He didn’t find her in the underworld tunnels. Instead, she was crouching behind the second corner of the sewers above, poised to attack. Without the ability to see through walls, he would have never found her.

“I know you’re there Moon. I can see you behind the corner.”

She didn’t move a muscle. Her heartbeat slowed down.

“I’m not trying to harm you. If you want, you’re free to go.”

She didn’t budge. “Why? Why did the gangs kidnap me?”

“We didn’t. It was the hobgoblins doing that. We just wanted the Device that the Infinite Harem gave you and we already took it so…” As he spoke, Corn was moving away from the man hole.

She swore quite colorfully for a sixteen year old.

“Then why am I here?”

“Err, the Guard and hobgoblins were colluding. They wanted to steel your Freedom counters when you received them. Why the Abyss would they target you?” Corn had moved quite a distance away from the exit.

Moon bolted. Not towards the exit, but towards Corn.

She feigned a right hook and swept wildly with her left hand. Corn stepped aside for the first blow but the second one connected with his chin.

He shrugged it off, but she wasn’t done. She attacked with a barrage of jabs. Each of them would have hurt the ordinary person but they ensured she didn’t over extend.

Corn kept rushing backwards. Not that he had a choice, sewage flowed on one side and the wall held on the other.

He didn’t want to hurt her. Not only did she not have any Stats but also he felt a pang of sympathy for her.

Moon followed, maintaining her distance. Her jabs were followed by a few knees to his groin. Corn tried but failed to catch her leg.

Seeing him steadily moving backwards, she swept her right leg at his face. This time he caught her leg.

But it was a trap. Before he could attack, she fluidly somersaulted over his left arm and twisted his arm behind him.

Ok this was getting annoying.

He hunched backward and pushed her back into the sewage. This time, she deftly let go of his arm and stepped to the side.

Corn felt his momentum carry him to the sewage. He flung his arms outward in an attempt to regain his balance. Moon used the moment to drive a leg straight into his solar plexus, pushing him in.

This was incredibly embarrassing.

By no measure was Corn an expert fighter. Whatever memories he had before sixteen had left him with a Standard literacy and a few other skills. Being a half way decent brawler was one of them. But most of his recent fighting involved him having no Stats or bluffing his way using his status as mage.

Being so thoroughly outclassed had convinced him how much he had overestimated his skill.

The watery dilute, sludge was only knee high so he flipped back on his legs. Moon had already swung a leg at his temple and Corn let it connect. He simultaneously shot a simple ice blade towards her core.

Both of them were pushed backwards, but Corn was up on his feet first. Seconds later, Moon stood up, clutching the ice blade in her stomach.

As brilliant a fighter as she was, it was clear she had no idea how to use her immortality.

Corn spat out sludge and said, “Don’t. Fuck. Around. I was trying to help. I think it is best I leave now.”

She fell on her knees. Watching Corn leave she shouted, “Wait! I know why they’re targeting me. Help me reach my Clan and I’ll tell you.”

Corn stood still for a moment, thinking. He had saved the girl, he didn’t have to do more. But there was still a conspiracy afoot. Some organisation was amassing Freedom counters and throwing hundreds of people into slavery.

He could ignore the conspiracy, he couldn’t give a rat’s hairy ass about that. However, he couldn’t ignore the fact that people were being turned into slaves. That they would suffer as he and many others had. That they would…

No! He silenced that thought. He had to help them. He had to find out more.

Corn nodded. Then, he reached forward and pulled out the ice blade. The edges of the thin eight inch slice of ice had already melted. But leaving it around would prevent her from fully healing.

She fell to the ground, writhing. Blood pooled around her.

But she was immortal; her wounds would regenerate better than any healer could ever heal them. So Corn walked off to a corner and stripped off his armour.

He washed it out the sludge with water mana as best as he could, almost emptying out his mana reserves. He didn’t have much of a sense of disgust left but other people could be very sensitive to smell. Afterwards, he stuffed the remaining daggers into his mouth.

He sighed in bliss, he hadn’t had anything to eat since the battle.

Once he was done, he waited by Moon.

“It’s healed.” In his third vision, it was clear that the flesh and internal organs were back to normal.

