Chapter 92: Dante property

"Go ahead." Dante said.

"In the arena." She stopped. "My sword came to you. and your look, you look like a–"

"Yes."

"But the sword, It only answers to royal blood. how did you?..."

"Exactly, when you was saving me, Your blood fell in my mouth. A drop, It unlocked something. That’s how I changed. That’s why the sword came."

Her hands flew up and covered her face. Her shoulders shook. When she lowered them, her eyes shone and her smile was far too wide.

"My blood, It’s inside you right?!"

"Yeah but only a drop and it made me stronger"

"It’s inside you." She grabbed his sleeve with both hands. "Do you want more? Right now, say the word, I’ll bleed for you... Is a cup alright?"

"No, i don’t want anymore."

"But if it’s make you strong –"

"I told you no"

She let go and pouted. Then she looked down at her whip, and her face changed. She bit her lip until a bead of blood showed, and let it drip on the handle.

Fire burst from her fist. The leather twisted and swelled, and the vines fused into a two-handed greatsword, with a guard like a dragon’s open jaws and a blade like a shard of burning blood. She held it out to him, hilt first.

"Use it. It knows you."

"What would you use then?"

She opened her mouth and closed it.

"I’m not taking your weapon and leaving you with nothing."

"I’d manage somehow."

"I know you would." His voice was lower. "That’s why I won’t."

She lowered the sword. The fire went out, and the blade shrank down to a whip in her hands. "Then what will you use?"

He picked up the bent spear. "This."

Suddenly The gate creaked. Gideon came across the lawn with dirt on his foot and a rolled paper in his hand. He looked at Dante, then Esabella, then the whip in her lap, and decided not to ask.

"Found something," he said.

He unrolled the page on the wall between them. It was a ledger, and one line near the bottom was circled in red.

*Locker 7. Contents: S-Rank dimensional ring and weapons. Property of D. Grey. Confiscated.*

Dante stared at the line.

"This–Where?"

"Under Marcus’s penthouse on floor 50. A private vault."

Dante stood up. " I Need go there."

"I’ll come with you," Esabella said.

"No. You and Yenna stay here."

"But..."

"Are you not listening to me ?"

"I–"She closed her mouth. After a moment, she nodded. He tucked the paper into his belt and walked out of the garden without looking back.

Floor 50 was quiet at night. The sky had gone dark, and a few lamps lit the empty avenue. Dante walked down the middle of the road with the plain spear on his shoulder and his hood down. Two guards stood at a corner under a banner of the winged sun. They saw him coming and looked the other way.

He passed the white stone statue without stopping. Fresh flowers lay at its feet.

Marcus’s tower was dark. A few servants stood in the lobby with their hands raised. He didn’t look at them, and none of them spoke.

He took the stairs to the top and put his palm on the gold door.

[Property Seizure.] Then It open.

The penthouse was bigger than he remembered. Gold-trimmed furniture. A bar full of wine nobody had touched. Windows the size of walls, looking out on a painted sky.

He had been here once, years ago, for a party after the squad hit A-rank. He remembered laughing. He walked through without slowing down.

At the end of the main hall stood a glass case against the wall. A funeral notice was inside with his old face on it. Under it was a photograph of five people in front of a dungeon gate. Marcus in the middle, one arm around Elena. Kenneth, Nelon. And on the far end, a little apart, a dark-haired man with a scar and a stiff smile.

Dante looked at that man for a moment. Then he put his palm on the wall beside the case.

[Property Seizure.]

A panel slid aside. A narrow stairway led down into the dark.

The vault was small .Rows of steel lockers lined the walls, each with a brass number. Weapons on racks, labeled in neat handwriting. Dead hunters’ names. Dates.

Two men in crimson capes stood at the far end, guarding the door. They had been dozing. When the stairs creaked, one of them reached for his sword.

"Who’s there?This is lord marcus–"

Dante crossed the floor in four steps. The first man’s blade was half out of the sheath when the spear went through his throat. The second opened his mouth. Dante pulled the spear free and swung the shaft into his jaw, and he hit the wall and slid down. He walked to locker seven.

It opened under his hand.

Inside, on a velvet cloth, lay a black ring with a faded engraving, and two short daggers in worn leather sheaths. One hilt had a nick in the guard, where he’d blocked a boss’s claw on Floor 30.

He picked them up. The balance was perfect. They fit his hands as if they had never left.

He slid the ring on his thumb. The old storage opened in his mind: healing potions, dried rations, a coil of rope, spare cloaks, a bundle of old letters tied with string.

’He kept everything hidden and safe ’

He stood there a long moment. Then he sheathed the daggers and set them behind his belt.

On his way out, he passed the case again. The photograph staying where it had been. He didn’t touch it. He left the vault door open.

Then he reached Floor 54. He stopped at a stall on the way, in a quiet lane near the lift. An old woman in a apron sat behind a pile of red apples. He bought two.

The little house was silent. He opened the door.

Esabella was asleep on the floor of the hall, with her back against the wall and her head on her knees. The whip lay across her lap.

She woke when the door clicked. "You’re back my king." Her eyes went to the daggers at his belt, and the ring on his thumb.

"Those are? Is it your old things?."

"Yes." He crossed the hall and held out an apple.

She looked at it. Then at him. "You brought me something?"

"It’s just an apple, Eat it."

She took it in both hands. She turned it over slowly, and her eyes went bright. She bit into it and chewed. "It’s sweet," she said.

He sat down against the wall beside her and bit into the second one.

By noon, Floor 50 had a new owner. Dante stood in the center of the main square with the black folder open in his palm. Beside him, Gideon leaned on his wooden staff, flanked by two old men who looked like they had been pulled straight out of a scrapyard.

One was Varn, a skinny veteran with an empty left sleeve pinned to his coat and a scarred jaw. The other was Orrin, a broad-shouldered smith whose arms were covered in old burn marks.

"Are you sure about this, kid?" Gideon asked, squinting at the central guild pillar. "Fifty-four floors is a lot of dirt to sweep."