Chapter 126: Contract Market IV
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Near the center, a guard stood beside a pillar, rune glowing faintly in his palm. The rune was not just intimidation. It was enforcement. The Contract Market did not rely on city law to hold its deals together. Its contracts were created under the authority of a mid-level Contract God, and the paper itself carried that authority.
Once both parties signed, neither could break it unless they were stronger than the Contract God’s binding. That was why this place survived inside a city that claimed to have rules. The city might pretend to be civilized, but Null respected power, and contract power was a kind of godhood people could purchase in advance.
If a contract was broken, the breach had to be reported. The market investigated. The market judged. The market was punished.
Not quickly, not emotionally, but efficiently, the way a blade cuts meat without hate.
A clerk approached Sekhmet, likely recognizing his posture, his clothes, and the quiet confidence that did not belong to a desperate buyer.
"Sir," the clerk said politely. "Are you here to purchase labor, purchase an alliance, or register a contract?"
Sekhmet kept his voice neutral. "I am here to view candidates."
The clerk nodded. "For what category."
Sekhmet did not want to say vampire creation. He did not want to say concubine. He did not want to say anything that would attach his name to rumors before he even decided what he was buying.
He chose a safe category. "Bonded retainer."
The clerk looked slightly disappointed, as if he had hoped Sekhmet would buy something more dramatic. He recovered fast and bowed lightly.
"Follow," the clerk said.
Auri moved with Sekhmet, silent.
They passed through a corridor lined with doors. Each door had runes and labels. Retainers. Servants. Security. Marriage. Private negotiations. Debt arbitration. Dispute hearings. The corridor itself was a map of human greed.
The clerk opened the door and gestured inside.
The room held rows of chairs and a small platform. On the platform stood a woman speaking to a different clerk, calm but tense. She wore plain clothing. Her hair was tied back. Her eyes were sharp in a way that suggested she had been forced to grow up quickly.
Her posture was proud, but not arrogant. Proud like a person who had decided that dignity was the only thing left she could afford to keep.
The clerk at the platform read aloud, voice trained to sound impartial.
{Candidate: Mira of unknown House.
Age twenty-two.
Battle power: six thousand four hundred. Skill: Ink Memory, minor administrative talent.
Debt status: none.
Reason for contract: voluntary allegiance for protection and cultivation access.}
The room murmured softly. People looked at Mira the way merchants looked at tools. Not cruelly. Practically.
Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed.
Six thousand four hundred. Not weak. Not strong enough to threaten him. Strong enough to survive most street problems without collapsing in the first minute.
Auri’s gaze sharpened. She leaned slightly toward Sekhmet. "Master," she whispered, "she is not lying."
Sekhmet did not respond immediately.
He activated Blood Eye quietly, keeping his face unchanged.
Information rose in his vision, and it did not lie the way words could. It was the same as what Clark read.
Mira had no hidden contract mark on her neck. No foreign tether. No disguised seal pressed under skin. Her heartbeat was fast, but steady. Not the heartbeat of someone playing a game. The heartbeat of a woman taking a risk because the world had taught her that safety belonged only to those who owned power.
Sekhmet watched Mira again and saw something else.
Her hands had ink stains. Not decorative ink. Real ink. Working ink. The kind that never fully washed out because the person had to write through hunger and exhaustion and still keep the lines straight.
She was not a noble doll offered for politics.
She was offering herself as a retainer with eyes open.
The clerk beside Sekhmet whispered, "She requests cultivation access. Many do."
Sekhmet’s lips barely moved. "Because power is currency."
The clerk blinked, surprised by the bluntness, then nodded cautiously, as if agreeing too quickly might offend a rich man.
In Null, power was worth more than comfort. Power was worth more than love. Power was worth more than blood. People did not ask for affection first. They asked for strength. Strength bought everything else.
Sekhmet’s mind returned to the new ability coiled inside him like a secret blade.
If he turned someone like Mira, she would become stronger. She would gain a path most people never touched. Her loyalty would be absolute by system law.
Would that be a reward?
Or would that be theft.
Sekhmet did not like how thin the line was.
A bell rang in the distance. Another candidate was being presented. The room shifted with the sound, like a tide of attention moving where it was called.
The clerk gestured. "More candidates are available. Some are more political."
Sekhmet’s eyes sharpened. "Show me."
The clerk hesitated, then nodded. He led them through another door into a private viewing corridor.
Behind a rune glass wall, a smaller room held two women instead of one.
Twins.
They sat on identical chairs with identical posture, backs straight, hands folded, faces calm in the way people became calm when panic no longer helped. Their clothing was not expensive, but it was clean. The kind of clean that came from being scrubbed and presented, not the kind that came from comfort. Decorative bands circled their wrists, not quite shackles, not quite jewelry. A warning wrapped in silk.
A clerk inside the room spoke in a practiced tone. The twins answered politely, but not warmly. Their voices were steady. Their eyes were not dead. Their eyes were sharp and awake, watching everything.
The viewing clerk lowered his voice as if he was about to offer a rare artifact.
"Concubine contract," he whispered. "Special terms."
Sekhmet’s gaze moved over the twins. His expression did not change, but something in his attention tightened.
A small plaque on the wall displayed the contract summary in neat, merciless writing.