Morning found Aiden lying quietly on his soft bed. It was comfortable as far as comfort went. It was also larger than the one he’d been given in the Naranoff household which, to him, was interesting that he was paying attention to it.

  He held a card up to the ceiling, looking at it. It was a wooden brown with a silver sheen. On its surface was the word ‘Aiden’ written in something black as if it had been burned into wood. Charred. Flipping it, Aiden checked on the back, not that he hadn’t seen it before. He found a small enchantment there.

  Dropping his hand, he let the card flop down on the bed.

  A maid had brought it to him last night. He’d met her standing awkwardly in front of his door after his sparring session with Valdan. She’d been timid with the thing held in both hands while a second maid had simply stood next to her.

  Finally got my bank card, Aiden thought, pushing himself off the bed and getting to his feet.

  “My day can now begin.”

  Getting prepared took a little longer than normal. Aiden went through the process slowly and systematically. He took his time, pacing himself so that he accomplished all of it at the same speed any normal person without a class would, as he’d always done.

  It was a trick to handling power that he had learnt. The magic of the boosts that came with [Stats] on Nastild wasn’t necessarily something that you just turned on and turned off like active skills. It was like being human. If your grip strength got too strong, then you would find that your grip was stronger regardless of what you do.

  Most people rarely notice the increase in strength, but every man knew that if you spent your entire life shaking adults with unnecessarily strong grips, you needed extra care when you shook the hand of a child. He knew too little about women to know if it was the same for them, although he liked to think it had to at least be similar in some way.

  Aiden shrugged on his trench coat at the end of his preparation, and in moments he was out of his room and walking down the palace hallways.

  Even now, there was an uncomfortable feeling of walking around in clothes that didn’t have the necessary enchantments he needed to be safe. And Aiden liked to be safe to feel safe.

  He took a turn down a few paths, then down a corner and paused. How do I get there, again?

  A frown touched his lips as he tried to remember a path taken too many years ago in a life already concluded. It had been over five years since he’d taken the path.

  He turned, finger making vague gestures in front of him as he tried to remember. A left then a right, then down a few stairs, and…

  He caught his finger still moving vaguely and dropped it. You look stupid. Just ask a maid.

  He started to walk again when he paused once more. How do I find one?

  Normally, there was always a maid out and about. You couldn’t walk down a hallway without accidentally running into one. Right now, however, there wasn’t any around him.

  Alright, Aiden. Let’s go find a maid.

  Without missing a beat, he turned around and made his way for the next hallway. He strolled casually this time, hands in the pockets of his trench coat. It took him two hallways to find his first maid.

  Actually, it was his first two maids.

  Both ladies worked alongside each other, cleaning and dusting. Not with magic or enchantments or anything of the kind. They used actual dusters and napkins. One dusted while the other wiped.

  It was an interesting sight in a world where there were basic housing tools that were enchanted to make things easier. You could touch a duster to a couch and its enchantment would pool all the dust in one location. Then all of it would be attached to the duster and you could just move it. There were also enchantments that gave surfaces an instant wipe.

  There are also skills that allow a person to do the same thing, Aiden reminded himself. Being an [Enchanter] for so long, he’d forgotten that most household enchantments were replacements for skills that people with the [Maid] or [Cleaner] or [Cook] classes already had.

  “My Lord,” both maids greeted in unison, turning to bow at the waist when they saw him.

  Aiden gestured at them to rise reflexively. “At ease.”

  Both maids gave him an odd look but rose to their full heights.

  One of them, the one with an attention seeking set of curly hair that bounced with the slightest movement of her head gave him an inquiring look when he didn’t move on. The size of her hair wasn’t all that drew his attention. It was the color too. It was red.

  Coupled with her red freckles and green eyes, she reminded him of the child from the cartoon ‘Brave’, if she was a live-action adaptation.

  “How may we assist you, my lord?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to get to the soldier’s wing,” Aiden answered.

  Both maids shared a look.

  “The soldiers will not be in their quarters right now,” she answered.

