The cart arrived at the back gate of Selene’s house approximately forty minutes later.

Liaraen drove with the specific attention of someone who knows that any additional jolt could be the one that costs the injured man in the back his life.

Roen had lost consciousness halfway through the journey.

The Yeva magic had stopped the external bleeding, but the internal wound remained serious.

Nathan held him against his shoulder, his left arm under the guide’s head and his right hand applied constantly over the wound to maintain pressure.

Beside the two of them, tied in the back of the cart and wrapped in a thick canvas blanket, was the eighth man. The one Nathan had decided to leave behind.

He was the bearer of the unknown Seal. A-Rank.

He’d knocked him out with a Soul Pulse at eighty percent intensity just before the leader took the rest away.

The man had fallen without suffering permanent soul damage. Soul Sense confirmed he was alive, unconscious, and likely to remain so for several hours.

Selene came out through the gate as soon as she heard the cart.

One look was all it took.

"Inside. Now. Through the service entrance. The healer is already in the room."

Liaraen stopped the horse.

Climbed down from the seat.

Nathan and she, between the two of them, carried Roen inside while Selene closed the gate behind them.

Another woman came out of the house—tall, around sixty, wearing a pale gray tunic with a visible Sareth seal at the base of her neck.

The Maiden of the Veil.

Healing, compassion, protection of innocents.

A real healer.

Nathan hadn’t asked what Selene did deeply enough to know why she had a Sareth healer on standby in her own house. That was information for the big conversation yet to come.

"Put him here," the healer said, indicating a long table in the main room.

They laid Roen on the table. The healer began working immediately, without wasting time on greetings.

Liaraen stood beside the table, watching the work with the specific attention of someone trained in the basics of Yeva’s sciences and recognizing Sareth’s techniques as complementary.

The healer placed her hands over the wound. A faint white light began to glow.

The blood still on the side slowly reabsorbed.

"He’ll live," the healer said after approximately two minutes. "The wound was well controlled by the lady’s magic. That bought the necessary time."

Liaraen, beside Nathan, exhaled very slightly. It was the first sign of released tension Nathan had seen from her all day.

Selene looked at both of them.

"You need to clean up and eat. And then we need to talk." Pause. "Who’s in the cart?"

Nathan looked at her.

"One of them. Alive. I’m going to use him."

Selene raised her eyebrows exactly half a centimeter. It was the equivalent, in her, of a broad expression of surprise.

"Hunter Voss."

"Selene."

"What exactly are you planning?"

"I have an idea. It’s stupid. But it might work. I need your help with three specific things for it to work."

"I’m listening."

"A substance to keep the man sedated for approximately six hours without waking in between. Something to restore the mana I consumed this morning. And a discreet place to leave Liaraen while I do what I have to do—because she’s not going to be able to come with me."

Selene looked at him for a second.

Then smiled slightly. It was the second smile Nathan had seen from her in less than twelve hours. This one was different. This one was a smile of professional recognition.

"Come to my study. We’re going to plan this properly."

---

Selene’s study was a small room on the ground floor, separated from the rest of the house by a thick door she carefully closed behind them.

The walls were lined with shelves of books, jars, small boxes labeled with a marking system Nathan didn’t recognize but was clearly an organized code.

Selene walked to a specific shelf. Took out two things.

The first was a small glass vial with an almost transparent blue liquid.

"This substance is of elven origin," Selene said. "One drop is enough to sedate an adult for six hours. Two drops, eight. More than two, risk of permanent damage. Applied orally or by inhalation with the nose near the open vial. Tasteless. Leaves no detectable trace after six hours. It’s the same substance Mr. Brenwick himself likely used on his original merchandise."

"That’s convenient."

"It’s information my network collects. Substances used by trafficking operators are cataloged and preserved as countermeasures." Pause. "One drop will be enough for your purposes."

"Accepted."

The second thing was a stone. A small crystal, no larger than a hazelnut, of a dark blue almost black color with light veins running through its interior. Selene held it between her index finger and thumb.

"This is a Restoration Core. It accumulates mana slowly over weeks. When held against the skin of a bearer with active channels, it transfers the accumulated mana in approximately forty seconds. It will restore you to up to eighty percent of your total reserve. It’s not immediately reusable. It will take three weeks to recharge."

Nathan looked at it.

"How much does one of these cost on the open market?"

"Approximately two hundred gold coins."

"I can’t accept it."

"I’m not giving it to you. I’m lending it to you. When you’re done using it, return it. How you use it between now and returning it is your decision."

