CHAPTER 367: CHAPTER-367.

But no. They’d kept everything in their native languages. On purpose. So only people like them—people like ’her’—could read it.

When she’d seen the dust, she’d understood.

And she had to hand it to Cutie. With just a few quick words—God knows how she’d managed to condense her instructions—he’d pulled it off. The fake books looked identical. Of course, it helped that everything in the archive was covered in the same dull leather with plain, rough pages.

But the real victim here? Veer.

Paper wasn’t cheap in this world. Getting this much—eight full books’ worth—must’ve cost him. From the look of it, he’d probably used up every scrap of blank paper he’d been saving for years.

Kaya glanced at him, guilt flickering for half a second.

Then she shrugged it off. He’d agreed to help. And besides, these books might save her life.

Kaya didn’t bother checking the books right then. She passed the bag back to Veer, who snapped his fingers. A vulture landed beside him within seconds, like it had been waiting just out of sight.

"To the usual place," Veer said, handing the bag over.

This time, the "usual place" wasn’t the hotel. It was the Vulture tribe.

As the vulture took off, four more identical ones rose into the air—each carrying bags that looked exactly the same, all flying in different directions. North, south, east, west.

Kaya watched them scatter across the sky, her eyes tracking their movements until they disappeared into the clouds. Smart. Really smart. Even though she was pretty sure no one had followed them, she didn’t want to gamble on it. Not with her life. The decoys would make it impossible to guess which vulture carried the real bag. And if someone tried to track them all down? By the time they caught even one, the others would be long gone.

Veer was thorough when it came to this kind of thing. She had to give him that.

That same day, Kaya decided it was time to wrap everything up.

Veer’s father was leaving today too. Once he was gone, the thin safety net they’d been operating under would disappear completely. And honestly? Kaya had no idea how much longer her scent disguise would hold. Beastmen had insanely strong noses. One wrong breeze, one moment where the perfume wore off, and she’d be done.

She needed to finish everything today—gather whatever information she could, tie up loose ends, and then get the hell out of this place.

’Damn it.’ She really wanted to stay. Wanted to hunt down that bastard herself, make him pay for what he’d done. But there was that old saying her instructor had drilled into her back in training: ’If you want to catch prey, sometimes you need to step back before you lunge forward.’

Fine. She’d retreat. For now.

But she wasn’t running away. She was regrouping. And when she came back, she’d come back prepared.

Before night fell, she had to finish whatever she needed to do in the capital.

Shopping? Already done. She’d bought a ton—cloth, tools, medicine, spices, anything useful. Most of it had already been sent to the Vulture tribe. No problem there. After this, she planned to head to the Mermaid tribe and stock up on as much salt as she could carry. Salt was valuable. Tradeable. And in a world without refrigeration, it was a lifeline.

But first, she needed to see if there was anything else useful here. The archive couldn’t be the only place worth checking, right?

As they walked through the streets, Kaya glanced at Veer. "So, the broker. Did you find him?"

Veer shook his head, his expression neutral. "I heard he died."

Kaya stopped mid-step. "What?"

"Last night," Veer said, glancing at her. "Someone found a snake beastman’s body. In a back alley near the market district."

Kaya frowned. "And you think that’s the broker?"

Veer paused, his jaw tightening slightly. "He had the same scar. The one I left on him the last time he escaped."

"Oh." Kaya nodded slowly. "That so."

She wasn’t shocked. Not really. In this kind of work, this was normal. Expected, even. Criminals killed their own people to keep them from talking. Dead men didn’t snitch. The moment the broker became more of a liability than an asset, his time was up.

She’d already assumed something like this might’ve happened. After the broker disappeared, she hadn’t found any contacts, any loose threads she could pull. In her head, he’d been "probably dead" for a while now.

And even now, it wasn’t certain that snake beastman ’was’ the broker. But if Veer said so, she believed him. And even if he was wrong—what could she do about it? The body was already cold. The trail was dead.

Her face was already circulating anyway. Sketches, descriptions, rumors—her image was out there, passed from hand to hand like currency. She had to leave.

Kaya felt the irritation simmering beneath her skin, hot and familiar. ’What the hell is wrong with this world?’

In her old world, yeah, people wanted her dead. Plenty of them. But at least there was some sense of normalcy. Some rules. People didn’t just come at you in broad daylight like it was casual weekend activity. And if they did, they used guns, knives, poison—something that made sense. Something she could anticipate.

Here? They just transformed into massive beast forms and lunged like rabid animals. No warning. No rules. Just claws and teeth and chaos.

Her knife wasn’t helping either. It was getting dull, the edge worn down from overuse. She could barely feel it bite into anything anymore. Now she had to press hard, really lean into it, just to cut through meat or fabric. And if she had to fight? Forget it. A dull knife was more dangerous to her than to anyone else.

Kaya looked at Veer. "Let’s go buy some metal weapons."

Veer looked at her like she’d suggested buying a small kingdom. "You know metal weapons are expensive, right?"

Kaya blinked, then squinted at him. "Wait. Weren’t you supposed to be rich?"