Chapter: 211
Could he, for example, design a better sword? Not just sharper, but with a perfect balance, a differential heat treatment to create a hard edge and a resilient spine? Could he use his power to forge alloys unknown here, combining steel with trace amounts of other metals to create something lighter, stronger?
Could he redesign their armor? Forget heavy, solid plates. Think articulated joints, overlapping scales for better flexibility, an internal framework to distribute weight more efficiently. Could he use his Void power to create a composite armor, layering thin sheets of steel with hardened leather or other materials, creating something that could absorb impact far better than a single, solid piece of metal?
And the siege engines… His mind reeled with possibilities. Forget simple catapults. What about a torsion-powered ballista with a more efficient cam system, granting it greater range and accuracy? What about designing rifled barrels for their crude black-powder cannons, imparting spin to the projectile for a more stable, predictable trajectory? The concept of rifling was simple mechanics, a spiral groove, but the effect on accuracy was revolutionary.
The weapon hall… under Kyle’s new, honest, but likely deeply traditionalist, stewardship… it was a treasure trove of potential, a sandbox for innovation, waiting for a mind that could see beyond the way things had always been done.
The idea was intoxicating. To be KM Evan again, the creator, the innovator, the engineer, not just Lloyd Ferrum, the awkward heir. To build, to design, to revolutionize. The thought made his very soul sing, a familiar, powerful melody he hadn't realized how much he’d missed.
He took a step, an unconscious movement, towards the dais, a half-formed plan already coalescing in his mind. He could approach Kyle. Offer his… assistance. Frame it as a scholarly interest in historical Ferrum smithing techniques. Subtly introduce new ideas, improved designs…
Then, he stopped himself, a wave of cold, pragmatic reality washing over the exhilarating rush of inspiration.
Whoa, there, Major General, his internal cynic cautioned dryly. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You just, literally, convinced your father and a disguised King to invest a fortune in your revolutionary soap-making venture. You have a factory to build, a brand to establish, a Royal Household to supply with complimentary rosemary-scented cleansing elixir for the next five years. You have a suspicious Ice Princess wife to not actively antagonize, a terrified but loyal butcher girl assistant to manage, and a whole new set of demonic eyeball powers to figure out how to use without accidentally turning someone’s spleen into a decorative paperweight. You are, to put it mildly, a little busy.
He sighed, the thrill of engineering inspiration giving way to the weary acknowledgment of his current, rather crowded, schedule. The weapon hall, the forges, the dream of building a better ballista… it would have to wait. It was a long-term project, a future ambition. For now, the path to power, the path to the System Coins he so desperately needed, was paved not with advanced alloys and rifled barrels, but with tallow, lye, and the sweet, sweet smell of monopolistic profit.
First, the soap revolution. Then, the military-industrial complex. One step at a time, Lloyd. One bizarre, interdimensional, soap-fueled step at a time.
He finally turned, leaving the buzzing hall, the political triumphs, the martial ambitions, behind him. He needed fresh air. And perhaps, just perhaps, another cup of tea. He shuddered. No. Definitely not another cup of tea. Maybe just the fresh air.
---
The chaos of the Grand Hall, with its heady mix of political triumph, familial resentment, and the lingering scent of royal investment, faded behind Lloyd as he sought refuge in the relative quiet of the estate’s sprawling corridors. He needed a moment to decompress, to let the whirlwind of the Summit settle, to organize the sudden, chaotic influx of new projects, new responsibilities, new dangers, into a coherent mental flowchart. Soap factory schematics, maternal bloodline power practice, navigating his father’s newfound, intensely scrutinizing expectations, figuring out what to do about the Altamira threat… his to-do list had just become terrifyingly long.
He was just rounding a corner near the West Wing’s secluded library, a place he usually found blessedly free of overly enthusiastic cousins or disapproving ancestral portraits, when he saw them. The sight made him pause mid-stride, a flicker of genuine curiosity cutting through his mental clutter.
