Chapter 18: Conman instincts
Stefan’s POV
I sat there for a long moment, staring at the Life Ember glowing in my palm, running numbers in my head.
Two thousand nine hundred AP. Three days.
Then something shifted in my chest - a familiar feeling, the one that used to kick in right around the moment a deal went sideways and I needed to find a new angle fast.
I’d felt it the morning I’d talked my way out of a fraud investigation using nothing but a cheap suit and a confident walk. I’d felt it the night I’d convinced a man his own wife had hired me to protect her.
I was a con man. And con men didn’t panic over debt. They used it.
"Okay, Stefan," I said quietly, to myself, sitting up straighter. "You’re two thousand nine hundred AP in the hole, on a planet where you own nothing except a slave cloth and a slightly damaged ego." I paused for a second as I looked around the tent.
"But you just became the only person in this camp who can wake the dead." I let that sit for a second.
"Use it."
Afterwards, I looked at the three women on the ground, studying each of them properly for the first time.
My eyes stopped on one of them near the middle. The most gorgeous of the three. Her breasts were full and heavy, straining against the torn fabric barely holding it. Her skin was the color of polished wood, her lips slightly parted with each shallow breath.
I chuckled, shaking my head at myself. "Of course. Obviously I’m going to use it on the most beautiful one first. That’s just science."
I crouched beside her and held the Life Ember out over her chest, not entirely sure of the mechanics, hoping proximity was enough.
It was.
The ember’s light pulsed once, slow and warm, and then began to sink, not into her skin exactly, more like dissolving into the air around her, like it was looking for somewhere to go and found her.
[Life ember successfully activated.]
[Miracle debt created: 2,900 AP.]
[Debt repayment deadline: 72:00:00.]
Her eyelids, which had been fixed open, finally blinked.
Then blinked again.
Then her hand, lying flat against the ground, twitched.
I sat back on my heels, watching with the kind of concentrated attention I usually reserved for watching someone sign a contract.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she raised herself. First one elbow, then the other, then pushing up into a sitting position, her whole body moving like she was relearning gravity from scratch. She blinked several more times, fast, like her eyes were recalibrating.
I spread my arms wide as if I’d hug her. "Welcome back to the world of the living."
She stared at me.
"You’re welcome," I added. She just kept staring.
As she shifted her weight to stand, the torn fabric across her chest gave up its last battle entirely and slid loose, her nipples catching the light as her breasts came fully free.
My cock twitched. Instantly, helplessly...
"My guy, my guy, we are in a professional situation right now. We are performing a medical service. Can you not?" I muttered to it, under my breath, barely moving my lips.
It could not.
I cleared my throat and pointed at her chest, keeping my expression as neutral as I could manage. "You might want to pull that up. It’s having an effect on the little man underneath me and I’d rather keep things professional between us."
She looked down at herself, then back at me, with the particular blank expression of someone who had no idea what I’d just said and also no particular opinion about being seen.
I sighed. "Right. Never mind. You look great by the way."
She turned her head and saw her two colleagues still on the ground, still breathing shallow, still trapped and her brows came together slowly.
That particular furrowing, I could tell. It shifted from recognition, then confusion, then something close to distress.
She turned back to me.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice coming out rough from disuse, like she was dusting off a machine that hadn’t run in a while.
I smiled, deliberately slowly. It was the smile I used to use right before I closed a deal.
"You can call me your Messiah." I pressed a hand to my chest. "I worked very hard to bring you back. The details are complicated and expensive, but the important thing is you’re standing, and that’s because of me."
She looked at me for a long moment. An expression moved behind her eyes quietly and I could tell she was communicating her gratitude.
I smiled a little wider. "You’re welcome."
A familiar chime echoed inside my head and the blue panel unfolded before my eyes.
[Compatible Candidate detected.]
[Relationship Interface initialized.]
