The intercom cut through the silence of drowning
"Approaching final stop, final quater villages. All passengers prepare to disembark."
Josen didn't move, he felt sunken into the chair
He sat with his forehead pressed against the cool window, watching the landscape shift as the train pulled further from the capital. The towering spires and polished glass of Lioness gave way to something quieter. Wider roads. Older buildings. Trees that hadn't been trimmed to look decorative. The kind of place that didn't bother performing wealth because it didn't need to.
The station itself was modest but maintained. Clean tiles recently swept. A row of iron benches with curved backs, worn smooth from years of use but still lively. giving it the feeling of a place that had decided on its character long ago and saw no reason to update it, their were drawings and ripped up posters son the inner station walls
Not the capital. But not nothing either.
He gathered his things slowly. One bag battered and overpacked, clearly purposely picked to suit the cast-away aesthetic A dusty suitcase he'd dragged from the back of his old wardrobe, the kind that had never been used because Malkadors didn't travel like this. And in his right hand, folded carefully between two fingers, a photograph.
Lady of the house, Ms Adams had pressed it into his palm without a word as he was leaving. She hadn't been able to say goodbye properly. There hadn't been room for that. So she had given him this instead — a small, faded photograph of a man with white curly hair and a grin that looked like it was getting away with something.
Josen stared at it now on the platform, scanning the unfamiliar station.
"Ugh." He scratched the back of his head. "I don't even know the old man's name."
SLAP.
A palm cracked against the back of his skull with enough force to send him stumbling forward two steps.
"Ow — what the—"
"There you are, Josie-boy!"
Josen spun around, rubbing his head, equal parts indignant and confused, he'd been getting slapped too much today. The man standing behind him was older, compact, with white curly hair that matched the photograph almost exactly. He was grinning like he had just told himself a joke and found it extremely funny. His clothes were plain but well kept. His shoes were worn in the way that things get worn when they are used rather than neglected.
"It's Josen," he muttered rubbing the back of his head.
"Yes, yes. Josen. Come now, quickly." The old man was already walking, moving at a pace that had no business belonging to someone his age.
With a flick of his wrist, the bags lifted off the ground on their own, floating smoothly through the air toward a well kept car parked at the edge of the lot.
Josen stopped walking.
Wait.
He stared at the floating luggage, then at the old man's retreating back, then at the luggage again.
He's a Defector. Defectors can't use System skills. So how is he—
"Hey! Wait up!"
He had to jog to catch him.
The car waiting at the edge of the lot was not what Josen expected.
It wasn't flashy. But it was extremely priced and valuable it was a practical thing, a broad, high-bodied vehicle with dark panelling that had been polished until it caught the light cleanly. The kind of car that didn't announce itself but rewarded a second look. The interior was leather, aged to softness, with a dashboard that mixed older craftsmanship with a few quietly advanced modifications Josen didn't immediately recognise.
Someone had taken care of this thing for a long time.
The moment they pulled out of the station and onto the open road, something shifted.
The window was down. The air came through cool and foreign from the pristine pureness he had grown up with, carrying the smell of grass and pine and something that had no name but felt like the opposite of the Malkador compound. No marble floors. No measured silences. No weight of expectation pressing down from the ceiling.
Josen leaned against the window frame and let the breeze hit his face. He didn't mean to stick his tongue out slightly like a child. He did it anyway. He didn't particularly care.
I wonder how he felt when he got kicked out and banished he couldnt have that much more than my age.
"distraught" the old man said from the driver's seat.
Josen's head snapped forward. "What?"
Augustus was laughing. Not a polite laugh. A genuine, full-bodied laugh that filled the whole car and spilled out the windows.
"Your face," he wheezed. "Priceless."
"You can read minds?!"
The grin on his face widened at the corners." He wiped his eye with the back of one hand, still grinning. "You just have a very expressive face, boy. You were staring at nothing with that exact look people get when they're thinking about someone else's suffering. Easy enough to guess."
Josen slumped back in his seat, deciding to be suspicious of this man indefinitely.
"Listen carefully," Augustus said, tone shifting. ", over the next month, I will teach you many things. About this world we inhabit. About the gods that control us, the government we run, the System that governs our power, and how I became who I am without needing the help of them."
Josen glanced at him sideways. He had sensed it on the platform, that faint pressure radiating off the old man like heat off stone. He had assumed it was his imagination.
He was beginning to think it wasn't.
"Once that strength becomes yours," Augustus continued, eyes on the road, "you will be able to beat them."
"Beat a System user?" The words came out before Josen could catch them. "That's imposs—"
"No."
One word. Flat and final, with no anger behind it, just absolute certainty. The kind of certainty that didn't need to argue because it already knew it was right.
When they turned into the driveway, the house sat at the end of a clean gravel path lined with mature trees. It wasn't a mansion. It wasn't trying to be. But the stonework was solid, the windows were wide, and the grounds had the unhurried order of a place maintained by someone who had time and chose to spend it well.
Not Malkador money. But Augustus money. Which, Josen was beginning to suspect, might be more than he let on.
Josen stepped out of the car and instinctively slipped his shoes off at the door without being told, old habit from the compound. Then he walked inside and immediately walked shin-first into a crate of artillery stacked beside the entrance.
BANG.
Pain detonated up his leg.
"Watch yourself, young man." Augustus's voice came from somewhere deeper in the house, unhurried.