Chapter: 212
It was a young man, seated in a wheelchair, his posture straight, dignified, despite the obvious physical limitations. A beautifully crafted woolen blanket was draped across his lap, concealing the lower half of his body. His face, pale and fine-featured, held a quiet, almost scholarly intensity, though it was marred by a stark, black leather patch covering his left eye. His right arm ended just below the elbow, the sleeve of his fine tunic neatly pinned. He looked no older than seventeen or eighteen, yet his remaining eye, a startlingly intelligent shade of grey, held a maturity, a weary gravity, that seemed far beyond his years. He was handsome, in a fragile, almost tragic, way.
Pushing the wheelchair, her hands resting gently on its high back, was a young woman of breathtaking, almost ethereal, beauty. She was blonde, her hair the color of spun gold, braided intricately with small, white flowers. Her face was serene, her smile gentle, her blue eyes, when they briefly glanced up, radiating a warmth and kindness that felt utterly out of place in the often-cold, political atmosphere of the Ferrum estate. She moved with a quiet, unassuming grace, her simple but elegant gown a soft counterpoint to the sharp, almost severe, dignity of the young man in the chair.
Lloyd stopped, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. Who were they? He scanned his memory banks again, the hazy nineteen-year-old ones and the more robust, but still frustratingly incomplete, archives of his first life. Nothing. A complete blank. He prided himself on remembering faces, on cataloging people, a skill honed over decades of military command and corporate maneuvering on Earth. But these two… they were a void.
He was certain he had never seen them before. Not at any family gathering, not at the wedding, not even during the chaos of the Summit earlier. A severely disabled youth, particularly one with such striking features, accompanied by a woman of such remarkable beauty… they would have been noticed. They would have been a topic of gossip, of speculation. Yet, his memory held no trace.
Were they new arrivals? Guests of one of the branch families who had shown up late? But the wheelchair… it was expertly crafted, the wood dark and polished, the wheels moving with a silent, smooth precision that spoke of custom, expensive artisanship, not some hastily procured medical device. This was a long-term reality, not a recent injury. And a Ferrum youth, a cousin, so grievously injured… surely he would have known? Surely, that would have been a major event within the family, a tragedy spoken of in hushed, respectful tones?
As he stood there, wrestling with the anomaly, the young man in the wheelchair looked up. His single grey eye met Lloyd’s, and a slow, knowing smile touched his lips. It wasn't a friendly smile, not exactly. Nor was it mocking or challenging. It was… a smile of recognition. Of quiet, patient, almost unsettling, understanding. As if he had been waiting for Lloyd to notice him.
He spoke, his voice quiet but clear, carrying easily in the silent corridor. "Lord Lloyd Ferrum. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance formally. Or," he added, a flicker of something unreadable in his gaze, "perhaps I should say… our re-acquaintance."
Lloyd felt a chill, unrelated to the corridor’s draft. Re-acquaintance? “My lord…?” he began, his confusion deepening. “Forgive me, but I fear you have me at a disadvantage. I do not believe we have met.”
The young man’s smile widened slightly. He gestured with his remaining hand towards himself. "Of course. Where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ben Ferrum. Third son of Lord Kyle Ferrum of the Ironwood branch."
Ben Ferrum? Kyle’s son? Lloyd’s mind raced. Kyle, the newly appointed head of the primary cadet branch, the staunch traditionalist, the man who had first recognized the Steel Blood. He had three sons? Lloyd vaguely remembered two – older, robust, competent youths who were already making a name for themselves in the Ducal Guard. But a third son? A disabled son? He had absolutely no memory of him. It was as if Ben Ferrum had been deliberately erased from his first life’s timeline, or perhaps, had simply never existed within it. The implications were deeply, profoundly, unsettling. Was his return, his interference, already changing the past in such fundamental, tangible ways? Or was his original memory simply that flawed, that full of gaping, inexplicable holes?
The beautiful blonde woman beside Ben offered a gentle, serene smile and a slight curtsy. "And I am Inari, my lord," she said, her voice soft, melodic. "I am Ben’s fiancée."
