Season 3 chapter 60
The Hardcore Capitalists
Kniya's jaw practically hit the polished floor tiles. "Does this corporate hospital even pay him a single credit or not?!"
"Well," the compounder replied, his tone perfectly chill. "We don't pay him anything."
Malesh's exhausted composure completely snapped. Pure, logical capitalist indignation flared up in his chest. He stepped directly into the compounder's personal space.
"Why don't you pay him anything?!" Malesh demanded point-blank, his voice dropping into a heavy, highly aggressive deadpan tone.
"Because the official owner of our hospital board is a highly capitalistic guy," the compounder noted dryly.
"I am also a hardcore capitalistic guy!" Malesh argued fiercely, entirely dropping his quiet baseline. "But I absolutely do not operate my conglomerates like that! I actively pay my workers financial compensation if they are contributing verified value to my company, or if they are providing manual labor in any functional form! That is the foundational baseline of commerce! So why the fuck are you guys extracting his highly skilled labor for free?!"
The compounder offered a highly desensitized, completely unapologetic shrug.
"Actually, sir, the systemic administrative problem is highly specific," the compounder explained smoothly. "He literally never explicitly asked for the financial payment. And because he never formally requested a salary... the corporate treasury simply decided never to issue him one. So yeah, this is the exact situation."
The Apex Management
Kniya stood entirely frozen, staring at the compounder as the absolute, unhinged absurdity of the hospital's corporate logic washed over his brain. A massive, deeply sarcastic smirk slowly spread across his face.
"Oh, flawless business model!" Kniya clapped his hands together in slow, mocking applause, dripping with pure venom. "Let's thoroughly analyze this magnificent administrative logic! If a desperate, bleeding civilian carries their dying mother into your emergency lobby, but they are physically too traumatized to explicitly utter the exact legal phrasing 'please save her life'... you corporate vultures are literally going to stand around watching her bleed to death on your pristine tiles simply because she didn't formally submit a verbal request for assistance?! Absolute apex management!"
Before the compounder could offer a standard corporate defense, Kniya aggressively grabbed Malesh's sleeve, completely disgusted by the local economics.
"Come on, Malesh," Kniya grumbled loudly. "Let's get the hell out of this hallway before these absolute psychopaths try to bill us for breathing their hallway air."
The Urgent Summons
Kniya and Malesh were still standing in the middle of the sterile corridor, entirely bewildered by the bubblegum surgeon's unhinged administrative logic, when the junior medical compounder practically rushed back around the corner. He looked thoroughly drained, clutching his silver tray tightly against his chest as if using it to shield himself from the lingering corporate tension of the private recovery bay.
"Sir," the compounder urged breathlessly, pointing a trembling finger back toward the main lobby bulkheads. "Your relative is waiting for you. He is actively asking me to basically call you, and please go fast. He's literally waiting for you outside the main perimeter right now."
Malesh slowly adjusted his tailored cuffs, his exhausted, deadpan baseline steadying as he exchanged a quick, highly skeptical glance with his best friend. After days of dealing with extortionate medical bills and raw caffeine deprivation, an unlisted family visit felt deeply suspicious.
"Okay," Kniya decided smoothly, rolling his shoulders to shake off the lingering hospital stress. "Let's go meet him first and see what kind of cryptic bullshit this family member wants."
The Literature of Idiots
Out at the main hospital entrance, the scorching Seistain sun beat down relentlessly on the dusty concrete steps, baking the dry earth and making the distant industrial skyline shimmer with harsh heat distortion.
Perched right near the outer structural pillars, completely isolated from the main foot traffic, a strange guy was sitting on an overturned supply crate. He was wearing a tattered, heavy nondescript overcoat to conceal his identity, aggressively pretending to be absorbed in a thick, brightly colored paperback book titled How to Become the Best Idiot in the World.
The heavy glass lobby doors forcefully pushed open, and the elderly lead surgeon strolled out alongside his fiercely protective assistant, fully preparing to cross the street for his manual construction shift. The doctor paused on the top step, lazily adjusting his scrub cap as his tired eyes drifted over to the disguised figure blocking the entrance draft.
"Hey," the doctor mumbled lazily, heavily working his jaw around his chewing gum. "I am talking to you."
The guy reading the book completely ignored the call, not even shifting his gaze from the printed pages.
The doctor narrowed his eyes slightly, taking a deliberate step down the hot concrete stairs. "Hey, I am talking to you. Why are you sitting here?"
