The door to Special Guidance Room A-01 slid open automatically before I even reached it, like a silent, malicious invitation.
A blast of cold air hit me, carrying a metallic tang of disinfectant mixed with high-end electronics. I could almost taste it; it made the back of my tongue go numb.
Special guidance? What a joke.
I stepped inside.
The room was empty. It felt less like a guidance room and more like a suffocatingly minimalist interrogation room, or... a slaughterhouse. The pristine white walls were smooth as mirrors, reflecting my oil-stained coveralls like a splatter on a perfect canvas. The only piece of furniture was a black holographic projector base in the center of the room.
As I was sizing up the place, a woman stepped out of the shadows behind me, her footsteps as silent as a cat's.
I spun around, my hand instinctively reaching for the wrench in my pocket.
She was dressed in a crisp black officer's uniform, her posture as sharp as an unsheathed blade. Her face was expressionless, and her gaze was colder than the room's metallic walls—like a pair of scalpels dissecting me inch by inch.
"Vex Ackerman," she began, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. "I am Seraphina, Adjutant to His Highness Kaelan. Starting today, I will be in charge of your 'daily guidance'."
Kaelan's lapdog. Well-trained and cold-blooded.
Words would be a waste of breath. I simply met her dead-eyed stare with my own.
Seraphina didn't seem to care about my rudeness; she merely gave a slight nod, as if confirming that a piece of cargo had arrived on schedule.
"His Highness wishes to see you."
She'd barely finished speaking when the holographic projector in the center of the room hummed to life, casting a beam of blue light.
The light converged, and the figure of a tall man slowly took shape.
Short golden hair, piercing eyes, and a tailored royal uniform that made him look composed yet radiating an overwhelming sense of pressure.
The First Prince, Kaelan Valerius.
He had finally made his appearance.
His hologram stood there, making no mention of how I'd nearly turned the academy upside down the night before, nor of my notorious record as a "special recruit." He simply sized me up with the calculating gaze of someone evaluating merchandise, as if I were a beast that had just been captured and needed its value assessed."Vex Ackerman," he finally spoke. His voice was deeper than it had sounded over the comms, carrying the innate authority of someone born to command.
"What are your 'initial impressions' of the academy?"
I nearly laughed out loud.
My "initial impressions"? My initial impression is that you people are very good at building beautiful cages for things you can't control.
"A five-star cage," I squeezed out through gritted teeth, making no effort to hide my sarcasm. "The food's decent, I'll give you that."
One corner of Kaelan's mouth curled up. It wasn't a smile, but the look of a predator deciding how to toy with its prey.
"It seems you've adjusted well," he said casually, as if making small talk about the weather. "In that case, your 'guidance' should officially begin."
Here it was. The real point at last. I felt my muscles tense.
"As a student under my personal guidance, your progress must be quantified," Kaelan said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Starting this week, you will submit a detailed 'Learning and Ideological Report' to Seraphina every week."
An "ideological report"? I wanted to puke up last night's dinner. Did they think I was some wild dog that needed domesticating? Every thought, every plan—I had to write them all down for their review?
But before I could spit back a retort, he dropped the real bombshell.
"Furthermore," Kaelan's gaze swept over me, as if he could see right through my skin to the rebellion etched into my bones, "to ensure the safety of a special recruit like yourself, your mecha, the 'Marauder,' will be fitted with a 'security monitoring module.'"
An icy chill surged through my veins.
A monitoring module.
On *my* mecha.
On *my* prize.
It was a surveillance device, plain and simple. They wanted to mess with my meal ticket? They wanted to know exactly how I turned that expensive scrap metal into a pile of parts? They wanted a pair of eyes glued to me every time I made a modification or ran a test?
Not a chance.
"I refuse."
My voice wasn't loud, but in the dead silence of the room, it struck like a thunderclap.
For the first time, a ripple of emotion crossed Seraphina's ice-cold face; her brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. The aura of danger radiating from her intensified instantly, as if she were ready to pounce and snap my neck the moment Kaelan gave the word.Kaelan's hologram fell silent as well. His sharp eyes narrowed slightly, as if he hadn't expected me to refuse so bluntly, so… recklessly.
"Give me a reason." He was a man of few words.
"My mecha is my hands, my feet—an extension of my own body." I looked him straight in the eye, enunciating every word. "I don't like people shoving unknown junk into my body."
I paused, then added, "Besides, it would seriously interfere with my custom modifications."
That was the real point. The *Marauder* was a trophy I'd snatched from that idiot Leon; every part, every wire, was going to be completely rebuilt by me. I wouldn't allow anything that didn't belong to me to exist on my masterpiece!
The air seemed to freeze.
To my surprise, Kaelan didn't get angry.
Instead, he smiled.
It was the intrigued smile of someone who had just found a new toy.
"You've got attitude. I like that," he said softly, before his tone shifted. "But rules are rules. The safety module must be installed. It's for your own good."
"And if I just don't?" I looked at him defiantly, my chin tilted up.
"Then you'll have to prove you don't need it." A hint of cunning entered Kaelan's smile. "Prove that your value is far greater than that of a monitored mecha."
He signaled to Seraphina beside him.
Seraphina walked up to me with measured precision, took a small black data chip from her uniform pocket, and held it out.
As she reached out, my gaze was drawn to something on her finger.
A ring.
A ring that wasn't part of any standard Imperial military issue. It looked ancient, engraved with a crest I didn't recognize, likely belonging to some old noble house.
My mind raced as I burned the detail into my memory. This woman was more than just the First Prince's adjutant.
"This is your first 'guidance task,'" Kaelan's voice cut in, snapping me back to the present.
I took the cold data chip and looked up at him.
"Inside is a heavily corrupted set of mecha combat data." Kaelan's gaze sharpened, as if he were assessing a blade about to be unsheathed. "I want you to repair it within three days."
"Can't do it," he said, his voice carrying a note of absolute command, "then be a good pet and accept the 'safety monitoring module'."
I gripped the chip in my hand, feeling it.
This wasn't just a task.This was a test, a power play, and even more so, a trap. He wanted to see where my limits lay, to gauge the true depth of the talent the academy brass called "Barbarian's Intuition."
I gently ran my thumb over the cold casing of the chip. It was as if my "Engineer's Eye" could already penetrate it, seeing the fragmented, chaotic wreckage of data within, scorched into a tangled mess.
The way this data had been corrupted... it was strange.
It didn't look like it had been physically destroyed in combat; it was more as if it had been "burned out" from the inside by some immense energy. Like a power surge, but on a scale massive enough to melt the system's entire core logic.
And deep within that wasteland of data, I caught a faint trace of something—a flicker of familiarity that made my heart jolt.
That feeling... it was just like the "Ghost Echoes"!
My heart missed a beat.
Kaelen... what exactly was he after? Was he giving me this just to test my abilities, or... did he already know something? Did he know about the secret I'd found in the library's restricted zone? Did he know about my confrontation with Hawke Anderson?
No, impossible. If he knew, it wouldn't be his adjutant standing here, but an execution squad ready to pump me full of sedatives.
So, was this just a coincidence? Or a deeper trap?
I looked up, meeting Kaelen's bottomless eyes. I saw scrutiny, curiosity, and a hint of... anticipation.
He was expecting me to succeed.
Slowly, very slowly, a defiant smile curled on my lips.
"You're on," I said.
"Deal."