Chapter: 213
Fiancée? Lloyd’s bewilderment intensified. Everything about this encounter felt… wrong. Dislocated from the reality he thought he knew. "A pleasure to meet you both," he managed, his voice carefully neutral, masking the whirlwind of questions and confusion in his mind. "My apologies for my… apparent lapse in memory, Lord Ben. The Summit has been… rather overwhelming."
"Understandable, of course," Ben replied, his single grey eye still holding that unnerving, knowing glint. "So many new faces. So many… old secrets… brought to light." He paused, letting the words hang, then his smile faded, replaced by an expression of quiet, focused intensity. "But I did not seek you out merely for pleasantries, Lord Lloyd. I sought you out because… we have much to discuss. Matters of… mutual interest. Matters that transcend mere family politics."
Lloyd felt his internal alarms, which had been on high alert all day, begin to scream. The way Ben spoke, the weight behind his words, the unsettling familiarity in his gaze… this wasn't just a forgotten cousin making a belated social call. This was something else entirely. Something… dangerous.
"Mutual interest?" Lloyd repeated, his own voice dropping, becoming more cautious, the earlier confusion solidifying into sharp, wary suspicion. "And what possible interest could a humble heir with a penchant for soap and a surprisingly competent wolf share with the son of the esteemed Lord Kyle?"
Ben Ferrum’s smile returned, but this time it was different. Colder. Sharper. Almost predatory. His single grey eye seemed to pierce right through Lloyd’s carefully constructed facade, seeing not just the nineteen-year-old heir, but the ancient, weary, battle-hardened soul trapped within.
And then, he delivered the line that shattered Lloyd’s world for the second time in as many days.
"It has been a while, hasn't it?" Ben Ferrum said, his voice a low, almost intimate murmur, yet each word landed with the force of a physical blow. "Major General."
---
---
The world tilted. The stone floor beneath Lloyd’s feet seemed to dissolve into a shifting, uncertain mist. The air in the quiet corridor grew thin, hard to breathe. The polite, distant portraits of Ferrum ancestors on the walls seemed to blur, their stern gazes melting into a swirl of indistinct color. All sound faded, save for the frantic, roaring pulse in his own ears and the two words that echoed, sharp and impossible, in the sudden, terrifying silence of his mind.
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Major General.
The title. His title. Not Lord Ferrum. Not the drab duckling. Not the accidental prodigy. But his rank. His identity. The one he had earned, bled for, lived and died with, on another world, in another lifetime. Major General KM Evan of the United States Army, designer of the Flying Mechanical Battle Suit, hero of a dozen forgotten conflicts on a planet called Earth. A secret so profound, so fundamental to his very being, that he hadn't even dared to whisper it to himself in the darkest hours of the night. A truth he believed was his, and his alone, buried under eighty-six years of time and an entire dimension of space.
And this boy… this impossible, broken boy in a wheelchair, this cousin he had no memory of, had just spoken it aloud. Casually. Knowingly.
Lloyd’s carefully constructed composure, the cynical armor of the eighty-year-old, the practiced calm of the nobleman, the confident swagger of the tournament champion… it didn’t just crack; it vaporized. In its place was the raw, primal, ice-cold reaction of a soldier, a strategist, who had just had his deepest, most secure flank inexplicably, impossibly, breached. His every instinct screamed threat. His every nerve ending fired with alarm. The polite, slightly bewildered young lord vanished, replaced in an instant by the wary, dangerous predator he had become in his first, brutal life after the assassinations.
His body didn’t move, but his entire presence shifted, condensed, becoming something hard, cold, and utterly lethal. The air around him seemed to drop in temperature, a subtle, almost imperceptible pressure emanating from him, a faint echo of the killing intent he had honed over years of shadow warfare. Fang, sensing the instantaneous, profound shift in his master, rose silently from the floor, a low, guttural growl rumbling deep in his chest, his golden eyes blazing, his form crackling with a barely suppressed nimbus of azure lightning.
Chapter: 214
Lloyd took a slow, deliberate step forward, his eyes, no longer holding any trace of polite confusion, locking onto Ben Ferrum’s single grey eye with an intensity that could peel steel. His voice, when it came, was unrecognizable. It wasn't the voice of the nineteen-year-old heir. It was the voice of Major General KM Evan. Low, quiet, utterly devoid of emotion, and carrying the chilling, absolute weight of command. The voice of a man who had ordered strikes that leveled cities, a man who had stared into the face of death and made it blink first.
