THE SYSTEM'S JANITOR

CHAPTER 5: THE FACE OF THE HEGEMONY

The border town of Oakhaven smelled of woodsmoke and betrayal. I stepped onto the main cobblestone path, Miri trailing behind me with her hood pulled low. My chest tightened as we reached the corner of the town square. There it stood—a building with a sagging roofline and a familiar, notched timber frame.

"Kaelen, wait," Miri whispered, grabbing my sleeve. "The guards are everywhere. We should stay in the alleys."

"That’s my father's workshop," I said, my voice cracking like old parchment.

"It’s... it's not a workshop anymore," she said softly.

I pushed forward. Above the door where the sign of the *Gear and Glass* used to hang, a new board had been hammered in: **PUBLIC LATRINE**. A line of drunk laborers stood outside, laughing as they tracked filth into the space where my father once calibrated chronometers.

"Look at this," I hissed, my knuckles turning white. "They didn't just kill him. They’re mocking the very ground he stood on."

"Well, well. If it isn't the ghost of Oakhaven."

I turned. Governor Vane stepped off his palanquin, his silk robes straining against his bulging gut. He was a man whose soul was as oily as his skin, a known lapdog for Lucius’s family.

"Governor Vane," I spat.

"That’s 'Lord Governor' to you, Scrapper," he sneered, waving a scented handkerchief under his nose. "I heard you were tossed into the Rim. I see you’ve brought back a little kitchen wench with you. Did she teach you how to beg yet?"

"I’m just passing through," I said, stepping in front of Miri.

"Passing through? No, no. You see, the Duke’s son told me you had a talent for 'parts.' And frankly, my town’s new facility is a mess." He pointed a jewel-encrusted finger toward the floor of the former workshop, covered in grime and waste. "The floor is filthy, Thorne. Since you're a Scrapper, it’s time you did some actual labor."

"I'm not cleaning that," I said.

"Guards!" Vane barked.

Four men in heavy plate armor surrounded us, their halberds leveled at my throat.

"Kaelen, don't," Miri pleaded.

"Get on your knees, Thorne," Vane commanded, his eyes gleaming with sadistic delight. "Clean it. With your bare hands. If I see a single speck of dirt when I return from my mansion, I’ll have the girl’s tongue cut out for 'poor seasoning.'"

The guards forced me down. The stench was overwhelming. I looked at the floor—the wood my father had polished every night—now covered in the town’s refuse.

"Do it!" the guard captain barked, kicking me in the kidney.

I knelt. I pressed my palms into the filth.

"That’s it," Vane laughed, walking toward his opulent mansion that shared a foundation wall with the workshop. "Show the town what the Thorne legacy is worth. Nothing!"

I didn't answer. I closed my eyes. As my hands touched the floorboards, I reached deeper. I reached through the wood, through the dirt, until I felt the cold, pulsating stone of the mansion’s foundation.

[SKILL ACTIVATED: SCRAP EXTRACTION]

[TARGET DETECTED: LUXURY MANA-VEINS]

"Is he actually doing it?" a townsman whispered, pausing to watch the humiliation. "He’s actually scrubbing the floor with his hands. How pathetic."

"He’s a 0.01," another laughed. "What else is he good for?"

I ignored them. Beneath my palms, the world began to vibrate. Vane’s mansion wasn't just built of stone; it was infused with "Luxury-Grade" mana-veins—expensive magical conduits used to keep the air temperate and the lights glowing.

If I’m a Scrapper, I thought, *then this house is just a pile of components.*

"Kaelen?" Miri whispered, kneeling beside me to hide my hands. "Your arms... they're glowing."

"Don't move," I whispered back. "I'm taking back the taxes he stole from my father."

[EXTRACTING: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY (90%)]

[EXTRACTING: MANA-RESONANCE (CORE)]

I felt a surge of pure, refined energy race up my arms. It was like drinking liquid starlight. My status screen began to scroll at a blinding speed.

