Episode-828
Chapter : 1655
"We aren't looking for strong," Ken said. He placed the card in her muddy hand. "We are looking for people who are hard to kill."
The clockmaker’s shop was in the artisan district, a place of ticking silence and dust motes dancing in shafts of light. It smelled of oil and old wood.
Ren sat in a wheelchair behind the counter. His legs were withered, useless since birth. He was twenty years old, with pale skin from never seeing the sun and thick glasses that magnified his eyes.
He was working on a pocket watch. Not a normal watch, but a masterwork piece with gears the size of sand grains. He wasn't using tools. He was using his fingers.
Ken watched through the window. Ren’s fingers were a blur. They moved with a dexterity that was unsettling. He picked up a microscopic screw, placed it into a hole invisible to the naked eye, and tightened it, all in one fluid motion. He manipulated five different tools with one hand, flipping them between his fingers like a magician.
Ren sneezed. The sudden movement caused a tray of tiny springs to tip over.
Before the springs could hit the table and scatter, Ren’s hand moved. It was a phantom blur. Snatch-snatch-snatch-snatch.
In less than a second, he had caught four falling springs in mid-air, between his fingers, without looking. He placed them back in the tray and sighed, adjusting his glasses.
"Impressive," Ken said, opening the door. The bell chimed.
Ren jumped, nearly dropping his screwdriver. He spun his wheelchair around. "I'm closed! The sign says closed!"
Ken walked to the counter. He loomed over the desk. Ren looked at the giant man, then at his own useless legs. He couldn't run. He reached for a small knife he used for cutting leather straps.
"Don't," Ken said gently. "I'm not here to rob you."
"Then what do you want? My watches are expensive. You don't look like you care about time."
"I care about hands," Ken said. "You have fast hands."
Ren scoffed. "Great. Fast hands and dead legs. I'm a circus act. What do you want, giant?"
Ken placed the black card on the counter, right next to the disassembled watch.
"Ferrum Manufactory. Midnight. Three days."
Ren picked up the card. He ran his thumb over the embossed lion. "Ferrum? The Arch Duke? What does a Duke want with a cripple?"
"He wants your fingers," Ken said.
Ren went pale. "He wants to... cut them off?"
Ken paused. He realized his phrasing was poor. Lloyd often told him he needed to work on his communication skills. "No. He wants to hire them. For a machine."
"A machine?" Ren’s fear was replaced by a flicker of curiosity. "What kind of machine?"
"A fast one," Ken said. "Be there."
Ken turned and left the shop, the bell chiming behind him.
________________________________________
The recruitment continued for three days. Ken moved through the city like a shadow. He found a thief who could pick a lock in the dark while holding his breath for four minutes. He found a failed alchemist who had blown up his lab five times but had the reflexes to duck the explosion every single time. He found a juggler who could track twelve balls in the air simultaneously.
He didn't explain. He didn't persuade. He just delivered the black card and the time.
Most of the recipients were terrified. The Ferrum name was legendary, especially now with the rumors of the "Silent Lion" and the war against the Devils. For the dregs of society—the gamblers, the failures, the cripples—receiving a summons from the High Lord felt like a death sentence.
They gathered in taverns and alleyways, whispering to each other.
"Did you get a card?"
"Yeah. Black. Lion crest."
"What does it mean?"
"Maybe they need test subjects for potions."
"Maybe they need bait for the monsters."
"Maybe it's a trap to clean up the streets."
"Are you going?"
"Do I have a choice? It's the Ferrums. If I don't go, they'll probably hunt me down."
"Besides... what do I have to lose? I have three copper coins and a half-eaten rat for dinner."
Fear mixed with a strange, desperate curiosity. They were the unwanted. The invisible. And suddenly, the most powerful House in the North was looking at them.
By the third night, fifty people stood outside the North Gate of the manufactory. They shivered in the cold wind. Kaito clutched his deck of cards. Vala tried to stop her armor from rattling. Ren sat in his wheelchair, oiling his knuckles.
