Despite her prior convictions, Anishka couldn’t simply ignore her best friend of many years forever. She knew it was safer to do so, but she still occasionally said things for the benefit of the Sergeant. Actually talking to her, however, was avoided. Anishka couldn’t be quite sure if she was or wasn’t being watched at every given moment. She wouldn’t blame the Shining Cooperative either.

After some time, however, she decided she just needed to check to make certain the Sergeant was alright. And what she found was… nothing. Which was what she was looking for, but not in this particular way. Anishka wondered if she might be out of practice looking for void ants, but she came to a clear and unambiguous conclusion that the Sergeant was gone. Perhaps she had really taken her advice and stayed on the ship. Good. That was great.

But Anishka knew it was more likely that she hadn’t done so. In that case… where was she? Had something happened? What if the Sergeant- Anishka had to stop herself. Small though she was, the void ant was able to take care of herself. Anishka just hoped she was doing something sensible.

-----

At that very moment, an entire chest stuffed with papers was miraculously making its way through the city streets all on its own. At least, it appeared to be doing so. Moving flat, nearly two dimensional papers was one thing, but the Sergeant knew that her methods would be useless for something of this magnitude, if she could even consume all of the energy entering the area. Even to the blind it would be an obvious spot.

So she didn’t conceal it. Instead, she pushed it openly along the street.

Curious onlookers approached. “For the eyes of the Taron City Chief Financial Overseer only…?” someone muttered, reaching for the moving chest. They then jerked away. “Ah! What was that?”

These humans. Clearly demonstrating the ability to read, yet no reading comprehension whatsoever. At least it was only another block. It was hard to hide in cracks and chomp people’s energy without being spotted.

More than a few people made the same mistake, but as cultivators they were smart enough to withdraw their hands once their energy started being sliced away and devoured. They didn’t need to know why it was happening to reconsider touching the chest.

The door was a problem. The Sergeant had to crawl through the keyhole- fortunately an easy enough task- but then she realized it wasn’t locked to begin with. Turning the handle was a whole ordeal, and doing that then imparting sufficient force to open the door was something that seemed impossible for someone of her size and mass. But she did it.

People inside the office didn’t seem to have very good reading comprehension skills either. Half a dozen of them had to be driven off before they got the message. Then, finally, he came out of his room. She was glad not to have to push her way down all those hallways.

-----

“Sir Aputsiaq. Uh, there’s a weird box…?”

The man named Aputsiaq looked up. “A weird box. And what does that have to do with us?”

“Well, uh, it came in the door. And it’s addressed to you.”

“So I have mail. Where is it?”

“It hurts everyone that touches it. We’re not sure if you should approach it or not, but you should at least know about it.

The man frowned. “I’d better go see it.”

What was a strange box doing in the office? It sounded like some sort of trap. He should probably avoid it and let a safety team deal with it. But he was curious.

As soon as Aputsiaq set his eyes on it, he knew. It wasn’t a trap. Or it was the worst one anyone had ever made. “For the eyes of the Taron City Chief Financial Overseer only” was written on it. If it could be called writing. It was worse than the scrawling of a child, many layers of scratches eventually carving out the shapes of letters based on the majority of similarly placed scratches.

And it was a chest. Just a container, about knee high and twice that in width. It didn’t even have any enchantments or formations of any kind- though the papers inside had a bit of something to them. Some of them, anyway. Aside from that there was nothing else but- what was that?

He shook his head. It was nothing. A trick of the mind, he supposed. He strode forward.

“Careful, sir! It bites!”

He nodded. He was careful. But he reached out and picked it up without any trouble. “Hmm. If anyone needs me, I’ll be back in my office.”

He had the feeling he shouldn’t open it in front of people. And his instincts were more than correct. A huge mass of disconnected papers, he thought it was a prank of some sort. Until he made some connections.

Not disconnected. No, they mainly had something to do with the public clinic. And people who worked there, or with it. And these numbers… they were more than just a little bit suspicious. He began to arrange things, organizing and reorganizing the papers. There was a lot of it. Several hundred documents total. And yet, it wasn’t enough to do anything.

Not by itself. But this… this was enough to get started. Perhaps half or a third of the papers were completely useless, but they led to some people he had suspicions of. Others had slipped past his notice. A few, he wasn’t sure why they were connected by this mysterious benefactor.

Aputsiaq wondered who it was. Considering the timing, could it be one of those Assimilation cultivators from the Lower Realms Alliance? Actually, one had visited the clinic, briefly. Except she was a high profile individual. No way she could keep up with everything she was doing and snag all these documents without anyone knowing.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Who was it, then? A rival of some of the more prominent figures, wanting to take them down? He didn’t mind doing so, but it would be nice to be aware of how things would shift.

What was he going to do with it, though? He’d just become the Chief Financial Officer recently. People were already complaining about him being young with no background. Then again, maybe this was his chance to take things into his own hands. These people funneling funds away from this project… many were the same calling for more funding to go to it. Of course that was how it worked.

Maybe this was the trap. Angering so many people at once could get him killed. But if he didn’t take this chance, he’d be replaced in a handful of years or a decade as ineffectual. And he would be. He’d been practically handed this. If he screwed it up, he should retire.

