Sunrise in the Rotting Woods Swamp was, objectively speaking, horrible.
The green fog crept over the stagnant water like a living entity, the smell of decaying vegetation saturated the air, and there was something in the distance that sounded suspiciously like an animal slowly dying.
"Home sweet home," Renn murmured, crawling out of his makeshift tent with every muscle in his body protesting.
Valeria was already awake—or perhaps she had never slept—sitting in her feline form on a dry rock, with Princess Lysandra curled up next to her. Both cats watched him with expressions that clearly communicated: Finally decided to get up.
"Good morning to you too," Renn said, stretching with an audible crack of his back. "How long have you guys been awake?"
"Approximately three hours," Valeria replied with that melodious voice that shouldn't come from a purple cat. "Her Highness and I have been discussing your training schedule."
"My what?"
"Your training schedule," Valeria repeated patiently. "If you are to serve as Her Highness's Substitute Lord, you need at least basic competence in combat, resource management, and territorial survival."
"Define basic competence."
"Not dying immediately when something attacks you."
"That is a very low bar."
"And yet," Valeria tilted her head, "we are not sure you can reach it without help."
Princess Lysandra meowed her agreement.
Renn sighed, accepting that protesting was useless. "Okay. What kind of training are we talking about? Exercises? Meditation? Dramatic poses?"
"Dramatic poses," Valeria repeated with a tone suggesting she was cataloging that response as evidence of his incompetence. "No, Substitute Lord. We will start with fundamentals: stance, movement, situational awareness, and how not to trip over your own feet."
"Hey, I only tripped twice yesterday."
"It was seven times."
"...Okay, maybe it was seven."
Valeria jumped off the rock and, in a flash of golden light, adopted her humanoid form. Today she was wearing a more practical version of her armor—still purple crystal, still leaving enough skin exposed to be distracting, but with more protection in vital areas.
Renn made a conscious effort to keep his eyes on her face.
"Right," Valeria said, walking toward a relatively dry area near the troop tower. "Stand here. Feet shoulder-width apart. Knees slightly bent."
Renn obeyed, feeling ridiculous.
"No, wider. Your shoulders, not a child's."
"I have average adult shoulders."
"Debatable," Valeria murmured, physically adjusting his stance. Her hands were surprisingly warm against his shoulders. "Now, center your weight. Imagine there are roots growing from your feet into the earth."
"Roots. From my feet."
"Is that a difficult concept to visualize?"
"I'm just checking that we are literally talking about imagining roots, not some kind of real magic that's going to grow plants in my shoes."
Valeria looked at him with those golden eyes that seemed to be constantly recalculating just how desperate his situation was.
"Imagine them, Substitute Lord. Not literally."
"Right, right. Imaginary roots. Got it."
"Excellent. Now, when an enemy attacks..."
"We're going straight to combat?"
"...you need to maintain this stance while assessing threats. Most novice Lords make the mistake of moving erratically, which makes them vulnerable."
"I move... strategically."
"You move like a scared chicken."
Princess Lysandra, still in her feline form, made a sound that was definitely laughter.
"Alright," Renn said, trying to regain some dignity. "Show me what I should do."
Valeria moved. There was no other way to describe it—she simply moved. One moment she was standing in front of him, and the next she was three meters to the left, with no visible movement in between.
"What I just did," she explained, "is a basic displacement. Level one celestial mobility technique."
"That didn't look basic."
"For me, it is. For you..." Valeria paused, clearly looking for diplomatic words. "Let's start with something more fundamental. Try to move from here to that rock without tripping."
"That rock is two meters away."
"I know."
"I can walk two meters without tripping."
"Prove it."
Renn, feeling insulted, walked deliberately toward the rock. He placed one foot. Then the other. He reached the rock without incident.
"See? Basic..."
His foot sank into a hidden patch of mud. He lost his balance, flailed his arms dramatically, and fell on his butt into the green water.
Valeria said nothing. She didn't need to.
Princess Lysandra simply closed her eyes, as if the pain of watching him was too much.
"Okay," Renn admitted, spitting out swamp water. "Maybe I need work on situational awareness."
"Maybe," Valeria agreed, offering him a hand to get up. "Back to fundamentals."
The next ninety minutes were possibly the most humiliating of Renn's life, which was saying a lot considering he had lost a fight to a raccoon.
Valeria made him practice:
Walking in a straight line (tripped four times) Dodging imaginary projectiles (dodged none) Maintaining balance on one leg (lasted seven seconds) Basic evasive rolls (rolled directly into a tree)
"Substitute Lord," Valeria said after he rolled into the tree for the third time. "I need to ask you a serious question."
"Yeah?" Renn rubbed his forehead where he had hit the bark.
