A sound went through the Arena like a coin dropped into a deep well. Not one voice, but thousands of small breaths caught at once.
Greed flashed in the crowd's eyes. Tiberius and Eldric saw it in widening pupils, in hands tightening on sleeves, in the way men leaned forward as if that alone might turn a false claim into a substantial compensation.
Then the flash cooled. Common sense took the heat out of it. People remembered there was no such thing as free money without a hook.
They remembered names like Contractcrown, and they remembered what happened to those who treated powerful men like open purses.
Over eleven large underground factions. Seventy-two medium ones.
Uprooted in one day by the Cooperation of Radeon Terraces and Contractcrown of Plunder Alp.
Numbers too big to feel real until the chains outside answered them.
The truly victimized did not look greedy. They looked hollow.
Then they looked like they were allowed to breathe again.
