The alley was quiet long after she left.
Lira didn't follow him that night. He hadn't expected her to.
Wounded dogs don't chase the first hand that feeds them. They wait. Watch. Try to decide if you're the kind that kills slowly or not at all.
That was fine.
He wasn't here to rush.
He was here to rewrite.
"First move's made," Veyr muttered, leaning against the temple's crumbled wall. "And the Hero missed it."
That changed everything.
Lira wouldn't be the one who melted beside the Hero, hands glowing with divine flame. Not this time. No poetic vows. No unshakable bond.
"But that doesn't stop him. It just slows him down."
Veyr knew the script by heart. Every hero in every age followed the same pattern: gather strength, form bonds, awaken blessings. The system made sure of it. A perfectly cultivated journey, designed to make the chosen glow brighter with every challenge.
And he'd seen what happened when a system-forged hero reached his peak.
He still remembered the sound the Hero's skull made when it gave out beneath his boot.
"No more peaks."
"Not for him."
The next ally was the Merchant's daughter. Tamara, daughter of a traveling trade-lord, attacked by bandits at the old aqueduct route northeast of Carmine's Rest. That moment had catapulted the Hero into his first taste of "righteous renown."
It wouldn't happen again.
But the incident will take place in 2 days from now, closer to the hero than to him.
Which meant Veyr had to get there first.
He checked the dagger hidden in his boot. Cheap. Unmarked. Not ideal.
But it'd do.
Two days later. The Forest Road.
The rain started just before he reached the broken aqueduct.
It came down like punishment—slamming the leaves, churning the dirt road into sludge. Veyr pulled his cloak tighter, boots sucking into the mud with every step.
Veyr moved through it like a shadow, boots sinking into mud, cloak soaked through. The aqueduct's jagged spine cut the sky open above him, a ruined crown over the old forest road. Somewhere down there, the ambush was already unraveling.
He heard the scream.
Sharp. Young. Female.
"Tamara," he thought.
Right on time.
But this time, the Hero wouldn't get his dramatic entrance. No sudden flash of light. No desperate lunge that ended in a bandit skewered and a girl saved by providence.
No.
This time, Veyr was already here.
He crouched in the wet brush above the scene and let the familiar rhythm of war flood his limbs. It came back too easily — the grip, the crouch, the pattern of breath that let your muscles move quiet but fast. Muscle memory never needed permission.
There were three of them. Same as before. Same exact damned ambush. Two had blades. One stood watch with a crossbow, half hidden under his cloak like it would make him invisible.
In front of them, the wagon was stuck, wheels half-submerged in mud. The girl was screaming. Trying to lift her father from the driver's seat. Magic flickered from her hands—sparks and steam, uncontrolled and untrained.
"Still amateurs," Veyr muttered.
He moved.
Dropped from the ledge like a blade falling from the sky.
The crossbowman didn't even hear him. Veyr slit his throat clean, caught the body as it collapsed, and lowered it gently into the weeds.
The second saw movement too late.
"What the—"
"Right on schedule."
Veyr moved like a shadow cut loose from the trees.
The second heard the gurgle and spun, sword raised—but Veyr was already on him. He rammed the man's wrist into a tree, shattered it at the joint, and drove his dagger into the soft place under the chin.
The third ran.
Smart.
But not smart enough.
Veyr threw the dagger.
It caught the boy just below the spine, and he dropped, screaming into the mud.
Tamara had frozen mid-spell, her magic fading out with a pop.
She looked between Veyr and the dying bandits like she couldn't decide which was more terrifying.
He didn't smile.
Didn't offer comfort.
He just knelt beside her father, checked for a pulse. Weak. Alive.
"Get him out of the rain," Veyr said. "Build a fire."
Tamara stared. "Who… who are you?"
"Someone who knows what happens if you die here."
That didn't clarify anything. That was intentional.
He moved fast—dragged the father under a tree, checked his wounds. Nothing fatal. Concussion, maybe. He'd live.
Tamara finally snapped out of it enough to light a spark.
"Thank you" she muttered. "Thank you hero."
Veyr didn't respond.
He just stared at the blood-soaked road and the bodies cooling in the mud.
"Hero..."
That night, as the fire crackled and the girl slept against her unconscious father, Veyr sat alone at the edge of the camp.
He let the rain hit his face.
Let the ache settle in his back like a familiar ghost.
In the old life, this moment had launched the Hero into the hearts of the common people.
This time, there would be no crowd. No applause. No divine whisper of "Well done."
Just another nameless stranger passing through.
"Keep choking the script," he whispered.
"Until the Hero has nothing left to follow."
The system could gift blessings.
It could bestow fate.
But it couldn't give experience.
Not like Veyr had.
Not like what he carried in the scars and rot that the new body didn't show.
He'd earned this war.
And this time, he was going to win it from the start.