After classes, the girl headed to a café.
Lian followed.
He had already prepared everything.
A photo, folded in half, with a few words written on the back.
Invisible, he slipped it under her coffee cup while she was distracted. She didn't notice—not for the first few minutes.
He moved a bit farther away, stepping outside the café and crossing the street. From there, he watched.
A few minutes later, she rushed out.
Her pace was fast—too fast to look normal. Her expression was tight, nervous, like she was trying not to panic.
The note was simple:
I know what you do on weekends.
Meet me at the park.
There will be a communicator under the bench.
If you don't come… everyone at your academy will see your photos.
Lian had to sound like he knew everything about her while she knew as little about him as possible. So he carefully structured his words.
She found the communicator under the bench and lifted it to her ear, hands shaking.
Lian let her talk.
Panic. Excuses. A shaky voice trying to sound helpless, almost on the verge of tears.
She was playing the victim.
Lian listened without reacting.
"Yeah… you're the victim?" Lian cut in. "The photos say otherwise. You are smiling in every single photo like you're having the time of your life."
She tried to explain, words tripping over each other, panic leaking through every sentence.
Lian didn't care.
"Either way," he said calmly, "I'm not someone who judges. Humans should be free to do whatever they want with their lives."
Then he added, "So… how much do you actually make from all this?"
The number she gave him made him pause.
That's it?
"Wait… you're risking everything for that little amount?" he said, almost incredulous. "Seriously?"
She went quiet for a moment.
Then she started talking, filling the silence with her backstory.
But Lian already had most of it figured out long before, just by her character fingerprint.
Her pattern wasn't hard to read.
Bad parents shaped a bad environment, which pushed her into bad company, feeding bad habits, and eventually locking her into a bad lifestyle. And her mind had locked it in as the default setting.
People like that usually ended up chasing validation in the wrong places. They use substances and clung to love like a parasite, just to cover their insecurities.
And Lian was right.
After listening to her ramble for like twenty minutes, he summarized.
Her dad used to drink and hit her mom. Her mom left him for another man, and she was basically abandoned by both. She still lived with her dad, but he barely took care of her. She was bullied in middle school, and later got a boyfriend who was also a piece of shit. They both aimed for Red Line Academy, but he got rejected while she ended up in Class D. A few weeks later, he borrowed money from her, even took out a loan using her bank account, then disappeared. Now she was stuck with the debt.
Lian thought, Who the hell is handing out loans to minors like it's candy?
In his previous world, you needed a job, a credit history, and three forms of ID just to get rejected.
He was already bored halfway through her lame backstory, so he cut in mid-sentence.
"Why not just go to the police?" he said, tone flat. "Or tell someone at the academy. At least someone would help you."
She hesitated, then mumbled something about being afraid… and ashamed.
Lian tilted his head slightly.
"So you're not afraid to keep doing this for months until you pay off the debt?"
She replied, "No… I do want to go to the police."
She asked if he'd come with her to the police.
Lian let out a short laugh.
"You are asking this to the guy who literally tried to extort you?"
She kept talking for another ten minutes while Lian let her ramble, giving her space to relax, open up, letting him extract more information.
Lian shifted the conversation, with a casual tone.
He started asking about the guy—how they met, what he did, his habits, his background, any connections he might have.
Lian wasn't just listening. He was mapping.
If the man had political or military ties, this would be off-limits. Those kinds of people didn't hesitate to pay large sums, but they absolutely didn't tolerate strangers knowing their secrets. The risk of being tracked down and silenced wasn't worth it.
But from what she described…
He was just a businessman. Wealthy, but ordinary.
Looks like I hit the jackpot, Lian thought.
Lian didn't forget the main point—he came here to extort her.
The money was small, but money was money. There was no reason to refuse free cash.
He had instructed her to leave the cash under a specific rock in the park.
Later, he went to collect it, invisible.
But what came next…
That was where the real money was.
Lian had information, leverage, and a target who didn't even realise what was coming.
Lian glanced at the communicator in his hand, already running calculations in his head.
If he handled this right…
He would have more than enough to build an offensive rune.
He put the communicator away.
The girl was small change.
The man behind her was the actual target.
He was going to take everything.