Chapter 299: The Choice She Bought
Martin had spent the entire battle searching for the traitor while standing beside Cassandra.
"How much did you tell them?" he asked.
"I gave Just Die our route and timing. I also hired mercenaries and brought other guilds into the attack."
Katherine folded her hands tightly in her lap. "You sent Night Espresso into an ambush arranged by another guild you controlled. Everyone trusted your plan while you handed it to the enemy."
"Kuro A had prepared for hostile players, and I used that to convince myself the risk was acceptable. I believed I controlled both outcomes. If Night Espresso won, it would claim the territory and prove itself. If Just Die won, I would gain the same territory through Victoria. I called it a competition between two assets. Everyone fighting for me had to live with the consequences."
Cassandra’s note had called Just Die an asset. Martin had understood the word without grasping how much she had hidden behind it.
"Victoria wasn’t working for you," he said.
"No. Victoria was the character I used to lead Just Die."
Martin heard the words, but his mind still treated Victoria and Cassandra as two different people. Then he remembered the $100,000 purchase of Deadmaw, Victoria’s name on the laboratory’s sponsor record, and the Condemned marker beneath Cassandra’s name.
"Victoria was you?"
"I was Victoria. The alchemical lineage and liability review identified my account as the originator, and the Mother of Beastslayers brand spread to every character registered to that account. That’s why Cassandra Selfmore was marked Condemned and banished from Forest Hidden. I can see the brand’s full name. Everyone else sees only Condemned."
There was no separate Victoria left to blame. Cassandra had led both guilds while asking Martin to stand beside her in only one of them.
When Katherine spoke, the warmth had vanished from her voice voice. "Then tell us about Ashy. Don’t explain the rest of Just Die first. Tell us what you did to him."
Cassandra faced Martin when she said it. "I told Raze to kill Ashy."
Martin already knew Raze had killed Ashy and received the Beastslayer class. Until now, he had not realized Cassandra chose the target and gave the order herself.
"You told him to kill his own beast?"
"I did. At the time, Raze was the only Just Die member with a beast. The others cared only about making themselves stronger. When he suggested helping them obtain beasts of their own, I told him they should take beasts’ powers instead."
"You bought his sword from me as payment for killing Ashy."
"I promised to recover Deadmaw if he followed my order. Whether the attempt gave him a new path or failed, I would still reward him for showing me how far he was willing to go."
Katherine’s next question came after a long pause. "Did he hesitate?"
"Yes. Ashy had fought beside him for a long time, and I knew the order hurt him." When Cassandra continued, Martin had to lean forward to hear her. "I also knew how badly he wanted Deadmaw back, so I used the sword as his reward. Then I walked away and left him alone in that cave."
Martin waited until he trusted himself to speak. "You knew he didn’t want to do it, so you gave him something he wanted badly enough to make him consider it."
"I told myself he could still refuse." Cassandra rubbed her thumb once over the seam of the armrest. "That was how I made the decision sound clean."
After several seconds, Cassandra forced herself to continue. "I’ve closed divisions and fired people while knowing the decision would upend their lives. Sometimes the people involved had failed. Others were simply caught in a part of the company that could no longer survive. I learned to live with the damage when I believed the larger result justified it, and I brought that habit into the game with me."
Katherine’s voice had lost its earlier gentleness. "Because it happened inside a game, you decided the harm didn’t count the same way."
"I decided it would stay behind a screen. Ashy had been created by the game, and Raze could log out whenever he wanted. That made it easier to treat both of them as pieces in a decision instead of asking what the decision would do to them. I kept telling myself a game was only a game."
"So you let yourself use anything the game gave you."
"That is what I did. Just Die reduced the world to whatever made its members stronger, while I saw assets I could control and markets I could build. My thinking was closer to theirs than I wanted anyone in Night Espresso to know."
She kept going before either of them could interrupt. "They were never going to spend months earning a companion’s trust. Instead of challenging that, I treated them as a market segment. If they wouldn’t build bonds, I would find a progression path that let them take those bonds apart. Night Espresso would control the lawful side of the world, while Just Die searched for everything the academies rejected, including forbidden classes, unlicensed trade, and hostile territory."
Martin had heard Cassandra discuss markets dozens of times. He had never hated her fluency in that language until she used it to explain Ashy and Nyxshade.
"And you would profit from both," he said.
"That was my plan. I thought I could direct the Beastslayer path, decide who received it, and keep it from threatening anything I valued."
"You gave the beasts no value at all."
Cassandra did not try to defend herself. "No. I didn’t."
"I authorized the project. My sponsorship gave it access, and my money kept it running. I decided what I wanted the research to accomplish, then left the daily work to Raze. He chose the targets and rewards the members actually followed. I stopped paying attention until Kumoe nearly died and your report showed me the laboratory."
Martin’s jaw tightened. "Raze chose how far to take it, but you created the project and put him in charge."
"Yes. I chose him and gave him that authority. I don’t expect the distinction to excuse me."
Cassandra flattened her palms against her trousers before continuing. "Ashy was not the only beast lost. NineLivesLeft rushed Nyxshade’s bond, sacrificed her for the class, and used what he took from her to hunt Kumoe. By the time I tried to stop the project, Raze had already become Just Die’s leader in every way that mattered."
Katherine leaned forward. "How far did they get before you lost access?"
"Far enough that we must assume the method succeeded. The lineage stabilized while they kept me away from the cauldron. The formula doesn’t grant Beastslayer by itself. It accelerates or falsifies maximum-bond recognition, which pushes eligible players toward the sacrifice event without waiting for a natural bond to develop."
The mention of a working formula pulled Martin’s thoughts away from Ashy and back to the danger Just Die still posed. "What happened after the lineage stabilized?"
"They began copying the formula onto a restricted slate and sealing the successful sample in a proof ampoule. I tried to break the active matrix before they could finish," Cassandra said. "Raze killed Victoria with Deadmaw before I could destroy the matrix."