-----

Half a year wasn’t enough time for astounding changes in cultivators, even early ones. For the most part, Anishka had seen her new apprentice Lyndon and some others change their cultivation methods, which was certainly important. They were stronger at the same stage, but they’d barely grown a step or two in six months. It was entirely acceptable, as not everyone was going to progress stages at the maximum rate. Anishka just felt time was going awfully slow.

“Did you hear?”

Anishka looked up as Nezihe addressed her. “Hear what?” Anishka heard a lot of things.

“The city is cracking down on funds embezzled from that clinic. Well, specifically the newly appointed Chief Financial Overseer.”

“That was fast,” Anishka said. “No, I suppose he must have been working on this his whole appointment.”

“I’m not sure,” Nezihe said. “Others said it came as a surprise to them. It’s causing quite a stir.”

“... There’s something going on right now,” Anishka said.

“What?” Nezihe asked.

“In the courthouse. This fellow, he’s rather young?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m going to go check it out.”

“... you’re only going to watch, right?”

“I shouldn’t have to do anything else,” Anishka said.

-----

“You dare to accuse me, after all I have done for this city?”

Aputsiaq just looked at him. “And what have you done for this city, mister Halloran?”

“Everyone knows. Why, I even provide the medicine for the public clinic.”

Aputsiaq’s grin widened. “Well then. Let’s just get straight to the point. Actually, you don’t do that.” He slapped a document on the table in front of him. “This shipment of fifty thousand units, aside from being overpriced by several times, was never delivered. And billed twice.”

“Let me see that.” The financial officer held it up. “Hand it to me.”

“So you can attempt to manipulate it? I doubt a cultivator of your stature can’t read it from there. In fact, I’d dare say most of the people in the room can. For reference, here are the rest of the documents relevant to this particular incident. Never delivered. Never delivered. Invoices paid.”

“You have some astounding figures, young man,” the older gentleman called Halloran grumbled. “So what, you want me to pay back this so-called embezzlement to display the power of your office?”

“No,” Aputsiaq said. “What I want is for your thieving hands to be cut off. But considering my position, all I can do is require you to pay back tenfold everything I have proven you stole.”

“Tenfold? That is ridiculous! I could perhaps manage this fine at a single time but-”

“Tenfold. It wouldn’t be a punishment if you could pay back merely a portion of what you stole.”

“You’re making a mistake! This city won’t survive without my business.”

“Do you hear yourself? You act as if you’ve done anything but drain from the city’s coffers. And for once, you’ll actually contribute. This is not a discussion. This is a declaration. One tenth of the final amount is due next month, then again every month after that.”

“Ridiculous! I’d have to sell everything I owe! This is far beyond the reach of your office and the law, for baseless accusations-” The old man reached out for the paper on the table, his energy leaping towards it like a snake. And then it split down the middle.

“Guards!” Aputsiaq called. “Restrain this man!” He looked down at the papers in front of him. He hadn’t stopped that attempt to grab or destroy them. What had?

-----

“... Dammit,” Anishka said, barely managing to keep her words from escaping the local bubble around her.

“What?” Nezihe asked. “It seems things did not escalate to too much violence. Though I wonder how-”

“Let’s not worry about it,” Anishka said. Mostly, she was talking to herself. “So, will those penalties actually stick?”

“The office held by that man does have the authority to impose them. And if he has the rest of the evidence, there’s a good chance, now that it’s in the public eye.”

“Good,” Anishka said. “And how much does me being here change that?”

“It’s difficult to say, exactly,” Nezihe admitted. “But it’s not… none. This wasn’t exactly a public hearing but…”

“Nobody was going to stop me from walking in. Also, if they didn’t want it to be public they should have invested in some privacy formations.”

“Uh, there usually are,” Nezihe said.

-----

He was Taron City’s Chief Financial Officer. He might not be the highest cultivation in the city, but Aputsiaq was important. He reminded himself of this as he gathered up the papers, trying not to think that the motion could have come towards him. Raimonds Halloran was a late Life Transformation cultivator, and could kill him with little more than a thought. The guards should have been doing something about that.

How many more times was he going to have to go through this? He’d pared down the list to the dozen or so worst offenders. The rest were getting off with plea deals involving testifying against their former co-conspirators. They weren’t important enough, considering.

Why did he still feel like a mountain could come crashing down on him at any moment? Halloran was out of the building. There was another life transformation cultivator he didn’t remember arranging to have present. And then there she was. The one who was casually filling the room with energy.

That energy within her wasn’t a threat- no more than dying in a blizzard or from flinging himself into a volcano involved anything threatening him. It was simply an inevitability, if he made the wrong move. But not him specifically. Anyone.

Aputsiaq was glad he hadn’t noticed her during the proceedings. One of those Assimilation cultivators. Hopefully, she approved of his work. Right now he couldn’t tell, because she was paying attention to something different. Something on her palm? But there was nothing there.

No wait. His eyes caught a glimpse of something. Maybe it was a trick, but he thought he saw an ant for a single moment. Was that what…?

Nah. That idea didn’t make a lick of sense. Probably just stress from angering some of the richest people in the city. He wondered if the Lower Realms Alliance people were interested in hiring out as bodyguards.