  “I’m aware.” Aiden nodded. “However, I’m still trying to get there, so I need someone to guide me down the path that leads out of the palace and in its specific direction.”

  Again, both maids shared a look. This time, however, Aiden didn’t miss the worry that was on both of their faces.

  Whatever it was, Aiden didn’t focus on it. They had their lives to live, and he had his. He tried not to bother with other people’s lives if it had nothing to do with him.

  “Must it be a single person, my Lord?” the same maid asked.

  Aiden’s brows furrowed in confusion, and he hesitated before answering. “Uhm… I don’t see why I would need more than one… but no. It doesn’t have to be a single person.”

  The maid opened her mouth then closed it. A worried frown touched her lips. Aiden realized that whatever she was about to say next, she was worried that it might offend him. And you did not offend the guest of the king with your words.

  He sighed. “Spit it out. I don’t think you can offend me with what you’re about to say, not so early in the morning.”

  She still looked skeptical.

  They definitely know where it is, he thought. He had it on good authority that every employee of the palace was required to know how to get to every public location in the palace.

  He was about to turn away when the maid finally spoke up.

  “Is it okay if the both of us show you the way?” she asked and the second maid shot her a deeply worried looked that seemed to say that that was not what she was supposed to say.

  Aiden looked between the both of them while they argued with their eyes and facial expressions. Something told him that they were doing their best to be as discreet about it as possible.

  They were not.

  I’m missing something, he told himself. I’ve got to be.

  Still, he waited patiently, his mind trying to work through what exactly was happening since it had nothing to do. With a mind as active as the Order had made his, it was practically a given that it had to do something. He could stop it, but he didn’t see the need to. Not right now.

  The ability to stop thinking, after all, was also something taught at the Order. In a world where mind magic existed, it would be stupid not to be taught such a skill.

  It didn’t take long for him to realize what was happening. They are scared of going with me.

  There was safety in numbers, but if he was being fair, two maids didn’t stand a chance against someone with a combat class. It was why the both of them were currently arguing. The maid with the red hair had chosen safety in numbers while her companion didn’t want to tempt fate in any way.

  “What’s your name?” Aiden asked the one with red hair.

  Their silent argument stopped when she turned to him. “Weni, my Lord.”

  “And yours?” Aiden asked the other.

  “Eni, my Lord,” she answered after a touch of hesitation.

  Aiden could not help the raised brow he gave her. He had been a child once in a world where people couldn’t call down fireballs to kill you. If there was one thing he’d learnt about things in such a world, it was that priorities worked differently.

  “Alright, Eni,” he said slowly. “While I can pretend to understand your reason, I will ask once more and not again. What is your name?”

  The maid concealed an annoyed look. “Teresi.”

  “Alright.” Aiden pulled both hands out of his pockets and rubbed them together. The maids flinched at the action. “Weni and Teresi, here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll point me in the right direction right now, and I’ll start walking. When you believe I’m far enough, you’ll follow behind me. Your job is call out what direction I’m supposed to take from behind me until we’ve gotten to my destination. Does that work?”

  Both maids shared a look before nodding.

  “Good.” Aiden returned his hands to his pockets. “Now, if I start walking and you take the opportunity to disappear, I have your names and know who to report you to. So, shall we?”

  Weni pointed in the direction he’d come from, and Aiden turned around and started walking.

  He didn’t go far before he heard their footsteps behind him.

  True to his agreement, he kept a steady pace and didn’t bother them. He offered them no words and didn’t look back. Each time he got to a turn or a fork in the road, they called out the direction he was supposed to take.

  He only stopped when they came in contact with another group. These ones, he noticed, also worked as a group. This time there were three of them. Two ladies and a man.

  Aiden stopped walking and he knew the maids behind him had stopped as well. He settled his attention on the three now in front of him.

  “Hello,” he greeted, not sure of how to draw their attention.

  All three turned to him and bowed at the waist, their cleaning coming to a halt. “Good morning, my Lord,” they greeted in unison.

