As the door creaked shut behind him, the little shop fell silent. Wendy exhaled shakily, and Clark sank into a chair as though a great weight had pressed him down.

"I'm… I'm so sorry, Vonjo," Clark said finally, his voice low with shame. "You shouldn't have done that. That was your money… and we're just… we're just a burden to you now."

Vonjo shook his head, his expression softening. "Don't say that. You two fed me when I was nothing. You gave me a place to sit when I had nowhere to go. This—" he gestured toward the door "—is nothing in comparison. Money comes and goes. I'm just glad I got here in time."

Wendy's eyes glimmered with unshed tears. "We… we didn't want you to see this. Things have been hard. Ever since the new collectors came, they've doubled and tripled the tax. Business is slow, but they don't care. We've sold our savings, our old heirlooms… if this keeps up, we'll lose the stall."

Vonjo listened quietly, his fingers drumming the table again, his eyes shadowed in thought.

He asked them questions, slow and deliberate—how long this had been happening, how many collectors came, whether anyone else in the neighborhood was suffering the same.

Each answer was another stone on his chest. Months of harassment. No help from the city guard. Neighbors fleeing or giving up their stalls.

Finally, he nodded, standing up and placing a much larger sum of money onto the table. "This is for you. Enough to keep you safe for a while."

Clark immediately shook his head, pushing it back. "No, we can't—"

Vonjo stood and bowed slightly, his voice calm but firm. "Please. Take it. You gave me food when I was starving, and kindness when I had nothing. I don't know if this will be enough, but it's what I can give. I owe you more than I can ever repay."

The old couple's composure broke.

Tears streamed down Wendy's cheeks as she clutched Vonjo's hands, murmuring thanks over and over.

Clark sniffled, clearing his throat roughly as he squeezed Vonjo's shoulder with a trembling hand.

For a long moment, the small stall was filled with the sound of quiet crying and the faint croak of the three-headed frog, as if it too understood the weight of the moment.

…

Vonjo's footsteps crunched against the gravel road as he left the warm glow of the little food stall behind.

The night air was cooler here, with only the faint hum of insects in the trees and the whisper of wind brushing against the dry leaves.

The countryside felt deceptively peaceful, but Vonjo's chest carried a restless weight.

Helping the old couple, giving them money, seeing their tears and gratitude—it was good, it was human. But deep down, a hollow itch gnawed at him. Excitement. Danger. Something that proved he wasn't just floating through this world as an observer.

He was in a novel, and not the safe kind. He knew the brutality of this world better than anyone—he had read it, lived it in his head back on Earth, and now walked inside it. Background characters would die. Side characters would be chewed up and discarded by the narrative. And Eugene, the so-called protagonist, would crawl through hell before clawing his way up.

Vonjo kicked at a loose stone, watching it tumble down the dirt road. His lips twisted in a self-mocking grin. Here I am, a monster with a bloodline power no one can stop, and I'm wasting time like some bored rich kid on vacation.

With a flick of his hand, he pulled up the floating interface of bullet comments, the live chatter of unseen watchers, those cryptic "Internet names" that narrated the story's blood and chaos as if it were entertainment. The texts scrolled rapidly before his eyes:

[DarkKnife12]: GEORGE IS BLEEDING! They got ambushed near the bridge!!

[MoonPiercer]: Eugene still hasn't escaped! House Sutterfouse locked the gates—they're hunting him!

[AshenWolf]: WHO'S GONNA SAVE THEM??

[LaughingCrow]: This is Vonjo's fault! He turned the family members into mortals!

Vonjo froze mid-step, his breath leaving him in a quiet scoff. "Hah… of course. Blame me."

He scrolled further, the comments filling with chaos: accusations, panic, excitement. Some cursed his name for bringing disaster. Some begged him to interfere. Others just treated the whole city lockdown like a live-action blood sport.

He tilted his head back, staring into the night sky. "So… Eugene's still trapped, huh?" A small, cruel chuckle slipped past his lips. "Well, he's the protagonist. He'll survive. He always does."

Still, a tiny pang of guilt—or maybe it was nostalgia—flared and died in his chest. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and kept walking down the dimly lit road, the frog on his shoulder letting out a soft ribbit that seemed almost questioning.

