Story Title :- idle guy
Chapter 1: The Man Who Slept Through Fire
The kingdom of Nareth burned beneath a blood-red moon.
Ash rained like cursed snow, swirling through the air as panicked screams echoed down cracked cobblestone streets. The city’s great walls—once proud and forged with dragon-bone mortar—lay crumbled in ruin. Smoke curled from broken rooftops. It was said that the capital could never fall, that the arcane barrier of the Aether Lords would hold against any enemy. That was before the Blightborn came.
Through all this, a man slept.
In the far outskirts of the ruined capital, a lonely shack stood amid a field of charred poppies. A single candle flickered inside, untouched by the chaos. There, slumped in a rickety wooden chair, was a man who had not moved in hours. His hair was overgrown and gray with ash, his robe tattered and stained with old wine. A metal gauntlet rested beside him, polished and pristine—completely out of place in the filth.
He was known simply as Kael. Or, to the few villagers who knew of him, the Idle Guy.
He wasn’t called idle because he was lazy. That would imply some level of motivation to avoid work. No, Kael had simply stopped caring. He barely spoke. Barely ate. And he hadn’t lifted his left hand in over six years—not since the day the King of Cinders took his sister.
Now, as war broke across the kingdom, Kael slept with a bottle of Seer’s Brandy in one hand and an unfinished letter in the other.
The door slammed open.
“Kael!” a voice shouted.
Kael’s eyes didn’t open. “If you’re not here to kill me or feed me, piss off.”
A girl stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the inferno behind her. She was maybe seventeen, wearing a scorched leather cloak with strange arcane runes burned into it. A dagger crackled with blue flame at her belt.
“They’ve come. The Blightborn. The palace fell an hour ago. We need you.” Her voice cracked at the end. “Please.”
Kael slowly opened one eye, blinking through the haze. “And?”
“You used to be a Runeblade. You fought in the Titan Wars. I know who you are.”
He sighed. “Then you know why I stopped.”
The girl stepped closer, determined. “They took my brother.”
Kael’s fingers twitched.
“He screamed as they dragged him away—same way they took your sister. You think that wine bottle’s going to drown that memory?”
Kael stood.
Not fast. Not dramatic. But deliberate. He placed the bottle on the table, lifted the gauntlet, and slid it onto his left hand. A soft chime sounded—ancient metal syncing with long-dormant magic. The candlelight turned silver.
“Name?” he asked.
The girl blinked. “What?”
“Your name.”
“Lira.”
Kael rolled his neck. “Alright, Lira. Let’s go kill some monsters.”
Hours Earlier
The Palace of Hollow Suns
The King of Cinders stood before the Obsidian Throne, cloaked in living flame. His voice was a low thunder.
“Where is the Idle One?”
A trembling steward fell to his knees. “He vanished, Your Grace. Years ago. After—after the Siege of Sereth—”
“Lies.” The king raised a hand. The steward burst into black flame, his screams absorbed by the throne’s hollow echoes.
“My lord,” came a whisper behind him. A pale woman emerged from the shadows—her face half-covered by a crystal mask. “The Seer has found him. Out beyond the Wyrmfields. In the house of ash.”
The King of Cinders smiled. “Then burn the fields. Leave nothing breathing.”
Now
Kael and Lira marched through the ruins of the outer walls, stepping over rubble and broken armor. Above them, a Blightborn scout shrieked as it flew—skin stretched over bone, glowing veins pulsating through its chest. Kael raised his hand.
A flash of violet light burst from his palm, slicing the creature mid-air. It crashed to the ground in a twitching heap.
Lira stared. “You haven’t used magic in years, have you?”
Kael grunted. “Magic never leaves. It just waits for you to stop being a coward.”
She flinched.
He looked at her. “Sorry.”
They walked in silence for a while. Then Lira asked, “Why’d you really stop fighting?”
Kael didn’t answer at first. He knelt beside a ruined statue of the goddess Veyla and touched a burn mark. His voice was quiet.
“I killed her.”
“Who?”
“My sister. She was possessed. Taken by the Blight. I thought I could save her. But… I hesitated. And by the time I acted, it was too late. I watched the light die in her eyes as my blade pierced her chest.”
Lira didn’t speak. She just stood there, the firelight catching the tears on her face.
“We all lost someone,” Kael said softly. “But now? We fight.”
Deep Beneath the Capital
In the ancient catacombs where forgotten gods once walked, a machine hummed to life. Tubes filled with glowing ichor pulsed in rhythm, feeding power into a crystalline monolith. It was technology so old and so powerful, it was mistaken for divine magic. In truth, it was neither.
It was a key.
And it had just activated.
A figure emerged from the shadows, wrapped in shadows and echoing whispers. One eye glowed green, the other hollow.
“The Idle One moves,” it said.
A dozen heads turned.
“And the Reckoning begins.”
End of Chapter 1
