Chapter 32: Volume 1- [ - 33 ]
I stopped. Stared at the number. Forty-five? After last night’s four hundred, after the six hundred from Martha, forty-five felt like an insult. Like being handed a coupon after winning a lottery.
’Doesn’t this woman become an evil villain?’ I thought at the system. ’Why the hell don’t I get full points? She literally just got ass-fucked while her husband stood three feet away. Where is the narrative weight?’
The system responded with the maddening calm of a bureaucracy that knows it holds all the cards:
[ The backstory is about to be rewritten. Point values may fluctuate as narrative trajectories shift. Current calculation reflects the modified timeline, not the original. Full villain-transformation points will be credited upon completion of the trigger event. ]
"About to be rewritten," I muttered. "Isn’t it."
I scoffed. Shook my head.
’Why do I think you’ve gained consciousness and you’re trying to screw me over, bastard?’ I thought at the system, and the system, characteristically, did not respond.
I walked. Through the corridor, past the gallery with the empty portrait frame, past the training yard where Garrick’s men were now drilling with the enthusiasm of men who had been paid to do nothing, past the kitchen where the morning’s meager provisions sat untouched. I walked until I reached the receiving room — the formal chamber where the lord of the house met with visitors, petitioners, and merchants who wanted something from him.
The room was modest by noble standards — a large table, six chairs, a sideboard with a decanter of wine that had not been refreshed in weeks, and a window that looked east over the cliff road. I sat at the head of the table. Opened the drawer. Looked at the item that lay inside.
The Serpent’s Fang.
It was beautiful in the way that all weapons are beautiful — the clean lines of purpose, the elegant marriage of form and function, the cold promise of violence compressed into a single, handheld object. A flintlock-style pistol, modern in design, impossible in this world, devastating at close range. The barrel was dark steel, smooth, rifled. The stock was polished hardwood. The mechanism was simple — load, prime, cock, fire. One shot. But one shot, in a world of swords and sorcery, was more than enough.
I picked it up. Felt the weight — heavier than I expected, solid, grounding. The grip fit my palm as though it had been made for it, which, given the system’s user-friendly approach to arming its host, it probably had.
’You and I,’ I thought, turning the pistol in my hand, watching the morning light catch the steel, ’are going to do great things together.’
I tucked it into my waistband, behind my back, where the tail of my shirt concealed it. Then I sat, folded my hands on the table, and waited.
Twenty minutes later, the door opened.
The man who entered was fat. Not the soft, comfortable plumpness of a man who enjoyed his meals — the aggressive, expansive corpulence of a man who had turned eating into a competitive sport and was winning. His belly preceded him through the door by a full foot, straining the buttons of a velvet coat that had been expensive a decade ago and was now holding on through sheer stubbornness and the prayers of a tailor who deserved sainthood. His fingers were laden with gold rings — four on the left hand, three on the right — each one thick enough to serve as a knuckle-duster. A heavy chain of gold links hung around his neck, disappearing into the folds of his chin. His face was round, red, shining with the sheen of a man who had been walking in the morning sun and whose body was protesting the exertion.
He carried a package under one arm — wrapped in cloth, tied with string, the kind of gift that merchants brought to lords when they wanted something.
He saw me. Stood. His face arranged itself into a smile so wide and so oily that it seemed to lubricate the very air around him. He clasped his hands together — the gold rings clicking against each other with a sound like expensive dice — and rubbed them vigorously.
"Lord Veyne!" he exclaimed, and his voice was the voice of a man who had practiced warmth in front of a mirror until it became indistinguishable from the real thing. "Greetings, greetings, my lord! What an honor! What a privilege!"
He crossed the room with surprising speed for a man of his size, his belly swaying with each step, his rings catching the light. He reached the table and extended both hands, clasping mine in a grip that was warm and damp and firm — the handshake of a man who understood that the first impression was the most important transaction.
"It is wonderful to see you, my lord," he said, his eyes — small, sharp, set deep in the folds of his face — scanning me with the quick, assessing glance of a merchant who was calculating my net worth even while he praised my lineage. "I had heard you were unwell. But you look — my lord, you look wonderful. Quite wonderful. The sea air agrees with you."
’Forty gold in his coat alone,’ his internal voice calculated, the numbers running behind his smile with the cold efficiency of an abacus. ’The ring on his right hand — Veyne heirloom, maybe two hundred. The boots — imported, but worn. The shirt — good fabric, but mended at the collar. Not as wealthy as his father. But not as poor as the rumors suggest. Interesting.’
I let him shake my hand. Let him rub it between his palms. Let him smile his oily smile and bow his round, sweating head. I smiled back — the soft, trusting smile of a young lord who was grateful for the attention of a successful merchant.
"Master Harwick," I said. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. Please, sit."
He sat. The chair groaned.
I sat across from him, my hands folded on the table, my smile unwavering, the pistol pressing against my lower back with the reassuring weight of a promise I intended to keep.
’Better be ready to hand over your land, fucker,’ I thought, and opened my mouth to begin.
"I heard your daughters have turned 18 this year... may I propose a proposal to you?"