1% Lifesteal

She was the biggest late-night talk show host in the entire country, and he spent many a night shift watching her on the BC. So that begged the question—what the hell was she doing here?

Fear of offending her far overwhelmed his sense of shame as he rushed to open the door again. "Greetings, Madame. I am so sorry," he apologized as he exited the apartment, keeping his head down. "My living space is quite… humble, so I hid it out of reflex."

She was a head taller than him, but even if she wasn\'t, he was sure that standing in front of her would make him feel minuscule. Her three bodyguards wore shaded sunglasses and neat black suits, standing a little behind her.

"You are Freddy Stern, I surmise?" she asked, her crystal-clear voice even more beautiful in person.

"Yes," he answered.

"Good," she said as she turned around. "Follow me."

"Uh, I, uhm…"

"What is it, darling?"

"Wh-Why?" he asked, mind uncomprehending.

She merely smiled at that. "Come, and you will find out."

Well, that sure fucking cleared things up, he thought.

Spotting his hesitation, she shrugged. "I\'m not going to drag you out, darling. Will you come out… or have I wasted my time?"

"I," he said, waving his hands around until a finger finally landed on the door. "I have to, uh… I have to lock the door."

She stared at him flatly for a few seconds. "All right, then," she said. "Feel free to do so."

"Okay… I… Just a second." He hopped into his apartment, retrieved his keys, stepped out, locked the door, and was soon following after Madame and her entourage.

He didn\'t know why she was here, what she wanted, or what the fuck was going on. Part of him was reluctant to follow along. What if she had bad intentions? She was certainly an eccentric person, and her whims weren\'t something he should take lightly. But refusing her invitation wouldn\'t spare him anything. In fact, offending her was certainly not a wise choice.

Although she kept to her line of work, that didn\'t change the fact that she was a Lord.

They stepped out of the building and walked into a floating limousine, which was, as expected, bigger inside but not by much. Enough to make it comfortably spacious but not enough to put too much distance between the people sitting there. To him, who was sitting opposite a figuratively massive celebrity and next to her three literally huge bodyguards, a bit of extra space would have been welcome.

While he wanted to know what was happening, he decided to be patient. His heart was beating out of his chest, and no matter how hard he worked to keep himself calm, he was getting sweaty. Thankfully, he hadn\'t been wearing these clothes while shut in, so they were still relatively clean.

He could see outside the shaded window, and they appeared to be heading toward the… Of course. The 25th district. She certainly wouldn\'t be taking him to the ghettos.

They flew over the Bastard Barricade as if it weren\'t even there and then proceeded to—

Oh, hell no! he screamed internally.

Even before the Bastard Barricade, there had been plenty of places in the 25th district that were walled off to outsiders. Such as any of the floating islands or buildings. Which seemed to be precisely where they were heading.

Between the fact that they were flying into the goddamn air and going to a very upper-class center, he felt right about ready to throw up. Luckily, his stomach was as empty as it had ever been, and it wasn\'t a particularly long flight. Soon enough, the flying carriage stopped, and the door opened.

Madame gestured to her guards, who were the first to get out.

Once they were out, she got up, and he mimicked her, unsure what to do.

She stepped right in front of him, smiling gently. "Don\'t worry, my dear," she said soothingly. "I will explain everything you need to know."

"Oh… all right."

"First, relax. We are heading to a casual venue. It is not all that different from any regular cafes or bars you visit."

Ah, yes. From all my regular cafe and bar visits. Yes, he sarcastically thought to himself. But her words did ease his anxiety a bit. Maybe it was just her soothing voice.

"But," she added, "there is one thing you do need to know."

Freddy perked up, but before he could ask what it was, she firmly grabbed his right hand and lifted it into the air. "You need to know how to properly escort a lady."

He was bewildered by the sheer force of her grip, but her expert guiding hand made it difficult to fail to follow her guidance.

"Posture straight," she said as she placed a finger on his back, and a zap traveled into it, causing his muscles to stiffen in a way that simulated perfect posture.

That was right. It was difficult to fail when he didn\'t have to do anything.

