The alley stank of fish, rotting parchment, and lies, a familiar scent in the slums near Silverglen Market, where clean money came to die and dirty deals found new life under tarp roofs and crooked signs, Kaito stood beneath a faded stall awning labeled "Nyla's Needleworks," a front for one of his first bullet distribution hubs, where Inferno Rounds were sold as "spontaneous flame charms," and Echo Rounds passed for "mental clarity beads," all thanks to some careful rune disguises and a lot of bluffing on Lilyeth's part about "rare alchemical resonance."
This wasn't the part of the city where nobles dared to walk, not because of the crime, but because crime here was organized, polite, predictable, and more efficient than the city guard ever had been, merchants operated like rival kingdoms, everyone knew which coins not to counterfeit, and even the beggars had union rules—Kaito liked it, not because it was safe, but because it was honest in a way that the upper ring could never pretend to be.
Lilyeth stood by the back door, tapping her foot, arms crossed, and eyes scanning every shadow like they might sprout blades, she was already on edge after the hit on Cardinal Haldrik's manor, especially once the word Gun Saint started appearing in the whispers of dockhands and night vendors, sometimes as a curse, sometimes as a prayer, depending on who you asked.
"You're making enemies," she muttered, not looking at him.
"I'm also making customers," Kaito replied without pause, handing a small crate to a lanky kid with soot on his face and fast hands, the kid nodded, took the box labeled Mana Safety Runes – Fragile, and darted off into the maze of vendors where Kaito's "charms" were quietly becoming the hottest item that couldn't be traced.
"You know what I mean," she said, now stepping closer, lowering her voice, "The Church isn't the only one watching now, three buyers tried to pay in royal tokens last night, and one of them smelled like cologne only worn by palace bodyguards, we're attracting too much interest."
"That's the point," he said, finally turning to meet her glare, "I don't want to just make a living anymore, Lilyeth—I want leverage, enough to make nobles bow and inquisitors hesitate, and you don't get that by staying invisible forever."
"You do if you want to stay alive," she shot back, "You've already got a myth. 'Gun Saint.' A masked merchant who sells cursed rounds dressed as holy trinkets, a bounty hunter who never leaves footprints—why risk turning myth into target?"
Kaito pulled the corner of his coat open and tapped the small chain hanging from the inner pocket, seven etched coins hung there—each one a kill, sabotage, or successful delivery, tokens from satisfied clients in the underworld, black-market royalty who paid in secrets and protection.
"Because myths don't build networks," he said, "But a man with results? That man gets invited to the table."
As if summoned by that very sentence, a tall woman stepped into the alley from the far side, flanked by two younger mercs dressed as farmers, her cloak was stitched with subtle noble patterns but stained with travel dust, and on her finger was a silver ring carved with the twin fangs of House Relner, a minor noble family known more for scandal than influence—until recently, when they began buying up textile and mana ink businesses across the lower districts.
Kaito straightened slightly, adjusting his sleeve to cover his holster, Lilyeth moved instinctively to his side, her hand casually resting on her dagger belt, not aggressive, just aware.
"Mr. K," the noblewoman said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, "Or do you prefer your other name these days—Saint of the Trigger?"
"I prefer not being called names in alleys," Kaito said smoothly, "But I'll take whichever gets the conversation moving."
She laughed once, short and dry, then tossed a small pouch onto the crate between them, it clinked with the unmistakable weight of precious mana stones—not just coin, raw crafting materials.
"We want to buy exclusive rights," she said, not even bothering with preamble, "You're moving more 'blessed charms' than half the city's sanctioned temples, and our house is interested in expanding our... spiritual investments."
Kaito raised an eyebrow but didn't pick up the pouch.
"Exclusive, huh? That's a big word for a noble without a cathedral."
"We don't need one," she said, her voice still calm, "We have priests on contract. The kind who stay quiet if the offering is right."
Lilyeth snorted.
"And what happens when the Church catches wind of a noble house hoarding 'charms' that melt plate armor and silence mages?"
The woman smiled again, this time wider.
"Then we say it came from a rogue merchant working alone."
Kaito finally picked up the pouch, rolled it between his fingers, then tossed it back, eyes locked on hers.
"Not interested in being a scapegoat," he said, "But if you want to partner, not control, we can talk distribution numbers."
Her eyes glittered with approval.
"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. K. But you'll find House Relner always pays its debts. And its allies."
With a nod, she turned and left, her two guards melting into the crowd behind her like ink in water.
Lilyeth exhaled through her nose.
"I don't like this. Nobles playing merchant smells like poison dipped in honey."
"I don't like it either," Kaito said, turning back toward the stall and opening the ledger tucked beneath the supply shelf, "But if we want to build something that lasts, we need more than bullets and shadows—we need roads, fronts, and coin that can't be traced."
