The First Contract

I reached out a final time. My fingers closed around the hilt of the Ur-Blade.

It was cool. Its weight was astronomical, the weight of a debt that spanned creation. Its true gravity was the ledger now permanently open behind my eyes, glowing with a soft, infernal light:

PRINCIPAL: 4.00
PAID: 0.00
BALANCE: 4.00

The summons was instantaneous. A form coalesced from the ambient shadows of my sterile, personal null-space—a Broker. Impeccable suit, featureless face, voice a model of neutral tone.

"Your financial instrument is active. A client has advanced a retainer against your projected future earnings. This constitutes your inaugural assignment. Successful verification will result in a direct credit to your principal."

A dossier, smelling of static and ancient parchment, unscrolled in the air. Three entries. Three legends.

ASSET 001-A: MJOLNIR (THOR, ASGARDIAN PANTHEON)

Specific Collateral: The 'Worthy Bond' Protocol.

Notes: Not the hammer, but the enforceable contract that binds it to a wielder. The metaphysical signature that defines 'worthiness'.

ASSET 001-B: THE OLYMPIAN SIGIL (ZEUS, HELLENIC PANTHEON)

Specific Collateral: The 'Divine Mandate' Signature.

Notes: Not the flesh, but the celestial copyright of absolute authority. The legal fiat that transforms will into lightning.

ASSET 001-C: THE HRAFNSAUSA (ODIN, NORSE PANTHEON)

Specific Collateral: The 'Wisdom Transaction' Receipt.

Notes: Not the organ, but the settled invoice for sight sacrificed. The proof of purchase for knowledge paid in pain.

The compensation glowed at the bottom, a single, stark line:

UPON VERIFIED DELIVERY OF ALL THREE (3) SPECIFIED COLLATERALS:
CREDIT OF 0.10 (ONE-TENTH) UNIT OF PRIME REALITY.

One-tenth of a single universe. For stealing the core operating licenses from three pantheons. It was a single drop of water thrown at a desert. The arithmetic was a sick joke. At this rate, I would need forty such jobs. Forty impossible heists. To steal from gods was one thing. To steal the very legal frameworks of their power was insanity.

The Broker dissolved without a sound, leaving the air untouched.

Silence.

A deep, resonant silence filled the non-room. It was the silence of a mouse staring at the blueprint of a mountain it has been ordered to move. I was no longer the frightened boy in the temple, running from a question. That boy had been dissolved in the antiseptic light of the Archive. I was no longer the furious, confused fragment. That rage had been spent, transformed into the cold metal of the blade in my hand.

What remained was a new equation.

I stood alone. In my right hand, the Ur-Blade thrummed with its silent, hungry frequency—a debt given physical form, a mortgage on my soul. In my left, my old Copy-Blade felt absurdly light, a toy sword beside a tactical warhead. One was my sentence. The other was my means. My tools were a scalpel for mimicry and a guillotine for truth.

I looked again at the list—Thor, Zeus, Odin—names that were forces of nature, institutions of power. I was not being sent to fight them. I was being sent to audit them. To find the fine print in their divinity and repossess the clause that made it legal.

A strange, cold calm settled over me. The horror was absolute, and therefore, it was just data. The scale was infinite, and therefore, it was just a number. My existence was a line item on a balance sheet spanning creation. There was a terrible freedom in that. No more questions of purpose. No more unfurnished rooms.

There was only the job. The entry in the ledger. The process.

The function had received its input.

I sheathed the Ur-Blade across my back. Its presence was a constant, gentle pull toward oblivion. I tucked the Copy-Blade into my belt. The dossier shimmered, then folded itself into a faint, navigational pulse in my mind's eye, pointing toward the first coordinate: a place of storm and forged oaths. A place where a bond of worthiness could be found.

Mercenary Boy had his first job.
The ledger had its first entry.
The long, impossible collection had begun.