Slowly, Lucious walked toward the door after pulling on his dark linen shirt and fitted trousers, tossing the damp linen towel carelessly onto the wooden chair.
Behind him, Dori remained seated right in the center of the creaking mattress, not trying even for a single second to hide the deep, murderous frown etched across her pale face. Her legs were tucked neatly beneath her midnight-blue tunic, her hands gripping the rough bedsheets so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Due to her enhanced senses, she had already detected the heavy footsteps and steady heartbeats of the uninvited guests long before they even reached the top of the stairs.
They were standing right outside the thin wood of the entrance, waiting to talk to her master. More than that, they had committed the unforgivable sin of interrupting her feeding and ruining her intimate time with him.
To Dori, they were nothing more than annoying pests, people she would gladly tear apart and drain of every drop of blood if Lucious ever gave her the slightest permission to do so.
Click!
The heavy iron latch slid back, and Lucious pulled the wooden door inward. Standing right there in the dimly lit hallway were the exact people he had expected to see.
"Good morning to you, Mr. Lucious," a woman’s voice rang out, carrying a smooth, practiced cadence accompanied by a somewhat greedy smile.
Lucious stared straight ahead for a second before slowly tilting his head downward. She was short, remarkably short—so short that the very first time they met, it had taken Lucious a couple of awkward moments to actually locate her down near his waist until he heard her voice again.
Despite her diminutive stature, she wore expensive, finely tailored robes that smelled faintly of sweet perfume and heavy gold.
Flanking her small frame in the narrow corridor were two towering men. Both of them were dressed head to toe in hardened, dark brown leather armor, carrying massive twin broadswords strapped securely across their backs. Their hands rested near their belts, their eyes scanning the room with the trained vigilance of veteran mercenaries.
"Can I help you, Chairlady?" Lucious asked, keeping his tone completely flat and devoid of warmth.
"Of course you can. Surely you already know why I am here, do you not?"
The short woman let out a hearty, shameless laugh. Before Lucious could even step aside, she reached up and playfully slapped him right on the gut with the back of her ringed hand, gesturing for him to clear the way.
Without waiting for an actual invitation, she calmly strolled past him into the modest apartment, leaving her two heavily armed security guards standing stiffly right outside the threshold.
Pulling the door shut in the faces of the guards, Lucious turned around to watch as the woman walked over to the single wooden chair in the room. She brushed his damp towel onto the floor without a second thought, sat down comfortably, and crossed her short legs with that same calculating smile plastered across her face.
Lucious let out a quiet breath and walked back over to the bed.
The moment his weight sank into the mattress, Dori immediately scrambled over and wrapped both of her slender arms tightly around his bicep. She pressed her chest flush against his arm, resting her chin on his shoulder while glaring daggers directly at the intruder.
"Ah, of course, she is always glued right to your side," the Chairlady mused, her sharp eyes locking directly onto Dori’s hostile crimson gaze.
Being the owner of this residential establishment, and holding deep ties to the upper echelons of the capital’s commerce, made her cross paths with a massive variety of people every single day. She saw far more rugged mercenaries and desperate nobles than she ever wished she could.
Yet, amongst all the strange faces passing through Uranik, this pale, fiercely territorial duo had immediately caught and held her attention.
"Just tell us what you want and leave," Dori snapped out, her raspy voice vibrating with barely contained hostility.
The Chairlady did not flinch at the venom in the girl’s tone; instead, her smile widened. "You are quite right, my dear. I should get straight to the point quickly."
She shifted her gaze away from the feral girl and looked squarely at Lucious.
"Darling, your fame has risen remarkably fast here in the capital. The brokers and guild clerks are already whispering about you as some sort of combat prodigy. Your rapid rise through the adventurer ranks and the sheer speed at which you clear brutal missions is truly commendable."
"You tell me that every single time you walk through that door," Lucious replied deadpan, his glowing red eyes unblinking.
"I suppose I do," she chuckled softly, adjusting the cuffs of her silk sleeves. "I have been coming up these stairs to see you nearly every week to hand-deliver special, off-the-board missions, after all. Perhaps my little favors are the exact reason why your reputation grew so fast."
She paused, leaning back against the wooden chair as she delicately cleared her throat. The playful warmth in her eyes cooled into something far more serious.
"However, your rising success is not the only rumor that has been running wild through the streets lately," she continued, lowering her voice an octave. "Apparently, unsettling news of human-like creatures roaming the dead of night has been reported in the outskirts and neighboring towns."
Lucious froze up internally for a fraction of a second, though he kept his pale face as still as carved stone.