She gave him a look.
"You're not just selling ammo anymore."
He nodded once.
"No. I'm building a supply chain."
And beneath the ledger, where most wouldn't look, was a sketch of the city drawn in charcoal, marked with trade routes, safe houses, corrupt noble clients, and three red circles labeled only with one word each:
Workshop. Storefront. Guild.
The next morning, Silverglen Market sang with noise, charm-hawkers yelled louder than priests, street bards played off-key instruments made of scrap metal and vinewood, and children chased chickens that had clearly escaped a cage meant for smaller things, it was chaos that smelled of cinnamon, smoke, wet stone, and opportunism—and Kaito loved it, not because it was beautiful, but because it was predictable, a living diagram of desperation and commerce painted in shouting and coin, and in that chaos, it was easy for someone like him to move unseen.
He wasn't dressed like a merchant today, nor like an assassin—today, Kaito wore the face of a courier, leather vest, ink-stained gloves, wide hat with a delivery guild badge, and a satchel full of fake manifests that meant nothing to anyone except the street-level information brokers he needed to impress, the kind who could turn rumors into markets and whispers into weapons, and today, he wasn't here to kill or to deliver, but to negotiate control over the most powerful black-market logistics tool in the lower city: the Courier Rings.
Lilyeth walked half a step behind him, wearing an illusion veil that blurred her facial features into something forgettable, a little insurance in case someone got curious, she carried a false crate labeled "scripture copies," which was really filled with experimental casing materials Kaito wanted to distribute as blessed protection charms to temples that didn't ask too many questions, and her expression hadn't changed since that noble woman from House Relner tried to buy them out yesterday—she was still suspicious, still calculating, and still dangerously close to stabbing the next person who made eye contact too long.
"You're sure this guy even exists?" she muttered as they stepped around a fruit vendor arguing with a goat.
"Name's Tann Greel," Kaito replied, not breaking pace, "He controls over seventy percent of the underground delivery routes through guild-stamped courier tokens, uses a false back pain clinic as his base, and hasn't been seen without a disguise in three years."
"That's very specific for a guy you've never met."
"I bribe well," Kaito said, nodding politely at a passing mage disguised as a healer who tried to sell them fake purification scrolls last week, "Besides, if I want a supply chain that moves ammo across borders disguised as incense, I need Greel's network."
They turned into a narrow stone corridor wedged between two laundromancer shops—one of which specialized in removing bloodstains without alerting guards—and reached a plain door carved with a faded healing rune and a bronze bell with no string.
Kaito knocked once, waited, knocked twice more, then stepped back, the wall beside the door flickered, and a man appeared—not from invisibility, but from the shadows themselves, like he'd always been there, just waiting for the right attention.
He was short, thick around the gut, with fingers like sausages and eyes like chipped glass, one ear missing, the other pierced with six rings of varying quality, his cloak was plain but clean, his boots were worn but expensive, and his smile was entirely fake.
"Tann Greel," Kaito said calmly.
The man chuckled.
"Depends who's asking. You look like a dead man with a business plan."
"I am," Kaito said, not smiling, "And I'm here to expand distribution."
Greel raised a brow, not quite amused, not quite insulted.
"Bold. What are you selling?"
Kaito reached into his satchel, pulled out a capsule labeled Seraph's Flame—Faith-Based Fire Ward, and tossed it gently.
Greel caught it, turned it in his hand, sniffed it, then cracked it open.
A faint hiss, a flash of heat, and a small controlled flame danced above the capsule for three seconds before vanishing with no residue, Greel's eyes narrowed, his fingers tested the remaining dust, then he looked back up, face unreadable.
"That's not divine enchantment."
"No," Kaito replied, "It's a Flameburst Round with false prayer runes, designed to look like holy defense magic but actually ignites on compressed impact, works just as well in combat or ceremony."
Greel said nothing for a moment, just walked back through the hidden seam in the wall and gestured for them to follow.
They entered a clinic that didn't smell like herbs or medicine but like ash and ink and old secrets, the patients in the waiting room were actors—two mages playing broken healers, a fake priest pretending to limp, a vendor pretending to cough—all eyes that could kill or disappear depending on who you were.
In the backroom, Greel finally spoke.
"You want my couriers. My tokens. My stamp of silence. Why?"
"Because I'm not trying to flood the market," Kaito said, placing a new box on the table and opening it, revealing five different ammo types, each disguised in different "holy" packaging—runes, charms, capsules, incense sticks—each labeled with fake blessings and safety warnings, "I'm trying to control it. If every noble thinks they have the only supplier of divine protection, they'll fight to outbid each other. That means gold. Power. Leverage. For both of us."
Greel chuckled once, low and dangerous.
"You're not from here."
"No," Kaito agreed, "But I know how markets work."
They stared at each other for a long second.
