The next week was a masterclass in social erasure.
Leon moved through the castle like a ghost. Orders for his needs were "misplaced." His usual seat in the library was "occupied." The subtle, daily affirmations of his place were gone. He was administratively ignored.
He used it. The invisibility was a new tool.
He spent his days in two places: the public archives and the chaotic bustle of the lower town. The archives held dry records—tax ledgers, grain yield reports, mundane correspondence. The town held gossip, trade secrets, and the grim reality of life outside the castle's walls.
He was no longer building favor. He was building a map. A map of debts, alliances, vulnerabilities, and flows of power and money that had nothing to do with sentimental affection.
He learned that Captain Marcus's loyalty to the Duke was at 95%, but his gambling brother was in deep to a crime lord named "The Weasel." He learned that the seemingly prosperous merchant guild was one bad harvest from collapse due to a series of speculative loans. He learned which guards took bribes, which servants were spies for which noble house, and which of Elara's new admirers had the darkest secrets.
He filed it all away in the clean, dark space where his system used to be. No prompts rewarded him. No points were awarded. The satisfaction was pure and intellectual.
Elara, meanwhile, was a nova. Her "natural magic affinity" was the talk of the realm. She soothed a blighted crop with a touch. Healed a stable boy's fever with a song. Her favorability ratings with everyone, Leon could intuit, were skyrocketing without any effort at all. She was the system's perfect product.
Their paths crossed in the main gallery one afternoon. She was surrounded by a coterie of young nobles, laughing at something. The light seemed to cling to her. As Leon passed, carrying a stack of old ledgers, she broke away, her expression one of gentle concern.
"Leon! I feel we've barely spoken. Are you… well? You seem to be keeping to yourself."
The group behind her watched, their expressions a mix of curiosity and mild contempt for the odd ward.
"I am perfectly well, my lady," he said, stopping. His tone was polite, informative. It gave nothing. "Adapting."
She took a step closer, lowering her voice. "I know this must be… difficult. A change. I want you to know, there will always be a place for you here." Her eyes were earnest. A zero offering charity to another zero.
"That is kind," he said. Then he tilted his head, as if noticing something. "Your aura. It's flaring slightly around your left wrist. A minor mana channel imbalance, likely from the unguided healing you attempted yesterday. If you don't correct it, it will cause a pins-and-needles numbness in your fingers within a few hours, compromising your spellcasting."
Her smile froze. The group fell silent. It wasn't hostile advice. It was a clinical diagnosis. And it was utterly devoid of the emotional context she was used to commanding.
"How… how did you know about the healing?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"I spoke to the stable boy's father. He was grateful. He also mentioned you seemed tired afterward." Leon shifted the ledgers. "A simple grounding exercise—pressing your palm to bare earth for five minutes—should clear the blockage. Excuse me."
He walked away, leaving a stunned silence in his wake. He hadn't attacked. He hadn't pleaded. He had observed and reported. And in doing so, he had subtly reframed her "miracle" as an act with a physical cost, and positioned himself not as a rival, but as a neutral source of useful intelligence.
It was his first move on the new board.
The real test came three days later. A summons, not from the Duke, but from the Steward. A matter of "household resources."
The Steward's office was all cold efficiency. The man himself, Barnabas, had never liked Leon. His favorability had been a grumpy 40, maintained only by the Duke's clear favor. Now it was a solid, hostile 10.
"Lord Leon," Barnabas said, not looking up from a parchment. "We are reassigning chambers to better suit the household's needs. Your current suite is required for Lady Elara's expanding retinue. You will be moved to the Gray Rooms in the east wing. Also, your monthly allowance is being… adjusted to reflect your revised status as a ward of the court, rather than a member of the ducal family."
He slid a new stipend sheet across the desk. The number was a quarter of what he'd received before. Enough for food and basic clothes. Not enough for books, materials, or any meaningful independent action.
It was a squeeze. A polite, bureaucratic eviction from the family.
Leon picked up the stipend sheet. He didn't argue. He didn't remind Barnabas of past promises. Instead, he reached into his pocket and placed a single, folded piece of cheap parchment next to the stipend sheet.
"I understand economies must be made," Leon said, his voice calm. "Before you finalize the budget, you might want to cross-reference the kitchen expenditure reports from the last quarter with the actual cellar inventory logs from last week. There's a discrepancy amounting to roughly fifty gold a month. The pattern suggests the loss isn't spoilage. It's being redirected. To a warehouse in the dockside district, owned by a cousin of yours, I believe."
Barnabas went very still. The color drained from his face. He didn't touch Leon's note. He stared at it as if it were a live scorpion.
"The Gray Rooms are known to be damp. Bad for the books I study," Leon continued, as if discussing the weather. "And while I admire frugality, my current studies require access to certain materials. I believe my previous allowance was sufficient to cover them without incurring… unnecessary audits."
The threat hung in the air, unspoken but crystalline. Barnabas's loyalty to the Duke might be high, but his fear of exposure and ruin was higher. He had a family. A reputation. Things to lose that weren't measured by a system, but were very, very real.
After a long, suffocating moment, Barnabas slowly took the stipend sheet back. He tore it in two, the sound shockingly loud.
"A… a mistake seems to have been made in the calculations," he said, his voice strangled. "Your current quarters and allowance will… remain. For the time being. To ensure your studies are not disrupted."
"Thank you, Steward Barnabas," Leon said, with a nod that held no warmth, only acknowledgment. "Your diligence is noted."
He left the office. The cold thing inside him uncoiled, satisfied. He hadn't won favor. He had established a boundary. He had traded a potential social credit for a very real, very dirty secret. It was a harder currency, but in this new world, it was the only one that mattered.
That night, in his (still his) rooms, he looked at his reflection again. The face was still pale, but the eyes were different. The shock was gone. In its place was a watchful, calculating calm. The hollow space was no longer empty. It was filling—not with the warm, fickle light of others' approval, but with the cold, hard ore of information, leverage, and a will that had been forged in the sudden, absolute zero of abandonment.
He had learned the first rule of the game when all favor runs out:
When you have nothing left to lose, you see everything they're trying to hide.
And you can use it.