The Exorcist Doctor

Chapter 133 - The Eastern Negotiations // Start with Death

Calvos waved one thick hand, and the horde of about fifty Steelborn behind them surged into the hall.

But Gael didn’t wave.

“Ohoho—no, no, no,” he called loudly, stabbing his cane into the ground and reaching into his coat with both hands. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Ten little glass vials came out at once, clinking together like teeth between his fingers, and Calvos immediately clicked his tongue.

And then the old boss unfolded the beetle wings behind him.

They weren’t pretty. They weren’t elegant. They were slabs of armored membrane and steel-veined chitin, half fused to scrap plates bolted into his back, but when they flared and then beat once—the sound was a concussive click that hit the hall like a gunshot.

The shockwave rolled out. Scrap rattled. Chandeliers swayed. Loose prototype blades clanged against hooks. Steelborn bodies—his own men—stumbled and skidded backward, weapons and armor screeching as the blast shoved them out of the hall.

Gael dug in his heels and stayed standing because of his Sealant Setae mutation. By extension, Maeve and Jin also managed to stay on their feet, but Vivi, unfortunately, hadn’t been expecting it. She went down with a yelp, skirt tangling as she sprawled on the scrap-littered floor.

As Vivi scrambled to her feet, cheeks burning, Gael widened his grin and shook the vials in his hands like bells.

“You’re a learned man,” he called up to Calvos brightly. “So you recognize this, don’t you?”

Calvos didn’t squint, but it sure looked like he was with those bushy, angry-looking brows.

“I don’t know it by sight, but by stink,” he rasped. “Bonechewer toxin, isn’t it?”

“Yep!” Gael said, delighted. “Good nose. You ever consider a career in medicine? You’d be amazed how many people die because their doctors can’t smell the difference between infection and shame.”

A few Steelborn hissed in outrage behind them, but Gael wiggled one vial between his fingers.

“In liquid form,” he went on cheerfully, “bonechewer toxin chews through bones specifically and leaves everything else intact. You pour it on someone and their skeleton dissolves from the inside, and you get a nice little pile of sobbing flesh that can’t stand up to beg properly. However, in gas form, bonechewer toxin is heavier than air. If I were to drop these ten hyper-condensed vials, the toxin will spread across this hall and kill just about everyone here who isn’t reinforced by bioarcanic chitin plates or wearing equipment steeped in bioarcanic essence. Then the toxin’ll drift down the floors, and it’ll keep chewing through factory line by factory line, hall by hall, until I estimate it’ll dissipate around the second or third floor.”

He tilted his head, glancing around at the Steelborn behind them.

“Now, the four of us will be mostly fine because we have systems and bioarcanic chitin plates. You’ll also be fine because you have a Beetle Class, but your boys back there?” He thumbed a finger over his shoulder. “Half of them don’t have systems, and most of your workers, engineers, and tinkerers don’t seem to have them either. I estimate there’ll be at least three hundred casualties across the castle within the next ten minutes if I drop these vials, so if you wanna fight after that, that’s totally fine by me. You’ll just have to watch half your boys die first.”

Maeve snapped her eyes to Gael—hard. ‘Don’t you dare’,

she seemed to say, but of course he had no real intentions of dropping the vials. The Steelborn, however, didn’t know that. And they wouldn’t assume that given he was a Raven.

“... But I’ve heard rumors,” he said slowly, “that Calvos the Steelhorned doesn’t run a particularly cruel gang. Not like the Fishermen, anyways. Honestly, I don’t wanna go up there again, but you don’t want your boys to die just because I fumbled my fingers, right?”

For a moment, the entire throne room held its breath.

Calvos stared down at him without blinking. The lovers around him shifted uneasily, their earlier laughter gone, hands withdrawing from his armor as if the old man’s skin had become too hot.

Then the old man waved his hand again.

“Leave me,” he said.

His fifteen lovers scattered off the dais at once, silk and straps and bare skin vanishing behind scrap columns and prototype racks, and the Steelborn behind Gael also backed off immediately. Now Calvos leaned forward, one elbow on the armrest as he rested his head against it.

“What does a Raven want with Ironwych?” he rumbled.

Gael chuckled, stepping forward another fraction. “That’s the spirit. I don’t want Ironwych, exactly, but I do want to know what the Steelborn’s business is. You see, I’m from Blightmarch, and down south, we know Ironwych as the ward that deals in metals, weapons, and machines. The rest of the city wants steel and you sell it. Isn’t that right?”

“Your point?”

“What’s the Steelborn doing dipping their toes in the Myrmur and parasite business lately?” Gael said. “Using them as miners in your mountains? Keeping Myrmur Hosts locked up and their Myrmurs stabilized? The north deals with seafood, the west deals with entertainment, the east deals with metal, and the south deals with all things living, sick, and dead. Myrmurs should be my business, so why have you been overstepping your specialty lately?”

Love this novel? Read it on NovelBin to ensure the author gets credit.

The gangsters behind Gael erupted at once.

“Watch your mouth, Raven!”

“Speak to the boss properly!”

“Rats don’t get to—”

Calvos thumped his fist into the armrest, and every Steelborn fell silent mid-shout,eyes snapping forward as if pulled by chains.

Then Calvos leaned even more towards Gael, and the pressure of his one remaining eye filled the hall.

Gael felt it press against his chest like a slab of iron.

Well, this is the same man who overthrew the Gutter King over eighty years ago.

The very same one who’d forged the Steelborn from a gutter gang and turned the eastern ward into the beating industrial heart of the city. A man couldn’t reach a position like that—and certainly couldn’t live this long—without eyes like tempered steel and organs that were probably made of metal themselves.

“And what is me expanding my business,” Calvos said slowly, “to a Raven and a few arrogant Exorcists?”

