Creak… creak…
Dio followed the sound as it grew louder, pulling him deeper into the dungeon.
Soon he reached a dark place where a normal person wouldn't see a thing.
But his eyes worked better than his brain most days, so he could still make out shapes in the darkness.
"Hm?" He hummed, looking around slowly.
"The egg sound came from here… right?" he muttered.
But now the place was silent. No creaks, no cracks, nothing.
Just cold air and shadows.
He frowned and stepped deeper into the dark.
"Where are you, my protein?" he whispered.
"Come to papa. I'll season you perfectly before eating you."
He kept walking, hands stretched out a little, trying to feel or hear anything.
His footsteps echoed lightly on the crystal floor, the sound bouncing back at him.
The deeper he went, the heavier the quiet felt.
Even Dio, champion of nonsense, started feeling a tiny bit uneasy.
Only a tiny bit though.
Still, he pushed forward.
"That egg better not be running away," he grumbled.
"I'm too tired to chase my breakfast."
As he walked for a while, he still didn't find anything.
The whole place felt empty… empty in the same way his head usually was.
He sighed and was just about to sit down and take a short rest.
Then it happened.
Creak.
Something cracked under his butt.
Not exactly the majestic discovery he wanted… more like a "chip-hipy" surprise.
Frowning, he jumped back to his feet and looked down.
And the moment his eyes landed on what he'd crushed, they widened.
A spark shot through them, bright and stupidly excited.
"There you are…" he whispered.
He knelt on one knee and reached out, gently touching the ground to check how many eggs were scattered around him.
His fingers brushed over smooth shells, far more than he expected.
His grin grew wider.
This was it.
There were three eggs in total, counting the one he had crushed with his legendary backside.
But it didn't bother him much.
The half-broken one still had plenty left to collect.
Protein is protein, after all.
"But why are they so big…?" he muttered, trying to pick one up.
The thing was huge, easily the size of a dinosaur egg.
Heavy, warm, and way too suspicious for any normal human to touch.
Still, none of that mattered to Dio.
If it could increase his chances of awakening, he was ready to risk his entire bloodline for it.
Then the irony smacked him in the face.
He didn't have a bloodline to risk. He was an orphan.
A dry laugh slipped out of him before he steadied himself again.
The goal remained the same, even if the dramatic flourish had fallen flat.
"As long as I get the protein, it's enough," he said to himself.
He reached toward his wristwatch, planning to turn it into a lighter so he could start cooking.
But his hand froze halfway.
"Damn it…" he groaned.
The watch was drained.
Completely exhausted.
"How am I supposed to cook them now?"
He muttered, staring at the oversized monster eggs like they had personally betrayed him.
"Should I bring them with me? No…" He shook his head right away.
Carrying them would take too much strength, and his wristwatch was as dead as his common sense.
There was no way to store anything inside it now.
"Sigh… what should I do?" he mumbled.
"Do I have to eat them raw?"
He hesitated.
His stomach twisted, and not in a brave-hero way.
But then the face of that "good kid" flashed in his mind, the one he badly wanted to bully after Awakening.
Just that memory filled him with sudden, dramatic determination.
"No. I need the protein to Awaken. Even if it's raw."
He sucked in a sharp breath and picked up the half-broken egg.
He took another breath, longer this time, trying to gather every last drop of courage in his entire body.
Then he brought the egg closer to his mouth.
The smell hit him like a punch.
Rotten, warm, and way too monster-like.
His face twisted, but he didn't stop.
He opened his mouth.
Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.
He swallowed the whole thing in one long, painful, disgusting go.
His expression twisted into something that didn't look human anymore.
Then he tossed the empty shell aside with a shudder.
Even the dungeon seemed offended.
"Ahh… nasty," he grumbled.
Gagging as the aftertaste clung to his tongue like it had signed a lifetime lease.
"Auk… auk…"
His whole body trembled with the urge to vomit.
He bit down on his lower lip hard, trying to force the feeling back.
"I don't think I can eat, auuk—"
He couldn't hold it.
His stomach twisted like it was trying to escape through his throat.
But vomiting now would mean everything he'd done, every disgusting gulp, would be for nothing.
Panicked, desperate, and running purely on stupidity-powered instincts, he dropped flat onto the ground.
Then he started rubbing his mouth on the cold floor like a dog trying to wipe off something foul.
"Go… away… go away…"
He mumbled, his voice muffled as he scrubbed his tongue against the ground with dramatic misery.
Each scrape made a gritty sound, the dungeon crystals judging him silently.
This was Dio's grand path to Awakening.
Truly inspiring.
After a while the horrible taste finally faded a little.
Not fully, Dio wasn't that lucky, but enough for him to stand up again without crying.
He wiped his tongue with his sleeve, still making small disgusted noises as he walked back toward the eggs.
Two left.
He stared at them like they were criminals who had personally wronged him.
His face twisted in pure misery.
After a long, dramatic pause, he muttered,
"Half an egg won't do…"
Then, with all the courage of someone who clearly lacked self-preservation, he picked up another one.
This guy truly never learns.
And the air itself felt like it was whispering, something bad is about to happen to him…
He held the egg with a hesitant expression, drew a deep breath, and raised his hand to crack it open.
"Papa…"
He froze mid-swing.
"Hm?"
He slowly turned his neck to look around.
Nothing. Empty space. Silent crystals. No signs of life.
"Maybe it was my imagination…" he muttered.
He raised his fist again and swung down.
This time he almost hit the egg.
Almost.
Because when his fist was two inches above the shell…
"Papa."
The sound echoed again, clearer this time.
Like a tiny tap. Like something inside was answering him.
This time it wasn't his imagination.
He checked the whole area, turning left, right, even looking up like a confused pigeon.
But just like his head, everything around him was empty.
"Did I mistake it again…?" he murmured.
No. He knew what he heard. It was clearly the sound of someone calling "papa."
So… could it be…?
He slowly turned around and stared at the egg in his hand.
"Could it be from this egg?"
He whispered the question, almost afraid of the answer.
Any reasonable observer would've called him an idiot on the spot.
An egg talking?
Even a blind guy who didn't learned the "B" of biology would know that an egg can't talk.
But Dio wasn't thinking like a reasonable observer.
His mind was fixed on that round shell in his hands.
And then the sound came again, soft, clear, and utterly impossible to dismiss.
"Papa."
Dio pressed the egg to his ear, but nothing happened.
"Papa."
He pulled it away from his ear, and the sound rang out again.
His eyebrow twitched.
His patience, which was already thin from the raw monster-egg buffet, snapped a little.
"Hey! If you don't come out, I'll eat you right now!" he snapped.
The egg shook in his hand.
Crack.
A thin line split across the shell.
And for the first time in his life, Dio wished he hadn't opened his mouth.