The Infinite Repairman

Chapter 5: Kirill's Interest

The metallic clang of the longsword hitting the workbench still echoed in the small, cramped shack when a shadow eclipsed the doorway. Daniel, chest heaving from the exertion of the previous day’s labor, looked up. He expected another scavenger or perhaps Kaelen to return, but the man who stepped inside was an entirely different breed of threat.

He was massive, his frame filling the doorway like a block of granite. His armor was scarred with real combat marks, and he smelled of cordite and dried blood. He didn't introduce himself, but Daniel recognized the heavy boots and the scar running down the man's cheek from the tales whispered in the lower sectors. This was Kirill, the leader of the Iron-Grip Mercenaries, a man who allegedly solved problems by erasing them from existence.

"They say you're the one," Kirill said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that seemed to vibrate in the floorboards. "The one who can breathe life into dead metal."

Daniel kept his hand near his relic blade, his pulse jumping. "Who told you that?"

Kirill ignored the question, his eyes scanning the workbench with a predatory gleam. He reached behind his back and dropped a heavy, twisted object onto the table. It landed with a thud that shook the entire shack. It was a heavy-duty rail-rifle, the barrel snapped clean off and the internal power-core casing fused into a mangled, blackened lump.

"Fix it," Kirill commanded, his gaze pinning Daniel to the spot.

"That's a military-grade rail-rifle," Daniel muttered, his heart hammering against his ribs. "The internal housing is melted. That’s not a repair job, that’s a reconstruction. It’ll take me days, and I don’t have the specialized parts to replace that core."

Kirill stepped closer, the air around him feeling heavy, suffocating. "I didn't ask for a list of problems, boy. I asked for a fix. I have a contract in forty-eight hours. If that rifle isn't humming by then, my scouts are going to be very, very bored. And you don’t want them to be bored. They get creative when they’re bored."

Daniel swallowed hard, his throat dry. "I need materials. I can't forge a power-core out of thin air."

Kirill reached into his belt and tossed a heavy pouch onto the workbench. It clinked with the sound of high-grade, pre-war circuitry and refined conduits. "There’s enough in there to build two of these things. Don’t waste it."

"Why not just buy a new one?" Daniel asked, his curiosity momentarily outweighing his fear. "A man like you, you could walk into any arms depot in the city."

Kirill leaned in, his face inches from Daniel’s. "Because the factory rifles are trash. They jam when the temperature drops, and the firing pins are made of soft steel. I heard you made a carabiner that didn't break under a hydraulic press. I want that kind of quality. I want a rifle that doesn't quit."

Daniel exhaled, his mind already shifting gears. He looked at the wreckage. It was a disaster, but underneath the carbon scoring and the fused casing, he could see the potential. The System flickered to life, the brown text scrolling rapidly across his vision.

[Detected Item: Shattered Heavy Rail-Rifle (Military Grade)]

[Status: Critical Failure]

[Repair Path: Restoration and Augmentation required.]

"Fine," Daniel said, his voice gaining a sudden, strange clarity. "But I work alone. You stay out of my way, and you keep your people off my doorstep."

Kirill let out a short, bark-like laugh. "You’ve got guts, kid. I like that. I’ll be back in two days. If the rifle works, you’ll have more work than you can handle. If it doesn't... well, I’m sure your shack will make for a decent bonfire."

With that, Kirill turned and walked out, leaving the door swinging in the wind.

Daniel didn’t waste a second. He grabbed his goggles, pulling them over his eyes, and started stripping the rifle. The complexity of the machine was staggering, but as his fingers brushed the internals, he felt that familiar, addictive hum. He wasn't just fixing it; he was seeing the blueprints, the intent of the designers, and the flaws they had hidden inside the casing.

Focus, he told himself.

He spent the first ten hours dismantling every single spring, screw, and micro-conduit. His stamina drained rapidly, the cold, hungry gnawing in his stomach becoming a dull ache. He forced himself to take a small sip of water, his hands steadying as he began the actual labor.

"It’s not just about putting it back together," he whispered to the empty room. "It’s about understanding why it broke."

