They never even let him near the court room where the trial was going on. They didn't let him watch it either. The guilty verdict rolled in after a while though. They told Costan nothing, but the warden visited him in medical.

He would be spending the next ten years of his life there, in a super max security prison, if he stayed out of trouble. That's all the warden told him before they started taking every piece of biological data that the medical staff could. They even took a mould of his teeth, like they expected him to bite someone.

When he was mostly healed, they transferred him to general population. They didn't forget to shave him bald and take photos of every scar or identifying feature again, now that most of the wounds were healed. He had plenty of new scars.

Costan's cell mate knew more about the trial than he did, the public defender never even came to say hello. Nobody recognized him as Costan, for better or worse, because nobody knew his skin was a golden bronze under that true black fur. He got a very quick run down on how things worked in that specific prison. No, it wasn't quite how it was portrayed on the shows, but Costan never watched that drivel anyway.

It was a few days of just minding his own business before the bullshit started. He was surprised that nobody even tried the old paperwork check. Then somebody tried to threaten him into giving them his tray of food, or what passed as food. Costan spared a glance at the almost entirely sealed status screen. He almost laughed.

"Not unless you are willing to become my next meal or work off the debt. When I was fighting against the Greq and Vllthed, I often killed and ate things far scarier than you. I've also beaten and pimped stronger hoes, you know what I'm saying?"

Costan emphasized it by giving him the appraising side eye. While the gods had done their best to take everything away from him, Murphy had noticed that they had never given him the rewards for owning one hundred brothels spread across all the worlds they sent him to. He did so just in time and was ready for the show.

The hairless one was unamused and brandished a knife like object, but Costan pivoted in his seat. He activated a stage two pimp slap, verse one of chapter one of the Suplication of an Unruly Hoe, the third volume of Mau Lung Dong's Guide to Celestial Prostitution; the Unwavering Pimp Hand. Costan didn't know where all the jargon like naming came from, but he was bouta slappa bitch.

The hairless one took one step to close. "I'ma kill ya n", that's all he managed to say before Costan finished his pivot and unleashed the coiled muscles. The lightning fast back hand sent that one flying and what sounded like thunder followed. The chow hall fell dead silent afterwards, with not but the echo of a thunderclap, but only for a second as the hairless one came to a tumbling stop.

"Bitch I told you. Interrupting my meal, how's my pimp hand taste?" Costan was going to milk the fact that he was officially recognized by the gods for something, even if it was for owning brothels. Even that had a bitter twang of a mix of negative emotions to it, for he was turned away from one of his own whore houses despite having a reserved room.

Costan expected a hard response from the corrections officers, but returned to eating his food. He shoved it in his mouth as fast as he could swallow the foul tasting mush, because when they came he wouldn't have the chance to eat. They didn't seem to be responding at first, but eventually came clad in power armor, they lit him up with combat grade tasers.

The ones tasing him were Military Police instead of regular Corrections Officers. Costan got three days in solitary confinement, an extra two years for simple assault and transferred to a cell block with a higher risk assessment. His risk assessment was now in the one hundred plus range. Most of the risk was that he owned locksmiths, shipyards, private security companies, etcetera. Most of the employees of the companies he owned didn't even know that he owned them.

It was amusing to the MPs that Costan defeated Zergat. He was the most notorious prisoner for assault and battery and was dealt with by a mil.spec. slap from a former Drop Marine. But the amusement didn't last, because while the video evidence spoke for itself, they had to get witness testimony from prisoners that didn't trust them. It didn't help that they were Military Police in power armor when the convicts were used to the regular body armored Corrections Officers.

The MPs had the older tricks of the investigations handbook. They employed the old public just tell us what you saw trick. They sweetened the pot with a few instant soups and an iced honey roll. It didn't take five minutes for someone to come forward.

"So, I was sitting there, minding my own damn business. Then I heard a commotion and looked over. Zergat had a bone crusher and was about to pounce on goldy-boy, but got slapped across the fuckin room like he owed him money or something. Whole place went real quiet like. All I heard from what was said was "how's my pimp hand taste."

One of the other inmates didn't like it, saying "Snitch". He followed it up with "snitching for some soups and a blondy." A different prisoner shouted him down with "and your punk ass snitched for a single soup."

The MPs had what they came for, but chose to disclose a few things. "You may be curious as to why power armored Military Police are here with Corrections Officers. It's because nobody can actually detain Prince Costan without it or lethal force. Yeah, that Costan, former Drop Marine, slapper of Zergat."

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"Wait, I thought Costan had black fur?"

"Yes, but when shaved, his skin is a golden bronze color. It's a miracle that Zergat is alive, he got some brain damage though."

While he was in the hole, Costan experimented with some things. Through an attempt out of boredom, he found that slapping the status screen like it owed him money caused it to wig out, and then the gods had to reseal everything. He found a way to troll the gods and make them have to actually work if they wanted to keep screwing him over.

