Date: 23rd July 2026
Location: The Crimson Velvet Pub (Vlad's Territory)
Time: 02:15 PM BST
The glass of Whisky Black Pain was empty.
The dark liquid left a lingering, bitter aftertaste of peat smoke and crushed obsidian. It tasted exactly like the melancholy of a timeline that had already burned to ash.
It was absolutely delicious.
I placed the crystal tumbler onto the mahogany bar. A single, sharp clack.
The physical sound was small, yet it severed the thick air in the pub like a gavel.
The 'awkward, stumbling student' act evaporated instantly. I didn't just let the mask slip. I deliberately took it off, folded it neatly, and allowed the tired Architect of the 1,000th Loop to sit firmly in the chair.
"Business," I said.
My voice was flat. It was completely devoid of the nervous stutter I'd used on Professor Halloway.
It was the cold voice of a man who had routinely negotiated with desperate angels and starving demons, and found both factions severely lacking in basic manners.
Vlad stopped polishing his glass.
The playful, doting 'Uncle' facade hardened into ballistic armour. He looked at me not as a paying customer, but as a dangerous glitch in his well-ordered retirement.
"I am retired, boy," Vlad said, his voice smooth dark velvet wrapping a serrated blade.
"I do not kill anymore." Vlad's silver eyes narrowed. "Unless someone insults my bespoke tailoring or requests instant coffee. In those specific cases, I make exceptions."
"I'm not asking you to kill a person, Vlad," I replied, a thin smile playing on my lips.
I reached slowly into my battered canvas messenger bag. It was a cheap prop that screamed 'student poverty', but I pulled out something that screamed 'apocalyptic power'.
"I'm asking you to kill something significantly more stubborn."
I slid a thick, matte-black envelope across the polished bar.
There was no postage stamp. No return address. Just a heavy seal of blood-red wax stamped with an inverted lily.
Vlad's sharp eyes narrowed. His silver pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks.
He knew that seal.
In 2026, the Spider Queen Lilith was a terrifying myth to the ignorant surface world. But to the Underworld? She was the ruthless central bank of dirty secrets.
"You have a direct line to the Spider?" Vlad asked. His voice dropped a full octave, losing all its theatrical flair.
"Who exactly are you? Just a physics student? Or the bastard child of Nostradamus?"
"Let's just say I'm a very well-informed broker," I said, leaning forward into the dim light.
"Lilith has agreed to open the back door to a Tier-1 Dungeon: The Ashen Crypt."
I held up three fingers. "I need a heavy Tank. I need high DPS. And most importantly, I need a flawless scalpel. Someone who can cleanly decapitate a Boss entity without getting a single drop of toxic ichor on the expensive upholstery."
I reached back into my bag and placed three distinct objects on the wooden counter. I lined them up with the cold precision of a surgeon.
The First Item: A medical-grade glass test tube containing a thick, crimson liquid. It pulsed with a faint, rhythmic internal light.
The Second Item: A small apothecary bottle filled with a dark sludge that looked like radioactive grape juice but smelled of pure ozone.
The Third Item: A heavy gold pocket watch, intricately engraved with Renaissance-era floral motifs.
"Your retainer," I announced.
Vlad stared intently at the glowing test tube. His nostrils flared slightly.
To a civilian layman, it was just blood. To a retired master of the Grimora Arts, it was literal biological rocket fuel.
"That..." Vlad leaned in closer, the raw avarice in his eyes undeniable. "That is not human blood. The vitality density is mathematically absurd. It smells like molten iron."
"Knight's Blood," I lied smoothly. Well, partially lied.
"Harvested at great expense from a donor with a biological regeneration factor bordering on the monstrous."
I tapped the glass tube. "Level 10 equivalent. One shot of this, and your old bones will feel like they're twenty again."
Sitting right next to me, Dexter choked on his miserable cup of dishwater coffee.
He stared blankly at the glowing tube. He slowly looked at me, and then looked down at the small, fading bandage on his massive left arm.
"Mason," Dexter grunted, his heavy brow furrowing in deep confusion. "That's my blood. From the university donation van."
Dexter frowned. "I got a cheap cookie for that."
"Recycling, Dex. It's highly beneficial for the planet," I said, not even bothering to glance at him.
"Besides, your body regenerated the entire pint in forty minutes. That tube is currently worth more than your tuition fees on the alchemical black market."
Tiffany, who had been spooning matcha gelato into her mouth, snorted so hard she nearly inhaled a green wafer.
"Oh my god. You're secretly selling Dex by the litre?" Tiffany cackled. "That is so incredibly foul. I love it."
Vlad completely ignored the teenage commentary.
He gently picked up the glass tube with a heavy reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. For a lethal man obsessed with extreme Body Tempering, this was the nectar of the gods.
"And this?" Vlad pointed a manicured finger at the bubbling purple sludge.
"Elixir of the Black Mage," I declared.
"Mana moss and three expired energy drinks. It will either give you a permanent fifteen percent boost to your base movement speed, or it will instantly stop your heart."
I locked eyes with him. "Statistically, the first outcome is slightly more common."
Vlad's silver eyebrows shot up toward his hairline.
In the brutal martial world, a mere one percent physical gain usually took years of agonizing meditation. Fifteen percent was absolute cheating. It was literal magic.