The mysterious guy slowly lowered the brightly illustrated cover of How to Become the Best Idiot in the World, looking up with an expression of absolute, uncompromising street-level defiance.
"It doesn't matter to you why I am sitting here," the guy spat rudely, completely dropping basic civilian manners. "Just get the fuck lost out of there. Keep walking, old man."
The Threat Assessment
Before the lazy surgeon could even process the blatant spatial disrespect, his assistant completely lost his mind.
Pure, unadulterated protective rage seized the assistant's features. Moving with terrifying, hyper-lethal speed, he ripped a heavy-caliber handgun directly out of his coat holster, stepped point-blank into the guy's personal space, and jammed the cold iron barrel straight against the center of his forehead.
"Okay," the assistant hissed, his finger curling aggressively around the trigger. "So before I blow your head out, just tell me why the fuck are you sitting here?!"
Feeling the cold steel digging into his skull, the guy's tough, defiant persona completely evaporated in a fraction of a millisecond. Pure, unfiltered human terror seized his nervous system. Heavy, massive beads of sweat instantly erupted across his forehead, pouring down his cheeks and thoroughly soaking his tattered collar.
"Oh, shit! Wait!" the guy stammered frantically, dropping his book onto the dusty concrete. He reached out with trembling, desperate fingers and grabbed a random, half-broken straw broom that someone had abandoned against the pillar, clutching it to his chest like a shield. "I am a broom seller! Look! Yeah, it was one of my last brooms, sir! I am just here to sell my brooms! Nothing else, sir!"
The assistant kept the iron pressed firmly against his skin, his cold eyes methodically analyzing the sweating, terrified man holding a single filthy broom. Slowly, a look of profound, desensitized disgust crossed the assistant's face. He lowered his weapon, sliding it back into his holster.
"I think so," the assistant evaluated flatly. "Your face matches like that, along with your work, what are you doing. Whatever the fuck it is, just get lost from this hospital because it is not for selling the brooms. Get lost right now."
The guy slumped back against the pillar, letting out a massive, deeply ragged breath of pure relief as he wiped the heavy sweat from his eyes.
"Yeah, sir," the guy breathed weakly, nodding rapidly. "Just two minutes."
Satisfied with the absolute clearance of the steps, the doctor lazily patted his assistant's shoulder, and the two of them marched off into the hot dust toward the unfinished concrete infrastructure across the road.
The Arrival
Exactly ten seconds later, the heavy glass lobby doors violently swung open again.
Kniya and Malesh came running out onto the entrance steps, their hands resting near their holstered weapons as their sharp eyes scanned the sunlit courtyard to identify the cryptic relative known as "M.A."
Kniya's gaze instantly locked onto the heavily sweating, panting man leaning against the concrete pillar with a broken broom at his feet. His jaw dropped in absolute recognition as he realized exactly who was hiding under the tattered coat.
The Broom-Seller's Identity
For three agonizingly silent seconds, the scorching desert wind blew across the Seistain entrance steps, gently fluttering the torn cover of the abandoned joke book lying in the dirt.
Kniya slowly let his hand drop away from his holstered weapon. His baseline street-level arrogance, temporarily subdued by the panic of a potential ambush, surged back up into his chest with immense, highly vindictive energy. He stared at the tattered overcoat, the dripping forehead, and the pathetic, half-broken straw broom resting against the concrete baseboard.
Beside him, Malesh stopped perfectly still. His ruined charcoal suit hung open in the dry heat, his dark eyes locking onto the trembling figure with unyielding, soul-deep exhaustion. He didn't reach for his encrypted phone. He simply let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a dozen collapsed corporate supply chains.
To anyone else walking past the perimeter bulkheads, the man sitting on the overturned supply crate looked exactly like a destitute, heat-struck street vendor desperate for a handful of loose credits. But to the Managing Directors of Kavilson Steel and Malesh Energy, the disguise was an absolute insult to their collective intelligence. Beneath the tattered wool and the lingering smell of raw panic was none other than Mantouse Adius—the legendary shadow-strategist and underground commander who had personally handed them their foundational island properties years ago.
Watching the highly feared mastermind actively hyperventilating over a simple hospital compounder's service pistol was a profound contradiction. A massive, thoroughly unhinged grin slowly began to spread across Kniya's face as he prepared to ruthlessly dismantle the commander's remaining dignity.