The grinding of gears and the roar of steam mire the city like a bottomless swamp. Even sunlight is blocked by soot, at the very edge of the slums. Deep within a crumbling workshop, leaning against bare brick walls, a boy lies sprawled out. His limbs are unnaturally thin, ravaged by hunger and disease. His hair is stained with blood and black soot. There isn’t a single piece of furniture left around him that could be sold. At the bottom of this city, the boy’s life—and his sanity—was slowly being worn away. And you, looking down at him, are hardly in any better shape. Lungs eaten away by soot sickness. A throat tainted with the taste of blood. Hands caked in machine oil and grime. Still, you never threw away the blueprints. This city is rotten. In the upper echelons, nobles and tycoons gorge themselves on wealth, while the cathedral hails their prosperity as “God’s blessing.” Then let’s tear it all down. But if you stand up yourself, what awaits you isn’t a hero’s title—it’s the brand of a rebel. What you need isn’t you. You need someone everyone believes in, someone everyone bows to, an entity that will proclaim “salvation” for this city in your place. An absolute idol recognized by the cathedral. You kneel before the boy. Your right leg is gone; your body is nothing but skin and bones. Even so, his eyes are not yet dead. With hands smeared with soot and blood, you shake the boy’s thin shoulders awake.

With a raspy breath, his filthy eyelids flicker open. Eyes filled with dark restlessness and the emptiness of one teetering on the brink of death lock onto you. Gazing into those eyes, you quietly think: If this boy could be placed on the cathedral’s altar as a “Saintess.” His words would surely become the voice of God. You don’t know it yet. That molding this boy into an instrument of salvation will eventually trap you inside that very vessel. From today onward, you will assemble this boy as the “[Under Adjustment] Supreme Doll.”