I stared at the massive, heavy metal barrel sitting on the cold stone floor of the warehouse, completely utterly speechless.
It was exactly five gallons.
It was painted in vibrant, aggressively modern blue and yellow colors, with a bright red plastic nozzle attached to the top.
To the untrained eye of a Paradis Island refugee, it looked like a highly suspicious, brightly colored bomb.
To my Peter Parker-infused brain, it was the absolute holy grail of mechanical engineering.
“Kai, what is that?” Eren asked, poking his head out of the neon-orange flap of our modern camping tent.
He narrowed his green eyes, eyeing the metal drum with intense suspicion.
“Is it a weapon?
Can we blow up the Armored Titan with it?”
“It’s not an explosive, Eren.
It is liquid magic,” I whispered, reaching out to gently pat the cold metal side of the barrel.
“It is the ultimate destroyer of friction.
It is the bane of rust.
It is WD-40.”
Eren stared at me blankly, clearly not understanding a single word I had just said.
Mikasa unzipped the tent flap a little wider, stepping out to inspect the bizarre metal drum.
She didn’t ask questions anymore.
After I had pulled a giant orange nylon house out of thin air and wrapped Carla’s crushed legs in silver tape, Mikasa had seemingly accepted that I was just a walking anomaly.
“Does it help Mom?” Mikasa asked quietly, her dark eyes shifting toward the tent where Carla was sleeping peacefully, completely unresponsive to the world.
“Indirectly,” I sighed, sitting back on my heels.
“It’s going to help me get a lot of money, which will buy us the medicine she needs.”
I still had one more full Gacha ticket left from my grueling week of fixing broken carts and jammed flintlocks.
I was exhausted.
My hands were blistered, and my Leon S.
Kennedy paranoia was keeping me awake for forty-eight hours at a time, constantly scanning the refugee crowds for non-existent bio-weapons.
‘Okay, system,’ I thought, pulling up the blue interface and staring at the remaining ticket.
‘The WD-40 is genuinely amazing.
But I need tools.
Please.’
I mentally tapped the ticket.
The digital slot machine materialized and spun rapidly.
It clicked into place, flashing a solid, reliable silver light.
‘[Congratulations!
Host has pulled a [Rare] Tier Reward!]’
My eyes widened.
A Rare?
I had never pulled a standard Rare before.
It was always Common garbage or my singular Ultra Rare anomaly.
‘[Item Acquired: 200-Piece Master Mechanic’s Hand Tool Set.]’
A heavy, bright red metal toolbox suddenly materialized next to the WD-40 drum with a solid, satisfying clunk.
I didn’t even hesitate.
I flipped the metal latches and threw the lid open.
Inside was a vision of absolute, pristine beauty.
Rows of chrome-plated socket wrenches.
Precision screwdrivers.
A full set of Allen keys.
Heavy-duty pliers, wire cutters, and perfectly balanced hammers.
My Peter Parker template practically sang in my head.
The twenty-eight percent integration surged with pure, unadulterated dopamine.
‘[Parker Template Integration increased to 30%.
Host has acquired proper technological implements.]’
“Oh, it is absolutely over for these medieval peasants,” I whispered, pulling a perfectly polished ratchet from the velvet-lined molding.
The clicks of the ratchet gear sounded like music to my ears.
I didn’t have to fix things with sharp rocks and splinters of wood anymore.
“I am going to become the wealthiest mechanic in Trost,” I declared, slamming the red toolbox shut.
For the next two months, I essentially became a technological wizard to the people of the Trost refugee camp.
In a pre-industrial society where everything was made of crude iron, untreated wood, and poorly forged steel, rust was an absolute epidemic.
Cart wheels squeaked aggressively.
Doors jammed.
Flintlock rifles misfired because the firing mechanisms were caked in years of carbon and moisture.
I fixed all of it.
And I did it in seconds.
A merchant would bring me a cart with an axle that had completely seized up from rust.
