Chapter 141: Smile Collects

Benny’s underground route ended beneath a flower shop.

At sunrise, he emerged carrying Mina’s contract inside a black case and purchased twelve white lilies. Damien watched from an alley while Duskveil blurred the edge of his cloak.

Benny traveled without visible guards.

He did not need them. Three different Players followed from rooftops, changing places every two blocks. Two delivery vehicles remained behind him. A woman selling newspapers carried a weapon beneath her counter.

Black Ledger had turned an ordinary district into an escort formation.

It also confirmed that Benny was not merely an unpleasant lender. Ordinary lenders did not need rooftop relays, armed newspaper vendors, and vehicles that changed registration plates at traffic lights. Each layer protected something above him.

Damien photographed every face and sent them through separate channels. Martin identified two. Mina recognized another as a witness who had supposedly died during a debt hearing.

The man was alive, armed, and working for the people who had declared him dead.

The branch did more than collect money. It rewrote lives.

Damien assigned targets through Nova Corps’s private channel.

Daria tracked mana. Hamari watched the rooftops. Grace followed at street level in different clothes. Eli remained close enough to maintain his Pathfinder mark. Mina returned to Central Command to study the contract transmission.

Benny entered a residential building and climbed to the sixth floor.

An elderly man opened the door.

"Mr. Vale," Benny said with the same pleasant smile. "I brought flowers."

The man looked at the lilies and began shaking.

Benny entered without invitation.

Damien reached the opposite rooftop and watched through an open window. A young woman lay in a medical bed inside the apartment. Healing tubes ran into both arms. Empty potion bottles filled a table.

Mr. Vale had borrowed eighteen thousand Gold for treatment. He had repaid twenty-three thousand. Black Ledger claimed he still owed forty-one.

"I need another week," the man said.

"You said that last week." Benny arranged the flowers in a cup. "Repetition makes promises feel dishonest."

"My pension arrives in four days."

"Then you can rent the apartment from its new owner."

Benny placed a contract against the wall. A red seal spread through the room. Ownership transferred before the old man finished reading.

Grace’s voice tightened in Damien’s ear. "Say the word."

"Not yet."

"He is taking a sick woman’s home."

"And carrying the route to everyone else’s."

It was the first decision that made leadership feel like cooperation with the enemy.

Benny left the lilies and departed. Mr. Vale closed the door behind him without making a sound.

They followed.

The next stop was a training hall. Benny collected a Rare sword from a Level 22 Player who had borrowed money for armor. At the third, he accepted a restaurant from a family and allowed them to remain as unpaid workers. He was polite every time.

By noon, Grace had asked for permission to break him eleven times.

Hamari had asked seven.

Daria asked none. Her silence was less forgiving.

At the final stop, Benny entered a private lift inside an office tower. Eli’s mark descended thirty floors below the registered foundation.

"Collection house," Eli said. "The path branches after the lift. At least six exits."

"Rook will appreciate that," Hamari replied.

They had collected more than addresses along the way. Doctor Smoke had entered Mr. Vale’s apartment after Benny left, stabilized his daughter, and recorded the false seizure. Martin froze the property transfer without alerting Black Ledger. A relief officer purchased the restaurant’s food at full price, giving its owners enough cash to remain open. The Level 22 swordsman surrendered his empty weapon case as evidence and asked whether he could be present when Benny was arrested.

"No," Damien had told him.

"Why?"

"Because you want revenge more than an arrest."

The swordsman had glared. Damien understood the feeling well enough not to reward it.

Watching people suffer had not been pointless, but that did not make the waiting clean. Every compromise left something on him that armor could not block.

At the office tower, Grace caught up beneath the cover of a lunch crowd.

"The old man keeps his apartment," she said.

"For now."

"You could sound happier."

"Benny owns four hundred other contracts we have not seen."

"There it is. The inspirational leadership."

Damien glanced at her. "Try not to break the lift."

"That was almost a joke."

"It was an instruction."

The lift opened before she could decide which answer annoyed her more.

Damien sent only the building address to Rook. He withheld the underground route until arrest teams occupied the surrounding streets.

Corvin requested the full map twice.

Damien declined twice.

Inside the collection house, Mina’s contract joined hundreds of others. Each produced a thin red thread that traveled deeper into the network. Daria could sense the combined mana from across the street.

"It is enormous," she said. "More than a local office."

The team entered through separate paths.

Grace used the lift, posing as a collector returning from work. Hamari reached a ventilation shaft from the neighboring tower. Eli followed his mark through a maintenance tunnel. Damien entered through the flower shop passage and kept his footsteps silent.

The movement component of Walk of Night worked as long as he maintained its exact pattern. Guards looked toward the sound of Duskveil brushing walls but never toward his feet. The cloak suppressed his outline when cameras turned.

He reached the contract hall.

Rows of black cabinets covered both sides. People sat at narrow desks, rewriting interest clauses and approving seizures. Some wore weapons. Others looked like ordinary accountants.

Benny stood at the central table.

Mina’s contract lay open before him.

Beside it rested Eli’s silver coin.

Eli checked his hand.

The real coin was still there.

"Copy," he whispered. "He recorded it at the meeting."

Benny turned toward the dark corner where Damien stood.

"A government coin," he said. "A false freight company. A security woman who walks like she expects to be attacked."

His smile finally changed.

It became smaller.

"You followed very well."

Doors closed throughout the collection house.

Red contract lines ignited across the floor.

"Unfortunately," Benny said, "we were also following you."