Season 3 chapter 38
The Corporate Distraction
The private hospital room fell into a heavy, utterly ridiculous silence after Kniya violently shoved his encrypted phone back into his tailored jacket. He stood near the window, his chest heaving with sheer, unadulterated irritation, while his three billionaire business partners and a traumatized Yatsua priestess stared at him.
Malesh calmly brushed a nonexistent speck of dust off his impeccably shined shoes. His face was a perfect, unreadable mask of deadpan logic.
"Your telecommunications infrastructure is statistically embarrassing, Kniya," Malesh stated, his voice completely flat. "We are attempting to orchestrate the downfall of a sovereign monarchy, and your encrypted command line is currently being jammed by a heavily aggressive undergarment salesman. It is an operational failure."
"Shut up, Malesh!" Kniya snapped, pointing a furious finger at him. "I pay millions of credits a year to the best cybersecurity firm in the Republic! I don't know how that absolute parasite bypassed the firewall! It was a glitch!"
The young priestess, still sitting up in her hospital bed with her little brother holding her hand, looked over at Filoska in total bewilderment.
"Excuse me," the priestess whispered nervously, pulling the thin blanket up to her chin. "Are... are you guys really planning a nationwide revolution to save my people? Because right now, the Managing Director of Kavilson Steel is screaming about cotton fabrics."
Filoska let out a long, deeply exhausted sigh. She walked over to the bed and gently patted the priestess's hand.
"Don't worry," Filoska assured her, her voice dripping with the chronic fatigue of a woman who managed two unhinged billionaires for a living. "This is exactly how they operate. They will systematically dismantle the federal government, buy a country, and orchestrate a global trade embargo, but they will absolutely lose their minds if a telemarketer interrupts them. It is a highly toxic workflow, but it gets results."
Salesh, who was leaning casually against the medical monitors in his ruined, homeless-looking clothes, rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"You know, honestly," Salesh chimed in, "the salesman actually made a compelling argument regarding the fabric durability. When you are flying long-haul on private jets, standard elastic does tend to wear out. A lifetime warranty on a premium undergarment isn't a terrible investment. I might ask for his direct extension."
Malesh slowly turned his head to glare at Salesh.
"Your consumer priorities are profoundly flawed, Salesh," Malesh criticized coldly, completely dropping his nerdier vocabulary for sheer, cutting pragmatism. "You own forty-six percent of a global conglomerate, and you look like you crawled out of a dumpster. You do not need premium undergarments. You need a functional tailor."
Before Salesh could aggressively defend his fashion choices, a sharp, piercing BZZZZZT echoed through the room again.
Kniya froze. His hand slowly dropped to his jacket pocket. The encrypted phone was ringing.
"Okay," Kniya breathed, his eyes narrowing with lethal, street-level intensity. He pulled the heavy device out. "This is it. This has to be the Central Intelligence broker calling back with the protest coordinates. Nobody calls this line twice in five minutes unless a city is currently on fire."
Kniya pressed the receiver to his ear, his posture instantly straightening into the terrifying, ruthless CEO of Kavilson Steel.
"Speak," Kniya ordered, his voice cold enough to freeze the room.
The Degenerate Pitch
Kniya's eyes bulged out of his skull.
"I don't want a fucking underwear!" Kniya roared, completely abandoning his terrifying CEO persona in a fraction of a second. "Please leave me alone, you fucking idiot! What the fuck do you have to do with me?!"
"Sir, please, do not hang up! This is a feature upgrade you absolutely need to hear!" the salesman practically sang into the microphone, speaking with the high-speed cadence of a late-night infomercial. "We analyzed your market demographic, and we know our elite clientele has specific... biological needs!"
"What the fuck are you talking about?!" Kniya screamed, pacing furiously in front of the hospital window.
"Sir, we also ensure that your underwear lasts even longer when you do the things!" the salesman pitched, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial, overly friendly whisper. "You know, sir! The things you do while reading the degenerate content! It is officially ensured, sir, so that the premium fabric can understand your specific needs! It is scientifically engineered to take a large amount of white fluid liquid that comes out of your body!"
The entire hospital room fell dead silent. Because Kniya was holding the phone slightly away from his ear in pure shock, the audio bled clearly into the room.
Salesh's jaw dropped. Filoska slapped both of her hands over her face, turning completely around to face the wall in absolute, horrifying embarrassment.
Malesh just stood there, his dark eyes analyzing Kniya with a look of pure, unadulterated judgment.
"What the actual fuck are you literally talking about?!" Kniya shrieked, his face flushing a violent, boiling shade of crimson. "I am going to cut this call right now, you fucking idiot! I am going to track your signal and burn your entire factory down to the foundation!"
