Chương 65: CHAPTER 63: THE COST OF ARROGANCE

The black iron heavy crossbow rested on the polished granite workbench. Its loaded bolt, tipped with a dark crimson fire-quartz crystal, pointed straight at the center of Rudra's chest. A faint, low hum rose from the mana spring inside the mechanism, vibrating against the cold stone slab and rattling a row of glass testing tubes resting in a wooden rack nearby. Baron Oric leaned back into his damp velvet cushions, his chest rising and falling in shallow, desperate gasps.

Cold grease-like sweat poured down his fat, pale cheeks, dripping off his double chin and soaking into the embroidered silk collar of his tunic. The putrid, rotting smell rising from his swollen left foot had grown so thick it almost overpowered the heavy floral perfume sprayed across his northern fox fur cloak.

"You have your orders, ditch-doctor," Oric wheezed, his trembling, ring-covered hand pointing a fat finger at the weapon on the table.

"One hundred and fifty gold koban. A fortune for a peasant like you! I will pay every single coin. But you start treating this leg right now, or my enforcers will trigger that spring and turn this entire brick hut into a pile of burning ash!" Rudra did not look at the heavy crossbow. He did not look at the glowing red tip of the fire-quartz bolt, nor did he acknowledge the six armored enforcers whose hands remained locked around the leather grips of their heavy steel cleavers.

Instead, he stepped forward with slow, unhurried grace. He reached out with his right hand, caught the thick leather strap of the velvet pouch attached to the baron's belt, and pulled it free with a single, firm tug. The leather strap snapped with a quiet, dry pop. The six enforcers shifted their heavy iron-shod boots, their steel breastplates clanking sharply in the dim light of the apothecary.

The bronze-bearded guard near the doorway flinched, his fingers tightening around his hilt, but not a single soldier dared to step across the room. The icy warning Rudra had delivered moments earlier—the flat, emotionless promise to cut their wrist tendons so cleanly they would never hold a spoon again—hung in the damp air like a drawn blade. Rudra untied the silk cord holding the leather pouch shut. He turned the bag over and tipped its contents straight onto the granite workbench.

A heavy, bright golden stream spilled across the flat stone. Dozens of stamped gold koban coins tumbled over one another, rolling past glass alembics, porcelain jars, and the iron frame of the loaded crossbow before settling into a wide, gleaming pile under the soft blue light of the wall runes.

"What do you think you are doing?!" Oric barked, his high-born voice cracking in sudden panic as a fresh, violent wave of pain shot straight up his sciatic nerve.

"I told you I would pay! The money is right there! Stop wasting time and apply the medicine!" Rudra paid no attention to the shouting nobleman. He reached out with his dark-iron prosthetic fingers, picked up a single gold coin from the top of the pile, and held it up to the light of the oil lamp. He turned it over twice, checked the stamped crest of the imperial mint along its outer rim, and dropped it into a small brass tray sitting beside his mortar. CLINK.

The sharp, clear metallic ring echoed loudly against the brick walls.

"One," Rudra said flatly. He reached back into the pile, picked up a second gold coin, examined both sides with the exact same slow scrutiny, and dropped it beside the first. CLINK.

"Two." Baron Oric's mouth fell wide open. His bloodshot eyes bulged as he realized what the youth was doing.

"Are you out of your mind?! You are counting them one by one?!" CLINK.

"Three."

"Stop this madness at once!" Oric screamed, grabbing his swollen left thigh with both hands as another spasm tore through his muscles. The black rot on his foot had expanded another half-inch, turning the soft skin around his ankle into a dark, leaking mess. The dark blue veins beneath his calf were bulging now, throbbing violently in time with his racing heart.

"My leg is burning! It feels like hot oil is being poured into my bones!" Rudra did not speed up. His movements remained smooth, steady, and entirely robotic. He picked up the fourth coin, used his thumb to wipe a small speck of dried mud off its face, and dropped it into the tray. CLINK.

"Four." Outside the shattered front entrance, the four-legged iron hound construct gave a low, metallic whine. Its brass ribs expanded with an audible clatter, venting a thin wisp of pungent green mana smoke onto the wet cobblestones of the alley. The six guards exchanged nervous glances beneath their steel visors.

They were hardened mercenaries who had fought in frontier skirmishes, but watching a calm, straw-hatted youth count gold coins while a regional baron screamed in agony on a velvet litter filled them with a strange, unnatural dread.

