Suddenly, the old man threw his head back and began to laugh. It wasn’t a dry chuckle this time; it was a loud, booming, full-chested laugh that completely shattered the tension in the room. The sheer volume of it easily carried outside the thin walls.

Before Hide could process what was happening, the door violently slid open with a sharp bang.

Enji stepped into the room, his previously laid-back demeanor entirely gone. In his hand was a sleek, wickedly curved dagger pulsing with dense purple mana.

The young man’s eyes locked instantly onto the towering dark phantom standing behind his grandfather, and a wave of pure, concentrated malice rolled off him.

"Grandfather!" Enji snarled, glaring at Hide with unfiltered, murderous rage. He dropped his center of gravity, ready to lung across the room and sever Hide’s head from his shoulders.

"Calm down, Enji," the old man said, still chuckling as he waved a dismissive hand. "Put that toy away and sit down. The boy is just showing off his fangs."

Enji froze. He looked at Zenith, then at Hide, and finally at his grandfather. Gritting his teeth, the young man slowly lowered the dagger, though he didn’t put it away. He stepped to the side and sat down in the corner of the room, his eyes never leaving Hide, practically vibrating with the urge to kill.

The old man let out a satisfied sigh and looked back at Hide, entirely unbothered by the phantom assassin looming over his shoulder.

"You are an interesting anomaly, Hide Volter," the old man said, his tone shifting back to conversational. "But let us return to reality. As you know, there is no cure for Mana Poisoning. The corruption is eating her cells. Why would you want her to live more and increase her suffering?"

The old man shook his head, a look of twisted, clinical pity on his face. "Even I feel pity for her condition. To lie there, slowly rotting from the inside out while machines breathe for you... it is a pathetic existence. The wisest move would be to end her suffering in one clean, painless stroke. Do not be so selfish as to increase her torment just because your childish heart doesn’t want her to die."

Hide’s hands balled into tight fists on his knees. "I can cure Mana Poisoning."

The silence that followed was absolute. Enji scoffed from the corner, but the old man didn’t laugh. Instead, his cloudy eyes narrowed with deep, piercing suspicion. He looked at Hide completely dumbfounded, as if the boy had just claimed he could pull the moon from the sky.

"Do not play words with me, boy," the old man warned, his voice turning cold and dangerous. "There is no cure for Mana Poisoning. Everyone in the world knows this. Even your mother... that darned researcher... could not find anything useful before she died. Or did she leave behind something in secret?"

Hide’s breath hitched. His glowing blue eyes snapped up, going incredibly wide as his pupils shrank to pinpricks.

His mother. The mention of her felt like a physical blow to his chest. Maddox had mentioned her. The Joker had mentioned her. And now, the head of an elite assassin clan was calling her a ’darned researcher’. How many people knew about Erin Volter? What had she actually been doing and accomplished before the Calamity Beasts tore through their apartment that night?

And why didn’t anyone give Hide proper treatment if his mother was indeed such a celebrity.

A storm of chaotic questions raged in his mind, threatening to break his composure, but Hide forcefully shoved them down. He took a slow, shaky breath, burying the grief and the shock beneath the cold logic of the System. He needed to focus on the immediate threat. Risa.

"No," Hide said, his voice terrifyingly calm, locking eyes with the grandfather. "She didn’t leave behind anything. I cannot tell you how I will do it. But give me some time, and I will cure her."

The old man stared at him, tapping his fingers thoughtfully against the polished wood of his cane. He seemed to be weighing Hide’s conviction against the impossible nature of his claim.

"But why?" the old man finally asked, tilting his head. "Why would I give you some time, huh? What is in it for me? Risa is a failed investment. She is not important to me. And you, Hide Volter, are no one to me. Why would I do something that will make you happy?"

Enji chuckled at this.

Hide ground his teeth together, the frustration bubbling up. He was sitting across from a monster who viewed human life as numbers on a ledger. "You darned old man," He hissed.

The old man didn’t take offense. Instead, a slow, highly amused grin spread across his wrinkled face. "Ahh... I know."

He looked at Hide, his cloudy eyes gleaming with a sudden, predatory sharpness. He didn’t look at Hide like a boy anymore. He looked at him the way a collector looks at a priceless, dangerous artifact.

"You are pretty impressive," the old man continued, gesturing vaguely to the towering phantom of Zenith that was still standing behind him. "You command corrupted mana without losing your mind. You possess a ruthlessness that suits being an assassin perfectly. And above all that, according to the my secret networks, you have an S-Rank potential."

The old man let out a dry, rattling laugh. "Haha. What better deal could there be, Hide Volter?"

Hide sat perfectly still, a bit dumbfounded by the sudden shift in the conversation. But as his mind processed the old man’s words, the realization hit him like a bucket of ice water.

The old man didn’t care about Risa. He didn’t care about mercy or honor. He cared about power. And right now, the most powerful, untamed asset in the city was sitting in his reception room.

As if reading his exact thoughts, the old man reached out and picked up a small porcelain teacup from the low table between them. He raised it slightly in Hide’s direction, his smile curling into something sinister and absolute.

"Join the Sihue clan," the old man offered smoothly. "Pledge your absolute loyalty to me... and I will give you as much time as you want if you refuse... it will be on you what happens next."