My Creations Followed Me to Another World-Chapter 31: The Grand Strategist (2)

Five minutes later, Iris was sitting at the rough wooden table. She had not touched the Sun-stone. She had barely glanced at it. To her, the shiny rock was irrelevant; the implication of the rock was everything.

She was reading Corva’s black ledger. Her eyes darted across the text, her finger tracing the clauses of the "Retainer" agreement.

Hana watched her from the corner, distrust evident in her posture. "Who is she, Dante? Can she fight?"

"No," Dante said. "She can’t fight. But she can kill you with her head."

Iris flipped the ledger closed with a snap. She took off her glasses and began to polish them with a silk handkerchief she had produced from nowhere.

"It is amateur work," Iris declared. "Standard predatory lending contracts disguised as guild loyalty. She treats you as a depreciating asset. Clause 4 allows her to seize your ’inventory’ upon death. Clause 7 gives her rights to your ’future earnings’ in perpetuity."

She put her glasses back on. The grey eyes magnified, looking dangerously sharp.

"However," she continued, a small, cruel smile playing on her lips. "This Corva... she made a mistake. She assumed you were a thief."

"I am a thief," Dante said. "Or, I’m pretending to be."

"No," Iris corrected. "A thief steals for money. A thief hands over the loot and begs for his cut. You hold the Sun-stone. You hold the leverage."

She stood up and walked to Dante. She fixed his collar, brushing off invisible dust. It was the fussing of a campaign manager preparing a candidate for a debate.

"Dante, listen to me. You are not going there to turn in a quest. You are not an employee."

She tapped the Sun-stone.

"This stone controls the Regent’s vault. That means it controls the liquidity of the entire city. If Corva gets this, she isn’t just a crime lord; she becomes the de facto banker of Aethelburg. She needs this stone more than she needs air."

Iris leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

"If you walk in there as a servant, she will take the stone and bury you. You must walk in there as a Partner. You must walk in there as if you are doing her a favor by letting her touch it."

Dante swallowed. "How do I do that? I’m Level 5. She has an army."

"You have me," Iris said simply.

She tapped her datapad. A sheet of paper—crisp, white, and smelling of expensive ink—materialized in her hand. She handed it to Dante.

"This is your script," Iris said. "Memorize it. Do not deviate. Do not apologize. Do not ask for permission to sit down. When you enter, you sit. If she offers you wine, you refuse it—tell her it breathes too long. You establish dominance not with force, but with taste."

Dante looked at the paper. It was a list of demands.

Immediate Termination of the Retainer Contract.Elevation to ’Guild Partner’ Status.Safe House Upgrade (Surface Level).20% Gross on all operations involving the Stone.

"This is insanity," Dante whispered. "She’ll kill me."

"She can’t," Iris countered. "Because you aren’t bringing the stone."

Dante blinked. "I’m not?"

"Heavens, no," Iris scoffed. "You never bring the leverage to the negotiation. You bring the promise of the leverage. You leave the stone here, with 47 and the Rear Guard. If you don’t walk out of that office in thirty minutes, 47 destroys the stone."

Hana gasped. "Destroy it?"

"Or sells it to the Spire," Iris shrugged. "It doesn’t matter. The threat is what matters. Mutually Assured Destruction."

Iris looked at Dante, her eyes gleaming.

"Go, my Lord. Be the King I built you to be. I will manage the assets here."

Dante stood before the massive vault door of the Ledger.

He was alone. He had left 47, Hana, Shivvy, and Iris back in the Hollow. He felt naked without his tank and his assassin. He felt physically weak.

But in his mind, Iris’s voice was a cool, steady stream of instructions.

Shoulders back. Chin up. You are not a refugee. You are the CEO of a rival firm.

The door creaked open.

Jek was there. The goblin looked nervous. He scanned the hallway behind Dante, looking for the others.

"Just you?" Jek squeaked. "Did... did the job go bad? Is the stone gone?"

Dante didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at Jek. He walked past him, stepping into the vault with a stride he forced to be casual.

Corva was sitting at her desk. She looked tired. The Spire alarms screaming above in the city had clearly put her on edge. She expected a dead team. Or a captured team.

When she saw Dante, alone, alive, and uninjured, her eyes widened.

"Producer," she said slowly. "You’re alive. I assume my asset... Shivvy... is dead?"

Dante walked to the chair opposite her desk. He didn’t wait for an invitation. He pulled it out—the wood scraping loudly against the stone floor—and sat down. He crossed his legs.

He looked around the room, mimicking Iris’s disdain.

"You know, Corva," Dante said, his voice steady, reciting the first line of the script. "This vault is impressive. But the ventilation is terrible. You really should invest in better air scrubbers."

Corva stared at him. The air in the room shifted. The dynamic had changed.

"Do you have the stone?" she asked, her voice dangerous.

"The stone is safe," Dante said. "It’s in a secure location, guarded by my Level 50 Specialist. It is not here."

Corva’s hand twitched toward a bell on her desk—the alarm for her guards.

"I wouldn’t," Dante said softly. "My specialist has orders. If I’m not back in..." he checked an invisible watch, "...twenty-eight minutes, she sells the stone to the Temple. They pay better than you, I hear."

Corva’s hand froze. Her eyes narrowed into slits. She was recalculating. She was running the numbers.

"You’re playing a dangerous game, little Producer," she hissed.

"No," Dante smiled. It was the first genuine smile he had worn in days. It was the smile of a man who had checked the walkthrough.

"I’m renegotiating."

He reached into his pocket. He didn’t pull out the stone. He pulled out the black ledger she had given him—the Retainer contract.

He tore the first page out. Then the second. He let the pieces drift onto her desk like confetti.

"We need to talk about your ’Management Fees’," Dante said. "And I think I’m going to need a drink. Not this swill. Do you have anything from the Southern Vines?"

Corva looked at the torn paper. She looked at Dante.

For a long, agonizing minute, silence reigned.

Then, Corva threw her head back and laughed. It wasn’t the dry, parchment laugh from before. It was a genuine, impressed bark of amusement.

"Well played," she said, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a bottle of amber liquid and two glasses. "Well played, Partner."

Back in the Hollow, Iris adjusted her glasses and picked up a broom.

"Filthy," she muttered, sweeping the floor. "But we shall build an Empire from this mud yet."