"No one has truly gotten a clear look at them and lived to tell a full tale," the Chairlady went on, watching his reaction closely. "But those few who caught glimpses in the dark claim they look to be both human and monster at the exact same time. They haven’t openly slaughtered any city citizens yet, but they still creep around the shaded territories. People do not feel safe knowing such things are lurking near them. Have you heard anything about it during your travels?"
Dori grunted loudly in annoyance, rolling her eyes.
"Come on, go straight to the point already," Dori complained, tightening her grip on Lucious’s arm. "Who cares about some nighttime monster? Monsters exist literally everywhere outside the walls."
The Chairlady tilted her head, turning her full attention back toward Dori. Her eyes narrowed slightly, zeroing in on the girl’s mouth.
"Come to think of it, one of the most prominent descriptions of these night creatures is their sharp fangs—quite similar to those of a blood-sucking bat," the woman remarked smoothly. "And quite similar to the sharp little teeth you and Lucious here happen to possess."
Dori stiffened and leaned her back against the headboard a bit, suddenly clamping her lips shut. She did not want to say a single careless word that might accidentally incriminate her master or blow their cover in the capital.
Seeing the girl go silent, the Chairlady waved a dismissive hand in the air and laughed lightly.
"Not that I actually think you two are the monsters in question, of course. Those foul creatures were said to have grotesque, decaying skin and rotting flesh. Anywho, enough idle gossip. Here is what I actually need you to do for me."
Reaching into the folds of her expensive robes, the landlady pulled out a neatly folded piece of heavy parchment sealed with red wax and stretched her short arm out toward the bed.
Lucious leaned forward and took the paper from her fingers without any type of hesitation. In truth, this was far from the first time she had done something like this.
Over the past week alone, she had appeared at his door twice in the exact same manner. Each time, she came bearing a private contract just like this one, offering him lucrative, unrecorded quests that she felt suited his lethal skillset far better than the public scraps pinned to the guild board.
Breaking the wax seal with his thumb, Lucious flipped the heavy paper open, his crimson eyes scanning the neat, flowing ink written across the page.
Silence hung in the cramped room for a full minute, broken only by the rustle of the parchment.
Once he finished reading the final line, Lucious slowly raised his head to look down at the short woman.
"You want me to act as a personal guard for a wealthy family traveling all the way to Border Town?" Lucious asked, a slight crease forming between his brows.
"Precisely," the landlady confirmed with a crisp nod.
Before she could even finish the word, Dori impatiently snatched the letter right out of Lucious’s hand, holding it close to her face so she could read the details for herself.
"See, this particular merchant family is looking to transport a rather important, classified artifact to the city of Border for a well-known Duke," the Chairlady explained, completely ignoring Dori’s rude manners. "But here is the catch. The mountain path their carriage will have to pass through happens to be the exact same route where those night monsters were spotted recently. I believe the superstitious locals have started calling them vampires."
Lucious slightly raised his head, a cold flicker of genuine curiosity sparking behind his crimson irises. Back in the royal throne room, not even the King of Eldia had known what the word vampire meant when the summoning orb displayed it.
"Is that so?" Lucious asked smoothly, keeping his voice entirely neutral. "How exactly did the locals come up with a name like that?"
"Who cares what peasants name their nightmares?" the woman scoffed, brushing the question aside. "The point is, the regular guild guards are terrified, and I need you and your fierce little partner over here to take this job. Surely escorting a single carriage is something a prodigy like you can handle, especially for such a ridiculously high price."
"Seven thousand gold pieces..." Doriuttered quietly from the side, her glowing eyes wide as she stared at the number written at the bottom of the page. "That is a massive amount of gold."
Compared to the forty gold they had earned from Rando village and the few hundred they had scraped together from C-rank lizard hunts, seven thousand gold was an absolute royal fortune.
It was more than enough capital to stop renting cramped rooms and actually buy land, build a stronghold, and fund the true foundation of his underground syndicate.
After thinking about the strategic value and the potential risks for a long while, Lucious finally let out a heavy, theatrical sigh.
"Fine, I will take the contract," Lucious relented, folding his hands over his knee. "Under two strict rules, of course."
"Name them," the Chairlady replied instantly, leaning forward.
"One, I am allowed to handle any threats along the road entirely my own way, without any interference or moral complaints from the guild or the clients," Lucious stated coldly. "And two, I get an additional compensation bonus if any of my personal equipment or assets get damaged while protecting my clients."
The Chairlady smiled a bit wider, a knowing glint flashing in her eyes almost as though she had been fully expecting a greedy pragmatist like him to demand those exact terms.
She uncrossed her legs and slid off the wooden chair, smoothing down the front of her dress.
"Very well, Mr. Lucious. I will make sure the client meets every single one of your demands," she agreed, turning toward the door.
"Then we have ourselves a deal," Lucious replied.