Then Greel reached into a drawer and pulled out a silver token etched with the Courier's Brand—two arrows wrapped around a snake.
"Three shipments per week, no names, no routes repeated, and if a single one of your 'blessed charms' kills someone it's not supposed to... I send your bones back labeled as donations to a temple of pain."
Kaito smiled for real this time.
"Fair trade."
Lilyeth didn't speak until they were five streets away, walking with calm steps and rapid heartbeats.
"You just bribed a smuggler lord with religious bullets."
"No," Kaito said, "I just became the distributor of miracles."
And across the city, half a dozen temples received crates marked as donations, crates filled not with blessings—but with potential chaos.
The back room of Kaito's workshop was lit by soft amber crystal light, and the scent of burning sage masked the sharper, more dangerous tang of gun oil and charged mana residue, it wasn't just a place for crafting anymore, it had become something else entirely—a war room disguised as a supply closet, a planning chamber behind false bookshelves and humble drapes, where ink bled like blood across maps and ledgers, and secrets were written down in runes that only the paranoid would know how to read.
He stood over the central table now, both palms planted flat as he scanned three ledgers at once, each detailing a different part of the operation—stock movement through the Courier Ring, payment splits with the masked noble families, and a list of suspicious buyers who claimed to be "priests" but whose coin bore city guard mint marks, Lilyeth sat on the edge of a shelf, chewing dried fruit and watching him work like someone trying to guess whether a storm was coming or already here.
"So let me get this straight," she said finally, tossing a mango pit into a trash rune that disintegrated it mid-air, "You now have nobles pretending to be believers, priests pretending to be merchants, and couriers pretending to be blind—all moving bullets you disguised as religious tools, in crates you label as donations."
Kaito didn't look up.
"That's the business."
She raised a brow.
"And what happens when someone fires a Hollow Curse Round in a temple and starts a panic?"
"They won't," he replied, flipping a page and checking a rune that marked fake purity seals, "Because I build in three layers of plausible denial—first, they buy from a supplier listed as 'The Wandering Flame,' second, the rounds don't activate without mana compression triggers keyed to certain hands, and third, every shipment includes a dummy artifact with harmless effects to distract any inspection."
Lilyeth whistled softly.
"You're terrifying."
"No," he said, finally meeting her eyes, "I'm careful."
She stood and crossed the room, tapping one of the maps he had open, the one marked with current bullet drop points across three districts.
"What about this zone?" she asked, pointing to the lower docks, "It's too quiet. We haven't moved anything there in a week."
"Because we're being watched," Kaito said, pulling out a thin paper from his coat, a report from one of the orphan lookouts he'd bribed with a week's supply of sweetbread, "Someone dressed like a monk keeps buying protective charms and asking the wrong questions—where the supply comes from, who the maker is, why the inscriptions don't match any known temple script."
"You think it's the Church?"
"No," he said, folding the report back into his coat, "I think it's worse."
He turned and opened a locked chest behind the forge wall, revealing a mask—bone white with black edges, the same kind the Black Ink Network once wore before they were wiped out, only this one had fresh blood on the inside.
"They're not just watching anymore," he said, lifting the mask and turning it over in his hands, "They're infiltrating."
Before Lilyeth could respond, the workroom's rune alarm pulsed blue, soft but unmistakable—someone had breached the outer alley without triggering any of the traps, which meant they either had access codes or had come through the shadows.
Kaito holstered the ZeroSystem Mk-IX under his coat, slid two new capsules into his belt pouch—an Inferno Round labeled as Flame of Rebirth and a Frostbite Round disguised as a Penance Pearl—then pressed the concealed switch that turned the back wall into a two-way mirror.
What he saw on the other side made his breath pause.
A boy.
No older than ten.
Standing alone in the middle of the alley with a scroll in both hands and fear in his eyes.
Kaito stepped through the hidden passage and knelt before the boy, who trembled but held out the scroll without a word.
Kaito took it, unrolled it slowly.
Seven names.
One crossed out.
Two marked next.
Each one a noble, a Church figure, or someone deeply tied to the old empire.
Beneath them, the seal of the Black Ink Network—and a single phrase.
"Your debt is not yet paid."
He looked up, but the boy was already gone.
Not footsteps.
Not wind.
Just gone.
Back in the workroom, Lilyeth's voice was flat.
"Let me guess. They want you to pull another trigger."
He didn't answer, just slid the scroll into his coat, placed both hands back on the table, and whispered to no one in particular.
"Then it's time we increase supply."
And outside the workshop, in the stalls and chapels of Silverglen, the whispers of Gun Saint charms spread like fire through dry parchment, while nobles, thieves, priests, and killers all scrambled for pieces of a war that hadn't officially begun—because in the world of silent bullets and golden faith, the loudest weapon was always the one no one saw coming.