Sewer Paparazzi
"My number one employee here knows a surefire lifeline that'll blast open your boss's clogged business pipeline."
"Oh ho. And who might that be?"
"I can tell you, sure. But..."
Ayla haughtily tilted her chin up, her gleaming eyes slithering greedily over the makeshift kitchen behind me.
"Information comes with a fair price. For breakfast this morning: four thick slices of spam! Fried rice loaded with mozzarella cheese! Two runny fried eggs! And... throw in one of those black holy water cans from yesterday!"
The duke's lady rattled off her shameless demands without so much as a breath. With cola stains still on her lips, she grinned wickedly—a perfect slave to well-trained capitalism.
I let out a hollow chuckle.
"Deal. If the intel's solid, I'll throw in sausage veggie stir-fry for dinner too."
"S-sa-sausage...? No idea what it is, but that name's got appeal. Gulp."
Ayla swallowed hard with an audible smack, clenching her fist and leaning her upper body across the table. Her eyes sparkled with madness.
"Listen up, boss! To set up your ghost company and dodge taxes perfectly, you need to borrow the name tag of the one group in the empire with tax-exempt privileges. That's the 'Sun God Church's' authorization document."
"The church? You think those lunatics are gonna hand me an authorization?"
"Not through normal channels, no. But Bishop Benedict, who oversees the cathedral's finances. If you grab that rotten trash's leash and yank it, things change. On the surface, he plays the saint washing the feet of the poor, but behind the scenes, he's the con artist of the century—turning nobles' slush funds into the church's 'anonymous donations' for tax exemptions and skimming 20% off the top."
"Classic religious money-laundering broker. What's his weakness?"
"He's got a massive hoard of gold bars and double ledgers stashed in a secret underground chamber in the capital's cathedral. If we find that double ledger?"
A perfect simulation ran through my head. Blackmail the greedy bishop into registering our paper company as a 'church-affiliated holy relic procurement firm.' 70% imperial taxes gone forever, and even the World's Compulsion Force couldn't touch it—a flawless, legal shield.
Ayla nodded at my words.
"Bingo! Fire up that spam now!"
Ayla crowed triumphantly, but I shot up from my seat.
"Spam later. We're raiding that monk's secret vault now."
"...No can do. There's a problem."
Ayla, who had been all fired up, suddenly crossed her arms and shook her head.
"It's that 7th Circle holy barrier enveloping the entire cathedral, 'Aegis of the Sun.' That barrier's an ultra-precise radar detecting unauthorized 'mana,' 'aura,' and even the tiniest 'killing intent.' One ant with impure motives, and it flashes like lightning—heresy inquisitors swarm in. No matter how strong your weapons, you think you can handle that?"
I pondered for a second, then smirked and dragged over a bundle of parchment from the control room corner.
"Ayla. You fancy high-and-mighty mages always paint your barriers looking at the sky and walls."
I spread out the [Imperial Capital Underground Sewage and Ancient Bunker Blueprints] I'd bought from the system across the table, circling the central cathedral's position with a red pen.
"But the crap they flush doesn't care about barriers—it flows down these drainpipes to the bottom. No matter how thorough the mage, they didn't stuff holy mana into the stinking sewer pipes, right?"
"...!"
Ayla's eyes went wide.
"The 'drainpipe' opening at the building's base is a perfect blind spot in the barrier. A cable with zero mana signature reverse-climbing this? The Aegis of the Sun won't detect shit. Let's go, employee number one. Time to peek at the cathedral's rotten underbelly."
Two hours later. Directly beneath the Imperial Central Cathedral—Sun God Cathedral, Zone 17 sewer uppermost pipe passage.
Despite the emperor's lockdown order, we'd found another backdoor like the vent last time and were cruising the sewers freely. They knew jack about the sewer layout. Basically a blockade in our favor only.
"Urk... Bleeech!"
In knee-deep black sludge, Ayla clutched the wall, dry-heaving nonstop.
