Chapter : 869
But she did not. Her kindness was as stubborn and as persistent as a weed growing through a crack in a fortress wall.
“I saw you sitting here, all alone,” she continued, her voice soft and full of a genuine, maternal concern. “You still look so sad. This is… this is not a good place for a gentle soul. All this shouting, all this anger… it cannot be good for the spirit.”
She looked out at the arena, at the clashing, fiery forms of the two demons, and a look of profound, simple sorrow crossed her face. “I do not understand why people enjoy such things. It is all just… pain.”
She then looked back at him, a small, determined smile on her lips. “I cannot take you away from here. But I can offer you a small moment of sweetness in all this bitterness.”
She unwrapped the small, cloth bundle she was carrying. Inside were a half-dozen sweet, golden-brown dates, their skins glistening with a light coating of sugar. They were a small, simple, and perfect treasure.
“Here,” she said. She took a small, leather pouch from a pocket in her dress, poured the dates into it, and gently, firmly, pressed the pouch into his limp, unresisting hand. “Something to sweeten the day. A small kindness can sometimes be the strongest shield against a harsh world.”
Ken’s mind was now a battlefield of its own. One part of him, the professional, was screaming. She is a distraction! A security risk! Her presence compromises the mission! Remove her! The other, newer, and far more confusing part of him was simply… silent. It was a pocket of stillness in his own internal storm, a quiet, awestruck observer of this impossible, illogical, and profoundly beautiful act of grace.
“You… who are you?” The question escaped his lips before he could stop it. The voice was not his own. It was the rough, hoarse, and unused voice of the beggar, a perfect piece of his disguise, but the question itself was a catastrophic breach of his protocol. He was not supposed to speak. He was not supposed to engage. He had just made a mistake.
Habiba’s kind face lit up with a genuine, beautiful smile. She was not surprised or frightened by his sudden, raspy question. She was delighted. The broken man was not entirely broken. There was someone still inside.
“My name is Habiba,” she said, her voice warm and open. She then hesitated for a moment, as if deciding whether to share a secret. “You ask why I do this? It is simple. My mistress taught me that kindness costs nothing, but its value is immeasurable. She said it is the one, true currency of the soul.”
She gave a small, almost apologetic curtsy. “I must return to her now. She will be waiting for me.” She then gestured with her head towards the high, exclusive, and heavily guarded Royal Box.
“Princess Amina,” she said, her voice a mixture of profound respect and a deep, genuine affection, “does not like to be kept waiting for long.”
And then, with a final, warm smile, she was gone, disappearing back into the anonymous, roaring sea of the crowd.
Ken did not watch her go. He was frozen. His mind, the most sophisticated, disciplined, and formidable intelligence-gathering instrument in the entire duchy, had just come to a complete and total halt.
The name. Princess Amina.
It was not a piece of data. It was a lightning strike. It was a key, a master-key, that had just been dropped into his lap, a key that unlocked a dozen different, previously sealed doors in his own, ongoing investigation.
The kind, simple, and utterly insignificant baker’s daughter was not just a baker’s daughter. She was a personal attendant, a trusted servant, a member of the Princess’s own inner circle.
This meant that the Princess, the brilliant, enigmatic, and politically powerful heir to the throne, was a woman who actively encouraged, and likely rewarded, acts of selfless compassion among her staff. It meant that her public persona as a patron of the gentle arts was not a lie; it was a fundamental part of her character. It meant that this Habiba, this source of his own profound, personal confusion, was now a direct, unimpeachable, and completely unwitting intelligence asset with a direct line to the very heart of the royal family.
The honey-cake, the dates, the kind words—they were no longer just random acts of grace. They were now pieces of a much larger, and far more significant, puzzle.
The sweet, unexpected kindness of a stranger had just become a matter of state security. And the hunter in the crowd had just been given the one, single piece of information he needed to understand the true, hidden heart of the city he had been sent to conquer.
---
The revelation was a quiet, internal explosion. Ken’s mind, which had been momentarily derailed by the profound, personal shock of Habiba’s kindness, now snapped back into its default state of cold, ruthless, and high-level analysis. The unsettling warmth of the human connection was ruthlessly suppressed, the data point extracted, and the emotional response filed away for a later, and likely never-to-arrive, moment of personal reflection.
The mission was paramount. And the mission had just been given a new, and incredibly valuable, variable.
Asset identified: Habiba, baker’s daughter, personal attendant to Princess Amina, his mind recorded, the thoughts as neat and as precise as the script in one of his intelligence ledgers. Profile: compassionate, non-hostile, naive to the great game. Possesses a high level of unconditional trust in her mistress. Potential application: Level-one intelligence source (unwitting), future diplomatic conduit, or, if necessary, point of leverage against the Princess herself.
The cold, brutal calculus of his profession was a comforting, familiar thing. He was back on solid ground. The world was once again a simple, understandable chessboard of assets and threats.
He looked at the small, leather pouch of dates in his hand. It was no longer a simple gift. It was now a tool, an opening, the first move in a new, and very subtle, game of establishing a rapport with a valuable source. He carefully tucked the pouch away, a piece of evidence to be used at a later, more opportune moment.
His gaze then returned to the Royal Box, but he was no longer just observing the Princess. He was now seeing her through a new, more detailed, and more dangerous lens. She was no longer just a high-level political figure, a potential obstacle or ally for his master. She was now a person, a person with a known and exploitable character trait: a genuine, and therefore predictable, inclination towards kindness and compassion.
In his world, in the world of espionage and assassination, a virtue was just a different, more elegant, and more easily manipulated kind of weakness.
He allowed a small, almost imperceptible, and utterly humorless smile to touch his lips, hidden behind the grime and the unkempt hair of his disguise. The Sultan had his Whisper. But his own master, Lord Lloyd Ferrum, had a Shadow. And the shadow was beginning to understand the true, hidden architecture of this city’s power.
The roar of the crowd, which had been a dull, meaningless background noise, suddenly intensified, a great, crashing wave of sound that snapped his attention back to the arena floor. He looked, and he saw that the tide of the battle had turned.
The magnificent, heroic, and desperate dance of the two fire demons was nearing its end. The challenger’s spirit, Ifrit, which had fought with such surprising, disciplined skill, was now faltering. Its movements were slower, its parries more desperate. The dark, obsidian-like plates of its armor were cracked and spider-webbed, glowing with a dull, angry red from the internal damage. The roaring flame on its greatsword was a sputtering, guttering thing.
The Jahl, in stark contrast, seemed to have grown even more powerful, feeding on the challenger’s weakening resistance. It pressed its attack relentlessly, its massive, molten claws and fiery breath a constant, overwhelming storm of destruction. It was no longer fighting a rival; it was a cat, and it was toying with a wounded, exhausted mouse.
Ken watched the inevitable conclusion unfold with a professional, dispassionate eye. He knew, of course, that this was all part of his master’s grand, theatrical plan. This was Act Two: The Reversal. The moment where hope is extinguished, where the hero is brought to his knees, designed to make the final, miraculous victory all the more spectacular.
He admired the artistry of it, the perfect, meticulous execution of the narrative. His master was not just a warrior; he was a master storyteller, and his medium was blood, and fire, and the fickle, hungry heart of the crowd.