Free Web NovelChapter 239: Revoking the Tip
After a few hours walking the Red Squid Slums with Lia, I need to get back to Azure Prime.
The day isn’t over, but my time is tight. The meeting with the leader of the Silver Fang happens tonight, and I still have to get out of this city, clean myself up, reorganize my mental inventory, and pretend I didn’t spend the whole morning poking a Rank B baron with a stick that was a little too short.
In total, we cleaned fifteen establishments.
The result is better than I expected.
[Scales: 34,765 → 79,765]
Forty-five thousand Scales in a handful of hours. Almost five Plates. At the start, this business would be absurd. Every forgotten duct, every building abandoned by official maintenance, every basement breathing poison had been hoarding money in the form of filth for years.
In time, the flow would drop. The ducts would stabilize, the accumulated grime would shrink, and the income would stop arriving like a storm tide.
But the first impact would be monstrous.
Lia got her cut as agreed: five Shards per establishment. Seventy-five Shards in total. For many Divers, a respectable sum. For a Drowned working under people like Thomas, almost a year of survival compressed into one morning.
A manual duct cleaning normally runs between two and five Shards, depending on the severity, the size of the building, and the desperation of the owner. I refused everyone who tried to pay me.
That confused more people than watching the condensation rune work.
The plan wasn’t to look like an efficient mercenary. It was to deliver a solution.
At every stop, I made a point of repeating the line enough times for it to stick in the local memory: House Azurea was acting where the baron of the Red Squid Slums had failed.
Later, the real contract would be between the Silver Fang and Safe Harbor. But the public face of the operation, at least at the beginning, would be House Azurea. That gives Garen political capital, puts distance between him and the Deepwarden’s claws, and plants a simple idea in the people: when the air got better, it was Garen who opened the window.
Everyone on the right side wins.
"Lia," I say as we step away from the last establishment, a salve factory so old its ducts look coated in decades of industrial sin. "Don’t go back to work today."
She stops, clutching the little pouch where she stored the Shards as if someone could rip it away at any moment, since she has no inventory.
"I... can’t just not go back."
"You can." I keep my voice low but firm. "You’ve made enough to survive a good while without depending on him. Without depending on any of what you’ve been going through."
Her eyes fill before she can answer. Lia tries to hide it by looking at her own feet, but the fist closed over the pouch gives away the tremor, and the tear hits the ground in the same instant.
"Thank you..."
"Don’t thank me. Try to have a second life here." I look at the dirty haze between the buildings. "Even if it isn’t better than your life on Earth, at least make it worth something."
She nods, unable to speak.
We say goodbye there.
I head back to Richard’s tavern with the uncomfortable sense of having done something good for partly wrong reasons. Maybe that’s how change starts in Thirstfall. Not with purity, but with an ugly mix of calculation, anger, opportunity, and someone hurt enough to remember the world shouldn’t work this way.
Since it’s still daytime, the tavern is calmer. Few tables taken, unfamiliar faces, no sound loud enough to compete with the merchants in the street. I go straight to the counter.
Richard is polishing a plate.
He sees me come in but pretends he doesn’t.
"Hey," I say, resting an elbow on the counter. "Came to drop off your cut before I leave."
Richard glances at me sideways for less than a second and goes back to the plate, as if I’d announced a delivery of potatoes.
Before I can press, Zoe appears in the back doorway.
Her face is still swollen. Now, freshly bathed, the bruises stand out worse. Purple marks on the jaw, near the temple, on the arms. She crosses her arms over her body in an uncomfortable, defensive gesture, like she’s trying to hide from the world inside her own posture. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
She takes a few steps toward me without managing to look at me.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
The answer comes out before I think.
Zoe lifts her gaze at once, startled by the speed of the question. Our eyes meet for a second, and she goes red before looking back at the floor.
"Well... for saving me."
Ah.
This kind of gratitude still makes me uncomfortable. I know how to handle threats, bargaining, lies, debt, and contracts. Gratitude is more complicated. You can’t parry it with Eventide, or turn it into a clause.
"You don’t have to thank me," I answer. "Just take care of yourself... and try to stay safe."
It’s weak. I know it.
But it beats turning her pain into a speech. So I change the subject the most honest way I can find: money.
I take Richard’s cut out of my inventory and set it on the counter.
Six thousand seven hundred fifty Scales.
[Scales: 79,765 → 73,015]
"Here’s your share."
Richard turns with a tired sigh, probably ready to feign disinterest again. When he sees the pile on the wood, he chokes like he tried to swallow the Shards without chewing.
The cough comes violently.
Zoe runs over and starts patting her father’s back, worried.
I raise an eyebrow.
"Seems I have a gift for making people choke at the sight of money."
Richard braces a hand on the counter, recovering his breath bit by bit. His eyes go from the Shards to me, then back to the Shards.
"How the hell did you make all this?" His voice comes out hoarse. "Did you charge it all to the merchants?"
"I’m only giving you your share. Fifteen percent." I tilt my head. "Do you really think I squeezed five Plates out of people who can barely afford a new filter?"
He stares at me, his expression desperately trying to assemble the whole scene in the right order.
"Don’t worry. I didn’t take a single cent from them."
"Then where did it come from?"
"My technique turns the sludge into currency."
His look changes. The surprise leaves slowly, giving way to a heavy understanding.
"A rune..." he murmurs, more to himself than to me.
"Exactly."
Richard goes still. Probably reviewing every detail of our deal, every word I used, every percentage he negotiated thinking he was being clever. And to be fair, he was. Fifteen percent of nearly five Plates in a day is enough to change any tavern keeper’s week.
It just isn’t the whole mine.
"Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go."
I turn to leave, and when I’m almost at the door, the word comes out like a bark.
"You bastard!"
I stop and throw a glance back over my shoulder.
Richard is pointing at me, the rag still in his hand, his eyes wide with belated outrage.
"So that’s why you said I could keep the tip."
The smile comes before I can stop it.
Richard Boulevard has finally understood how much money I made that day.
And by the look of it, he’s reconsidering the price of his own kindness.
