Extra's Sign In System: The Hero's an Idiot!

Chapter 263: Chapter 263: The Merchant King

Chapter 263: The Merchant King

The heavy iron gates of Bastion Nine were shut tight.

The massive Vanguard crawlers ground to a halt on the frozen dirt of the eastern trade road. The runic engines idled with a low, vibrating hum. Draven Mordis, Aegon Logcheville, Reina Frost, Lucien Vaelmont, and Nyx Vespera stepped down into the freezing mud.

They stood before a towering stone barricade. The architecture was flawless.

A thin customs officer in a pristine blue wool uniform looked down at them from a gilded watchpost above the gate. He held a heavy leather ledger and a sharpened quill. He did not look intimidated by the heavily armed strike team.

"State your business," the officer demanded.

"Vanguard deployment," Aegon answered. The Crucible Warlord stepped forward, his dented armor caked in the gray ash of the northern wastelands. "We need immediate entry."

The officer adjusted his spectacles. He ran his finger down the crisp pages of his ledger.

"Bastion Nine closed its borders to military traffic three weeks ago," the officer reported, his tone flat and bored. "By direct order of the Lord Commander. I have no scheduled deployments for this sector."

Reina gripped the haft of her double-bladed axe. She stared up at the man in pure disbelief. A Capital strike fleet was currently sailing up the coast to burn this city to the ground, and they were being stopped by a clerk with a pen.

"Open the gate," Reina warned, her breath pluming in the cold air.

"I cannot," the officer replied. He did not even blink at the threat. "You do not possess the proper requisition forms."

It was a deeply absurd interaction. It was also exactly the right defense for a city built entirely on ledgers and ink.

Draven stepped forward. He placed a hand on Reina’s shoulder, signaling her to stand down. He knew that applying raw force would only trigger an automated magical lockdown of the primary entrance.

He reached deep into his dark winter coat. He bypassed his Vanguard credentials. He pulled out a heavy, stamped silver coin. It was not official Vanguard currency. It carried the specific, intricate seal of Sirius Statanham’s smuggling syndicate.

’In a fortress of merchants, the underworld is the only actual door,’ Draven observed silently.

He tossed the silver coin high into the air.

The officer caught it seamlessly. He examined the heavy silver seal, instantly recognizing the bribe and the dangerous, lucrative network it represented.

"The southern caravan needs an immediate resupply," Draven stated. He recited the syndicate passphrase with smooth, practiced ease.

The officer slipped the silver coin into his wool pocket. He closed the heavy leather ledger with a sharp snap.

"Proceed to the eastern merchant gate," the officer instructed politely.

The secondary iron doors groaned open on well-oiled hinges.

The squad walked into the streets of Bastion Nine. The reality of the city hit them like a physical blow to the stomach.

It was a nightmare of staggering wealth. The broad, meticulously paved streets were lined with bustling open-air markets. Vendors shouted lively prices for fresh green apples, heavily roasted meats, and thick, aged wheels of cheese.

Plump, healthy children wearing bright winter coats ran laughing through the pristine cobblestone squares. Fat loaves of white bread sat openly on wooden tables, unattended and unguarded.

One hundred and eighty miles to the north, the civilians of Bastion Seven were boiling shoe leather and begging for diluted tree sap just to survive the freezing mud.

Aegon stopped walking. The young commander stared at a bakery display. His jaw clenched tight enough to crack his own teeth.

Reina stared at a wooden cart overflowing with fresh grain. Her hands shook violently with raw, suffocating anger. She had watched her own people freeze to death in the dark for a handful of dirty oats.

Nyx walked past the overflowing food stalls without turning her head. The Phantom Queen said nothing at all. Her silence was far worse than Reina’s visible fury.

Nyx had just spent three weeks embedded in Bastion One. She had already witnessed the sickening contrast of a fed city ignoring a starving world, and her capacity for outrage had long since hardened into cold, permanent hostility.

Draven ignored the food displays. He kept his gray eyes focused on the architecture.

He walked the perimeter and evaluated the defensive lines. The massive stone walls were built from polished white granite. They featured beautiful, intricate carvings of wheat sheaves, golden coins, and trading ships.

They were strictly ornamental. The walls were built to impress foreign trade caravans, not to survive the punishing artillery fire of Vanguard dreadnoughts.

There was no designated killing ground outside the main gates. The city streets were far too wide, offering zero chokepoints for infantry defense. There were no reinforced fallback lines mapped into the grid. There were no subterranean blast shelters beneath the markets.

Bastion Nine was a fat, gleaming target sitting exposed on an open plain.

The squad entered the central Vanguard command spire.

