Gun In Another World

"No matter what he offers, you don't shake his hand."

That was the only warning Darius gave before Kaito left the safehouse, dressed in black-trimmed merchant robes with a forged seal stitched on the inner lapel and three capsules of knockout vapor hidden in the silk folds near the wrist, Lilyeth walked beside him in healer's garb with Vault-blessed charms disguised as medicinal relics, her eyes scanning every noble crest that passed, her mouth quiet, her mind louder than the bells near the Silver Gate.

They were going to meet the buyer.

The one who'd been hunting Vault routes.

The one who sent mercenaries after the orphans.

The one who hired Church-trained thugs to collect fake relics like they were trading cards.

His name was Viscount Legrain, a mid-tier noble with no army, no banner claim, no heroic deeds in his record, but somehow his estate had tripled in value in the last season, his guest list included exiled alchemists and black-robed priests, and rumors whispered that he'd once purchased a cursed goblet just to watch someone else drink it.

Kaito hated nobles like that.

The ones who didn't want power to rule, but to collect.

He adjusted the ring on his finger as they reached the estate.

It wasn't real.

It was a forged Vault ring, engraved with a cracked prayer sigil meant to act as both identity mask and emergency trigger if the air went bad.

The guards at the gate looked like toy soldiers, stiff and overcompensating, one stepped forward, squinting.

"Name?"

"Kashel Varn," Kaito said smoothly, bowing just the right amount, "Of the Eastern Smelt Exchange."

The guard frowned.

"Never heard of—"

"He's expected," another voice cut in.

A man in red silk stepped out from the arch, eyes sharp, steps gentle, hands hidden in sleeves.

"I sent for him," the man said, bowing politely to the guard, "Don't embarrass our house."

The guard stepped aside without a word.

Kaito didn't smile.

He just walked forward, Lilyeth beside him, both of them entering a place that smelled like gold and lies, the hall was too wide for comfort, too quiet for truth, tapestries lined the walls with images of dragons bowing to men in suits, false history or delusion—either way, it was the kind of ego only money could afford.

"I am Velan," said the red-robed man, walking ahead of them, "Steward to Viscount Legrain. Please follow me to the meeting chamber. Tea has been prepared."

"No need," Kaito said softly, "We won't stay long."

Velan only smiled.

"As you wish."

They were led to a chamber shaped like a library but stocked with fake books—hollowed out spines and empty scroll cases, every shelf a prop, every title an inside joke, Kaito sat in the offered chair and immediately noted the pressure on the left armrest—poison dart mechanism, aimed at heart level, clever, but sloppy.

The Viscount entered wearing a coat that looked more expensive than most merchant homes.

He had a smile that didn't touch his eyes.

"Master Varn," he said, arms wide, "The infamous smuggler of whispers and blessed shards. I was beginning to think you didn't exist."

Kaito tilted his head.

"Some truths don't need to be loud."

"Indeed," the Viscount said, sitting across from him, "But profitable ones should at least knock before entering my market."

Lilyeth stayed silent behind Kaito, eyes on the Viscount's hands.

He hadn't touched anything since he walked in.

Which meant one of two things—either his sleeves hid his intentions, or the room itself did the work.

"I've seen your merchandise," Legrain said, "Those little bullets shaped like priest teeth, very dramatic, very marketable. I've had buyers from the Alabaster Coast offering weight in sapphires if I can provide more."

"You were never meant to see them," Kaito said calmly.

"Ah," the Viscount said, leaning back, "But that's the problem with miracles. They tend to slip out of temples."

He reached under the table and pulled out a case.

Inside were five counterfeit Vault bullets.

All fake.

All dangerous.

"These exploded before activation," he said, "Two couriers burned. One blind. One missing fingers. I was not pleased."

"I'm not your supplier," Kaito said, "You're paying fakers to play god. I'm here to offer the real thing—or to cut off your market completely."

Legrain stared at him.

Then laughed.

It was quiet.

Ugly.

He leaned forward.

"Then sell to me. Name your price. Cut out the street games. No orphans. No riddles. No sermons in the dirt. Work for me, and I'll make you rich enough to forget what it's like to bleed."

Kaito stared back.

Then slowly raised his hand.

Snapped his fingers.

The room shivered.

The charm embedded in his ring activated silently, releasing a low-pulse resonance that disrupted every listening charm in the walls, and for ten full seconds, they were alone.

"I don't want your gold," Kaito said softly, "I want your clients."

Legrain's smile twitched.

"I don't share."

