[Arknights] A Guide to Make Money In Terra

Part 4: Back In Business

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This'll be the last 'daily upload' of sorts. I still have to update my own novel back in Royal Road as I plan the next arc of this fanfic. It'll involve Rhine Labs that's for sure.

It turned out there wouldn't be a court session tomorrow, nor the day after. Or ever. The game had changed, and, as always, the players with the right leverage had rewritten the rules.

The ambassador sat across from me, placing two bottles of vodka between us. "You're in quite the trouble, comrade," he said with a wry grin. "They've amassed quite a dossier against you."

I leaned back, eyeing him with feigned indifference. "I assume you've taken care of it?"

"Da," he shrugged. "I had a conversation with Governor Wei Yenwu about his niece's... mental instability. He's too paranoid to let that particular skeleton out of the closet. If he didn't set you free, well..." He shrugged, pouring vodka into two glasses, his expression darkly amused. "Turns out even the noblest officials can be persuaded when their reputation and position is on the line. The juries, the judge, the people involved have been... paid accordingly by the Governor."

I raised my glass, meeting his smirk with one of my own. "Spasibo."

As the vodka burned its way down, a twisted satisfaction settled over me. No more courtroom theatrics. No more bickering over supposed evidence. Just the truth laid bare for what it is—a tool, a resource, a weapon. A backroom deal had been struck, a reminder that in the hands of the powerful, morality is malleable.

"What's the situation back home?" I asked, swirling the drink in my glass, the anticipation of the familiar ruthless politics stirring in my veins.

The ambassador's gaze sharpened. "Home is as it always is, comrade. Hungry for strength, starved of trust. The old-guard aristocrats and the military clawing at each other's throats." He smiled.

Back in Ursus, things weren't so different. The struggle for power is woven into the very fabric of our empire. Some nations place trust in democracy, or in the benevolent wisdom of their leaders. Not Ursus.

For us, loyalty is conditional, and is neither granted nor inherited—it's wrested from the hands of anyone weak enough to lose it. I was once a captain in the Imperial Army, the military faction, as opposed to the aristocratic elite, before I led a 'rebellion' against the commanding royalist officer. The two forces are constantly at each other's throats, battling for influence and the Empire's direction. Neither side is "good" or "noble", they are simply two beasts with their teeth sunk into the same carcass. The Tsar.

"Skol'ko stoish'?" I asked, raising my glass again. "How much does honor cost in Ursus?"

The ambassador chuckled, his smirk deepening. "Chesti ne drazhatsya—honor isn't bought or sold in Ursus. Only outcomes matter." He took a long sip, leaning back, his eyes glinting with admiration, or perhaps something more cautious. "And you, my friend, have delivered quite the outcome."

I nodded, setting my glass down with a smirk. "Always a pleasure, comrade."

The ambassador rose as well, smoothing his suit, his eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of a game well-played. "Of course," he replied, a glint in his eye. "Just don't forget the payment." He winked, the unspoken understanding passing between us—everything, and everyone, has a price.

I smiled, my mind turning over the familiar, comfortable logic of it. Money, after all, was the great equalizer, the silent negotiator that governed this world's machinery. Honor, loyalty, even justice—men had always claimed to revere these things, to value them beyond measure. But in the end, most were merely illusions, ephemeral concepts that could be bought, traded, or twisted for the right price.