Chapter 307: I Was the Charity and the Tax Problem

I arrived at my own charity appearance riding the plastic cow display, because Hansen had requested a spectacle without specifying who got to feel embarrassed by it.

Lukas drove the little promotional cart from the surface access lane while I sat above the cow’s painted wave, waving my tail at guests who mistook shamelessness for part of the booking.

The girls came through the public entrance with the mermaid’s release record and the original club order sheet. They didn’t need to pretend we had been invited when the event had printed my face on every available wall.

Hansen appeared remotely on the main screen. His smile tightened when the imitation snake mascot turned toward me, giving the crowd two competing versions of a guest they had only expected to photograph once.

[System: This is beautiful, mate. Your uncle’s booked a fake snake and the real one’s arrived on a fucking milk advertisement. Nobody’s getting their dignity deposit back tonight.]

I had paid enough deposits recently and intended to make somebody else experience the loss.

The host asked whether my entrance was part of the show. I told him it depended on how much he knew about the stolen equipment, which made his microphone lower an inch and his expression become considerably more interested in honesty.

The imitation mascot had a padded red body, painted eyes and a tail that kept catching beneath its performer’s shoes. Someone had added an expensive-looking sash declaring official support, which made the fraud more insulting because they had remembered to dress the fake version properly.

I circled the costume once while the host tried to work out whether stopping me would make the audience more suspicious. The performer watched through the mesh eye holes with the defeated patience of a person who had expected dancing and received a family feud instead.

"I had to ask whether they offered you medical coverage, mate, because that tail looked like it had already attempted to kill you twice."

"They said I was supposed to look dangerous," he replied quietly, shifting the heavy costume away from his ankles. "They didn’t mention you would be here."

I asked whether he had been paid. He said the money came after the appearance, then glanced toward the collection crew with an expression that suggested he had started developing doubts about the exact meaning of after.

I didn’t turn him into a friend with a tragic history. He was a worker in a stupid suit, and I had no reason to make his evening worse simply because my uncle had excellent taste in people to inconvenience.

The host recovered enough to announce a surprise double appearance. He sounded relieved by the idea that the awkward moment might be entertainment rather than evidence, and I decided to reward that optimism by asking the mascot to judge our resemblance.

"Be honest, mate. Did they study the real thing, or did someone describe me over a bad connection while looking at an angry sock?"

The room laughed. The performer cautiously lifted one padded arm, which gave me the opportunity to point out a major design error in a costume supposedly representing a creature without ordinary arms.

Bridget covered a smile behind her hand. Cherry called the fake tail generous, and Lyra told her not to encourage me because I already had enough opinions about my public image.

[System: They’re right, champ. That costume’s got a lovely simple life ahead of it, while the original model keeps getting his arse caught in machinery and arguing with relatives on television.]

The original model had considerably better company, and I thought the comparison should account for that before anybody reviewed the stitching.

I moved beside Bridget long enough to brush my tail against her hand. She squeezed gently, then asked whether I intended to finish criticizing the merchandise before addressing the reason we had come.

I did, although the audience’s laughter had served a purpose. The staff could no longer quietly remove me as an unidentified intruder when half the room had just taken photographs with the actual guest printed on their invitations.

I didn’t give a speech about saving the city. I asked where my appearance fee was, who had signed the mermaid’s release and why a charity supposedly helping damaged businesses had borrowed its stage from one without asking.

Lyra supplied the documents when the host tried to check. Cherry stood beside the actual mermaid’s photograph, while Bridget held up the recovered frame’s matching serial on her phone.

The crowd could understand a stolen stage much faster than a lecture about evil. Several people stopped clapping and began looking toward the staff responsible for collecting their money.

Hansen told the host there had been a misunderstanding. I agreed loudly that there had, because my uncle had misunderstood how much I enjoyed ruining an evening when it carried his logo.

"I’d come to support the cause, Uncle. If we were helping people recover stolen property, I thought we could start with all the shit currently sitting behind your curtain."

I pulled the curtain aside with a tendril. The lot display contained equipment marked for various local businesses, including items I recognized from the collection depot, and a locked payment chest resting beside the auction desk.