"Then you lose everything," Kaito said, "Because by this time next week, my Vault runners will flood your estate with fake relics so real, you won't be able to tell truth from bait until someone opens the wrong box and calls down a Saint's curse on your ballroom."

Silence.

Then the Viscount's knuckles turned white.

"You're bluffing."

Lilyeth stepped forward.

Placed a sealed charm on the table.

"Open it."

Legrain stared.

Didn't move.

Kaito stood.

"Next time you send someone to follow our children, we'll send something back. It won't be a message."

The Viscount's jaw tightened.

"You think you can wage war from gutters and rooftops?"

Kaito turned his back.

Already walking.

"I don't need a war," he said, "I just need your fear to spread faster than your lies."

They left the room in silence.

Back in the street, Lilyeth finally exhaled.

"That was reckless."

"That was necessary."

"You think he'll bite?"

"I think he already did," Kaito said, eyes on the rooftops, "And now we just wait for the poison to kick in."

Kaito didn't go straight back to the Vault after leaving the Viscount's estate, instead he took the long way around, weaving through merchant alleys and broken garden paths behind the spice quarter, not because he was being followed, but because he needed time to think, not with his mind, but with his steps, every shift in shadow, every footfall on loose cobble, every whisper in the wind was a piece of a puzzle that didn't quite fit yet, he didn't trust the Viscount's silence, not after that offer, not after that look.

Lilyeth walked beside him without speaking, until they reached a backdoor market where children sold fake blessings and dying men paid real coin for hope in paper charms, she turned to him and asked what he already knew was coming.

"You're planning something."

He didn't deny it.

"We need to make the Viscount believe he's in control."

"You just threatened him in his own house."

"Exactly," Kaito said, eyes locked on a beggar holding a mirror shard to check his teeth for poison, "He'll want to prove we're small. That means he'll take action. And when he does, he'll show us what's behind the curtain."

"And what if he doesn't act?"

"He will."

Kaito stopped walking.

There was a charm token tucked between two bricks, Vault-etched, placed precisely, he plucked it without ceremony and read the burn marks along the edge, it was a message from Bean, three words only.

"Courier followed. Intercepted."

He clenched the token.

That wasn't part of the script.

Back at the safehouse, Darius was already sharpening a blade with a look that said he didn't need to hear anything to know something went wrong, Rook was pacing by the back wall muttering about mirror surveillance and broken trail patterns, and two of the new street kids were scribbling alternate exit routes for the next charm drop cycle, everyone moved like a machine, but something was off.

"Who's down?" Kaito asked, tossing the token on the table.

"Kid named Crick," Rook said, "Fourth-runner. Small, fast, reliable. He vanished after a drop two blocks from the copper foundry."

"Anyone check the location?"

"Lilyeth already sent Sticky and Patch. No trace. But there was blood on the old shrine's threshold."

Kaito turned to Darius.

"Think the Viscount made his move?"

Darius didn't stop sharpening.

"I think someone else did. And I think you'll like what comes next."

Kaito narrowed his eyes.

"Why?"

Darius stood, tossed the blade into a rag, and walked to the map on the wall, he tapped a spot two districts north of the blood trail, an old tea house Kaito recognized from one of the earliest Vault routes.

"He's not just buying relics," Darius said, "He's building a supply chain. The kind you only need when you're preparing to flood the market. Which means he doesn't want Vault product. He wants Vault replication."

Kaito stared at the spot.

"You think he has a forge?"

"I think he has something worse," Darius said, "An alchemist who thinks they can out-invent you."

Rook snorted.

"They'd need a memory of the original bullets. And no one's walked away with one of those intact."

"They don't need to," Kaito said quietly, "If they're studying Vault supply lines, they're watching how the effects manifest. What it does to Church patrols. How the relics interact with holy fields. They're reverse-engineering from behavior. That's dangerous."

Lilyeth stepped in from the back hall.

"We need to hit the tea house."

"Too obvious," Darius replied, "He'll expect it. And he's probably got Church blessing cover. That means if we strike, they can paint us as heretics instead of competitors."

Kaito's mind worked faster than his mouth.

He turned back to the table, pulled a new map, one from the oldest Vault staging zones.

"What about a false buyer?"

Lilyeth raised an eyebrow.

"You mean bait?"

"No," Kaito said, "A new market. A rival. Someone who's not Vault, but wants the same product. We send a runner to offer Legrain a deal for twice what he's asking. We leak it in a way that forces him to accelerate his schedule."

Rook caught on first.

"And then we follow his next shipment."

