Bonus Episode — Consuming the System

The view from the window of the Felsen Manor was unrecognizable from just a month ago. Cobblestones were laid out in an orderly fashion where rubble and mud once sat, and the light from the magic lamps sliced through the night at perfectly equal intervals. To a man like me, who had spent his life believing that violence and chaos were the only truths of the world, this sight looked eerily "correct."

I was once a member of the Dark Corridor, the criminal organization in the Capital, and I ran the black markets and gambling dens here in the Old District of Felsen. Now, pinned to my chest is a badge representing the nauseatingly prestigious title of "Tax-Free Zone Manager," granted to me personally by Lord Gustav.

(...That's a joke that isn't even funny.)

I reached for a cigarette butt in my pocket, but stopped myself. The smell of stale tobacco didn't suit this clean, new office. Instead, I reached for the gift left for me by "that man" sitting on my desk.

I traced the condensation on the surface, the coldness stinging my fingertips. A black, bubbling, strange drink. "Cola," he called it. It was the embodiment of the new Felsen itself. Sweet, stimulating, and a poison that you could never go back from once you’d had a taste.

I found myself remembering that day. Deep in the forest. The moment I first encountered that monster—Zect—in his barrier-protected sanctuary.

When I first entered that house, what I felt was "defeat." It wasn't the tension of infiltrating enemy territory, nor was it the fear of impending death. It was a fundamental sense of helplessness, as if the very field I had spent my life fighting on had vanished the moment I stepped inside.

There was none of the symbolism of "strength" that I knew. No conditioned physique, no oppressive magic, no luxurious ornaments. There was just a young man with the eyes of a dead fish, slumped in a massive chair he called the Throne of Sloth. A single black cat sat on his lap.

"Come on in. The door's open."

I didn't even feel the intent to size me up in that voice. To him, I wasn't a human being to be judged; I was just a pebble on the side of the road, or perhaps a worn-out tool... no, it felt more thorough than that. I was being viewed as nothing more than "raw material."

"You just have to design the system so that the benefit of obedience outweighs the return on betrayal. The only thing I trust is the calculated result of his own greed."

When I heard those words, I felt as if ice water had been poured down my spine. Ah, he isn't looking at me. He’s looking at the "mathematical formula" inside me. He doesn't trust my goodness or my loyalty. He only trusts my wretched biological instinct to "act as rationally as possible for my own gain."

Having lived in the underworld, I’ve seen countless betrayals. But the reasons for those betrayals were always emotional. Money, women, fear, jealousy. But in the system Zect is building, there is no room for such emotions. He intends to bind me hand and foot with a cold equation: "it is more costly to betray than to obey."

And then, there was that "card trick."

He pulled out a set of cards—smoother than anything I’ve ever seen, reflecting light like a mirror. "Rigging is something like this, right?" he said, as he showed me a single card. I think it was the 3 of Spades.

I focused my eyes. I’ve spent ten years in the underworld watching the hands of elite gamblers. A slight tremor of the fingers, an unnatural joint movement, a faint ripple of mana—I took pride in my ability to read it all.

But the moment he moved his hand... I saw nothing.

The card he showed me a second time had changed to the 9 of Hearts. "Wait... what?" Elishua, the mage, gasped. But my shock was far deeper than hers.

(It wasn't magic... Did he just rewrite the world with nothing but the movement of his fingers?)

The total absence of mana ripples meant it was pure skill. But swapping cards with that speed and such minimal movement should be physically impossible for a human being.

I threw my pride away and asked him to do it again. "Sure," he answered casually, and this time he did it a bit slower.

...Even then, I didn't understand it. His fingertips seemed liberated from the laws of physics, like gravity and friction. The very concept of "rigging" that I had known felt like child's play compared to this "something" from a different dimension.

(Anyone who challenges this man to a gamble won't even be allowed to see the gates of hell.)

He set the deck on the table, as if he hadn't intended to drive me to despair at all. And then, he began to speak flatly about something called the "Law of Large Numbers."

"Don't try to rule luck. Increase the trials and fix the probability."

When I heard those words, the concept of "gambling" in my head crumbled with a thunderous roar. Everything we had been doing—deceiving customers and fleecing them for one-off gains—was nothing more than petty, day-to-day robbery. But what Zect was talking about was different. He was taking the wild stallion of chance, locking it in the cage of mathematics, and turning it into livestock that obediently vomits up money. Whether a customer wins or loses doesn't matter; in the end, the house always accumulates a fixed percentage of profit.

"So... you’re saying you can manufacture money with math?"

I could hear my own voice trembling. Cheating isn't necessary because the rules themselves guarantee profit with more precision than any rig ever could. You scatter the bait of trust and scoop them up in the net of fairness.

Furthermore, he ordered Elishua to mass-produce the cards. He intended to take cards—which were expensive and hand-painted in this world—and make them "disposable" using magic formulas and golems. Brand new cards, with the Lord's wax seal broken every time a box is opened. He planned to brand those cards themselves as a specialty of Felsen.

(...He’s a monster.)

I shuddered. He didn't look at the trash heap of the Old District and try to remove the "darkness." He was overwriting that darkness with a mechanism called "Order," integrating it into a massive money-making machine called Felsen.

"...Phew."

I drained the cold cola. The carbonation burned my throat, bringing me back to reality.

Now, I am managing the underside of Felsen. My former subordinates, terrified of the new city’s discipline, are working in the shadows exactly as I instruct them. I’ve already grasped the movements of the rats who’ve snuck in from the Capital.

Am I his pet now? ...No. I entered this cage of "rationality" of my own free will. Because inside this cage is far more stimulating and "lucrative" than the world outside.

Construction of the casino is going well. The lighting designed by Elishua is turning those once-filthy alleys into a fantastical social hub where golden light dances. The guests who gather there will pay the price of "hope," never knowing they are being ground down by the gears of mathematics.

My job is to grease those gears so they turn without hesitation.

I look out the window toward the distant forest. In that sanctuary, that man is likely petting his cat right now, muttering about how "troublesome" everything is.

Even so, this city—and this world—will continue to move exactly according to the "Order" he has drawn.

"I’m definitely not bored. Not at all."

A suspicious movement from the Capital. According to the report from the Shadows, a knight named Leonard has started moving on his own.

(Now, how should I cook them? The fools who think they can step into my new garden with their dirty feet.)

I felt a strange sense of "pride" budding inside me, something I’d never had before. It wasn't loyalty; it was more like a craftsman's obsession, a refusal to let a perfect blueprint be stained.

I finished the last drop of the cola.

"Tastes damn good, hell. Maybe doing one more job for the sake of this drink isn't so bad."

With the sweet aftertaste lingering, I stepped out into the night of Felsen.

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