Chapter 55: King Maker Round 2 — The Lost Expedition
It was the second week and the next challenge arrived.
Arthur blinked as the area warped.
And then he found himself underground.
The ruins extended in every direction: collapsed towers, broken bridges between platforms that were no longer level. Ancient statues slowly tipping over, water flowing through cracked stone streets in no particular direction. The ceiling disappeared into darkness, torches would take an hour to reach.
"Challenge Two," Steven’s voice said, from somewhere above and around and everywhere. "A lost expedition has failed to return." A pause. "Bring them home."
Arthur looked to his left, then his right.
Mithra. Athena. Sun. Vedas. Everyone was there.
He exhaled.
Then Steven’s voice returned. "Every expedition member must survive."
"Every?" Arthur said.
"Every," the ruins confirmed.
...
The expedition wasn’t hard to find.
The tracks were clear, the arguments audible from a distance, and after fifteen minutes of careful movement through the lower ruins, Arthur’s team emerged into a larger chamber. Ten people stood there, in various states of readiness, injury, and argument.
At the front stood a man equipped like someone who’d planned carefully for an expedition, and now looked like someone who hadn’t planned carefully enough for what he’d find at the end of it.
He looked at Arthur.
"You’re students?" he said.
"We’re here to escort everyone out," Arthur said.
The man’s expression shifted from assessment to amusement. "I’ve been leading expeditions longer than you’ve been alive."
Arthur scratched his cheek. "Probably true," he said.
The guide stared.
...
"Those two can’t walk on their own," the guide said, pointing at two members whose injuries were visible from where Arthur stood.
"Then we walk slower," Arthur said.
"No."
"Or we carry them and move faster everywhere else."
The guide’s expression cycled through several phases. "That wastes time."
"It does," Arthur agreed.
"It’s not efficient."
"It isn’t," Arthur said. "I thought expeditions were about bringing everyone home, though."
The guide opened his mouth.
He closed it.
His eye twitched.
Mithra figured out how this worked within about four minutes of watching.
When the expedition members started eyeing the passage ahead, calculating whether it was worth continuing, she said: "Arthur. What would you do here?"
Arthur looked at the passage. "Help," he said.
The straightforward answer.
Every member who’d been calculating immediately stopped.
The guide watched this happen.
Mithra watched him watch it happen. She filed the technique away for later.
The guide insisted on a shorter tunnel.
Athena stopped walking, knelt at the entrance, and examined the junction between the stone floor and the lower blocks.
"Fresh cracks," she said. "The support structure here failed recently." She looked up at the ceiling. "Roughly three minutes before it collapses further."
The guide said, "That’s impossible."
A stone fell from the ceiling. Then another.
Every face turned toward Athena.
"I vote we take the other route," Arthur said.
Three paths split at the next junction, all unmarked.
The guide chose the left passage with the confidence of someone who’d been right about directions before and expected to keep being right.
Kong tugged Sun’s sleeve, pointed at the right passage, then at himself, then at the right passage again.
"Kong smells fresh air," Sun said.
The guide turned. "You’re suggesting we follow a monkey’s nose over my twenty years of expertise."
"Kong hasn’t been wrong yet," Arthur said.
"I’ve known Kong for one month," Sun said.
"He hasn’t been wrong yet," Arthur repeated.
Kong puffed his chest out.
They took the right passage. Fresh air arrived within three minutes. The guide followed without a word.
...
Water came through the walls faster than anyone expected, and the tired expedition members reacted the way tired people react when things get worse.
Arthur looked at the rising water and said, mostly to himself, "I hope this isn’t like last time."
The guide, closest to him, said, "What last time?"
"The first day of enrollment," Arthur said. "We were in the convoy carriages heading to Pathfinder. A Gold Rank presence appeared above the clouds. The whole sky turned into lightning. The carriages all fell out of the sky onto the Academy grounds."
Silence from the guide.
"I’m only mentioning it," Arthur continued, "because this feels similar and I’d rather it not become that."
"That is completely unrelated to our current situation," the guide said.
"I know," Arthur said.
An expedition member at the back had been listening.
"RUN!" he shouted.
Everyone doubled their pace.