"Exactly," Kaito said, marking a route along the water ducts, "We don't stop it. We let it move. Watch where it lands. Watch who handles it. That gives us everything—names, locations, suppliers."

Darius nodded, eyes sharper than his blade.

"And then?"

Kaito turned to him.

"Then we tear the whole chain down."

The message drop was simple, a fake buyer from the Sandwind Coast offering tenfold value in sun-gold if Viscount Legrain could produce "ten functional relics" by the end of the week, Kaito made sure it looked desperate, urgent, and profitable—three things that nobles could never resist, the note was delivered by Patch, the smallest of the Vault runners, disguised as a dust courier with a limp and a speech stutter that vanished the second he left the manor steps.

Within an hour, Legrain took the bait.

Three runners reported heavy movement inside the tea house near the north canal—carriages rolled in under guard, barrels were unloaded, cloaked men left without speaking, and by sundown, a merchant caravan disguised as a textile shipment departed west, no markings, no flags, just a long line of horses and false silence.

Rook tracked the caravan through two alleyway mirrors while Kaito and Darius moved rooftop to rooftop behind them, not close enough to be seen, not far enough to lose detail, the pattern was clear—this was a major move, not a test shipment, not a bluff, the Viscount was all in.

"He's too fast," Darius muttered as they crouched on a ledge above the glassblower's tower, "No noble should be this ready. He's been planning."

Kaito nodded, watching the road.

"That means he's not working alone."

The caravan turned south at the broken bell fork, a route that passed directly through Guild-neutral territory, which meant no knight patrols, no merchant taxes, no interference from city officials—just silence, shadows, and hidden coin.

Kaito motioned once.

Two runners dropped from the far rooftop, Sticky and Rill, both trained in long tail follow, both good at vanishing between lamp posts and laundry lines, their job was to keep eyes on the tail and report only when the shipment stopped.

Back at the Vault, Lilyeth was already preparing a false seller ledger, crafting a full persona for their "rival" supplier with forged guild seals and imported paper that smelled like real coastal trade parchment, she knew the trick wasn't just baiting the fish—it was building a believable ocean.

By nightfall, Sticky's first report came through.

The caravan stopped at a warehouse near the old plague border.

Empty for years.

Cursed by rumor.

Now rented in cash.

No official records.

Perfect for a hidden forge.

Kaito called a halt to all new Vault drops for the next twenty-four hours.

No relics, no ammo, no movement.

He didn't want noise.

He wanted silence sharp enough to make the Viscount paranoid.

They struck just before dawn.

Kaito, Lilyeth, Darius, and two silent Vault shadows slipped through the drainage gate under the warehouse, the air smelled like burning salt and false incense, which meant alchemy, cheap masking agents, and holy field distortion tech, the kind used by heretic labs that copied miracles without understanding the risk.

Inside, the forge wasn't a forge—it was a replication lab.

Seven barrels lined the walls, each filled with silver-coated rounds etched in glyphs too clean to be real, too precise to hold power, each one looked perfect until you touched it, then the lie screamed into your skin like a truth that didn't fit.

In the center, a woman in priest robes held a bullet with tongs, her fingers covered in silver ash, her eyes glassy from alchemical feedback, she looked up as they entered.

Didn't scream.

Didn't run.

Just stared.

"You're not Church," she said.

"No," Kaito replied, stepping forward, "We're the thing that comes after the lie."

She dropped the bullet.

It cracked.

But didn't explode.

Darius moved before the pieces hit the floor.

The priestess was unconscious before her lips could finish the word "forgive."

They didn't kill her.

They didn't need to.

They took everything—blueprints, sample rounds, ledgers hidden under floor tiles, crates of shipping seals marked with noble names, and a mirror encoded with transaction logs signed by Legrain himself.

By the time the sun rose, the warehouse was burning.

Not from a bomb.

From a memory wipe.

Special Vault fire that ate only paper and ink, blessed with obfuscation glyphs, so anyone trying to investigate would find nothing but char and questions.

Kaito stood on the rooftop watching the smoke.

Lilyeth passed him a small case.

Inside—one of the fake bullets.

He held it up to the light.

Then dropped it into his pocket.

"You're keeping it?" she asked.

"No," he said, "I'm planting it."

She raised an eyebrow.

"In whose pocket?"

He turned his eyes toward the noble quarter.

Toward Legrain's estate.

Then further.

Toward the Church's east wing.

"I'll decide that tomorrow," Kaito said, "Right now, I want him to panic. I want him to think the Vault isn't angry."

"What then?"

"I want him to think we're disappointed."