The Broker sold floor intel for a grin and a rumor.
Jaehyuk watched the figure from the back row of the arena stands, half-hidden between two cheering climbers. Not a man. Not a woman. Just sharp lines under a dark hood, hands folded in their lap like they were waiting for a train instead of an arena match.
"You're very expensive today," they said to the man beside them.
The climber blinked. "What?"
"You asked where the safe route ends. I said I'd tell you. That costs two shards and a favor on Floor 5."
"That's insane."
"That's the price."
The man hesitated, then paid.
The Broker took the shards without looking at them. Calm. Exact. As if counting was beneath them and necessary at the same time.
Jaehyuk turned away before he was caught staring. The arena was still loud from the Mira match. People were talking over one another, reliving the blade work, pretending they had not just watched a girl with black hair carve a B-rank fighter apart in eleven seconds.
Mira left the ring with her expression unchanged.
That was the problem.
She did not look pleased. She did not look relieved. She looked like she had completed a chore and was already considering the next one.
Dohyun's people met her halfway down the steps.
Three of them. White Vanguard coats. Clean boots. Smiles that looked practiced in a mirror.
One of them bowed. "Shin Mira. Vanguard would like to offer support. Resources. A proper formation."
Mira stopped.
Jaehyuk did too.
She glanced at the coats, then at the speaker. "I have hands."
The Vanguard man kept smiling. "Hands are useful. Vanguard offers more than hands. Floor maps. Recovery items. Training partners. Safety."
"Safety?" Mira asked.
The man did not flinch. "As much as the Tower allows."
That was one way to sell a cage.
Jaehyuk almost laughed. Mira's refusal was not coming. Not yet. She looked at the offer the way a swordsman looks at a blade they have not decided to pick up.
Interesting.
In his first life, she would have cut the conversation down before it started. Here, she listened. Cold face. Cold eyes. No promise either way.
The Vanguard man sensed it. Pushed harder.
"You cleared your match in eleven seconds," he said. "Dohyun values talent that early."
Mira's eyes narrowed a fraction. "Then he can wait until I decide if he is worth meeting."
Not a refusal.
The three coats exchanged a look, then bowed again.
"We will relay that."
They moved off into the crowd.
Jaehyuk kept his eyes on Mira long enough to see her jaw set.
She had heard the pitch. She had not thrown it back.
That was new.
Somin leaned in at his side. "She did not say no."
"No," Jaehyuk said.
"You said no fast enough for both of us."
"I do that."
"Yes, you do. It is very annoying."
He glanced at her. "You want Vanguard sending people after you?"
"No."
"Then stop sounding impressed."
She made a face that said she hated that he was right.
The announcer's voice rolled through the arena again. A new match was being set. The sand below had already been raked smooth, the blood covered, the old fight erased like it had never happened.
Floor 3 was polite that way.
It only pretended to remember.
Jaehyuk felt the old warning in his ribs before the bracket even finished loading. His next match was not the problem. The crowd was.
Too many eyes.
Too much attention on the Floor 1 clear, the no-weapon fight, the way he moved like he had already seen the next step.
And then he saw the black hood again.
The Broker had shifted seats without anyone noticing. They were now three rows lower, closer to the aisle, as if distance was a matter of preference and not space.
They looked at Jaehyuk.
Not at his face.
At his stance.
He hated that more.
The Broker tilted their head.
Then, in a voice that was almost pleasantly bored, they said, "Yun Jaehyuk."
Jaehyuk did not move.
Somin went still.
The air around them thinned. The arena noise kept going, but it felt far away now. Like the Tower had politely stepped back to watch.
Jaehyuk looked at the Broker. "I did not introduce myself."
"No."
"You know me."
"Enough to use the name."
Their voice gave nothing away. Not age. Not gender. Not rank. It had the neatness of a blade laid flat on a table.
Jaehyuk kept his face blank. "Who are you?"
"A merchant. A nuisance. A source of information if the price is acceptable."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one worth buying."
Somin looked between them, frowning. "Jaehyuk, do you know this person?"
"No."
"They know your name."
"Apparently."
The Broker's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Something more like amusement that had been trained into restraint.
"You moved well for your current body," they said.
Jaehyuk's eyes sharpened.
Current body.
That was not a phrase ordinary climbers used.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"A trade."
"For what?"
"For information."
Jaehyuk almost snorted. "That is not a trade. That is the same word wearing different shoes."
