I am writing an api that will have to handle extremely high volumes of calls so, in short, I can not afford to load the WordPress core every call. I have no problem building the API to use the database directly, and can get all the information I need, save the table prefix, by loading the config file. I have considered a stripped down version of THIS ANSWER but it is still loading way too much and is way too expensive.
There must be a much simpler way.
Thank you.