1% Lifesteal

Mark watched the white-suited figure walk confidently into the room.

Basilisk spread his arms and smiled joyously at them. “Hey there, boys! How are you doing on this fine day?” he asked, and Mark rushed to get up.

He tried giving his respects and fleeing immediately, but the man placed a firm hand on his shoulder. The touch sent shivers down his spine, but all the man did was lightly massage his shoulder as he laughed.

“Don’t worry, young man!” he said. “It’s nothing important, you don’t have to leave just because of ol’ me! All I need,” he started, turning his predatory gaze at Nahar, “is to talk to your boss a bit.”

Mark wanted to refuse and leave anyway, but obedience was the wiser choice. For one reason or another, the man wanted him to stay, and he wouldn’t risk angering him by being stubborn.

Basilisk adopted a surprisingly convincing expression of sympathy as he walked over to Nahar. “Dear boy, I am so sorry to hear of your father’s passing,” he gave his condolences as he casually revealed that he knew something that should by no means be public information. “As you might already know, Janny and I had some business dealings between us. Things must be so, so hard for you now, and I was hoping to lend you a hand in getting some of these… ordeals settled before some vultures made things difficult.”

Even Mark could smell the bullshit oozing out of those words. But at that moment, he couldn’t afford to be anything more than a passive bystander. Basilisk finished giving his ‘condolences’ as he sat where Mark had been sitting a moment ago and gestured to Nahar to join him at the desk.

Then, the two men started discussing the aforementioned business dealings between them. Basilisk first offered to buy off the remaining 40% of the mining expedition rights that Kraven still held on to. Nahar clearly wanted to refuse, but he seemed to be unable to.

Then, the suited man continued offering to buy one thing after another. Mark knew some things about business, but he had no frame of reference for dealing with money on such a scale. The two men casually threw around billions of dollars, and, at least on the surface, Basilisk seemed to be helping the Kraven clan out by offering to buy off anything they couldn’t afford to protect.

Nahar smiled a lot. It was in his nature. Mark was familiar with this and many of the numerous shades of grin the man adopted. They were usually subtle. But at that moment, anyone could tell just how strained the tight stretch of his lips was.

Eventually, the two men shook hands and got up. Harold whistled cheerfully as he turned around. Before he left, he put an arm on Mark’s shoulder again, “By the way, I believe I owe you a word of thanks. Had you not supplied the Kraven clan with a certain piece of information, I would have never been in a position to establish such a… fruitful business relationship.” He cackled.

Mark’s expression darkened upon hearing that.

“So, to repay your favor, let me give you a piece of information in return,” Basilisk continued, his eyes narrowing into snake-like slits. “Don’t worry about that boy taking revenge on you.” He grinned. “I believe he’s already dead,” he declared casually, patting Mark on the shoulder as he headed out of the room.

As soon as the stone door closed, Nahar swung his fist full force into the ghoulish wooden table. “That son of a bitch—!” he screamed as his punch landed and left a visible dent in the impressively tough wood.

But Mark wasn’t concerned about that. A storm brewed in his chest, and he glared at Nahar, shaking profusely. “You…” he tried, doing his best to restrain his desire to scream. “You said that…”

“Relax!” Nahar commanded. “That motherfucker only said that to get you riled up,” he said with a sigh. “I didn’t lie to you. I only told you what my father told me—Freddy Stern was interrogated and imprisoned for theft of Kraven property. Harold only said what he did to tear a rift between us and put me further out of balance in our negation. Don’t fall into that trap.”

Mark’s chest deflated a bit, and his shoulders sagged. He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded hesitantly. Internally, he was still resisting the urge to shiver, but at the very least, he believed that Nahar hadn’t been dishonest with him. Mostly. But he had doubts.

They stood there in silence for a while. He was unable to get the thoughts of Freddy out of his head. For a while already, he had been postponing asking about the man’s whereabouts. He had annoyed Nahar enough with the matter, and the young master didn’t have any answers since Janhalar refused to say anything.

Now, the patriarch was dead. And his son must have had access to the information. So he asked, “How bad is it…? Your situation, I mean.” Although he wanted to know about Freddy, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Not yet. But there was another thing on his mind, too. He worried that he would lose the favor he was promised.

Nahar showed him a bitter, bleak smile. “Bad. Really bad,” he said, chuckling lethargically. “I estimate we will lose over two-thirds of our upper echelon.”

He was left stunned by those words. How?

As he was about to ask, Nahar answered, “Loyalty is a fickle thing. Let me ask you, would you be here if I couldn’t offer your sister a place in the new academy?”

Hesitantly, he paused for a few moments.

“Don’t worry,” Nahar calmed him. “That’s still on the table.”

That made him release a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in. Then, pondering the man’s previous question, he decided to be honest. He shook his head. If that wasn’t on the table, there was no way he would still be working here.