He noticed the bottleneck in the design—the firing chamber was prone to heat-soak. He decided to reinforce the lining with the copper he’d scrounged. He worked through the night, the only light coming from the faint, golden glow emanating from his palms. He felt his consciousness expanding, touching every atom of the rifle.

By the second day, he was exhausted, his body trembling with low blood sugar. But the rifle was coming together. He didn't just re-solder the broken connections; he re-flowed them, creating a unified network of energy flow. He replaced the shattered firing pin with a custom-crafted piece of hardened steel he’d reinforced using the same method he used on the relic blade.

"Almost there," he muttered, his vision tunneling.

He had one last step: the power core. He took the high-grade components Kirill had left, his hands glowing with a bright, intense light. He felt the energy surging out of him, a massive expenditure that made his heart flutter in his chest. He held the core, pouring his intent into the seal.

Bind. Seal. Enhance.

The air in the shack hummed, the static charge making the hair on his arms stand up. With a sharp click, the core locked into place. The rifle didn't just look new—it looked lethal. The dark, matte-black finish seemed to absorb the light, and the internal components sat with a precision that was simply not possible for factory-made equipment.

He sat back, his head hitting the workbench. He was dead to the world, drifting into a shallow, fitful sleep.

He woke to the sound of heavy boots. The sun was dipping below the horizon. Kirill stood in the doorway, his silhouette blocking out the evening light.

"Time’s up, kid," Kirill said.

Daniel stood up, his legs feeling like jelly. He picked up the rifle and held it out. It was balanced perfectly, the weight distributed so well it felt like an extension of his own arm.

Kirill took it, testing the heft. He sighted the weapon, his eyes widening slightly as he checked the internal mechanism. He looked at the firing pin, then back at the casing. He pulled the bolt back. It slid with a sound like a whisper, no friction, no grit.

"You did the lining?" Kirill asked, his voice low.

"It’ll run cooler," Daniel said, his voice raspy from lack of sleep. "And the firing pin is reinforced. It won't snap, no matter how many rounds you put through it."

Kirill pointed the rifle at a thick, iron-reinforced scrap plate leaning against the back wall, forty feet away. He didn't even aim properly; he just pulled the trigger.

THOOM.

A single, concentrated bolt of kinetic energy tore through the air. There was no whine, no charge-up time. The projectile punched a perfectly clean hole through the plate and kept going, embedding itself deep into the stone wall behind it.

Kirill stared at the hole, then at the rifle. He looked at Daniel, a flicker of genuine shock crossing his features. "You’re an F-Rank, right? That’s what the records say?"

"That’s what the Pillar said," Daniel replied, shrugging.

Kirill lowered the rifle, his expression hardening into something more serious, something approaching respect. "The Pillar is a liar. Nobody in the city—not even the master smiths in the upper wards—could have done this. You didn't just fix it. You upgraded it."

Kirill walked to the table and slammed a bag of genuine gold credits down. "That’s your payment. But that’s not why I’m here."

Daniel leaned against the wall, his guard still up. "What do you want?"

"I don't need a blacksmith," Kirill said, crossing his arms. "I need a technician who can do the impossible. I run a team that goes where the Academy fears to tread. My gear takes a beating, and I lose more men to equipment failure than I do to enemy fire."

Kirill looked him dead in the eye. "I want you to be my personal tech. You’ll have a secure base, full access to any parts you need, and all the protection you can eat. You won't be a ‘Repairer’ in the slums anymore. You’ll be the hand that keeps my people alive."

Daniel looked at the gold, then at the rifle, and finally at the dirty, rotting walls of his shack. He had wanted to escape, to be something more than a target.

"What kind of work?" Daniel asked, his voice steady.

"The kind that pays better than gold," Kirill grinned, showing his teeth. "And the kind that gives you a reason to stay alive. So, what’s it going to be, kid? You want to keep patching boots for beggars, or do you want to see what else you can do when you have real tools?"

Daniel gripped the hilt of his sword, feeling the hum of power deep within his own marrow. The slums were a cage, and for the first time, he saw the key.

"I’m in," Daniel said.