I screamed.
Not the kind of scream you let out by accident, not the startled kind, not the wounded kind. This one tore everything raw—from my throat to my chest to the edges of my mind. It was ugly, desperate, louder than anything I'd ever produced in my life.
I felt eyes snapping toward me from every direction. Whispers flickered like sparks across the night market.
"What happened?"
"Is he okay?"
"Don't look—don't look directly—"
None of it mattered. The pain consumed every corner of me. It wasn't sharp or burning or crushing. It was all of those things clashing at once, an impossible sensation grinding against bone.
I forced myself to look up—just once—at the creature that had caused it.
Its three mouths stretched wide, each wearing a different kind of smile. Pleasant. Mocking. Hungry.
Out of nowhere, strange golden mist-like smoke appeared, like a breath exhaled by a dying god, curling around the stall, the items, and lastly the creature that had taken my Eye.
Then—
Gone.
The golden smoke evaporated into the night air like it had never existed, and with it, the creature and its entire stall dissolved. Vanished. Erased. The space in front of me was empty now, only leaving a small trail of blood behind.
Either I was going insane, or I had stepped right into a hallucination disguised as reality.
Before I could gather even a thread of thought through the pounding agony, a voice slipped into the space.
"Greed is such a shallow emotion,"
I heard it twice—once through my ears, clear as a bell, and once inside my own skull, like someone had tapped directly onto my thoughts.
"They took your payment without even a mutual purchase agreement."
The voice vibrated with layered tones, each one overlapping, echoing faintly like a choir that hadn't agreed on a key.
"How blasphemous."
I hesitantly turned, biting down hard on the pain flaring across my nerves. My legs felt like melting wax, but I forced myself to face the speaker.
The first thing I saw were the horns.
Tall, sweeping antlers, gilded like living gold, rising from the man's head in regal arcs. They weren't decorative—oh no. They pulsed faintly with warmth, catching lanternlight so naturally it felt like the world was bending just to highlight them. Even the shadows seemed careful not to crawl too close.
Then his eyes—
Molten amber-red, narrow and ancient. They glowed like metal on the verge of turning liquid. When they locked onto me, I felt small in a way I'd never experienced—small like a candle under a collapsing sky.
His long midnight-black hair fell in tousled waves, wild in a way that only made him look more curated. It framed his face in shadow, shimmering faintly when he moved.
His clothes were midnight incarnate: layered silks, embroidered brocades, patterns woven in such deep shades of black that they only revealed themselves when he shifted. Gold chains draped across his chest, heavy with talismans and coins stamped with symbols I didn't recognize. Every movement sent a soft chime through the air, like wind brushing distant bells.
Rings glimmered on his fingers—too many to count. Bracelets stacked over slender wrists. Earrings shaped like celestial symbols dangled beside pointed ears, glowing faintly like they were absorbing moonlight.
Nothing about him was loud.
But everything about him demanded attention.
He smoked from a long jade-and-gold pipe, exhaling trails of golden smoke that twisted into fleeting shapes—faces, beasts, constellations—before dissolving.
His smile was sharp, lazy, and far too confident.
The most dangerous thing in the world wearing the expression of someone who owned everything he saw.
"I apologize," the man said quietly, voice smooth and warm and edged with hidden blades. "You must be in terrible pain."
He lowered himself onto one knee—effortlessly graceful—as if kneeling before me were an act of casual courtesy rather than something impossibly surreal.
"Poor thing," he murmured, reaching out a hand but stopping just shy of touching me. "But I can help with that."
"H—huh?" I gasped, the word barely forming. The pain pulsed again—white-hot, dizzying—and I felt myself sway.
The man's smile widened just a touch. "You're from the Bureau of Anomalous Affairs, yes?"
"How do you know that—" I choked, my voice splintering with pain and panic. "How—"
"Oh, please." He gave a soft, musical laugh. Golden smoke curled around his lips like an obedient pet. "Your aura reeks of bureaucracy. Rules. Regulations. Very boring things."
"That— that's not—"
"You were tricked by that little tri-mouthed parasite," he said, cutting me off with theatrical disgust. "A scavenger anomaly pretending to be a merchant. Pathetic creature. Hardly worth the air it breathed."
He clicked his tongue.
"Fortunately for you," he added, his tone dropping into something far darker, "I despise theft."
He rose to his full height — towering, elegant, terrifyingly composed. The air shifted around him. The market lights flickered, bending subtly toward him as if acknowledging royalty.