"Left hand gently balled up into a fist, thumb over the middle and ring fingers," she continued, "and left arm placed behind your back. Then, you lift your right arm into the air and open your palm. Head held high." Her guidance was followed by gentle taps of the tip of her index finger and pulses of essence that gently moved his body into position.

Once he stood the way she desired him to, she placed her hand on his right palm, gently this time. Her touch was embarrassingly overstimulating, and he hoped he wouldn\'t pop a boner. Thankfully, the stress of the situation seemed to have made that an impossibility.

She guided him on how to walk, which was to say that as long as he was holding her hand, she would do the walking for him by using her essence to move his muscles. He couldn\'t lie to himself. This was freaky. And honestly, it was beginning to seriously hurt.

"Are you all right?" she asked him, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Huh?" he asked dumbly. "No, I-I," he stuttered. "I\'m okay."

Her contemplative gaze scoured his form. "This technique is quite intensive. If you so wish, I can ease the influence and let you do the work on your own. Ah, but," she said with a slight smile. "Don\'t blame me if you embarrass yourself."

After staring at her for a long second, he laughed a bit. "Haha, sorry. Yeah, I… I admit it\'s a little intense, but I don\'t mind."

A delicate eyebrow quirked up at that. "That\'s the spirit, young man," she said affirmingly. "Well then, shall we proceed?"

"Yeah, uh, lead the way!" he accepted as enthusiastically as possible.

She stared at him flatly and chuckled. "Darling, you\'re meant to escort me."

"Oh, yeah, sorry. Uh… Let\'s go." And with that, they stepped out of the carriage.

Admiring the floating structures from afar was one thing, but seeing them in person was different.

The sky island had a miniature forest planted in a ring around it, exclusively growing scattered golden trees with thin, royal red vines hanging off every branch. Their path was lined with rainbow-colored tiles shaped from fancy crystals and shiny metals.

They were walking toward what could only be described as three buildings twisting around a center, with surprisingly thin bridges interconnecting them, some expanding into large platforms. In the middle, right between them, there was a massive, wood-plated open ground populated with occupied tables, and several floating platforms hovered above it, also carrying people on them.

The three bodyguards stood in front, and with every step they took, the guests, who from a distance looked like a scattering of colorful ants, became more discernible.

While a good deal was dressed in what even he recognized as relatively regular clothing, flashy, colorful, and violently ostentatious was the name of the game.

In the center was a round bar, which seemed to be where the drinks were made.

Just like any other cafe, now, is it!? he sarcastically mused in his mind.

Although he should be feeling stressed to the breaking point, he actually thought he felt perfectly fine. Only then did he notice that his heart wasn\'t beating that fast anymore, likely due to whatever powers she was using on him.

A short walk later, they stepped onto the wooden platform and strode forward. The others rather openly gawked at them, primarily focused on… him? Was he just imagining it?

The murmurs clarified that, indeed, he was the person of interest. Apparently, Madame was a regular here. Whoever she dragged here with her was usually the one people were looking at.

A woman seated at a table they were passing by whispered to her friend, "Hey, who is that? That\'s a pretty wild getup. Is he wearing poorcore?"

Poorcore!? Bitch!?

If it weren\'t for Madame\'s help, his low-class status would be much more readily apparent. Conversely, because there was no way to tell off his behavior alone, people assumed that he was intentionally dressed to look poor in some sort of, at least in his opinion, utterly tasteless fashion statement.

He spotted something unusual to the side of them. There was a section where the floating platforms were boarded. Many of them were missing from their spots, but some of the ones left behind were… ugly. Just plain gross to look at.

One particularly nasty offender was a neon blue and pink platform plated in gold. It was an eyesore to look at. An opinion that he luckily kept to himself as Madame took him to that platform and then boarded it.

The guards were left on standby while the two of them sat down, a medium-sized table between them. She put her card through a scanner, and the gaudy saucer took off, leaving them floating alone in the air. It rose considerably higher than any of the surrounding ones, and it was definitely not by coincidence. Some form of shimmer flickered around them for a moment, causing him to jump in surprise as his every hair stood on end.

"Don\'t worry," she snickered. "That\'s just a privacy barrier."