Mithra pressed a hand to her forehead. "We are never correcting them again," she said.
...
The bridge’s condition had been failing before they even reached it, and the sound it made when Arthur stepped onto the first plank confirmed as much.
He looked at the span, and the darkness below it.
"Please don’t let there be Hobgoblins," he said.
The guide, already fraying, said, "There are no Hobgoblins."
One member, who’d been following Arthur’s commentary closely, asked, "What’s a Hobgoblin?"
Arthur considered this a reasonable question and answered it.
"They’re like Goblins but bigger than most adults," he said. "They organize armies. They understand strategy. They carry weapons too large for their size. They eat people." He paused. "They’re smart enough to know when an opponent is weakened, so they tend to show up at the worst moments."
Everyone froze.
One member quietly asked Vedas, "...Is he always like this?"
Vedas thought about it, then sighed. "Usually he’s more optimistic."
"That... sounds even scarier."
"Because it’s true." Vedas sighed. "If Arthur thought there might be Hobgoblins, he’d probably stay just to see if they showed up."
The moment they heard that, the members all went pale and stared at Arthur in horror. They screamed and bolted past him, leaving the others behind.
"STOP RUNNING!" the guide shouted.
One expedition member shouted back. "We’re trying!"
Still nobody stopped.
"They really are motivated," Arthur said lightly.
"It’s your fault!" the guide glared at him.
"You mean I motivated them? Thanks a lot, I didn’t think my story would help that much," Arthur said with a chuckle.
"It’s not a compliment!"
"Of course it is. I know you’re just the shy type, don’t worry, I understand perfectly what you’re saying."
"Y-You—" The guide stared at him in shock.
It didn’t help that Mithra and the others simply patted him on the shoulder with looks of pity before walking on.
...
When the ceiling began dropping pieces onto the path ahead, every head turned in the same direction.
Not toward the guide.
Arthur noticed the ceiling, watched how the falling material was distributed, and assessed it with his usual thoroughness.
"I haven’t seen anything like this before," he said.
Several members exhaled with visible relief.
"So that’s good," Arthur said.
Everyone moved significantly faster.
Arthur looked at Mithra.
Her expression said she’d given up trying to understand this and was just going to work with it.
The pattern set in. When something went wrong, the members asked Arthur. When Arthur started answering, they moved before he finished. The guide noticed it by the third time.
"WHY," he said, the word echoing, "are you asking him instead of me?"
One member answered with blunt honesty. "After Arthur tells us something, we survive it."
"THAT MAKES NO SENSE."
"It keeps happening, though," the member said.
"I’m not really doing much, it’s you guys choosing to trust me. Thanks for that," Arthur said.
"Actually, I’m curious," one member asked, raising a brow. "Why do you keep believing everyone can make it?"
"Because if I stop believing that," Arthur answered without thinking, "someone gets left behind."
All the members froze.
The guide was stinned as if the words had hit harder than expected. For a moment the ruins became very quiet. Even the guide couldn’t find a reply, no matter how much he tried. Without realizing it, two members quietly moved closer to Arthur.
They didn’t speak.
They just walked beside him.
A third joined a few moments later and then another.
When the guide opened his mouth again, nobody looked at him. That was what finally pushed him over the edge. "Enough!" he shouted. "This boy has no expedition experience!"
"He wastes time!"
"He frightens everyone!"
"He keeps exaggerating dangers!"
"He doesn’t know proper route selection!"
"How can any of you possibly think you’re safe following him!"
Silence.
Then Mithra raised a brow. "Really?" She looked around at the group. "Everyone was arguing when we found you." She pointed at the members. "Now they’re talking. Laughing. Helping each other carry supplies. Arthur didn’t just move people. He made them into a team."
The guide froze.
"Don’t underestimate the nonsense he says," Athena said, adjusting her glasses. "His stories also changed everyone’s priorities." She gestured at the group. "Before, everyone was focused on their own problems."
"That’s because we’re all worried—"
"None of that matters in a dangerous area. That’s something you should know as a guide."
The guide flinched. Before he could respond, Athena continued. "Now everyone is focused on escaping together. Whether intentional or not, his words forced them to stop dwelling on fear and start moving."
