Chương 16: The Ledger’s Leak

The hemp sling whistled. Thrum-thrum-snap. The stone struck the jackal's skull with a wet crack. The beast collapsed into the white sand of the ravine floor, its digital body shattering into static before dissolving entirely. Ethan did not look at the experience bar. His fingers dipped back into his leather pouch, pulling out another smooth river pebble. Seven coarse hides and fourteen fangs sat in his inventory slots. His milestone tracker read forty-two percent toward Level 3.

Total input layout: zero copper shekels. A sharp green notification flashed across the bottom of his haptic visor. [Arayut Clause Triggered] Laborer metabolic depletion detected. Procuring: [Coarse Barley Porridge x1] Cost: 0. 15 Silver Shekels. Billing Status: Transferred to Primary Covenant Holder [Player: Bochim]. Ethan leaned his shoulder against the cool mud bricks of the foundation wall. His virtual stomach felt heavy, full, and tight with warmth.

He had worked for three hours without a single point of stamina decay. He opened his ledger. Six entries lined the debit column. Nearly one full silver shekel, extracted in twenty-minute intervals from an external account. A sudden, violent rattle shook the wooden scaffolding of the drainage gate above.

"Etan." The roar bounced off the limestone cliffs. Ethan looped the slack hemp cords around his middle finger. He tilted his chin back, keeping his back flat against the wall. Bochim stood on the projecting corbel. He had unslung his Syrian composite bow, his knuckles white against the oiled sheepskin wrapping. His left hand held an open, pulsing red interface screen that cast a frantic scarlet glare across his dark blue leather uniform.

"What did you do to my ledger?" Bochim asked, his breath coming in a short, ragged whistle.

"I just opened my regional balance sheet in the Upper City. My silver weight is bleeding out in micro-deductions every twenty minutes. The system logged it as a series of forced lower-ward market vouchers." Ethan stood up, brushing the dust off his sleeves.

"I didn't touch your ledger, Bochim."

"Barley porridge?" Bochim slammed his fist against the wooden railing, the interface window flickering from the vibration.

"The system is charging me market rates for street food. Why is the bill coming out of my private chest?"

"We cut an official berit," Ethan said, his voice flat.

"An Arayut covenant. I provide the physical labor to maintain this resource node. You agreed to shoulder the accessory costs required to preserve that labor. The engine classifies metabolic fuel as an operational maintenance cost." Bochim's mouth opened, then thinned into a rigid line. His eyes flicked across the text of the digital contract, tracking the hard-coded purple strings.

"I'll cancel it," Bochim whispered, his voice dropping into a low, desperate register.

"I'll take the reputation penalty from the city elders. I'll swallow the alignment drop right now."

"You can't," Ethan said. He pointed his trowel toward the blinking clause at the bottom of the manager's screen.

"Clause 7. 1. An Arayut covenant bound by a mutual resource node cannot be unilaterally dissolved until the current moon phase completes its cycle. That's five more days. If you force an administrative cancellation, the palace guards will seize your entire private inventory at the gate to pay my liquidation damages." Bochim stared down into the ditch. His chest rose and fell in heavy, silent expansions. On his display, another decimal point rolled over. 0. 15 shekels deducted.

"Five days," Bochim hissed, his voice trembling.

"The second this moon phase resets, I am deploying a full vanguard squad from Pixel Rex to turn this culvert into a private graveyard. I'll hunt your character ID until you delete the account." He spun on his heel. His heavy leather boots stomped against the timber planks of the rampart walkway, his shadow vanishing into the dark stone of the gate tower. Ethan dropped back onto his knees behind the terebinth bushes, his fingers sliding over the cold surface of a fresh limestone pebble.

He pulled up his real-world link. The Chinatown smart-meter balance read a stable S$2. 84.

"Five days," Ethan muttered into the dark.

"That's enough."