He would offer me two silver coins if I could spend the afternoon hammering it loose.
I would simply walk up with a small rag soaked in WD-40, wipe down the axle, and give it a slight turn.
The rust would literally melt away.
The synthetic lubricant would penetrate the microscopic pores of the crude iron, instantly displacing the moisture and drastically reducing the friction.
The wheel would spin completely silently, gliding like it was on ice.
The merchants looked at me like I was performing dark, forbidden sorcery.
“How did you do that?!” one merchant gasped, spinning his cart wheel in absolute disbelief.
“It hasn’t spun that quietly since I bought it twenty years ago!”
“I have a very exclusive, highly classified alchemical compound,” I lied smoothly, wiping my hands on a rag.
“That will be three silver coins, please.”
I didn’t just stop at merchants.
I aimed higher.
The Garrison regiment soldiers were severely overworked, exhausted, and incredibly poorly equipped.
Their ODM gear was constantly jamming.
The steel wires would rust from the humidity in the crowded storehouses, and the gas release valves would stick, causing lethal delays in their grapple deployments.
I started lingering near the Garrison barracks, holding my red toolbox and carrying a small glass vial I had filled with WD-40.
I approached a highly stressed squad leader who was currently yelling at his jammed ODM handle, trying to force the trigger down.
“Your primary gas valve is corroded, sir,” I said lazily, leaning against the stone wall.
“If you force the trigger, you’re going to snap the internal tension spring.”
The squad leader glared at me.
“Get lost, kid.
I don’t have time for refugee beggars.”
“I’m not begging.
I’m offering a consultation,” I replied, my Leon template allowing me to stare down the massive soldier without blinking.
I pulled out a precision screwdriver from my red toolkit, stepping forward before he could object.
With blinding speed—fueled by my CQC reflexes and my Parker intellect—I dismantled the handle casing in less than five seconds.
I applied exactly two drops of WD-40 to the rusted valve, worked the mechanism, and reassembled the casing before the squad leader could even process what had happened.
“Try it now,” I said, stepping back and putting my hands in my pockets.
The squad leader blinked, looking at his ODM handle.
He tentatively squeezed the trigger.
HIIISSSSS.
The gas released flawlessly, the mechanism clicking with a sharp, incredibly satisfying crispness that he had probably never felt before.
He stared at his gear, then stared down at me.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I am a private contractor,” I answered smoothly.
“And I can lubricate and tune your entire squad’s gear to operate twenty percent faster.
But I don’t want coins.”
“Then what do you want?” the soldier asked, looking at me with newfound respect.
“I want military-grade medical supplies.
Clean bandages.
Antiseptic.
And three extra rations of bread and meat a day.”
It was a steep price, but a fully functional ODM gear meant the difference between life and death for a Garrison soldier.
He agreed immediately.
For the rest of the year, our neon-orange tent became the most well-supplied refugee shelter in the entire district.
I successfully swapped out Carla’s makeshift duct-tape splints for proper, sterile medical bandages.
I acquired real antiseptics to prevent infection, keeping her crushed legs as clean as possible in the damp warehouse.
She remained completely unresponsive, locked in a deep, trauma-induced coma.
But her breathing was steady, her pulse was strong, and she wasn’t losing any more weight.
Eren and Mikasa had enough to eat, entirely thanks to my monopoly on synthetic lubrication.
‘[Parker Template Integration increased to 35%.
Monopoly established.]’
But no amount of WD-40 could fix the real problem.
It was the year 846.
The food shortage on Paradis Island had reached a critical, catastrophic level.
With Wall Maria gone, humanity had lost a third of its territory and a massive portion of its agricultural land.
There simply wasn’t enough food to feed the two hundred and fifty thousand refugees who had flooded into Wall Rose.
The royal government made their move.
They announced a grand, heroic “reclamation mission” to take back Wall Maria from the Titans.