"How have you survived until now?"
"Strategic avoidance of everything dangerous."
"Ah. That explains a lot."
Princess Lysandra, who had been watching the entire process with the intensity of an Olympic judge, meowed something that Valeria translated.
"Her Highness suggests that perhaps we should focus on your existing strengths instead of creating new ones from scratch."
"What strengths?" Renn asked honestly.
Lysandra looked at him for a long moment, then meowed again.
"Her Highness says... that you are persistent. And you have a good heart. Those are valuable qualities in a Lord."
Renn felt something warm expand in his chest. "Really?"
Lysandra purred—a sound that communicated Obviously, idiot.
"However," Valeria continued, "persistence and kindness will not protect you from claws and fangs. So we will continue..."
Renn's bracelet emitted a sharp, urgent beep.
Everyone froze.
The holographic screen deployed automatically, flashing with urgent red text:
[TERRITORIAL ALERT!] [INVASION DETECTED] [BEAST HORDE APPROACHING] [DISTANCE: 2.3 km] [ESTIMATED ARRIVAL TIME: 18 minutes] [AVERAGE THREAT LEVEL: Common - Uncommon] [ESTIMATED QUANTITY: 40-60 entities]
Renn felt his stomach drop. "What...?"
"Territorial invasion," Valeria said, her tone instantly shifting from patient instructor to professional warrior. "It was expected."
"EXPECTED?"
"High-level summons emit dimensional resonance. Wild beasts are attracted to it like moths to a flame." Valeria studied the screen with calculating eyes. "A horde of forty to sixty Common and Uncommon level beasts. Manageable."
"MANAGEABLE? That's SIXTY!"
"For me, yes." Valeria looked at him. "For you... less so."
"Then eliminate them. You can do it, right?"
"I can." Valeria crossed her arms, making the crystals on her armor glow. "But I won't."
"WHAT?"
"Substitute Lord, currently you are Level 1."
"Level what?"
Valeria touched Renn's bracelet, and a new interface deployed:
[LORD: RENN BLACKWOOD] [LEVEL: 1] [EXP: 0/100] [BASE POWER: 10]
"Every Lord has a level," Valeria explained. "It increases through combat, territorial management, and completing objectives. Your level affects everything: the effectiveness of your troops, the strength of your territory, your capacity to summon."
"Wait, do my troops have levels too?"
"Correct." Valeria pointed to another screen:
[TROOP: VALERIA NIGHTWHISPER] [LEVEL: 1] [QUALITY: CELESTIAL (50,000 base points)] [CURRENT POWER: 50,000 × 1.0 = 50,000] [EXP: 0/1000]
"My base quality is Celestial, fifty thousand power points. But currently, I am at Level 1, so my actual power is just... that. Fifty thousand."
"Just fifty thousand," Renn repeated. "That is... a lot."
"For a Level 1 Common troop with one hundred base points, yes. Fifty thousand is overwhelming." Valeria expanded the explanation. "But consider this: a Level 100 Common troop would have approximately one thousand power points. Me, at Level 100, would have five hundred thousand."
Renn processed the numbers. "So... quality is your base power, but level is the multiplier."
"Exactly. That is why Her Highness has assigned me as your first troop, my base quality is so high that even at Level 1, I can protect you from common threats." Valeria paused. "But you will not progress by hiding behind me."
"Progress? Where are we going with this?"
"To the fact that you need experience. You need to level up. And this horde..." Valeria smiled, and there was something slightly predatory about it. "It is the perfect opportunity."
Renn looked at the screen where the counter now read: 16 minutes.
"You're telling me you want me to fight sixty beasts."
"No. I want you to survive against them while you learn." Valeria started walking toward where the screen indicated the horde was coming from. "I will intervene if your life is in real danger. But only then."
"And how am I supposed to survive?"
"Using your head. Knowing yourself. And trusting that Her Highness and I won't let you die." Valeria looked at him over her shoulder. "Yet."
Princess Lysandra meowed, a sound that clearly said: Stop complaining and get ready.
Renn swallowed, watching his bracelet where the counter kept ticking down.
15 minutes.
"Alright," he said, more to himself than to them. "Okay. I can do this. They're just low-level beasts. They can't be worse than the raccoon."
"The raccoon was a solitary entity," Valeria pointed out. "These come in a coordinated pack."
"You're not helping."
"I am just being realistic."
The next fourteen minutes were a whirlwind of frantic preparation.
Valeria positioned him on a raised area near the troop tower—"High ground is a basic advantage"—and began explaining survival tactics at record speed.
"Rule one: don't separate from me. If you are more than ten meters away, I cannot protect you efficiently."
"Understood."
"Rule two: observe before acting. Pack beasts have patterns. Identify them."
