The training grounds remained silent.
Everyone stared at Lionel.
Not because he lost.
Everybody lost against Emperor Aldric.
That wasn't surprising.
The surprising part was—
Lionel got back up.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The emperor looked at him calmly.
Blood dripped from the corner of Lionel's mouth.
His arms trembled.
His legs hurt.
His ribs probably hated him.
But he was still standing.
The system sounded genuinely confused.
[Why are we still here?]
[You got folded like a chair.]
Lionel wiped the blood away.
"…Shut up."
The emperor slowly approached.
Each step felt heavy.
Powerful.
Like a mountain walking.
Then he stopped directly in front of Lionel.
The training ground became even quieter.
Even Kael stopped joking.
Because everyone knew what was happening.
The emperor was evaluating him.
Finally—
Aldric spoke.
"You've changed."
Lionel shrugged.
"People say that."
"They are correct."
Silence.
Then—
"Good."
The emperor turned around.
Just like that.
Several knights looked confused.
Kael looked confused.
Fenrir looked confused.
Lionel looked confused.
"…That's it?"
The emperor didn't even turn around.
"What else do you want?"
"A speech."
"No."
"A reward."
"No."
"A hug?"
The entire training ground froze.
The system instantly exploded.
[WHAT THE FUCK.]
Kael nearly died laughing.
Even Fenrir looked horrified.
The emperor slowly turned around.
Everyone could feel the danger.
Then—
SMACK.
The emperor smacked Lionel across the back of his head.
Not hard.
Just enough.
"Don't push your luck."
Lionel rubbed his head.
"…Worth trying."
[Respect the hustle.]
Then suddenly—
A black screen appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ MAIN QUEST UPDATED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Objective: Enter Silverwind Academy
Progress: 95%
Reward: 500 Soul Points
Bonus Reward: Boss Theme Speaker
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Description:
Every true Boss deserves entrance music.
Features:
• Villain Entrance Mode • Hero Arrival Mode • Romantic Rescue Mode • Final Boss Music • Slow Motion Enhancement • Psychological Warfare
Warning:
Excessive usage may cause secondhand embarrassment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel froze.
"..."
The system froze.
"..."
Lionel looked at the reward again.
"...What."
The system sounded offended.
[What do you mean what?]
[That's peak.]
"It's a speaker."
[It's a LEGENDARY speaker.]
"It's still a speaker."
[Every boss deserves a soundtrack.]
Lionel rubbed his forehead.
"...I got beaten half to death."
[And now you'll get beaten half to death with background music.]
"..."
[Think about it.]
[Imagine walking into a battlefield.]
[Music starts.]
[Enemies panic.]
[Absolute cinema.]
Lionel hated how convincing that sounded.
The system immediately noticed.
[HE'S THINKING ABOUT IT.]
[LET'S FUCKING GO.]
[THE VISION IS ALIVE.]
Lionel chose to ignore the idiot living in his head.
Mostly because he was, unfortunately, imagining it.
The emperor suddenly spoke again.
"Lionel."
"Yeah?"
"Silverwind Academy begins entrance registration in two weeks."
The training ground became quiet.
Lionel already knew.
But hearing it again felt different.
Because this time—
he wasn't going there as the future loser.
He wasn't going there to compete for attention.
Or chase heroines.
Or get compared to William.
No.
This time—
he was going there to get stronger.
To save his family.
To build his army.
To seize every opportunity before William got there.
A slow smile appeared on his face.
The system immediately noticed.
[…There it is.]
[The criminal smile.]
Lionel ignored him.
The emperor narrowed his eyes.
"…What are you smiling about?"
Lionel answered honestly.
"Nothing."
The emperor stared.
The system stared.
Even Kael stared.
Because everybody immediately knew that was bullshit.
Then suddenly—
another voice interrupted.
"Your Majesty!"
A knight came running toward the training grounds.
He looked nervous.
Very nervous.
The emperor frowned.
"What is it?"
The knight immediately knelt.
"A messenger has arrived from Silverwind Academy."
Silence.
The emperor's eyes sharpened.
"So soon?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The knight swallowed nervously.
"Apparently... they have brought invitations."
Lionel froze slightly.
His memories immediately surfaced.
Because he remembered this.
In the original timeline—
the invitations arrived.
And among the names listed...
was one that would soon become famous throughout the continent.
William Von Ainsworth.
The future protagonist.
The future hero.
The future pain in Lionel's ass.
The system immediately spoke.
[Oh.]
[The main character update just dropped.]
Lionel slowly smiled.
This time—
things would be different. Sorry sent the wrong one