That's when it happened.

A faint tremor in the air.

The subtle, crawling sensation of being watched.

Vonjo stopped instantly, every muscle relaxed but coiled, his senses sharpening. His eyes flicked to the shadows at the edge of the road, where the sparse lamplight couldn't quite reach.

Then a figure detached itself from the darkness.

It was the tax collector from earlier. His coat seemed even heavier now, his face twisted in something between anger and greed. His steps were slow, deliberate, and his hand rested on the short metal club at his side.

"So," the man drawled, his voice low, "you think you can just waltz in, throw money around, and walk away?"

Vonjo didn't answer. He simply watched him, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in silent amusement.

The man continued, his voice dripping with venom. "People like you… you think you're untouchable. You think handing out a few stacks makes you king of the street. But money doesn't buy safety out here. Not from us. Not from me."

He took another step closer, and his words poured out like a rotten river. He spoke of how the countryside bent to their will, how the stall owners were nothing but cattle, how he'd broken better men than Vonjo.

He rambled about tribute, respect, and the punishment for arrogance, circling Vonjo like a vulture circling a carcass.

Vonjo let him talk. He answered the man's questions with slow, casual words, mostly to see how far the fool would go.

"Oh, I'm listening," Vonjo said, his tone light. "Yes, yes… terrible things happen to people who don't pay respect. Yes, the countryside belongs to you. Uh-huh, your boss is scary. Oh, and I'm supposed to be shaking in my boots, right?"

The collector's face twisted with fury. "You're mocking me."

Vonjo shrugged. "You're entertaining me."

The man hissed a sharp whistle, and the night shifted.

From the treeline and the ditches on either side of the road, hooded figures emerged one by one, like droplets of ink bleeding into water. Six… eight… twelve of them, moving with the silent discipline of trained killers. Their faces were obscured, but the gleam of blades caught the faint light.

Vonjo whistled softly. "Ohhh… now this is interesting." His eyes sparkled as he looked around at the ring of assassins forming a perfect circle. "I was just thinking I was getting bored."

The collector grinned, his teeth sharp in the moonlight. "You're confident, huh? We were told you might be… different. Dangerous. So we came prepared."

Vonjo tilted his head, genuinely impressed. "Prepared, huh? You actually did your homework. Most street rats don't get this far."

The hooded men tightened their grip on their weapons, moving closer step by step. The night air grew thick, and the road's lamplight seemed to falter.

Vonjo's smile widened into something sharper, almost predatory. "Well… since you went through all this effort, it'd be rude of me not to play along."

Then, the world seemed to exhale.

The shadows around them quivered, stretching unnaturally toward Vonjo's feet like water being pulled by gravity.

The assassins faltered, glancing down as the darkness they stood in trembled, writhing, and then began to flow.

A low, resonant hum filled the air as Vonjo opened himself to the hunger of his bloodline. He didn't move, didn't lift a finger, but the world obeyed him.

Every lamplight seemed to dim. The moonlight bent. The shadows—their shadows—peeled away from the ground and were dragged across the dirt toward him, inch by inch, then faster, like streams feeding into a whirlpool.

The first assassin stumbled back with a muffled shout as his own shadow left him completely, stretching across the road before vanishing into the spiraling darkness around Vonjo's feet.

"Wha—what the hell is he—?"

The collector's bravado cracked as he realized his own shadow was trembling violently, being pulled against his will. "He's—he's a monster—!"

Vonjo inhaled deeply, and the sound was like the slow pull of a tide. The shadows thickened, coiling and twisting in the air before collapsing into him, disappearing beneath his skin as if he were swallowing the night itself.

The world grew colder.

The assassins shivered, some dropping their weapons, others frozen as their last fragments of shadow bled away.

Vonjo's voice was calm, almost amused. "You came for my money. My life. My blood. You thought I was prey. But you forgot something important…"

He stepped forward, and the darkness pooled with him like a living thing. His eyes glimmered faintly with a color that didn't belong to mortals.

"…I devour everything."

The last shadow disappeared into him, and the road fell silent except for the frantic breathing of the men who suddenly felt exposed under the naked moonlight, as if they no longer truly existed in this world.

Vonjo smiled. Now, attack me!