Chapter 313: The Tofu Had Better Aim Than Me

Horass wore a koala keychain, a koala patch and the calm expression of a man carrying enough rockets to make all three choices somebody else’s problem.

Old Mate went quiet for half a second, which was how I knew the situation had finally achieved something the pressure rig couldn’t.

[System: Absolutely fucking not, mate. That salad’s wearing my entire species like a warning label, and I don’t like the look of his hobby.]

He hadn’t seen you, and I thought we should avoid treating every koala enthusiast as a personal kidnapping threat.

Horass introduced himself properly when I didn’t immediately move. He was a top A-rank mercenary, hired to recover the family’s operating funds and bring me in alive if I made that cheaper than the alternative.

The rank difference mattered. Galaxy Brain could sort his stance and weapon angles with lovely clarity, but my body remained a C-rank snake who had recently been hit with more industrial equipment than any reasonable doctor would recommend.

His natural tofu-tree body didn’t display the qualifying grafts or altered monster tissue Bio-Recall needed. I wasn’t going to assume every unusual species existed solely to become my emergency lunch cube.

Bridget stayed beside me, watching his hands and the distance to the gallery entrance. The public visitors were behind the inner barrier, with our hired cart and the empty service lane separating them from the mercenary.

I asked whether he normally held business meetings with a launcher resting on his shoulder. He said the weapon encouraged people to keep their answers relevant, then added a detailed fact about a seven-day war fought over a bridge nobody had built.

I had never heard of the war. Neither had Bridget, judging by her expression, but Horass delivered the information with the certainty of somebody prepared to draw troop movements on a napkin.

"That sounded fascinating, mate. Did the invisible bridge win, or did everyone agree the paperwork had got ahead of the geography?"

He smiled. It wasn’t an embarrassed smile, which made me suspect asking for a source would only produce a longer story and possibly another rocket.

He wanted the money transferred and me aboard his vehicle. I told him the first request involved several separate accounts and the second conflicted with a date I had made with remaining alive and difficult.

Bridget asked whether the contract included threatening unrelated people. Horass looked toward the gallery, confirmed that it didn’t and stepped sideways to keep the occupied entrance outside his firing line.

That wasn’t kindness I could count on forever. It was a professional choosing the terms of a fight, and I preferred knowing the difference before trusting him with anyone I loved.

[System: He’s clever, champ. Don’t let the tofu fool you into thinking you can season the bastard and chuck him on a barbecue. He’s already picked where you can run.]

I had noticed, and I was working on making one of those routes less personally insulting.

My theft required three meters. He stood beyond that range, with his launcher angled away from any space I could reach without crossing open ground.

He had also watched the public footage showing Red Light. When I glanced toward the cart, he asked whether I intended to stop his first shot and discover how quickly a second could follow.

He kept the launcher close to his own line of movement, never offering its center within my reach. Every small adjustment answered an option I had only just begun considering, which made the rank difference feel unpleasantly practical.

I disliked opponents who researched. They took all the joy out of confidently explaining a trick seconds before it worked.

Bridget called the cart driver through the number on our booking. She told him to stay behind the depot barrier, giving him useful instructions instead of expecting an ordinary hired worker to become a volunteer in our family argument.

I shifted toward the empty maintenance lane. Horass followed the angle with his launcher, and I made the choice to draw him away from the gallery rather than let the conversation freeze us beside people who hadn’t bought tickets for this part.

"If we were going to have a terrible time together, mate, I’d prefer somewhere with fewer witnesses and less expensive glass."

He agreed so easily that I knew he had wanted the same route. The lane led toward the surface freight connection, with broad rock walls and abandoned loading bays offering cover that probably looked useful right up until a rocket explained otherwise.

Bridget moved with me until the gallery fell behind solid stone. I told her through our private call to take the next side route toward the guarded transport station while I kept his attention.

She didn’t like the plan. She also recognized that standing together made one shot a much worse problem, so she moved when I gave her the actual destination and promised to keep the call open.

Horass watched the separation without chasing her. He adjusted the launcher and told me another story, this one about a general who had lost an entire army because he trusted a retreating pastry cart.

"Were these real wars, mate, or did you get bored during history and start improving the boring bits?"

His smile widened. Then he fired at the empty doorway beside the route I had been preparing to use, collapsing the frame before I reached it.

The blast hit stone, not my body, but heat rolled across the lane and taught me how little that distinction mattered when I stood too close.

I recoiled behind a loading block, scales stinging along one side. Horass didn’t hurry after me or waste his next shot on the place I had already left.

He waited for the dust to move, checked the clear line to my next piece of cover and casually asked whether I knew koalas had fingerprints remarkably similar to humans.

Old Mate told me to stop laughing and move, because the bastard had already loaded another rocket while delivering the fact.