From the very beginning, he had been strongly against allying himself with the Kraven, but it had been the only way to secure his sister’s future, protect him from Madame’s retaliation, and get his injured arm repaired. His arm was healed already, and he was established enough that Madame couldn’t hurt him without consequences.

His sister’s education was the only reason for him to stay.

“The same thing goes for many elders,” Nahar continued, unperturbed by his answer. “Loyalty and personal interest go hand in hand. They are all looking for power and a prosperous future and working hard to earn it.” Then, he shrugged. “Money is good, but true wealth comes from rights and property. If being with the Kraven clan can’t help them hold on to those rights, they’ll take their share and leave. It happens all the time.”

“I see…” Mark confirmed. That made sense. True, the empress would indeed be protecting the Kraven clan, but such protection only stopped others from annihilating them. It was, in essence, a policy instated to prevent civil wars from breaking out. But she had no reason to help them hold on to power they had already lost.

His distracted musings were interrupted as Nahar asked, “Do you want to meet him?”

After a moment of stunned silence, he realized who Nahar was talking about. He glanced away, sadness, grief, and regret flickering through his half-closed eyes.

His family’s safety, his sister’s education, the healing for his injured arm… he tried using these reasons to justify his actions, but none of it changed the facts. He had had the option to have his arm amputated. His family would have been poor for a while, but they could have managed to scrounge up the funds and recover from it eventually. His sister could have gone to a less prestigious academy.

But instead of taking that path, he had backstabbed a friend. He had no true justification for what he’d done. So he didn’t know. Was he brave enough to face him again? Was he courageous enough to step before Freddy Stern and say, ‘I’m the reason why you were caught?’

His boss’ crimson eyes peered into his soul, peeling away the surface layers. They had spent many drunken nights together, and Nahar knew very well how guilty Mark felt for what he’d done. Until then, he couldn’t do much other than offer him numerous… comforts.

But now there was a choice to be made.

He had the option to push things under the rug and leave Freddy to continue living in ignorance of what truly happened. But that wasn’t the right thing to do.

His gut churned, and the back of his throat felt watery as if he were about to throw up. There would be a price to pay. He owed that man more than he owed anyone he had ever met. And no matter how nicely he put it and how sorely he apologized, the relationship between them would be ruined forever. Pushing through the feeling, he decided. “I want to see him.” Despite all that, he still resolved to do the right thing.

Nahar nodded. The man must have had numerous things to do at that moment, but without hesitation, he put them all aside to indulge Mark’s request.

So they asked around and dug through papers.

What they found wasn’t… quite what they expected to find.

Freddy had indeed been held captive back at the Pittersville compound. But he, and all of the captives there had been… sold.

The discovery made Nahar frown deeply. And it made Mark feel nauseous.

The two men returned to the patriarch’s office, carrying the massive stack of papers related to the ordeal. And once the door closed and they were alone again, he couldn’t stop himself from bursting. “Slavery…?” he breathed out, struggling to believe it.

He absent-mindedly sat in the chair, and Nahar stood on the other side of the room, back turned to him.

Affinity discrimination was a common problem. Numerous people discriminated against certain affinities due to the tendency to associate those concepts with evil. This was deemed unacceptable because power had no moral values and all that. But people did.

He already knew that Janhalar wasn’t a good person. But neither was Madame. Nor was Basilisk. Those in power had a pattern of being willing to do what it took to get there, so he wasn’t surprised to learn that many of them weren’t particularly virtuous.

This was another thing he had rationalized away. Sure, the leader might be a damn ghoul of a human being, but that didn’t have to mean that the entire clan was like that.

Now, as he realized there was more to the superficial eeriness and bloody walls, he couldn’t stop all the disgust he had pushed down from bubbling up to the surface.

“Mark,” Nahar called, breaking him out of his internal musings. “I need you to listen to me, okay?”

As much as it disgusted him to be in such a situation, he was too deep in to throw self-righteous tantrums. Being there was in no small part his own fault. It would be stupid to run his mouth now. Nodding his head, he agreed to listen to Nahar’s explanation.

“I… I’ll be honest. While I didn’t know about this specifically, I was already familiar with my clan’s… tendencies.”

“Oh, really?” he let his disbelief slip before restraining himself. “Sorry, I…”

“No, you’re… Well, you’re not wrong. I’m not thrilled to discover this, either.” He turned around to face him, scratching the back of his head. “This isn’t good news,” he said, eyeing the massive pile of papers, including a copy of the contracts he had just signed with Basilisk. “If he is with the expedition… we just lost the right to do anything about it.”

With each moment, the hold despair had on his heart grew tighter. He felt as if he were falling into a bottomless pit. What had he done? This whole time, he believed Freddy would be set free eventually.

He knew of the man’s talent and that a few years in captivity weren’t a big deal to him. With an infinite supply of supreme-quality healing, he was immortal. Age wasn’t a problem to him.

But this…

Basilisk’s words suddenly echoed in his ears. Freddy… was he really dead?

The urge to puke finally proved to be too much, and he emptied his stomach on the floor. His breathing was ragged, his heart raged in his chest, and cold sweat covered him.

