Chapter 3: Debt and Interest

Brussels' rainy season carried a film of grease that could never be washed clean. Lucas curled on the narrow bed of his hotel room, his forehead pressed against the cold pillowcase, his headache pounding at his temples like a tide. The black veins on the back of his hand were clearly visible, spreading toward his wrist like dead tree roots — the price of the time debt eroding his flesh. At 3:17 a.m., the aftershocks of the last rewind had yet to subside, and fragmented memories tore at his nerves. If he did not stop his body from collapsing, he could not complete the mission within the seventy-two-hour deadline. With a trembling hand he dialed that number, the taste of blood rising in his throat.

The doorbell rang softly, and Elena's voice came through the crack of the door, cold as ice: "Open the door. I do not like wasting time on strangers, and I do not want the sound of rain disturbing my patience." Lucas pushed himself up against the wall; the black veins had climbed over his knuckles. He pulled the door open. Elena stood in the corridor, her black trench coat wrapped tight, rainwater dripping from the ends of her hair, yet her makeup was not wet in the slightest. She examined Lucas's arm, her gaze calm as a hunter's.

"You look like a corpse about to rot." She walked straight in, her eyes sweeping the messy bed and the scattered old books. "This is the result of overdrawing time. Your soul is being peeled away, Lucas. If I were you, I would stop struggling at once — or accept my terms."

"What terms?" Lucas leaned against the doorframe, his voice hoarse.

"Information in exchange for money." Elena pushed a check across. "A complete file on the traitor inside the family, plus the coordinates of the 'bait' you saw in the rewind. In exchange, you will eliminate a problem for me at the hearing — Marcus van der Berg. He intends to make my cash flows public in parliament."

The figure on the check was enough to pay for the restoration of all the old books, and even to cover Lucas's growing medical bills. He nodded and took it; the instant his fingertip touched the paper, he felt a sting.

"Deal." Elena adjusted her collar and turned to leave. "Remember: if Marcus makes trouble at the hearing, you must make sure he shuts his mouth with dignity. I do not need victory. I only need quiet."

Watching Elena vanish into the curtain of rain, Lucas felt an ominous premonition rise in his heart. This transaction was far more complex than it appeared on the surface; Marcus's appearance foretold a greater storm about to make landfall.

Two hours later, at the Black Swan private club in the city center. Disguised as an antique shop, inside it was a luxurious space of crystal chandeliers and the scent of aged wine interwoven — a hidden node of Brussels' power and wealth. Elena walked familiarly toward the lounge area in the depths; Marcus van der Berg sat in the shadows, toying with a fountain pen. As a member of parliament skilled at manipulating public opinion, his brows were tightly knotted at that moment.

"Elena, my dear." Marcus rose, not extending his hand, only clapping his palms together. "The emergency parliamentary hearing begins in one hour. I have obtained evidence that your family has manipulated the bond market for nearly three years. If you do not voluntarily hand over part of the profits to a public welfare fund, these documents will be on the front pages tomorrow morning."

Elena tapped the table coldly. "Marcus, your appetite is bigger than your brain. That is legitimate investment income, not chips for your charity."

"Legitimate?" Marcus sneered, his voice rising, the surrounding attendants glancing nervously. "In the European financial system, 'legitimate' is often just a fig leaf. I advise you to think twice — otherwise, under the cameras of a national broadcast, we will meet in court."

In the corner, Lucas recorded everything in silence. He noticed that although Marcus sat in shadow, his Adam's apple rolled violently, and the high-fidelity microphone on his chest blinked with a faint red light. It was not prepared for reporters; it was connected to a backstage monitoring system. Marcus was not only making verbal threats — he was recording in real time, preparing "original evidence" for later legal action. If an edited version were made public, Elena's family would be plunged into the center of a storm of public opinion.

"I'll give you fifteen final minutes." Marcus checked his watch, his tone resolute. "Choose cooperation, or choose destruction. I know you have someone behind you, but this time, not even historians can help you."

Lucas finally spoke, calm to a surprising degree: "Congressman Marcus, are you certain that microphone is connected to a secure line? In such a sensitive setting, signal interference is very common."

Marcus froze, then snorted. "A professor who restores old books understands technology? Stop putting on an act, Lucas. Your era is over. Now it is my stage."

Elena shifted slightly, placing herself in front of Lucas, and signaled the attendants to take the coffee away. The air congealed; the three forces formed a delicate standoff. Lucas felt the icy aura radiating from Elena — though at a disadvantage, she showed no panic at all, as if calculating a deeper game.

He looked down at the back of his hand: the black veins flickered in and out of sight, and his headache intensified. There would be only one chance. Marcus had overlooked the smallest variable in the room: that seemingly stable signal connection, and his own vastly inflated confidence. If, in those crucial minutes, Marcus could be made to expose a crack in public, everything would change.

