Chapter 10 (part 2/2) - Slave Labor

  From several bodies away he could already see inside the window and part of the operation. The most striking thing was the thick, perforated disk resting on the counter. How could that possibly know how much someone had worked? Did labor not count if it caused no stress?

  Luckily, there was someone in front of the Treasury comparable to him. A shabby, dim-looking husk. Vincent always observed everything: the place, the people, the details. That particular husk was also from his dormitory, but his lack of presence had never mattered… until now. It was precisely that lack of prominence that made him valuable. Always the last to wake, lazy-looking, he would be the perfect avatar for Vincent, especially since his bracelet wasn’t entirely smooth either...

  “Hand in the opening… you know the procedure.”

  “Before that, I wanted to explain… it may not look like it, but I’ve been working on myself this week. I studied how a tavern is run, and I think I could be more useful in the kitchen than-”

  “The hand. Put it in.”

  The treasurer left no room for excuses. His deep, heavy eye bags made it clear he had heard millions of excuses before, and had no patience left for another one.

  “The bracelet doesn’t lie. Just put your hand in the slot already.”

  The boy obeyed, still protesting. He argued that the bracelet didn’t account for personal development, that it couldn’t understand potential. None of that mattered once he placed his hand inside the massive golden ring. It was carved from exquisite jade, with golden patterns and mantras that reacted the moment the bracelet was detected inside. The treasurer set his hand on the wheel and felt what the bracelet told him.

  “Hmmm… you worked at seventy-two percent this month. Which means your pay should be…” The clerk picked up his abacus and calculated. “Ten coppers and two pinches.”

  “I deserve a silver tower!”

  “The bracelet does not lie.”

  “This is stupid! I deserve way more!”

  The boy erupted, and the custodians moved as if to restrain him, but the clerk stopped them with a simple gesture.

  “You think you deserve… more?”

  The clerk took a pouch of silver towers and placed it in front of him.

  “Then take whatever you think is fair.”

  The boy froze, stunned, but unable to ignore the offer. With one hand still inside the wheel, he reached into the pouch with the other and grabbed a handful of silver.

  “I deserve…”

  Unable to restrain his greed, he dropped only a few pinches back into the bag.

  “Five silver towers.”

  “Five? You must really value your work, huh? Not even a magister earns that much.”

  “I-it’s because of my potential… the bracelet doesn’t know how far I can go.”

  “If you say so…”

  The clerk placed his hand on the wheel again… and the device began to hum.

  “Ah… my hand…”

  “What’s wrong? Can’t you pull it out?”

  “No… it’s squeezing… AH!”

  The bracelet, still inside the golden slot, tightened harder and harder around the boy’s hand. His skin flushed red, then purple, but he refused to let go of what he had not earned.

  “Do something!”

  “You are the one trying to bite off more than you deserve. If the bracelet senses that you want to take more than necessary and you have no projection to pay it back in the future, it will start charging interest now. If you don’t release it, it will take from whatever it can… your hand, or years of your life.”

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  “Alright, alright!”

  The boy dropped the coins one by one. With each clink that fell into the pouch, the bracelet loosened a little more. He returned almost everything except for the silver coin he had initially demanded.

  “It still won’t let me pull my hand out!”

  “Then you still have more than you deserve. You must let go.”

  The boy split the coin with his fingers and dropped a single pinch… but his hand remained stuck. He complained to the treasurer, but the man stayed focused on the disk. Only after dropping another pinch was he able to free himself. His hand was purple, and the bracelet was pulsing harder than ever.

  “I-I think I gave back too much… can I have the ten coppers instead?”

  “Hmmm… no.”

  The clerk answered after touching the wheel again.

  “That was lost to interest. You are not trustworthy.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “You can put your hand back in the wheel if you want.”

  “…”

  “A wise decision.”

  The clerk noted the payment in a ledger and called the next one. After that lesson, the other three were paid without complaint. Their bracelets were smooth before placing their wrists into the wheel, and once they collected their wages, they returned to their vascular state.

