[Dark Alley - Late Evening]
Vorn stopped mid-step in the narrow alley between apartment buildings. Something had been bothering him since leaving the café, a restless energy coming from his shadow that felt different from the slime's usual commentary.
"What are you doing in there?" he asked quietly.
The slime's voice echoed inside his mind, casual but with an edge of sheepishness. "Some are sparring. Some are sitting around. A few are... uh, playing games."
Vorn didn't respond immediately. He stood in the alley's darkness, processing this information while rain continued to fall around him. His soldiers - beings created from absorbed souls and given form through slime magic - were apparently developing their own activities during downtime.
Without another word, he turned toward his apartment building.
---
[Vorn's Room - Command]
The apartment felt smaller with all of them manifested. Six humanoid figures knelt in formation on his living room floor, each one bearing his general appearance but with subtle variations that reflected their origins and personalities.
Ash - pale skin with burn scars across his arms, eyes that flickered like embers.
Dusk - darker complexion, movements that seemed to blend with shadows naturally.
Grain - stockier build, hands that showed calluses from constant weapon practice.
Mire - thin and wiry, with an expression that suggested he was always listening to conversations happening elsewhere.
Scarlet - red-tinted hair and clothing that seemed to shift color subtly.
Saber - precise posture, equipment that looked more maintained than the others.
Vorn's red eyes glowed faintly in the apartment's dim lighting as he studied them.
"If you have time to sit around, you have time to get better," he said evenly. "Learn a craft, find skills, make money. I don't need soldiers who waste time."
The shadows stiffened. Even the slime's presence in his consciousness seemed to retreat from his attention.
"Ash - you'll handle material procurement. Anything I need acquired, you find it." The scarred soldier nodded silently. "Dusk - city surveillance. I want to know about guild movements, Bureau activities, anything that affects our operations."
He continued down the line, assigning roles that would make them useful beyond simple combat applications.
"Grain - keep the others sharp. Regular training, skill development, tactical exercises. Mire - information gathering in the underworld. The kind of intelligence that doesn't appear in official reports."
When he reached the last two, he paused. "Scarlet and Saber - special assignments. I'll brief you separately."
The soldiers absorbed their orders with the focused attention of beings who understood that disappointing their creator would have consequences beyond simple displeasure.
---
[Planning]
After dismissing the soldiers back into his shadow, Vorn walked to his desk and pulled out a notebook. He began sketching anatomical diagrams - muscle structure, nervous system pathways, circulatory networks. The drawings were precise, detailed, suggesting knowledge that went beyond casual study.
"I'm going to be a doctor," he said suddenly.
The slime hesitated before responding. "Eh, Doctor? You?"
Vorn's expression didn't change as he continued drawing. "Yes. I have something I'm working on, You'll understand later."
The anatomical diagrams weren't random medical illustrations. They were mapping specific enhancement patterns, ways that monster biology could be integrated with human physiology. His own transformation was just the beginning - he was planning something much more systematic.
"Medical knowledge provides legitimacy," he explained quietly. "Access to resources, official credentials, the ability to work with biological systems without attracting suspicion."
He turned to a new page and began sketching something that looked like surgical equipment, but with modifications that suggested non-standard applications.
"Besides," he added, "healing people is just reverse engineering damage. And I've become very good at understanding how systems can be... improved."
---
[Cemetery - Vorn's Former Country]
The cemetery was gray and wet, clouds hanging low enough to blur the line between sky and earth. Rain fell in the persistent way that soaked through everything, turning the ground to mud and making umbrellas necessary accessories rather than optional convenience.
Crowds had gathered despite the weather. The Li family stood in formal arrangement, their expressions controlled and unreadable. The Park family maintained respectful distance, present enough to show acknowledgment but separate enough to avoid implications of close association.
Unknown faces filled the spaces between - bureaucrats who attended significant funerals as part of their professional duties, journalists covering the story of a promising young awakened individual's tragic death, ordinary people who came because they'd heard his name in connection with recent events.
Vorn's sister stood near the front, crying into the shoulder of her foster father. Her grief was genuine and complete, the kind of loss that would reshape how she understood the world.
"He deserved better than this," someone muttered from the crowd, their words lost under the soft percussion of rain on umbrellas and stone.
The coffin was empty - there had been no body to recover from the dungeon collapse - but the ceremony provided closure for people who needed to believe in endings and final rest.
A spiritual leader spoke briefly about a young man taken too soon, potential unfulfilled, the tragedy of promising lives cut short by dangerous circumstances. The words were appropriate and meaningless, covering the absence of real understanding about what had actually happened.
---
[Hajime's Choice]
Hajime stood apart from the main groups, his face unreadable but stormy. He'd been Vorn's supervisor, the one responsible for guiding his development and ensuring his safety during critical procedures. The one who'd approved the dangerous enhancement without proper protocols.
After the ceremony ended and people began dispersing, several officials approached him. Government representatives, bureau administrators, people who wanted to discuss procedural reviews and administrative adjustments to prevent similar incidents.
He didn't respond to their attempts at conversation. Instead, he pulled his bureau identification badge from his coat and dropped it onto the wet ground, where it landed in a puddle with a small splash.
Then he walked away, leaving the officials staring after him in confusion and growing concern.
---
[Secure Communication]
Later that evening, Hajime sat in his home office and placed a secure call to someone he'd once trusted completely. The woman who answered had been his superior for over a decade, someone he'd believed shared his commitment to proper protocols and candidate safety.
Her face appeared on his screen with the bland professionalism of someone conducting routine business.
"You knew," Hajime said without preamble.
Her expression didn't change. "I'm not sure what you're implying."
"The protocol downgrade. The missing safety measures. The convenient timing of everything that went wrong." His voice was controlled but carried the weight of betrayal and anger. "You knew he was walking into a situation designed to kill him."
"This conversation is inappropriate and counterproductive."
"This conversation is over," she replied, and the call terminated.
Within minutes, Hajime's access to bureau networks was revoked. His security clearances were suspended. His official communications were blocked. The speed and thoroughness of the cutoff confirmed everything he'd suspected about the coordination behind Vorn's circumstances.
He sat in the sudden silence of his disconnected office, surrounded by equipment that no longer responded to his credentials.
"At least they're not coming after me," he muttered, rubbing his forehead with hands that felt heavier than they should.
But the look in his eyes showed he understood this wasn't over. People who arranged the deaths of promising candidates to cover up larger problems didn't simply forget about witnesses who asked inconvenient questions.
---
[Back to Planning]
In his foreign apartment, Vorn continued sketching medical diagrams while his soldiers moved through the city on their assigned tasks. The burial ceremony was happening without his knowledge, mourning for someone who was systematically becoming something else entirely.
He paused in his drawing, pen hovering over a particularly complex anatomical structure that showed integration points between human and monster biology.
"Just the tip of the iceberg," he whispered, almost to himself.
The soldiers in his shadow stirred uneasily, sensing something in his tone that suggested their current assignments were preparation for much larger plans. Plans that would require medical knowledge, legitimate credentials, and access to resources that could only be obtained through official channels.
The notebook filled with diagrams that mapped not just anatomy, but transformation. Not just healing, but enhancement. Not just medical treatment, but systematic improvement of human capability through carefully controlled integration with monster characteristics.
Somewhere in his former country, people were saying goodbye to Vorn Ashworth. But the person sitting in the foreign apartment, planning surgical procedures that didn't exist in any medical textbook, was already becoming something that needed a different name entirely.