Chapter 30: [30]: Looting the Ashen Wasteland, The Magnus Contract

[DING!]

[Recovery status update.]

[HP: 35/150 (Regenerating at 1.5/minute)]

[Essence: 4/22 (Regenerating at 1.5/minute)]

[Physical fatigue: HIGH]

[Talent pathway strain: MODERATE]

[Recommendation: Rest. But since you won’t, at least eat something.]

’Thanks for the advice,’ Alvian thought.

The Domain had drained him in ways numbers could not explain. His Talent pathways throbbed with deep pain. The steady hum of Clearwater energy in his blood had dimmed to a faint whisper. The Domain had not just used up his Essence. It had eaten something deeper from his Talent’s core.

But the battlefield left rewards behind.

The mercenaries who died left behind only what was outside their bodies: their spatial rings. The Bloodhounds always carried spatial storage gear as standard professional equipment. The rings survived because they held mini dimensional spaces inside them. The outer metal rings anchored those tiny dimensions, and the Domain could not break down dimensional space easily, just like Pell’s Bone Lance earlier.

Alvian climbed down into the hole. His boots sank slightly into the smooth, glass-like ground. The ground was not wet or soft. It was just wrong, like standing on ground that had forgotten how to be solid.

He knelt and started searching.

The work was disgusting. His hands sank into the gray sludge that used to be human beings. Twenty trained killers had turned into featureless slush. He felt around for small metal circles. Ring after ring came out of the mess. Fourteen in total. The other six were fully destroyed or buried under heavy rocks.

He found a dry spot near the edge of the crater and opened the rings one by one.

[DING!]

[Accessing spatial ring inventory.]

[Ring 1 through 14 contents catalogued.]

Credits. Forty-five thousand in crystallized credit chips. The Bloodhounds had been well-paid. Magitech blueprints. Three schematics for upgrades including inner armor plating, sensor blockers, and Essence boosters. Worth a fortune on the black market. Weapons. Six magitech rifles with heavy rounds, four combat knives with super-sharp edges, and one heavy shoulder-fired magitech cannon. Illegal items. Two portable Rift-lure devices, one set of Essence-blocking cuffs, and a bottle of unmarked black liquid.

[Item analysis: Unmarked vial.]

[Contents: Unknown.]

[Probability assessment: Void-Marrow or similar contraband (78% confidence).]

[Warning: Do not drink, sniff, or use as seasoning.]

’I wasn’t planning to,’ Alvian thought.

Then he found the contract.

A sealed envelope made of physical paper, not digital data, so it could not be tracked through normal channels. He opened it with shaking hands and read it.

The text was formal and legal. It named Alvian Vance as the target, set the reward at fifty thousand credits, and ordered the attack in the Undercity with no survivors and no evidence left behind. The signature at the bottom belonged to Duke Gaius Magnus, written in the heavy style of a powerful man who signed documents every day.

But the official stamp surprised him most.

Guild Magistrate Hollis Thorne.

A Guild magistrate had approved an assassination contract against an Academy student. The corruption went beyond Duke Magnus. It was everywhere. The Guild itself had approved a hit on a sixteen-year-old kid from the Undercity.

Alvian stared at the paper. His fear and tiredness vanished, replaced by a cold, clean, and dangerous calm.

’Proof,’ he thought. ’Not just against Magnus, but against the whole corrupt system.’

He tucked the contract away carefully. Evidence. More importantly, leverage.

[DING!]

[Inventory updated.]

[14× Spatial Rings (contents transferred)]

[1× Assassination Contract (Physical Evidence)]

[Item note: Physical evidence is only useful if presented to someone who cares. Consider your audience carefully.]

Griff Maddox and Pell Ossuary were still alive.

Griff was knocked out against the tunnel wall, bleeding slowly from his missing fingers. His cybernetic body tried to heal itself. Pell was awake, holding her melted arm, her face pale with shock and pain. She looked at Alvian like a hunter that had become the hunted.

Alvian knelt in front of her. The gray sludge of her team soaked into his pants at the knee.

"Who hired you besides Magnus?"

Pell spat at him. The spit hit his jacket and burned a small hole in the fabric. Residual Clearwater energy was still clinging to him, and she grew even paler.

"You are not human," she whispered.

Alvian ignored her statement. "The contract says Magnus. But the official stamp belongs to Guild Magistrate Hollis Thorne. Who else is involved?"

Pell shook her head. "I don’t know. We get contracts through middle-men. I’ve never met Magnus."

She was telling the truth. Her eyes were wide, and her breathing was too fast for someone lying under this kind of pressure.

He stood up. His legs hurt badly. Everything hurt. But he had to keep moving.

He left them alive.

Not out of kindness, but strategy.

A dead mercenary sends a simple message, but a living, broken mercenary tells a story. Griff and Pell would go back to their network and describe what happened. The story of an E-Rank student destroying twenty Level 30-plus mercenaries with a single Skill would spread fast through the underworld.

No one else would accept a job to kill Alvian Vance.

Pell watched him turn to leave. "What are you?"

Alvian stopped at the edge of the hole without looking back.

"Someone you should never have been hired to kill."