"Patterns like what?"
"Alpha leaders, weak stragglers, attack coordination. Learn to read combat."
"That sounds very advanced for someone who tripped three times in the last fourteen minutes."
"That is why you are observing, not attacking."
Valeria pulled... something out of nowhere. She literally materialized it from thin air: a simple wooden staff, approximately the length of Renn's arm.
"What is this?"
"Your weapon."
Renn looked at the stick. "It's a stick."
"It is a training staff. Enchanted to be unbreakable and blunt enough to stun without killing." Valeria handed it to him. "If something gets too close, hit it. Do not stab, do not try to be elegant. Just hit."
"Hit. I can do that."
"We shall see."
Renn's bracelet emitted a final beep.
[INVASION INITIATED!] [TIME: 0:00] [GET READY!]
In the distance, among the rotting trees, something was moving. Many somethings.
The sound arrived first: a chorus of snarls, screeches, and the splashing of dozens of paws running through the swamp water.
Then he saw them.
Swamp Wolves.
They weren't normal wolves—these were bigger, their eyes glowed with a sickly green, and their fur was matted with mud and moss that seemed to grow directly from their skin.
And there were a lot of them.
[ANALYZING THREATS...] [SWAMP WOLF - COMMON LEVEL] [POWER: 100 pts] [QUANTITY DETECTED: 47] [SWAMP ALPHA WOLF - UNCOMMON LEVEL] [POWER: 250 pts] [QUANTITY DETECTED: 3]
"Forty-seven normal ones plus three alphas," Valeria murmured, analyzing the horde with professional eyes. "Typical pack formation. The alphas will coordinate from the rear while the subordinates attack in waves."
"That... sounds very organized for beasts."
"Beasts are not stupid, just instinctive." Valeria positioned herself slightly in front of Renn, her hands glowing with that dimensional power she had used against the raccoon. "Remember: observe. Learn. Survive."
The wolves saw them.
The pack leader—a massive alpha with scars crossing his snout—howled. The sound resonated through the swamp, and forty-seven beasts responded with howls of their own.
Then they attacked.
[COMBAT INITIATED]
The first wave arrived like a tide of fangs and claws.
Valeria moved.
This time, Renn could see her movement: fluid, precise, lethal.
Her right hand traced an arc in the air, and three wolves that had leaped toward Renn simply... froze mid-jump. They floated there for a second, then were blasted backward with enough force to smash them against trees.
[VALERIA NIGHTWHISPER has eliminated SWAMP WOLF ×3] [EXP GAINED: 15]
"They're flanking!" Renn shouted, seeing two wolves circling to his left.
"I know. Let them come."
"WHAT?"
The wolves leaped.
Valeria extended her left hand without looking. A barrier of purple crystal materialized in the air, and the wolves crashed against it with impacts that sounded like broken bells.
She stepped forward, and the barrier exploded outward into thousands of shards that acted like shrapnel, shredding the two attackers.
[VALERIA NIGHTWHISPER has eliminated SWAMP WOLF ×2] [EXP GAINED: 10]
"Substitute Lord!" Valeria's voice cut through his fascination. "Behind you!"
Renn spun around.
A wolf—a straggler, smaller than the others—had managed to climb the elevation from another angle. It was three meters away, snarling, preparing to pounce.
[YOUNG SWAMP WOLF] [POWER: 80 pts]
Eighty points, Renn thought. I have ten. He is eight times stronger.
The wolf jumped.
Renn didn't think. He acted.
He raised the staff—clumsy, inelegant, pure instinct—and swung it with all his might.
The staff connected with the wolf's side in mid-air with a satisfying CRACK.
The beast yelped, its trajectory deviating. It landed heavily in the mud, stunned but not eliminated.
Renn looked at it, his heart beating frantically.
I hit it. I hit a beast. It's hurt but not dead and it's going to recover and—
"FINISH IT!" Valeria shouted, busy holding back another ten wolves at once.
Renn gripped the staff, stepped up to the stunned wolf, and hit it again. Then again. And again.
On the fourth blow, the beast stopped moving.
[RENN BLACKWOOD has eliminated YOUNG SWAMP WOLF!] [FIRST KILL!] [EXP GAINED: 40] [FIRST KILL BONUS: +10 EXP] [LEVEL UP! 1 -> 2] [POWER: 10 -> 12]
A wave of energy surged through Renn's body—warm, tingling, like caffeine but more... real.
"I DID IT!" he shouted, euphoria mixing with adrenaline. "VALERIA, I DID IT!"
"I know! Now MOVE, more are coming!"
Renn looked. She was right. Five more wolves had broken Valeria's perimeter and were charging straight at him.
"Oh, shit."