The silence of the night on the balcony of Castle Vayne’s East Wing felt like a suffocating blanket.
After Alaric Varentis’s theatrical departure through the window, Azura did not immediately head to bed.
She stood frozen, letting the biting Northern wind pierce her skin, while her eyes remained fixed on the flickering lights of the cathedral in the distance—looking like the eyes of a predator waiting for its prey to starve to death.
[System: Inventory & Logistical Report — Emergency Level!]
[“Boss, I hate to be the bearer of bad news at midnight, but the data doesn’t lie.
Grain stocks in the main warehouse are down to 15%.
If you keep insisting on feeding the people through that soup kitchen, in 72 hours, we’ll have nothing left but prayers and plain water.
Malachi has completely choked off the logistical flow from the outer cities.
Those merchants are more afraid of being cursed by the Church than dying by Arthur’s sword.”]
Azura let out a long breath, her fingers tapping the balcony railing in a constant rhythm.
“He thinks he can tame a lion by letting it go hungry,” she murmured.
“A grave mistake.”
Opening a logistics line through Alaric was an option, but Azura knew that in the world of the mafia, dependence was the beginning of slavery.
If she relied solely on grain from the South, she would forever be a pawn on Alaric’s chessboard.
She needed a third path.
A path not recorded on any knight’s map—a path known only to the sewer rats.
Her thoughts drifted to fragments of her original body’s memories.
The Meren family—Azura’s corrupt and repulsive biological family—might have lacked honor, but they possessed something far more useful right now: criminal connections.
Her father, Silas Meren, had spent years laundering extortion money through a black-market syndicate known as The Rat’s Vein.
”System, pull the memory data of Silas Meren regarding ‘The Rat’s Vein’.
Locate their transit warehouse in the slums.”
[System: Scanning Memory Fragments…
Match Found!]
[“Got it!
There’s a bar called ‘The Rusty Hook’ at the edge of the Lower District.
That’s the gateway to the smuggling hub.
But be careful, Boss.
That place isn’t meant for a Marchioness in a silk gown.
The stench of urine and stale sweat in there could make your noble nose fall off instantly.”]
Azura turned back into her room.
She stripped off her deep blue gown, letting it fall to the floor like an old skin being shed.
From a hidden wooden chest, she pulled out attire more “appropriate” for tonight’s mission.
Practical tight leather trousers, light high boots, and a black protective corset that concealed daggers within its folds.
She threw on a tattered black cloak with a large hood that hid her silver hair.
In an instant, the image of the elegant Marchioness Vayne vanished, replaced by a cold predator of the night.
”Arthur,” Azura called through a short-range magic communication device she had recently ordered to be installed.
”I am here, My Lady,” Arthur replied immediately from behind the bedroom door.
”Stay at the door.
If any children or servants ask, tell them I am meditating and wish not to be disturbed.
I will be exiting via the secret passage behind the fireplace.
Monitor the perimeter, but do not follow me unless I give the emergency signal.”
”My Lady, that is far too dangerous.
The Lower District at night is—”
”I know exactly what kind of place it is, Arthur.
I am the kind of person who created places like that.
Stay at your post.”
Without waiting for an argument, Azura pushed the secret mechanism in the fireplace wall and vanished into the darkness of the castle’s narrow tunnels.
Vayne’s Lower District at midnight was a labyrinth of darkness illuminated only by weakly flickering oil torches.
The stench of rotting garbage and the sharp aroma of cheap alcohol stung Azura’s senses as she stepped out from a drainage hole on the city’s outskirts.
She walked with light steps, nearly silent.
Yet, her eyes remained alert, scanning every shadow.
[System: Scanning Environment…]
[“Two drunks at two o’clock, one pickpocket at eleven.
Ignore them, Boss; they’re not on your level.
Our target is straight ahead: an old wooden door with a rusted hook sign.
Welcome to Vayne’s little hell.”]
Azura pushed open the door of The Rusty Hook.
The raucous noise inside fell silent for a moment as the hooded black figure entered, before erupting again into coarse laughter and the clinking of glasses.
The air inside the bar was thick with tobacco smoke and the steam of beer.
She strode toward the far end of the bar, where a portly man with a crooked nose was counting coins.
His name was Gorgon, better known as “Rat Face.”
”I’m looking for grain, not beer,” Azura said softly, her voice muffled by her hood.
Gorgon didn’t look up.
“Grain is gold these days, youngster.
And I don’t sell gold to strangers who won’t show their faces.”
Azura placed a gold coin on the table—but not just any coin.
It was a coin bearing the Meren family crest, crudely scratched out.
Gorgon stopped counting.
