Outside, the night whispered.
The van's engine growled to life with a low, throaty vrrrrrrrmm, and its headlights cut through the shadows like knives.
Tires crunched over loose gravel as it began to pull away from the decrepit apartment block, where ash still drifted in the air like slow-falling snow from the landlord's charred remains.
But from the alley behind the building, a figure emerged.
His presence didn't disturb the dust. He didn't cast a shadow despite the moonlight. One foot out of the dark, and yet he seemed part of it.
He raised a device—a sleek, rune-etched communication orb, its core pulsating dim violet—and pressed it to his lips.
"This is Watcher-Delta-7. Confirming. The House of Sutterfouse is active. I have visual of the van. They are collecting people. Repeat. The House of Sutterfouse is taking people."
Silence.
Then static.
Followed by a cold voice crackling from the other end.
"Delta-7. Do not engage. Repeat: Do not intercept. Stand down and await further instruction."
The man furrowed his brows.
"What?" he hissed, eyes narrowing. "Why not? That was the target. I'm here to find the source of the disappearances. I found it."
The voice on the other side exhaled—long, controlled. Measured.
"We know. But this goes beyond your clearance. The Sutterfouse family is not a local gang. They're not some cult or rogue sorcerer collective. You are talking about a High Nobility Sorcerer House with millennium-level ancestral protection."
The shadow man's eyes glinted, irritation flaring behind his calm. "So we just let them do what they want?"
"That's not our mission," the voice snapped. "You were deployed to investigate the anomaly of missing persons. Your job was to confirm whether the disappearances were related to rogue cursed beasts or demon trafficking rings. If the Sutterfouse House is involved…"
There was a pause.
"You must not interfere. That is a direct order. You have no idea how deep their connections run. If you so much as step in their path, it won't be just you. Everyone tied to this operation will be marked. Do you understand what that means?"
The shadow man clenched his jaw.
"Why? Because they're noble?" he growled. "Because they wear pretty robes and sit in ivory towers while sacrificing people in basements?"
"This is not about nobility. This is about survival. If you provoke the Sutterfouse House, we won't be able to protect you. Worse, you might not die. You might wish you had. Stand. Down."
"I can follow them," the man insisted. "No direct engagement. Just a tail. A distance trace. Nothing more."
"No," came the voice, flat and final. "You will not. This isn't an argument, Watcher-Delta-7. Fall back and await reassignment. We will escalate the matter to the Tower of Command. But this is not a skirmish we pick lightly. That is an order."
The comm went dead.
The man stood in silence, staring after the van as it disappeared around the corner.
He didn't speak.
Just stood there, still as a gravestone.
The engine hum was long gone, but he kept watching, as if trying to burn the direction into memory. After a long moment, he exhaled through his nose, his breath barely visible in the night air.
"Well, kid… looks like you'll be in trouble."
Then—shffff—he stepped back into the shadows, body vanishing like a whisper, until even his presence ceased to exist.
—
Inside the van, the air was stiff. Stale. Claustrophobic.
Vonjo sat awkwardly, his arms crossed tightly, his shoulders tense.
His mind? It was spinning damn hard.
Now—now—after twenty-seven long years of silent cursing, praying, giving up and swearing never to hope again—a system appeared.
Seriously?
When he'd already surrendered the idea of being chosen by fate? When he was in the backseat of a van heading toward certain doom with two exorcist death-suits as drivers and a random kid beside him?
Now?
Of course.
Vonjo nodded, he got it. At least, it came to his rescue and his decision on coming with the two earlier was a right decision all along.
Something came to save the day.
DING!
Mission: Prepare to Show Off
Reward: Unknown
Vonjo stared blankly.
"What the fuck does that even mean?" he muttered. "Show off? Like what, do card tricks? Pull a rabbit from my coat?"
He glanced at his hands. "I'm not a trickster. I'm not even charming."
Another line flashed.
Scanning Host's Bloodline…
Checking compatibility with Strongest Fallen Ancestor Data…
"Oh, now this?" he grumbled. "I'm just trying not to die here, and you're checking DNA like this is some fantasy 23andMe… Come on! Give me something that can save the day!"
Then—
"You know where we're going?"
Vonjo blinked.
The teen beside him had spoken. Calm, curious. His eyes were sharp behind his glasses, yet too calm for a boy his age.
Vonjo didn't know if he should answer him. But looking at him trying too hard to act like an adult and knowing that he had nothing to do, he cleared his throat and decided to reply. "Yeah."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I know," Vonjo repeated.
"Strange," the boy said. "They told me it was a mission. Said the pay would be great, but didn't tell me what it is. No clues. No contract."
Vonjo chuckled—dry, sardonic. "You'll get paid alright. Paid with suffering."
The boy tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
Vonjo turned slightly, resting an elbow on the side panel, and looked at the kid with a tired grin.
"You ever heard of a powerful sorcerer family that collects random people off the street, promises them rewards, and then gives them a death mission in some forgotten dungeon, cursed land, or a pocket of hell no one dares map?"
The kid hesitated. "…No."
"Good. Then let me educate you."
Vonjo took a deep breath.
"That house—" he didn't say the name, even here, "—is one of the oldest families in this world—our world. They were the first to make contracts with fallen angels. The first to take in hell power. And the first to weaponize it. Every generation, they prune the weak. That means anyone born without their bloodline's special talent is a threat to their so-called 'perfection.' You know what they do with those people?"
He didn't wait for the kid to guess.
"They send them away. Cut them off. Some vanish. Some 'get sick.' And some get called back years later… like us."
Vonjo pointed to himself. "I'm a discarded descendant. Born with no talent—so they branded me and tossed me out."
He pointed at the kid. "You? Probably picked up as cannon fodder."
"They call it a mission. But really, they just need sacrifices to test out a forbidden domain. Or clean up demonic remnants too dangerous for their precious inner circle."
"They call you useful. Until you're not."
"They give you promises. And if you live long enough to collect them, they kill you anyway."
"Hell, even some of their own children don't survive past twenty."
Vonjo leaned back.
"That's the place you're dealing with."
The teen was silent for a moment.
Then, quietly: "Is that… true?"
Vonjo looked at him.
Dead serious.
"Yeah. We're going to die… So kid, you shouldn't have accepted the contract of whatever mission this is."
The boy didn't flinch.
Instead, he smiled.
Vonjo squinted.
"…Why the hell are you smiling?"
The boy didn't answer.
He looked down again.
But Vonjo's gut was telling him something different. That smile. It wasn't right. He could feel it.
Suddenly, the kid would take out a walkie-talkie!