  “Morning.” Aiden wasn’t really one for greetings. “I’m looking for the soldier’s resting area. I need the three of you to guide me there.”

  He watched all their eyes go to the maids behind him and noticed they were still bowing.

  “Oh,” he said quickly. “You can stop doing that. The gods know that there’s nothing interesting on the ground this morning.”

  All three rose to their full heights. They still stared at the maids behind him.

  “Is your silence a no or a statement of you thinking it over?” he asked them.

  All eyes turned back to him and there was a moment of hesitation. In the end, it was the man that spoke.

  “I can show you the way, my Lord,” he said. “I know how to get there.”

  Aiden saw the relief on the faces of the two ladies with him and shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “It has to be all three of you or I’ll just continue with the two ladies behind me.”

  The man’s answer was already more than enough to remind Aiden of what was going on in the castle. The servants were working in groups not to complete their tasks but because there was safety in numbers. There had been some unsolved murders before his return, after all.

  As for the man offering to lead him alone, it was probably just the bravado of being a man talking. It was nice to be reminded that be it on Earth or here, men still felt the need to be the protector.

  Doesn’t matter if you’re a domestic class against a combat class.

  Sadly, such bravado didn’t matter to Aiden. The man might not have liked it, but to Aiden, he was as much a threat as the women present.

  All three looked behind Aiden once more at the two maids. The man shared a look with his companions before nodding.

  “Good,” Aiden said. “Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll point me in the right direction and when you believe that I have gone far enough, you’ll follow behind me. When I’m supposed to turn, all you’ll have to say is in what direction. Is that understood?”

  All three nodded.

  With that sorted, Aiden squatted down. Retrieving a gold coin from his pocket, he thought better of it and replaced it with three silver coins and placed them on the ground and got up. They would be enough to buy all five a nice meal if they wanted. “Once I’ve reached my destination, the three of you can return to Wendi and Teresi over there and share the reward for time spent.”

  He watched the expressions on the three servants’ faces when he mentioned the maids’ names and was glad to find recognition on them. It assured him that the names had not been lies.

  The unfortunate thing about lying so often was that it left him always on the look out for lies. He did not like being lied to, even if it was an understandable lie.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Alright,” he said, rising to his feet. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get you all back to your tasks.”

  Leaving Teresi and Weni behind, he walked and the others followed behind him.

  He could’ve explained that two maids or three, it would be no different when facing a murderer with combat abilities, but that would do nothing but increase their fears. Also, the truth was that while the numbers didn’t give them safety, it gave them a chance.

  He could’ve also explained to them that he hadn’t been around when the murders had happened so he couldn’t possibly be the murderer, but that just felt like an unnecessary hassle, socially speaking.

  They were scared for their lives not for the money in their purses. There was no reason to argue logic with them on such matters. If anything, he felt that it would’ve said more about him than them.

  The rest of the journey was interesting to Aiden. The three servants led him until they ran into another two, and he usurped those two, releasing the three to return to their tasks. This way he reduced their worries, noticing how the servants communicated with nothing but facial expressions.

  When the third group looked to the second group behind him, whatever expression they gave them seemed to alleviate their worries and they followed him easily. They didn’t even wait for him to be too far ahead before following after him.

  Aiden wondered how many people would be in the next group they would run into as they walked. But they didn’t run into any other.

  With this group, he was brought to his destination quite quickly.

  “Here, my Lord,” one of the maids said, standing next to the door.

  Aiden reached for the handle and opened it. The door opened inward to reveal what looked like a hostel, with two rows of beds. At the end was another door.

  Aiden gestured at it. “Out that door leads to their training area, correct?”

  Both maids nodded. “Yes, my Lord.”

  “Thank you.” Aiden reached into his pocket but wasn’t entirely sure of what to do.

  He had a few silver coins and a few gold coins. Gold was a lot of money on Nastild, capable of gaining you a few nights in a simple inn with feeding. He also knew that the average maid was paid in silver coins upwards, but no more than three gold coins a month.

