Season 3 chapter 68
The Financial Parasite
For exactly thirty minutes, the interior of the heavy, armored steam-sedan was completely silent.
Kniya drove the massive vehicle with rigid focus, aggressively chewing his mint gum. Malesh sat in the front passenger seat, staring blankly out the reinforced windshield, while Salesh and Filoska sat frozen in the back.
The silence wasn't peaceful. It was the terrified, suffocating silence of two men who owed an unregulated shadow syndicate exactly sixty trillion credits. The one-hundred-percent compounding interest rate felt like a mechanical parasite made of rusty gears actively chewing through their stomachs. The tension of having exactly one calendar year to pay off a loan that dwarfed the entire national treasury was eating them from the inside. They were trying desperately not to panic, but every time the sedan hit a bump, Kniya visibly flinched as if Mantouse Adeius had just tapped him on the shoulder to collect his soul.
Finally, Kniya slowed the car to a crawl, pulling into a concealed, rubble-filled alleyway just at the edge of the refugee camp. He threw the heavy brass gear into park.
The Ignorance of the Masses
The four operators leaned forward, peering through the tinted windows at the sprawling encampment. Thousands of displaced citizens from the obliterated religious towns were gathered in a massive, chaotic mob.
At the absolute center of the camp stood a large wooden stage. Standing on the platform, gripping a microphone with desperate intensity, was the young Yatsua Priestess.
She was actively trying to enlighten the enraged masses, pointing frantically toward the capital and explaining that the ongoing military destruction was a direct, calculated plot orchestrated entirely by the Royal Family.
The crowd was having absolutely none of it. To the citizens, the Royal Family were their absolute saviors, the generous lords who had been handing out free medical supplies and organizing the protests.
"You are lying to us!" a man screamed from the front row, aggressively shaking his fist at the stage.
"The Royal Family are our true saviors!" a woman shrieked hysterically, waving a tattered flag. "They gave us bread when the state burned our homes!"
"You are just a face for the corrupt government!" another protester roared, throwing a handful of dirt. "You are lying to protect the military! Get down from there!"
Sitting safely inside the soundproofed car, Malesh watched the enraged, easily manipulated crowd. His face settled into a mask of pure, unfiltered human exhaustion.
"I am thoroughly evaluating this crowd, Kniya," Malesh stated flatly, shaking his head with deep, cynical disgust. "The people of DI are literal, uncompromising fools. If you surgically crack open their skulls right now, you will find absolutely nothing but a single rusted gear spinning completely backward. They are so easily manipulated. I think so, we have to intervene."
Kniya aggressively popped his mint gum, his arrogant billionaire ego completely disgusted by the street-level ignorance unfolding outside.
"Yeah, you are right about this thing, Malesh," Kniya scoffed loudly. "These idiots have no brains. I think so, we have to intervene because I don't think we have any other choice. If we leave it to them, they will literally thank the people trying to kill them. I don't know what we should do right now, but let's go. Move your asses."
The Corporate Roadies
Slipping through the dense, shouting crowd like ghosts, the team entirely bypassed the main mob and silently converged behind the massive wooden stage.
Working with the speed and precision of highly-paid corporate stagehands, Salesh and Filoska immediately got to work. Filoska dragged a heavy, industrial-grade mechanical projector out from its reinforced casing, frantically hooking it up to the camp's main steam-generators. Above her, Salesh scrambled up the back scaffolding, securing the heavy iron clamps of a massive canvas screen.
Once the hardware was locked in, Kniya and Malesh split up, running secretly to the opposite wings of the stage.
Without a single word of warning, Kniya reached out from the shadows and forcefully yanked the release lever.
THWACK.
A massive, blank white screen violently unrolled directly behind the stunned Priestess, completely cutting off the back half of the stage like a giant fake wall.
The roaring crowd instantly fell into a state of sudden, confused silence. People blinked in the harsh sunlight, pointing up at the stage and muttering to each other, completely bewildered by the sudden appearance of the giant canvas. The Priestess spun around, her eyes wide as she stared at the massive screen blocking her backdrop.
The Ice Cream Pitch
Before anyone in the mob could process what was happening, Malesh confidently marched out from the right wing of the stage.
