The silence in the alley was thick enough to chew, but Kaito didn't lower the gun, not even an inch, because the man in silver wasn't just another city patrol or street rat in costume, the way he carried himself screamed trained killer, the kind of aura you only picked up after years of sanctioned murder wrapped in holy law, and that was exactly what Kaito had hoped to avoid this early in his new life, but here it was anyway, packaged neatly in robes that glowed faintly with the Church's divine mark and a face hidden behind a polished half-mask that left only the eyes visible—cold, calculating, and quietly amused.
"You're quicker than the last one," the man said, his voice smooth and unhurried, like this wasn't the first time someone had pointed a weapon at him, "Most assassins drop the moment they hear the word 'Church.'"
"Most assassins don't carry guns," Kaito replied, thumb easing over the safety, "And I don't drop, I double-tap."
Lilyeth said nothing, but she moved a step behind Kaito, slipping her hand toward the dagger strapped to her thigh, and the motion wasn't lost on the silver-robed man, who raised a single hand in mock surrender but didn't stop smiling behind the mask, as if all of this was nothing more than theater, a prelude to something bigger, something inevitable.
"Relax," he said, "If I wanted you dead, we wouldn't be talking—I came to deliver an invitation."
"Invitation to what?" Kaito asked, though he already knew this would be one of those 'say yes or die' kind of offers.
"The Church's Bureau of Internal Sanction," the man said, pulling a wax-sealed envelope from inside his robes and tossing it at Kaito's feet, "They know you killed Vellian. They know the gun isn't enchanted. And they know you're not from this continent, maybe not even this world."
Kaito didn't flinch, but inside his brain a thousand thoughts fired at once, because if the Church knew that much already, it meant his magic signature was being tracked, or worse, someone had reported his ammo crafting ritual from earlier, and that meant the underground workshop idea needed to happen fast.
"Let me guess," he said slowly, "I come with you, you keep this little secret between us, I don't, and the Church drops my head into a purification chamber."
"No," the man replied, eyes narrowing slightly, "You don't come with me. You stay here. We want to see how far you go before the world notices you. You're not an enemy yet. But someone like you never stays neutral for long."
With that, the masked man turned and vanished down the alley, melting into the shadows like he'd never been there, and the moment he was gone, Lilyeth finally exhaled, leaning against the damp stone wall with her arms crossed tight and voice low.
"That wasn't a warning. That was a leash."
"I know," Kaito muttered, staring at the envelope on the ground, "But if they're waiting to see what I'll build, then I better make sure it scares them."
She looked at him for a long second, then said, "So, what's the next move?"
Kaito picked up the envelope but didn't open it, just tucked it into his jacket and turned toward the market district, eyes cold with calculation.
"We start a business," he said flatly, "Something small, something legal on the surface, something no one would suspect of hiding bullets under floorboards."
"Like what?"
"Clockwork repairs," he replied with a smirk, "Everybody's got a broken watch, nobody checks the basement."
"And you're going to craft ammunition in the basement of a fake clock shop?" Lilyeth asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Exactly," Kaito said, starting to walk, "Because the best way to kill a system is to build something inside it that they never see coming."
She followed without argument, and just like that, the assassin route began not with blood, but with blueprints and a front desk, because even in a world of swords and spells, the most dangerous weapon was the one that rang up customers while designing revolutions in the backroom.
The clock shop was a mess, not the cozy, polished kind of mess that came with generations of careful repairs and ticking nostalgia, but the kind that reeked of abandonment, dust caking every gear, rust coating the tools, and a heavy silence hanging over it all like time itself had simply walked out the door and never come back, which made it perfect, Kaito thought, as he stepped over a fallen pendulum case and looked around with the eyes of someone who saw not what was, but what could be, because in a world where magic ruled and blades decided justice, no one would ever suspect a killer hiding behind minute hands and cuckoo bird doors.
"You're actually serious about this," Lilyeth said from behind him, brushing dust off a shelf with the back of her hand while glancing warily at the broken grandfather clock leaning drunkenly in the corner, "This place is a graveyard for clocks."
"Exactly," Kaito replied, flipping open a trapdoor half-hidden under a shaggy old rug, revealing a narrow staircase spiraling into darkness, "Which means it's cheap, cursed, and nobody wants it—just my type."
She gave him a look but followed anyway, boots echoing as they descended into the basement, which smelled like mold, burnt oil, and possibly rat urine, but had sturdy walls, thick stone foundations, and just enough room to install an ammo press, a storage shelf, a forge table, and whatever else he needed to operate quietly and off-record, because if he was going to survive this kingdom and climb above it, he needed more than a gun—he needed infrastructure.
"You're not just trying to hide," she said after a while, leaning against the wall while he paced the basement and drew imaginary blueprints in the air, "You're building something."
Kaito nodded, setting down his pack and pulling out a folded piece of paper that wasn't from this world, a surviving scrap of old tech schematic from his Earth days, and while it wasn't much, it reminded him of what precision looked like, what automation felt like, what a trigger meant when it connected ideas to consequences, and he wasn't going to waste that just killing nobles in alleys for silver coins.
"If I want bullets," he said, unfolding the schematic and laying it on a dusty crate, "I need materials, a safe zone, and enough coin to not get arrested for every little noise I make."
"And if you want coin?" she asked, arms still crossed.
