Episode-827
Chapter : 1653
He tapped his temple. "We need to change the game. The Aegis suit is the equalizer. It gives a peasant the punching power of a Sovereign. But a Sovereign moves with the weight of the world. I want the Aegis to move like a mosquito. Annoying. Impossible to hit. Deadly."
Lloyd looked at Ken. "You will go alone. No uniforms. No Ferrum crests until you make the offer. Watch them. Test them without them knowing. If a card cheat can count a six-deck shoe in a noisy tavern while dodging a bouncer, he has better situational awareness than half my captains. If a pickpocket can lift a purse from a Royal Guard without being felt, she has better hands than my best surgeon."
"How many?" Ken asked. His voice was deep, a rumble that seemed to vibrate in the floor.
"Bring me fifty," Lloyd said. "We will wash them out. The training will be... rigorous. I expect half to quit in the first hour. I expect another half to break in the simulator. If we end up with five good pilots, I will be happy."
Rolf looked pale. "You are going to put street rats in the most expensive, dangerous machines ever built?"
"I am going to give the people the world threw away the power of a Sovereign," Lloyd corrected. "Think about it, Rolf. What is more dangerous? A man who was born with power and takes it for granted? Or a man who has been kicked in the dirt his whole life, and you suddenly hand him the power to kick back?"
Lloyd’s eyes gleamed with a dark, cynical amusement. "They will be loyal, Rolf. Not because of honor. But because I am the only one who ever gave them a chance to be giants. They will guard those suits with their lives because without the suit, they go back to being nothing. That is a loyalty stronger than any oath."
He stood up, signaling the meeting was over. "Go. Find me my failures. Find me the rejects. The invisible people. I want them here in three days."
Ken stood up and bowed. "It will be done."
Rolf stood up slowly, shaking his head. "This is madness, My Lord. Absolute madness."
"Welcome to House Ferrum," Lloyd said, picking up his coffee cup. "Madness is our main export now. Now get out. I have a robot to calibrate."
As Ken and Rolf left the bunker, the heavy metal door hissed shut behind them. Lloyd sat alone in the silence. He looked at the blueprints of the Aegis Mark II spread out on the table. He traced the lines of the cockpit.
"Heroes are expensive," Lloyd muttered to the empty room. "And they break too easily when their friends die. Give me a rat any day. Rats survive the apocalypse."
He took a sip of his cold coffee and grimaced. It tasted like battery acid. Perfect. He had work to do.
________________________________________
The "Golden Goblet" was not golden, and it certainly wasn't a goblet. It was a hole in the wall in the lower district of the capital, a place where the ale was watered down and the air was thick with the smoke of cheap tobacco and desperation. It was a gambling den for people who couldn't afford to lose but did anyway.
Ken Park sat in the corner. He was wearing a hooded cloak that was stained and patched, blending perfectly into the shadows. He didn't look like a King-Level Transcendent warrior capable of crushing a tank. He looked like a large, silent piece of furniture. He was watching table four.
At table four, a young man named Kaito was playing cards. Kaito was thin, with messy hair and eyes that darted around like a nervous bird. He looked like a stiff breeze would knock him over. He had no spirit power. His mana signature was so faint it was basically nonexistent. In the hierarchy of this world, he was moss.
But Ken watched his hands.
The game was "High Stakes," a fast-paced card game involving probability and bluffing. The dealer was a massive man with scars on his knuckles, cheating clumsily by dealing from the bottom of the deck. Kaito knew it. Ken could see it in the way Kaito’s eyes flickered to the dealer's wrist.
Chapter : 1654
But Kaito didn't complain. Instead, he adjusted. He was counting cards. Not just his own, but every card on the table. He was calculating the probability of the next draw based on the dealer's cheat pattern. He folded when he had a good hand because he knew the dealer had rigged a better one for the house player. He bet small when he had a bad hand to bait the pot.
Then, the moment came. The dealer got distracted by a waitress dropping a tray. In that split second—less than a heartbeat—Kaito swapped two cards from his sleeve with the cards in his hand. The movement was so fast, so fluid, that even Ken, with his superhuman vision, almost missed it. It was a blur of motion that defied the boy's sluggish appearance.
Kaito laid down a Royal Flush. He swept the pot of copper and silver coins into his bag and stood up, looking terrified, muttering about needing to go home to his sick mother. It was a lie, of course. He was just cashing out before they realized he had cheated the cheater.
As Kaito rushed for the back exit, Ken moved. He didn't run; he just existed in front of the door before Kaito could open it.
Kaito skidded to a halt, his face going pale. "I... I don't want trouble! You can have the money!" He held out the bag, shaking.
Ken looked down at him. "You swapped the Jack of Diamonds and the King of Spades in 0.4 seconds."
Kaito froze. "I... I don't know what you're talking about."
"You also calculated that the dealer was rigging the deck for the man in the red vest," Ken continued, his voice a low rumble. "Your math was perfect."
Kaito dropped the bag. He looked ready to faint. "Please don't break my fingers. I need them."
Ken reached into his cloak. Kaito flinched, expecting a knife. Instead, Ken pulled out a simple, matte-black card with the silver crest of a lion's head—the Ferrum seal.
"Ferrum Manufactory. North Gate. Midnight. Three days from now," Ken said.
Kaito stared at the card. "What? Is this... am I being arrested?"
"Job offer," Ken said. Then he stepped aside and vanished into the crowd, leaving a bewildered gambler holding a card that felt heavier than gold.
________________________________________
Next, Ken traveled north to the Regional Knight’s Academy. It was raining. It always seemed to be raining when dreams were being crushed.
In the mud of the training yard, a young girl named Vala was being yelled at. She was small, perhaps sixteen, with oversized armor that rattled when she moved. The instructor, a burly man with a mustache that looked like a broom, was screaming.
"You are useless! You have no strength! You can't even lift the training shield! Go home, girl! Go marry a baker! You will never be a knight!"
Vala was crying, but she was also dodging. The instructor, in his anger, threw a wooden training sword at her. It was a fast, cruel throw. Vala didn't block it. She couldn't; her arms were too weak. Instead, she twisted.
It was an unnatural movement. Her spine seemed to bend at an impossible angle. The sword missed her nose by a millimeter. She didn't think about it; her body just did it. She stumbled, fell into the mud, and scrambled away.
As she ran toward the gate, sobbing, she slipped on a patch of wet grass. A horse and carriage were thundering down the path, the driver unable to stop in time. The horse's hooves were inches from her head.
In that fraction of a second, Vala didn't scream. She rolled. She rolled under the carriage, between the moving wheels, timing her movement with the rotation of the spokes, and rolled out the other side, covered in mud but unharmed.
The carriage driver yelled at her. The instructor laughed at her.
Ken Park, watching from the shadow of a tree, nodded. She had zero offensive power. A goblin could probably beat her in an arm-wrestling match. But her spatial awareness was absolute. She knew exactly where her body was in relation to death at all times.
He stepped out as she sat shivering on a rock outside the academy gates, holding her expulsion papers.
Vala looked up, eyes red. She saw the giant man and shrank back.
Ken held out the black card.
"I... I don't have any money," she whispered.
"You didn't die under the carriage," Ken stated.
"I got lucky," she sniffled.
"Luck is a skill," Ken said. "Ferrum Manufactory. Midnight. Three days."
"But... I failed. I'm weak."