Chapter : 1656
The massive iron gates creaked open. There were no guards. Just a dark tunnel leading down into the earth.
"Well," Kaito whispered, his voice trembling. "I calculate our odds of survival at about... twelve percent."
"Better than zero," Ren muttered, and rolled his wheelchair forward into the dark.
One by one, the misfits followed. They walked into the belly of the beast, not as heroes, but as people who had simply run out of other places to go.
________________________________________
The holding bay was deep underground. It was a large, rectangular room with walls made of smooth, gray concrete. There were no windows. The only light came from glow-stones embedded in the ceiling, casting a harsh, white light that made everyone look pale and sick. The air was scrubbed clean, smelling of nothing—no dust, no rot, no life.
Fifty people stood or sat in the room. It looked like a waiting room for the afterlife, specifically the one reserved for people who had messed up.
Kaito leaned against the wall, shuffling his cards nervously. Shuffle, bridge, cut. Shuffle, bridge, cut. The sound was a frantic rhythm in the silence. He looked around.
"This is it," he whispered to no one. "This is where they grind us into meat for the dogs."
Vala sat on the floor, hugging her knees. She had taken off her oversized helmet, revealing messy brown hair and eyes wide with terror. She watched a large man in the corner—a former dockworker who had been fired for dropping crates—pace back and forth.
Ren was inspecting the floor. "Seamless," he muttered, tapping the concrete. "Poured in one piece. High-quality construction. This isn't a dungeon. It's a lab."
"That's worse!" Kaito hissed. "Dungeons you can escape. Labs mean experiments."
The door at the far end of the room hissed open. It didn't creak; it slid sideways with a pneumatic sigh.
The room went dead silent.
Two figures walked in.
The first was a young man. He was handsome, but in a cold, sharp way. He wore a simple black suit, not armor, but he carried himself like he owned the air in the room. His eyes were dark and bored. This was Lloyd Ferrum.
Behind him walked a woman. Or at least, she looked like a woman. She was beautiful, with skin that seemed to catch the light like a diamond. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, her expression utterly blank. She wore a combat uniform that looked like it was woven from steel thread. This was Spirit Jasmin. She didn't walk; she glided, her movements too smooth to be human.
Lloyd stopped in the center of the room. Spirit Jasmin stood one step behind him, her empty eyes scanning the crowd like a turret.
The fifty recruits pressed themselves against the walls, trying to be as small as possible. The pressure in the room didn't come from magic. It came from the sheer presence of the man in the suit. He looked at them like a biologist looking at a petri dish of bacteria.
Lloyd didn't say hello. He didn't introduce himself. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, looking at them.
He looked at the dockworker. He looked at the thief. He looked at the failed squire.
"You smell," Lloyd said finally. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried to every corner of the room. "You smell like fear. And cheap ale. And failure."
A few people flinched. The dockworker clenched his fists but didn't dare speak.
Lloyd started to walk through the crowd. He didn't look at their faces. He looked at their hands, their feet, their posture.
He stopped in front of Kaito. Kaito froze, the cards in his hand trembling.
"Stop shuffling," Lloyd said.
Kaito stopped instantly.
"You're counting the heartbeats of the man next to you," Lloyd observed.
Kaito blinked. "I... I..."
"Don't apologize. It's a good habit." Lloyd moved on.
He stopped in front of Vala. She looked up, terrified.
"You're sitting on your heels," Lloyd noted. "Ready to spring up and run in any direction. Good."
He walked past Ren. "Wheelchair needs oil on the left axle. It's pulling you slightly off course."
Ren stared at him. "How did you..."
Lloyd ignored him and walked back to the center of the room. He turned to face them.
"I am Lloyd Ferrum. You know who I am. You know my family runs the North. You are wondering why the Arch Duke's son has gathered a room full of garbage."
The word hung in the air. Garbage.