Chapter 24 · Welcome to Buyout Night

The storefront behind Ivy is glowing like someone plugged a neon sign into a live wire. BUYOUT NIGHT. SIGN HERE. GET SAVED.

I didn't turn that on.

Okay, I did. Sort of. I can feel the system pulling power from my core, routing it through a shop I thought was dead. The glass is clean now. The counter inside is solid. There's even a pen chained to a clipboard, and I have no memory of spawning any of that.

Vex's lawyer takes one look at the sign and steps back. Not far. Just enough that I know he's rattled.

"What is that?"

Ivy doesn't turn around. She's still holding the two halves of her hunter badge, one piece in each hand. Her knuckles are scraped from something earlier. There's dust on her jacket collar and a smear of Mallow's glitter on her sleeve.

"That's Noah's counter-offer," she says.

I wish I sounded that confident.

The system dumps a notification into my vision. It's not the usual clean layout. The text is flickering, half the words glitching out.

[BUYOUT PROTOCOL ACTIVE] [CONTRACTOR SEVERANCE AVAILABLE: 3 ELIGIBLE] [WARNING: CORE RESERVE WILL DROP TO 11%] [PROCEED? Y/N]

Eleven percent.