The silk robes of a Maharaja were heavy, suffocating, and completely useless for what Rudra needed to do next.
In his private chambers, Rudra stripped them off, tossing the gold-threaded turban carelessly onto the massive four-poster bed. He pulled on a rough, simple cotton tunic that smelled faintly of dried herbs and dust.
"You look... common, Highness," Captain Vikram said, standing stiffly by the door. The large man looked distinctly uncomfortable seeing his King dressed like a stable boy.
"Good," Rudra said, fastening a worn leather belt around his waist. "If I walk into the slums wearing gold, they will lie to me. If I walk in looking like this, I will see the truth."
He checked his reflection in the bronze mirror. The nineteen-year-old face staring back was undeniably handsome, but sharp. His eyes didn't look like a teenager's eyes. They held the cold, calculating weight of a CEO who had hostilely acquired Fortune 500 companies and gutted them for parts.
"Let's go, Captain. And keep your sword hidden. We aren't conquering the city today. We are auditing it."
The back streets of Ratnapur were a sensory assault.
The moment they slipped out of the palace's side gate, the smell hit them like a physical wall—open sewage, rotting vegetables, and unwashed bodies. The mid-day heat was oppressive, shimmering in visible waves off the packed dirt roads.
Rudra walked through the maze of collapsing shanties, his face entirely impassive. But inside, his mind was racing, analyzing the extreme poverty like a broken spreadsheet.
Highly inefficient, he thought coldly. Open drainage. Zero grid planning. The labor force is severely malnourished. The disease transmission rate must be nearing forty percent. This isn't a kingdom; it's a graveyard waiting to happen. The ROI on this population is currently negative.
As he walked, a crisp, mechanical chime rang in his mind.
[ SYSTEM ALERT: NEW DAY DETECTED. ]
[ DAILY LOGIN REWARD AVAILABLE. ]
[ SPITE ROULETTE: 1 FREE SPIN. ]
Rudra paused in the shadow of a crumbling brick wall. A daily gacha mechanic?
It was a classic engagement trick. In his old life, he had authorized his dev teams to use these exact psychological loops to keep users addicted to his mobile apps. Now, he was the user.
Spin it, he commanded internally.
A massive, holographic wheel exploded into his vision, entirely invisible to Vikram. It was filled with hundreds of razor-thin slices of varying colors.
* Grey (Trash): A bag of salt, a wooden spoon, a pair of sandals.
* Blue (Common): A box of matches, a steel knife, a compass.
* Gold (Rare): ???
The wheel spun. Lights flashed brightly in his retinas.
Tick... tick... tick...
The needle rapidly slowed down, agonizingly passing a 'Bag of Rice' and landing squarely on a slim Blue slice.
[ Ding! ]
[ ITEM ACQUIRED ]
Tactical Megaphone (Model X-200)
Features:
• 1000W amplifier
• Siren mode
• Solar recharge
With a soft shimmer of light, a heavy, white plastic object materialized directly into Rudra's hand. It had a pistol grip and a bright red trigger.
Vikram jumped back, his hand flying instantly to the hilt of his concealed sword. "Sorcery! Highness, what is that... that white horn?"
Rudra inspected the item, turning it over in his hands. It was a modern, heavy-duty riot-control megaphone. In his previous life, it was a tool used by police to disperse protests. In 1850 India, where the absolute loudest thing on earth was a bronze cannon or a church bell, this was the Voice of God.
"It is a tool of command, Vikram," Rudra said smoothly, clipping it to his belt. "And we are going to need it immediately."
They reached the central square of the slums. It was packed with people, but the mood was heavy with a suffocating, terrified silence.
A crowd of about two hundred emaciated peasants had gathered in a wide circle. They were dead silent, their heads bowed, terrified to even look up.
In the center of the circle sat a man lounging on a plush velvet chair that looked entirely out of place in the dirt.
He was obese, sweating profusely in the oppressive heat, and wearing enough gold jewelry to feed the entire slum for a year. Two massive thugs armed with heavy bamboo lathis—iron-bound clubs—stood behind him, looking bored and incredibly dangerous.
[ TARGET IDENTIFIED ]
[ NAME: Seth Gulab ]
[ OCCUPATION: Moneylender (Unlicensed) ]
[ CRIMES: Usury, Extortion, Slavery. ]
[ ARROGANCE LEVEL: 85% ]
Rudra narrowed his eyes. Target acquired.
At Seth Gulab's feet, a frail old man was groveling in the dirt. Beside the old man, a young woman—his daughter—was weeping silently into her hands.
"Please, Seth-ji," the old man begged, his voice cracking with desperation. "The fever took my eldest son. We could not work the fields. Just one more week. I will pay double interest! I swear it!"