"I like your wit," the Broker said. "It makes you easier to negotiate with."
"Try me."
The Broker leaned forward a little. Their hood cut shadow across their face, leaving only the lower half visible. Smooth skin. No obvious scar. No obvious age. Too controlled to read.
"I have floor routes for 4 through 10," they said. "Safe passages. False passages. The names of three climbers who will die if they take the wrong staircase. And one thing the Tower will not announce until it is too late."
Jaehyuk said nothing.
"In exchange," the Broker continued, "I want one favor. Later. Not now."
"No."
Immediate. Flat.
The Broker did not react.
"You did not ask what the favor is."
"If I need to know, you will tell me. If you do not tell me, the answer is no."
A pause.
Then, almost amused, "You are more suspicious than the last one."
Jaehyuk stared.
Somin did too. "The last one?"
The Broker looked at her at last. "Hello, healer. Your hands are better than they should be at this floor."
Somin's face hardened. "Stop talking like that."
"Like what?" the Broker asked. "Precisely?"
"Like you know things you should not."
"I do know things I should not. That is how commerce works in the Tower."
Jaehyuk kept his voice low. "You said there were routes. Prove it."
The Broker placed two fingers on the railing and spoke as if reciting grocery prices.
"Floor 4. North stairwell. Do not take the second arch on the left. It drops into a blind loop with a delayed poison field. Floor 5. If you hear water before you see it, turn around. Floor 7. There is a reward chest in the west corridor, and it is empty. Floor 8, the third team to enter the central hall will lose one healer. Floor 9..."
They stopped.
Jaehyuk's jaw tightened. "Continue."
"Not for free."
He exhaled through his nose. The arrogance was infuriating.
Also useful.
That was the problem.
The Broker was not guessing. The details were too neat. Too specific. Not the kind of lie a climber could improvise while surrounded by noise and blood and spectators. They knew the Tower's habits. Maybe better than he did.
Maybe another regressor.
Maybe something worse.
Mira passed behind him then, walking off from the Vanguard pitch without giving the coats the satisfaction of an answer. She stopped only once, eyes flicking toward the Broker.
The Broker noticed her. Of course they did.
"Shin Mira," they said.
Mira's face did not change. "Do I know you?"
"Not yet."
"That was a useless answer."
"I am told I excel at those."
Jaehyuk watched the exchange. The Broker did not speak to Mira the way they spoke to the climbers around them. They sounded less like a merchant testing a mark and more like someone taking inventory.
That was worse.
Mira looked back at Jaehyuk once. Short. Assessing.
Then she walked on.
The Broker followed her with their eyes until she disappeared into the crowd. Only then did they speak again.
"You are close to her," they said.
"No."
"Not now. Later. You will be."
He did not like the certainty in that sentence.
"Why tell me this?" he asked.
"Because I sell information. Because you will need it. Because your habit of refusing obvious help is charming only in moderation."
"And because you want something."
The Broker's head tilted.
"Yes," they said. "That is the part of the conversation that makes it a trade."
Somin folded her arms. "What do you want?"
"Not from you."
"Rude."
"Accurate."
Jaehyuk cut in before Somin could throw the next insult. "Say it."
The Broker folded their hands again. Precise. Calm. Annoyingly composed.
"I want a name," they said. "Not yours. Not hers. A name from Floor 5. When you get there, bring it to me. If the person is alive, I will give you three future routes. If the person is dead, I will give you one truth."
Jaehyuk narrowed his eyes. "Why would I agree to that?"
"Because you care more about truth than you pretend to."
Dry. Almost kind.
He hated that they were reading him accurately.
The arena announcer thundered overhead. "Next combatants, step forward."
The crowd shifted. New match. People turned their heads. The moment broke, but not cleanly.
The Broker stood.
Tall. Slight. Impossible to pin down. They brushed dust from their sleeve as though they had not just rewritten the temperature of the conversation.
"Think about it," they said. "I will be in the western tier after the next fight. If you want the Floor 4 routes, bring shards. If you want the stronger truths, bring leverage."
"And if I bring nothing?" Jaehyuk asked.
The Broker paused on the step.
"Then you will keep being slower than the people who have already learned not to ask permission."
They turned, and the hood hid the rest of their face.
Then, over the noise of the arena, with the same measured amusement they had used for every other sentence, the Broker said, "Yun Jaehyuk."
A beat.
"You are slower than the last one."