working at the forge over the last few months. 'You've been hiding in plain sight. A wolf disguised as a hammer-wielder.'
Rabbit adjusted his spectacles. He wasn't going to send more thugs. He was going to use the law, the debt, and the overwhelming force of the Mero Company's private guard.
He would meet this "Arthur" again not as a brawler, but as a merchant who understood that in the world, everything—even a Saint's pride—had a price. And if the price couldn't be paid in gold, it would be paid in blood and ruin.
Valmont might be worried about his 10,000 gold and his missing mine, but Rabbit was focused on a much bigger prize: the destruction of the man who dared to interfere with the math of the Mero Company.