The guide opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
"You keep talking about mistakes," Vedas said quietly. "Arthur made plenty. He gets distracted, exaggerates, and sometimes I don’t understand what he’s trying to say."
The guide smiled. "Exactly."
Vedas looked at him. "And I would still follow him."
The guide froze.
Arthur blinked. "...Really?"
Vedas looked at him. "Always."
Silence fell, then broke.
"Also, did I exaggerate?" Arthur scratched his cheek, genuinely thinking about it. "...Everything I said actually happened."
Even Mithra sighed. "...That’s somehow the problem."
...
The final passage meant leaving one injured member behind or carrying them.
"We leave her here," the guide said. "She slows us down. We come back."
Arthur walked over to the woman and checked her injuries.
"Can you hold onto my shoulder?" he asked softly.
She nodded weakly.
Arthur lifted her.
The guide stepped in front of him. "If the bridge collapses from that extra weight—"
Arthur smiled. "Then we’ll all hold it together."
Nobody hesitated.
Sun moved immediately, Kong right behind him. Melo and Athy rushed ahead to scout. Mithra moved beside Arthur to help. Athena started counting people and Vedas gripped his spear.
Arthur said nothing. He only thought: Hold.
Vedas already had.
And without being told, the members split themselves naturally. Two supported Arthur, three stabilized the injured woman, and the rest prepared ropes.
The guide watched.
Nobody had ordered them.
They just knew what to do and did it, because they wanted to help. Arthur didn’t notice any of this. He simply assumed everyone was helping because they wanted to.
"Let’s all go home," Arthur said.
He started walking without looking back or waiting. The guide stared for a couple of seconds, then saw everyone following Arthur.
After a moment, he sighed quietly and followed too.
...
The bridge at the final junction was already moving.
Arthur looked at it and thought: Bridge. Not the word. The image, clear and specific, the way he’d practiced in the chamber.
Vedas was already moving. He planted his spear against the failing support column at the angle that would hold longest, and the bridge steadied. Sun was three steps into the crossing before anyone gave direction. Kong distributed rope. Athena counted people across. Mithra managed the injured member Arthur had briefly set down to take his position.
They crossed.
Then a white light took them.
...
The guide stood in silence.
He looked toward the place Arthur had vanished.
Then toward the expedition members.
None of them had moved. They were still looking where Arthur had disappeared.
"...Even after he’s gone," the guide said quietly, "you’re still waiting for him."
Nobody answered right away.
Finally, one of the injured members smiled.
"Of course."
"He said we’d all make it home."
"So we believed him."
The guide lowered his head, fingers tightening slightly.
"...I spent twenty years learning routes."
"...He spent one hour earning trust."
Silence.
Then he laughed. Not bitterly. Quietly.
"...Perhaps," the guide said, closing his eyes, "I was leading the wrong way all along."
...
The white light arrived and Arthur blinked, and they were in the King’s Arena.
The rankings formed on the crystal board. Leon, first. Arthur’s team, somewhere near the bottom.
Arthur nodded. "Consistent."
Sun sighed. "I don’t think that’s something to be proud of."
Arthur looked at their score.
RESCUE COMPLETION: FULL.
Steven stepped forward.
"Time measures speed," he said. "Leadership measures everything else." He looked at Arthur’s team. "Congratulations."
"We weren’t racing?" Arthur said.
Ajax sighed. "You were," he said.
Arthur scratched his cheek. "Oh."
"Arthur Cronwall’s team."
Arthur looked up.
"Reward unlocked."
A crystal lit up.
Archive Level Two Access Granted
Arthur’s eyes shone. Before he could celebrate, Athena’s eyes shone even brighter.
"Oh? Someone looks excited," he teased, poking her cheek.
Athena snorted but didn’t stop. "...We’re going."
Arthur laughed. "I was about to say that."
Mithra sighed. "I knew this would happen."
"First, let’s eat and rest for a bit. I’m beat," Sun said with a sigh.
Vedas, Melo, Athy, and Kong all nodded, and Arthur chuckled. He saw a notification, ignored it for now, and followed the others.
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