Season 3 chapter 21
The Subordinate Employee
Three minutes later, a highly nervous corporate finance employee stepped into the executive suite, holding a digital tablet.
"Okay, hello," Kniya greeted arrogantly, looking down his nose at the man. "I don't even know your name because, you know, you are so extremely lower-caste, and I am so high above you. So why would I ask your name, and why should I even know your name?"
"Kniya, please," Malesh scolded flatly from the sofa. "Do not do this kind of blatant racism in the company. It ruins productivity."
"Okay, fuck, let me ask a proper question then," Kniya huffed, turning back to the employee. "You member. You fucking royal member. You know about this secret marriage tradition, right? The emergency trap?"
The employee swallowed hard, nervously adjusting his glasses under Kniya's intense glare. "Yes, sir. It is a real tradition. He is speaking true. Mr. Anderson is speaking the absolute truth."
Malesh blinked, his analytical brain glitching. "What the fuck?"
"I don't believe in any of the crap you said till now," Malesh argued, desperately clinging to logic. "How should I believe this? Where is the proof?"
The employee quickly reached into his cheap suit jacket. "Basically, sir, I was also invited to my own marriage in this exact kind of situation. It was deemed as an emergency, and at that time I didn't have a telephone in my office to verify it. So yeah... this is the official post letter I got."
The guy handed over a folded piece of thick parchment. Malesh took it, analyzing the royal wax seal.
"Okay, this is literal shit," Malesh admitted, completely shocked by the documented proof. "I didn't know about this thing... what the fuck has happened to Filoska then?"
Malesh looked up at Kniya, instantly analyzing the power dynamics of the situation. "Okay, Kniya. You are always so much eager about the noble positions. So tell me, what is his exact position in the royal family?"
Kniya smirked with absolute, unchecked aristocratic pride. "You know, these lower-caste people... they directly come under the Anderson family. Fuck. It feels so good to say that out loud. Okay, Malesh, let me tell you one more thing about the royal family network. There are the main Eight Great Families, you know about this thing. And under each great family, there are exactly thirty main subordinate families. And you know what? His specific subordinate family is officially part of my Anderson family sect!"
Malesh stared at the employee, absolutely horrified by the archaic hierarchy. "What the fuck is really happening right now? It is really, really devastating for me to see this primitive feudalism."
A dark, historical realization suddenly hit Malesh. He looked at Kniya.
"Wait," Malesh said, his voice entirely deadpan. "So this means he has to... you know. There is a specific royal ceremony in which this guy would absolutely do the thing. He would basically wash your legs, and you know, the dirty water he got from your legs... he would physically drink that as a royal degree of absolute respect."
The employee turned entirely pale, looking like his soul had just left his body.
Kniya's eyes, however, lit up with pure, unadulterated megalomania.
"You know, Malesh," Kniya whispered, an evil, terrifying smirk spreading across his face as he looked at the horrified accountant. "You always give me some seriously crazy ideas. I think so... I should absolutely consider doing this thing for my own subordinates!"
Salesh, who was still standing by the door holding his market reports, completely lost his mind.
"Kniya, for fuck's sake, NO!" Salesh screamed at the top of his lungs.
Filoska couldn't take it anymore. She was dealing with a literal death threat against her little brother from the most powerful man in the Republic, and these three absolute idiots were violently screaming about making an accountant drink dirty foot water.
The sheer, overwhelming absurdity of the situation violently clashed with the absolute terror in her chest. The dam finally broke. She let out a single, broken sob, and the heavy tears finally began to stream down her face, her shoulders shaking as she broke down crying in the middle of the office.
The Tactical Dance
Filoska stood in the center of the executive suite, her shoulders shaking as the heavy tears streamed down her pale face. The crushing weight of the royal death threat had completely broken her corporate composure.
She looked at Kniya and Malesh, desperately trying to force the truth out of her suffocated throat.
"Please," Filoska choked out, a ragged sob interrupting her breath. "Please, sa—"
She couldn't finish the word. The sheer, paralyzing terror of what Leon Debestez would do to her little brother completely sealed her throat, cutting off the word save.