The host looked at the display labels, then at the people beginning to identify their own missing things. Somebody in the crowd shouted that the large heater bracket belonged to his workshop, which gave my argument a wonderfully practical supporting cast.

They didn’t instantly receive legal ownership by shouting. The host stopped the auction while staff checked the claims, and Hansen lost the clean public show he had wanted while his own equipment people argued on the feed.

A staff member tried drawing the curtain closed again. Bridget caught its loose edge with a smoke tendril, keeping it open without touching the worker, while Lyra asked the host to leave the displayed serials visible until the claims were checked.

Cherry moved the little freestanding auction sign away from the equipment using her own theft skill. Its center sat within three meters and the space beside her was clear, so the sign arrived exactly where she wanted it, letting the crowd see the labels it had been hiding.

The move drew fresh attention. I watched three separate guests look from her to me as if they had just realized the bad idea came in a family pack, and I enjoyed the discovery far more than a respectable person probably should.

Hansen called the display a temporary storage arrangement. The host asked why temporary storage required sale prices, which was a reasonable question made much funnier by the microphone still carrying it through the entire room.

My uncle tried speaking over him. I told the audience we should let the organizer finish, adopting the patient tone of someone who had never interrupted a conversation in his life and could provide absolutely no witnesses to support the claim.

[System: Listen to you, mate. One stolen crown away from teaching public manners, and the bastard on the screen can’t even throw a plate without admitting he’s lost his temper.]

I was enjoying the educational opportunity, especially because none of the current lessons required me to get punched.

The host ordered the sale staff to stop taking payments on the disputed lots. That protected the event from adding more obvious trouble, though it didn’t return every missing object or explain who had authorized the false releases.

I left those questions where the actual claimants could ask them. My interest had already moved to the payment desk, where a guard kept one hand on a locked chest with a transport card hanging from its handle.

The chest interested me more than applause. Its transport card listed it as the collection crew’s operating float, with eighty thousand recorded for paying drivers, buying seized stock and settling the fundraiser’s actual costs.

That was a label, not counted money yet, but it looked like an excellent reason to become personally invested in logistics.

Old Mate noticed the direction of my attention and offered the next objective with unmistakable pride.

[System: Family Withdrawal, champ. Take that marked operating chest out of their transfer route and stop the armed collection crew bringing it straight back. Ten thousand EXP and fifty IP, plus whatever’s actually inside if you can count past your own bad intentions.]

I accepted, and I wanted you to know I found the wording deeply supportive of my personal development.

Hansen ordered the chest removed. Two guards wheeled it toward the rear cargo corridor while the host tried to calm donors who had started asking questions with the volume of people discovering their generosity had been poorly aimed.

I let the chest go. Snatching it in the middle of a crowd would give armed guards too many people to shoot through, and I preferred my selfish decisions without a packed room volunteering as cover.

Bridget saw the transport card before it disappeared and photographed the collection time. The chest was scheduled to pass through a freight exchange beside our own district the following morning, using the same company route that had delivered the disputed equipment.

Hansen hadn’t built a clever new trap. He had trusted an existing system because it was his, and I was starting to appreciate how reliably arrogance could organize an itinerary for me.

The mascot performer tried blocking our departure at a guard’s instruction. I looked him over, noticed the miserable eyes behind the cheap snake face and asked whether they were paying him enough to become involved in family violence.

He stepped aside immediately. I wished him better employment, then stole the loose mascot crown from the costume’s display hook and placed it on the plastic cow.

[System: There you go, mate. Her Majesty Queen Udder, first of her name and already more qualified than every bastard on that screen.]

If she started charging rent, I intended to sell the monarchy before it became a habit.

We left through the public entrance while the host kept the auction suspended. Outside, Bridget caught my tail and asked whether I had really needed to steal the crown.

I told her the cow had earned recognition for service under difficult conditions. She laughed, then held up the photograph of the morning transfer and asked whether I had noticed the collector’s name beside the security assignment.

The eel bastard would be there with the chest, apparently still employed after losing a stage, an enforcer and most of his composure.

Bridget saved the original image before the event staff could replace it with another much more convenient version.

I looked at the route, the scheduled guards and the crate’s recorded value, then messaged Lukas that tomorrow’s breakfast might involve the kind of family withdrawal nobody approved at a bank.