Chương 26: The Ledger’s Shadow

The white glare of the Canaanite sun snapped into black. Ethan pulled the manual emergency overrides. The polymer seals of his reconditioned capsule popped with a heavy, hydraulic hiss, venting a choking cloud of warm insulation and ozone into the cramped room. He pushed the visor back, a sharp, white-hot spike of agony lancing through his neck vertebrae as he forced his rigid body to sit up. His real-world muscles were locked in a state of violent, tetanic exhaustion.

The high-density glucose and sedation cocktail he had forced his capsule to pump into his veins was wearing off, leaving his mouth tasting of bitter copper and his heart hammering a erratic, hollow rhythm against his ribs. His fingers trembled so violently he could barely unhook the neural leads from his temples. He didn't just feel tired; he felt biologically poisoned. He swung his legs out of the polymer tube, his bare feet sinking into the freezing concrete floor.

Every joint groaned as he took three unsteady, dragging paces across the narrow twelve-story flat to the wall-mounted meter box. He blinked away the grey spots dancing in his vision to look at the display. The blinking yellow warning light was gone, replaced by an unwavering, bright green bar. [Chinatown Smart-Grid Node — Block 52] Current Credit: S$295. 12 Status: Normal (Unthrottled) Time Remaining: 6 Days, 20 Hours, 14 Minutes Ethan let out a slow, quiet breath.

The icy clamp of panic around his chest finally loosened. He inhaled deeply, letting the clean air clear the chemical fog from his lungs and dull the throbbing ache behind his eyes. He walked to the far corner, kneeling beside the medical preservation pod. The gel-pad beneath Grandma Tan's shoulders pulsed with a deep, automated warmth. Her breathing was steady, her wrinkled fingers resting loosely against the warming fluid.

"Ethan?" Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn't open them.

"I'm here, Grandma," Ethan said, checking the digital power ledger on her lower console. Current Draw: 600W. Status: Normal.

"The machine... it doesn't click anymore," she murmured, her voice carrying a faint, relaxed rasp.

"The air is clean. Like the breeze from the reservoir."

"We cleared the week's margin," Ethan said, his voice soft but firm as he rested a hand on the warm glass of her pod.

"The utility grid won't throttle our oxygen during the peak hours anymore." Grandma Tan let out a small, weak sigh, her fingers shifting slightly against the gel.

"Good. The HDB town council sent another reminder for the estate upgrading levy. Everything also want money." Ethan's chest tightened. The real world never stopped sending invoices.

"I'll handle the levy, Grandma. Don't worry about the letters."

"Don't go and break the law, boy," she muttered, her breath slowing as the pod's automated sleep cycle—now fully powered by unthrottled current—began to gently pull her back under.

"Later the police come, then you know."

"It's not the law, Grandma," Ethan whispered, looking down at his own palms, which still felt heavy from handling virtual red mud.

"It's just math." He stood up, walking over to the small synthetic induction stove to pour fifty millilitres of tap water into a plastic mug. He drank it slowly, his eyes turning to the thick, printed developer binder hidden in the shadow of the medical pod. He opened his personal terminal screen to audit his hidden in-game metrics. Sitting inside his capsule's remote cache were 2. 1 kilograms of physical, unrefined copper weapon scrap and ten Silver Shekels of raw profit from the culvert raid brawl.

I have zero traditional combat skills, Ethan analyzed, his mind running through the data cells as his physical body finally began to settle into a normal rhythm. If a Level 10 player catches my character away from the unpaved river mud, my advantages drop to zero. I have massive stats under the Yotzer HaRishon path, but no weapon modules. To survive the next four days before the moon contract resets, I must play entirely defensively.

The real-world bills from the town council were mounting, and a one-week safety net was just a brief intermission. He didn't just need to delay the oxygen throttling; he needed enough capital to wipe out their structural debts entirely. He sat back down in the capsule, the cooling gel realigning against his aching spine. He closed his eyes, ready to dive back into the dirt.