"Baron Oric," Rudra said, his clinical voice remaining completely flat as he picked up the fifth coin.

"An official medical contract requires full verification of payment. Counterfeit currency, clipped edges, or diluted gold alloys invalidate the terms of service. Each coin must be inspected for proper weight and material purity before medical resources are deployed." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. CLINK.

"Five."

"I am the chief logistics administrator of the eastern gatehouse!" Oric shrieked, his sweating face turning from a pasty white to a deep, dangerous purple.

"Every single coin in that pouch came straight out of the regional tax chest! It is pure imperial gold! Treat me now, you filthy ditch-doctor!" Rudra picked up the sixth coin. CLINK.

"Six."

"Kill him!" Oric suddenly screamed, turning his fat neck toward the bronze-bearded guard standing near the broken door.

"No! Wait! Do not kill him! Grab his arms and force him to put the patch on my leg! Trigger the crossbow if he moves!" The bronze-bearded enforcer took half a step forward, his boot heavy on the wet floorboards. His hand gripped the pommel of his broadsword so tightly his knuckles turned white. He stared at the back of Rudra's slate-gray coat. The young herbalist had not even turned around to face him.

He remained standing over the granite desk, his posture completely relaxed and open, offering zero physical defense. Yet, as the guard stared at the still figure, his feet felt as if they were glued to the floor. The image of those dark, emotionless eyes beneath the straw hat flashed through his mind, along with the absolute certainty that if he drew his steel, he would be crippled before his blade cleared the scabbard. The guard swallowed hard, his throat dry, and pulled his foot back half a pace.

"You useless, cowardly fools!" Oric wept, slumping back against his silk pillows as another agonizing wave of pain tore through his limb.

"Fix it... please... I will give you whatever you want..."

"Seven," Rudra stated, his tone showing no more emotion than a stone falling into water.

"I will double the price!" Oric sobbed, his high-born arrogance completely breaking down under the relentless march of the infection.

"Two hundred gold koban! Three hundred! Just make the burning stop!" Rudra set the eighth coin onto the brass tray with a quiet click. He did not pick up a ninth. Slowly, deliberately, he turned his body around, his dark eyes looking out from the deep shadow of his straw hat brim to lock onto the weeping nobleman.

"The price has changed," Rudra said cleanly. Oric gasped for air, wiping his streaming eyes with the torn edge of his silk handkerchief.

"What... what do you mean the price has changed? I just told you I would pay three hundred!"

"The fee of one hundred and fifty gold koban was the standard emergency rate for a cooperative patient," Rudra explained, stepping away from the granite workbench and folding his hands neatly inside the wide sleeves of his gray coat.

"However, you have introduced a high-yield military weapon into a sterile medical workspace. You have threatened the life of the attending surgeon, caused structural damage to the facility entry frame, and introduced severe psychological stress to the pediatric patient currently resting on my table." He raised a single finger, pointing toward the back of the room where the small slum boy lay curled on the second granite slab beneath the blue wall runes.

The child's eyes were wide with terror, his hands clutching his blanket as he watched the confrontation in total silence.

"Therefore," Rudra continued, his voice dropping into an icy, unyielding baseline, "the new fee is the total financial liquidation of your active personal assets. Every piece of gold, every silver coin, and every property note currently in your physical possession." Oric's jaw dropped so wide his double chin flattened against his neck.

"Liquidation?! You want... everything I brought with me?!"

"You have four minutes before the necrosis breaks through the venous valves above the knee joint," Rudra said, pointing his dark-iron index finger at the thick black line creeping up the baron's calf.

"Once the corrupted fluid enters the main deep-femoral vessel, the damage to your upper vascular tree will be total. Even if I intervene after that point, I will be forced to amputate the entire left extremity at the hip level." Oric looked down at his leg, his body trembling violently. The pitch-black discoloration had already swallowed his ankle and was steadily climbing up his lower leg like a stain of wet ink.

The skin was stretched tight, shiny, and leaking a thin, foul-smelling liquid directly onto the velvet fabric of his litter. He could literally see the dark, twisted veins bulging outward as the pathogen destroyed the underlying tissue millimeter by millimeter.

"The leather pouch on the workbench contains eighty-four gold koban," Rudra noted with mathematical exactness.

"Your six enforcers are carrying standard iron coin-boxes at their belts. You are also wearing an imperial storage ring on your right index finger, which contains certified bank notes from the capital treasury. Hand them all over."