"Who," Lloyd breathed, the word a whisper of freezing air, "are you?"
The pressure he exerted, a non-magical, purely psychological force born of decades of command and life-or-death decision-making, was immense. A lesser man would have buckled, flinched, stammered an apology. The beautiful Inari, standing behind the wheelchair, visibly paled, her serene smile vanishing, replaced by a look of genuine alarm. She took a half-step back, her hand instinctively going to the hilt of a small, silver dagger tucked into her belt. She felt the shift, the sudden, terrifying transformation of the seemingly harmless young lord into something… ancient and deadly.
But Ben Ferrum… Ben Ferrum did not flinch. He did not look away. He simply met Lloyd’s terrifying, soul-piercing gaze with his own single, unnervingly calm grey eye. His faint, knowing smile didn’t waver. If anything, it widened fractionally, as if he had not only expected this reaction, but welcomed it. As if he were finally speaking to the man he had been waiting for all along.
“As I said,” Ben replied, his voice still quiet, almost conversational, utterly unperturbed by the crushing weight of Lloyd’s killing intent or the crackling, lightning-wreathed wolf now growling at his side. “I am Ben Ferrum. Third son of Kyle. Nothing more, nothing less.” He paused, letting the simple, impossible statement hang in the air. “As for how I know your… previous title… let’s just say that some memories, some echoes, are stronger than others. They leave… an impression. On the world. On certain… receptive individuals.”
Lloyd’s mind reeled. Receptive individuals? Echoes? What was he talking about? Was he another reincarnator? A psychic? Some kind of cosmic entity disguised as a crippled teenager with an impossibly beautiful fiancée? The possibilities were terrifying, endless.
“That’s not an answer,” Lloyd growled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. The pressure intensified. He took another slow step forward. “And you have approximately five seconds to provide me with a real one. Before my… ‘wolf’… decides to test the structural integrity of your very charming, but probably quite flammable, wheelchair.”
Ben’s smile finally faded, replaced by a look of weary, almost pitying, understanding. “Patience, Major General. You were always so… direct. So focused on immediate tactical solutions.” He sighed softly. “Very well. You want answers. I have them. Or at least, some of them. But not here. Not now.” His gaze flickered down the corridor, a silent acknowledgment of their lack of privacy, of the ever-present eyes and ears of the Ferrum estate.
“If you truly want to know who I am,” Ben stated, his voice regaining its quiet, firm authority, “if you want to understand how I know what I know, if you want to begin to unravel the true, complex, terrifying tapestry of the life you have been so unceremoniously thrown back into… then you will meet me. In a few days. After the Summit festivities have concluded. At my father’s estate, the Ironwood Manor. In the central conservatory. We will speak there. Alone.”
He met Lloyd’s murderous gaze without a trace of fear. “I will not be coerced, Major General. I will not be threatened. I am offering you a chance. A chance to understand. The choice, as always, is yours. Come. Or remain in the dark, wrestling with ghosts and building your… soap empire.” The faint, almost teasing, mockery in his tone as he said the last words was a clear sign that he knew far more about Lloyd’s recent activities than he had any right to.
Just as Ben finished speaking, just as Lloyd was about to press further, to demand more, the familiar, almost smug, chime echoed in his mind, sharp and clear.
[New Task Assigned!]
[Task: A Ghost at the Feast – The Ben Ferrum Enigma]
[Objective: Uncover the true identity and purpose of the individual known as ‘Ben Ferrum’. Investigate the source of his knowledge regarding your past life as ‘Major General KM Evan’.]
[Stipulation: Attend the proposed meeting at the Ironwood Manor conservatory. Gather intelligence. Survive the encounter.]
