Zero leaned back in his leather chair, letting the silence settle like dust after his breakdown of the Survival Idol mechanism. The air in the room was thick, heavy with the stench of unbridled ambition.
Count Erwin leaned forward, his rings clinking against the marble table in a restless, impatient rhythm. "A compelling pitch, Master Zero. But let's talk urgency. Baron Frey's assets are currently under the government's microscope. We both know what's buried in those vaults. What's the play for the takeover?"
Zero didn't blink. He slowly swirled the crystal glass in front of him. "I caught a glimpse of some classified files in my father's study," he replied casually, as if the Prime Minister were nothing more than a passing business acquaintance. "The Finance Minister isn't about to let those assets rot in a state warehouse. Word is, they're moving them to auction."
"A public auction?" Gon asked, his brow furrowed.
"Hardly." Zero's lip curled into a thin smirk. "A black-market fire sale. They want to scrub the assets clean as fast as possible." Zero's gaze pinned Erwin to his seat. "When it happens, CLOVER will be at the front of the line. I'm going after the AEGIS Security System. With AEGIS, CLOVER stops being just an idol agency. It becomes an impenetrable fortress."
Erwin nodded, satisfied, but Zero wasn't done. He turned his attention to the three empty chairs at the table—seats once occupied by men with bottomless pockets.
"However," Zero's voice dropped an octave, turning glacial. "Technology is useless without a steady heartbeat of capital. These empty seats... they represent a loss of potential we cannot tolerate. We need new blood to fill the void."
With a flick of his wrist, Zero activated his tablet. His fingers danced across the screen with surgical precision, marking several high-profile names in digital red. He slid the tablet across the marble; it stopped perfectly centered before Erwin, Gon, and Ken.
The three veterans leaned in, squinting at the screen. A sudden, suffocating silence gripped the room. Their eyes widened, masks of composure finally cracking.
There, circled in blood-red, was a name that made even these aristocrats hold their breath.
Santino.
"Have you lost your mind?" Ken whispered, his voice trembling with disbelief. "Santino isn't nobility, Zero. He's a gutter rat. A mafia leech whose reputation for bribery precedes him everywhere. Bringing him into the Loyalist Faction is like inviting a wolf into the nursery."
"That is precisely why we need him," Zero cut him off, his expression a dead calm. "Because he has no soul to sell, his coffers are overflowing. We don't need 'honor' right now; we need capital. I don't care how much blood is on his hands—CLOVER needs fuel to start the engine."
Zero tapped the screen again, displaying a growth projection. The graph climbed aggressively, shattering reasonable limits until it reached a dominating peak.
He tapped the summit with a fingernail. "Santino is just a ladder. Once CLOVER reaches this height, we kick the ladder away. It's that simple."
A predatory grin spread across Zero's face—confident, manipulative, and chilling. It was a look that promised glory while masking the rot beneath.
The doubt in the room began to evaporate, replaced by the familiar glint of greed. They no longer saw a filthy mobster; they saw a mountain of gold waiting to be bled dry.
"So," Count Erwin finally spoke, his voice heavy with new hunger. "When does the Aegis auction begin?"
Zero let the question hang in the air, unanswered—a toxic mystery left to fester in his allies' minds.
THE ARENA DISTRICT – THE CLOUDED MIND
The morning sun in the Arena District was never kind. It cut through the gaps between the skyscrapers like a jagged blade, piercing Santino's bloodshot eyes. He stumbled down the corridor of his business cluster, the stench of cheap whiskey and stale smoke clinging to his rumpled suit like a second skin.
Technically, Ren owned everything now, but the boy hadn't stripped him of his movement. "Act as you usually do," Ren had commanded. And for Santino, 'usual' meant drowning his reality in the high-end bars of Sector Peru, trying to forget he was now a servant in his own house.
Massaging his throbbing temples, Santino headed toward the office—a room that now felt more like Ren's than his. Fragments of the previous night swirled in his head. Between the hollow laughter of paid company and the clink of glasses, he remembered whispers.