  He understood the need to compensate them for their help while fighting against their fears, but he wasn’t going to give them so much. There wasn’t any real reason behind it. He just didn’t want them to overestimate the value of what they’d done for him.

  He also wasn’t so nice as to call himself generous. A person only deserves what they worked for. It was something the finance master of the Order always liked to say.

  Aiden shrugged and fished out a silver coin from his pocket and offered it to them.

  “For your troubles,” he said.

  One of them accepted it graciously and with a bow. “Thank you, my Lord.”

  The moment the coin was out of his hands, Aiden walked into the place and closed the door behind him.

  Looking about as he walked through the room, he noticed that there was really nothing of importance in the room. Each bed had a simple sack next to it but nothing more.

  I guess it explains why they can leave without locking the doors.

  He walked out through the other door and was released into the open air. He stood upon an interlocking pathway flanked with well-trimmed fields on both sides. In the distance, at the end of the path was an open field where soldiers stood in proper lines and trained with sword and shield.

  On the sides of the pathway, other buildings rested upon the fields. Judging by the number of soldiers he saw in the distance, those buildings were designed to house soldiers as well.

  Aiden took it all in as he walked forward. The morning air, the gentle breeze, one more day at the castle.

  Yea, he thought as he arrived at the training grounds. I won’t miss it if I leave.

  The soldiers were silent in their training. There were no sparring sessions going on so the sound of wood clacking as wooden swords met did not feel the air. Instead, there was a steady sound of soldiers grunting as they put their all into each swing of the sword or the spear or whatever weapon whatever row was practicing with at the moment.

  Aiden stood there, watching. A few of the leaders of their groups looked at him but said nothing, returning to their training session. Once Aiden found who he was looking for, he made his way to their row and approached their leader.

  The woman leading spared him a brief glance. “Lord Lacheart,” she greeted.

  Aiden almost asked her how she knew his name before remembering what Valdan had told him once upon a time. Everyone in the palace was aware of the summoned but identifying them by name was what was not common.

  According to Valdan, their training together and his once constant employment of Ded’s services had made him something of a famous Lord among the palace soldiers.

  Not knowing the lady’s name, Aiden offered her an acknowledging nod.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked while the group continued their practiced swings.

  Aiden could pick out a good number of people that weren’t swinging properly enough. All strength and no finesse.

  “I’d like to borrow…” he pointed into the group. “That guy. I need his services.”

  The lady sighed. “Can’t you have one of the maids do it?”

  “Sadly, I cannot.” Aiden shrugged. “With what has been happening while I’ve been gone, they have a bit of fear going through them. Besides, I need someone that’s capable of protecting me if something goes wrong.”

  The lady gave him a look that implied that there was no way she could see anything going wrong that he couldn’t handle. He was sure her opinion came with the fact that he trained with Sir Valdan.

  Shaking her head, she raised a hand, and everyone stopped training. All eyes turned but they did not focus on her. Everyone watched Aiden as if he was the one who had raised his hand to halt them.

  She gave him an annoyed look this time. “And where will you be leading one of my men today?”

  Aiden shrugged. “Into daring dos.”

  “What?” she asked, brows drawn together in confusion.

  “I’m currently thinking of hunting down a few monsters,” he explained. “Seeing as he’ll be following me, it has to at least be something in the sixties and above. Anything less and he won’t find it challenging with his skills and level.”

  The lady’s lips parted in surprised confusion. She turned back to the group, looked at the soldier of Aiden’s choice, then back at him.

  “You’re joking. Right?” she asked.

  “Alright, maybe sixties might be too much for him. So how about I borrow two soldiers.”

  “For what reason, Lord Lacheart? I will not willingly send my men into troubles that they do not have to deal with.”

  It’s the king’s men, Aiden thought, knowing better than to point it out.

  “Alright, I’m actually just heading into town and I need an escort, someone I trust.”