"Sir, wait! It gets better!" the salesman yelled desperately. "It is also fully durable for, you know... tasting! The fabric is one hundred percent organic!"
"Just hearing that fills me with absolute disgust!" Kniya gagged, legitimately looking like he was going to throw up on the sterile hospital floor. "I am going to cut the call!"
The Insurance Pivot
"No, no, no, sir! Just give me a minute! Stop!" the salesman panicked, his tone suddenly shifting from a cheerful clothing vendor to a highly aggressive, fast-talking financial broker. "Sir, actually, I am an insurance agent!"
Kniya paused, his thumb hovering over the red button. "You are a what?"
"I am a premium asset insurance agent!" the guy declared proudly. "And I want to sell you an exclusive insurance bundle! Because, sir, let's be honest. Most of your massive, multi-billion-credit assets were just totally destroyed in this war! Your factories are burning, sir! You are in a major conflict!"
Kniya's eye twitched. The fact that a random spam caller knew about the classified military bombings of his steel mills was deeply disturbing, but the sheer audacity of trying to sell him a policy mid-war was infuriating.
"So the absolute best thing you can do right now," the agent pitched flawlessly, "is basically insure your remaining infrastructure against the future! And if you sign up for the Platinum Platinum Industrial Plan today, sir, we will throw in the degenerate-fluid-absorbing undergarments completely free as a signing bonus! It is a massive return on investment!"
"Hey, idiot!" Kniya yelled, his voice cracking with pure, unfiltered exhaustion. "Listen to me! I am really, really serious this time! I don't have a single second to waste! So please, please, do not waste my time! Do not call me! And I absolutely do not want to buy any fucking underwear which I can lick! It is fucking disgusting!"
"Sir..." the agent sighed, his voice suddenly sounding profoundly disappointed. "Actually, I think so... you want me to get to the main point."
"This is the fourth time you are speaking this, you absolute idiot!" Kniya roared, slamming his free hand against the hospital window. "What is the fucking point?!"
The Employee Grievance
"Sir, actually, some of your employees are injured," the agent stated, his voice finally dropping all the infomercial cheerfulness. "And I think so, you know about these things."
Kniya stopped yelling. His posture stiffened. His corporate instincts immediately flared up. The bombing of the twelve Kavilson Steel factories was a horrific tragedy. If this insurance agent had actual, tangible information regarding his wounded workforce, he had to listen.
"Yeah, some of my employees are severely injured," Kniya confirmed, his voice dropping into a dark, serious tone. "What does it have to do with you?"
"Sir, actually, I have some of your injured employees with me right now," the agent revealed casually. "They were injured due to the things, you know, the massive blasts in your factory or the things like that. They are currently resting at our facility."
Kniya's eyes widened. "They are with you?"
"Yes, sir," the agent nodded through the phone. "And they were complaining about one specific thing to me. All the time. Just nonstop complaining about you, sir."
Kniya frowned. He was an aggressive boss, yes, but he paid for premium healthcare and extended paid leave during crises. "What that thing was? Can you please tell me specifically? Was it the severance package? The medical coverage?"
"It was the underwear. I knew that, sir," the agent said with profound, absolute certainty.
Kniya froze. His brain entirely shut down. The geopolitical war, the military massacres, the royal family—everything vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, blinding wave of pure confusion and rage.
"What the fuck is happening?!" Kniya screamed at the top of his lungs, pacing wildly in front of the hospital bed while the priestess watched in absolute terror. "Why do you have to do everything with the fucking underwear?! Why is this the only thing you talk about?!"
"Sir, they told me the truth!" the agent argued passionately. "They told me that you do not give them, you know, new undergarments on every New Year as a corporate gift! You don't give them any present or anything like that for their lower regions!"
"Because every company gives standard financial bonuses to their employees!" Kniya shrieked, his voice echoing loudly down the hospital corridor. "No company gives fucking underwear as a holiday bonus! That is an extreme HR violation!"
"But sir, this is not the ritual in our company!" the agent boasted proudly, entirely ignoring Kniya's logic. "Our Managing Director is so good and so philanthropic that he even gives premium, fluid-absorbing underwear to all his employees along with the normal bonus! Your corporate structure is deeply lacking in crotch support, sir!"
Kniya stood entirely paralyzed, staring at the wall. The sheer, insurmountable stupidity of the conversation had finally broken the greatest industrial warlord in the Republic.
"This thing frustrates me out," Kniya whispered blankly to the ceiling. "I am literally going to lose my mind."
Across the room, Malesh stood with his arms crossed, looking at Kniya with a perfectly flat, deadpan expression.
"Your employees' morale is statistically dropping due to your lack of basic undergarment distribution, Kniya," Malesh noted dryly. "You should critically evaluate your seasonal bonus structure."
"I am going to shoot you," Kniya muttered.