She shook her head and grunted.

“It’s phantom pain. The pain will linger for a while,” he said, but he still waited.

It took another hour before she started moving. They decided the first place to check was the mercenary company office, then Moon’s actual house. It took some arguing to convince her to use the underground tunnels.

“You registered me to the Underworld system! Everyone will know me as a criminal,” she grit her teeth.

Corn wasn’t sure how systems worked. Everyone in his gang was registered to both. As far as he knew none of them were declared criminals by using the green Screens. At the same time, his own paranoia and the threat of slavery prevented him from using them. So all he could do was shrug and watch her seethe.

They travelled the tunnels with Corn in the front and Moon in the back. The company office was empty, except for a few Guards. The two of them inspected it in their own ways: peeking through windows, trailing the building and finally monitoring the people entering the office for a time.

But Moon assured him the office was a formality and unlikely to be a hiding spot. So they headed to her residence. That’s where she betrayed him.

It was a series of apartment complexes hedged around a park. The park served as an open training hall and was bustling with people. Though there were more Guards here, they were drowned by the shouts, yells and laughter around every corner.

The two of them snuck in much more easily. As far as Corn could tell, the apartments for the Lily’s were empty.

Then Moon walked up to a guard and removed her hood. The guard who saw it started tapping their mini Screens to report it in. In seconds, projectiles raced over to that guard and a barrier sprung up lifting Moon in the air.

Shots rang as guard went against guard. Corn sighed and shot a circled ice blade at the barrier lifting up Moon. It shattered and Moon raced over to the man hole they came from.

Corn followed, covering her retreat. He shattered any barrier that the guard projected and dodged most of the projectiles.

A few minutes later, they were both in Underworld tunnels. Corn was slightly bruised with a few surface cuts and Moon was lying on the ground.

“I’m sorry… I had to check … to make sure,” she apologized in gasps.

Corn said nothing.

Most of her wounds healed and she finally recovered her breath.

“There’s nowhere else to check,” she said.

“Why were the apartment complexes completely empty? There were no kids at all.”

“It’s our new security protocol. When the Clan goes to battle they take all the kids with them. Since most of the kids are immortal, it’s safer that way. But they should be back by now. Where else would they have gone?”

“So that’s why you had bodyguards with you.” The gangs had probably investigated this but all that information did not pass down to Corn.

“I had no choice. It’s why they’re after me.”

Corn nodded encouragingly, as if urging her to go on.

She gulped and spoke softly, “My dad, um I mean my clan was going to become a Knight House. But before they could do that they had to become a Knight Clan.”

He interrupted her, “Your whole clan was ascending?” The sheer number of Freedom counters required would be mind boggling.

“No, not quite like that. You know there are six ranks. The first two are slaves, the next is just normal people (like you and me), the two after that are nobility and the last is just being a Player. But while Program and Servant are technically nobility, Servant is true nobility while Program is nobility in waiting.

To become a noble house, the head of a family has to become a Program and then a Servant.”

“Woah, hang on, hang on. Let me write this down somewhere.”

She scoffed at him, “Just use the System search engine.”

And she continued, “My dad became a Program and that meant he was a free target to a lot of the nobility proper. My family faced a lot of death threats and they even stopped a couple of assassination attempts. So when the Infinite Harem invited me to be an initiate in their Outer Harem, it was perfect.

I would technically be in a pantheon, under the protection of millions of deities. Since I was in the Outer Harem, I could leave any time. I just couldn’t marry anyone while I was still there. But it was all a trap to get my Freedom counters.”

“So the nobility is behind this conspiracy?”

“Some of them have to be. Think of how many Freedom counters were stolen. Those things are incredibly valuable. If it was just hobgoblins filching the stuff, then somebody must have found it. The bastards have to be powerful to use anti-divination strong enough to stop the Players, diviners and monks from finding out.”

Corn placed a hand on his neck. He was feeling a bit out of his league.

From the conversation, he gleaned that the kidnapping was essentially noble politics enmeshed within the greater conspiracy.

Next, he grilled her about any friends or teachers that might know where her Clan was. Other than some Clan that was disbanded when she was a kid, there was no one else. Clans tended to be very insular.