"I sell lies," he said, grinning, "I take broken clocks, fix two, fake ten, and flip them to nobles who think they're buying ancient relics with time-lock enchantments, meanwhile, the floor underneath is building Inferno Rounds and Hollow Curse shells."
Lilyeth blinked, then laughed, an actual laugh, short and sharp and tinged with disbelief, "That's either genius or completely insane."
"Why not both?" he said, brushing his hand along the wall to check for hollow spots, "I'll even toss in a free tune-up for every assassin who buys in bulk."
"And what's my role in this scam business workshop crime guild operation?"
"You're the face," he said, "People trust elves. Especially when they wear clean gloves and say things like 'our founder believed in harmony between magic and mechanisms.'"
She blinked again, clearly unprepared for just how far he'd thought this through, but also clearly entertained by the lunacy of it, because in a kingdom where everyone played swords and sorcery, building an empire out of gears and gunfire was just too stupid not to work.
Just then, the trapdoor creaked open above them, followed by slow footsteps, one pair heavier than the other, and Kaito immediately moved to the side of the staircase, one hand on his holstered weapon, because their first customer had arrived, and judging by the sharp breathing and faint jingle of coin purse, it wasn't just some curious local looking for a timepiece, it was someone with a request that couldn't be made in daylight.
"Your shop open?" a gruff voice called down.
Kaito smiled darkly, pulling his scarf up to cover the lower half of his face.
"Just in time," he muttered, "Business hours begin now."
The first customer wasn't what Kaito expected, not a bandit or assassin or thug with blood on his hands, but a short old woman with six rings on each finger and a hunched back that carried the weight of decades of hoarded gossip, she stepped into the dusty corner stall that Kaito had rented behind the blacksmith's guild, sniffed the air once, then pointed at the little glass orb on the shelf that glowed faintly blue, and with a voice that sounded like a squeaky chair leg asked, "Is this one of those Frost Charms? The ones that numb monster wounds instantly?"
Kaito, who had just been fine-tuning his makeshift workbench behind the counter, blinked once, then twice, then remembered the exact label he had slapped on the bullet case, "Ah, yes, that's our Cold Seal Charm," he said with a smile that tried to look mysterious but mostly looked like he was suppressing a cough, "crystallized ether layered over a compressed mana core, excellent for frostbite hexes, or emergency wound sealing, just toss and press, no incantation needed."
The old woman nodded, reached into her robe, and slapped down a small leather pouch that clinked with silver, "I'll take three," she said, and Kaito didn't ask what an elderly herbalist needed freeze-bombs for, because silver was silver and ammo was ammo, and right now he was one mana crystal away from having to sleep on a park bench again.
Once she left, Lilyeth peeked through the curtain in the back, arms crossed and eyes skeptical, "You really sold a bullet as a charm," she said, though her tone wasn't judgmental, just impressed and mildly disturbed, "I watched you craft that, it's a Frostbite Round, right? For your gun. You're selling literal ammo as if it's alchemy."
"Marketing," Kaito said simply, lifting another polished round and setting it on a velvet pad beneath a fake runestone label, "To me it's ammo, to them it's a relic, a seal, a capsule, whatever buzzword gets their money moving, nobody here knows what a cartridge even is, and I'm not stupid enough to let them find out."
She narrowed her eyes, stepped closer, and poked the wooden shelf where his lineup of "charms" sat, each one gleaming in glass tubes or steel tins with fancy names like Witchbane Capsule, Thundermark Bead, and Cursebreaker Spark, "You're running an illegal potion stand that's actually a bullet factory."
Kaito smirked and holstered his pistol inside his cloak, "Exactly," he said, "and it's working."
But before they could pat themselves on the back for their criminal genius, a knock came from the door—not the front entrance, but the hidden side panel that led into the alleyway—and Kaito's eyes sharpened, because only people who knew the real business ever used that route, he motioned Lilyeth to stay behind the curtain, slid his fingers toward the hidden switch under the counter, then opened the panel just a crack, enough to see the glint of chainmail under a brown cloak and the face of a man whose smile was too clean for the slums.
The man held up a silver medallion, marked with a crest Kaito didn't recognize but Lilyeth clearly did, because the moment she peeked out, she whispered sharply, "That's a royal investigator's seal, he's from the Queen's Shadow Court," and suddenly the fake store didn't feel very secure anymore.
Kaito stared at the man who stood calmly outside the threshold, and in that single breath, realized the charm-selling operation might've attracted more than just bored adventurers and reckless mercenaries, because now someone from the palace was knocking, and no one from the palace came slumming in back-alley stalls unless they wanted something that couldn't be bought with gold or asked for politely.
The man's smile didn't change, "Apologies for the intrusion," he said smoothly, "I'm looking for a man who sells miracles in glass, cold fire, thunder in a bottle, cursed light, I was told he works here under the name Arin the Alchemist."
Kaito didn't respond, not yet, because his mind was already moving, calculating escape routes, scanning the man's boots for weapons, measuring the rhythm of his speech for lies, but what struck him most was what he said last, because Arin the Alchemist wasn't a name Kaito had ever used—but it was the fake alias stamped on the labels of every bullet he had sold so far.
And that could only mean one thing.
Someone had been watching. Someone had connected the dots.
And now the palace wanted in.