Chapter 89: A Simple Proposition
They didn't take me to an opulent office. They took me to a smaller, windowless room adjacent to the cells. It smelled of old blood and damp stone. A single, guttering torch cast long, dancing shadows. There was a table and two chairs. This wasn't for a meeting of minds; this was for breaking them.
Silas Vane sat in one chair, his boots propped up on the table. He was still in his fine clothes, a stark contrast to the grim surroundings. He watched as his men shoved me into the chair opposite him. The door slammed shut, leaving us alone.
For a long moment, he just looked at me, that easy, infuriating grin plastered on his face. He was sizing me up, the way a pit-fighter sizes up a new opponent.
"Quite the mess you made of my men," he said finally, his voice conversational. "Broke one's sternum. Pulverized another's wrist. And that little… flashbang trick you pulled. Not mana. I know mana. So what was it?"
I stayed silent, my face a blank mask. My mind was a vault. He got nothing.
He chuckled, not offended. "Fine. Keep your secrets. For now." He swung his boots off the table and leaned forward, the grin never slipping. "Here's the thing, Kaizen. I'm a businessman. I see talent. And you? You've got talent. A mean right hook and a nasty surprise up your sleeve."
He gestured vaguely around the room. "This? The kidnapping? It's just business. A way to get your attention. See, Evander… he's old money. He thinks with ledgers and political favors. He sees your little picture-book project and thinks 'Oh, what a charming diversion for the nobility.'"
His voice dripped with scorn. "He doesn't get it. I do. I saw that drawing. The monster. It wasn't pretty. It was raw. It was powerful. That's not art for some stuffy noble's gallery. That's the kind of thing that gets a crowd roaring. That makes men bet their last copper. That's entertainment."
He was painting a picture, but it was a crude one, based on what he could see from the outside. He saw a weapon and a spectacle, not a story.
"I run this city," he stated, his voice dropping, losing its playful edge. "Not Evander. Not the city watch. Me. The fighting pits, the gambling dens, the taverns… it all answers to me. I control what people see, what they do, how they spend their coin. And your project… it's a threat to that. Or," he paused, letting the word hang in the air, "it's the biggest opportunity I've seen in years."
He leaned even closer, his eyes gleaming in the torchlight. "So here's my proposition. You ditch the rabbit and the stuck-up artist. You come work for me. You and your… talents. We'll make your picture books, but we'll make them right. We'll sell them in my dens. We'll put the stories on the walls before a big fight. We'll create heroes people can bet on. We'll make a fortune."
He was offering me a cage, just like Evander. But his cage was made of blood and sawdust instead of silk and politics.
"And if I say no?" I asked, my voice low.
His grin widened, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Then you're a problem. And I deal with problems. Your friends in the cell become a liability. The artist and her fancy quill become my property, one way or another. And you…" He shrugged. "Let's just say the fighting pits are always looking for new talent with a mean streak. It'd be a waste, but business is business."
He was laying It out in the simplest terms he knew: join him, or be broken and used for parts. There was no grand conspiracy in his speech, no talk of conceptual weapons or capital backers. To him, this was a turf war over a new, profitable product.
"I need to know my people are alive," I said, stalling, trying to think.
"Of course," Silas said, as if it were the most reasonable request in the world. He stood up and walked to the door, rapping on it twice. It opened a crack. "Bring the woman. The guard."
A few moments later, two of his thugs half-dragged, half-carried Briza into the room. She was pale, sweating, her body still weak from the potion's backlash. But her eyes blazed with pure, undiluted hatred as they landed on Silas. She saw me, and a flicker of something else, despair, maybe crossed her face before the mask of defiance slammed back down.
"See?" Silas said cheerfully. "Alive. A little worse for wear, but alive. The rabbit's fine, too. Scared, but fine. Their continued health is entirely up to you."
He gestured, and the thugs dragged Briza away. Her glare was the last thing I saw before the door closed.
"So," Silas said, turning back to me. "What's it going to be, Kaizen? Are you going to be smart? Or are you going to be stubborn?"
He thought it was a simple choice. Join his empire or be crushed by it. He saw the power in my fists and the potential in the manga, but he was blind to everything else. He didn't know about the System. He didn't know about my mission. He didn't know that I had already survived worse hells than his fighting pit.
He was just anotherr monster in a long line of monsters. And I was getting very, very tired of monsters.
I looked at him, at his smug, confident face, and I knew one thing for certain. I wasn't joining him. And I wasn't dying here.
The "how" was still a terrifying blank. But the "no" was absolute.
He was just another monster in a long line of monsters. And I was getting very, very tired of monsters.
I looked at him, at his smug, confident face, and I knew one thing for certain. I wasn't joining him. And I wasn't dying here.
The "how" was still a terrifying blank. But the "no" was absolute. I opened my mouth, ready to tell him exactly where he could shove his proposition, consequences be damned.
And then the world froze.
Not literally. Silas was still there, leaning forward expectantly, the torch still flickering. But superimposed over his face, burning with a cold, blue urgency, was a notification I had been dreading and, in a strange way, waiting for.
***---***
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[MISSION 3: UNLOCKED]
[TITLE: THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE]
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: ???]
[SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: ???]
[REWARDS: ???]
[INITIATION: PENDING…]
***---***
My breath caught in my throat. The Philosopher's Stone? What the hell did that mean? It sounded like some alchemical bullshit, not a survival mission. And all the objectives were blank. A complete unknown. Just a cryptic title hanging over me like a guillotine.
For a fraction of a second, my focus shattered. The grim reality of the cell, Silas's looming presence, the fate of Laron and Briza, it all blurred behind that terrifying, enigmatic text.
Silas saw it. He saw the flicker in my eyes, the way my jaw tightened on words I never spoke. His grin widened, mistaking my shock for hesitation.
"See?" he said, his voice a low, confident purr. "You're thinking about it. That's smart. That's the first step."
I barely heard him. My mind was screaming. Not now. Not fucking now. I had a snake to deal with, and the System had just dropped a damn dragon on my head. The 24.5% survival chance felt like a generous overestimation.
I forced my eyes to focus back on Silas, to push the blue text to the edge of my vision. The mission was pending. I had a little time. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. But my clock was no longer just ticking down to Briza and Laron being dismembered. It was ticking down to… whatever fresh hell the System had designed for me.
The stakes had just been multiplied by infinity.
I looked at Silas Vane, this small-time king of a filthy pit, and I almost felt sorry for him. He thought he was the biggest predator in the room. He had no idea what was circling overhead.
I closed my mouth, letting the defiance drain from my face, replacing it with a calculated, weary resignation. I couldn't fight a war on two fronts. I had to survive the next five minutes before I could even think about surviving the next mission.
"Alright," I said, the word tasting like ash. "Let's talk."
Silas's smile was triumphant. He thought he'd won.
But as he started laying out his crude plans for my future, all I could see was the blood-red text of the mission title burning in my mind.
The Philosopher's Stone.
And all I could think was, What the fuck?
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