They walked in silence.
The corridor leading them toward the main exit was straight and wide, built for the constant movement of soldiers. At that hour, however, it was almost empty. Only the echo of their footsteps accompanied the group's advance—steady, inevitable.
The torches were fixed to the walls, unmoving, without flicker. There were no ancient seals here, no distortions. Only stone, iron, and order.
Lux was the first to break formation, stretching his shoulders with a contained sigh, as if only now the air was finally reaching his lungs.
No one commented.
Sunday walked with his gaze forward, expression neutral. Kōri kept a firm pace, her hands relaxed for the first time since they had descended into the depths of the headquarters. Merlin moved ahead with his wand stored away, not humming, not smiling.
Nero walked at the center.
He felt the change when they crossed the last inner arch.
It wasn't abrupt.
The weight simply… vanished.
The constant pressure—that feeling of being watched, evaluated—dissipated like a current that suddenly stopped pushing. The headquarters returned to being just a building.
They reached the great door.
Two guards opened it without a word, recognizing them without questions.
The light from outside spilled into the corridor—clear, normal, almost offensively mundane.
One by one, they crossed the threshold.
And left the headquarters.
The outside air was different.
Not colder. Not lighter.
Just… normal.
They walked in a loose formation, leaving the headquarters behind without looking back. The city slowly reclaimed its noise: distant footsteps, wheels on stone, mingled voices with no idea about divine fragments or broken laws.
Lux was the first to speak.
"Well," he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. "In retrospect, I think we made a very mature decision."
Nero snorted.
"Yeah. Politely rejecting the apocalypse and walking out with money. My kind of Tuesday."
Kōri glanced at him.
"They paid us for saying no."
"I've been paid for stupider things," Nero replied. "With less existential risk."
Merlin walked a few steps behind, watching the façades with a thoughtful expression.
"Personally," he said, "I love that 'using a fragment of a god incorrectly' is an option people seriously consider."
Sunday spoke without looking at them.
"There's always someone who thinks they can control the uncontrollable."
Lux smiled.
"And there's always someone who says 'I'm different' right before time breaks."
Kōri frowned.
"When time breaks… is it like a vase? Or like… does it melt?"
Merlin tilted his head.
"Both. Depends on the budget."
Kōri blinked.
"Oh."
They kept walking.
The bustle grew as they moved away from the military district. Open stalls, people arguing over prices, a life that had no idea how close it had come to not existing.
Lux glanced at the pouch Merlin carried.
"Three hundred Longs," he murmured. "If the world ends tomorrow, at least we eat well."
Sunday sighed.
"It doesn't comfort me that your contingency plan includes expensive wine."
"Mediocre wine," Lux corrected. "I'm realistic."
Nero clicked his tongue.
"Am I the only one bothered by the fact that the wind was listening?"
A brief silence.
Merlin smiled, without humor.
"No."
Kōri pressed her lips together.
"I thought it was just my imagination."
Lux raised an eyebrow.
"Great. So it wasn't flirting with me."
Sunday stopped for a second.
"Flirting?"
"It paid attention to me," Lux replied. "That's already more than most important people do."
Nero looked at him.
"If a cosmic force pays attention to you, it's not a compliment. It's a warning."
"Depends," Lux said calmly. "Some warnings come before opportunities."
Merlin let out a low laugh.
"That is exactly what someone who's going to die first would say."
Kōri turned toward him.
"Don't say that!"
Merlin shrugged.
"Dark humor. It works or it explodes. Like everything important."
Sunday resumed walking.
"We didn't accept the job," he said, more to anchor reality than to argue it. "That's still true."
Nero nodded.
"Yeah. We said no."
Lux walked backward a few steps, looking at them.
"But nobody said 'never.'"
Kōri stumbled over a stone and quickly steadied herself.
"I definitely thought 'never,'" she muttered. "Very loudly. Several times."
Nero looked at her.
"And yet you're still walking home like something isn't already wrong."
She shrugged.
"If things are going to go wrong anyway, I'd rather be tired and hungry."
Merlin raised a finger.
"That is, curiously enough, the philosophy of most empires right before they fall."
Lux smiled.
"And look at them. Historical."
They reached the neighborhood.
The streets narrowed, the buildings rose higher—older, more lived-in. The Nongua apartment stood at the end of the street, as unimpressive as ever.
Sunday stopped at the entrance.
"Home."
Kōri exhaled.
"I need to sit down."
"I need alcohol," Lux said.
"I need nothing to explode tonight," Nero added.
They stayed at the entrance of the building.
No one went up right away.
The Nongua loomed behind them, silent, while the narrow street in front of the group remained alive, unaware. After everything that had happened beneath the headquarters, simply standing there, breathing ordinary air, felt strange.
Kōri was the first to break the stillness.
"Is there somewhere to sit?" she asked, with exhausted honesty.
Sunday nodded with his chin.
An old stone bench, wedged between two crooked lampposts, a few meters from the entrance.
"There."
They walked over and dropped onto it without ceremony. The bench was cold and rough, but no one complained.
Merlin still held the envelope.
He hadn't let go of it since the treasury.
He looked at it for a second, as if weighing its real value—not the symbolic one—then carefully opened it. He tilted the envelope and let the contents fall onto the stone.
Bills.
Six.
Thick, marked, new.
Fifty Longs each.
The silence was immediate.
Nero didn't touch them.
In the eastern zone, he thought, no one would have dreamed of seeing that amount together. Not in bills. Not all at once. That wasn't money to survive.
That was money to show off.
It was money that bought time. Or silence.
Kōri was the first to count them.
"One… two, three, four, five… six."
She looked up, confused.
"But there are five of us."
Lux tilted his head.
"That explains why it feels weird."
Sunday frowned.
"This isn't a normal payment."
"No," Nero said. "It's a payment with intent."
Merlin nodded.
"Resten was clear. This isn't compensation for saying no. It's for the information."
Lux whistled.
"They paid us for knowing too much."
"For explaining too much," Merlin corrected calmly. "For translating things that shouldn't be easy to understand."
Kōri pressed her lips together.
"Then… the sixth one?"
Merlin didn't answer right away.
Nero glanced at him sideways.
"That one's yours."
Merlin raised an eyebrow.
"That easy?"
"No," Nero replied. "That logical."
Sunday nodded.
"Without your information, this wouldn't have been a negotiation. It would have been a preventive execution."
Lux smiled.
"Besides, if the money is cursed, it's better it lands on the mage."
Merlin took the sixth bill without ceremony and put it away.
"It's fair," he said. "And consistent with my life expectancy."
Kōri frowned.
"Don't joke about that."
"Dark humor," Merlin replied. "It works or it explodes."
Lux raised his bill.
"I'll drink to that. To exploding after dinner."
Sunday shook his head, but the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
Nero pocketed his and leaned back against the lamppost.
"Three hundred Longs," he murmured. "For information."
He looked at the street, the neighborhood, the life that went on knowing nothing.
"Oy…" Nero said thoughtfully. "What if we go to a restaurant tonight?"