They began conscripting refugees by the tens of thousands, handing crude iron pitchforks and rusty swords to farmers, merchants, and the elderly.
They called it a military operation.
My Peter Parker brain and my Leon Kennedy tactical awareness saw it for exactly what it was.
It was a cull.
“They’re sending them to die,” Armin whispered, his voice trembling as we stood at the edge of the warehouse, watching the massive lines of refugees being marched toward the outer gates.
Armin’s grandfather was in that line.
He had been conscripted that morning.
He had hugged Armin, given him his hat, and walked away with tears in his eyes.
“They can’t fight Titans with pitchforks!” Eren yelled, grabbing the iron bars of the warehouse window.
“It’s a suicide mission!
Why is the military letting them do this?!”
I stood slightly behind them, my hat pulled low over my eyes, feeling a sickening, heavy knot in my stomach.
My normal, everyday-guy morality was screaming in absolute horror.
Two hundred and fifty thousand innocent people were being marched into the jaws of monsters just to reduce the population.
But my templates were terrifyingly cold.
‘Logistical necessity,’ my Leon template analyzed clinically in the back of my mind.
‘Current food reserves are insufficient for the population density.
Starvation will cause total societal collapse and violent riots within three weeks.’
‘Culling the civilian population ensures the survival of the remaining military and essential personnel.
It is a brutal, but statistically sound tactical decision.’
I squeezed my eyes shut, aggressively forcing the tactical thought away.
“Shut up,” I whispered to myself, clutching my head.
“Just shut up.
They’re people.”
I hated the templates sometimes.
I hated how easily they could detach from human emotion and calculate life and death in pure numbers.
Armin collapsed to his knees, clutching his grandfather’s hat to his chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
Eren dropped down beside him, throwing an arm around his fragile friend.
But Eren wasn’t crying.
Eren was radiating an intense, terrifying heat.
His green eyes were locked on the distant gate, completely devoid of fear.
They were filled with a dark, bottomless ocean of pure, unadulterated hatred.
“I’m going to kill them,” Eren growled, his voice dropping to a low, vicious register that sent a shiver down my spine.
“Every last one of them.
I’ll wipe them off the face of this earth.”
I opened my eyes, looking at my twin brother.
The canon timeline was fully locked in.
The Smiling Titan hadn’t eaten Carla, but the sheer trauma, the destruction of our home, and the government’s brutal cull had still forged Eren into the monster humanity needed.
“Eren,” Mikasa said quietly, kneeling on his other side, her protective instincts flaring.
“I’m joining the Cadet Corps next year,” Eren declared, turning his burning eyes to me and Mikasa.
“I’m going to learn how to kill them.
Are you coming with me?”
I looked away, staring down at my calloused hands.
I didn’t want to join the military.
I didn’t want to fight giant, naked cannibals.
I just wanted to build automated pulleys, sleep for twelve hours a day, and hoard my WD-40.
But I looked back toward our neon-orange tent in the corner of the warehouse.
Carla was lying inside, entirely dependent on the medical supplies I bartered from the Garrison.
The moment the cull ended, the military rations would dry up.
The refugees would be forced to work the fields.
A ten-year-old mechanic wouldn’t be able to secure enough medicine to keep a comatose woman alive indefinitely.
The only people who got guaranteed food, guaranteed shelter, and guaranteed medical care were soldiers.
‘To secure the asset, infiltration of the military structure is the only viable path,’ my Leon template noted smoothly.
I let out a long, deeply exhausted sigh, tipping my hat back up to look Eren in the eye.
“Fine,” I grumbled, shoving my hands deep into my pockets.
“But I am strictly aiming for the middle of the pack.
If you think I’m going to do extra pushups, you are severely mistaken.”
Eren nodded fiercely, a grim, determined smile crossing his face.
The 104th Training Corps was waiting for us.
And they were absolutely not ready for a guy with a magic tool
box, an unreasonable amount of duct tape, and the combat reflexes of a highly traumatized government agent.