I stared at the glowing golden ticket in my mental inventory, practically holding my breath in the dark of my bedroom.
This was it.
The culmination of five months of agonizing poverty, coin-scavenging, and enduring absolute gacha-induced depression.
The moment I finally received the tools to survive this cannibal-infested nightmare.
‘Please be a Kryptonian template.
Or maybe a Saiyan,’ I prayed to whatever cosmic entity was managing this ridiculous universe.
‘I promise I will stop complaining about Carla’s unseasoned potatoes.
I will even voluntarily do my chores.
Just let me shoot lasers from my eyes and punch holes through mountains.’
With a mental nudge, I activated the Guaranteed SR Ticket.
The digital slot machine didn’t even bother appearing this time.
Instead, the golden ticket vibrated violently before shattering into a million tiny, incandescent fragments that rushed directly into my face.
My vision whited out completely.
For a terrifying, breathless second, I thought the system had just flash-banged my brain.
Then, the robotic blue text materialized in the dead center of my vision, cutting through the fading white light.
‘[Template Acquired: Peter Parker (Genius Mechanic Variant).]’
My heart did a massive, hopeful flip against my ribs.
Peter Parker?
Spider-Man?
I was going to be able to climb walls!
I could sense danger before it happened!
I could backflip over a Titan’s grasping hands and swing through the Shiganshina district like a superhero!
I immediately threw off my blanket, stood up on my bed, and tried to shoot a web from my wrist, making a ridiculous, dramatic thwip gesture with my hand toward the bedroom wall.
Absolutely nothing happened.
My wrist just made a sad, hollow popping sound.
A second line of text popped up, completely ruining my excitement and shattering my dreams of swinging to safety.
‘[Note: This template strictly grants the raw intellect, engineering genius, and mechanical intuition of Peter Parker.
Radioactive spider blood and associated superhuman physical traits are NOT included.]’
I slowly lowered my wrist, feeling a profound, crushing sense of disappointment wash over me.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ I grumbled internally, flopping backward onto my mattress and staring at the ceiling.
‘I don’t get super strength.
I don’t get wall-crawling.
I don’t even get spider-sense.’
‘I just got the brain of a perpetually broke, highly stressed teenager from Queens who builds things out of literal garbage.’
But as I lay there, stewing in my own disappointment, another prompt flashed in my peripheral vision.
‘[Current Template Integration: 5%.]’
I blinked, staring at the glowing number.
‘Five percent?
What do you mean, five percent?
I grinded in the dirt for six months for this ticket!
I paid for the whole template!’
‘[Notice: Templates are not instantly mastered.
The Host’s physical brain and nervous system must adapt to the new persona gradually to prevent severe psychological fragmentation and ego death.]’
‘[Integration percentage increases automatically as the Host utilizes the template’s specific skills, mimics their core personality traits, and overcomes relevant mechanical challenges.]’
I stared at the blue text in absolute, unadulterated horror.
‘Are you telling me I have to actively act like Peter Parker to get smarter?’ I thought, my lazy, average-guy brain violently recoiling at the very idea.
Peter Parker was the ultimate definition of responsibility.
He was constantly working, constantly stressing about rent, and constantly throwing himself into life-threatening danger because it was the ‘right thing to do’.
I, on the other hand, strongly believed that ignoring your problems and taking a long nap was a highly valid, scientifically sound lifestyle choice.
‘[To increase integration, the Host must engage in mechanical tinkering, scientific problem-solving, and exhibit traits of everyday heroism and witty banter.]’
‘Absolutely not,’ I decided immediately, crossing my arms behind my head.
‘I refuse.
I am not doing witty banter.
Witty banter takes a ridiculous amount of energy, and I am running on a severe caloric deficit.’
But even at a measly five percent integration, something strange began to happen to my perception.
I wasn’t just looking at a wooden ceiling anymore.
My brain was suddenly, involuntarily overlaying the wooden beams with glowing, invisible lines of tension, load-bearing calculations, and structural weaknesses.
I looked at the iron hinges on our bedroom door and instantly understood exactly why they always creaked so loudly when Eren stormed out.
I could clearly visualize the slight misalignment in the metal casing, the exact friction point rubbing against the wood, and exactly how much torque and lubrication would be required to silence it.
It was an itch.
A deep, psychological, violently persistent mechanical itch right in the center of my prefrontal cortex.
‘I should fix that,’ my new Parker-infused intellect whispered sensibly.
‘No, I should go to sleep,’ my normal-guy laziness argued back.
‘If we fix it, they’ll just expect us to fix other things.
It’s a trap.’
Suddenly, a night breeze blew through the open hallway window.
The bedroom door swung slightly on its hinges, letting out a long, high-pitched creeeeeak that grated against my new mechanical sympathy like nails on a chalkboard.
I groaned, aggressively throwing my blanket onto the floor.
‘Fine!
I’ll fix the stupid door!’
