His thoughts, spiraling down this dark and luminous path, arrived at the inevitable, terrifying question.
"Does that mean there is a God, too?"
The words were a whisper on the morning air, a heresy and a plea all at once. The existence of a soul suggested a creator, a source, an architect for this impossible multiverse.
But almost immediately, his cynicism, tempered by the new, horrifying scale of reality, fought back.
*Well, that can't be possible in a universe filled with planet busters.*
The logic was chillingly simple. What kind of god would create beings that could unmake its creation? What omnipotent architect would design a sandcastle and then hand out tactical nukes to the children playing inside? It made no sense. Unless... unless God was absent. Or indifferent. Or perhaps "God" was just a label they gave to the first, most powerful of these planet-busting entities. A natural, if terrifying, part of the cosmic food chain.
He accessed Elias's scholarly memories, the basic astronomical knowledge of Caligurn. The planet was a super-Earth, a behemoth with roughly fifty times the mass and ten times the diameter of his old home. The gravity was stronger, the air denser, the very scale of everything was grander. The kinetic energy required to overcome this world's gravitational binding energy was staggering. It was orders of magnitude beyond what would be needed to shatter Earth.
A being that could destroy this place... his mind, trained to comprehend scale, struggled. *They could unironically blow up Jupiter... well, maybe not since Jupiter is still larger, but... the fact that it's even a consideration...*
The sheer, unadulterated power was incomprehensible. It wasn't magic as he'd started to understand it—a precise engineering of energy. This was raw, cosmic force. The ability to not just paint on the canvas of reality, but to tear the canvas itself to shreds.
And as this terrifying new scale of the world settled into his bones, a cold, hard, strategic realization dawned. Ambition was one thing. Survival was another.
He looked at his hands, the vessels of his nascent power. He thought of Sylvaine, the "Mana Codex," who considered herself a small fish. He was, by comparison, a plankton. A single, ambitious plankton in an ocean teeming with leviathans.
A grim, determined smile touched his lips. The corporate recruiter in him, the strategist, knew one fundamental truth about navigating hostile environments. You don't face them alone.
*I need allies,* he thought, the concept crystallizing with perfect clarity. Not employees. Not contacts. Combat allies. Partners. He needed to find others—the powerful, the desperate, the uniquely skilled—and bind them to his cause. He needed to build more than a merchant empire. He needed to build a faction. A guild of his own, not for profit, but for power. For survival in a universe that was clearly, terrifyingly, not friendly.
The path was no longer just about personal mastery or atonement. It was a galactic-scale game of chess, and he had just learned the board was infinitely larger, and the other players could flip the table at will. He needed to find his knights, his bishops, and his queens. And he needed to do it fast.
***
The scene shifted from Joshey's existential crisis to the quiet, dusty streets of a less-traveled district of Oakhaven. Lucia stood frozen, her knuckles white as she clutched a crumpled piece of parchment. The address, meticulously copied from a guild ledger she'd… accessed… had led her here: The Weary Traveler Inn.
But there was no inn. Not anymore. The sign hung askew, the windows were boarded up, and the door was sealed with a heavy chain and a rusted Guild lock. The air smelled of rot and neglect.
A cold, familiar dread pooled in her stomach. She wasn't surprised. Not really.
"Why," she whispered, her voice a low, pained breath in the silence. "Why do you always play these games with me, Ani-ue?"
The honorific, meant for an older brother, tasted like ash. He was always one step ahead, a ghost leading her on a chase that always ended in emptiness. She lowered her head, a wave of frustration and helplessness washing over her. Who could she even ask? He had no friends, no real ties. He was a shadow.
"Excuse me, miss?"
Lucia's head snapped up, her hand instinctively drifting to the hilt of her shinobigatana. An old woman was peering at her from the doorway of a neighboring bakery, her face wrinkled with curiosity.
"You lookin' for someone?" the woman asked, wiping flour-dusted hands on her apron.
Lucia forced her posture to relax. "A man. He was supposed to be staying here." She held up the parchment, her voice carefully neutral.
"Oh! The loud one? Dark hair, lively eyes? Likes to talk?" the baker said, her face lighting up with recognition before clouding over with pity. "Sweetheart, this place was sold up and closed over a month ago. Your friend… he wasn't just staying here. Old Man Harlow, the previous owner, took him in as a helper. Felt sorry for him."
The baker gestured for Lucia to come closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "It's a sad story. The man—your friend—got into some bad business. High-stakes dice game down at the Siren's Call. Lost more than he had. A lot more."
Lucia's blood ran cold. She could smell it now, beneath the scent of fresh bread—the lingering, sour tang of the baker's pity and the unspoken tragedy.
"He owed money to the wrong people," the baker continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Viggo's crew. Nasty bunch. When he couldn't pay, they came for him. Took him. Said his debt would be worked off. Old Man Harlow tried to stop them, but what could he do? They broke his spirit. He sold the inn and left town not long after."
The words landed like physical blows. Debt. Worked off. There was only one form of "work" for a debtor in this part of the city.
Her brother wasn't just missing. He was indentured. He was about to be traded as a slave.
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. The fierce, independent warrior who could silence a room with her presence felt like a little girl again, powerless to stop the cruel machinations of the world. The Clan of Swords meant nothing here. Her skill with a blade was useless. You couldn't cut a man free from a legal—or illegally enforced—debt. Not without starting a war she couldn't finish alone.
The baker, seeing the color drain from Lucia's face, patted her arm awkwardly. "I'm sorry, dear. Truly. Viggo's holding his… 'assets'… in the old granary down by the western docks. But you don't want to go there. It's a den of vipers."