  So the bracelet resets after being paid…

  Vincent’s turn arrived, and he was eager to know his numbers.

  “Next… an empty husk?”

  Noticing his low-ranking robes, one of the custodians grabbed Vincent’s hand and placed it in the wheel for him, as if knowing beforehand that empties never understood the procedure.

  “Fourth heart… level thirteen… Vin.”

  As he said that, the large accounting ledger in front of him flipped its own pages, stopping at Vincent’s payment record. After reviewing it, the treasurer realized he already knew who he was. He did not recognize people by their faces, but by their numbers.

  “Ah, yes, Magister Lily's protégé. This is your last payment as a husk. I have an order to raise your classification after your awakening.”

  “Wait, hold on.”

  He already knew negotiating was pointless, but he still needed to explain himself. His bracelet was pulsing hard, he hadn’t completed his tasks, and he had no idea what awaited him. He tried pulling his hand out of the perforated disk, but the bracelet was magnetically anchored inside it. There was no way to free himself.

  “I was recovering… I would like to request an extension…”

  The jade disk engraved with gold began to hum ominously. The shrill note deafened him for a second and the bracelet tightened around his wrist. Would he lose the arm? To his surprise, he didn’t. Seconds later, the humming stopped and his hand came free.

  “What?”

  “Here you go, one silver tower and two coppers. Your workload will be transferred to Magister Lily as usual.”

  “One moment… here.”

  Vincent split his silver in half and handed it to the treasurer.

  “For Lily’s debt…”

  The treasurer took the half tower and noted something in his ledger.

  “This is the last week you have a husk’s quota. After that, the burden will be much heavier. Lily is a good girl, I know her. It is a shame she has to carry you.”

  His heart tightened with guilt. He didn’t need the reminder; he already felt guilty enough. He tried to justify himself… but then he remembered.

  No… I can’t fall into their games. They want my memories. They want to use guilt to push me toward the devourer.

  “I hope I stop being a burden soon, but I don’t think I can do that just by sweeping floors. How can I make myself useful here?”

  “Any activity that benefits the tower will be registered by the bracelet… cleaning, cataloging, sorting books. Though if you want a salary, you need to talk to one of the masters. But there is nothing an illiterate man can do.”

  That is not very helpful…

  “You should also know that a tribunal will be held regarding your awakening. You are accused of perdurance, of hiding your knowledge... of failing to contribute to the tower.”

  “Is that a crime? What are you talking about?”

  “Not only does the magister have to bear your debt, but she has also faced the cost of your treatment and the penalty for puncturing the artery. It is considered that if you can bear your debt, you should do so.”

  Yes, I should. But if they are moving this fast to increase my workload, it’s because they want to push me toward the devourer. They think I’m hiding something about the meridians.

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  “Hmp.”

  The treasurer grumbled and waved him away. There was no point in protesting. The tower was still conspiring against him, and this time it wanted his memories. Just like in his past life, when they tried to break him to force him to sell his patents, the tower’s system was an oiled machine designed to squeeze every drop of knowledge from its resurrects.

  If he wanted to avoid the devourer, he had to prove that what made him special wasn’t simply the information in his head, but his ingenuity.

  How can they still be using abacuses for calculations when they have magic…

  Vincent thought, searching for an answer, a way out of his predicament.

  Whatever I do, I must limit myself to what the tower already knows. If I show them something they have never seen, they will come for more.

  Digging through his mind for ideas, one stood out above the rest, but it required knowledge he didn’t have… and he wasn’t even sure it was possible. Conventional magic was beyond him; his weak meridians were useless for that. But there were other kinds of magic, ones far more logical to his modern mind.

  All around him, he could see carvings on walls and elevators. They connected triggers and caused impossible effects. Electronics would also look like magic to someone primitive… if he could only understand it, he could improve it.

  Lost in thought, Vincent’s walking pace turned into a jog as he rushed down the stairs toward the study hall.

  That’s it… that’s the path.