Chapter 55: Deal

Chapter 55: Chapter 55: Deal

He told them he’d start tonight and asked both the earl and viscount to do the same, and the meeting was dismissed.

As he was walking out, he saw him again. The B-rank man was still at the edge of the market, sitting on an upturned crate with his bad arm in his lap. He looked up when Allan stopped in front of him.

"Please, give me some bread," he asked.

Allan took out his purse and removed a golden coin, which already spooked the man before him.

"Here you go," he said, dropping the gold into his hand.

"This..." the man instantly knew something was amiss. "I asked for bread, not money. And please, I don’t take charity colored in noble’s gold."

"It isn’t charity," Allan said, holding out a folded sheet. "It’s actually a contract."

The man read it slowly, lips moving once, then looked up. "What do I owe you if I walk with you, with this?"

"Nothing actually."

"Then what do you get?"

"A man who can still do the thing he’s best at." It was true, and Allan said it plainly. It was also true that in a month the man would have more to lose by leaving than by staying. Allan had priced that in before he offered the paper.

The man huffed, looking around at his fellow adventurers, some working, some begging. He knew this was as good as it gets. So, without further ado, he signed with his good hand.

"Nice doing business with you. Please follow up at my manor in Oakland, where you will be given food, shelter, and money," he said, helping him stand up and leaving another three coins in his palm.

Allan didn’t finish with one. The four on the stable step were harder. The scout, a lean woman with a chipped front tooth, kept her eyes on the bowl. "Does it pay on time?"

"Weekly. Miss one and I owe you double."

"The last one said that."

"The last one didn’t have three houses behind him."

That wasn’t quite true yet. He said it as if it were. Every promise he made that night was real, and every one of them tied the person to him. He didn’t see a way to offer the first without the second, and he didn’t look very hard for one.

It was getting late at night, the night sky dazzling with stars he would never find in his real world. He’d been walking for an hour when he noticed the footsteps. They matched his pace, and when he stopped to read a notice board, they stopped too.

Of course, he had thought maybe it was the cult once more. On another night he’d have doubled back and dealt with it. Tonight his side made that a bad trade. He couldn’t run, and he couldn’t afford a long fight. So he quit trying to lose them. If someone wanted to follow him badly enough, he would choose where it ended.

He turned into an alley narrow enough that two men couldn’t pass shoulder to shoulder. Any other night he’d have liked that.

Tonight he hated it. He went four steps in, put his back to the wall just past the corner, and drew the blade so that the first move would be his and would be enough.

Step!

Step!

Step!

Light footsteps.

A shape rounded the corner. The moment he saw her hand, he took the wrist, turned it, and set the edge against her throat.

Blonde hair. Familiar eyes. He instantly recognized her. The woman from the Hollow Root cave.

"Why are you following me?" he asked, still pressing his knife on her neck.

"Um, yeah. Wanted to say sorry for before and wanted to tell you I live nearby. Was trying to do something like an introduction."

"Should have done earlier instead of following me," he said, pressing the knife harder.

"I’m sorry, I harmed you. Really, you saved my life and I did such things."

Silence...

"My name is Mila," she said. Her voice was steady. "Street 30035. Downtown. I live there. That was all I wanted to say, nothing more," she said, her hands raised.

Allan didn’t lower the blade. "Strange numbers. Are you really serious?"

"That’s what the address is for."

She didn’t flinch when he pressed, but seeing her hands up, he let it go, because the other question mattered more, and he was curious about it.

"So, where is the dragon now?"

"Oh, her. On vacation. She flew off the moment I freed her."

"Huh? Dragons don’t take vacations."

"That’s what she called it. Don’t judge me with that look; I’m just repeating what she said."

"Hmm... Anything else?"

"Hmm, she said something like toward the edge of the world."

"Anything else?"

"No, sorry."

Allan closed his eyes. Of course. This was exactly the kind of thing that happened to him. He remembered the warning: never free the dragon, but he had freed her, and now it had already been broken.

[Investment Target Detected.]

[Target: Mila]

[Potential Return: high]

Allan stared at it. It wasn’t super high, but it was still there. But it also meant another thing: the person before him could be trusted or taken advantage of. That was all he needed to know to sheath his knife.

