The name Arcten Valebran once meant something more than curt commands and tired footsteps echoing in empty halls.

Before he wore the mantle of Instructor, before the scars across his back had faded into routine aches, he was a knight forged in the bloodied crucible of empire.

He hailed from House Valebran, a lesser noble line that bore the rank of Viscounty—knights elevated to nobility not through title, but through steel. Their coat of arms bore no golden lions, no soaring phoenixes. Only a single, downward-pointing sword, crossed by black ivy—silent homage to what they were: warriors who bled before they were bowed to.

The Valebrans were old war-hounds. Veterans of forgotten skirmishes. Men and women who had survived long enough on the frontlines to be handed land and titles, not as honors, but as consolation prizes for lives spent.

And among them, Arcten was their better child.

From the moment he could hold a blade, he trained not to impress—but to endure. While other noble sons recited doctrine, Arcten drilled stances until his palms blistered and bled. He didn't have the polish of a court swordsman. He had the form of someone who expected to kill or be killed.

And that was exactly what the Arcanis Empire needed.

He enlisted young, his name carrying just enough weight to earn him a command—just little enough that he had to prove he deserved it. And he did. Again. And again.

Campaign after campaign, Arcten advanced not through political maneuvering or favors, but by surviving. Siege of Vorthen. Burning of the Duskfront. Silent Push at Craeglin Pass. The empire bled, and Arcten bled with it. His sword didn't gleam—it tore. It endured.

By the time he was twenty-five, he was already being whispered about in the upper ranks. By thirty, he'd led a battalion. By thirty-five, he'd been offered lordship over a fortified border province. And he declined.

By thirty-five, he'd been offered lordship over a fortified border province.

And he declined.

At the time, when his superiors questioned him—when even his own family sent letters inked in confusion and clipped politeness—he only gave a shrug and a half-hearted joke about preferring the cold steel of a blade to the warm chains of bureaucracy.

But truthfully?

He didn't know why he declined.

Or rather—he did.

He just didn't have the strength to admit it then.

He was tired.

Not the kind of tired that sleep could mend, or rest could soften. Not even the kind that came from years of holding a sword. No, this was something deeper. Older. A fatigue that wrapped around the bones like frostbite, quiet and permanent.

The higher he climbed, the more he saw.

Not just the enemy ranks, or the maps marked in red and gold.

He saw soldiers fall—young, old, loyal, foolish. Each with their own ambitions. Each with some desperate hope that maybe, maybe, this battle would be the one that mattered. That this sacrifice would be enough.

And yet...

From where he stood, up among the tents of command and ink-stained fingers, it all began to shift.

Those deaths—those screams—became footnotes. Adjustments in logistics. Numbers on a report read with wine-stained mouths and expressions bored from repetition.

While men died for inches of ground and glory they'd never taste, those above treated it as a race. A contest of who could decorate themselves in the most medals, the most boasts, the cleanest victories polished for parade.

It sickened him.

Not because he believed in some romantic ideal of war.

He'd lost that long ago.

But because they never had it to begin with.

They hadn't bled with their soldiers. They hadn't carried broken bodies back from the front. They hadn't sat beside the dying, holding hands gone cold before they could speak their last regrets.

And when Arcten thought of taking the title... of sitting behind a polished desk, wearing silks and whispering strategies... he felt nothing.

No ambition.

No pride.

Only nausea.

And it was the same when his family offered him the role of heir—the future head of House Valebran. The same smileless pressure. The same politics he had once fought to protect, now revealed as just another mask. Another arena.

One without swords, but with far more knives.

He declined that too.

And instead—chose something else.

Something unexpected.

He returned to the capital not as a commander, nor a noble, but as a man wearing a simple coat and carrying a weathered blade. A man who signed his name to a sealed request and accepted a position many saw as beneath him.

Instructor.

At the Imperial Academy.

Where greenbloods and hopefuls came to swing swords for the first time. Where nobility sent their sons to be shaped into heroes without scars. Where war was still distant, still noble.

Of course, he knew stepping into the academy wouldn't shield him completely from politics.

Nothing ever did.

But at the very least, here, he could focus on something that still made sense.

Swords.

It was always the swords.

The weight. The balance. The motion.

That was why he'd gone to the battlefield in the first place—not for glory, not for titles—but because the sword had been the only thing in his life that made sense. It didn't flatter. It didn't lie. It just demanded—effort.

So he thought, why not?

Why not teach here? Why not shape the next generation, if only so fewer of them would die as stupidly as the ones before?

And so it went.

Ten years passed.

And somewhere between routine and resignation, Arcten became a fixture of the academy's Knight Block—though the more self-important sorts insisted on calling it the Martial Arts Division. He never bothered correcting them. Let them argue over titles. He knew what it really was:

A forge.

Where steel was tested. Where kids came to swing sticks and left with scars—if they were lucky.

He'd earned a reputation. Solid. Unshakable. Gruff to the point of insult, but fair. The kind of instructor who wouldn't spare you a second look unless you earned it—but who, once you had, would damn well make sure you walked out of his ring alive.

Still—even here, politics crept in.

His family, House Valebran, might've been quieter than the great houses, but they still played the game. And every few months, like clockwork, they reminded him.

This time, it came in the form of a letter.

No threats. No grand demands.

Just a reuse of favor.

A polite request.

A reminder.

Handle the Weaponship Evaluation for one Lucavion.

No details. No explanations. But the implication?

Clear.

Give him the lowest grade possible.

Arcten didn't argue.

Why would he?

The boy had apparently offended the Crown Prince himself.

Who the hell does that, anyway?

He didn't care for palace drama. If the kid was dumb enough to spit on royalty, then maybe a humiliating evaluation would remind him how sharp consequences could be.

It wasn't personal.

It was just... maintenance.

Then he saw the exam time.

And he blinked.

Twice.

"Three in the goddamn morning?"

He dragged a hand down his face, groaning out loud to no one.

"These fuckers put the exam at 3 A.M."

Not just late. Not just early.

Deliberate.

They wanted to break the kid before he even set foot on the stone. Put enough psychological pressure on him that he'd crack under the weight of fatigue, expectation, and failure. Maybe throw him into panic. Maybe make him lash out. Then they could punish him further—for attitude. For instability. For weakness.

It was old.

And it was cheap.

Arcten almost chuckled.

Not out of humor—but out of bitter familiarity.

Because he'd seen it before.

That same tactic, used on young officers who wouldn't shut up. On rebels the high command didn't dare kill outright. On men like him, once—when he still cared enough to fight the system from within.

'Still you should have informed me bastards….'

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