Chapter 59: The Dreaded Question

His name was called… that was recognition, that was bad. His stomach dropped instantly.

Only a very small number of people know Kael by name, and most of them were members of the Sun Clan. Hearing it said out loud, casually, turned the situation from “avoidance” to “entanglement.” You couldn’t pretend you were a random stranger once someone pulled your name out of the air.

Turning to his left, one of the green dots that was inside a building ended up being one of the guards of the Sun Clan. The man was half-hidden behind a broken window frame on the third story of a barely standing building, leaning out like a watcher on a lookout post, and the dusk made his face hard to read at first.

Kael didn’t think it would be a Sun Clan member since he was alone and far from the base, but he spotted him first, and it was probably a scout for this group. That detail alone made Kael’s nerves tighten; scouts didn’t wander for fun. They wandered because the clan was moving.

“Yo, sorry couldn’t get your name before,” Kael replied as he looked up. He forced his voice into something neutral, something mildly friendly, as if he wasn’t calculating escape angles in his head. He kept his posture loose, even though his burned arm screamed under his sleeve, and he made sure not to flinch like prey.

“Holy shit man, what happened to you?” the man said, eyes widening as the last light hit Kael’s scorched clothes. “Also the name is Peter!” Peter’s tone carried shock first, and curiosity second, and that was dangerous.

Shock meant he would stare. Curiosity meant he would ask. And questions were a trap when your story wasn’t finished yet.

“Good to meet you peter, Peter. You got some water on you?” Kael thought, turning the conversation into a different direction might throw off any form of suspicion they might have about his current appearance.

He deliberately sounded more tired than panicked, like a man who’d just been unlucky, not a man who’d almost caused an apocalypse and angered a floor boss. He let his shoulders sag slightly, sold exhaustion, sold the idea that he’d been running from something rather than causing it.

“Bro, half your clothes are burnt. Were you the one who caused this clusterfuck?” Peter asked. There it was. Direct, crude, and immediate.

Kael felt his jaw tighten for a fraction of a second before he forced it loose again. He could almost hear the Tower laughing in the background. Every time he tried to slip through a crack, someone shoved their foot in it.

Kael cursed inwardly. That didn’t work. His mouth felt dry again, the kind of dryness that wasn’t thirst but tension. He didn’t have time to craft something elegant. He needed something believable.

“Yeah, not me thought… I’m a victim, as you can see.” Kael said, spreading his hands slightly as if the burns were proof enough. “Also, you’re shouting hella loud, it’s turning dark soon…” He didn’t just say it for drama; he meant it.

The streets were quiet in that pre-night way, the kind of quiet where any raised voice felt like bait thrown into a lake.

Kael was getting worried that Peter was holding him too much, the group was getting closer, and once they turned the corner, there was no running away if it’s actually the whole Sun Clan. The thought of the boss stepping out of the shadows made Kael’s burns feel hotter.

“Well, the boss was going out to check what happened. But I guess we won’t need to anymore,” Peter said. The casual way he said it made Kael’s stomach sink. As if Kael was a shortcut. As if Kael was information handed to them for free.

“How so?” Kael asked, forcing his voice to stay even. He kept his eyes on Peter but used his peripheral vision to track the street where the green dots were approaching, measuring time in footsteps he couldn’t yet hear.

“Well, you were there, weren’t you? It’s much safer to tell us what happened now instead of us having to go and see for ourselves, risking the night.” Peter’s logic was smooth, and that was the problem. It wasn’t a threat yet. It was a friendly net being lowered around him.

Kael thought hard on how to find a way to dip out, maybe use the rune of [Presence] and simply leave Peter yapping by himself, but doing so would get him on the Boss’s list if he escapes.

His fingers twitched with the temptation anyway. Presence wasn’t just a tool; it was a panic button. But using it here would confirm suspicion in the worst possible way: he ran because he was guilty.

Being hunted by a whole clan wasn’t something anyone would want, especially an inexperienced climber like Kael, and he knew it. A clan didn’t need to beat you in a fair fight. A clan just needed to chase you, corner you, deny you routes, and wait you out. He wasn’t strong enough to play that game. One against many is only in stories and tales, in real life, that’s death.

He soon resigned to his fate. He couldn’t run, but at least he’ll try to negotiate and find a way out of this mess. Worst-case scenario, he’ll use [Presence] to escape if need be. The thought settled like a contingency plan written in blood: talk first, lie if necessary, run only if the knife comes out.

“Who goes there?” The voice was unmistakable, the gruff voice of the old man. The boss was here. It came from the street beyond, deep and commanding, the kind of voice that didn’t ask questions so much as claim ownership of answers. Kael felt his shoulders stiffen before he forced them down again.

“It’s me, boss…” Kael said as he raised his hand to the incoming group, they made it. He lifted his palm in a half-wave, half-surrender gesture, enough to show he wasn’t reaching for a weapon, enough to look cooperative.

The group emerged in the dim, several bodies moving in practiced formation. Their footsteps were measured. They weren’t startled by darkness the way loners were. That alone told Kael he was surrounded by people who’d survived longer than most.

“What the hell happened to you?” The boss asked. He didn’t sound concerned. He sounded suspicious, like Kael’s burns were a ledger entry that didn’t add up.

Kael was about to try and lie his way out. He felt it rise to his tongue, some quick story about being caught near a fire, about goblins, about running. But then thought otherwise.

A clean lie was fragile, and the boss’s eyes were the kind that could tear fragile things apart.

“A lot has happened,” Kael said… He let the pause hang. He let the weight of “a lot” do some work for him, as if the situation was too chaotic to sum up neatly. It was a tactic: confusion sounded believable when your clothes were half-burned.

The boss walked up to Kael and pulled his knife placing it next to Kael’s neck. The cold edge kissed skin, and Kael felt every hair on his arms rise. The boss wasn’t posturing. He was testing. A knife near the throat made people tell truths, sometimes the wrong truths, but truths all the same.

“Where’s John?” The Boss asked.

The dreaded question dropped…

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