I pushed the doors to the logistic center open.
For a moment, neither of the two inside noticed me. The courtesy of well-maintained hinges of the building's door.
I managed to make it roughly to the middle of the main hall before one of them noticed me.
The Clerk's eyes twitched when he noticed the movement. Yet, when he laid his eyes on me, his face froze, unchanged despite Lucius continuing his tirade.
"He will earn far more than he could ever hope to with just hunting. I'm telling you, once he tastes the other side of the tradition, he won't mind losing a single quota!"
Lucius continued to speak, the look on his face pretty relaxed.
Then, he finally realized that there was something wrong with his counterpart. The Clerk's face was just too still.
"What's wrong?" Lucius asked, still looking at the Clerk's face.
The Clerk himself refused to as much as a breath. As such, Lucius' hopes of receiving an answer fell on the unfertile ground.
For a moment, Lucius turned completely silent. And then, he released a deep sigh.
"He is standing behind me, isn't he?" he asked, still refusing to turn his head around.
The Clerk finally moved, gently nodding his head.
"At least one of you is smart enough to know who not to mess with," I finally uttered my first words.
All the way up until this point, I believed that Lucius, although misguided and riddled with faults, was a proper man. Someone of his word. Someone who I could trust.
That's why, after dealing with the Clerk before, I quickly grew to accept the idea of cooperating with him.
Even despite all his scummy methods and actions.
But seeing the one man who was supposed to be my support and protector actually out to scam me?
In a second, all the moments when I tried to make up with him flashed before my eyes.
All the times when I felt guilty about arguing with him. All the times when I enjoyed the happy look on his face when he saw me work super hard...
All of those memories suddenly showed their true meaning.
Lucius never wanted to change the perception of the contractors in the eyes of the greater public. He just wanted me to submit as much as I could, just so that he could snatch every last bit of the excess amount!
This inner turmoil lasted only for a second.
Over the course of the last few weeks, I developed a safety mechanism for my inner self.
Whenever my emotions would boil and risk spilling... I would forcefully suppress them. In the end, I still didn't dare to deal with the trauma of the events that brough me into the contractorship in the first place.
'Thinking about it, I never got my revenge either,' I suddenly realized.
Up to this point, I coped with my situation because I believed that it was the best thing I could do. Both to keep Mia safe and to ensure my own growth.
But now that I had the backing of the auction hall? Now that I was so damn rich, I would likely never have the time to spend the money I had? Now that Lucius proved to be just a piece of shit instead of a solid companion?
'Is there actually any benefit in me staying in the sect?' I thought, only to come to a decision a second later.
I pulled out two of my storage rings.
"Those are the gifts that I was going to submit just to make sure you won't touch the stuff I'm actually submitting," I explained in a cold, tired voice while I pulled out all the treasures that I gathered for this purpose.
In an instant, the building floor was littered with cores, blood essences, and all the other parts of monsters that I found rich in mana enough to bother picking up.
Some of them were insanely valuable... but just too time-consuming to extract for me or Lucius to bother. After all, before my advancement, I still had to abide by the rules. The second I would extract the core, I would leave the scene, leaving the corpse to the wildlife.
"But now that you proved your true colors, I don't think I will be stupid enough to do so," I added, waving my hand and pulling all the resources back into the other ring.
All the resources but the bare minimum necessary to pass on my biweekly quota.
"Here," I said in a low voice, kicking the bunch of cores towards the Clerk.
Normally, this kind of behavior could even get me thrown out of the Sect. But the current situation was as far from normal as it could be.
The Clerk didn't even dare to raise his eyes on my face, not to speak about protesting against my rude behavior.
"Didn't you come here to submit your quotas?" Lucius said, finally finding a voice in his throat. "You should be aware that if you don't follow procedure, the quota won't be accepted," he added, a smirk appearing on his face.
'This little...' I thought, feeling the rage filling my throat.
I took a deep breath, calming my emotions down.
"I came here to submit the quota, not to fill your pockets," I said before spitting at the resources I just kicked away. "And I dare you to try messing around with it," I added before turning around.
There was no point whatsoever for me to linger in this damned place any longer.
But just as I was about to leave, an idea struck my head.
No, not an idea. It was something that I had thought about a lot already. It was just my mind reminding me that I still had to do something.
I took a deep breath before releasing it in a long sigh.
Then, I took down a few of the barriers that I set around my own self to keep my cultivation hidden from the prying eye of the others.
"Since I reached the tenth stage already," I said, turning my face towards the Clerk while ignoring Lucius. "My contract appears to be fulfilled," I stated. "You no longer have any leverage over me," I said, looking the Clerk deep in the eyes.
Judging by the movements of the Clerk's adam's apple, he just swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
"And yes," I added, my face sharpening as my rage etched itself into my words. "I will make sure to report everything that happened here to the sect," I said before turning around and heading for the doors once again.
"Do that, and I will make sure that girl of yours will see hell," Lucius shot up from his chair, clearly unhappy with the idea of the news about the tradition spreading out.
I froze in place.
Was he stupid or just an idiot?
Didn't he hear that poking a sleeping bear was a bad idea? Didn't he see my cultivation right now? I know I only showed the minimum necessary to convince the Clerk but still...
Did he really think that he could do anything to Mia?
'No,' I thought, calming myself down. 'He is just that desperate to stop me,' I realized, only to turn on my feet and look at Lucius' face.
The face of someone I considered a friend just a few moments ago. And the face that filled my guts with disgust right now.
"You just did the one thing that you shouldn't have done."
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