Chapter 69

Meeting

When Aiden reflected on Ganesha Aldebaran, there was simply no way to hold a low opinion of the man’s capabilities.

An invisible power broker who held the continent’s underworld in the palm of his hand, an immensely wealthy magnate, and a prince among merchants—those were merely the credentials visible on the surface. The deeper truth Aiden possessed was that the man was dangerous enough to require all of that prestige as a public disguise.

It was undeniably a good thing that such a person already harbored both interest and goodwill toward him.

‘The problem is that there’s nothing I can actively do about it right now.’

He could not go looking for him; he had to wait for Ganesha to make the first move. The quest details had made it clear that Ganesha’s intentions were non-hostile, so there was no need to prepare for a fight. If they met face-to-face, Aiden knew a trick or two to send the man’s Affinity soaring. He simply couldn’t be the one to initiate contact.

That meant he had to focus on his immediate responsibilities. Ganesha would seek him out in due time. Trying to prepare for an unpredictable encounter was pointless, so it was far better to use his limited time efficiently.

Training made the man. Meyer cut him to ribbons every night in the mindscape until his head felt ready to split, but translating those techniques to his physical body was an entirely different challenge.

That was why getting beaten black and blue while practicing mounted combat on River since early morning was nothing to feel ashamed of.

“…Are you all right?” Noel asked softly.

“…”

Even seeing Noel struggle to suppress her laughter as she checked on him wasn’t embarrassing in the slightest. At least, that was the story he chose to tell himself. Scolding the person who had supported him all the way to the local pharmacy would be shameless, even by his standards.

“…I’m fine,” he muttered, slowly pushing open the door.

“Excuse me, I’d like to—”

“Get out of here right now!” a harsh voice barked.

“…”

The timing was so precise that one could easily mistake the shout for being directed at them, but Aiden quickly realized that was not the case. The scene unfolding through the half-open doorway was hostile enough on its own.

The first thing he noticed was a young girl sprawled on the floor. She was so filthy it was impossible to guess when she had last washed, and her pale, drawn face clearly indicated severe malnutrition. She was clutching her stomach with both arms, clearly in pain. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have dragged herself to a pharmacy in the first place.

Judging by her posture, someone had shoved her hard enough to send her rolling across the floorboards.

It was not difficult to identify the culprit. Aiden shifted his gaze to see a middle-aged man glaring angrily from behind the counter. He was presumably the owner, and undoubtedly the source of the shout telling her to leave.

“I’ll pay… I really will,” the girl pleaded in a trembling voice. Her pitch cracked uncontrollably, devoid of strength. “Please, my stomach hurts so much… Just some painkillers…”

Despite her desperate plea, the shopkeeper showed no sign of softening. As the girl made a slight motion to drag herself closer, his expression grew even more vicious, and he shouted again.

“I told you to get out! Take one more step and I’m calling the guards!”

Aiden noticed Noel’s expression twisting beside him. For someone as naturally compassionate as her, the display was utterly intolerable. It didn’t look right to Aiden either.

The girl was offering to pay, and one glance was enough to see she was sick. Treating her this harshly went beyond terrible service; it was the kind of callous behavior that could ruin a business’s reputation.

So why is he doing it?

Even amidst such an unreasonable scene, that was the first thought that entered Aiden’s mind. It was an essential virtue of a former con man: absorb every piece of information as quickly and accurately as possible, then process the facts without letting personal bias interfere.

He took a closer look at the scene.

The medication prescribed for the girl lay scattered across the wooden counter, mixed with the small coins she had placed there to pay. Everything had been knocked around when she was shoved, but that only made the evidence easier to read.

The owner had not stopped her until she approached the counter with money in hand. Something must have happened when she presented the coins, or at least when she came close enough for him to inspect her properly.

What would drive a merchant to throw out a paying, visibly ill customer at the cost of his own reputation? The answer was not hard to guess.

Aiden carefully examined the girl on the floor and found what he was looking for almost immediately.

“Noel. Stop,” Aiden whispered softly to Noel, who looked ready to kick the pharmacy door off its hinges.

“Mr. Aiden, how can you just stand there when—”

“Her wrist.”

“What?”

“Look near her wrist.”

Noel froze at his quiet direction, shifting her gaze to the girl’s exposed arm.

Prominently visible against her pale skin was a pitch-black blemish.

“…”

Noel bit her lip hard as she recognized the unmistakable mark of a contagious disease. Healthy people were not easily infected, but the condition was notoriously common among slum children suffering from malnutrition and constant exposure to filth.

Even with advanced medical magic, society reacted harshly to patients carrying infectious blights. That was especially true for a child from the slums, as no one could verify what strain of illness she had contracted.