"Baron Frey's assets… government surveillance…" "Underground auction… Aegis…"
Santino groaned. Dammit. The whiskey had dulled his edges. Who was holding the auction? Where? And what the hell was Aegis? Every time he tried to grasp the memory, it slipped away like smoke.
The office door hissed open. Inside, the atmosphere was the polar opposite of his chaotic mind: cold, tactical, and sharp.
Ren stood behind the massive desk, his left arm finally free from its sling. He was staring at a holographic interface showing distribution routes. Erebos stood like a sentinel beside him, while Clarissa was focused on a tablet. The discussion stopped the moment Santino's disheveled frame appeared in the doorway.
Ren turned slowly. His orange eyes swept over Santino—the stain on his collar, the unsteady legs, the reek of failure. There was no anger on Ren's face, only an analytical emptiness, as if he were assessing a piece of machinery that had outlived its usefulness.
After a beat of silence, Ren looked back at Erebos.
"Continue," Ren said flatly. Santino was an expected glitch, nothing more.
"Staff reduction will cut costs by 15%, but human error margins will rise by 8%," Erebos droned on. "Data transfer speeds are…"
The voices faded as Santino collapsed onto the leather sofa. He stared at the back of Ren's rigid neck. His tongue felt heavy. The information about the 'Baron's Auction' burned in his throat, desperate to come out. But looking at the razor-sharp precision with which Ren worked, Santino felt a sudden, crushing sense of inferiority.
What if it was just drunken gossip? If he spat it out now with a clouded brain, Ren would see him as even more pathetic. Santino swallowed the secret of Aegis along with his nausea.
The room filled with the jargon of blood and business—just-in-time logistics for ammunition, commodity markups based on seizure risks, smuggling routes adjusted for government patrols.
Clarissa stood in the center of it all, a silent observer. Her eyes darted between them: Erebos's flawless execution, Santino's pathetic submission, and Ren's absolute authority.
But one detail began to itch at the back of her mind.
In the three months she'd been here, she realized something strange. Santino, Erebos, and the others... they never used a name. It was always, and only, "Young Master."
Ren had never introduced himself. She had assumed the answer would come in time, but the quarter was ending, and the mystery had become an unbearable weight.
She finally found her voice.
"Forgive me if this is out of line," Clarissa began, her voice trembling slightly as she shattered the heavy silence. She took a breath, swallowing hard. "But... I just realized something. No one here, not even Mr. Erebos or Mr. Santino, calls you by your name. I can't help but wonder why."
The silence that followed was thicker than anything before it. Erebos remained a statue; he wouldn't speak without an order. Santino, on the sofa, only remembered Ren as the 'silver-haired brat' he'd sold years ago—a ghost of a memory that didn't fit the man before him.
Ren spun his chair around slowly. He looked at Clarissa, his orange gaze unreadable.
"You're right," Ren murmured, a slight arch to his brow. "I suppose it is time you knew."
Clarissa held her breath, waiting for the reveal she'd been hunting for.
Instead of a name, Ren looked at Erebos. "Erebos, how has her training progressed over these last three months?"
"Basic offensive and defensive techniques," Erebos replied clinically. "We've used wooden swords, but I've also initiated hand-to-hand combat drills."
"Good. Set a schedule for this week. I'll provide the finishing touches."
The command was absolute. Erebos nodded and moved to execute, leaving Clarissa frozen. She hadn't received a name; she'd received an omen.
"It's no fun if it's handed to you," Ren hummed, the corner of his mouth twitching into something between a smile and a dare. "You need to pass the final exam. In this world, information is the most expensive commodity. You don't get it just by asking."
Ren leaned forward, pinning her with his gaze.
"If you can land one solid strike on me—with or without a weapon—I'll give you my name."
The sentence hung in the air, sending a cold shiver down Clarissa's spine. She realized then that this wasn't just a test of skill. It was a test of her right to stand in his shadow.