I Wrote Trash Novels to Level Up, Now Everyone Thinks I'm the Hero

Arena 3 was a circular ring paved in granite half a meter thick, ringed by four warding pillars meant to keep the shockwaves off the stands.

Waiting on the other side stood Bruno von Valois — eighteen years old, nearly two meters tall, wrapped in gleaming steel-alloy plate etched with intricate defensive runes. His left hand planted a fifty-catty steel tower shield into the stone floor. His right hand hauled a massive greatsword that burned with raw hostility.

CLANG!

Bruno slammed the blade against his shield and roared loud enough to shake the whole arena.

"Vance brat! Get up here! Let's see if your family's money can stop a Valois blade!"

Thousands of spectators in the lower stands whooped and howled, whistling and banging their shields in a deafening racket. To the crowd, a Level 28 knight with 4.2 million Combat Power and the skill Fortress Defense was basically an armored tank — unstoppable.

Across from him, Lucian strolled across the ring's boundary line, hands in his pockets, his oversized ash-grey traveling cloak billowing around him. He didn't draw a blade. He didn't take a stance. He looked like a kid who'd wandered into a shooting range by accident.

The referee glanced between them and raised a red flag.

"Positions... Begin!"

The flag dropped. Bruno let out a beast-like roar, veins bulging on his neck. He dropped his center of gravity, winding up Fortress Charge — a skill built to flatten anything in front of him.

Lucian didn't move.

Instead of a dagger or a spell, he calmly pulled a folded, gold-trimmed sheet of parchment from his coat pocket, unfolded it, and held it up. Then he read it aloud, every word crisp and clear.

"Per Credit Contract No. 408, issued by Vance Financial & Equipment Leasing Co.: client, Bruno von Valois. Three months ago, you borrowed three thousand gold to purchase this 'Divine Shield' steel-alloy plate armor. Repayment term: twenty-four months. Interest: twelve percent annually."

Bruno, mid-charge, froze. His eyes blinked.

Lucian flipped to the second page and kept reading, at the pace of a bank's legal department.

"Last week, your first installment — one hundred forty gold — officially went overdue. Per Clause 9, Collateral: if this armor is dented, cracked, or scratched across more than ten percent of its enchanted coating during this match, its liquidation value will be docked forty percent immediately. Any remaining deficit transfers directly to your father's frozen land holdings."

Lucian looked up, meeting Bruno's eyes.

"That armor is still under my family's lien. Chip so much as a corner off that shield, and I'll have someone seal your family's stables by this afternoon."

"Wh—what?!"

Bruno stared down at the polished plate on his chest, heart hammering with panic.

The instinctive fear of a debtor called out in front of a crowd strangled whatever fighting spirit he had left. Without thinking, he lowered his greatsword and glanced down at the edge of his shield, checking for chips.

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That tenth of a second was enough.

Whoosh.

No sound of tearing wind. Not a single ripple of mana leaking into the air.

Using Silent Blink, Lucian's small frame vanished completely from the starting line and reappeared right behind Bruno's heel — the one blind spot a heavily armored knight could never cover.

He didn't cast anything else. He simply held his silver dagger by the leather-wrapped handle and tapped it once, precisely, against the back of Bruno's left knee — the single point of leverage holding up his entire two-hundred-catty frame.

Tock.

A knock as soft as someone at the door.

Bruno's knee buckled. With his footing gone, the eighteen-year-old knight's whole center of mass tipped backward. His fifty-catty tower shield and massive greatsword followed the momentum, flipping over and slamming straight into his own chest.

CRASH!

The impact shook the arena. Bruno hit the granite floor flat on his back, pinned under his own shield, the back of his helmet cracking against the stone. His eyes rolled back and he went out cold.

Total fight time: 2.4 seconds.

The whole arena fell into a dead silence that lasted exactly three seconds.

Wind swept across the ring, stirring a few loose flecks of stone dust. A hundred thousand spectators stared, mouths open, at the four-million-Combat-Power tank laid out flat on the ground, and at the ten-year-old standing beside him, brushing dust off his sleeve.

Lucian walked over, crouched down, and carefully tucked the loan slip into a gap in Bruno's breastplate. He leaned in close to his ear and whispered:

"Tell your father to cover the first interest payment before Friday."

Then he stood, turned to the referee — still frozen solid beside the ring — and said, "Count him out already, would you?"

The referee flinched, swallowed hard, rushed over to check Bruno's pupils, then thrust a hand into the air and announced through the arcane microphone, voice shaking:

"Competitor Bruno von Valois... unable to continue! Winner: Lucian Vance!"

BOOM!

The stands erupted into total chaos. Screaming, wheezing laughter, and the cursing of everyone who'd bet on Bruno all blended into one deafening roar.

"What the hell just happened?!" "Did he just read him a loan notice and knock him over?!" "Two point four seconds?! A Level 28 knight went down in two point four seconds?!"

But up in the VIP section reserved for veteran adventurers and grandmaster swordsmen, the mood was entirely different.

"Peak psychological warfare..." One adventuring-guild leader stroked his chin, eyes full of admiration. "He used a single sheet of paper to completely dismantle Fortress Defense in an instant. But the real terror was that blink. No afterimage. No warning surge of mana. Formless swordwork — using the opponent's own weight to bring him down."

Ting!

A dim black notification window from the System v2.0 appeared in front of Lucian:

[TARGET DEFEATED: BRUNO VON VALOIS (RANK C — MONSTER).]

[Actual combat time: 2.4 seconds.]

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