"And finally," I casually slid the heavy gold watch across the wood. "The closer."
Vlad picked it up slowly. It was incredibly heavy, cold to the touch, and undeniably expensive.
He pressed the release catch. The gold lid sprang open with a highly satisfying, mechanical click. It revealed not a standard clock face, but a deep violet interface floating holographically beneath the sapphire glass.
"This is not a timepiece," Vlad murmured.
"It is a TimeLink: Gentleman's Edition," I explained.
"Custom built by yours truly. No cheap silicon, no plastic. Pure gold casing. But the primary function..."
I tapped the sapphire glass with my fingernail.
A sudden ripple of spatial distortion appeared in the empty air directly above the watch. It was a dark, folded pocket of dimension about the size of a large steamer trunk.
"Passive Skill: [The Gentleman's Pocket]," I whispered, leaning in.
"It's a localized, highly stable inventory slot. It securely holds up to 500 kilograms of inanimate physical matter."
I smirked darkly. "You can safely store your blades, your spare bespoke suits... or the heavy corpse of a rival enemy you desperately need to disappear. All without ever ruining the flawless cut of your jacket."
Absolute silence descended on the pub.
Vlad stared unblinking at the dimensional rift.
He slowly looked down at his pristine, tailored Italian suit.
The greatest plague of his lethal profession was always logistics. Blood was messy. Carrying concealed weapons ruined the elegant silhouette of a blazer. Secretly disposing of bodies was exhausting manual labour.
This gold watch was the flawless solution to every professional inconvenience he had ever faced. It was the ultimate vanity item for a highly functional sociopath.
Vlad snapped the heavy gold watch shut and smoothly slipped it into his silk waistcoat pocket. It vanished seamlessly.
He smiled. The ambient temperature in the room instantly dropped ten degrees.
"You know exactly how to bribe a man of expensive taste, Architect."
He turned slowly to look at Dexter.
Dexter was still staring blankly at his terrible coffee, completely unimpressed by the fact that his own blood was now valuable currency.
Vlad's massive ego twitched.
He needed Dexter to fully understand. He desperately wanted to show this untrained, hulking prodigy the vast difference between simple brawling and the high art of killing.
"Very well," Vlad said, flawlessly straightening his silk tie.
"I accept the contract."
Vlad sniffed disdainfully. "Not for the cash. But strictly because I wish to see if my uncultured student can survive five minutes in a real Dungeon without crying for his mother."
"Orphan," Dexter stated flatly, not looking up. "No mother."
"It is a metaphor, you dense concrete wall!" Vlad snapped, completely losing his elegant composure for a fraction of a second.
Tiffany hopped quickly off her leather stool, entirely abandoning her melting ice cream.
Her eyes were wide, eagerly reflecting the UI of her new Vanguard glasses.
"Dungeon? We're actually going to a real Dungeon? Like, right now?" Tiffany bounced on her heels. "Can I punch a ghost?"
"Absolutely no streaming," I cut in sharply, my voice cracking like a whip. "And yes. We move tonight. Lilith has officially opened the spatial breach inside a derelict warehouse in the Docklands."
I stood up, grabbing my Aether-Cane from the bar.
"One more important thing, Vlad," I said, my voice hardening into steel.
The 999 INT flared dangerously behind my eyes, projecting an atmospheric pressure that made the crystal glasses on the top shelf rattle.
"Inside the Crypt, I am the Captain. You can show off your skills, you can teach the kids, but if I say retreat, we instantly retreat. If I say kill, you kill."
I locked eyes with the assassin. "Do we understand the chain of command?"
Vlad looked at me intently.
For a brief, terrifying moment, the 'Barista' clearly saw the dark shadow of a desperate General who had commanded broken armies against the end of time.
He saw a raw authority that simply couldn't be faked with a cheap business suit.
"As long as you do not get in my way, boy," Vlad grinned, revealing perfectly white teeth that looked predatory in the dim light. "I shall happily be your blade."
"Quiet, Eliza," I muttered under my breath, turning toward the heavy oak door. "We have actual monsters to hunt."
Dexter quickly downed the last of his terrible dishwater coffee in one massive gulp and stood up. He cast a huge, terrifying shadow over the entire bar.
Tiffany adjusted her glasses, practically vibrating with kinetic excitement.
And Vlad was carefully checking his reflection in the antique mirror, ensuring his new gold pocket watch chain draped perfectly across his waistcoat.
The entire team was a chaotic mess. The team was highly dangerous.
And the team was finally ready to break the world.
[ELIZA'S SUMMARY]
["So, here we actually are."]
["You have successfully survived the Atrium of Awkwardness with Professor Vincy."]
["You arrogantly ignored a terrifying Void-Walker."]
["And you are now casually walking out of the den of a retired Assassin with a bottle of questionable energy drink and a pocket watch."]
["Your physical stats are currently looking highly bizarre, Mason."]
["STR 10.8 but STA 1.9?"]
["You are essentially a heavy hydraulic press powered entirely by a single, dying AA battery."]
["You can physically hit like a small truck, but if you have to run for more than ten minutes, you will pass out."]
["It is a very bold, highly idiotic build."]
["Let's eagerly see if 'Uncle Vlad' appreciates the audacity, or if he just decides to turn you into a bespoke coaster."]