CHAPTER 92: CLIP (2)

Lucen muttered, "I thought you said the city erases footpath logs under D-class priority."

"They do. But you started blowing past that when you survived a solo Tier-3 and walked out without help."

Lucen flicked water off his hands. "Zey said she wouldn’t post it."

"She didn’t," Gen said. "Her algorithm did. Auto-upload to her own backup cloud. Her followers grabbed it. One reposted it with the title, ’This C-ranker isn’t C and here’s why he’s terrifying.’ It’s got thirty thousand views already."

Lucen closed his eyes.

Breathed deep.

"Can you bury it?"

"I can slow it down," Gen replied. "Already pinged some null-bots to backdate the footage and make it look older than it is. Half the reposts will think it’s from a month ago and lose interest."

Lucen waited.

Gen continued, casually: "Still won’t help if people start showing up."

Lucen’s voice was calm.

"Recruiters?"

"Maybe. Maybe challengers. Maybe people looking for the kid who punked Halren and vanished after flashing a not-quite-legal sigil trail."

Lucen’s tone dipped cold. "Anyone dangerous?"

"Not yet," Gen said. "But you’re on the edge. Drift culture loves underdogs. But it loves tearing them down more."

Lucen picked up a mana bar from the counter and unwrapped it without tasting it.

Then asked, "What do I do?"

Gen’s voice dropped.

"You keep your head down. You finish what you’re building. And when the heat dies down..."

A pause.

"...you show up somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. And you win louder."

Lucen chewed.

Swallowed.

Then said, "You got anything in mind?"

"Oh yeah," Gen said, easy again. "I’ll send you an invite. Private draft match. No cameras. Just bets. Good place to test that spell I know you finished last night."

Lucen didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

Gen added, quieter now, "You’re doing good, kid. Just don’t let the buzz catch up faster than your trigger finger."

The line went dead.

Lucen stood alone in his apartment, chewing slowly, half-listening to the buzz of morning traffic seven floors down.

He walked to the window.

Pulled the curtain back just enough.

Below, people moved like they always did.

Normal.

Unaware.

But he wasn’t normal anymore.

Not really.

And soon?

Neither were the things coming for him.

—

Lucen sat at the edge of the kitchen counter, phone cradled to one ear, elbow resting on his knee. The sunlight bleeding through the half-closed blinds looked fake, too soft, too clean for the mood crawling up the back of his neck.

The line rang once.

Then again.

Connected.

No greeting.

Just Varik’s voice, flat and alert, like he was already expecting the call.

"What happened?"

Lucen didn’t waste time.

"A clip of me. Public. It’s moving."

Pause.

Varik didn’t reply right away.

Lucen continued, "Crowd footage. From yesterday. Halren, an A ranker. Some influencer girl posted it. It flared."

"Who else knows?" Varik asked.

"A friend. Already flagged it. Slowed the spread, maybe. Not enough."

Another pause. Then, calmly: "And you want me to erase it?"

Lucen stood, walked slowly across the apartment, toes brushing against cold tile.

"If you can."

"I can," Varik said. "But I won’t."

Lucen stopped.

"You want to repeat that?"

Varik’s voice didn’t rise. "You’re already marked, Lucen. Taking down the footage only confirms you’re hiding something. Better to let it blend into the cycle. A hundred videos go viral a day. They burn out faster than drift zones."

Lucen stayed silent.

Varik added, "Unless you want to go underground permanently. Lose all public profile. No more guild passes. No drift certs. No jobs."

Lucen exhaled. "You’re saying let it rot."

"I’m saying let it dilute."

Lucen walked to the fridge, opened it, didn’t grab anything.

"So that’s it? Ignore it?"

"Not ignore," Varik said. "Control the next one. Feed them what you want seen. Noise only works if it’s louder than the truth."

Lucen leaned back against the counter, head tilted up.

"She caught Thread Flare."

"Not clean," Varik replied. "It was raw. You didn’t cast. You just leaked. The system buried your true rank. It still works."

"She’s asking questions."

"Then give her answers that waste her time."

Lucen muttered, "I hate public."

"I know," Varik said. "But the moment you touched a drift core, you stopped being private."

Lucen clicked his tongue. "You have a solution?"

"Yeah," Varik said. "Let the world see you as a reckless support mage with weird habits and bad posture. It’s believable."

Lucen snorted once.

"Funny."

"It’s not a joke," Varik said. "It’s your cover."

A quiet hum on the line. No static. Just air.

Then, Varik added, "You built three spells last night."

Lucen didn’t ask how he knew.

"You’re ready for escalation," Varik said. "Use it."

Lucen didn’t respond.

He just stood there in his kitchen, sunlight crawling across the tile like it didn’t care that the world was changing under his feet.

Then he said, "If another clip shows up—"

"I’ll handle it," Varik said. "But only if you stop acting like a ghost who’s afraid of mirrors."

Lucen hung up without saying goodbye.

Then stood still for a long time.

Thinking.

Planning.

Not how to hide.

But how to step into the open just enough to choose what people saw.

—

The entrance wasn’t marked.

Gen’s directions had been simple: west corridor, lower transport grid, second maintenance access near the coolant exchange pipes. No signs. No guards. Just a rusted hatch that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the city was built.

Lucen found it exactly where he said it would be.

He pressed his palm to the side panel, no system ping, no gate ID, and the hatch slid open with a long, wet hiss like a spellcore giving up the ghost.

The air inside was cooler. Older.

Not recycled air, not purified drift flow.

Just cold.

Lucen stepped through, boots echoing once as he descended a short ramp. At the bottom: steel hallway, half-lit with red lamps sunk into the ceiling like dying embers. No pathing lights. No info glyphs.

Just a painted arrow on the wall, black over gray. It read:

"Match Floor B3"

Lucen kept walking.

He passed a girl sharpening two short blades over her knee without looking up. A man muttering to himself in an empty booth, hand twitching like he was casting silent sigils. Another leaning against the wall with a neck tattoo that was either a mana map or a burn.

No one looked at Lucen.

But a few saw him.

They just didn’t act like it.

He reached the arena level and heard voices. The sound didn’t bounce. The walls here were built for damage, not acoustics.