The heavy oak doors opened into a lavish, sunlit office. Lord Commander Ashgar Vell sat behind a massive desk carved from imported southern mahogany.

Vell was a heavy, well-dressed man in his late fifties. He wore expensive green silk layered over a fine, lightweight chainmail shirt. His thick fingers were covered in heavy gold rings. But beneath the soft, luxurious exterior, Draven could feel the crushing, suffocating gravity of a Level 200 Valor. The devastating magical aura was deliberately suppressed, hidden away like a dangerous tool kept locked in a desk drawer.

"Draven Mordis," Vell greeted politely, setting a heavy black ledger aside. "I am told you forced my eastern gate using syndicate silver."

A tall, quiet aide stood near the expansive glass window, sorting meticulously through a stack of shipping manifests. The man had unremarkable features, dull brown eyes, and a posture that demanded no attention.

"The southern harbor manifests are filed, Lord Commander," the aide said softly. His voice faded perfectly into the background noise of the room.

"Leave them on the side table," Vell dismissed without looking at him. The aide bowed his head and stepped back into the deep shadows of the office.

Vell turned his sharp, calculating eyes back to Draven.

"You are here about the Capital fleet," Vell stated.

He was not an ignorant man. He possessed flawless, expensive intelligence networks. He knew the Capital dreadnoughts were sailing north. He had simply concluded that he did not need to fight them.

"General Corvin Marek is commanding the strike force," Draven warned, standing before the mahogany desk. "He will reach your southern perimeter in exactly two days."

"And I will welcome him," Vell replied easily. He rested his heavy hands on the desk. "I have never fired a single arrow at a Capital Knight. I broke the grain blockade to sell to your city months ago because the markup was highly profitable. When the risk outweighed the gold, I stopped the shipments. I owe Senator Vast nothing. I have offended no one permanently."

Vell reached out and poured a glass of rich red wine from a crystal decanter.

"I am a merchant, Draven," Vell explained, his tone reasonable and calm. "Marek is a general moving a massive army with a very long supply line. I have full warehouses. I can offer him provisions, secure deep-water docks, and a warm bed. A general does not burn a city that opens its doors and offers a fair price."

Aegon stepped forward, his heavy boots thudding against the plush carpet.

"Marek is a fanatic," Aegon argued fiercely. "He wants to close the eastern trade road forever. He will take your walls by force to secure his northern flank."

"He will negotiate," Vell countered firmly, taking a sip of the wine. "Everything in this world has a price. I have already arranged for my daughter to travel south to Bastion One tomorrow morning with a diplomatic envoy. She will be safe behind Capital lines. We will pay our way out of this conflict. It is what Bastion Nine has always done."

Draven stood in the center of the lavish office.

He looked at the confident Lord Commander. Draven knew exactly what the Capital did to cities that refused to bow immediately. He knew General Marek would not accept gold when he could take the entire city’s infrastructure in blood and secure the road permanently.

’I have no authority here,’ Draven realized. The cold truth settled heavily over his shoulders.

He was a masked ghost. He commanded a lethal strike team. But Ashgar Vell was a Lord Commander holding the Level 200 threshold in his own sovereign territory.

Draven could not issue Vanguard directives here. He could not remove Vell from power. A porcelain mask afforded zero political leverage in a room governed by ranks and ledgers.

"You are making a fatal miscalculation," Draven advised. His voice was a low, freezing rasp. "Marek will slaughter your garrison. You need to evacuate the lower wards and fortify the streets."

Vell set his crystal glass down.

"I appreciate your concern for my city, Draven," Vell said politely, though his tone brokered no debate. "But I decline your advice. I will not incite a war by barricading my own streets and panicking my citizens."

Draven did not argue further. He knew a stubborn man could only be convinced by reality, and reality was arriving in forty-eight hours.

"Give me one district," Draven demanded flatly.

Vell raised a thick eyebrow.

"I need a staging ground," Draven clarified. "Give me the eastern quarter. I will pull my team there. We will not interfere with your diplomatic surrender. But when Marek burns your envoy and marches on your gate, I need a fortified fallback line."

Vell considered the harsh request. The eastern quarter was primarily industrial storage and narrow alleyways, located far from the wealthy estates and the central markets.

"Take the eastern quarter," Vell compromised, waving a dismissive, ringed hand. "Do what you like with it. Dig up the cobblestones. Build your walls. But I will not offer you a single soldier from my garrison to help, and I will not pay for the damages to the streets."

Draven turned around, his dark coat sweeping the floor.

"Understood," Draven said.

He walked out of the opulent office, followed closely by his silent squad. He had secured one district out of nine, and he had exactly two days to turn a merchant street into a fortress.