The entire court fell silent. Every eye was on Ren. The air in the grand hall was thick with suspicion, the weight of a hundred powerful gazes pressing down on him like a physical force. Ser Kaelen wore a smug, triumphant smirk, leaning against a marble pillar as if watching a play. Lord Zilton looked like a vulture poised to strike, his thin lips curled in anticipation of a lie.
The King's question hung in the air, a simple, impossible trap.
"Where did you get your power?"
Ren took a slow, deliberate breath. He did not look at Zilton. He did not look at the council. He looked directly at the King, his eyes clear and steady, reflecting the cold light of the stained-glass windows.
"Your Majesty," Ren began, his voice calm and even, projecting across the silent hall with a clarity that surprised even the mages in the room. "To answer your question, I must tell you a story. It is not a story of noble birth, divine blessing, or secret training. It is a story of survival."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.
"I was not born in the slums of Riverwatch. I was born here, in the heart of Syrius. I was a student at the Northgate Academy, just like the sons and daughters of many in this very room."
A murmur of shock rippled through the council. Lord Zilton's sneer faltered for a fraction of a second. Several nobles who had been glaring at Ren now looked at him with a confused, growing recognition.
"My name is Ren. I had no family name to speak of. I was an orphan, living on a scholarship, working three jobs just to afford my books. My life was... normal. Until the day the world ended."
Ren's gaze became distant, as if he were looking through the marble walls and back in time to a world that no longer existed.
"I remember the silence first," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, yet every person in the hall leaned forward to hear. "It wasn't a peaceful silence. It was thick, heavy, as if the world itself had paused to take a breath. One moment, I was in a history classroom, listening to a lecture I thought was boring. The next... the floor vanished."
"A sharp drop. Flashing lights. Screams that were cut short as if someone had pressed a mute button. Then, blackness."
"When I opened my eyes again, the classroom was gone. I was in a forest of obsidian trees, surrounded by a canopy that bled purple light. Around me were the other students. We were scattered, confused, and utterly terrified."
The King leaned forward in his throne, his expression of mild curiosity replaced by one of intense, pained focus. He recognized the event.
"Then," Ren continued, "a sound echoed in the air. A digital chime. Ding. And blue screens appeared before every student. Translucent, glowing panels of light."
Gasps erupted from the council. They knew what he was describing.
"[Welcome, Players]," Ren recited the words from memory, his voice devoid of emotion. "[World Initialization Complete. Tutorial Phase: Active.]"
"The screens told us we had been granted a Personal Interface. That we had to survive, grow stronger, and clear objectives. It said failure to adapt would result in death."
"It was the First Wave," the King breathed, his voice filled with a pained recognition. "The day the System arrived."
"No, Your Majesty," Ren corrected him gently. "It was not. The First Wave, the one that granted power to the heroes and nobles of this kingdom, had already happened. We... we were the Second Batch. The forgotten ones. The ones the System took after the world had already been established."
The hall was in an uproar. The "Second Batch" was a dark rumor, a ghost story whispered in the barracks. A group of children who had vanished without a trace on the same day the first dungeons appeared. They were presumed dead, a tragic footnote in the history of the new world.
"Everyone around me received a class," Ren said, his voice cutting through the noise. "Warrior. Mage. Healer. They discovered skills, stats, and abilities. They were terrified, but they had tools. They had a path."
He looked down at his own hands, his voice turning cold.
"I received nothing."
The hall fell silent once more.
"No screen. No interface. No class. No skills. For three days, while everyone else was learning to use their new magic and testing their strength, I was left with only what I had before. My body. And my will to live."
Lord Zilton scoffed, though his voice lacked its previous conviction. "A baseless story! You expect us to believe you survived the wilds for three days with no System support? The weakest goblin would have torn a normal boy to pieces!"
"It was not impossible," Ren said, his gaze locking onto Zilton's with a predatory intensity that made the old man flinch. "It was hell."
"A new message appeared for everyone," Ren continued. "[Tutorial Event Initiated. Objective: Reach the Safe Zone. Warning: Hostile Entities Detected.] Then came the roars. And the wolves."
"They were massive. Eyes glowing red with a hunger that wasn't natural. They tore through the students. The new Warriors, the new Mages... they were still just children. They didn't know how to fight. They died screaming, waiting for their 'skills' to save them."
"I ran. I ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out. I hid in hollow logs and climbed trees until my fingernails bled. I ate what I could find—roots, insects, raw meat. I learned to move silently, not because of a skill, but because a single snapped twig meant death. I learned to fight, not with a sword, but with a sharpened rock, because it was all I had."
"On the third day, as I was hiding in the mud from a pack of goblins, my System finally arrived. It was late. It was glitchy. But it was there. It gave me the Assassin class. But by then, I had already learned the most important lesson: the System is a tool, not a savior. My survival did not depend on a screen; it depended on me."
Ren's voice rang with an undeniable truth that silenced all doubt. "My power, Your Majesty, did not come from a gift. It came from being hunted. It came from starvation. It came from watching everyone I knew die. My stats are high because if they weren't, I would have been a corpse in that forest years ago."
He had told them everything. His origin. His struggle. He had laid his past bare, omitting only the secret of his money-to-stats conversion.
The King stood up from his throne, his eyes shining with a mixture of sorrow and awe.
"The Second Batch..." the King whispered. "We thought you were all lost. We sent search parties for months. We found nothing but blood and torn uniforms."
He looked at Ren, no longer as an anomaly, but as a miracle. A survivor of a tragedy the kingdom had tried to forget.
"You are not the only one who made it back," the King said, a sad, proud smile on his face. "Over the years, a few others have trickled in from the wilds. Nine of your classmates, to be exact."
Ren's stoic expression finally cracked. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed his face. "Others... survived?"
"Yes," the King confirmed. "Four of them, blessed with powerful A-Rank classes, have become heroes in their own right, serving in the Royal Knights and the Mage Tower. Two, scarred by their ordeal, chose to become citizens and live quiet lives, refusing to ever touch a weapon again. And the last three... they set out on a journey of their own, to find any other survivors who might still be lost in the wilderness."
The King's gaze hardened with pride. "You are all children of Syrius. You have all endured the impossible."
He looked at Ren, his voice booming with royal authority. "You are not just a Dragon Slayer. You are a hero of Syrius! A testament to the unbreakable will of our people! You have returned home, and we shall welcome you as such!"
Praises and murmurs of aspiration filled the hall. The nobles who had been sneering were now looking at Ren with a newfound respect, even awe. He was a living legend, a "Batch Two" survivor.
But about twenty percent of the council, led by a still-fuming Lord Zilton, remained silent. Their faces were masks of disgust and jealousy. To them, Ren was not a hero. He was a cockroach who had survived when their well-bred children might not have. He was a threat to their bloodlines.
The King, basking in the glory of this revelation, did not notice their silent dissent. He saw only the hero his kingdom now had.
"Dragon Slayer Ren," the King declared. "My kingdom, my nation... finally has its own home-grown hero."
The political game had just begun, but Ren had won the first, most important battle: he had turned himself from a suspect into a symbol.
[End of Chapter 32]