Special Chapter 3 — Jin Crestfall: The Quiet Engineer
From Jin's Perspective
S.C. 1507 — Age 8
Gray Terminal — Scrap Ridge
People think Gray Terminal is all chaos and violence.
They're wrong.
The truth is much simpler:
Gray Terminal is forgetting.
People forget you exist.
Forget your face.
Forget your name.
Forget to care.
I was eight when I realized I could disappear into a crowd and no one would notice. Not because I was stealthy—far from it.
It was because I didn't matter.
My strength wasn't like Kael's.
My charisma wasn't like Kiro's.
My fire wasn't like Luffy's.
But I had one thing nobody cared about:
Curiosity.
While the other kids fought for food, I scavenged old screws and broken gears.
While adults argued, I took apart smashed radios to see the insides.
While people shouted, I listened for the quiet sound of how things worked.
I learned early that machines made more sense than humans.
They didn't betray you.
They didn't cheat you.
They didn't leave you behind.
Machines break only when you make a mistake.
Humans break even when you do everything right.
The Day I Found a Future
S.C. 1511 — Age 12
Outskirts of Foosha — Scrap Pile Behind the Dock
I came to Foosha for scrap.
The fishermen threw out lots of broken tools—rusted hooks, snapped pliers, bent nails.
To me, it was treasure.
That day, while digging through a pile, I found something strange:
A battery.
Small.
Heavy.
Different from anything I'd seen.
I turned it over and froze.
Someone spoke behind me.
"It's corroded."
I nearly dropped it.
There was a boy, small and calm, standing too close.
Black hair.
Sharp eyes.
A fox behind him.
He wasn't a villager.
Villagers didn't look at scrap so intensely.
He pointed at the battery.
"The internal zinc plate is degraded. That's why it's leaking."
I blinked.
He blinked back.
"You know that?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied simply. "Do you?"
"…I was trying to figure it out."
He stared at me for a second—longer than was comfortable.
"Come with me."
That should've been my warning.
But instead, it felt like a rope thrown into the pit I'd been stuck in all my life.
I followed.
Ren's Lab Was a Different World
Inside Ren's tiny Foosha lab, my jaw dropped.
Glass tubes.
Wires.
Charts.
A working microscope.
A small drill powered by a battery far better than the one I'd found.
No yelling.
No chaos.
Just order.
Ren silently watched me take it all in.
"You can touch anything," he said. "Just don't break the things that explode."
I laughed.
He didn't.
Strangely… that made me feel safe.
Ren didn't pity me.
He didn't treat me like a child.
He treated me like a pair of hands that could be useful.
And nobody had ever done that before.
How Ren Changed My Life
Ren never said I was talented.
He showed me.
He put a broken lantern in front of me.
"If you fix it, you can keep it."
I took it apart.
Put it back together.
Failed.
Took it apart again.
Reassembled.
Rethought the wiring.
Failed again.
Ren watched the entire time without saying a word.
On my third attempt, the lantern flickered to life.
Warm.
Soft.
Real.
Ren nodded once.
"You're good with structures. Join me tomorrow."
That was it.
No long speech.
No praise.
But that simple nod felt like someone finally saying:
"I see you."
Becoming the Engineer
Ren taught me:
How circuits flow.
How metal bends.
How gears mesh.
How machines breathe.
How failures teach faster than success.
And I taught myself:
Patience.
Precision.
Quiet determination.
Kael trained at the sword dummy outside.
Kiro handled logistics with Makino.
Luffy screamed about meat somewhere in the distance.
Everyone had their chaos.
Mine was gears.
My Profession
Ren didn't assign roles.
He asked each of us:
"What do you choose?"
I answered immediately:
"Engineer."
Because machines made sense.
The world didn't.
My Fighting Style
I was never meant to fight like Kael.
Ren knew that.
My style is:
Traps.
Mechanisms.
Tools.
Precision shots.
He designed a combat support system just for me:
• Hand-crank electric shock baton
• Wire-spool launcher for entangling enemies
• Low-recoil rifle for mid-range
• Mini crossbow with silent bolts
• Smoke vials of my own creation
I don't overpower enemies.
I outthink them.
Ren said:
"You're the man who wins the battle before it starts."
I didn't understand it then.
Now I do.
My Dream
I wrote it on my wooden board in the island base:
"To build something that outlives all of us."
Not a weapon.
Not a machine.
A legacy.
A system.
Something that continues working even after I'm gone.
Like Ren's influence.
Who I Am Now
I am Jin Crestfall.
Engineer of the Meridian Group.
Architect of the Hive Lab.
Keeper of Machines.
The quiet gear inside Ren's hidden world.
Once forgotten.
Now essential.
Ren didn't just change my life.
He gave me a place where silence wasn't loneliness—
it was focus.
A place where a quiet boy with a broken past…
could build the future.
End of Special Chapter 3