But Kniya didn't need her to finish the sentence.
The exact millisecond the word "Please" left her lips, Kniya's entire demeanor violently shifted. His arrogant, chaotic billionaire persona instantly vanished. His eyes widened, completely alert.
Without breaking eye contact with Filoska, Kniya suddenly dropped into a wide, aggressive squat. He threw both of his arms high into the air and began executing the most bizarre, incredibly weird, and entirely inexplicable dance Filoska had ever seen in her entire life. He started violently waving his hands around like a malfunctioning windmill, aggressively shaking his hips, and violently jerking his neck back and forth like a mechanical bird.
Filoska stopped crying. Her brain completely short-circuited. She stared at the Managing Director of Kavilson Steel, absolutely baffled by the horrific, spastic routine he was performing in the middle of a serious emotional breakdown.
CRACK!
A deafening, incredibly loud gunshot suddenly rang out, echoing violently across the Seistain skyline.
Filoska shrieked, ducking instinctively. Through the massive, floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the executive suite, she witnessed a horrifying sight. Directly across the street, perched on the edge of an adjacent commercial building, a man dressed in dark tactical gear dropped a sniper rifle. The man violently slumped forward, tumbling over the concrete ledge and falling eighty-five stories down to the federal pavement below.
The invisible, nameless royal operative was dead.
The Hazard Bonus
Before Filoska could even process the fact that a man had just been assassinated outside her window, the double doors of the executive suite swung open.
Salesh strolled back into the office. Just a few minutes prior, right before Filoska had started crying, Salesh had quietly and completely unnoticed slipped out of the room to access the corporate sniper nest on the executive balcony.
He was holding a smoking, high-powered, suppressed sniper rifle. He casually leaned the heavy weapon against Kniya's mahogany desk.
"Yeah, Kniya," Salesh sighed, wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead. "You should definitely pay me an extra fucking salary bonus for that shot. The wind resistance at this altitude was annoying."
Kniya immediately stopped his bizarre, spastic dance and stood up straight, adjusting his suit jacket.
"I am absolutely not going to pay you extra for these silly, small tactical tasks," Kniya dismissed arrogantly, waving his hand. "It is so incredibly easy to pull a trigger! It is your basic moral duty to serve this company and protect the executives!"
"It is not fucking communism here, Kniya!" Salesh roared, highly offended by the corporate exploitation. "I am not serving this company for free! I shot that guy for your own corporate survival, you fucking idiot! I demand a hazard bonus!"
The Outsider's Critique
Malesh, who was still sitting calmly on the leather sofa, let out a long, highly critical sigh.
"Kniya, that was a terrible execution," Malesh deadpanned, looking directly at his business partner. "That was absolutely not the proper way to actually pose a tactical gesture to Salesh. You literally danced in the weirdest, most physically embarrassing way possible just to secretly gesture him to take the shot. It was biologically revolting to watch."
"You literally looked like a highly electrocuted pigeon," Malesh added coldly, refusing to drop the subject. "Your kinetic inefficiency was staggering. If you wanted to legally signal a kill-order, a simple, highly professional nod would have sufficed. Instead, you performed an unhinged mating ritual that compromised the entire dignity of this executive suite."
"Yeah, it was genuinely really weird, Kniya," Salesh agreed, nodding his head. "I almost missed the target because I was distracted by how stupid you looked waving your arms like that."
"It was a highly encrypted visual signal!" Kniya defended defensively. "Nobody would ever suspect it!"
Salesh rolled his eyes, turning his annoyance toward the sofa. "And I think so you should not interfere in between internal company matters, Malesh. You are a literal outsider. You manage an energy grid, not Kavilson Steel security."
Malesh's deadpan expression darkened. He slowly stood up from the sofa, adjusting his dragon-themed tie.
"Do not speak like that to me, you fucking impoverished idiot," Malesh shot back, his voice completely cold and dripping with absolute disrespect. "You are just a subordinate. And with that terrible, highly unprofessional attitude of yours, I logically know that your current girlfriend will permanently leave you forever. You are going to die alone."
"Hey! Keep my personal life out of this, you corporate parasite!" Salesh yelled.