"Accepted."

Selene handed him the vial and the crystal.

"Tell me the full plan."

Nathan sat in one of the study’s two chairs. Selene sat across from him.

"Brenwick needs the original package to arrive. He doesn’t care who’s inside as long as the box arrives sealed with a living contents.

"The Table has already notified him the operation failed and is going to be pressuring him to recover the merchandise."

"If I show up this afternoon with the sealed box, with the original lock I kept, with living contents inside, and with a credible combat story about how I managed to recover the merchandise from the road bandits, Brenwick is going to have exactly two options."

"Accept the delivery and pay the remaining balance, or reject the delivery and expose that the original merchandise wasn’t what it claimed to be."

Selene nodded slowly.

"Continue."

"Brenwick can’t reject the delivery without admitting in front of institutional witnesses that he was expecting a specific person rather than generic merchandise."

"That’s going to force him to accept. The lock is going to be intact, because I’m going to use Tactile Entropy again to restore it after putting the unconscious bearer inside."

"The box is going to be heavy because the man is roughly the same size as Liaraen. And Brenwick is going to have to open the box to verify before paying."

"And when he opens it."

"He’s going to find an unconscious bearer with an unknown Seal he doesn’t recognize. He’s going to understand something went very wrong."

" But he’s going to understand it alone in his office, not in front of a disposable F-Rank Hunter. He’s going to have to make decisions from there. And in the meantime, I’ll already have collected the remaining balance and be out of immediate range."

"Why not just disappear without delivering anything?"

"Because if I disappear without delivering, Brenwick knows I have the original package. He keeps looking for me."

"Keeps looking for Liaraen. If I deliver a box with living contents under the correct appearance, I give him a window of several hours during which he’s going to be processing what happened, without acting yet. That window is exactly what Liaraen needs to leave Greywall by another route."

"And the man inside the box."

Nathan was silent for a moment.

"The man inside the box is going to wake up in six hours with a headache, in an unknown place, without fully understanding what happened. He’s going to be interrogated by Brenwick."

"He’s going to be able to give the version of events he remembers, which is basically that an F-Rank Hunter applied something no F-Rank should have access to. That information is going to confirm to Brenwick what the group leader has already reported to the Table. It’s going to increase the Table’s interest in me specifically."

"Which is a problem for you."

"It’s a deferred problem. Today, what matters is Liaraen."

Selene looked at him for a full moment.

"Hunter Voss."

"Yes."

"That’s a good plan."

"Thank you."

"It has a flaw."

"What?"

"Brenwick is going to know, in about twenty minutes of processing it, that the man inside the box is one of the Table’s extraction team members. Which means he’s going to know the Table attempted to intercept HIS merchandise. Which means the internal conflict between Brenwick and the Table is going to escalate significantly. Which, paradoxically, benefits you."

"How does it benefit me?"

"Because while Brenwick and the Table are occupied resolving among themselves who betrayed whom, neither has available capacity to focus on you. You’re creating a distraction that will likely last between three and five days before either has time to specifically come after you again."

Nathan sat thinking.

*I didn’t even consciously calculate that. But it’s there.*

"Selene."

"Yes?"

"Did you see that, or did I see it without knowing I saw it?"

"You saw it. Just without articulating it." Pause. "That’s something that’s going to happen more often from now on. Your Class is starting to process tactical information at levels that run ahead of your conscious thought. You’re going to have to learn to trust that."

"Is it part of the Class?"

"It’s part of what makes SSS — Extinction be SSS — Extinction."

"Good." Nathan exhaled. "One more question."

"Go ahead."

"When this is over. When I come back. Are we going to have the big conversation?"

Selene looked at him.

"Yes."

"Good."

He stood up. Selene did too.

"Hunter Voss."

"Yes?"

"One thing."

"Go ahead."

"Don’t overdo it with Brenwick. Don’t hurt him physically, don’t threaten him, don’t give him extra information. Deliver the box. Collect payment. Leave. If at any point you feel the temptation to make one of your usual cynical observations, don’t. Brenwick is a man who records every detail. Any comment that seems personal is going to be used against you later."

"Noted."

"It’s going to be hard for you."

"I know."

"You know it, but you don’t believe it. I’m telling you seriously. You’re someone who uses dry humor as a defense mechanism. Today, that defense is offense. Control it, or it complicates everything."

Nathan was quiet for a moment.

"Alright. I’ll control it."

"Good."