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Chapter 5 – Shadows and Simps

Seno: Into the Wild

Seventy-five kilometers.

No ride. No shortcuts. No mercy.

Just me, my legs, and a mission that had spiraled so far beyond sanity, I wasn’t even surprised anymore.

The trees grew denser. The trail thinner. Civilization faded behind me like a bad dream.

And then I saw it.

A lone wooden cabin tucked deep in the forest, surrounded by silence and paranoia. A windchime made of bullet casings clinked lazily above the door.

I knocked.

The door opened.

“I will never understand why you choose to live in the middle of the forest,” I said.

Ghalab—the man, the myth, the conspiracy theory come to life—stood there, one eye squinting, the other hidden behind a scar and a patch. He didn’t even blink.

“You come for my training?”

“Yeah.”

“You ever shot a gun before?”

“No.”

He grunted. “Perfect. That means you’ve got nothing to unlearn.”

I stepped inside. The air smelled like oil, dust, and regret.

> “You’re gonna train for the next six months.You’ll eat like a soldier. Sleep like a prisoner.And hurt like a man with something to prove.”

 

I nodded.

And the world blurred into six months of hell.

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Seno’s Training Arc – Operation Absolute Menace

Every day, the same cycle:

Push-ups till failure.Sit-ups till failure.Pull-ups till failure.Squats till failure.Run until I forgot my own name.Jump rope until I collapsed.

Then came the real work.

> Ladders.Collapse. Expand. One-second setup.Run up. Run down. Skip steps. Slide down.Precision ladder combat.(Okay, that part was self-taught.)

 

Then—

Martial arts. Not one. Not two. But ALL OF THEM.

Shuai Jiao – throw like a Chinese war god.

Ssireum – Korean grappling with extra testosterone.

Tai Chi – looked peaceful. Felt like getting hit by the wind if it was angry.

Silat – terrifyingly fluid. Painful in every motion.

Iaido – sword-drawing speed that could split time.

Kalaripayattu – ancient, deadly, and majestic as hell.

Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu – joint locks that made me question my joints' existence.

Stick-fighting – now I feared brooms.

Canne de combat – French stick fencing. Elegant. Stylish. Deadly. Like baguette-based murder.

> Ghalab would bark at me while I struggled to breathe:

“You don’t climb ladders. You command them.”

“You don’t fight. You dictate the battlefield.”

“When you shoot—shoot twice. Or don’t bother shooting at all.”

 

And shoot I did.

Rounds. Upon rounds.Double taps. Headshots.Targets shredded until they looked like abstract art.

Every step was pain.

Every night was soreness.

Every sunrise was war.

And I loved it.

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Meanwhile… Mo: The Delusional Hero Arc

Cue inspirational music.

Mo stood in front of the mirror, shirt off, flexing his man-boobs with intensity.

> “This… is for her,” he whispered, lips trembling.

 

Cue the montage.

He did half a push-up. Collapsed. Yelled, “That counts.”

Drank three protein shakes in a row. Proceeded to nap for two hours.

Opened YouTube. Typed:

> “How to impress girls by not being a total freak.”

 

Got distracted by an ad for anime workout plans.Now he thinks he’s in One Punch Man.

Mo started jogging at 6 AM.

Made it to the mailbox. Turned around.

“Progress,” he wheezed.

But somewhere along the way, he changed.

Day by day, he ran farther.

Lifted heavier.

Read harder.

Studied every night. Every subject. Like his brain owed him money.

He rewrote essays three times. Redid assignments even after they were graded.

When someone asked him why he was working so hard, he looked them dead in the eye and said:

> “Because I have a dream…

and that dream is shaped like a girl who wears pink Crocs and draws unicorns.”

 

They didn’t speak to him again.

But he didn’t care.

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Six Months Later

In the forest, I stood with Ghalab, eyes locked on a final target.

BANG.BANG.

Two shots.

Dead center.

Ghalab gave a single nod—the closest thing to love he’d ever expressed.

“You’re ready,” he muttered.

At that exact moment, somewhere far away…

Mo flexed in the mirror, shirt drenched in sweat, a small smile on his face.

“I’m coming, my queen.”

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We were two forces heading toward collision.

One trained by a warrior.

The other fueled by delusion.

Only one of us would reach El SHARKAWY with a soul intact.

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