“Because I’m here to investigate the recent blow-ups of artificial Myrmur Hosts across the city. Blight-Class Myrmurs, mind you, and Hosts implanted with bombs that explode the moment the parasite is killed,” Gael said. “It was just pure happenstance that I chose to come to Ironwych first, but imagine my surprise when I found the Steelborn had not only developed a stabilizer that can prevent external manifestation of Myrmurs—something I’d never heard of before—but are also using Myrmur Hosts as miners in the mountains. As a Raven, surely you can see why I’m just a little bit curious.”

“You’re a Raven, alright,” he grumbled. “Egotistical. Narcissistic. Thinking everything in the world revolves around you.”

“Doesn’t it?” Gael chirped instantly. “Say—have you met any Ravens recently? Please, do tell.”

Calvos studied all four of them again—Maeve steady and righteous, Jin rigid and watchful, Vivi pale and trembling behind him, and Gael, grinning with ten vials of pure death still between his fingers.

Then the old man’s mouth twisted into something that could only be described as a grin as well.

“Fine,” he said, leaning back into his throne of scrap. “You beat many of my captains and men to reach this hall, so I will at least acknowledge your strength and answer a few of your questions.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s true that, half a year ago, a Raven did show up in Ironwych. Him and his assistant.”

“Did he now?” Gael drawled, putting his vials of toxin down on the ground before placing his boot over them—just as a safety measure, of course. “And what did that Raven want with your lovely eastern ward?”

Calvos scowled down at him. “He said he could help Ironwych and the Steelborn mitigate our rising… issues with the Myrmurs.”

“Ironwych had a rising issue with Myrmurs?”

“I know you’ve heard the rumors. Don’t play stupid. Over the past year, more and more gutter rats across Bharncair have been catching Myrmurs,” Calvos said matter-of-factly. “It’s worse in Ironwych where my people work in mines and breathe iron dust all day. They inhale those baby parasites and don’t even notice it because their lungs are already filled with blood. For decades, my Steelborn have worked with local Exorcists to kill Myrmur Hosts whenever they’re found. We cut out the rot before it takes the whole barrel. That is how Ironwych stays productive.”

Then his gaze flicked to Maeve and Jin, just for a heartbeat.

“But over the past year, even the local Exorcists couldn’t keep up. Too many cases. Too many coughs. Too many miners collapsing in the tunnels. Too much lost metal, too much lost labor. The Myrmurs became a fucking pain in my ass… and then that Raven came, offering mitigation.”

Gael narrowed his eyes. “He came with the recipe for the stabilizer.”

Calvos’s head tipped. “How’d you figure that out, Raven?”

“Because I have eyes? I saw your stabilizer production line on the way here. No offense, Steelhorned, but if your people were clever enough to make a stabilizer that can suppress a Myrmur’s external manifestation, you would’ve done it decades ago. Ironwych has been choking on parasites for longer than I’ve been drinking. Someone must’ve given you the recipe.”

If the lighting in the room were any better, Gael might’ve thought Calvos looked slightly impressed.

“Yes,” Calvos said. “They did come bearing gifts, that Raven and his assistant, and once we figured out the stabilizers really worked, we stopped wasting resources killing captured Myrmur Hosts on sight.”

“Wasting resources?” Maeve echoed. “So instead, you chain them up and—”

“They’re dying people, Exorcist,” Calvos interrupted. “The stabilizers only delay their deaths. Considering a manifested and controlled Myrmur can mine and work like twenty men without tiring the same, why shouldn’t we put these dying men to work for the good of Ironwych? Either we bury them earlier or bury them later—better they die having served the ward that fed them.”

Maeve looked like she wanted to snap at him again, and Vivi swallowed hard, evidently uncomfortable with the topic at hand, but Gael let out a low, thoughtful hum.

“I see, I see,” he said. “You know, that’s understandable. Dead men can’t work factory lines. You might as well get some more work out of them before they die, right?”

Calvos’s grin showed teeth. “I knew a Raven would understand—”

“But!” Gael said, raising a finger. “You only accepted the stabilizers because Myrmur numbers were exploding across Ironwych, right? You only started capturing and enslaving Myrmur Hosts for work because you’re only trying to make the best out of a bad situation, right? It’s not like you’re doing all this for shits and giggles like the Fishermen would, right?”

Calvos scoffed. He didn’t seem offended, but… maybe just a little, being compared to the Fishermen.

“We don’t kill for sport,” he spat. “The Fishermen are the Fishermen, but Ironwych’s heart is metal. To harvest metal, you need men. To process metal, you need men. Strong, healthy, living men. Do you believe, at any point in Ironwych’s long history, that we have ever enjoyed burying our own people after they’ve contracted Myrmurs.”

Gael shrugged. “I mean, sometimes you’ve gotta kill a few bitches who disrespect—”

“Never,” Calvos finished sternly. “We value our people because our people are our production. They are our order. Above that, we simply cannot tolerate what disrupts our order… even if they turn out to be our own people infested with Myrmurs.”

“... So what if I, another humble Raven, were to tell you there’s another method to deal with Myrmurs?” Gael said. “What if I were to tell you I could cure Myrmur Hosts, making it so you don’t have to produce any more stabilizers and kill the Hosts, leaving you with no lives lost and order restored to Ironwych?”

The words landed heavier than any threat he’d made so far, and there was the usual silence that he’d come to expect whenever he made a claim like that.

He’d never get tired of it.

“That… is impossible,” Calvos finally murmured. “Myrmur Hosts cannot be cursed. I would know. I have been living with them for over a century.”

“It’s impossible for most people, yes,” Gael said cheerfully, tapping his belt. “So what if I give you a little demonstration of what this little lantern of mine can do?”