It was hilarious to Costan, the gods had to make contact physically with him or his soul to seal anything that they didn't give him. The static skill of "Sovereignty of the Celestial Pimp" made it where they would have to physically visit through conventional means like walking for a few hundred miles and breaking into the prison. He could screw with them right back. He almost tested the limits of the pimp slap on the wall, but chose to be sparing, and things got real weird real quick.

"Add Dulaq Super Maximum Security Prison to your Hoe List?" The notification was very odd. Costan knew that he had an active list of hookers because the status screen had a tab for it, but didn't expect the prison itself to be pimpable. He decided to roll with it, and checked the hoe tab. He was shocked to see that he could set the Anny percentage, the amount he was to be given of any specific hoe's take for periods of time. He set Dulaq's anny to one percent per monthly period. The take was effectively the gross income.

Costan got paperwork checked as soon as he hit the new cell block. He got to his cell and found out that they only had one prisoner per cell despite them being big enough for two or three. One old mafioso type gave him the run down on the block. It had four hundred cells on eight floors, but only had about three hundred prisoners at any time. Three major gangs, two minor gangs, and the old mobsters kept it to a code.

As far as the guards cared, if you got it in or made it, they didn't care as long as they didn't catch you or you mess with them. One of the shot callers had a sword on his wall and nobody cared. So long as Costan didn't bother anyone, nobody would bother him because most of them were lifers. Those that weren't lifers ended up there because people wouldn't let them just serve their time in peace or came in with some heavy charges.

Nobody in that block wanted to go to the hole, get loss of privileges, or get more time. The ones who came in with something to prove were quickly dealt with by the lifers, some "awful accident", or "self harm". Then you had a group of four COs that were the definition of living garbage that would beet a prisoner down for whatever they felt like, it was best to stay away from them.

Life was a lot duller for a while after that, but not too long. Dulaq's anny was up, and it was interesting. Due to the prison itself being an inanimate object, it couldn't pay in any "normal" way. That didn't matter to Costan, because any credits to his name, even commissary credits, got immediately shunted into the accounts that the Emperor controlled.

Prison time without commissary is worse than regular prison time because they charge for every commodity. You need soap to wash, you better have something in the commissary, same with toothpaste, snacks, etcetera. If someone needed to wipe their ass, the prison was the place to profit from it. Dulaq could only pay with accomodations and commissary items.

Costan chose the split and got a secret room that would expand every month and all the soups, rolls, canned meat, and hygiene products he could ever use. He even had access to some of the medical stuffs, but chose to keep it secret. While the secret space was as such, a secret, his cell was overflowing with commissary items.

The soups, soaps, and blondies had overflowed past his cell door, past the walkway, and precipitated down to the common rooms below. Costan was not happy at losing a chunk of his haul, but he wasn't about to go running after dropped stuffs, especially not the soap. He realized the capability before the gods could discern that intervention may be needed. Costan, the eunuch heir of Emperor Karcos, once again became the merchant.

Being able to set the any and payment methods, Costan rose to prominence within the block. He was too skilled at too many things for anyone to bother questioning. He didn't just supply tattoo equipment to the artist, but drew new designs for him. Nobody wanted him to experience the slightest of inconvenience, many of the elders were already sporting tattoos of dragons, eagles, olive branches, or other things unheard of by the Nekogian race and had stories of dreams to answer for the new symbolism upon their bodies.

The guards accepted the half-assed answers because nobody else was sporting the imagery. The stories were good though. Standing between two massive armies were two figures, and one offered a branch to the other. The other accepted and one army left without bloodshed.

Another told a story of standing alone in a vast desert, with nothing but the bird flying nearby. Trying as hard as he might, no efforts would allow for it's capture. That prisoner went on to elaborate that he believed that the bird was representative of the freedom that, with no efforts on his part, would ever be his. That guy was a lifer.

Costan had many people on his side on the inside, word of the Merchant went far and wide, even far beyond the prison he was in. The warden had started recording and publishing the music from the cell block. Costan had been there for three years before a gods be damned grand piano appeared in the common room. The music coming from the cell block was beyond the top ten of the Empires charts. Nobody knew, outside of Costan, what a piano was, and Nekogian music wasn't really pleasant, even in the best of times.

While there were Nekogian artists and inventors, they were very crude and slow at it. It was to be expected, though, the immortal inventor never had offspring so it was a thing that has to be taught and developed. Inherited trait talents were always better with any amount effort than any amount of teaching, training, and practice. The entire race had been coasting on whatever Nihil's writings survived long enough to be read, but the spirit of invention is not learned from a book and neither is the passion for music.

The entire race had only two major inventions and three music's(individual songs) that came into existence from the death of Nihil until the Strazar creating the K series clones that developed everything known until the death of Emperor K.A.R.. Then Costan happened and science made an unmeasurable leap; music, not so much. There were painters and carvers and farmers, the military were alive and well, if behind, due to warrior caste, but the music was more than lacking. It was uninspired and the passable music was all hailing the Strazar or Emperor K.A.R.

The warden didn't miss his chance to record ever second of music and publish it as his own. The profit was there, and he wasn't going to miss out. Even the angry, hyper aggressive music got recorded, just like the song about robbing the Imperial Family.