“That still doesn’t mean we can just leave her like this…”

“Of course not,” Aiden replied, his even tone cutting through her rising protest.

A faint smile touched his lips—an expression she knew well. She had seen it before, the very smile that had first earned him a place in her heart. It was the peculiar grin he wore whenever he acted strictly according to his own convictions.

A moment later, Aiden smoothly pushed the pharmacy door open and stepped inside.

✦ ✦ ✦

His light footsteps were so out of place in the tense room that both the shopkeeper and the girl stared at him in surprise.

Aiden paid their stares no mind, strolling toward the counter at an easy pace. He met the proprietor’s wary eyes and offered a bright smile.

“Please ring up the medicine here exactly as it is.”

The owner snapped back to his senses, eyeing Aiden suspiciously. He glanced toward the girl, perhaps wondering if they were together, but she was staring at the newcomer with equal bewilderment.

“…These medicines were not prescribed to you, sir.”

“No, but I took a quick look, and they’re exactly what I need.”

He spoke with such shameless confidence that Noel, watching from behind, let out a quiet laugh. When someone acted that boldly, even an obvious attempt to pull the wool over someone’s eyes somehow stopped looking pathetic.

He was openly declaring that he would buy the medicine in the girl’s place. The proprietor looked flustered, rolling his eyes for a moment before gathering his wits. Once he grasped Aiden’s intention, strong reluctance filled his face.

Selling the medicine under these circumstances held zero appeal for him. If this newcomer turned out to be infected as well, it would mean disaster. For any business, a rumor that a diseased patient had visited could cause customers to vanish overnight. A sales record was physical proof that such a person had been there.

Still, he couldn’t exactly demand a physical inspection to check the customer’s skin, so the proprietor cautiously tried another excuse.

“Sir, every one of these remedies requires an official doctor’s prescription…”

“I already know that’s not true. Let’s not insult each other with something so obvious.”

“…”

“Kids from the slums all buy the same handful of remedies. None of these are regulated strictly enough to require a prescription.”

Aiden’s smile widened. It looked cheerful on the surface, but the underlying pressure was clear: We both know how this works, so let’s not waste time playing games.

The shopkeeper shifted tactics and tried again. “Even so, dispensing medication to a customer who shows no visible symptoms would be…”

Strictly speaking, that excuse made no sense either. The man standing before him was covered in minor scrapes and bruises from head to toe. Besides, any medication where that rule applied would have required a prescription in the first place, and Aiden had already established that none of these remedies fell into that category.

The remaining excuses available to a merchant were usually thin, but effective nonetheless—such as claiming inventory was limited and had to be saved for patients with more urgent needs. Even if the back room was overflowing with supplies, a customer had little room to argue if the seller stood firm. It was simple, yet difficult to counter.

So, how does one crush an excuse like that?

You present something equally simple and far more overwhelming. Aiden chose a method so direct it crossed squarely into the realm of madness.

He drew a fine fountain pen from his coat pocket—a gift Sisella had given him some time ago, which he treasured enough to carry everywhere. He disliked using it this way, but his decision was swift and his action even faster.

He rolled up his sleeve, exposing the pale skin of his forearm. Then, with a fluid, casual motion, Aiden brought the pen down.

He drove the metal nib into his upper arm and dragged it all the way down toward his wrist.

The sharp point sliced through his skin. Crimson blood welled up instantly, mixing with dark ink to form a deep red stream.

The movement was so nonchalant that everyone present needed a second to process what had just happened.

The shopkeeper stared as if a madman had just walked into his store. Noel swallowed a groan behind him, and the girl on the floor went deathly pale.

The metallic scent of blood filled the small pharmacy. Within seconds, Aiden’s arm was drenched, droplets falling steadily onto the clean floorboards. He lifted his bleeding arm and deliberately rested it on the counter, right where the proprietor could see it clearly.

It was rude, irrational, and barbaric.

Yet the action was simple, and the effect was absolute. Through it all, Aiden never stopped smiling.

“Wow. That really hurts.”

Paired with his calm, pleasant voice, that smile began to instil genuine fear in the shopkeeper’s eyes.

“It hurts so badly that I think I need painkillers to manage it. You agree, don’t you?”

Aiden casually twirled the blood-stained fountain pen in his dripping hand, speaking clearly. The blood pooling on the wooden counter expanded, yet his expression remained completely untroubled.

“Oh, and I’m quite worried about a secondary infection, so I’ll take a course of antibiotics as well.”

To the terrified shopkeeper, that polite, pleasant voice had likely never sounded more threatening.

“…You’re somehow getting worse and worse as time goes on,” Noel muttered from the doorway.

She sounded as though she had reached complete resignation, and for some reason, her words struck Aiden painfully close to home.