Freya's single eye snapped to my face. Then to the eight sets of eyes converging on my position. Then back to my completely expressionless face.
She didn't hesitate. She didn't look confused. Her pupil contracted, her jaw set, and the scarred corner of her mouth twitched—not in surprise, but in something far more dangerous.
Recognition.
She knew exactly what a Barkhollow was. She knew its acoustic hunting grid. She knew the Greyveil Stalkers followed the Alpha's fixation. And she'd just watched me deafen myself, plant my sword, and stand perfectly still while every predator in the fog turned toward me like I was the only thing in the forest worth killing.
She didn't see a victim. She saw someone who knew exactly what the Barkhollow was, how it tracked, and what would happen when he broke its grid. She saw someone who had deliberately turned himself into the biggest gap on the map—knowing full well it would pull every ounce of agro onto his position—just to give his squad a clean, unwatched flank.
Her lips moved. A single, breathless exhale that I couldn't hear but felt in the way the air pressure changed around her. Her scarred mouth curved—not a grin, not a smirk. Something rawer. Something almost proud.
"You killed your own hearing to become the gap in its grid," she mouthed, her voice shaping words I couldn't hear but her expression reading them with absolute, lethal clarity. "You knew the Barkhollow would fixate on the blind spot. You're the bait. All of them are looking at you, so none of them are looking at us."
What?
No, I just can't lift my sword—
Why does she keep looking at me like that? Like I just did something impressive instead of something pathetic?
"You surprised me yesterday." Her expression was absolute. "Now you're doing it again." She rolled her shoulder, the buster sword humming with lethal resonance. "You're really one hell of a student, Arzane."
Right at the edge of my vision, the pale grey text of my Native System violently flared.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[ NATIVE SYSTEM : ANNOTATION ] [ ⚠ ADVISORY : NARRATIVE SHIFT DETECTED ]
Trigger: Minor Character [Freya Siegel Romeo] has actively restructured her immediate character arc to center around User.
Subject has categorized your archetype as: [ THE COLD-BLOODED COMMANDER ].
[ PLEASE PROCEED WISELY! ] ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
The Cold-Blooded Commander?
What does that even mean? I'm not a commander. I'm not cold-blooded. I'm standing here with my sword stabbed into the dirt because my arms don't work, and my face won't stop looking like I'm bored out of my mind because my brain blue-screens when it panics.
How is that a commander? How is that an archetype?
The golden interface pulsed again, dropping the quest directly into my lap.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[ QUEST GENERATED : "The Commander's Gambit" ]
Objective: Survive the T3 Alpha (Barkhollow) engagement without shattering Freya Siegel Romeo's perception of your archetype.
[ REWARD : COMMANDER'S AGGRO (PASSIVE SKILL) ] Passive Effect: When the user is designated as a primary threat target by hostile entities, all allied units within the user's operational radius receive a 30% increase to offensive parameters and will prioritize intercepting attacks directed at the user. ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
The golden text flickered once, then dissolved.
A passive skill that turns me being targeted into a party buff. The system is literally gamifying my inability to defend myself. I am being rewarded for standing still and looking calm while things try to eat me.
This is the most backhanded mechanical compensation I have ever received in my life and I am going to accept it with both hands.
Then Raiden moved.
Not forward. Toward me. One single, fluid step, closing the distance until she was right beside me—close enough that the frost radiating off her uniform bit into my already-numb cheek. Her winter-sky eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made my frozen stomach somehow drop even further.
She studied my face. The dead stare. The half-lidded eyes. The absolute, suffocating nothing radiating off my expression—because my panic had crashed so far through the redline that my face had simply stopped computing—and her lips parted.
"...I get it now," she mouthed, her voiceless words precise and measured. Her head tilted, silver hair cascading over her shoulder. "You didn't deafen yourself just to blind their radar. You made yourself the gap on purpose. You knew the Barkhollow would fixate on the blind spot." Her eyes narrowed—not with suspicion, but with something far worse. Fascination. "You're the bait. Everything's looking at you, which means nothing's looking at us."
What?
No?