Lucia didn't hear the warning. Her mind was already racing, calculating, and finding no viable solution. She had coin, but not nearly enough to buy out a significant debt from a criminal lord. She had no connections, no influence in this city. She was utterly, completely alone.
And then, a single, clear memory surfaced through the panic. That warm diner. A kind, impossibly powerful woman with silver eyes who had seen past her hood and called her "cute." A woman who had commanded the very room with a quiet authority that felt both gentle and unshakable.
Without another word to the baker, Lucia turned on her heel. Her path was set, her desperation forging a single, desperate purpose. She moved through the streets with renewed speed, her cloak flowing behind her.
She didn't know if it would work. She had nothing to offer but a story and a plea. But she had to try.
She was going to see Sylvaine.
***
The frantic rhythm of Lucia's heartbeat was a drum against her ribs, a stark contrast to the usual serene stillness she cultivated. The world had narrowed to a single, desperate vector: find Sylvaine. The elf's unshakable calm and latent power were the only sanctuary her panicked mind could conjure. Her feet, trained for silent steps, now slapped against the cobblestones in a betraying tattoo of haste.
As she cut through a narrow alley—a shortcut she'd mentally mapped on her first day—a familiar presence registered at the very edge of her heightened perception. It was the same clean, focused scent from before, the man from the market. Elias.
She tried to adjust her trajectory, but her speed was too great. She brushed against his shoulder, the contact sending a jolt through her system. She stumbled back, her balance perfect but her composure fractured.
Joshey, pulled from his deep contemplation of multiversal physics and mana-field theory, steadied himself. His eyes, sharp and analytical, took her in instantly. The pale, drawn face. The wide, grey eyes usually so cool, now shimmering with unchecked alarm. The scent—ah, the scent. His newly synchronized senses parsed it effortlessly: the bitter, coppery tang of pure fear, laced with the sour vinegar of desperation.
"Lucia?" he said, his voice a low, steadying baritone. "You seem… distressed."
"I— Apologies. I must go," she managed, her voice tight, trying to sidestep him. The secret was a burning coal in her chest. To speak it aloud would make it real, and the reality was too terrible to bear. "I need to speak to someone about the granary, I have something important to do there."
Joshey shifted his weight, a subtle, non-threatening movement that nevertheless blocked her path. His gaze was not intrusive, but deeply perceptive. "The nature of your urgency… it carries a specific frequency. Is this related to a certain individual who deals in… ill-gotten assets?" He kept his words vague, diplomatic. "A man named Viggo, perhaps?"
Lucia froze. Her breath hitched. How could he possibly know? The shock was a cold splash of water, momentarily dousing the panic.
«Her emotional output just spiked,» Elias noted, his mental voice clinical. «The name 'Viggo' is a key. His operations are well-known. The western granary. But her approach is emotionally compromised. The probability of a successful, non-violent resolution is negligible.»
*Negligible for her, perhaps,* Joshey thought back, his own resolve crystallizing. *But for us, it is a strategic opportunity. A chance to observe the system's underbelly firsthand.*
He looked at her, truly seeing the warrior trembling on the edge of a precipice. "Allow me to accompany you," he said, his tone leaving no room for debate.
"No," Lucia's reply was a blade of pure instinct, her body tensing. The flustered girl was gone, replaced by the honed weapon of the Earivel clan. "This is my path to walk. My power will be sufficient." A faint, barely perceptible aura of lethal intent—the same that had made the corrupt wagon driver flee—radiated from her.
Joshey felt it, a pressure against his own nascent mana field. He didn't flinch. Instead, he offered a different path, one she could never have anticipated.
"Then permit me to offer an alternative solution," he said, his voice dropping into the cadence of a master negotiator closing a deal. He met her stormy gaze, his own eyes holding a terrifying, absolute calm. "I will assume your brother's debt. I will secure his release."
The silence that followed was absolute. The very air seemed to still.
«ARE YOU FUNCTIONALLY INSANE?» Elias's mental shriek was a feedback loop of pure panic. «OUR FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS ARE GEOMETRIC! WE ARE PRACTICALLY INDENTURED OURSELVES! THIS IS NOT A CHARITABLE FOUNDATION!»
*Our net profit from the market is sixty-eight thousand florins,* Joshey countered, the numbers appearing in his mind's eye with flawless precision. *That is not insignificant. And the intelligence we will gain on debt-slavery operations is a strategic asset with incalculable value. This is not charity. This is an acquisition.*
Lucia stared at him, her fierce mask crumbling into utter, bewildered shock. The lethal aura vanished. "You… you would…?" She shook her head, as if trying to clear water from her ears. "You don't even know the sum. You don't know him. Why…?"
"I know that a debt to a man like Viggo is a cage," Joshey stated, his voice softening from its business-like edge into something more human, more empathetic. "And I know that sometimes, the sharpest blade is not one of steel, but one that cuts the chains of obligation."
The simple, staggering magnitude of his offer, the sheer, unassailable power implied by such casual financial force, shattered her final defenses. The story, the secret she had clutched so tightly, broke free in a hushed, pained torrent.
"It's my… my Ani-ue," she whispered, the honorific laden with a lifetime of love and frustration. "He was… foolish. A game of chance. The debt is… substantial. They hold him at the granary. They intend to… to trade him." The final word was a barely audible breath of shame.
Joshey gave a single, slow nod. The confirmation settled in him not as a surprise, but as a grim validation. Here it was. The human raw material fed into the machine he despised.
"Then the negotiation begins now," he said, his tone shifting back to that of a CEO mobilizing his resources. "Let's go. We will retrieve your brother."