THE SYSTEM'S JANITOR

CHAPTER 4: THE JANITOR'S FIRST HIRE

The stench of the Outer Rim was thick—a mixture of ozone from the breaking Monolith and the rot of a thousand desperate lives. I moved through the shantytown, my marrow still humming with the toxic sludge I’d harvested from the waste.

"I told you, please! The mana-wheat was blighted this season!"

A girl’s scream cut through the low drone of the camp. I rounded a heap of rusted sheet metal and stopped.

Two Aethelgard border guards, their silver-and-blue breastplates gleaming mockingly against the gray mud, were tossing a massive iron pot into the dirt. A girl—no older than seventeen, with flour-dusted hair and a [Cook] emblem glowing faintly on her collar—was scrambled in the muck, trying to save a spilled slurry of soup.

"This isn't food, Miri," the taller guard sneered, kicking a splash of gray broth into her face. "It’s lukewarm water. My stats didn't budge a single point after eating this. You’re a [Cook], aren't you? Where’s the mana buff?"

"The System... it’s not giving me the ingredients!" Miri sobbed, her hands shaking as she scooped wet grain back into the pot. "The soil is dead since the Monolith cracked! I'm trying!"

"Trying doesn't fill a soldier’s belly," the second guard growled. He unbuckled his heavy gauntlet and backhanded her. "If the food lacks mana, maybe we’ll take the equivalent in your blood. I hear the slave traders in the south don't care about your cooking skills."

"Hey."

I stepped into the light.

The guards turned, their hands dropping to the pommels of their standard-issue broadswords. "Well, well. If it isn't the trash-king. The Scrapper."

"Leave her alone," I said, my voice flat.

"Or what, Thorne?" the tall one laughed. "You’ll throw a rusted bolt at us? Look at your potential. You’re a 0.01. I’ve got more mana in my left pinky than your entire lineage. Move along before I decide to use your head as a footstool."

"Your armor," I said, pointing a finger at his chest piece. "The left pauldron pivot is misaligned. The friction is heating up the leather under-strap. In about ten minutes, it’s going to sear your skin."

The guard paused, looking down. "What are you talking about? This is Master-crafted steel."

"It’s scrap," I corrected. I walked forward, hands open. "I'm a Scrapper. I know junk when I see it. Let me 'tune' it for you. Consider it a peace offering so you leave the girl alone."

"You want to fix my armor?" The guard looked at his partner and burst out laughing. "The beggar wants to be a smith! Fine. Touch it, Scrapper. If you break a single rivet, I’ll chop your fingers off."

I reached out. My fingers brushed the cold steel of his chest plate.

[SKILL ACTIVATED: SCRAP EXTRACTION]

[TARGET: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY]

I didn't take the metal. I took the logic holding the metal together. I withdrew the microscopic bonds of the iron, leaving the exterior looking perfect while the interior was nothing more than compressed dust held together by habit. I did the same to his partner, moving with the quick, practiced hands of a janitor cleaning a window.

"There," I whispered, stepping back. "Balanced."

"Feels the same to me," the guard grunted, rolling his shoulders. "Now, back to the girl. Miri, get up. You’re coming with us to the outpost. We need a new—"

"I said she’s staying," I interrupted.

The tall guard’s face turned purple. "You little rat! I’m going to peel you!"

He drew his sword and lunged, swinging the heavy blade in a vertical arc meant to split me in two.

Clack.

The moment he put tension on his suit, the "logic" I’d extracted failed. His breastplate didn't just break—it shattered into a thousand useless flakes of iron. The rivets popped like corn. His greaves fell to the mud. Within a second, the "Master-crafted" soldier was standing in his striped woolen undergarments, clutching a sword that had snapped at the hilt.

His partner tried to move, but his own armor collapsed around his ankles, pinning him like a bear trap of dead weight.

"What... what did you do?" the tall one shrieked, shivering in the cold wind, his dignity lying in a pile of gray dust at his feet.

"I told you," I said, walking over and picking up a shard of his "steel." I crushed it into powder between my thumb and forefinger. "It was scrap. You were just too arrogant to notice."

"You’re dead! When the Captain hears about this—"

"The Captain will hear that two trained guards were defeated by a 0.01 Scrapper while standing in their underwear," I said, leaning in close. "Now run. Before I decide to 'fix' your swords next."

They didn't wait. They scrambled away, tripping over their own discarded boots, screaming threats that grew fainter with every step.

Miri was staring at me from the dirt, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and awe. "You... you just destroyed Imperial gear. They’ll hang you for that."

"They already exiled me, Miri. You can't hang a man who’s already dead to the law." I reached down and helped her up.

"Why did you help me?" she asked, wiping her face. "I'm just a [Cook]. My food... they’re right. It has no mana. I’m useless here."

I looked at the spilled pot of soup. I knelt down and touched the liquid.

"Your food lacks the 'Logic of Life' because the System is starving the Rim," I said. I felt the toxicity in my marrow, but I also felt the pure mana I’d eaten from the crystal earlier. I let a tiny, microscopic drop of that purified essence leak from my fingertip into the pot.

The soup suddenly hissed. The gray sludge turned a vibrant, golden amber. A scent of fresh herbs and roasting meat exploded into the air—a smell that shouldn't exist in a wasteland.

Miri gasped, dipping a finger in and tasting it. Her eyes turned a bright, glowing gold.

[NOTIFICATION: RECIPIENT GAINS +10 TEMPORARY VIGOR]

[COOK CLASS EVOLUTION TRIGGERED: 1%]

"How?" she whispered. "That’s... that’s High-Tier nutrition! Even the Palace chefs can't—"

"Listen to me, Miri," I said, grabbing her shoulders. "The Monolith is breaking. The System is failing. I can 'scrap' the laws of this world and give you what you need to survive. But I need a partner. Someone to handle the things a Scrapper can't."

"You want to hire me?"

"I want a deal," I said. "I’ll give your food the 'Logic of Life.' I’ll make you the greatest Cook in the Rim. In exchange, you keep my secrets. You don't tell anyone what I can extract. To the world, I'm just a lucky junk-man. Deal?"

Miri looked at the golden soup, then at me. She nodded fervently. "Deal. I... I don't want to be a slave, Kaelen."

"You won't be."

SCREECH.

A sharp, piercing cry cut through the air. We both looked up. A black-feathered messenger hawk, branded with the Duke’s crest—Lucius’s crest—circled overhead. It dove toward the center of the camp, dropping a roll of red parchment that unfurled in mid-air for all to see.

It was a holographic projection, shimmering with Lucius’s smug face.

"Citizens of the Rim!" the projection boomed. "An F-Rank anomaly named Kaelen Thorne has committed heresy against the Great Monolith. He is a Class-Thief and a danger to the realm."

My face appeared on the parchment, glowing blood-red.

"A bounty of ten thousand gold marks and a full pardon is placed on his head," Lucius’s voice echoed. "Kill Order: Active. Bring me his hands, and you shall live like Kings."

All around us, the shadows of the shantytown began to move. Scavengers, thugs, and desperate exiles stepped out from behind the scrap heaps, their eyes fixed on me.

"Kaelen?" Miri whispered, stepping back. "The bounty... it’s more money than this whole camp has seen in a century."

I looked at the hungry eyes surrounding us. I felt the pulse of the [Concept of Toxicity] in my bones, itching to be released.

"Well, Miri," I said, my hands beginning to glow with a dark, flickering light. "I hope you’re ready to cook under pressure."