He climbed out of the crater and started the long walk toward the surface. Fourteen spatial rings sat heavy in his pockets: forty-five thousand credits, magitech blueprints, weapons, and a paper signed by a Duke with a Guild stamp.

The Undercity’s thirteenth level was quiet when he reached the maintenance tunnels. The usual scavengers were gone. Word had not spread yet about the deep tunnels, but the ground shake from his Domain had been felt across several levels. People were hiding inside.

Hendricks Cole was not hiding.

The dealer with cybernetic eyes was waiting at his shipping container shop, his blue artificial eye spinning fast. His face was pale.

"The thirteenth level shook last night," Hendricks said in a tight voice. "Sensors recorded an earthquake like a Rank 4 dimensional rift, but there’s no Rift here." His glowing eye stared at Alvian. "What did you do?"

Alvian did not answer. He pulled twelve Sludge Crawler cores out of his pocket from his earlier hunt in the tunnels and set them on the counter.

"Credits. Now."

Hendricks paid without arguing. Two hundred forty credits for twelve Rank 2 cores. He paid extra, and both of them knew it. The extra money was to buy silence. Hendricks did not want to know what happened underground.

Alvian counted his money. The Bloodhound rings and core sales added up to about forty-five thousand two hundred forty credits.

He had one more place to go before going home.

The Undercity’s illegal black-market shop operated behind a noodle shop on the fourteenth level. Wendell Pike was a thin man with losing hair and chemical stains on his fingers. He was a former Academy dropout who learned basic alchemy before quitting.

"I need a High-Grade VIT Restoration Potion," Alvian said.

Wendell looked up from his work table. He was shocked by Alvian’s appearance: covered in blood, hollow-eyed, smelling like acid and emptiness.

"Level 30-plus grade?" Wendell asked. "That costs five hundred credits. You look like you need it yourself."

"Not for me."

Wendell asked no more questions. He pulled out a small glass bottle filled with thick gold liquid. Alvian paid and left.

The walk to Tobias Finch’s scrap house took twenty minutes through hidden pathways. His legs trembled by the time he got there. His Essence was up to eight points, and his HP was fifty-five. Better, but still weak.

Three knocks. The door opened.

Tobias’s metal arm sparked once, then stopped moving when he saw Alvian’s condition.

"Martha," Alvian said. "How is she?"

"Sleeping. Breathing better than yesterday." Tobias stepped aside. "What happened to you?"

Alvian entered the house. Martha lay on the work table, her breathing slow but steady. Leo was asleep next to her, holding a piece of charcoal in his fingers. On the wall above them was a new drawing of a stick figure with a glowing sword standing in front of a castle.

Alvian knelt beside Martha and opened the VIT potion. The gold liquid sparkled.

"Martha. Wake up."

Her eyes opened slowly. Cloudy and tired, but alive.

"Drink this."

She drank it. The results showed in minutes. The gray crystal spots on her fingers became softer, their edges blurring. The potion could not heal her completely, but it boosted her VIT stat, making her body stronger to slow down the disease. Her breathing grew deeper, and she slept peacefully.

Alvian sat on the floor, leaning against the work table. Tobias sat down in a chair across from him.

"Tell me," Tobias said.

Alvian explained everything, except for the System and the S-Rank Domain. He told him about the Bloodhounds, the fight, and the contract.

Tobias listened without speaking. When Alvian finished, the old scavenger looked at his metal arm for a long moment.

"Gaius Magnus is not a man you back into a corner," Tobias said quietly. "He is a man you must destroy. If you leave him alive, he will keep sending killers until one succeeds." He looked at Alvian. "You have power now, kid. But power without a plan is useless. What is your next move?"

Alvian pulled out the Magnus contract. The paper was slightly damp, but the signature and stamp were easy to read.

"I have proof of his hit order. If I bring this to the Academy..."

"The Academy will hide it," Tobias cut in. "Magnus pays for half their budget. The Chancellor will not fight him over a piece of paper."

He tapped his metal arm. The metal fingers clicked together.

"I know how these leaders act. When I was a delver, I found proof that a Guild official sold Rift locations to bandits. I reported it. Three days later, my team was sent into a Rift that accidentally collapsed." His voice went cold. "I lost my arm. I lost my team. The corrupt official got promoted."

The room went quiet. Leo moved in his sleep, talking about swords.

Alvian thought about this. The official system was useless. He could not use the contract in court, but he could use it to guide his own actions. If the laws would not keep him safe, he would protect himself. The contract was his permission to fight back.

"I need to get much stronger than I am now," Alvian said softly.

Tobias gave him a sharp look. "Stronger than what? You just killed twenty Bloodhounds."

Alvian did not answer. Tobias’s metal arm sparked again. He stood up, walked around, and sat back down.

"I don’t know what you have become, kid. But I know this: if Magnus finds out before you are ready, he will throw everything at you. Not just mercenaries, but armies, political power, Academy expulsion, and arrest orders."

Alvian nodded. "Then I must be ready before he finds out."

He stood up. His legs felt firmer. His Essence was back up to twelve. Still low, but enough to move around.

"I need to speak with Serah."