Insomniac Player

The Prime Minister of Region 21 bowed deeply enough that Hamari checked behind herself to see whether someone more important had entered.

Sir Martin bowed beside him, a half-beat later, as though he’d been caught deciding whether the gesture was appropriate.

Nobody in Nova Corps spoke.

Elias straightened first. "Thank you."

His voice lacked the polish used in public addresses, the careful cadence stripped down to something plainer and more tired.

"Region 21 retained more active agriculture than any other region. Your warning gave us time. Your actions protected the fields. Your distribution contracts prevented food riots after the event."

Doctor Smoke removed the cigarette from her mouth, tapping ash into a cup that had clearly not been intended for that purpose. "The farmers did most of it."

"They are being recognized separately. This is for what you did."

Grace looked uncomfortable with gratitude, the way she looked uncomfortable with anything that couldn’t be solved by hitting it, and attempted to fix the problem through humor instead. "Can the bow be exchanged for weapons?"

"Yes," Martin said.

That gained her complete and immediate attention.

The government could not provide the enormous Gold rewards normally attached to a regional event. Relief purchases, crop restoration, refugee housing, and emergency trade had consumed the treasury’s liquid reserves down to almost nothing.

Elias displayed the public accounts without being asked, the figures scrolling past in plain, unflattering columns. Region 21 had spent seventy percent of its emergency Gold in three days. The remaining funds were reserved for food imports and farm reconstruction. Even ministerial salaries had been delayed.

"I will not thank you with money taken back from hungry citizens through next month’s taxes," he said. "The national vault contains equipment acquired before the crisis. It can reward you without closing a kitchen."

Damien respected the choice more than he would have respected a larger payment.

It could provide items instead.

Five black cases rose from the floor, each settling to a stop in front of its recipient with a small mechanical hum.

The first opened before Damien.

Folded inside was a full-body suit of matte-black armor. Flexible dark fabric covered the joints while thin overlapping plates protected the chest, back, arms, and legs, the whole thing looking closer to a tailored combat suit than anything he’d have called medieval steel.

➤[Nightglass Armor]

➤[Grade: Rare]

➤[Automatically adjusts to the wearer.]

➤[Weight reduced through embedded mana channels.]

➤[Provides moderate resistance against physical impact, cutting damage, and low-grade elemental attacks.]

Damien equipped it.

The armor tightened without restricting movement, settling against him the way well-fitted clothing was supposed to but rarely did. A narrow helmet formed from the collar, covered his head, and then withdrew the instant he thought about removing it. Black plates absorbed the room’s light rather than reflecting it, so that he seemed slightly darker than the shadow he stood in.

Rahul would approve, Damien thought, which was almost a disadvantage on its own.

The second item was a cloak.

➤[Duskveil Mantle]

➤[Grade: Elite]

➤[Active Effect: Duskfade]

➤[Suppresses the wearer’s visible outline and mana presence for up to ninety seconds.]

➤[Effect weakens during rapid movement and ends upon attacking.]

➤[Cooldown: 01:00:00.]

The cloak settled over Nightglass Armor as though the two had been designed together, the fabric finding the same lines the armor had already carved.

"Black armor, black cloak, and silent footsteps," Hamari said. "You have committed to a brand."

"It was government-issued."

"Government-approved branding."

Martin asked Damien to test Duskfade.

The cloak’s edges dissolved first, a soft graying at the hem that spread inward. Black armor blurred, then Damien’s outline bent into the gray wall behind him until the line between man and stone blurred past telling apart. He remained visible if someone knew exactly where to look, but his mana signature faded almost completely, the way a candle looks dimmer from across a bright room.

Damien took three silent steps.

Hamari stared at the apparently empty space where he’d been standing a moment earlier, turning her head slowly like she expected the air itself to answer for him. "This is going to become unbearable."

Damien accelerated. The cloak flickered and revealed him mid-stride. When he touched the dagger’s hilt, the effect ended at once, snapping back like a held breath released.

It was not invisibility. It was enough to make the first glance miss, which, Damien suspected, was usually all that mattered.

Daria’s case contained the Fourfold Mana Heart, an Elite necklace built around four small elemental crystals set close together at its center. It expanded usable mana and improved recovery while she shifted between elements.

When she equipped it, each crystal filled with a different color, red catching first, then brown, blue, and a pale, cool green following in sequence like a held chord resolving. The necklace stored a reserve equal to roughly one fifth of her current capacity and refilled slowly outside combat. Daria approved because it offered control rather than spectacle, which was the only kind of gift she’d ever wanted.

Hamari received Stillpoint Lenses. The clear glasses reduced mental agitation, filtered visual interference, and stabilized long-range aim. She put them on and became silent for three full seconds, an event rare enough that Doctor Smoke actually looked up.

"I can hear my own thoughts," she whispered.

"Take them off," Grace said. "It may be dangerous."

Grace’s Wrathbound Bangle increased the force of her attacks for five minutes after she successfully protected an ally from damage. Its design resembled a black chain wrapped twice around her wrist, the links faintly warm to the touch.

Grace tried to activate it by asking Martin to strike Damien. Martin refused, without looking up from the case in front of him. She then asked Elias. The Prime Minister declined with even greater politeness, the kind reserved for requests he intended to remember later.

"Government cooperation has limits," Grace observed, disappointed but unsurprised.

Hamari tested Stillpoint Lenses against a moving target display set up along the far wall. Her first shot struck the center dead on. The second entered the hole created by the first, close enough that the display flagged it as a possible malfunction. She removed the glasses and looked genuinely offended by how effective they were.

"They make aiming feel responsible."

"A terrible burden," Doctor Smoke said.

Doctor Smoke’s case remained empty.

She looked at Elias.

"I requested money."

"I know."

"This appears to be air."

"The treasury will pay your requested amount after emergency accounts reopen."

"Can the air collect interest?"

Elias glanced at Martin, some silent calculation passing between them. "Reasonable interest."

Doctor Smoke closed the empty case with a decisive click. "I accept the future money."

"How much future money?" Grace asked.

Doctor Smoke named a number.

Elias looked briefly, genuinely ill.

"She treated half the Greenfall command staff," Damien said.

"And supplied the method used worldwide," Daria added, without inflection, as though stating a temperature.

Elias recovered, color returning to his face by increments. "The government accepts the debt."

Doctor Smoke finally looked satisfied, tucking the empty case under her arm like a trophy.

Elias reminded them that the items were rewards, not government property. Nova Corps could keep them even if every freelancer contract ended the following morning.

That mattered.

"Gratitude that can be repossessed is only rent," he said.

Damien stored the sentence alongside the armor’s limitations, filing it somewhere it would keep. The young Prime Minister understood debt better than most leaders in the room probably realized about themselves.

The humor faded when the reward platforms lowered back into the floor.

Martin opened the doors to the adjoining intelligence chamber. A world map filled the far wall, vast enough that Damien had to turn his head to take in both edges. Red marks covered every inhabited region, some clustered thick as bruises, others scattered thin.

Nova Corps entered together.

Damien’s silent footsteps matched the black armor perfectly. The Duskveil Mantle moved behind him without dragging against the floor, settling into stillness the instant he stopped walking.

Elias stopped beside the map.

"The locusts were a System threat," he said. "The people who exploited them remain."

One name appeared above the red marks, burned into the projection in a red that matched none of the others.

THE NEVA ORDER

The government had finished thanking them.

Now it wanted a war.

Nobody in Nova Corps mistook the equipment for payment in advance. It was a request made from an empty treasury, and every one of them understood exactly what that meant.

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