His small, cunning eyes stared at the coin, then shifted to the shadows beneath Azura’s hood.
“Meren?
I heard that family was ruined.
Silas Meren is a whipped beggar now.”
”Silas might be ruined, but his ledgers are not.” Azura leaned forward, exerting a surge of mafia aura that made Gorgon feel as though the temperature around him had plummeted.
“I know about the grain shipment from the Western port you smuggled through the old sewer lines three days ago.
I also know you’re selling it to the Church at ten times the price.”
Gorgon’s face paled.
His secrets were his life.
If the Church found out he was playing them, or if the people found out he was hoarding food, he’d be swinging from a gallows in the square before dawn.
”Who are you?” Gorgon hissed, his hand creeping beneath the counter for a dagger.
Thwack!
Before Gorgon’s hand could reach his weapon, Azura had pinned a small knife precisely between the man’s fingers.
Her movement was so fast Gorgon hadn’t even blinked.
”I am the person who can keep you rich, or the person who can burn your entire warehouse down tonight.” Azura pulled back her hood slightly, revealing sea-blue eyes as cold as the Arctic.
“I need five thousand sacks of grain in two days.
And I will pay the normal market price.”
”Normal price?!
Are you mad?!
The Church pays me five times that!”
”The Church pays you with false promises of heaven.
I pay you with real gold, and…
I will let you stay alive to enjoy that gold.” Azura offered a thin smile—a predatory grin that made the hair on the back of Gorgon’s neck stand up.
“Choose: a small profit and your life, or a huge profit and death by tomorrow morning?”
Gorgon swallowed hard.
He could see that the woman before him was no ordinary noble.
She was someone accustomed to living amidst blood and betrayal.
”How will you transport the grain without being caught by the Church knights at the gates?” Gorgon asked, trembling.
“The ancient sewer system built by the first Marquis.
It connects directly to the castle’s underground vaults.
You only need to deliver it to the transit point in District 4.
A squad will take over from there.”
Gorgon remained silent for a long time before finally nodding slowly.
“Fine.
But I need a down payment.
Now.”
Azura tossed a small pouch of gold coins onto the table.
“There’s your down payment.
Don’t even think about betraying me, Gorgon.
I can track every strand of hair on your head if you try to run.”
With the deal struck, Azura turned and walked out of the bar without a backward glance.
Her mission was accomplished; an illegal logistical route had been opened.
Vayne would no longer starve due to Malachi’s schemes.
As Azura walked back toward her exit point in the slums, she suddenly stopped.
The hair on her arms stood up.
Her sharp mafia instincts detected something amiss.
[System: Scanning Surroundings…
Alert!]
[“Boss, don’t turn around abruptly.
We’ve got a tail at seven o’clock, hiding behind that stack of wooden barrels.
The aura isn’t from the Church—it’s too…
‘clean’.”]
Azura pretended to adjust her boot laces, using a puddle on the ground to see behind her.
There, amidst the shadows of the narrow alley, she saw a man in a thin grey cloak.
The man didn’t move; he simply stood there, watching.
”That’s one of Alaric’s men,” Azura thought.
*[System: Confirmed.
Biometric signature matches the Varentis private guards.
Seems our ‘Peanut’ Duke didn’t actually let you go alone, Boss.
He’s watching this ‘Escapade of the Marchioness’ from a VIP seat.”]
Azura let out a soft snort, a cynical smile curling her lips.
Alaric might have wanted to test her, or perhaps he wanted to ensure she was an ally worthy of his larger plans.
”You want to watch, Duke?” Azura whispered under her breath, barely audible.
“Watch closely.
Because after this, you’ll realize I am not just some woman in need of protection.”
With a lightning-fast motion, Azura leaped into the drainage opening, vanishing into the darkness of the ancient sewers, leaving Alaric’s agent frozen in shock as he lost his target in a matter of seconds.
That night, in the subterranean depths of Vayne, the machinery of smuggling began to churn.
Azura had proven that she needed no permission from God or the Church to feed her people.
She only needed gold, a bit of blackmail, and the guts of a mafia boss.
[System: Status Update.]
[“Logistics Route: ‘The Rat’s Path’ – Activated.
Hunger Level: Decreasing in T-Minus 48 hours.
And one more thing, Boss…
your ‘coolness’ score skyrocketed tonight.
Get ready; tomorrow morning, Malachi is going to be shocked to see your people still have the energy to scream at him.”]
Azura closed the secret fireplace door as she returned to her room, her eyes still glinting with ambition.
This new phase of the Hunger Games had just begun, and she had just made the first checkmate on the black-market chessboard.