The next morning, I went straight to work.
If I couldn’t punch a Titan to death, I was at least going to make my daily life as efficiently automated and physically undemanding as possible.
At five percent integration, I certainly wasn’t building arc reactors or web-shooters.
But in a primitive, pre-industrial town like Shiganshina, even five percent of Peter Parker’s brain made me an absolute, undisputed prodigy.
I started small.
I rummaged through the alleyways, finding some spare copper wire, a broken, rusted spring from a discarded wagon, and my beloved ‘Duck Tales’ duct tape.
I spent twenty minutes building an auto-closing, tension-dampening mechanism for the door.
It wasn’t pretty.
In fact, it looked like a pile of metallic garbage aggressively taped to the doorframe.
But it worked flawlessly.
The door swung shut with a satisfying, completely silent click.
‘[Template Integration increased to 6%.]’
‘Oh, so that’s how we play this game,’ I thought, a small, genuine smirk crossing my face.
‘I build stuff, I get smarter.
I can work with this.’
By the end of the week, the mechanical itch in my brain demanded much bigger, more complex projects.
The manual cast-iron water pump in our backyard was my absolute nemesis.
It always exhausted my normal-guy arms.
Carrying water was the worst chore on Carla’s list, and my nine-year-old biceps were severely lacking in torque.
Using my slightly upgraded Parker intellect, I completely dismantled the heavy iron pump on a Tuesday afternoon while everyone was out running errands.
I re-machined the internal vacuum valve using a smooth, perfectly rounded river stone and some rendered animal grease I stole from the kitchen.
Then, I drastically adjusted the lever’s fulcrum point, extending it by three inches using a piece of scrap iron I had scavenged from the blacksmith’s discard pile.
I bound the whole assembly back together with strips of my silver duct tape to ensure an airtight seal.
Suddenly, it took barely a fraction of the effort to operate.
I could pump a full, sloshing bucket of water using just my pinky finger.
Carla came out to the yard later that afternoon, holding a basket of laundry.
Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she watched me effortlessly fill a heavy wooden tub while barely paying attention, casually reading one of Grisha’s medical journals with my other hand.
“Kai…
how did you do that?” she asked, looking back and forth between the heavily modified iron pump and my scrawny arms.
“Gear ratios, displaced tension, and atmospheric pressure, mom,” I replied lazily, closing the book.
“Mostly, I just really, really hate doing chores.”
Carla just smiled, shaking her head affectionately.
“You are such a strange, clever boy.
Try to teach your brother some of that patience, will you?”
‘[Template Integration increased to 8%.]’
The system liked it when I fixed things.
It liked it even more when my mechanical fixes actively helped other people.
It was incredibly annoying, but the results were undeniable.
Teaching Eren patience was mathematically impossible, even with a super-genius brain.
But as the months rolled on, my integration slowly ticked upwards, and my inventions became significantly more practical.
Every time Eren got into a street fight—which was essentially every other day—he came home with torn shirts, busted shoes, and fresh, colorful bruises.
Instead of letting Carla spend hours sewing his clothes back together, I hijacked the process.
At twelve percent integration, my understanding of material tension, kinetic force distribution, and impact absorption had improved drastically.
I began meticulously weaving thin, highly flexible strands of copper wire into the fabric of Eren’s jackets.
I reinforced his seams, his elbows, and his ribs with hidden, structural layers of my heavy-duty silver duct tape.
‘If he’s going to throw himself at bullies like an unguided ballistic missile, I might as well give him some rudimentary kinetic armor,’ I calculated, tightening the heavily modified leather straps on his boots to provide better ankle support.
The next time Eren got thrown into a solid brick wall by a much larger teenager, his jacket didn’t tear.
In fact, he bounced back up almost immediately, looking mildly confused as to why his spine didn’t hurt as much as usual.
‘[Template Integration increased to 12%.]’
I was essentially farming experience points off my twin brother’s total lack of survival instincts.
But the local bullies were still a massive problem.
They kept chasing Armin, which meant Eren kept fighting them, which meant my daily nap schedule was constantly being interrupted by their chaotic yelling right outside my window.
My inner Peter Parker demanded I use my great power to take great responsibility.
My inner Kai just wanted them to shut up so I could sleep in peace.
I compromised.
I spent a quiet afternoon setting up a highly sophisticated, spring-loaded tripwire system in their favorite alleyway.
I utilized two meters of my remaining duct tape, some high-tension ropes, and a complex series of counterweights hidden behind some barrels.
Watching three older, aggressive kids trigger the invisible wire and simultaneously faceplant into a massive, stagnant puddle of mud was a deeply spiritual experience.
I sat on my favorite wooden crate a safe distance away, eating a stolen apple and thoroughly enjoying the absolute, blissful silence that followed their groans of pain.
“You built that, didn’t you?” Mikasa asked quietly.
I hadn’t even heard her walk up.