That was… Well, if he was being honest, he wasn\'t sure whether he really liked that privacy. The fact that they were so high in the air wasn\'t particularly fun, either. On top of that, his muscles felt sore as hell.

Madame took her hat off and relaxed, although her "relaxed" was still infinitely more dignified than whatever he was doing.

Leaning over, she pulled a pen and a small tablet from a hidden section on the side of the table. "Tell me, darling, what do you wish to eat and drink?"

Far too close did he come to saying something like orange juice and pizza, which was his idea of fancy food. Luckily, he had stopped himself in time, instead resorting to the ol\' reliable—"I\'ll have whatever Madame recommends."

She chuckled much louder than he expected. "Oh, you\'re going to regret that," she teased, making him wince.

Was she about to order something gross? The joke was on her, though, because he was literally starving. Even if she put half-eaten carrion before him, he\'d probably at least take a bite.

Once done writing their order down on the tablet, Madame turned and stared at him quietly.

Swallowing hard, he finally felt that it was appropriate to ask the question eating away at him, "Madame… Why, uh, I mean, what—"

"Are you familiar with the code C-000421?" she asked, interrupting him.

"Uh, code?" he inquired, bewildered. "I, uh, most certainly am not."

"That is the code for the passage realm you\'ve encountered."

Those words were like a slap to his face, and the instant she uttered them, he already had something of an idea why he was there. Rather than ask anything, he simply waited for her to continue.

"Not only is that the most dangerous realm we\'ve ever discovered, but it is also a hundred times larger than New Earth. We have found many entrances to it, but most were already inside a passage realm, usually only appearing past the fifth step," she said, leaning closer. "This is the first direct entrance to it to appear in our realm. And you, Mr. Stern, were the first to find it," she declared, offering to shake his hand. "Welcome to the history books."

That was a lot to take in. He shook her hand absent-mindedly, unable to find a way to appropriately react to hearing news like this. To begin with, what did this even mean for him? Although he wanted to ask her a million things, as the nature of their meeting finally became apparent, he knew he wouldn\'t get the chance to do that.

This was an interview. And he wasn\'t the one asking the questions.

As if on cue, she pulled her hand back and settled, adjusting her dress as she got comfortable in the chair. "So, Freddy, why don\'t you tell me something about yourself?"

"Wow, this is surreal," he said, unable to keep the smile off his face. He took a breath and asked her in turn. "Where do I start?"

"Just tell me your life story," she requested, showing a girly excitement to get things started.

He noticed that she didn\'t have any sort of notebook or recording device. "Do you… Do you need to write anything down?"

Rolling her eyes, she waved him off. "Honey, who do you think I am?"

"Oh, yeah, I\'m sorry…" He thought about it a bit and then got started. "My name is, as you know, Freddy Stern. I\'m, uh… I\'m twenty-one years old. I was abandoned at birth, and for the first nine years of my life, I grew up in an orphanage in the 26th district. I was then adopted by… well, a couple. They weren\'t the best people in the world, but they knew how to have fun.

"To me, they were never really parents but more like much older friends. They had a drug problem… among others. One day, at twelve years old, I woke up, and they were just gone. The landlord kicked me out after two weeks since I couldn\'t pay the rent, and I didn\'t want to go back to the orphanage, so I lived on the streets for a few days until I found a job. Eventually, I was hired at the warehouse and worked there until I turned seventeen, which was when I was moved to the cash register. I was employed there until recently, and then, when I became an arch, I was fired."

Having mostly been nodding along until this point, she switched gears. "Tell me, Freddy, in one word, how would you describe your social life?"

After a moment, he settled on a pretty good one. "Desolate."

"Oh?" she purred with a smile. "A lone wolf, I see? What about your work life?"

"One word again?" He checked.

"No, just tell me about it."

"Okay, uh." He paused as he thought for a moment. "I worked for twelve hours a day."

"And you did…?"

"Yeah, I… was the cashier, mostly, and the most interesting thing that ever really happened to me was encounters with annoying customers."

"All right, all right… And what about your free time?"

"Either chores or studying."

