He once again locked the coldness, scheming, and bloodshed of the conference room, along with his own weakness and confusion, firmly beneath his customary indifferent expression.
Boer left the earl's residence, that symbol of power.
Yet the beating heart in his chest continued to urge him relentlessly to do something, to change something.
Perhaps... I should help those still struggling to survive in the shadows, rather than merely being content to become a feared, solitary snake hanging high in the sky.
A clear voice rang out in his mind, carrying a long-absent resolve. This is what I've always wanted to do, and what I can... do now.
With his mind made up, he turned. Rather than returning to the factory or his residence, he flew straight toward the Steel Heavy Industry Consortium's storage district, which had already begun to take shape.
He hovered several hundred meters from the warehouses. His invisible magnetic perception spread like spilled mercury, precisely locking onto the neatly stacked metal ingots gleaming with a cold, hard luster.
The next moment, beneath the awestruck gazes of the warehouse guards and club attendants, thousands of tons of metal ingots broke free of gravity like an awakened torrent of metal. They rose of their own accord, forming a silver-gray wave that surged skyward and gathered around Boer.
They collided, compressed, and fused in midair, finally reshaping into a metal cube more than seven meters on each side, which hovered silently behind him.
Boer did not linger. Guiding the enormous metal cube, he flew slowly toward the slums outside the city.
Its enormous shadow swept over the bustling streets below, drawing startled cries as residents looked up.
"Look! It's Lord Boer!"
"Is he performing another miracle?"
"Mr. Boer is a good man! He got rid of those damned gangs!"
"His power might be terrifying, but I've never heard of him attacking us commoners. He's different from those noble lords!"
"That's right! He even helped the merchant caravans wipe out the pirates attacking the harbor!"
"Ever since Lord Boer arrived, life really does seem a little better. It's easier to find work, and even the tax officials don't dare throw their weight around like they used to..."
"Yes, and the streets are much safer..."
Their comments, mostly filled with wonder, gratitude, and a lingering trace of fear, merged into an invisible wave of sound that reached Boer's ears high above.
His indifferent face betrayed nothing, but his flight seemed to slow a fraction.
This time, Boer did not hover overhead as though inspecting his domain. Instead, he slowly descended, setting his feet firmly on this impoverished, filthy ground, separated from the Royal Capital's splendor by only a wall.
He reined in all his abilities and, like an ordinary person, carefully avoided the sewage running across the ground, scattered rubbish, and unidentified filth, measuring this forgotten corner with his own footsteps.
Everywhere he looked stood low, dilapidated shacks, haphazardly pieced together from rotten wood, rags, and rusted sheet metal, as though a slightly stronger gust could knock them down.
The occasional crooked brick-and-stone building already counted as a "mansion" here. The air reeked of rotting garbage and evaporating sewage.
As he walked, he silently calculated. My current precise magnetic sensing range has a radius of five kilometers. The area of these slums... to scan all of it would probably take ten to thirteen uninterrupted sweeps at full power. My rough scan just now found six hundred and thirty-four poor households of laborers, fishermen, and others within these five kilometers... Extrapolating that density across the entire slum, the total probably approaches seven thousand households... Behind those cold numbers lay the reality of seven thousand families struggling on the edge of survival.
The bleak autumn wind swept dust and scraps of paper off the ground, bringing waves of chill.
Temperatures were falling. For these people, who lacked sufficient supplies to keep warm, the coming winter would undoubtedly be a severe trial.
When Boer landed on a street in the slums, the mountainlike metal cube hovering behind him, the children and elderly who remained at home spotted him immediately.
The white monster...
The master of that giant metal snake!
The man who killed all the gangs...
So brutal...
As the kingdom's most controversial and legendary figure over the past six months and more, he instantly gripped these people at the bottom of society with tremendous unease and fear.
They had endured hardship and knew all too well the fickle tempers and bloody methods of nobles and rulers.
Children hid beneath broken eaves and behind grimy shadows, secretly studying this legendary figure with complicated eyes, innocent yet fearful, curious yet mingled with envy.
At last, an elderly man chosen by the locals to serve something like a neighborhood head emerged trembling at an intersection.
His clothes were ragged, his face etched with the weathering of years and the marks of suffering. In an uncontrollably trembling voice, he cautiously asked:
"M-my lord, you... you've come to this barren place. Is... is there something you require?"
Boer stopped and looked into the old man's clouded, fearful eyes, trying to muster as gentle a smile as possible.
Through magnetic vibrations, his voice reached the old man and every listening ear nearby with perfect clarity. "Just having a look. And, while I'm here, doing something I've always wanted to do."
He paused, then his voice spread firmly and slowly through the entire street and even the shantytown beyond. "Would anyone... like a new house that keeps out the wind and rain, something a little more decent?"
Although every visible figure on the street had vanished the moment Boer landed, countless eyes watched him intently and fearfully through gaps in the shacks.
He was met with dead silence, broken only by the moaning wind.
Just then, a figure suddenly rushed out of a wooden shack that looked ready to fall apart!
It was a child of about seven or eight, his face covered in grime, wearing an obviously ill-fitting old garment covered in patches. Yet his eyes were exceptionally bright, like stars in the night.