She was standing next to my crate, her dark, intense eyes fixed on the crying bullies flailing in the mud like overturned turtles.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied smoothly, taking a loud bite of my apple.
“But hypothetically, it operates on a very simple tension-release mechanism that violently punishes poor spatial awareness.”
Mikasa didn’t say anything else.
But I saw the faint, undeniable ghost of a smirk cross her face before she walked away to grab Eren.
‘[Template Integration increased to 15%.]’
‘Oh come on,’ I complained to the floating blue screen.
‘That was barely heroic.
That was just petty vindictiveness.’
‘[System Note: Witty banter and neighborhood vigilantism align closely with the Peter Parker persona.
Keep up the good work, Host.]’
I groaned, pulling my hat down over my face.
I was slowly becoming a neighborhood superhero entirely against my will.
A few weeks later, I was walking through the market when a merchant’s wooden cart suddenly snapped a load-bearing axle, spilling hundreds of cabbages all over the cobblestone street.
My normal, everyday instinct was to keep walking, avoid eye contact, and ignore the mess.
But the Parker instinct kicked in violently, flooding my brain with overwhelming guilt and three different structural repair solutions.
I sighed aggressively, walked over, and used a Class 2 lever system with a sturdy wooden plank to effortlessly lift the heavy cart.
I temporarily bound the splintered wooden axle using a generous amount of my Duck Tales tape and a discarded metal splint, securing it with a tension knot.
“There.
It’ll hold the weight until you reach the carpenter,” I said lazily, dusting the dirt off my hands and turning to leave.
“Bless you, lad!
You’re an absolute lifesaver!” the merchant cheered, trying to hand me a cabbage.
‘[Template Integration increased to 18%.
Friendly neighborhood mechanics applied.]’
“I hate this,” I muttered, walking away as fast as I could before he could try to hug me.
A whole year passed in this bizarre, highly efficient, and exhausting routine.
My days consisted of aggressively avoiding manual labor by inventing complex machines to do it for me, reinforcing my idiot brother’s clothes, and slowly grinding my template integration up through random acts of fixing broken things around the district.
By my tenth birthday, I had managed to push the Peter Parker integration to a highly respectable twenty-eight percent.
My brain was no longer just seeing structural flaws; it was actively designing complex mechanical schematics and chemical formulas while I slept.
Our small, unassuming wooden house in Shiganshina had quietly become the most technologically optimized building on the entire island.
I had built a rudimentary pulley system to hoist heavy firewood directly into the kitchen window, saving me exactly forty-two exhausting steps a day.
I had repaired and recalibrated all of Grisha’s complex medical scales, redesigning the fulcrums to make them accurate down to the microgram.
Grisha had looked at me with a mix of deep suspicion and overwhelming gratitude, eventually deciding to simply stop asking questions about how his ten-year-old son knew more about applied physics than the local university scholars.
Even Hannes and the Garrison guards had unknowingly benefited from my relentless tinkering.
I had casually “fixed” the deployment gears on the ODM racks near the main gate while pretending to play near the barracks, greasing the bearings and adjusting the gas valve pressure to make their gear draw thirty percent faster.
‘[Template Integration increased to 28%.]’
But despite all my everyday conveniences and automated chores, a heavy, suffocating knot of anxiety had permanently settled in my stomach.
It was now the year 845.
The year everything was supposed to end.
I sat alone on the edge of the district’s main canal, absentmindedly skipping stones across the water.
Thanks to my twenty-eight percent Parker intellect, I could instantly calculate the exact wind resistance, release angle, and velocity needed.
The flat stone skipped exactly fourteen times before hitting the opposite bank perfectly.
I didn’t care.
I just watched the sun slowly set behind the towering, oppressive stone structure of Wall Maria.
In a few months, or maybe a few weeks, the Colossal Titan was going to kick a hole right through that solid stone.
I opened my system inventory, the blue light reflecting softly off the water’s surface.
I had twenty-eight percent of a comic book genius’s brain.
I had my passive ability to take a nap anywhere.
I had four remaining, heavily depleted rolls of Duck Tales duct tape.
I had a modern camping tent that I still couldn’t pitch without looking like a time-traveling lunatic.
And I still had two incredibly heavy, utterly useless Roman concrete pillars taking up space in my digital pockets.
‘It’s a terrible loadout,’ I thought, sighing deeply as the massive shadow of the wall crept over the town, casting everything into a cold, grim twilight.
‘I have no weapons.
I have no super strength.
I just have a bunch of junk, an overactive brain, and an impending apocalypse.’
Eren’s voice suddenly echoed from down the street, loudly yelling at a merchant who had allegedly overcharged Armin for a loaf of bread.
I rubbed my temples, feeling a massive headache coming on.
‘But I guess I’m as ready as a lazy, broke mechanic can possibly be,’ I told myself, standing up and
dusting off my pants.
‘Bring on the end of the world.
Just…
preferably after I get a full eight hours of sleep.’