He extended his hand toward me.
"I can help with your missing eye," he said gently. "Would you like that?"
I swallowed, throat aching. "Why help me?"
The lazy smile returned — but it wasn't lazy anymore. It was calculated.
"Because, little Bureau agent…"
He leaned in just enough that his golden smoke wrapped around us like a curtain.
"You are far more interesting than you think. And I do not enjoy watching potential collapse this early."
A shiver crept down my spine.
He offered his hand again, palm up, fingers adorned with rings that glimmered like fragments of star-metal.
"You get your eye back," he said lightly, "and I get a tiny favor in return."
My breath hitched. "What… favor?"
"I get to accompany you in your field investigations." He tapped his temple. "Not physically, of course. I have no interest in walking. But through your eye? Every time you enter an anomaly? I'd see what you see. Nothing more."
That sounded… weirdly harmless. Sketchy, sure — but harmless compared to most anomaly pacts.
The pain in my socket surged again, red-hot lightning racing down my spine. I barely had room to think, let alone to question him. My body acted before my mind did.
My hand grabbed his.
Deal sealed.
"Excellent choice, my friend."
He didn't even wait a beat.
He lifted the long jade-and-gold pipe to his lips and exhaled—no, unleashed—a thick cloud of shimmering golden smoke directly into my face.
I flinched and instinctively shut my eyes.
The smoke stung—warm and sharp at first, almost like static crawling across my skin.
Then, suddenly, it cooled. A soothing chill swept through me, and the pain that had been ripping me apart—my skull, my nerves, the raw wound where my eye had been—faded in an instant. Not gradually. Not gently.
Gone.
As if someone had reached inside and flipped a switch.
I stood there, stunned, breath unsteady. For several seconds, I didn't move. Couldn't move.
When I finally dared open my eyes again, he was no longer touching me, no longer leaning close. Just standing there with that impossibly calm, unbearably knowing smile.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears as I slowly—very slowly—lifted trembling fingers toward my face.
Toward the empty socket that had been screaming only moments ago.
My fingertips brushed something soft, warm, intact—
My breath caught.
"…!"
My eye.
"...My eye—it's back!"
My voice cracked, barely able to hold the shape of the words.
Something inside me lurched—relief, shock, disbelief, all tangled together.
I didn't know whether to laugh or collapse to the ground. My legs were shaking, my chest tight. Tears stung the newly-returned eye, blurring my vision for a moment. The world came back into focus with too much clarity, too much color, too much everything.
Behind me, the horned man released a long, satisfied exhale of golden smoke, the tendrils swirling up above his head like elegant ribbons.
"Now then," he said softly, a smile carving itself into his lips, "shall we begin our partnership?"
I pushed myself onto my feet, wobbling slightly. My legs felt like they remembered the pain even though it was gone.
"Why'd you… actually help me?" I managed, still breathless. "Honestly."
He tilted his head like the question amused him.
"We made a deal. That is why, my friend."
"Okay—let me rephrase." I rubbed my face with one hand, trying to ground myself. "What do you get out of this? Seeing through my eyes whenever I enter an anomaly? Is that really… enough?"
His lips curved in a smile that somehow held both fondness and boredom.
"Well," he said lightly, almost playfully, "life tends to get a bit repetitive in your older years, my friend."
His voice—smooth, elegantly resonant—echoed faintly in my mind with each word, as if it lingered deliberately.
'His voice is kind of soothing—'
I froze.
'NO. No, it's not, Yuwon. Stop. Stop right there.'
The horned man turned away from me, his many gold chains chiming softly with the motion. He cast a slow glance toward the crowd that had gathered around us, drawn in by my screaming and his presence.
He raised one hand and clapped once.
Just one clap.
The sound cracked through the air like striking ceremonial metal.
Immediately—violently—the sky bloomed.
A cascade of golden fireworks erupted overhead, exploding in shimmering halos that painted the night with light. The sound rippled across the market, deep and warm, sending a tremor through the ground beneath us.
"Our Parade ends in thirty minutes!" the man announced, his voice magnified, layered, resonant—echoing far louder than his lips moved. "If you have yet to make your final purchases, now is your last opportunity until the next parade!"
The crowd responded instantly.
A split second ago they had been frozen, whispering, staring at me with a mix of fear and curiosity.
Now they moved like a single organism awakened from sleep, scattering through the stalls and pathways of the Golden Moon Parade Market like children released into a festival.