Breaking free of the old man frantically trying to stop him, he summoned the greatest courage of his life and ran to a spot not far from Boer. Tilting his head up, he shouted:
"My lord! Really? I... I just want a house that keeps the wind out! It's getting cold, and at night... the nights are so hard to get through. Grandpa's legs hurt terribly every day!"
As Boer looked at the brave child, the lines of his face softened completely.
He bent down to meet the child's eyes and firmly rubbed his filthy yet lively little cheeks, his voice gentler than ever before. "Of course, my brave young gentleman."
He thought for a moment, then asked, "Now, young gentleman, is there a little animal you like?"
The child's eyes lit up. Almost without hesitation, he excitedly pointed at the enormous metal block behind Boer, as though it could produce anything. "Snakes! Big snakes! That huge, awesome metal snake that flies in the sky! My lord, you ride it, right? It's so cool!"
Boer smiled. With a thought, a small piece of metal separated from the giant cube behind him and flew into his palm like flowing mercury.
Before everyone's astonished eyes, the metal swiftly changed shape-first a powerful, coiled body, then a head held high, sharp fangs, and even a slightly protruding forked tongue. A lifelike little metal snake, exquisitely detailed, appeared in his hand, gleaming silver in the sunlight.
He placed the small piece of craftsmanship in the child's hands.
"For you, brave child."
The next moment, the true miracle began.
Part of the enormous metal cube behind Boer began to ripple violently and break apart, like the surface of a lake struck by a stone!
It became a mighty silver surge of metal, not destructive, but guided by the utmost precision as it rushed toward the dilapidated shack the child had emerged from!
The metal torrent gently pushed down and dismantled the broken structure. At the same time, it sent out finer streams of black metal like living tentacles, precisely wrapping around the few crude pieces of furniture, worn bedding, and other belongings inside, lifting them and moving them steadily onto the open ground nearby.
One stream even formed a stable chair and carefully helped the old man inside, his face filled with terror and bewilderment, out of the shack, settling him securely into the seat.
Next, the metal tide leveled the ground and compacted the foundation. Then, like the most efficient 3D printer, it formed walls, a roof, doorframes, window openings... A neatly shaped sheet-metal house, six meters long, four meters wide, and four meters tall, rose on the spot at a speed visible to the naked eye!
The sheet-metal walls were thick and sturdy, the roof fitted tightly, and there were even windows that could open and close. The iron door used a simple mortise-and-tenon construction. Crude though it was, compared with the old shack that let wind through on every side, it was a world apart!
The entire process took only a few short minutes.
Boer walked up to the brand-new sheet-metal house, its surface gleaming with metal's distinctive cold sheen in the autumn sunlight, and addressed the child and old man, who were still deeply stunned:
"For now, this is all I can do for everyone. A better life in the future will still require your own hard work, young gentleman."
He then looked at the old man, whose lips trembled with excitement, though he could not utter a word.
"Sir, you and the child will have to move these things inside yourselves, bit by bit. After all, a new home feels warmer when you've had a hand in it, doesn't it?"
His gentle smile, like sunlight, instantly dispelled the last fear and doubt in the old man's heart.
"My lord! I... I need one too!"
"My lord, please, help us!"
"Our roof leaked yesterday..."
Faced with a real example, their suppressed longing burst forth like floodwater breaking through a dam!
More and more people poured out of hiding and gathered around, their eyes full of hope and pleading. Yet they stopped of their own accord five meters from Boer, not daring to step beyond that boundary, merely watching him with gazes mingling humility and longing.
Boer glanced at the enormous metal block beside him, now slightly smaller, made a quick estimate, and declared loudly, his voice once again carried in all directions through the magnetic field:
"Don't rush! Everyone will get one! Not just this street-I'll build a sheet-metal house like this for every household in the entire slum! Completely free. Consider it... a small compensation for what the kingdom has owed you all these years!"
After a brief silence came an overwhelming roar of joy and cheers!
"Long live Lord Boer! Long live Lord Boer!"
"God! Thank you! Thank you, Lord Boer!"
"We have new houses!"
Cheers, sobs, and shouts merged, echoing over the slums for a long, long time.
Some even fell to their knees and bowed toward Boer. Compared with the greedy nobles, their desires were far too easy to satisfy.
Within the crowd, several seemingly ordinary figures quietly withdrew into deeper shadows. They were agents sent by the Mine Protection Squad and the Navy.
As they watched this upending scene, their habitual indifference or shrewdness gave way to immense confusion and contemplation.
Just what sort of being was this "white monster," with his terrifying power and ruthless methods?
Meanwhile, on the vast sea far from the Silver Capital, a large naval warship flying a flag bearing a seagull and scales cut through the waves toward the Kingdom of Bernia.
At its bow stood a towering man nearly three meters tall, like an iron tower.
He wore a white naval coat with "Justice" written across its back, and his face was resolute. He was Rear Admiral Bastille Raymont, the highest-ranking officer of West Blue Branch 101.
Arms folded across his chest, his gaze as sharp as an eagle's, he looked toward the kingdom's outline as it gradually grew clearer on the horizon.
His adjutant, Captain Carl Valentine, stood quietly a little behind him at his side, holding a detailed report on Bernia's recent situation, particularly the "Steel Snake" and the "Aaron Ball dossier."
A storm, it seemed, was about to arrive aboard this warship, descending upon this unsettled land.
Before you continue