Episode 38. The Place Where Values Were Weighed
# Episode 38. The Place Where Values Were Weighed
Walking inward following Harun and Nasim, the outer-layer market's air peeled away from the body bit by bit.
On the surface it was an ordinary corridor connecting canopies and frames — but after a few turns, the sound changed first. If outside the noise layered into one market, inside it was sliced fine. Hammer strikes, iron dust being shaken off, brief haggling, a water drum lid closing, a laugh bursting once from somewhere far. All audible — but none tangling with each other. A place where who did what where was already organized.
Sion found that difference more unsettling.
The outer layer's commotion at least felt like a living place. But this inside had order. And that kind of order usually formed when who could hold how much of what was already decided.
Nasim still walked ahead with a smiling face; Harun opened the way in silence. Luhai was still half-caught in Kael's grip — but not entirely dragged. Instead of looking for escape angles, the eyes were now memorizing the inner structure. Sion knew: kids like this did not give up — they remembered faster.
Ater glanced at frames and walls they passed and said, very low.
"A warehouse."
Sion asked small.
"Not the market's inside?"
"Both."
Ater answered.
"But not a place where anyone haggles like outside. The gathering, sorting, and holding side is stronger."
Kael said short.
"A place that ties things down briefly until the price is set."
Whether Harun heard that or not was unclear — but he slowed his step once, at an indiscernible pace. A brief reaction, but Sion did not miss it. Harun was also reading that Kael was not someone entirely unfamiliar with this floor.
What appeared at the corridor's end was not an open square.
It was a wide workshop with a half-covered roof. Beneath a ceiling made of connected dead hull frames — long tables, low loading platforms, half-disassembled devices, sealed drums, metal crates stacked in layers. People were clearly many — but unlike the outer market, no one shouted. Each moved what they were responsible for, wiped, weighed, spoke briefly, and returned to hands. Here, hands seemed to work before voices.
Sion noticed several things at once.
First — if precious materials like etherite circulated anywhere, an inside like this was the right fit.
Second — why the name Aka was swallowed outside made slightly more sense. A name bound inside a structure like this — the moment it was spoken carelessly in the outer layer, it would enter inner ears regardless of who heard.
Third — Luhai, upon seeing this inner structure, was not frightened but looking harder. That was not a good sign. Kids like this, the more scared they got, the more angles they looked for.
Nasim turned, very slowly.
"Good."
He said.
"Now that the outside air is shaken off — let's talk like people."
Seorin fired back.
"If you'd planned to talk like people, you wouldn't have dragged us in from outside like that."
Nasim smiled.
"Too many ears outside."
He said.
"In here, at least I get to see first how high the price climbs."
"So what do you want to hear first."
Sion asked.
Nasim looked as if he'd been waiting for that question — scanning Sion, Kael, Luhai, and the gear in Ater's hands in turn.
"In order?"
He said.
"Why you need etherite. Why you came knowing Aka's name. And why that child happened to grab the real thing and run today of all days."
Luhai cut in at once.
"I don't think I need to explain that."
"No."
Harun cut.
"You go first."
Luhai shut his mouth. Until now the mouth came first — but now it was different. Before Harun, the body already knew: add one more word and it could truly be severed.
Seorin looked at Sion once first.
Sion nodded, brief.
Having entered this far, they could not hide completely. But there was no need to put everything forward first either. Only as much as needed — but without lies. That was the way to look least weak right now.
Sion spoke first.
"Ship's near-dead."
He said.
"Crash-landing nearly killed the axis. Fake etherite and it ends faster."
Nasim asked.
"Where's the ship."
"That's for later."
Seorin cut.
Nasim did not push. Instead he tilted his head once with a smile. Not the type who forced immediately — the type who knew that what was not pushed now would eventually be spoken later.
Ater added quietly.
"We needed a hand that could distinguish real from fake. That is why we looked for the name."
Harun received that.
"Aka."
Short silence.
"Yes."
Sion said.
"Someone left that name for us."
Nasim reduced his smile just slightly.
"Left it?"
He asked.
"Not sold it."
"You'll need to tell us more first before we know that."
Seorin answered.
Harun heard that exchange and did not change expression. Instead, for the first time, he looked properly at Luhai.
"You."
Luhai avoided his gaze briefly, then raised it again. The way of someone who knew this was not an opponent you could hide from by not looking.
"I just grabbed it."
He said.
Harun stepped one pace closer.
"Lie."
Luhai bit the inside of his lip briefly. Sion saw that face and knew. This child was not fully caught — but searching for the right words to reduce.
"Not completely just."
Luhai said, reluctantly.
"It was playing too dead among the fakes."
"And?"
Harun asked.
Luhai was silent briefly, then said, lower.
"And today, the line where goods move out from inside was a bit off."
Sion's gaze shifted — barely.
That was important. Deeper information than a simple attempted theft. Luhai was not a child who got caught trying to steal — but one who had been peering at the inner flow itself.
Nasim seemed to understand too.
"Who taught you that?"
He asked, smooth.
"Nobody."
Luhai answered at once.
"You just see it when you look at the ledgers."
The alley's air paused.
This time not only Sion felt it. Ater, Kael, Seorin, Nasim, Harun — all felt that the word *ledgers* landed with a different grain than a petty thief's excuse.
Nasim smiled, very slowly.
"Ah."
He said.
"So you're that kind of kid."
Luhai did not look pleased at that. Closer to the face of someone whose value had been read too quickly.
Sion felt, in that moment, another piece of the puzzle fitting.
Luhai was not simply a child with fast hands.
Reading records and flows,
picking out the not-dead among fakes,
seeing the days when ledger lines moved strangely.
That might be the most quietly dangerous ability at this table right now.
Harun said, very low.
"So you touched inside goods."
Luhai did not reply this time.
Instead Nasim continued, smoother.
"Good. Then the calculation changes a bit."
He said.
"The outsiders need etherite and came carrying Aka's name. And this kid reads ledgers."
The instant that summary ended, Sion felt these people were no longer seeing them as separate.
Now they were one bundle.
A bundle where problems, prices, and possibilities mixed.
What had looked like coincidence on the outer layer — entering the inside, it was all connecting into one line.
Seorin asked low.
"So."
Nasim did not answer before Harun this time. Instead he glanced aside, very brief. That gaze meant: who made the final decision was already settled.
Harun said.
"Taking them."
Short silence.
Luhai reacted at once.
"Where."
Harun did not even look at him.
"Shut your mouth and come — somewhere less annoying."
"That's not reassuring at all."
Luhai muttered.
Kael said, very low.
"Be quiet."
Sion looked deeper inside along with those words.
Behind the workshop — another section screened by canopy and frame. Quieter than the outer layer, fewer people, but every hand that passed through moved with purpose. If there was a place where etherite, Aka, Luhai's ledger-reading, and all of it would be pulled in at once — it would be there.
And somewhere in that inside — the person who truly held this floor's board would be there.
Sion pressed the paper inside his jacket once more.
*Hazran.*
*Aka.*
The two words still had no explanation.
But one thing was clear now.
The path to finding this name had no choice but to pass through the very center of where values were weighed.