Episode 36. The Price After the Grab
# Episode 36. The Price After the Grab
The footsteps walking in from beyond the alley entrance's shadow were not someone coming to settle a commotion.
They were footsteps coming to count who had touched the wrong price and who could afford to pay.
People cleared the way first. No one shouted for them to — they just did. A rare kind of organizing for the outer-layer market. When prices climbed, the crowd usually pressed closer — but now they were stepping back. Laughter and curses had not fully died, yet over them a thinner layer of silence was settling.
Into that center, Nasim walked in.
Not hurrying, not deliberately slow. Yet the kind of speed that made the other side steady their breath one more time. No different from the face seen at the market's edge earlier — yet strangely, now he looked like someone who already knew far more before arriving.
He swept the alley's interior once.
Luhai caught in Kael's grip.
The metal shard in Luhai's hand.
The frozen merchant.
The retreated onlookers.
And Sion's group, standing at the center of all of it.
From that brief sweep alone, Nasim already wore the face of someone whose calculation was finished.
"Touched something big the moment you walked in."
He said, very smooth.
Seorin did not respond immediately. Instead she looked once at the shard in Luhai's hand, then at Nasim's face.
"Yours?"
Nasim smiled.
"The most expensive question on Hazran is always that one."
He said.
"Whose is it."
Kael said, very low.
"Then that means it's not yours either."
Nasim's gaze went that way.
"Dark coat — you're the type that smells before hearing. Not bad."
Luhai did not miss the gap — twisting the wrist once. Reading the instant Kael's grip eased barely, already looking for the angle to bolt again. But Kael's hand was faster. This time not forcing a break — just half-stepping to kill the direction of the child's body itself.
Luhai gritted teeth.
"I said I'm not running."
"You just tried."
Sion said.
"That's habit."
Luhai answered flat.
Ater murmured, very low.
"Not a good habit."
Luhai heard that and rather than looking embarrassed, stared straight at Ater's face. Not a child accustomed to being evaluated — more like one accustomed to reading the evaluator's expression first.
Nasim did not intervene until the brief exchange fully ended. Instead he watched with a smiling face. Who held initiative, who showed emotion first, how far Luhai could bolt — reading all of it at once.
He spoke again.
"That shard — too pricey to roll around outside."
He indicated the etherite in Luhai's hand with a chin-point.
"The idiot who laid it among fakes was stupid, sure — but that doesn't mean the hand that grabbed it is smart."
Luhai shot back immediately.
"So does that make you the smart one?"
The alley air stopped for the briefest instant.
The merchant went pale. Several onlookers turned their gazes away entirely. Even on Hazran's outer layer, a mouth like that could carry a precious price. Funny if you survived; snapped immediately if you caught the wrong one.
Nasim did not drop his smile even at that.
"You're still alive, so your luck is better than I thought."
He said.
"Or someone keeps stepping in for you."
That gaze touched Kael briefly.
From that short round-trip alone, Sion could tell. Nasim had already read that Luhai had not moved alone. That this commotion was not a simple theft — but an affair where outsiders and the market's outer-layer price had tangled at once.
Seorin asked short.
"So the conclusion."
"Conclusion's simple."
Nasim said.
"If that shard is real — the longer you stand here like this, the more hands attach."
"Including yours?"
Seorin asked.
Nasim did not dodge.
"Obviously."
He answered with a smile.
"On Hazran, the real thing tilts toward the hand that holds it to the end — not the hand that found it."
Luhai's eyes changed sharply hearing that.
Irritation rose before fear.
"That's why I said I grabbed it first."
He said.
"That merchant only had dead stuff. I picked this one first."
"You stole it."
The merchant shouted belatedly.
"You didn't even know it was real?"
Luhai fired back instantly.
"Quiet."
Seorin cut, low.
That single word shut both mouths briefly. The merchant shut his from injustice; Luhai shut his from reading that talking more would cut his own price.
Ater said, looking at the etherite.
"It is not fully dead material. At minimum it has verification value."
Sion picked up.
"Then we can't just hand this over."
Only then did Nasim look at Sion slightly longer.
"Because of etherite?"
He asked.
Sion did not hide it.
"Our ship is near-dead."
He said low.
"No room to buy fakes and stick them on."
Nasim smiled. That smile was just slightly closer to genuine than before. The smile that comes when someone can see fully what a person wants, why they're desperate, and therefore how high the price can go.
"Now that sounds like human talk."
He said.
Kael said from beside, very low.
"You've been watching nothing but price this whole time."
Nasim tilted his head, barely.
"This is Hazran."
He answered.
"What else would you watch."
That was not wrong — which made it more unpleasant.
Sion, at the end of that brief sparring, recalled the name Aka again. High chance Aka was rolling the same way here. Not as a name but a price; not as a rumor but a managed asset. The sense that etherite and Aka might sit under the same line was thickening.
Luhai was still caught in Kael's grip, but the mouth did not stop.
"You're looking for that name too."
He said, looking at Sion.
Short silence.
Seorin's gaze sank, barely perceptibly.
"What name."
She asked.
Luhai lifted the corner of his mouth — just barely.
"I heard everything earlier."
He said.
"Aka."
Kael's grip tightened again, just slightly.
"Do you know something."
When Sion asked, Luhai did not answer immediately. This time the calculation was real. How much to say here to be sold less; how much to hide to survive longer. The silence particular to a quick-headed child.
But Nasim laid words over that silence first.
"Don't hold onto that name too long outside."
He said, smooth.
"It's a name that costs more than etherite."
When those words fell, Luhai's expression changed — very briefly. Irritation, wariness, familiarity mixed. This child already knew that name did not roll around carelessly.
Sion did not miss it.
Knows.
Not completely — but this child knows something.
And right then, from outside the alley — one more layer of silence settled on top.
This time even Nasim stopped speaking first.
People stepped back one more; the merchant lowered his head entirely; the larger man's angry face lost its force. The same quietness — but a different grain from before. The quietness of the outer-layer market holding its breath on its own.
Nasim murmured, very low.
"Now the real counting hand comes."
He said.
Sion did not ask what that meant.
Who was coming, why everyone reacted this way — his body already knew.
From beyond the alley entrance's shadow — one firm arm beneath black cloth showed first.
And behind it — eyes that believed in control before people were slowly turning this way, entering.