  “Trust?” the lady was befuddled. “Then why are you asking for Nemare? Why not take Ded? If there’s anyone you trust it’s got to be him.”

  “Oh.” Aiden perked up. “Can I?”

  “Well, I—”

  He pointed at Ded, interrupting whatever it was that she was about to say. When he was certain that he had Ded’s attention, he gestured him forward.

  “Come on,” he called to him. “We’ve got mischief afoot.”

  The lady just stared at him as Ded left his position and jogged up to them.

  “Lord Lacheart,” Ded greeted, standing in front of them.

  Aiden patted him on the shoulder. “Good man. It’s been so long.”

  Ded gave him a confused look. “Yes… my lord.”

  “Thank you for allowing this,” Aiden said to the lady. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t allow me have him.”

  Both soldiers continued to stare at him. Aiden couldn’t remember the last time he had seen two more confused faces.

  “I thought the rumors said that he was more stoic,” the lady whispered to Ded. “You know, Austere.”

  “He usually is,” Ded confirmed. “I’m as confused as you are.”

  Aiden looked between the both of them with a satisfied smile. “I’m right here, you know.”

  The lady nodded. “I noticed.”

  “Anyway, Ded, you’re with me.”

  Ded looked to the lady and she nodded.

  Once she did, Aiden turned away and started his return, knowing that Ded would follow.

  “I’ll try and have him back by sundown,” he called back over his shoulder.

  This was fun, he thought as he walked away. It was good to know that he could still act out the jolly persona whenever he wanted to. If there was one thing he’d learnt from watching Zen interact with people in his previous life, it was that it tended to leave people off-kilter.

  It had been difficult to learn it in the beginning. Being weighed down by all the terrible things that had happened to him and the terrible things he’d had to do, it had been difficult to pretend to see the good in the world and be the fun in the world.

  But in time, with Zen’s help, he’d learnt how to fake it. Then he’d faked it until he didn’t know when a part of him remembered that life wasn’t all that bad.

  In some way, he owed his ability to return to some modicum of normalcy when it came to his mindset to Zen.

  It begged the question of why he wanted to get Zen to join him in this life. Zen had a unique class, the only one of its kind that he had ever seen used for combat purposes, but he was arguably replaceable.

  And the only thing that would be different from Zen if he prevented him from joining the Order was the fact that it would allow the man remain in good contact with his sister. Not being able to see or speak to his sister even though he could keep her life healthily funded working for the Order had been Zen’s only regret.

  Face it, Aiden told himself. You want him because he’s your friend. There’s no shame in it.

  There was also the fact that Zen was the only person with the class [Time Walker] who actually used it for combat purposes.

  He had a way he helped the group anticipate battles and just how active the battles were going to be.

  “Where are we headed, my Lord?” Ded asked, walking up beside him.

  “There’s a shop on the bad side of town I want to check out,” he said. “I heard from an adventurer that they sell some good stuff there.”

  The time had come for him to start setting things in motion.

  “What happened to your arm, my Lord?”

  Aiden looked down at his blackened arm. Since he’d gotten it, he’d done something that had left him no longer worrying so much about not disrupting the future, because it had already performed the greatest disruption he could possibly think of.

  It had destroyed the staff of the [Sage], and the man had carried it until the day he’d died in his past life.

  Aiden doubted he could even begin to fathom just how much power the staff possessed. The [Sage] would need another one, which meant that things were going to have to shift around amongst the powerful aspects of Nastild.

  Powers I know nothing about and have no interest in, he reminded himself.

  Then the giants came to mind. Those, from what he had heard, were great powers too. And those were powers that he had an interest in.

  …

  “My Lord?” Ded looked around, worry on his face.

  Aiden gave no response, instead, he knocked on the door in front of him, putting more effort into it. This was his third knock.

  “I don’t think that this is safe,” Ded said. “Maybe we should turn back.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Aiden told him. “As long as we don’t start a fight, we should be fine.”

  Bandiv was a beautiful kingdom, and the kingdom had gone through all the lengths to make certain that the capital city was the most beautiful part of it.