I am standing still because I CANNOT MOVE—
Why is she looking at me like that? Why are both of them looking at me like I just did something brilliant? I stabbed my sword into the ground because I was going to drop it. I went deaf because I was panicking. How is any of this coming across as intentional?
"That's..." Raiden's expression shifted. The cold, professional mask cracked—just a fraction. A glimmer of something almost warm in those pale, winter-sky irises. "That's a hell of a call. I was wrong about you, Arzane."
She straightened. Turned toward the darkness. Drew her katana in one silent, screaming arc of frost.
"I won't let you down."
"Got it, Little Commander," Freya mouthed beside her, the bloodlust in her expression crystal clear, her savage grin stretching wider.
Little Commander?
Why did she call me that? Why are they both acting like I just gave them orders? I was asking for help. I was begging. How did begging translate into commanding?
Freya ripped her buster sword from the earth, the ground quaking as she charged. Raiden blurred forward like a silver blizzard.
I stayed exactly where I was, leaning heavily on my sword, my hands shaking violently inside my uniform sleeves.
I literally just meant "please fight because my arms don't work anymore." I was BEGGING to be carried! I didn't know the monsters would all target me! I didn't calculate anything! I just can't feel my arms!
So why does it look like I just issued a masterclass in agro manipulation? Why are their eyes shining like that? Why did she call me Little Commander?
But also—
Also.
I watched the clash of steel and monsters that I couldn't even hear. Watched Freya's buster sword carve a Greyveil Stalker in half. Watched Raiden's katana reduce another to frozen particulate. Watched the Barkhollow stumble backward for the first time since I'd encountered it.
A slow, embarrassing warmth spread through my frozen chest.
...Actually, you know what? I'm not going to question it. I don't understand why they're looking at me like that. I don't understand why everything I do keeps getting read as something cool. But I'm being carried right now, and if questioning it makes the carry stop, then I am absolutely not questioning it.
Don't overthink it, Arzane. Just accept the carry.
I leaned a little more comfortably on my sword.
The Barkhollow roared—silently, to me—and its six sickly eyes locked directly onto my stationary, defenseless form.
The massive, bark-plated nightmare disengaged from Freya and Raiden. It pivoted with a horrifying, grinding screech of muscle against bark, its full attention zeroing in on the one variable in the battlefield that hadn't moved. The one standing still. The one that had gone silent. The gap in its grid that refused to resolve.
Me.
My comfort evaporated.
Ah.
It's targeting me because I literally am the bait.
I accidentally designed the perfect agro pull and I am the one pulling it.
Wonderful.
The Barkhollow charged.
The earth vibrated through my shins—five, six, seven impacts per second, closing the distance with the terrible momentum of a landslide given sentience. I couldn't move. I couldn't hear. I couldn't even lift my sword.
And then, because the universe has a truly sick sense of humor, my knees finally buckled.
Not dramatically. Not cinematically. Just—a slow, pathetic tilt backward, my exhausted legs finally surrendering to gravity like two wet noodles. My face didn't flinch. My panic had already flatlined every expression muscle hours ago—there was nothing left to register the mortal terror that should have been screaming off my skull. I just... tilted. Like a mannequin in a slow breeze.
The Barkhollow's massive claw sailed through the exact space my head had occupied one second prior.
...Oh. My legs gave out. That's why I'm not decapitated. My legs were too tired to stand. I survived because I'm physically incapable of remaining upright.
Wait.
Now I'm on the ground.
In front of a T3 Barkhollow.
Looking like I just casually decided to lie down in the middle of a battlefield because my face literally cannot express fear anymore.
The Barkhollow's six eyes blinked. It stared down at me with what I could only describe as genuine, biological confusion. Its prey had just... reclined.
Freya's buster sword crashed into the Barkhollow's flank with the force of a meteorite. Raiden's katana flashed silver, carving a frozen gorge across its back. The monster roared—silently—and was violently dragged back into the chaos of the fight.
I lay on my back in the mud, staring at the grey sky, my blank, deadpan face still projecting the absolute, unbothered serenity of a Cold-Blooded Commander.
Freya. Raiden. Someone. ANYONE!
I am lying on my back in the mud in front of an apex predator and my face won't stop looking calm.
CARRY HARDER!