Chapter 672: No Reason

"So you can talk freely now?"

Grey looked at Barkeep Ji, waiting for an answer that never came, though the frog man’s expression didn’t exactly deny it either. That was good enough for Grey, especially after everything the angel lady had just explained about the Genesis System loosening the Council’s grip.

"Then how’d you get stuck here in the first place?"

Ji shrugged. "Pissed off the wrong people. This was the only way to escape."

Grey frowned almost immediately. "Escape? How are you escaping by being trapped here? Don’t they have more control over you here?"

"Yes and no." Ji rested both hands against the counter, looking far more relaxed than Grey had ever seen him while discussing anything remotely personal. "They cannot kill me freely here even if they want to, they can only use those on the outside to force my hand and convince me to present my neck to them."

His jagged smile returned. "But I am not stupid like a certain someone else."

Grey’s thoughts immediately moved to one person. "The spider lady?"

Ji smiled without confirming anything, then lowered his gaze toward the stack of Elemental blueprints sitting between them. Grey waited another moment for him to elaborate before realizing he wasn’t going to, though even that small exchange was more direct than almost anything Ji had ever given him before.

"You can get quite a lot for these at auction," Ji said.

"I don’t have time for an auction."

"Even if it starts tomorrow?" Grey’s eyes blazed.

A grin spread across his face almost instantly.

"Let’s do it."

Ji nodded and pulled the blueprints closer, flipping through the first few pages before arranging them neatly against the counter. "I can slot them in for you, though you should understand that there will be a thirty percent fee deducted from the final sale, so even if these perform as well as you hope, you may not receive enough."

Grey’s grin disappeared.

"Bullshit. Why the hell is it so high?"

"You’re not a reputable Mech Tech."

"Fuck off, if not me then who?"

Ji’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.

"You have never been formally tested."

Grey opened his mouth, then stopped. That was annoyingly true.

He’d spent so much time building things that were apparently supposed to be impossible that he’d never bothered finding someone to hand him a little piece of paper saying he was allowed to do it.

Considering he’d already constructed a Dominus Class mech with one hundred percent Synergistic Accuracy, the idea that Genesis still treated him like some random asshole drawing machines in his basement was insulting.

"If you want certification, you can get it," Ji continued. "There should be someone within one of the cities you now control capable of administering the examination, though you would need to complete it before auction registration closes tomorrow."

Grey narrowed his eyes. "And then?"

"If you are certified as a Dominus Class Mech Tech, you pay a flat entry fee and retain the remainder of the sale. The examination can take quite some time," Ji added. "If you choose this route and fail to finish before registration, the blueprints cannot be entered into tomorrow’s auction."

Grey raised an eyebrow before shaking his head.

"No way it takes me that long. I’ll speed blitz it."

He gathered the blueprints back into his arms, already working through how quickly he could find whoever administered the examination. Every mech he’d encountered lately had only convinced him that the standards everyone else worked with weren’t nearly as impressive as people liked pretending they were, so Grey had a hard time believing the test itself would be what stopped him.

"I’ve seen the shit people call mechs around here anyway, there’s no way their test is that hard."

Ji merely smiled.

Grey turned toward the exit, but another thought made his grin return before he’d even reached it. If these blueprints were about to spread across the Genesis System, he wasn’t just going to sell them anonymously, he was putting his name on the damn things as large as the auction house would allow.

The Elementals were going to know exactly who did this.

Grey stepped out of the Outpost, the wall sealing behind him as he began searching Cyber Space for the nearest city large enough to have a certification center. He hadn’t made it more than a few steps before Virtueless pulsed against his back.

"That man is dangerous."

Grey slowed. The angel lady’s voice was completely serious now.

"I believe he is planning something, and whatever he intends, you have probably helped him a great deal."

Grey frowned, glancing back toward the wall that had already hidden the entrance to Ji’s Outpost.

"Ji’s helped me a lot."

"That does not mean his intentions are good."

Grey continued walking, though his pace had slowed enough that he was actually considering her words rather than brushing them aside. Ji had been suspicious since the first day Grey met him, that much wasn’t news, but he had also been one of the few people Grey could point to who had repeatedly helped him without asking for anything obvious in return.

"I give people the benefit of the doubt until they give me a reason not to."

The angel lady fell silent for long enough that Grey thought the conversation was finished, but her presence remained unusually focused through Virtueless. When she finally spoke again, there was something different in her tone, less like a warning and more like she had decided Grey needed a history lesson.

"There are three warrior Races that have been feared above almost all others during the modern era."

Grey’s attention shifted back toward her.

"The first are the War Heads, the Race your Great Udon belongs to. There are so few of them remaining now that calling them a Race at all is becoming increasingly generous, but there was once a time when even the largest powers avoided provoking them without good reason."

Grey could believe that much easily enough. The Great Udon spent most of his time acting like an oversized floating television host, yet every glimpse Grey had gotten beneath that personality had made it pretty fucking obvious that the thing behind the mask wasn’t harmless.

"The second are the Nullari. Their natural affinity lies with the Void and space. They are not only the most mysterious, they are arguably the most powerful and dangerous as well. No one quite understands where their limits lie, and it’s honestly probably not a good idea for you to try and figure that out. "

Grey’s brows rose slightly.

"And the third?"

"The Mireborn."

Grey’s steps slowed. He looked back toward the sealed entrance of Ji’s Outpost.

"Frog man."

"Yes."

Grey thought back through every interaction he’d had with Ji, from that dangerous little smile the man occasionally gave him to all the strange things he’d managed to imply while supposedly being nothing more than a barkeep trapped behind a counter. Suddenly, the idea that Ji had pissed off the wrong people and hidden inside the Genesis Games sounded considerably less like the story of someone running away.

The angel lady continued before Grey could ask.

"Of those three Races, two still hold places within the Genesis Council. The Nullari are one."

Grey already knew what came next.

"The Mireborn are the other."

Grey’s expression slowly flattened as he looked back at the Outpost, while the implication behind Ji’s situation became considerably uglier. One of the most feared warrior Races of the modern era still had representation on the Genesis Council, yet Ji had somehow ended up hiding inside the very System that Council had spent ages trying to control.

The War Heads were different, their numbers having dwindled so far that whatever position they once held was irrelevant now. Somehow, Grey found the fact that the Great Udon came from the only one of those three Races that had essentially fallen from power about as reassuring as hearing that two loaded guns instead of three were pointed at his head.

"I still think you’re being paranoid," Grey said.

"Perhaps."

The angel lady didn’t sound convinced in the slightest.

"But remember this much, Grey Temolt."

Grey kept walking, though his attention remained on Virtueless.

"No member of a Genesis Race like his ends up in a position like that for no reason. He is certainly planning something. And by now, if not already, those plans certainly involve you."