  Where they stood, however, was ugly and decrepit. The smell of day old fish rotting from time out filled the air. Aiden was certain that the smell was mixed with human excrement and that someone had puked in the corner.

  This was a small section of the capital city. And as the capital city had grown finer and grander, its slums had grown worse and worse while reducing in size. It was almost as if the detritus of society wasn’t being cleaned out but being compressed in size. The slums grew smaller but grew dirtier… slummier.

  Aiden waited at the door with a very worried Ded looking about. Off in the corner a beggar sat huddled against the wall. There were people like him on Nastild, despite the power of classes. They were born into destitution as children or somehow found their way into it. It beat them down to the point that when they finally came of age to have their own interface, they still couldn’t raise their levels high enough to gain a class.

  It was a sad thing but a true thing. You needed a full stomach and a healthy mind to achieve anything. If you had none, you achieved nothing. Starvation could drive you to a lot of things but most times it drove you to achieve the bare minimum. And you needed more than just the bare minimum to raise your levels and grow.

  The other summoned hadn’t noticed yet, but there were parts of Nastild where people barely reached old age and died of some problem or the other without ever reaching level ten.

  Such people weren’t much in the wider scale of things, but they existed. And they lived in places like these, huddled up in corners hoping that the piece of fish they’d snagged from the trash wasn’t too spoilt then end up not caring anyway.

  The sound of a door latch opening drew Aiden’s attention back to the door in front of him.

  “Are you sure it’s a trustworthy store?” Ded asked, still looking around.

  Aiden chuckled. “Oh, no. It definitely isn’t, but I heard about some good enchanted items that I could get for cheap over here and I am inclined to try it.” He flashed his card. “And I’ve got the secure funds in case they aren’t so cheap, but I can’t find it anywhere.”

  Ded looked at the card with a touch of awe. It was all the proof that Aiden needed to know that he was aware of it but didn’t have it yet.

  The door opened to the sight of a young boy.

  “Good day,” the boy greeted, stepping aside and Aiden strolled into the shop as if he’d been here countless times before.

  Walking into the store he was suddenly caught in a small maze of shelves carrying countless varying products. There were vambraces and chest armor. Light armor and heavy armor. Potions and enchantments drawn on paper. There were exotic birds oddly silent in their cages. Small things that looked like rats hovering within jars that didn’t have any liquid in them.

  Aiden identified too many things. He knew the enchantments and how they were created. He knew the potions and what levels of the [Alchemy] class were needed to brew them.

  Knowledge is power.

  And he had a lot of it.

  “How may we help you, sir?” a voice called from deeper into the store as the young child bolted the door behind them, locking the store back up.

  The voice carried an old but deep baritone and Aiden strolled up to it while Ded continued to worry and turn his head around, alert.

  When Aiden got to the owner of the voice, it was an old man, hunched over with age standing behind a counter.

  “We offer everything you are looking for,” he said. He gave Aiden an assessing look before adding: “My Lord.”

  Aiden made a vague gesture. “We can dispense with the titles. Call me Bora.”

  The old man’s eyes slid over to Ded.

  “And your bodyguard?” he asked.

  “Call him nothing,” Aiden answered without missing a beat. “He’s just here to keep the kid company and see if there’s anything that interests him.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed on Aiden. “Interesting.”

  “It is.” Aiden turned in the general direction of Ded. “Soldier, look around for whatever you might find interesting. I’ve just been told that what I’m looking for is in the back.”

  The old man twitched at Aiden’s words and Aiden moved before he did, quick as a whip. His hand settled on the counter with his bank card on display and he leaned closer to the man.

  “A penny for every trade,” he said in a very low voice. “And the cost of your soul for every risk.”

  Whatever it was that the old man had been planning to do, Aiden saw it die out in his eyes. The shop was far from just a shop in the slums selling illegal items. It was more than that.

  Ded burst out from one of the sections of the shop in a hurry.

  “My Lord,” he said quickly. “I cannot let you out of my sight.”