Seth Gulab laughed. It was a wet, ugly, grating sound. He popped a sugary sweet into his mouth and chewed loudly, deliberately taking his time.
"Double interest?" Gulab mocked, spitting a crumb onto the dirt. "Old fool. You already owe me three times the principal. The compound interest on your loan is now five hundred rupees."
The crowd gasped collectively. Five hundred rupees was an unimaginable fortune. A common laborer earned perhaps two rupees a month. It was a debt that could never be paid, not in ten lifetimes of backbreaking labor.
"I... I cannot pay that," the old man whispered, utterly terrified.
"I know," Gulab said, smiling cruelly. He pointed a chubby, ring-covered finger directly at the weeping girl. "But she can work it off. My brothel in the merchant quarter is always looking for fresh faces."
The old man's eyes went wide with horror. He threw his frail body over his daughter protectively. "No! She is barely sixteen! You cannot take her!"
"I can take whatever I want!" Gulab roared, his amusement vanishing. "I have the British Resident's explicit permission to collect my debts! Seize her!"
The two massive thugs stepped forward, grinning menacingly. They raised their iron-bound clubs.
"No!" the old man screamed, desperately grabbing one of the thug's legs.
THWACK.
The thug brought the heavy bamboo stick down hard on the old man's back. The sickening sound of breaking bone echoed sharply through the silent square. The old man collapsed into the dust, screaming in sheer agony.
The crowd flinched violently, but no one moved a muscle. They were too terrified. They had seen this exact scene play out a hundred times. The British didn't care about the slums, and the King was a powerless, bankrupt boy.
"Grab the girl," Gulab ordered, suddenly bored again. "If the old rat makes noise again, break his other arm."
Vikram made a low, guttural growling sound in his throat. "Highness," he whispered, his hand gripping his concealed sword so hard his knuckles were stark white. "Give the order. I will take their heads right now."
Rudra watched the scene unfold. His expression remained terrifyingly cold.
"Not yet, Captain," Rudra said softly. "If you kill him now, the people will just fear you as another monster. They need to see him completely broken first."
Rudra stepped out of the shadows.
He didn't run. He didn't shout. He just walked calmly and deliberately into the center of the circle, the dust swirling lazily around his leather boots.
"That is enough," Rudra said.
His natural voice wasn't loud, but in the terrified silence of the square, it carried clearly.
Seth Gulab paused. He squinted through the heat at the newcomer. He saw a young man in common, dusty clothes. Handsome, yes, but clearly a nobody.
"And who is this?" Gulab sneered, leaning back heavily into his velvet chair. "Another hero? Do you have the five hundred rupees, boy? Or are you just here to volunteer for a beating?"
The thugs turned toward Rudra, laughing cruelly. They towered over him by a full head.
"Get lost, kid," one thug spat, tapping the heavy club rhythmically against his open palm. "Before we break your legs too."
Rudra didn't back down. He didn't even blink. He looked at the towering thug, then shifted his cold gaze to the fat moneylender.
He slowly unclipped the white plastic device from his belt.
"I asked you a question, boy!" Gulab shouted, his fat face turning red with sudden, insulted anger. "Who do you think you are to interrupt my business? I am the law in this slum! I speak for the British Empire!"
Rudra raised the megaphone to his lips. He flipped the power switch on the side.
Click.
He squeezed the red trigger.
"WRONG."
The word exploded out of the 1000-watt amplifier with the devastating force of a physical blow.
It wasn't a human shout. It was a mechanical, distorted, deafening boom that vibrated violently in the chests of everyone in the square. To the peasants, it sounded exactly like an angry god speaking directly from a storm cloud.
Gulab shrieked in absolute terror and fell backward out of his velvet chair, landing hard in the dirt. The thugs dropped their heavy clubs instantly, clamping their hands over their bleeding ears in shock. The crowd screamed, dozens of people falling to their knees and looking frantically up at the sky.
Rudra took a slow step closer, towering over the fallen, trembling moneylender. His thumb hovered over the side of the device. He flipped a second switch:
[ SIREN MODE ].
WHEEP-WHEEP-WHEEP!
The piercing, electronic, oscillating wail of a modern police siren tore through the quiet 19th-century air. It was a sound no human being in history had ever heard before. To them, it sounded like a mechanical demon screaming in pure rage.
Gulab curled into a pathetic ball in the dirt, sobbing uncontrollably in pure, mind-breaking terror. "Demon! Sorcery! Mercy! Have mercy!"
Rudra cut the siren. The sudden silence in the square was deafening. He lowered the megaphone until it was inches from Gulab's sweating, tear-streaked face.
"YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE EMPIRE," Rudra's amplified voice thundered, the bass shaking the very dust from the surrounding rooftops. "I AM THE EMPIRE."