Elias shut the door behind him with more care than usual.
It wasn't the kind of door that locked—just a splintered plank propped against a warped frame—but tonight, it felt thinner than ever. Like the world outside had started watching.
He slid the pot back over the fire and checked Liora first.
She was breathing.
The fever still clung to her, but her color had returned slightly. Her lips were less cracked. The soup was helping. The clean water too.
It had bought them time.
But time was all it bought.
Elias unwrapped the warm bundle the stew woman had given him. Two boiled potatoes, split open and crumbling. Maybe a sliver of turnip. Salt, if he was lucky. He hesitated, then broke one in half and nudged Liora's lips with a soft piece.
She stirred—barely.
Chewed once. Swallowed. Drifted again.
He set the rest aside and finally sat.
The crackling fire was soft now. Fading.
He didn't stoke it.
Instead, he sat there, staring at the lump of soap still wrapped in the corner, and thought.
About the crowd.
About the man who accused him of witchcraft.
About the silent figure leaning against the wall.
This world didn't have the same rules.
On Earth, a clever invention got you a patent. Maybe a startup. A pitch deck and coffee with investors.
Here?
It got you stabbed in an alley.
Or burned.
Magic's for nobles, he recalled from the boy's memories. Tinkering's for guilds. Anything in between? That's devil's work.
No one wanted poor people inventing. Poor people weren't supposed to invent.
Which meant secrecy wasn't just smart. It was survival.
He pulled the cracked pot closer and stared into the grease-blackened rim. The fat was cooling again. Thickening.
He could make another bar tonight.
He had just enough ash and runoff left for a single batch.
He grabbed the cloth and tore it in half. Stuffed one piece under a loose board beside the hearth. The other he used to gently mop the inside of the bowl, soaking up the fat, wiping it clean.
When the bar cooled, he'd wrap it in old straw, tuck it beneath the broken floor, and let the rumors do the selling.
Soap didn't need his name on it.
Only results.
He looked over at Liora again.
She shifted, curled tighter.
And somewhere inside him, under all the hunger, fatigue, and fear, a new thought began to take shape.
Secrecy isn't cowardice.
It's strategy.
If knowledge was dangerous…
Then he'd wield it like a weapon.
The fire had shrunk to red-glowing coals, but Elias worked like a priest at an altar.
The cracked pot was cleaned. The jug of ash-water—slightly darker this time—sat ready. Beside him, the remains of another fat bundle, scooped from the tavern bin, softened near the heat.
He stirred slowly, watching the globs melt into shimmering oil. His hand trembled a little, but his focus held firm.
This time, he paid attention to everything.
The texture. The scent. The way the fat smoked slightly at the edges.
He reached for a pinch of ash from his second pile—this one scraped from a baker's oven, drier, blacker—and dropped it in. The water fizzed slightly. He poured in a careful measure.
The mixture hissed.
Curled.
Set into a slow churn of cloudy grey.
Then—
> [Lye Saturation: 42% – Efficiency: 0.8]
[Stability: Medium]
The System whispered it into his mind like a memory he'd always had.
No alarms. No graphics. Just quiet numbers, tucked into the edge of thought.
He blinked.
So it watches.
It measures.
It's… teaching.
He picked up a shard of tile and scraped the rim of the pot gently, folding the lye into the fat with a figure-eight motion.
Another alert flickered.
> [Viscosity: Balanced]
[Saponification Estimate: 92% – Hardened Soap in 30 min]
A grin tugged at his cracked lips.
This was science. Controlled variables. Heat, ratio, source material.
It wasn't perfect. It was rough, improvised, dirty.
But it worked.
He scraped the new soap mixture onto a flatter tile this time, laying it out thinner. It steamed in the cold air, but the smell—while still sour—had mellowed. Cleaner.
More usable.
He set the pot aside and looked over at his growing pile: two half-bars from the first batch, one new slab cooling, and enough materials left for maybe two more.
Just like that, his mind started dividing the future.
How much time per batch?
How much soap per bar?
What could one trade fetch?
What if he made ten?
Twenty?
A hundred?
But numbers only mattered if he had the power to keep them.
And power didn't come from soap.
It came from control—of supply, of knowledge, of labor.
The slum had nothing but labor.
And if he played this right…
He'd turn that into everything.
By morning, the rain had started again—light, misty, but enough to turn every path into soup.
Elias crouched by the water gutter outside the alley corner, fingers cold and wet, scooping runoff into a jug he'd patched with twine. The ash sat buried in a damp sack beneath the floorboards. The fat had been boiled last night—cooled now, layered thick as clay.
Another bar, nearly hardened, waited on a roof tile wrapped in straw.
He wasn't hungry anymore.
Mrs. Dalta had traded him a second bowl—this time with salt, real salt—and her tone had softened to almost-respect. She'd even warned him not to walk near the south alleys after dusk.
It wasn't charity. It was recognition.
And it meant people were talking.
They were.
He heard it that morning while walking past the old wash-wall where the children cleaned their feet in the runoff.
He kept walking. Didn't look back.
But the seed had already sprouted.
Some thought he was clever.
Others, a witch.
And in a place like this, either one could get you stabbed.
Later that day, as he handed a small wrapped piece to a coughing man with missing toes, the man looked up at him sideways.
"You sellin' these?"
Elias nodded.
The man tapped the bar with one knuckle. "Folk'll be watchin'. Smells too clean. Makes 'em nervous."
Elias didn't answer.
The man pocketed the soap and walked off, muttering under his breath.
---
That night, as Elias crouched in his shack adding kindling to the fire, a low voice spoke through the cracks in the door.
"You the one makin' the soap?"
Elias froze.
He turned.
A boy stood there, maybe a year older, his cheek bruised purple, one eye half-swollen. He didn't enter. Just stood there, arms hanging at his sides like he wasn't sure whether to punch or ask for help.
Behind him, three others waited—thin, sharp-eyed, leaning against the shack wall like it belonged to them.
Elias didn't answer right away.
He met the boy's gaze.
Didn't blink.
The silence stretched.
Finally, the boy tilted his head.
"No guild. No stall. No license. No crew. And people are tradin' with you anyway."
He took one step forward.
"That's a problem."