That meant he had to dip in his pool of acquaintances to find out. The first place they went was Purple Hearts. The brothel was swarming with the Guard. Every entrance and secret exit was covered. His captured gang members must have given away their location.

The two of them hung around in the tunnels waiting for a gang member to pop out, until Corn decided to go looking for Line.

That too was a dead end. The construction company they were working at did not the whereabouts of either Line or any of the other freed slaves.

Since he wasn’t friendly with members from any other gangs that left Knot. He’d avoided Line because he didn’t want to reveal his deceit of the System. But despite owing Knot a favour for his help, he had no intention to have his feelings shaped and manipulated against his will. A talisman of the Heart was still way too expensive for him.

But there was no one else he knew that would help.

That’s how he found himself at a shop with a large sign proclaiming ‘Cakes & Swords’. The walls had cozy wooden panels and plush, soft carpeting covered the floor. The vast expanse was covered with glass cabinets showcasing various mana made weapons and several separate sections for confectionary. The whole shop was a stark contrast to the dusty, utilitarianism of the industrial section it was in.

Two people were arguing at the counter. It was hard to translate the bloated proportions and the burst of mana threads and energy into a facial structure that he recognised with sight.

Knot was the one with floating swirls of Charisma all over him.

“Fuck no!” said the other. His body was densely flecked with chunks of core and a strangely a sphere of Vitality right next to his navel.

However, the beard and voice gave him away. It was Line. How did he end up here?

“A customer! All are products are bespoke items of the highest quality. How can we help you, good sir?” gushed Knot.

Corn pointed at Line, “I want to speak with him, alone.”

“Fuck me! It’s you Corn. I thought you were dead or worse. What happened?”

“I’ll explain later. But, first there’s something more important.” Corn explained the situation with Moon, the hobgoblins chasing after her and the whole conspiracy involving Freedom counters.

“Ahhh,” groaned Line, “after all the instruction I gave you, you went ahead and became a crazie. Damn Corn! ”

Knot was calmer, “Don’t be so melodramatic. There have been a lot of kidnappings in the last two days. What was the name of the girl?”

“MoonLily.”

The moment Corn said this, Line’s heart started pounding like crazy. Knot must have noticed something because he glanced sideways at the human. Line, however, was lost in his own thoughts.

“Look, I know people in the Guard. Maybe they can figure where her dad is and inform him about her current locations. While we wait for him to come, why don’t you bring her here?” Knot said this while tapping a Screen.

“I don’t think so. We’ll wait outside until her dad comes.” Corn might have trusted Line but most certainly not the fire nymph. A part of him was very cautious about any Stat that could influence the mind and anyone who had those Stats.

Knot paused, “Hmmmhh, that’s a bit paranoid, don’t you think?”

However, Corn did not relent. After confirming the arrangements, he slipped away and circled a bit before going down to the tunnels. Once he had informed Moon, he kept watch on the shop.

Hours later, a plain car stopped at the shop. A man, dressed in martial robes, and a woman, wearing a stiff Guard uniform, walked out and entered the shop. The woman had Endurance in plenty but the man was even more terrifying. The energy coiled inside him was full of Strength, Speed and Endurance.

It could be a trap.

So, he had Moon walk in front of him. When she saw the man, her pulse rocketed and she ran towards him shouting, “Dad!”

The man simply grabbed her by the hand and paid her no attention. Instead he turned to Corn, “Why? Why did you return her?”

Corn ducked and rolled to the left. And just in time too. Half a dozen projectiles rushed through the air where Corn had been.

Corn sprinted away and waved at Knot, “I’ll be back soon.”

The woman shouted, “We had a deal.” She pushed barriers in front of Moon’s dad.

But Corn was long gone. The very second he had asked ‘why’ Corn knew he was going to be attacked. Like daughter, like father. Only the father had three Stats.

Their whole family was raving mad! And they called his species crazy?!

Once he safe in the tunnels he began to plan his next steps. Since Moon was safe, the next step was to hide her ring. After all the attempts on his life, he was sure he deserved to steal it.

He headed to the last place that people would check, the gang’s old base. Like he predicted, there were no Guards.

But there was some else, standing on the metal walkways above the water reservoir.