  “And yet, I am about to leave your sight,” Aiden told him. “And unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it. Now you see that vambrace over there?” he pointed at what he was talking about. It rested on a shelf collecting dust. “Pick it up and look around for the rest of its armor. I should be out by the time you find the complete set.”

  “And if you are not?” Ded asked.

  Aiden gave it some thought. “I should be, but if I’m not,” he looked at the old man, “then you can do you best to barge in.”

  Ded nodded obediently. But Aiden knew what kinds of people were current in this establishment. Ded couldn’t barge in even if he wanted to. And if they wanted the soldier dead, they could achieve it very easily.

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  The old man walked over to the edge of the counter and turned a lock as Aiden and Ded’s conversation came to an end. He pulled it open and motioned for Aiden to come through.

  Aiden obeyed.

  The man led him through a door behind the counter and they walked down a short hallway with walls the color of wood and smelled like a certain plant that was significantly poisonous when added to alcohol. Aiden pretended not to smell it.

  At the end of the hallway was another door, and while the old man opened it for Aiden, Aiden knew for a fact that he was going in alone.

  “I cannot lead you further,” the man said. “If you have the code and the location, then you must know what happens next.”

  Aiden nodded, adjusted his coat, and walked in.

  The new room had nothing but a single table at its center and a single candle hanging from the ceiling that illuminated the entire room with more light than the flame was supposed to be capable of.

  The table was round and three men sat on the side of it that allowed them to see the door. On Aiden’s side of the table had a single chair.

  Aiden took the chair without question.

  “Why are you here?” one of the three men asked. He was of average build in height and weight and was the only normal-looking person present.

  One of his companions was built like a bear and the other one had a face so pinched that it reminded Aiden of a rat.

  “The banks have recently started using a product called a bank card attached to an accounts system,” Aiden said simply. “On a scale of one to ten, how much do you know about it?”

  “Eleven.”

  Aiden nodded. “And how well are you connected to the banking system?”

  “On a scale of one to ten?” the man asked, and Aiden nodded. “Nine.”

  “Good. Perhaps you just might be a functioning fit.”

  “But before we continue, young lord,” the man said. “I would like to know how you got the code and how you know of this place.”

  “I will give you a name and nothing more,” Aiden answered. “If you ask for anything more, I’ll get up and leave.”

  The large man smiled something menacing. “And what makes you think we will allow you and your little bodyguard outside to go anywhere.”

  Aiden’s eyes panned over to the man slowly. “Threats are in poor taste.” He looked back at the man that had initially spoken to him. “Do we have a deal or do I have to take my business elsewhere?”

  The man squinted at him. Aiden felt a small touch of attention on himself but couldn’t be bothered. The men and women that occupied the building were more than enough to handle someone like Ded.

  But a level forty-nine combat class was a completely different case entirely.

  The man gulped, and Aiden was certain that the man hadn’t seen whatever it was that he was looking for. There existed a fear of the unknown in the underworld, and right now, he was the unknown.

  If there was one thing Aiden had learnt it was that on Nastild, it was never a good idea to mess with someone whose class and level whatever identification skill you were using couldn’t identify.

  “A name will suffice, my lord,” the man said.

  “Shewa.” Aiden crossed his legs casually. “Now that you have your name, I have a use for you. Is that fine?”

  “It is.”

  “Good.” Aiden leaned forward and dropped his bank card on the table.

  All three men looked down at it, then up at him.

  The part of the card that carried Aiden’s name had been smeared with black ink so that his name did not show.

  “And the request?” the man asked.

  Aiden sat back, displaying casual superiority. “Two cards linked to two accounts that do not have a problem and will not draw any attention. I need them to be fully functional and ready to go right this moment.”

  “So, you want new accounts? That’s all?”

  Aiden laughed heartily. “If I wanted two accounts, I could’ve just walked into the banks. No, I don’t want two accounts.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  Aiden leaned forward and tapped the card.

  “I want the perfect forgery.”