Instead of his usual deadpan, exhausted baseline, Malesh aggressively forced a massive, incredibly fake, overly-enthusiastic smile onto his face. He grabbed a microphone and adopted the loud, booming, overly-cheerful voice of a sleazy daytime advertisement salesman.
"Okay, guys!" Malesh boomed enthusiastically over the massive speakers, pointing directly at the traumatized refugees. "Does anyone here want a free, absolutely delicious ice cream in the middle of this terrible heat?!"
The crowd blinked in pure, stunned silence. The sheer, immature absurdity of offering a frozen dairy treat to thousands of people who had just lost their homes completely short-circuited their political outrage. The Priestess just stared at him, her jaw literally dropping.
Before the mob could even formulate a single angry response, Kniya aggressively marched out from the left wing of the stage, clicking his own microphone on to broadcast his whiny, highly petty billionaire frustration.
"Malesh, you absolute idiot!" Kniya argued publicly, throwing his hands in the air and glaring at his best friend across the stage. "Don't you know who these people are?! These are the citizens of DI! They are not poor like the people of Mandoria! They are not going to sell out for a cheap little ice cream cone! They have rich expectations! They want thoroughbred horses! They want premium mansions! They want massive luxury bungalows!"
Malesh slowly turned his head to look at Kniya. The overly-enthusiastic advertisement smile completely melted off his face, instantly replaced by an incredibly awkward, highly uncomfortable grimace.
A massive, almost visible bead of nervous sweat seemed to drop down the side of Malesh's head. The crushing reality of their absolutely obliterated bank accounts and their sixty-trillion-credit debt slammed back into his brain, making his forced smile twitch awkwardly.
"I don't think so, Kniya..." Malesh replied over the speakers, his voice cracking slightly with pure, awkward exhaustion. "I don't think we can afford these things and fund all of them with this. It is really, really impossible for us to do so right now. I am actively wearing my last unburnt coat."
Malesh had just awkwardly offered the furious, displaced crowd a free ice cream, completely stalling their political outrage.
The Grand Shift
The atmosphere in the refugee camp was electric, charged with the desperate hope of thousands who had lost everything. On the wooden stage, Kniya stood with a posture that screamed power. He didn't look like a man whose empire was under siege; he looked like a man who was already planning the reconstruction.
"Citizens of DI!" Kniya's voice was a sharp command through the speakers. "You didn't come here to listen to some soft-hearted bullshit or excuses. You expect excellence. You expect the iron-clad security and the industrial might that this fucking Republic was built on! We aren't here to talk about 'surviving'—we are here to talk about the standard of living you deserve. The cars, the infrastructure, the exotic horses... that is the DI way, and don't you fucking forget it!"
Malesh stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back, his expression a mask of unshakeable calm. He adjusted his cuff—the fabric was worn, but he wore it like it was woven from gold.
"Kniya is right," Malesh said, his voice a smooth, low baritone. "But a high-end lifestyle requires a stable state. And right now, we are dealing with a goddamn cancer called civil war. It is time to shift our focus from what we want to build, to what we must first destroy."
Kniya gave a sharp, professional nod, looking like a lead anchor transitioning a broadcast.
"Exactly. And since we value transparency—mostly—I'll let our colleagues handle the specific tactical briefing. Gentlemen, displaced taxpayers, please welcome the analysts who will walk you through this current clusterfuck!"
The "Unintentional" Slide
Kniya and Malesh exited the stage with the coordinated grace of two men who had practiced this a thousand times. Filoska and Salesh took their places, Salesh immediately wrestling with the heavy brass projector.
With a hiss of steam and a flash of light, an image appeared on the makeshift screen.
The crowd went dead silent.
It wasn't a map of the border. It was a high-resolution, incredibly candid shot of two elite members of the Royal Family. They were caught in a compromising, intimately close embrace—a position that was definitely not "official business."
Salesh didn't flinch. He just tapped his pointer against the screen.
"We'll circle back to the... extracurricular activities of our 'holy' Royal Family in a moment," Salesh said dryly. "First, let's talk about something that actually affects your damn pockets. Your hard-earned bribe money is currently being funneled directly into the Mandorian national budget. Why is our government paying for their paved roads while you're standing in the fucking dirt?"