"So now you’ve apologized, now go."

.....

Allan walked back to the streets when suddenly she held his hand.

"If there’s trouble, I will be in my location. I owe you a debt, and I will repay it, no matter what."

Allan took away his hand and said nothing as he walked out of the alley with the blade still warm in his hand.

As he walked, the analysis crystal glowed; maybe he used it mistakenly. He took it out. The information lay before his eyes.

[Unknown entity]

[Level: 300+]

[No information]

"What the..." Allan quickly looked back where she should have been standing, but she wasn’t there. He looked at the analysis again. He knew what the crystal’s limit was: it could only analyze up to level 300, and the data showed 300+.

A sudden shiver went down his spine as he remembered he had placed a knife at her neck.

Trying to forget what had happened, the way back took longer than the way out, with the wound in his side. He expected an empty hall and time to sit with what he’d set in motion.

The Duke was standing in the middle of the polished floor, calm, with two eight-foot bodyguards behind him. The door closed softly.

Allan had expected to be punished for breaking the order. The Duke didn’t bring it up.

"You went looking for a drink."

Allan said nothing. The Duke glanced at the blood on his collar.

"You found considerably more than one. Sit."

Allan didn’t. The Duke’s mouth curved in the smallest possible smile. Then he gave Allan one piece of information he shouldn’t have had.

"Getting ready to build a new guild, I see. Quite ambitious of you, Lord Oakwood."

Allan didn’t move. He’d told only the viscount and the earl, but here he was, already informed about a talk that just happened an hour ago.

The Duke watched his face, patient, like a man who already knew the answer to a question he hadn’t asked.

"You should be more careful about who you speak to in this city," the Duke said. "So come on, sit. We have a lot to talk about."

Allan gradually sat, though uncomfortably. "So what brought my lord..."

"Viscount Arclight has become rather fortunate lately," he said, cutting him off. The voice carried an almost warm note. Almost fond. "His trade recovered overnight. His son walks again. His daughter has even begun appearing in court." The smile that followed was small but precise. "Quite a remarkable series of coincidences."

Politeness landing colder than any raised voice. The Duke had been watching for weeks and already knew.

They sat quietly for a while as the knight poured wine with mechanical care. While the liquid settled, Allan angled the analysis crystal beneath the edge of the table.

[Level: 157]

That information alone told him everything. That none of it mattered. If this man decided Allan died in the next three seconds, Allan would die before the wine finished settling.

He had survived dungeons, cults, and future calamities, and this was the first time he’d sat across from something that could erase him without effort or regret.

The Duke seemed half-drunk as he spoke of the Empire the way a man speaks of a house he once loved. How it used to reward talent, then became knives and inheritance and quiet slaughter after the last emperor died. Then he looked at Allan with something that wasn’t respect for strength, only recognition of usefulness.

"Let’s get to the point. My daughter, my precious daughter, has been ill for three years. Doctors failed. Their healing conjuncture failed. Priests failed. Mages failed." He lifted his glass. "I had heard the Viscount Arclight’s son suffered the same sickness, but..." He said, looked at Allan.

"After meeting you, for some unknown reason, he was healed, and is now walking around the court proudly." With those words, he drank the rest of his wine, and the knight poured him another glass.

Silence stretched long.

"I see."

"You understand why I’m here," the Duke said.

Of course, he wanted to save his daughter, and Allan knew exactly what the healing had required. But the duke would fall with his drowning status. What he used, or rather what Amelia used, was the Forbidden blood magic. The kind that left stains.

[Investment Opportunity Detected.]

[Target: Duke Leonidus.]

[Investment required: helping him]

[Potential Return: new noble title, 1,000,000 gold, acres of property.]

[Risk: Catastrophic. If the daughter is not healed, Oakwood House would be no more.]

[Investment Condition: Accept or deny]

The return was obviously so very high. That much money and property could give him leverage, leverage for him to reach the second stage to reach his ultimate goal.

He accepted, without hesitation.

"I know what you are talking about, my lord. And I would be happy to help," Allan said.

The Duke smiled, extending his hand for a shake, and so did Allan. The deal now firm.