"I-I can't take it! Why do I have to crawl through this shithole sniffing someone else's crap?!"
"Quiet. The cathedral's underground chamber is right above."
I ignored her whining and eyed the rusted drainpipe shooting straight up to the ceiling. Per the blueprints, this pipe connected directly to a vent-cum-drain in the corner of Bishop Benedict's secret vault.
"Alright, time to send in the scout."
I summoned the system shop in midair.
Purchase completed.
Clunk. A sturdy hard case dropped from thin air, containing a portable high-res monitor and a thick, 10-meter snake-like cable. At the cable's tip, a micro LED lamp and high-performance lens gleamed.
"Eek! What's that black snake with the eye?!"
"A modern wand to pierce mage arrogance from the bottom up."
I powered on the monitor and carefully fed the cable tip into the drainpipe gap in the ceiling. Shhh. Tense control to avoid any noise leaking out. In the cramped, filthy sewer heart, violating the holy cathedral's barrier with cutting-edge tech—the bizarre contrast sent thrills down my spine.
"Boss... light on the screen!"
Ayla whispered urgently, holding her breath.
The lens snaked past the pipe's curve and peeked through the metal grille gap above. The room, lit by faint mana stone lamps, filled the monitor in crisp full HD.
"Oh my god..."
Ayla clamped both hands over her mouth.
The sight beyond the screen was unbelievable for a cleric's room. On a massive marble table, dazzling gold bars piled like a mountain. A bloated man in bursting high-end priest robes stroked them with a drooling greedy smile. Bishop Benedict.
He hummed a tune, scribbling furiously into a thick black leather ledger.
"That bastard...! That's the nobles' slush fund laundering ledger! Last year, when famine hit our duchy hard, they refused aid saying church funds were short—and he had this gold stashed underground?!"
Ayla's furious voice echoed off the sewer walls. I fine-tuned the lens angle, zooming crystal-clear on the bishop's greedy mug and the ledger's script.
"Bingo. Target confirmed."
"Boss, take this footage to the imperial audit bureau now! Get that filthy face on the guillotine!"
"Calm down, employee number one. Head not spinning right? Who said anything about reporting?"
I twisted my lip in a villainous smirk and reopened the system shop. No way in hell was I handing this golden goose to the imperial auditors.
Purchase completed.
A hefty, boxy instant camera landed in my hand.
"What's that square box?"
"A miracle box that bakes reality onto paper in one second flat."
"Bakes a picture? So you're turning that into evidence for the auditors?"
"Nah. Blackmail first, stab later. 'Stamp my merchant guild license, or these pics go up as flyers all over the capital.'"
I pressed the Polaroid lens right up to the endoscope monitor showing Bishop Benedict's face and the slush fund ledger. Through the viewfinder, I locked on his disgusting mug kissing a gold bar and grinned.
"Alright then."
I hooked my index finger on the shutter like a trigger.
"Time to snap that greedy pig bastard's soul."
Click!Whirr.
With a clunky mechanical whir, a white square photo slid out the bottom slot like a tongue.
"...That's it? Nothing happened."
Ayla, peeking over my shoulder, deflated like steam leaking out. A blank white sheet from the black iron box—who could blame her?
I peeled off the paper without a word and shook it lightly.
"True terror always takes shape slowly."
Moments later, colors bled onto the blank white like spreading blood—Polaroid's chemical reaction developing the image. Soon, Bishop Benedict's face, mid-kiss on the gold bar, was etched in perfect full color. Even the luxurious leather texture of the slush fund ledger crushed under his elbow was spine-chillingly vivid.
"Eeeeeek—!!"
Ayla yelped and jumped back two steps. Her silver hair stood on end.
"B-boss! Are you really the demon king?! That's the legendary 'Soul-Stealing Curse'! Ancient black magic that rips out a person's soul and traps it in a square prison!"
Her earlier bravado as employee number one vanished; she clutched my clothes, trembling like a leaf.