“Who are you?”

  Arthur’s voice was low and tight. He gripped his longsword, shifting into a defensive stance.

  “You can call me the ‘Warden,’” the bck-robed figure replied, his voice young but ced with an easy arrogance. He gestured vaguely at the room, his expression dead serious, as if he genuinely believed every word. “I’m the one who oversees this world.”

  Arthur scoffed, a dry, bitter sound.

  “If ‘overseeing this world’ means sneaking around like a common thug, then I guess I’m a Warden too.”

  But the self-procimed Warden just nodded, as if this were a perfectly reasonable point. “Indeed. You absolutely could.” He said it like it was obvious—as natural as breathing. “As long as you accept the commission to Warden an ‘Orchard.’ Of course, that requires you to join the ‘Academy’… and stop being just another ‘Fruit’ grown here.”

  “What… are you even talking about?” Arthur demanded, the words nonsensical, alien.

  But he didn’t need to understand to exploit the opening.

  In one fluid motion, he lunged—a textbook knight’s thrust, the sword flicking upward to pierce the throat.

  So what happened?

  His opponent’s skill wasn’t just superior. It was wrong.

  No dodge. No parry.

  Just a casual backhand strike, palm snapping out like a bde—

  CRACK!

  The sickening sound of bone breaking.

  White-hot agony exploded in Arthur’s wrist. Instinct screamed at him to drop the sword—

  —and his opponent had already counted on it.

  The moment Arthur’s fingers loosened, the Warden’s other hand darted out like smoke, snatching the bde from midair before it even hit the ground.

  It all happened in less than a heartbeat.

  Arthur was still processing the pain when he realized—he was already disarmed.

  His face went pale. His knuckles whitened on empty air.

  This man wasn’t just strong. He was on another level entirely—stronger than a fully armored, cssically trained knight like Arthur could ever hope to be.

  “Who… are you?” Arthur rasped, staring at his empty hands.

  “I told you,” the Warden said calmly. He idly spun the stolen sword in his grip, a zy flourish as if it weighed nothing. “I’m the Warden.”

  Then, before Arthur could even twitch toward a desperate tackle, the Warden struck again—not with the edge, but with the ft.

  TING!

  A precise tap. A flick of the wrist.

  Arthur’s heavy, gilded helm—the very symbol of his kingship—flew off his head in a perfect arc, cttering onto the far carpet.

  Before the echo even faded, the Warden swept the bde back.

  SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

  Three crisp, clean cuts.

  The reinforced leather straps binding Arthur’s prized pte armor—chest, arms, thighs—parted like thread.

  His armor went sck, hanging uselessly on his frame.

  The Warden looked at him, wearing a smile that mixed condescension and pity—the kind you give a child who’s proud of building a sandcastle in a hurricane.

  “You’re not bad,” he said. “But this armor? It’s weighing you down.” “You still don’t understand… the human body can do so much more.”

  Arthur stood frozen, his eyes darting from his discarded helm, to his useless armor, to the man who had just stripped him of everything in seconds.

  The truth crashed over him like ice water: This wasn’t a fight. It was a demonstration.

  There was no closing the gap. No clever trick. No path to victory.

  Only surrender.

  Slowly, numbly, he let his arms fall to his sides.

  He gave up.

  The Warden watched, then gave a single, quiet nod.

  That small gesture was the final nail in the coffin of Arthur’s pride.

  “We don’t have to be enemies,” the Warden continued, his voice ft, almost bored. “In fact, I can show you something more—a world far wider than this dead-end orchard.”

  He studied Arthur’s stunned, humiliated eyes, letting a sliver of lofty pity seep into his tone. “I can take you… to the Demon Hunter Academy.”

  Arthur’s jaw tightened. “And there…?”

  “There, you’ll learn real combat,” the Warden said, gncing at the sword in his hand. “Like what I just did.”

  Silence stretched.

  Then, quietly: “Are you… a Demon Hunter?”

  It was the only way his pride could accept this defeat—if his opponent belonged to some legendary, untouchable order.

  But the Warden ughed. Then shook his head.

  “No. I’m just a… student.”

  He clearly savored the disbelief twisting Arthur’s face. Leaning in a little, he added, his voice dropping to a near-reverent whisper: “‘Demon Hunter’... that’s a title way beyond either of us. A level so high, you might spend your whole life chasing it and never even glimpse its shadow.”

  Arthur’s mind reeled.

  This man—barely older than himself—could dismantle a town’s order, dismantle a knight in full pte, and yet he was merely an apprentice? What, then, were true Demon Hunters?

  As if reading his thoughts, the Warden’s smile deepened, cryptic and cold. “You’ll understand… in time.” “The position of ‘Warden’ isn’t as gmorous as you’d think.”

  He paused, then delivered the final, crushing blow, the simple weight of absolute fact: “After all… even a mere apprentice like me can still take you down, can’t I?”

  Arthur didn’t answer.

  He just nodded slowly.

  Pride? Dignity?

  They were dust in the wind compared to that chasm of power.

  “Good,” the Warden said, clearly satisfied. “I knew you were smart enough to see reason.”

  He raised a single finger and pointed it out the window—toward Dougs Manor, perched on the hills outside town.

  “Tomorrow morning. Before ten.”

  “I want every survivor in this town—everyone—gathered outside the Dougs estate.”

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