"My bank notes?!" Oric shrieked, his voice reaching a high-pitched, hysterical squeak.

"Those paper notes represent my private shares in the eastern iron mines! That is worth over five hundred gold bars! You are asking for my entire life's fortune!" Rudra turned his back on the litter, picked up a clean glass testing rod from the wooden rack, and held it up to the light to inspect its surface for dust.

"You have three minutes and thirty seconds."

"You robber! You filthy country butcher!" Oric howled, thumping his fat fists against the wooden frame of his litter until his rings clattered loudly.

"You are ruining me! The guild council will strip my rank! I will be bankrupt by morning!" Rudra reached for a small amber glass bottle on the top shelf, unplugged its cork stopper, and poured three drops of a clear liquid onto a paper test strip. He did not offer a single word of reply. The silence inside the brick room grew heavy, cold, and suffocating, punctuated only by the steady, rhythmic ticking of the water clock on the back wall and the ragged, wet gasps of the dying nobleman. Three minutes.

Two minutes and thirty seconds. The black discoloration touched the upper curve of Oric's calf muscle. The pain was so overwhelming now that the baron bit down hard on his own lower lip, drawing a dark trickle of blood that ran down his chin and dripped onto his fox fur cloak. His vision began to blur around the edges, dark spots dancing across his eyes as the micro-cellular toxins began to affect his central nervous system.

He could feel his heart hammering wildly in his chest, struggling against the rising pressure inside his circulatory system.

"Take it!" Oric shrieked, his high-born pride completely shattered as the cold shadow of death closed around his neck. With a frantic, trembling motion, he yanked the heavy silver signet ring off his fat right finger and threw it with all his remaining strength onto the granite floor. The metal band bounced twice across the floorboards, coming to a dead stop against the toe of Rudra's leather boot.

"Take the ring! The bank notes are stored inside the dimensional pocket! Just make the pain stop! I sign them over to you! Everything is yours!" Rudra did not jump to pick it up. He looked down at the silver ring resting against his boot, then slowly looked up at the water clock on the wall. Two minutes remained.

Without saying a word, Rudra reached into his field bag, pulled out a fresh sheet of official parchment along with a small glass vial of black ink, and laid them flat onto the granite workbench, right over the iron frame of the loaded crossbow.

"Sign the asset transfer document first," Rudra said coldly, sliding a thin bone pen into the baron's trembling fingers.

"In your own blood." Oric did not hesitate for a second. Driven mad by the agony in his leg, he slashed the point of the bone pen across his bitten lower lip, soaked the tip in the fresh red blood, and scribbled his messy signature across the bottom of the parchment.

"Done! It is signed!" Oric wept, dropping the pen onto the desk as his body shook with violent chills.

"Now fix me! Please!" Rudra picked up the signed document, checked the blood signature with a brief glance, and folded the paper neatly into his coat pocket. He picked up the silver ring from the floor, slipped it into his spatial ring, and turned back to face the litter.

"Payment verified," Rudra said, his voice as cold as ice.

"Preparing the surgical field." He stepped up to the velvet litter, pulled a thin pair of steel silver shears from his inner sleeve, and cut away the baron's silk trousers from the ankle to the hip with three rapid, precise snaps of the blades. The ruined, blackened flesh of the baron's leg was laid completely bare under the soft blue light of the runes.

"Enforcers," Rudra commanded without looking back.

"Hold his arms and shoulders flat against the litter frame." The six guards moved immediately, eager to obey any order that did not involve fighting the youth. They pinned Oric's heavy shoulders and arms down against the plush velvet cushions, holding him completely immovable.

"Wait... what are you doing?" Oric gasped, his bloodshot eyes widening as he saw Rudra pull a long, curved silver needle and a jar of thick green salve from his toolkit.

"Where is the numbing potion?! Where is the sleeping draft?! You are not going to apply the medicine while I am awake?!" Rudra dipped the long silver needle directly into the concentrated green salve, coating the sharp metal tip in the potent, reactivating chemical compound.

"The Law of Two Coppers includes basic local anesthesia for respectful patients," Rudra said, his dark eyes fixing onto the baron's trembling face with absolute, unyielding coldness.

"For extortionists who point weapons at my chest during an emergency procedure... there is no anesthesia." Before Oric could even open his mouth to scream, Rudra brought the silver needle down, plunging it straight into the black, swollen tissue of the baron's ankle.