"...Yes, sir," Josen said through gritted teeth, hopping on one foot.
The shower was hot and too short, which he was grateful for. Standing still gave his thoughts room to move, and his thoughts were not currently pleasant company.
His so-called friends. The ones who had cheered for him at every tournament, every gala event, every assembly or every class, who had sat beside him at every formal dinner, who had treated proximity to a Malkador heir like a resource to be cultivated. The moment the notification appeared above his platform, he had watched their faces in his peripheral vision.
He had seen the exact moment they decided he was no longer useful to leech off.
They hadn't even waited until he was out of the room.
"Wasting water, boy."
Augustus's voice came through the bathroom door, calm as anything.
Josen turned off the tap.
He dressed quickly, ran a hand through his damp white hair, and stepped into the hallway. The house was wider than it looked from outside. High ceilings. Long corridors with paintings he didn't recognise, and weapons mounted at odd intervals between them, casually displayed like decoration. Everything was polished and placed with quiet deliberate care.
He was banished. So how does he have all this?
He filed the question away for later.
The living room was sparse. Two chairs, a low table, a single lamp burning in the corner. Augustus sat with his arms folded, watching Josen come in the way a person watches something they have been expecting for a long time.
"There you are. Sit."
Josen sat.
"I knew you would be a Defector."
The room went still.
Josen was on his feet before he finished processing the sentence, hand grabbing the front of Augustus's collar.
"You knew what? what did you do, DID YOU DO THIS TO ME? DID YOU CURSE ME< HUH? DID YOU?" His voice broke constantly as tears rush down his face hes eyes stung and his veins twitched he struggled to decide between letting go or clinching the shirt tighter
Augustus did not blink. Just looked at him with those steady eyes.
"No." A pause. "A better phrasing would be — I hoped you would be."
Josen's grip loosened. He dropped back into his chair slowly, the anger draining out of him and leaving something heavier behind, as, he awkwardly wiping his tear, cursing himself for breaking because of a simple sentence
"Being a Defector," Augustus said, voice quieter now, "is not a curse. Everyone in this country will tell you otherwise. Most people will treat you like it is, like your scum, like your lesser, like your feelings and emotion's are worth less simply because you weren't "blessed and highly favoured"
Augutus himself started getting heated, the memories were visible in his eyes as he clinched his garment on both knees biting his lips hard and he hard wide with tears, which he tapped away with his handkerchief
"They have very good reasons for wanting you to believe that." He leaned forward slightly. "But it is a key. A door that no one else in this world has the ability to open."
Josen stared at the floor.
"You are not bound by the System. Not limited by its pathways or its rankings or its approved list of abilities. Your potential has no ceiling." He paused, letting that settle. "Most Defectors never discover that. They are told they are broken from the moment they awaken, and so they spend the rest of their lives being broken. The System counts on that."
"So I should thank them?" Josen's voice came out harder than he intended. "The people who laughed in my face today? Who threw me out like garbage?"
"You should thank yourself." Augustus's tone didn't shift. "Because you are still here. Still breathing. Still angry enough to fight." A rare, quiet thing moved behind his eyes. "And if you are willing, I will show you what that anger can become."
He leaned back, and for a moment the lamp cast his face in sharp relief, and Josen noticed the scars on his hands properly for the first time. Not clean scars. Old ones. The kind that came from things that took a long time.
"There is a story," Augustus said. "One you will hear when you are ready. But understand this now. The System was not made for your benefit. It was made to keep people measurable. Predictable. Safe to manage." Something flickered briefly in his expression and was gone. "You are none of those things. And that terrifies the right people."
He stood, unhurried.
"Took a very long time to do this. To pick myself up from being casted out to figure out that my life is my own and had been hiding from me, my true purpose and i did, i lived out my dreams and goals cost more than I will tell you today." He looked at Josen directly. "Now it is your turn."
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that comes after something true has been said and the room needs a moment to adjust.
"From today," Augustus said, "you will grow stronger than you currently believe is possible. I will teach you, And one day, you will never lose to a System user again."
"Come with me."
The basement stairs were narrow and descended further than the house seemed to allow for. Each step echoed in a way that made the space feel larger before you reached it.
When Josen reached the bottom and saw it properly, he stopped.
Rows of weapons lined the walls, polished and varied, everything from single-edged blades to artillery he couldn't name. Strange chemicals bubbled quietly inside old lab flasks on shelves beside worn, heavily annotated books. High-tech equipment sat alongside ancient relics with no apparent sense of order, just coexistence. Training dummies. Old armour. Materials he couldn't identify. A decent sized dome ring in the middle of the structure meant for tests and practice spars
Josen walked slowly around the edge of the room, taking it in. His eyes caught things in passing — a blade with a blended hue he didn't recognize, an orb that shifted colour when he wasn't looking directly at it, a mural on the far wall painted in fine detail showing figures he couldn't quite place.
"Hey, boy."
"Yes, sir?"
"The rankings of the system. List them."
Josen turned back. "Uh — F, E, D, C, B, A, S — and SSS?"
"You missed one."
"Oh. SS."
"Good." Augustus clasped his hands behind his back. " you will have surpass all of them, soon..."
He let that sit for exactly one second.
"As I have." Delivered with complete and effortless confidence, the smug certainty of a man who had long since stopped needing anyone to believe him.
Josen's eyes widened. "No way. Seriously?"
"Yes." Augustus was already moving toward the training area. "Now. Get to work."