Chapter 82: A New Phone And A New...Everything
The morning had been nothing worth writing home about.
David had eaten, done a lazy circuit of stretches he told himself counted as a workout, and spent the better part of an hour staring at his ceiling while the system sat quiet in the corner of his vision like a patient landlord.
He didn’t mind it. After the dungeon, he’d earned a few hours of absolutely nothing.
But the afternoon carried weight.
He did originally have plans for exchanging his dungeon hauls for money. So this was honestly a good chance.
David pulled on a jacket, grabbed the bag, and headed for the Exchange.
The Lower District’s Hunter Exchange sat two blocks off the main strip, wedged between a laundromat and a boarded-up pawn shop that had never reopened after the Gate two years back.
The sign above the door was backlit orange, permanently. The ’E’ had been flickering since David started coming here and nobody had fixed it.
He pushed through the door.
The smell hit first — iron, dust, the faint chemical bite of preservation fluid they used on organic materials before weighing them. A short queue at the counter.
David joined the queue and waited for his turn which soon arrived.
The merchant found the bag on his table before David finished putting it down.
No greeting. No preamble. Just thick hands already working the drawstring, and then he was reaching inside with the economy of someone who had done this ten thousand times and stopped finding it interesting around the nine thousandth.
White beard, close-trimmed. Round face. The build of a man who had eaten well for a long time and arrived at peace with it. Plain trader’s apron. And from his breast pocket, a small testing hammer that looked almost comical in his grip.
He selected a Silver-Back Rabbit claw. Turned it once under the light. Set it flat on the table and tapped it twice.
Ding. Ding.
He tilted his head. Let the sound die. Tapped again.
"Mhmm."
Set it down. Reached back in. Pulled out one of the Iron-Head Hog plates — broad, curved, the size of a palm, that dull metallic sheen it had carried out of the dungeon.
Kink.
Cleaner. Sharper.
The merchant put the hammer down.
"Good material." He rotated the plate once more, then set it back. "Not exceptional. Good." He looked up. "Where’d you say you got these?"
David hadn’t said. "I didn’t."
The merchant looked at him. At the bag. Back at him. The corner of his eye creased — not quite a smile.
"How much for all of them?" David asked.
"Three thousand five hundred," the merchant said first.
David closed it.
’Three thousand five hundred.’
Something moved in his chest. The old reflex — the one that had spent years operating without money, the one that heard a large number and reacted before the math could catch up. Three and a half grand was more than two months of low-grade contracts. His hand almost moved toward the table.
He caught it.
’Twenty pieces,’ he thought. ’Silver-Back claws and Iron-Head plates. The man picked up the hammer and knew in four seconds.’ He ran it through slowly, the way Mrs. Walbury had taught him to assess skills — don’t react to the surface, look at what’s underneath.
’He didn’t negotiate down from a high offer. He opened low. That’s not a fair price. That’s a test.’
The silence stretched one beat past comfortable.
"That’s not going to work for me," David said.
"No?"
"No."
"You’re E-rank." Not unkind. Just a fact.
"Which is what makes the haul impressive. " David said. "You said it yourself. The material’s good."
The merchant exhaled through his nose. "Trying to monopolize, are we?"
"Trying to be reasonable. There’s a difference."
The merchant picked up the hog plate again. Held it to the light. Set it back down. Then he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his apron, and looked at David the way older men look at younger men who are being cleverer than expected — not hostile, just recalibrating.
"Four thousand."
"Four thousand seven hundred."
"Four thousand two hundred."
"Four thousand seven hundred."
The merchant blinked. "You’re not moving."
"You called it good material without hesitating," David said. " You’re not unsure about the value. You’re checking if I am."
A pause.
Then the merchant uncrossed his arms, reached across the table, and put out his hand.
"Four thousand seven hundred." A beat. "Sharp kid."
David shook it.
---
He checked the balance outside.
Stood at the entrance of the warehouse with the empty, rolled-up duffel under one arm and looked at his phone screen until the number stopped feeling like someone else’s mistake.
Four thousand seven hundred dollars.
He’d never seen his account look like that. It looked wrong — too clean, too round. The kind of number you double-checked before you believed it.
He exhaled.
’So that’s what a dungeon is worth.’
He started walking and didn’t stop until he’d done what needed doing.
New phone first. The cracked screen with the Spider-Man patch wedged over the corner since the concrete incident six months ago had lasted long enough. He walked into a shop, walked out five hundred lighter, holding something that didn’t have anything taped to it.
Then clothes. Not a haul. A considered hour of actually trying things on and making choices based on criteria other than structural integrity. Three proper outfits, budgeted, and the specific quiet satisfaction of a man who has stopped dressing like he’s waiting for things to get better.
Five hundred into savings. Untouchable.
The rest went in pieces — a perfume that didn’t come in a white plastic bottle, a lamp, a rug that actually covered the floor, two framed prints from a market stall cheap enough not to make him feel stupid about buying them.
He sold the old furniture the same afternoon, posted it while he was still out, had a buyer collect within the hour. By evening, the last of it was gone and the apartment looked like a different place. Not transformed. Not lavish. Just finished. Like someone lived there on purpose.
He stood in the middle of the room and looked around for a moment.
Then he showered, came back to the mirror, and combed his hair.
His reflection stopped him.
He’d filled out. He hadn’t noticed it happening — the dungeon runs, the training, the accumulated grind of months — but standing here now, in a room that no longer looked provisional, the evidence was right in front of him. Jaw sharper. Shoulders sitting differently. Muscle definition across his forearms that hadn’t been there three months ago. Real, not dramatic. Present.
He looked like someone who’d been working.
He dressed in what he’d set aside — dark slim trousers, fitted rust-brown long-sleeve, clean collar, untucked just enough to read as deliberate. Black leather sneakers. One application of the new perfume, to the neck.
He checked the time.
Six o’clock.
He looked at himself in the mirror one more time. Didn’t look away immediately.
’Alright,’ he thought. ’Holly’s waiting.’
With that, he grabbed his phone off the counter, pocketed it, and left.