My mind races through every micro-clue I can use to pull myself out of this corner.

Even if every answer says otherwise, I feel that my meeting with Rahul in this shop was complete coincidence. His eyebrows moved suddenly, contradicting themselves, trying to hide his real surprise at seeing me.

"Mister Sharma. A pleasant surprise, running into you here."

I lean on the counter with my elbow, resting my weight on the frame, and cross my legs in a relaxed pose. I start by trying to steer the direction of the conversation. I can’t control his power, but a survival mindset is my department.

His eyes scan everything around me, the counter, my clothes, the seller’s expression.

"Doing some shopping?" He measures his words. As if he already knows I’m dangerous with mine. Modesty aside, he isn’t entirely wrong. When you’re a rat without enough strength, you resort to other methods.

"It so happens I’m on an outsourced job... I was here with my friend..." I look at the seller, making a gesture with my hand, fishing for his name.

"Simon, sir." He answers, surprised.

"...Simon! Yes, of course! Planning my client’s order."

Rahul looks suspicious, and that’s my plan. Risking not looking suspicious carried a far greater chance of being caught. He’s the king of crime; he deals with manipulators and social predators all the time.

"I like to... do my own shopping. It’s one of my pastimes in Thirstfall..." He pauses for a few seconds, looking around. "After all, when you’re not at the trench or playing politics, it’s the small personal things that matter."

The calm and pragmatism with which he says it are almost a confession, a hobby he’s proud of. I can actually catch a faint aroma coming off Rahul. He probably works with teas, or maybe perfumery, as a private indulgence.

"I agree, Mr. Sharma. And what’s your favorite pastime?" I ask, trying to hook a thread of empathy. But it fails. The silence that follows is awkward while Rahul lifts an eyebrow, and without a single word, I read his expression clearly: who do you think you are, asking something so personal?

"Well, I have to be going. I’ve got a job to finish." I take the contract off the table in a deliberate way, not exaggerated, but enough to be noticed. "Thank you, Sa... Si... Simon! We’ll talk soon." I say it and begin my retreat.

Rahul touches my shoulder, stopping me from leaving. I feel as if my body has disconnected from Thirstfall for a moment. The last time I remember feeling this was when Valerius froze me with his aura in the Aion Sanctuary.

"Let me... help you, dear Sands." He extends his hand to me delicately, his eyes fixed on the contract.

’Bullseye.’

I hand the contract to Rahul, who runs his eyes over it in a few seconds and reads. Then he looks at me for a while, too long, too heavy.

"I told you, Mister Sharma. I’m doing outsourced work. Purchases for a client."

I lie shamelessly, my face as dry and flat as possible, as if he’s annoying me by having stopped me at all. A D-rank spending seven plates in a single day on behalf of a guild—my excuse was convincing enough. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

The fact is this: the contract only carries the guild’s name. The members’ names are completely hidden from any kind of listing. He knows Safe Harbor exists, but he’ll never know who its members are. That was the real reason I tied the brand to the guild and not to myself. A faceless guild can’t be tracked and hunted down.

He holds the contract between his fingers and snaps them over the paper. The contract vanishes that same instant and reappears on my HUD. I keep my expression flat, showing no surprise. He’s testing me, for certain. Rahul didn’t have this information, and if I showed even the smallest reaction, he’d link the facts together.

It’s the same skill he demonstrated before, registering contracts before Ocean’s Law without an Oathmark, using only his class and his sheer audacity.

"It’s done. Your contractor should have received the copy. Be careful with ghost guilds, Mister Sands. Don’t go dying before our next fight."

"Thank you very much, Mister Sharma. You spared me the registration and delivery." I say it sincerely, because it’s true. He helped me twice over without even knowing it.

Simon, the seller, is still motionless. All his sarcasm has drained away since the moment Sharma walked in.

"I’ll head out first. If you’re buying at this shop, I doubt there’s anything here for me." Rahul turns to leave, still checking a few items here and there. The sound of his cane striking the floor plants a small trauma in our minds that will last for days.

As the doors close, in unison, as if we’d rehearsed it, Simon and I let all the air out of our lungs, lifting a weight off our backs.

"Dear cadet. Are you insane, or did you hit your head on the floor as a child?"

"That was offensive, my new friend Simon. But you aren’t the first to say it..."

I let the silence settle and calm the atmosphere a little more, then continue.

"They say that to stand against a madman, you need a madman and a half..."

I shake his hand, which is resting on the counter again, without waiting for his reaction. His grip is firmer than before, the practiced courtesy gone, replaced by something closer to respect, or maybe pity. With Simon, I can’t always tell the two apart.

"Oliver, let’s go!" I call out to Oliver, who, the last time I saw him, was wandering through the shop. But to my surprise, he doesn’t answer.

I scan the narrow aisles. Dried herbs, washed glass, shelves of neat little bottles, and no hulking silhouette anywhere among them.

’Where the hell did the big guy get to?’

The back door of the shop hangs slightly open, a thin bar of street light cutting across the floor. Simon follows my gaze, and for the first time since Sharma left, his face tightens again.

"That door," he says quietly, "leads to the alley behind the field hospital."

My good mood, the one I’d been carrying since registering Safe Harbor, finishes its long slide into something cold.