[Reward: 100 System Coins (SC)]
Chapter: 215
The System prompt was a bucket of ice water thrown on the raging fire of Lloyd’s suspicion and killing intent. A hundred coins. A major quest. The System itself was validating Ben’s importance, confirming that this meeting, this enigma, was a critical path in his journey. It wasn't just a random encounter; it was a designated nexus point.
Lloyd stared at Ben, the internal battle raging. The soldier screamed for immediate neutralization of the threat. The strategist whispered of intelligence gathering, of understanding the enemy before striking. The System, with its promise of a hundred-coin reward, was heavily tipping the scales towards the latter.
He slowly, reluctantly, reined in the killing intent, pulling the metaphorical predator back into its cage. The oppressive pressure in the corridor receded. Fang’s growl subsided into a low, unhappy grumble, the lightning around him fading. The wary, dangerous Major General retreated, replaced once more by the calm, watchful, but now deeply unsettled, Lord Ferrum.
“Ten days from tonight,” Lloyd said finally, his voice cold, clipped. “The Ironwood Manor conservatory.” He didn't agree, not exactly. He stated it as a fact. A confirmation of the appointment.
Ben Ferrum’s smile returned, serene, knowing. “Excellent. I look forward to our… re-acquaintance.” He nodded to Inari, who, with a final, wary glance at Lloyd, began to push the wheelchair smoothly down the corridor, their silent departure leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and a profound, bone-deep sense of unease.
Lloyd stood alone in the quiet hallway, his heart still pounding, his mind reeling. Ben Ferrum. A ghost from a past that shouldn't exist, a key to a future he couldn't predict. In a few days, he would get answers. Or, he thought, a grim smile touching his lips, he would get a fight. Either way, the game had just become infinitely more complex. And infinitely more dangerous.
---
The rest of the Ferrum Family Summit passed in a blur of forced pleasantries and simmering, unspoken tensions. Lloyd moved through the closing ceremonies, the formal feast, the endless rounds of polite, meaningless conversation, like a man sleepwalking. His body was there, nodding respectfully to Great-Aunt Esmeralda, offering a brief, non-committal response to Marquess Kruts’s effusive thanks, even managing a strained, vaguely civil exchange with his still-fuming cousin, Kenta. But his mind, his soul, was elsewhere, trapped in the quiet corridor with the impossible, wheelchair-bound boy who knew his greatest secret.
Major General. The words echoed, a persistent, unnerving drumbeat beneath the surface of the celebratory din.
He found himself back in the suite late that night, the opulent room feeling less like a gilded cage and more like a decompression chamber. The silence was thick, heavy, broken only by the distant sounds of the estate settling into slumber and the soft rustle of pages as Rosa, a silent, veiled sentinel in her usual armchair, read by the light of a single, flickering lamp.
Lloyd didn’t bother with the sofa tonight. He didn’t have the energy for its lumpy, judgmental embrace. He paced. Back and forth, across the plush rug that marked the boundary of his designated territory, a caged tiger wrestling with an impossible enigma.
Who was Ben Ferrum? How could he know? Was he a friend? An enemy? A reincarnator like himself? The questions churned, a relentless, unanswerable vortex. The upcoming meeting at the Ironwood Manor felt less like an appointment and more like a summons, a step into a darkness he couldn't yet fathom.
He paced, running a hand through his dark hair, his mind a chaotic whirlwind. His usual internal monologue, the cynical, pragmatic eighty-year-old, was uncharacteristically silent, replaced by the raw, focused alertness of the soldier confronting an unknown, potentially overwhelming, threat. All his carefully laid plans – the soap empire, the slow accumulation of System Coins, the cautious, gradual revelation of his powers – felt suddenly fragile, naive, thrown into disarray by this single, impossible encounter.
He stopped his pacing, staring unseeingly out the tall window at the moon-drenched gardens, his reflection a pale, haunted stranger in the dark glass. His mood, usually a carefully controlled mixture of weary amusement and strategic focus, was now dark, turbulent, a storm of unease and unanswered questions.
It was in this moment of profound, unguarded preoccupation that Rosa Siddik finally spoke. Her voice, cool and crisp as ever, cut through the heavy silence of the room like a sliver of ice.
“You are troubled, Lloyd.”
