The moment Valerya hauled Julian onto the back of her warhorse, his spine let out a sound like a dry branch being snapped by a giant. He wasn't just in pain; he was experiencing a "structural reorganization" that his 1% constitution was definitely not insured for.
"Hold on tight, Jules!" Valerya bellowed, kicking the horse into a gallop. "The Flagon waits for no man, especially not one who sings about tax brackets!"
As the wind whipped past his soup-stained face, Julian's mind didn't stay on the road. It drifted back—back to that disastrous teleportation. Back to the door he'd burst through.
'I saw it,' he thought, his wide, "lit" eyes staring blankly at the back of Valerya's golden armor. 'In that 0.5 seconds before the purple lightning started... I definitely saw it. The Saintess... the Calamity... the most feared woman in the Divine Empire... and I just got a high-definition, frontline view of her most private sanctum.'
His face burned hotter than the Dragon-Blood wine. He hadn't just walked in on her; he'd taken a frantic, wide-eyed sneak peek at the "Forbidden Realm" itself.
'If she finds out I remember that specific detail,' Julian whimpered internally, 'she won't just kill me. She'll erase my existence from the past, present, and future. I'll be a bad debt that never even happened.'
Meanwhile, back at the Blackwood Manor...
Lyra sat on the edge of the bed, her face buried in her hands. Her silver hair was glowing with a faint, dangerous violet hue. She was a Saintess who had faced down primordial demons and deconstructed divine seals with a yawn, but right now, she couldn't even bring herself to look at the door.
'He saw me,' she thought, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. 'That... that greedy, fragile, soup-smelling idiot. He didn't just walk in. He looked. He stared with those wide, ridiculous eyes!'
She tried to conjure a Void Blast to vent her frustration, but her mana just fizzled out into a puff of purple smoke. She was too embarrassed to even function as a weapon of mass destruction.
"I have to leave," she whispered to the empty room. "I have to find him and... and then what? Ask him if he liked the view before I disintegrate him? No. I'll wait. I'll wait until he returns, and then I'll charge him a 'Life-Long Silence Tax' that will leave him penniless."
Back at the Gilded Flagon...
The tavern doors burst open. Valerya marched in, carrying a half-conscious, mud-covered Julian over her shoulder like a sack of grain.
"HE'S BACK!" she announced to the cheering crowd. "The Master of Accounting has returned to pay his debts!"
She dumped him onto the center stage. Julian wobbled, leaning heavily on his cane, which was now sparked with static from his botched teleport. He looked at the row of noblemen, his eyes glazed, his mind a chaotic swirl of Valerya's horse-riding, Lyra's washroom, and his own impending death.
"A song!" the crowd roared. "The Tax Song! Part Two!"
Julian grabbed a tankard, took a massive gulp of whatever mystery liquid was inside, and pointed his cane at the ceiling.
"Oh, the Master of Magic has eyes far too wide!" he began to wail, his voice echoing off the rafters. "He saw a Divine Secret where no man should bide! A glimpse of the Void, a peek at the prize! Now he's walking to death with soup in his eyes! HEIGH-HO, THE ASSETS ARE HIDDEN! BUT SOME THINGS I SAW WERE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN!"
"What a weirdly specific song!" Valerya laughed, slamming a mug onto the table. "Sing it louder, Jules! Sing it for the Empire!"
[System Notification: Hidden Achievement Unlocked - 'Suicide by Ballad'] [Reward: +5 Constitution (Temporary Adrenaline Boost), +100 System Points] [Warning: Your current 'Lifespan' is being used as collateral for your liver's survival.]
Julian didn't care. He was dancing now—a shaky, pathetic little jig—while Valerya roared with laughter and the noblemen threw gold coins at his feet. He was a Master Magician. He was a survivor. And if he was going to die tomorrow because Lyra realized he'd seen her "Divine Assets," he was going to spend tonight being the loudest, most profitable joke in the capital.
"Another round!" Julian screamed, his voice reaching a pitch that shouldn't be possible for someone whose lungs were essentially decorative at this point. "On the Blackwood tab! Because money is temporary, but the memory of my shame is eternal!"
The noblemen roared, scooping up Julian and hoisting him onto their shoulders. He felt like a king made of glass. Valerya was leading the bar in a rhythmic chant of his name, her gauntlets sparking against the table like flint and steel. The temporary +5 Constitution boost felt like liquid fire in his veins; for the first time in his life, he didn't feel like a light breeze would dismantle his ribcage. He felt fast. He felt dangerous. He felt like he could bar-crawl through the nine circles of hell and still find a way to deduct the travel expenses.
But as the night bled into the early hours of the morning, the adrenaline began to ebb away, replaced by the crushing weight of reality—and the sheer volume of ale in his system. By the time the sun began to peek over the capital's spires, Julian was being shoved out of the tavern by a very tired barman.
"Come back when you're... less you, Young Master," the man sighed, slamming the heavy oak doors.
Julian stood in the middle of the street, blinking at the dawn. Valerya had long since passed out in a corner of the tavern, her snores sounding like a dragon with a head cold. He was alone. His "lit" stare had faded into a thousand-yard stare of pure, unadulterated regret.
'I sang it,' he whispered to a stray cat. 'I sang about the forbidden peek. I practically gave a narrated tour of the Saintess's... oh god.'
He began the long, agonizing trek back to the manor. His +5 Constitution was gone, replaced by a -10 Hangover Penalty that made every bird's chirp sound like a thunderclap. Every step was a negotiation between his brain and his feet. 'Just one more mile,' his brain would bargain. 'I'll give you a liver transplant in the next life if you just keep moving.'
By the time he reached the gates of the Blackwood Estate, he looked less like a Master Magician and more like a man who had lost a fight with a swamp and then got run over by a gold-plated carriage. He bypassed the terrified butler, ignored the staff's frantic whispers about "The Chandelier's Mood," and crawled up the stairs toward his bedroom.
He pushed the door open, ready to collapse into his silk sheets and die for at least forty-eight hours.
But the bed wasn't empty.
Lyra was sitting there, her silver hair perfectly combed, her violet eyes glowing with a cold, predatory stillness. She wasn't wearing the tablecloth anymore. She was wearing her traveling robes, and in her hand, she was idly spinning a dagger made of pure, compressed Void mana.
The silence was deafening. Julian froze, his hand still on the doorknob.
"You're late," Lyra said, her voice as sharp as the blade in her hand. "And you smell like a brewery's dumpster."
"I... had to finalize some... business accounts," Julian squeaked, his voice cracking.
Lyra stood up, the Void dagger humming. She walked toward him, each step echoing in his pounding skull. She stopped inches from his face, the smell of ozone and lilies overpowering the scent of stale ale.
"I heard the rumors, Julian," she whispered, leaning in until her lips were grazing his ear. "I heard about the song. The 'Forbidden Peek'?"
Julian's heart stopped. Not because of the System, but because his soul was literally trying to leave his body through his ears. 'This is it. The audit is here. And I'm going to be liquidated.'
"I have a new contract for you," Lyra said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, silky purr. "Since you've seen the 'assets' of a Saintess... the price for your life just went up. Significantly."
[System Notification: New Quest Triggered - 'Pay the Silence Tax'] [Objective: Surrender 50% of your current gold or... find out what the inside of a Void Singularity looks like.]
Julian looked at the glowing purple blade, then at Lyra's blushing, furious, beautiful face. He managed one last, weak, "lit" smile.
"Do you... take monthly installments?"