Suddenly, a series of knocks came from the stone doors.

Nahar intended to ignore them, but soon enough, they came again. They were louder this time. Suddenly, both men froze as they felt it. While Harold had concealed his presence, the person outside released it. It was another four-star archhuman. Nahar clenched his fists and reluctantly pressed the button to open the doors.

They glided up slowly, and the crimson-haired man looked like he wanted to kick his late father for designing them to do that. And then, the entrance finally revealed who stood there.

First, her green stilettos, then, her long, beige thigh-highs, her lime miniskirt, her exposed, pale stomach, the baggy, black, long-sleeved crop top, and finally, her cerulean hair fashioned into pigtails.

“Hey there, boys,” Madame Morleppe greeted them cheerfully.

Both men instantly activated their defensive abilities and jumped to the other side of the room. This was it. They were going to die… or so they thought.

But Madame only rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Really? I even tried to dress so I didn’t look scary,” she declared while gesticulating her disappointment at their reaction. “You two seriously have the wrong opinion of me.”

They weren’t convinced. While Basilisk managed to approach them alone, a crowd of anxious clan members warily stood behind her, blocking her path back out. Not that they could stop her if she wanted to simply go through them.

“Oh, please,” she said, seeing that they were still unconvinced. “You should know that Kaiya will have me executed if I touch any of you. Now calm down and let us speak like adults.”

Nahar looked like he wanted to run away, but nothing she had said or done so far showed she was looking for a fight. And she was right. If she dared to attack them, she would invite the empress’ retaliation. Thus, they had no choice but to calm down and hear her out.

The doors to the meeting room were closed after a servant cleaned up Mark’s vomit, and, as per her request, he was to stay with them while they talked.

“First,” she started, looking at Mark, “I just want to say that I hold no grudge against you. Your betrayal was due to my mistake. Had I been wiser, I would have made the decision to sponsor your recovery and sister’s education. A lack of information misguided me, and I blundered. So, don’t worry, I’m not here to get revenge.”

“Then why are you here?” Nahar asked directly, his patience thin from dealing with Basilisk earlier.

“I want you to hand Freddy Stern over to me,” she declared bluntly.

Both the men’s eyes shot open at that.

Nahar sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. He was sent to participate in a mining expedition, and we… We have already lost the rights to it.”

“His information is in your records somewhere,” she stated. “Dig it up and hand it over to me. I’ll deal with the rest.”

“What do you—” Mark started, but Nahar shot him a death glare that warned of consequences. Rather than listen to reason, he ignored the man and continued. “What do you want from him?”

“Why should I tell you?” she asked pointedly, amusement playing in her eyes. “You have no right to know,” she teased.

He winced at that. “I…” he tried, but he had no argument. All he could do was ball his fists up in frustration.

She openly laughed at him. “Oh, my, how amusing. What are you getting all righteous about?” she asked teasingly. “You’re the one who got him into this predicament, so how dare you act as if I’m doing something wrong?”

Again, he couldn’t refute that. His sight was turning blurry, and the headache in the back of his head intensified.

Meanwhile, Nahar sighed and started digging through the pile of papers already conveniently located on his desktop. Soon, they found what they were looking for, but it was yet again a surprise.

Apparently, he was sent to Camp Violet—a camp that had been destroyed.

Mark’s vision darkened further, and he felt the world spinning before his eyes. More and more, he felt that Basilisk hadn’t been spouting nonsense. But something was unusual. Madame acted as if this wasn’t out of her expectations.

In fact, she acted as if she knew that he was still alive.

“Can you please give me a copy of all these records?” she asked politely.

Nahar’s eye twitched. That was an absurd request by all means. Even Mark knew she had no right to demand that, but the young master hesitated to deny her.

Nahar put his elbows on the table and rested his nose on his crossed fingers. “If you don’t mind me asking, I would like to know what you wish to do with Mr. Stern. And before you say that you don’t need to tell me, I would beg to differ. Coercing me into handing information like this over could count as an act of aggression against my clan.”

She smiled at him. “Since you asked so nicely,” she said sarcastically, allowing a nasal hint into her voice, “I might as well tell you. I have him signed for an interview, and he hasn’t done it yet.”

Both the men stared at her blankly.

Madame sighed, rolled her eyes, then, with a puffing sound, summoned a fancy cocktail that she took a massive gulp of and then returned to her storage device with a pop of air rushing to fill the vacuum. “Christ almighty,” she muttered as she glanced between them. “You people must stop forgetting that I am a journalist first, entertainer second, and everything else third!”

“No offense, Madame, but…” Nahar started. “Hmmm… Never mind,” he dropped the issue. Prying further would just needlessly anger her.

She smiled in response, then touched her lip as she squinted at Nahar. “But I suppose that taking this information for free wouldn’t be very fair, would it?” she said, tapping her lips. “You know, dear, I believe I have an offer for you… if you wish to hear me out.”