[STRENGTH: +5]

[AGILITY: +5]

[INTELLECT: +10]

[CONSTITUTION: +10]

"What are you doing, boy?" a guard shouted, noticing the way the air was shimmering around me. "I said scrub, not meditate!"

"I'm finished," I said, standing up. My hands were clean. The dirt hadn't just been wiped away; it had been "scrapped" into non-existence.

Vane looked back from his front porch, a goblet of wine in his hand. "Finished? I'll be the judge of that! Guards, bring him here. I want to see if his hands are sufficiently blistered."

I walked toward the mansion. As I passed the threshold of the garden, I brushed my hand against the main support pillar.

Extract.

"You look... different," Vane said, squinting at me as I approached the porch. "Why are you smiling, you rat?"

"I just realized something, Governor," I said. "You spent so much money on the 'veneer' of power that you forgot to check the quality of your foundation."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Vane snapped. "My mansion is the finest structure in the province! It was built by the Royal Architects!"

"Was it?" I asked. I turned to Miri. "We should go. The air is getting a bit... heavy."

"Thorne! I didn't give you permission to leave!" Vane screamed, stepping toward me.

"You don't understand," I said, looking back over my shoulder as we reached the gate. "I didn't just clean the floor. I took the 'Idea' of your house."

"The idea? You're insane! Guards, seize them!"

The guards lunged, but as they stepped onto the mansion’s porch, a sickening *creak* echoed through the square.

Vane froze. He looked up at the marble balcony. A crack appeared in the stone. Then another. The brilliant, glowing mana-lights that illuminated the gardens suddenly flickered and died, replaced by the smell of wet rot and mold.

"My... my wine," Vane stammered. The silver goblet in his hand suddenly tarnished, turning into pitted, rusted iron. The silk of his robes began to fray, the vibrant dyes fading into a sickly, moth-eaten gray.

"What’s happening?" the guard captain yelled. He looked at the mansion.

The white marble was turning into porous, gray limestone. The sturdy oak doors were warping and rotting before their eyes. The "Luxury" was being sucked out of the world, leaving only the barest, cheapest scrap behind.

"Kaelen," Miri gasped, looking back. "The house... it’s shrinking."

It wasn't just shrinking. The mansion was losing its "Quality" stat. It was regressing. The grand pillars were becoming crooked logs. The stained-glass windows were turning into jagged shards of common sand.

"My house!" Vane shrieked, stumbling as the porch beneath him turned into a pile of sawdust. "My beautiful home! What have you done, you monster?"

"I'm a Scrapper, Vane," I called out, my voice booming with the mana I’d stolen from his walls. "I just treated your house like you treated my father’s workshop. I turned it into what it actually is."

The crowd in the town square fell into a terrifying silence. The Governor’s mansion—the symbol of the Hegemony’s grip on Oakhaven—was now a leaning shack of rotting wood and rusted nails, swaying in the wind.

"Get him!" Vane roared from the middle of the debris, his face covered in soot. "Kill him! I want his head on a pike!"

"Run," I told Miri.

We bolted toward the forest line, but I stopped at the edge of the trees. A sharp, mechanical whistle pierced the air.

High above the town, a silhouette blocked out the sun. It wasn't a bird. It was a sleek, silver-hulled Imperial Skyship, its cannons already swiveling toward the forest.

"Target sighted," a magically amplified voice boomed from the sky. "Kaelen Thorne, you are under arrest for Grand Larceny of Imperial Mana. Surrender, or be dismantled."

Miri looked at the sky, then at me, her face pale. "They sent a Skyship? For a Scrapper?"

I looked at my hands, feeling the stolen mana-veins pulsing under my skin, waiting to be used. "They’re not worried about a Scrapper, Miri. They’re worried about the math."

The Skyship's main cannon began to glow with a terrifying, blinding blue light.

[WARNING: LEVEL 50 MANA-CANNON LOCK-ON]

[ESTIMATED SURVIVAL CHANCE: 0.01%]

"Perfect," I whispered. "I like those odds."