He closed his eyes and activated the Time Regulation System. His consciousness was instantly drawn away; the clamor stretched and twisted, returning to silence. He was back ten seconds earlier, at the instant Marcus had just risen to leave.

In that brief freeze, Lucas moved swiftly to Marcus's position. He did not touch the man directly; instead, he reached for the metal paperweight on the coffee table — the relay for the microphone line. His fingers pinched the tiny screw at its base with precision and rotated it gently, half a turn. To an outsider the motion was almost undetectable, but in the magnified view of the rewind, it was tantamount to creating an extremely small loose contact in the line.

With a soft click, time flowed again.

Marcus noticed nothing unusual about the coffee table. Head high, he strode toward the door to greet the hearing's broadcast team, a smug smile on his face, as if he could already see Elena's family apologizing in the news. But as his steps crossed into the center of the hall, the accident happened.

The hall was crowded with attending journalists and members of parliament. Marcus walked to the podium, straightened his suit, and pressed the microphone switch.

"Ladies and gentlemen, what I am going to expose today is a story of greed and corruption…"

His voice came out carrying a strange electrical crackle. Marcus frowned and adjusted his position; the crackle did not fade — it grew sharper.

"Please be quiet." He raised his volume to suppress the static. "This is a temporary malfunction. Please wait a moment."

But as he picked up the microphone and continued speaking, the tiny fault in the line triggered a chain reaction. A stretch of background audio that had originally been shielded suddenly surged into the main audio channel. It was a clear, unedited recording: Marcus's voice in his office late at night, cold and sinister: "Once I get this money, those opposition people can die with nowhere to be buried. Elena is only the first sacrifice. There are others — for instance that historian, Lucas. He remembers too many things he shouldn't remember."

The entire hall fell dead silent.

Reporters' pens hovered in midair; camera flashes rose and fell. Marcus's face turned deathly white in an instant, his pupils contracting, the microphone nearly slipping from his hand. He tried to cut the power, but it was too late. The recording had reached every ear present and was being transmitted by the broadcast system across all of Brussels at the same time.

"A technical error!" Marcus roared, his voice twisted by extreme panic. "This is malicious sabotage! Cut the broadcast at once!"

But he had already lost control. That recording not only exposed his private dealings with Elena, it revealed his hostility and threats toward Lucas. In the environment of a live-broadcast hearing, exposure of such private remarks was enough to collapse a political career in an instant. The members rose one after another and left their seats, their whispers surging like a tide. Red-faced, Marcus staggered down from the podium, knocked over a glass of water, and looked as wretched as a clown.

Elena stood where she was, the corner of her mouth curving up by the faintest degree. She did not applaud, did not mock. She only silently took a USB drive from her handbag and threw it down at Lucas's feet.

"Take it." Her voice was calm to a frightening degree. "That is the database key for restoring the old books. A pleasure working with you, Lucas. I hope you can still remember this favor — after all, the person Marcus most wants to see right now is probably you."

Lucas picked up the USB drive, feeling its iciness in his palm. His headache was still violent, but he knew the price was worth it. He looked toward Elena; she had already turned and left, her black figure disappearing into the crowd, as if she had never appeared.

The hearing hall was still in turmoil. Surrounded by security guards, Marcus hurried out the door, his steps quick and panicked, each one treading on his shattered dignity. Lucas did not follow. He knew the real game had only just begun. Marcus would not admit defeat like this; the humiliation of being publicly disgraced was a harder debt to repay than any other.

Outside the club, the Brussels rain had grown heavier. Icy rain struck his face, mixing with the burning of his headache until Lucas could barely stand. He opened his umbrella and merged into the curtain of rain. Washed by the rain, the black veins seemed darker still, as if they would pierce through his skin and devour his last shred of reason.

A few streets away, inside a black sedan, Marcus slumped in the back seat, his tie loosened, the front of his shirt soaked through. He gasped for breath, fury and fear burning in his eyes. With a trembling hand, he dialed a number.

"Viktor, it's me." His voice was hoarse, carrying a bone-deep chill. "At the hearing just now, there was a historian named Lucas — he was at the scene. Investigate him. Investigate his past, his current whereabouts, who he actually is. I need to know whether he is the one manipulating me from behind the scenes. Find him, at any cost. If he is out of my sight for more than twenty-four hours, you can get out of Brussels."

Hanging up, Marcus looked out the window. The wipers swung frantically, blurring the outline of the city. His fingers gripped the phone tight, knuckles white. That hearing's failure was not only a loss of face, but a shaking of his power. The name Lucas, at that moment, was like a thorn driven deep into his heart. He knew the hunt for this historian was about to formally begin.