"Studying?" she intoned inquisitively. "Any specific fields?"

"Just general stuff. Didn\'t really go to school, so I had to do it all myself."

"Uh-huh." Then, with a cheeky grin, she popped a big question, "What about your sex life?"

"Yet to be born," he admitted jokingly.

That made her frown. "You\'re kidding?"

"What?" he asked, frowning in turn.

"Nothing, I just… Well, you know, I just thought that… You know what, never mind."

For some reason, those words vaguely offended him. What, did she think poor people went at it like animals?

She asked a few other questions, and no matter how hard she dug, all she kept hitting was stone. His life until now, other than his turbulent childhood, was fascinatingly uninteresting.

At some point, a small, floating disc hovered over their table, carrying their food. He was already too overwhelmed to be blown away by this, but the stuff the object carried most certainly roused his attention.

So this is what she meant… he thought with a shake of his head.

It was seafood. More specifically, it was an oyster found only in a specific passage realm. One was meant to eat them by poking a sharp needle through the small, hard-to-find opening, which killed them and caused the shell to open.

He had seen these on a cooking show recently, so he would be spared the embarrassment of not knowing how to consume them.

There was also a glass of deep brown liquid, likely whiskey, but given the nature of this place, it could be anything.

Madame was looking at him with a slight glint of glee in her eyes. Then, with a teasing smile, she grabbed a piece of the pizza in front of her and took a smug bite. How childish. But at least it fit with the persona she put up for the world to see.

It was naive, however. She had underestimated the power of spending one\'s life before a broadcasting crystal.

And not only did he know how to eat them, he also had plenty of experience eating crap far worse than this. So, with little hesitation, he stabbed the shiny needle into one of the shells—

—and almost dropped it.

A faint pulse of… something, almost akin to a wave of warm liquid, coursed through his body. It felt delightfully soothing, and he jolted at the unexpected stimulus.

The oyster squirmed, and the shell opened. Putting the weird sensation aside, he slurped it up. Although the texture was rather unpleasant, it tasted pretty damn good. A savory creaminess filled his mouth, and he raised his eyebrows in pleasant surprise.

The disappointment was readily visible in her expression. Doing his best not to smile in satisfaction, he ignored it, washing his meal with a gulp of the drink.

He just barely prevented himself from spitting it all over the table. This wasn\'t just strong; it was intense. A strong burning sensation spread through his mouth and throat, and tears rushed to his eyes. It was accompanied by a veritable flood of essence, drastically boosting the recovery of his minuscule reserves.

"How do you like the garewood spirit?" she asked, amusement back on her face.

"It is… good," he eked out. And he meant it, at least partially. It took some getting used to, but even as it was, he could understand why such a fancy place served the drink. It was far less bitter than the wine he drank the other day at Sharon\'s.

They continued their meal, and he could swear that he felt that same pulse with every stab. It wasn\'t long until a thought crossed his mind.

Don\'t tell me… Is that my talent activating? he wondered.

Against… oysters? That confirmed that it didn\'t apply to only "enemies," or, at least, that the meaning of "enemy" wasn\'t as specific as it could have been.

"Is everything all right?" she asked him, noticing that he was a little absent-minded.

"Oh!" He flinched. "Uh, yeah, I… I apologize."

They finished eating their meal, and the interview continued. She asked him to retell the entire story of how he encountered the passage, starting from wherever he thought it got interesting.

He began the story with how he finished his shift.

Madame listened to the entire thing, maintaining her professional composure and asking him questions as needed—until he shared that he killed a monster with a can of beans.

"Pfff!" She snorted. "You did what!? Are you lying to me?"

"I uh—" he tried, but—

"You know what, I don\'t even care if you\'ve made that up," she declared. "No offense, darling, but we\'ll have to make some stuff up anyway."

He continued the retelling, and nothing else piqued her interest, not even the fact that he manifested the vestige. She asked him what it did, and he rushed to explain that he traded it for another.

"Hmm… To keep things simple, we\'ll just say that you manifested that second one. And I believe that is all for the time being. Now!" she said as she pulled a paper from behind her and placed it before him. "I would like you to sign this contract."