UNKNOWN WARRIOR
Status: Recruitment Candidate
Desire: 0%
Trust: 10%
Affection: 2%
Loyalty: 5%
Recruitment Progress: 5%
My eyebrow shot up. "Five percent?" I stared at the stats and back at the woman.
"I literally dragged her back from the edge of death. Isn’t that supposed to be around 50%?"
The System replied immediately.
[Gratitude is not love.]
[Respect is not loyalty.]
[Recruitment requires genuine emotional bonds.]
I clicked my tongue. "You’re unbelievable."
However, before I could react, another notification dropped.
[Hidden Achievement Unlocked.]
Miracle Worker I
Rewards:
+200 AP
+200 EXP
I blinked, not really following;"EXP?"
Another screen appeared.
Host EXP
Current Level: 1
EXP: 200 / 1,000
Next Level Rewards:
• Permanent Miracle Shop Access
• Emotion Scan
• Inventory Expansion
The promise of the next level reward was so fulfilling even more than the 200 AP I just got.
I smiled despite myself.
~~~~~~~~~
One hour later, the second in command walked back into her tent.
I was sitting in the center of it, cross-legged on the ground, watching the woman I’d revived pace the space in quick, restless circuits, her body still obviously reacting to the fact that it was moving again, energy coming back in uneven bursts.
After a moment of staring at her colleagues, she had moved away from the corner and I followed her, partly for the revived warrior’s sake, partly because staring at two motionless bodies for an hour had started to do things to my mood.
I had mostly passed the time watching the revived woman move and soliloquizing quietly to myself about the unfairness of a universe that put bodies like these in front of a man who wasn’t allowed to touch them right now.
Her perfectly round, firm butt jingled softly as she walked around in a fast movement.
"Unbelievable," I muttered, watching her pace. "Just completely unfair. No other word for it."
The tent flap opened.
The second in command stepped inside and stopped. Her eyes went straight to the woman moving, and something shifted in her usually immovable expression, not quite a smile, but the closest thing to warmth I’d seen from her yet.
The revived warrior turned, saw her, and immediately greeted her with a deep bow and words in the beast language, quick and respectful.
One useful thing I got from the quick exchange was the second in command’s name.
Zinnia.
Zinnia crossed the space and took the woman’s hand in both of hers, responding in the same language, her voice dropping gently.
I watched this exchange, understanding nothing, nodding along anyway like I was following perfectly.
Then Zinnia turned to me.
"The other two," she said.
I stood up, slowly, with the particular energy of a man who knew he had leverage and intended to use every inch of it. I knew my shoulders were slightly arched.
"Yes, about that... " I lifted my chin as I replied.
"They shall stand again?" She asked in her usual gentle but firm voice.
"They shall." I firstly mimicked her tone. Then I clasped my hands behind my back, the way I used to stand in boardrooms when I was about to present terms.
"However, there are certain things that need to be in order first. For the magic to work." I paused for effect. "I have a list."
Zinnia held my gaze. "Speak."
"You might want something to write this down-" I glanced around the tent. No paper. No pen. Obviously. "Scratch that. Just listen carefully."
That didn’t need to be said, by the way. This woman was intensely holding my gaze.
"First," I said, holding up one finger, "I need my own space. A tent. Away from the slave quarters, away from the noise, somewhere I can rest and restore my energy properly. The magic draws from me directly so if I’m exhausted, it doesn’t work."
I held up a second finger. "Second, I need proper food. Not slave portions. Warrior portions. The magic requires fuel." I paused. "Those are the starting conditions."
Zinnia was quiet for a moment. "These two women," she said, nodding at the corner where the two were. "Shall not stand until these conditions are fulfilled?"
"My energy needs three full days to restore itself before I can perform again." I said it with complete confidence, the way I’d once told an investor his money was definitely safe. "Rush it and it won’t work. The magic has a recovery period."
Another silence. Longer this time.
Zinnia looked at me, and I got the distinct feeling she was seeing straight through at least sixty percent of what I’d just said, with her calm eyes that missed nothing.
Then she said, very evenly: "What if I said no?"
