Hearing Khors's words, Phaga's pupils trembled slightly, but he quickly steadied himself.
His lips pressed together. After hesitating for a long moment, he finally couldn't help but ask,
"Forgive my bluntness, but from what you said, you weren't a TOPS executive back then. How did you manage to survive under the vampire clan's pursuit?"
The moment the words left his mouth, Phaga felt a warm, solid hand settle on his shoulder.
He turned around and met Lycaon's contemplative expression. Lycaon gave him a subtle shake of the head.
Was that a signal telling him not to doubt Khors?
Phaga turned back, let out a soft sigh, then tugged at the corner of his mouth, forcing a relaxed smile.
"Of course, this is Mr. Khors's personal secret. If you'd rather not talk about it, then—"
"It's fine!"
Before Phaga could finish, Khors raised a hand to cut him off.
Khors lowered his head slightly, stroking his long beard as he spoke,
"Exchanging information is an important part of maintaining trust among companions. After all, to Phaga and Ellen, I'm just a stranger who exists only through secondhand stories… And Lycaon, really—you should be more lenient with your juniors. I remember back when you were young—"
"Ahem!"
A sudden burst of sharp coughing interrupted Khors mid-reminiscence.
Everyone turned toward the sound, and sure enough, it was Lycaon.
Rina didn't say anything, but an unguarded smile escaped her lips.
Phaga and Ellen, meanwhile, stared in stunned disbelief at Lycaon's composure.
Even though Khors had been just a hair's breadth away from spilling Lycaon's embarrassing past, Lycaon managed to shut it down instantly. He straightened his back once more, standing tall and facing forward as if nothing had happened at all.
Ridiculous. That tuft of white fur was so thick you couldn't tell whether Mr. Lycaon was blushing at all.
Phaga only indulged in his internal grumbling for a brief moment before stopping, because after laughing for a bit, Khors shook his head and continued his story.
"Back then, I truly thought I was going to die. To avoid dragging Belobog down with me, I took some money and fled. I thought that as long as I defeated the Sacrifice the vampire clan sent after me, I'd be able to return."
"But reality proved I was far too naïve. After I defeated that Sacrifice, the vampire clan sent even more vampires to hunt me down. I ran and ran, but I couldn't escape. In the end, left with no other choice, I jumped from a hundred-story building… and lost consciousness."
At that point, Khors shook his head with a bitter smile.
If he had known things would end up like this, he would never have let that damned curiosity take hold of him.
"Then what happened?" Ellen asked anxiously. Listening to Khors's account, she couldn't help but feel on edge. She was genuinely curious how he had survived.
A hundred-story building.
Assuming three meters per floor, that was nearly three hundred meters—something no ordinary person could survive.
Especially since, even now, Khors didn't look particularly capable in a fight.
Khors pondered for a moment, then gently shook his head.
"To be honest, even today, I still don't know how I survived."
"All I know is that when I woke up, I saw Rina and Lycaon standing by my hospital bed. And also the woman who changed the course of my life—one of TOPS's executives, Meilin."
"Madam Meilin!"
Lycaon and Rina looked calm, clearly having known this for a long time.
Phaga and Ellen, however, narrowed their eyes in shock.
"How could it be her?"
"I don't know either," Khors replied, shaking his head with a bitter smile.
"All I know is that she saved me."
"She told me, 'You owe me a life. From now on, you'll work for me.'"
"But she decided I wasn't suited for Victoria Housekeeping. I simply wasn't supernatural enough. So instead of bringing me in, she sent me to the Outer Ring, telling me to grow freely like wild grass—until the day she needed me to repay that life debt."
"So I stayed in the Outer Ring, scraping by for years. Eventually, I reached a cooperation agreement with the Vanquishers. I helped them devise plans to improve people's livelihoods, and they helped me make money."
"Finally, just this year, as the leading business magnate of the entire Old Oil Field District, TOPS extended an olive branch to me of their own accord."
Having earned TOPS's recognition, Khors looked pleased—but there was something that delighted him even more.
Khors laughed.
"Heh! When they first invited me to join, they thought I could help them open up the Outer Ring market. I told them straight to go talk to Pompey instead. If Pompey agreed, then I'd agree."
"Haha! Those bloodsucking bastards—looks like their wishful thinking went straight down the drain! Hahahaha!"
"Ha… ha… ha…"
Phaga forced a couple of dry laughs along with him, thinking to himself that Khors clearly didn't yet know about Lucius's betrayal.
If Khors were to find out that TOPS had already realized they couldn't deal with Pompey on the economic front, so they'd poached him instead and were now planning to eliminate him on a biological level… Phaga wondered what kind of expression Khors would make then.
Forget it. That was something to deal with later.
Phaga shook his head. After a moment of thought, he spoke again,
"So… you actually knew all along that the vampire clan wanted you dead. Then why did you still give us that fourteen-million-denny commission?"
Khors's laughter stopped abruptly. His expression hardened as he shook his head.
"No. It might not have been the vampire clan."
What? If not them, then who?
Phaga frowned, feeling genuinely confused now.
Seeing the doubt lingering on Phaga's face, Khors explained in a serious tone,
"If this were before I became an executive, I would've believed that everything bad that happened to me was the work of the inherently evil vampire clan."
"But after I became an executive—and deliberately screwed over TOPS—well, maybe it was TOPS instead."
Khors spread his hands wide, completely unapologetic.
"The Outer Ring is poor, after all! And they're filthy rich—if I wasn't going to fleece them, who else would I fleece? Besides, I only casually mentioned wanting some daily necessities. I didn't set any conditions. They were the ones who showed up the very next day, huffing and puffing, driving dozens of trucks to deliver everything. What does that have to do with me?"
Phaga froze.
You're actually proud of that?
TOPS was already greedy as a pack of jackals, and you swindled their supplies without giving anything in return. No wonder they rallied dozens of gangs to blockade your place.
But then again, going by Khors's explanation, that meant the staged car accident wasn't the vampire clan's doing.
Phaga rested his chin on his hand, deep in thought.
Earlier, when Khors said the vampire clan bore him a grudge, Phaga had assumed that it was because he and Ellen had accepted Khors's commission, angering the clan and prompting Lucius to send someone to crash into them with a car.
But now… that didn't seem certain.
It was far more likely that Khors himself—this walking disaster—had provoked someone, and that a TOPS executive had redirected their anger toward Phaga and Ellen, intending to kill them.
However, if that hypothesis was true… it raised another question.
Although Phaga was an abandoned child cast out by the vampire clan and never acknowledged by them—
How did TOPS know that?
How did they dare try to kill him so brazenly, in broad daylight?
…