"Give me more."
His voice was a rumble against my jugular. It vibrated through my bones, triggering every flight instinct I had left.
"Get... off!" I gasped, pushing against his shoulders.
It was like pushing against a steel wall. Yoon JieMi didn't budge. His lips were dangerously close to my skin, his hot breath fanning over the sensitive spot just below my ear.
He wasn't trying to kiss me. He was trying to inhale me.
[System Alert!]
[Mana Transfer Efficiency: 400%]
[The Target is instinctively draining your reserves.]
[Warning: If your Mana hits 0, you will enter 'Mana Shock' (Coma).]
My vision blurred. Black spots danced at the edges of my sight. I felt it physically, a sensation like water being sucked out of a straw. My energy, my life force, was flowing out of my body and into his.
He's going to dry me out.
I'm going to die in a semi-basement, eaten by my own protagonist.
"Stop..." I choked out. "JieMi, stop!"
He didn't listen. His grip on my wrists tightened, bruising the skin.
"Sweet," he mumbled, his voice thick and slurred. "You taste... quiet."
Quiet?
My mana felt 'quiet' to him?
It made a twisted sort of sense. I was the one who wrote the noise in his head. My mana was the only frequency he recognized.
I couldn't push him off. I couldn't out-muscle an S-Rank.
So I had to do the opposite.
If he wants mana, I'll give him mana.
All of it.
"You want it?" I gritted my teeth. "Fine. Choke on it!"
Instead of resisting the pull, I reversed the flow. I gathered every scrap of F-Rank mana in my core, the meager, pathetic scrapings of a porter, and shoved it into him in one violent burst.
[Skill Created: 'Mana Overload (Manual)']
BZZZT!
The air crackled.
JieMi gasped sharply. His back arched, his muscles seizing up like stone.
It was like force-feeding a starving man a seven-course meal in one second.
His eyes rolled back. The red glow flickered and died.
"Ugh..."
His head dropped.
Thud.
He landed right on my chest. Heavy. Dead weight.
Silence returned to the room, broken only by the sound of rain drumming against the small window and my own ragged breathing.
"Haa... Haa..."
I lay there, pinned under the unconscious monster. My limbs felt like jelly. My mana bar was blinking an angry empty gray.
[Mana: 1 / 250]
[Crisis Averted.]
"Crazy bastard," I whispered to the ceiling, tears of relief pricking my eyes. "I nearly became a mana smoothie."
It took me twenty minutes to wiggle out from under him.
I couldn't lift him onto the bed. The bed was a flimsy single mattress on a frame that creaked if you looked at it wrong. It would probably collapse under his density.
So, I left him on the floor.
I dragged the blanket off my bed and threw it over him. I shoved a pillow under his head.
"There," I huffed, wiping sweat from my forehead. "Hospitality."
I sat on the edge of my bed, looking down at him.
Now that the chaos was over, the reality of the situation settled in.
Yoon JieMi.
The 'Calamity of Seoul'. The man who would destroy the world in three years.
He was sleeping on my linoleum floor, next to a pile of unpaid utility bills and instant noodle cups.
I reached out, my hand trembling, and brushed a lock of wet black hair off his forehead.
He flinched in his sleep. Even unconscious, he expected pain.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
I traced the line of his jaw with my eyes.
I remembered writing Chapter 50. The chapter where he gets captured by the Guild Alliance. They tortured him for weeks to figure out how his shadows worked.
He never screamed. He just completely collapsed inside.
I did that.
I typed those words while drinking iced coffee in a cafe, thinking about ad revenue.
"I won't let it happen this time," I promised the sleeping monster. "I'll fix your ending. I swear."
[System Notification]
[Affection Points: +1 (Current: -99)]
[Note: Still in the 'Kill on Sight' zone, but improvement detected.]
"Thanks for the reality check, QQ," I muttered, rubbing my temples.
Exhaustion finally hit me like a truck. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I curled up on the small bed, staring at his back until the darkness took me.
Chirp. Chirp.
The sound of sparrows.
And... cold metal?
I woke up with a start.
My eyes flew open.
The first thing I saw was Yoon JieMi.
He was standing right next to my bed. Shirtless.
The morning light filtered through the bars of the window, illuminating the scars on his chest and the dangerous, predatory set of his shoulders.
The second thing I noticed was the sensation against my throat.
A blade made of solid shadow was pressed against my windpipe.
"Good morning," he said.
His voice was smooth, polite, and absolutely terrifying.
I stopped breathing. My heart slammed against my ribs.
"JieMi..."
"You have extensive notes," he said.
He lifted his left hand. He was holding my notebook.
My notebook.
The one where I wrote down his stats, his likes, his dislikes, and his future plot points to organize my thoughts.
"JieMi's Likes: Silence, dark chocolate (80% cacao), high places," he read aloud, his eyes never leaving mine.
He tapped the notebook against his thigh.
"JieMi's Dislikes: Noise, scientists, the color yellow, lies."
He leaned down, his crimson eyes boring into mine. The red glow was stable now, but sharp. Calculating.
"You even know about the neck scar."
He touched the jagged scar on his throat with his free hand.
"I got this when I was seven. In a facility that doesn't exist on any map. There are no records of it."
The shadow blade pressed harder. A drop of warm blood beaded on my skin and trickled down my neck.
"So tell me, Dove," he smiled, and the temperature in the room dropped to zero. "Are you a government spy? Or are you a Prophet?"
[System Alert!]
[Life or Death Question.]
[Option A: Claim to be a Super Fan (Lie Chance: 10%)]
[Option B: Claim to be a Prophet (Lie Chance: 40%)]
[Option C: Tell the Truth (Lie Chance: 0% - Result: Instant Death)]
I swallowed hard.
He was lucid, he was smart. And he was paranoid.
If I lied and he caught me, I was dead. But I couldn't tell him I created him.
"I'm not a spy," I whispered, my voice trembling.
"Then explain this," he shook the notebook. "Explain 'Chapter 12'."
You idiot! I clearly remember I said I would burn that immediately after writing it! Why was it still here?!
Why did you even write it? Another voice announced and face palmed.
My blood ran cold.
'Chapter 12' was written in the margins. It was the title of the arc where he killed his first human.
"It's..."
I scrambled for an excuse. My brain was firing at light speed.
"It's a diary," I blurted out.
He paused. His eyes narrowed slightly. "A diary?"
"Yes! I... I write stories!" I rushed on, desperate. "I'm a writer. And you... you're my muse."
"Muse?"
His eyebrows shot up. The shadow blade didn't waver, but the killing intent faltered slightly due to confusion.
"Yes," I lied, looking him straight in the eyes. I channeled every ounce of sincerity I possessed. "I've been watching you on the news. I... I fell for you. So I wrote a story about you. A story where you aren't a monster, but a hero."
I gestured helplessly to the notebook.
"I wrote down everything I could find about you because I wanted to understand you. I wanted to write a happy ending for you."
Silence.
The room was so quiet I could hear the drip of the faucet in the kitchen.
JieMi stared at me. He looked at the notebook, then back at me. His expression was unreadable.
"A happy ending?" he repeated. "For me?"
"Yes."
He scoffed. A harsh, grating sound.
"Delusional woman."
He tossed the notebook onto the bed. It landed with a soft thud near my feet.
The shadow blade at my throat dissipated into smoke.
"Get up," he commanded, turning away to put on his shirt.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, clutching my chest. The spot on my neck where the blade had been stung.
"I'm hungry," he said, pulling his black compression shirt over his head. The movement rippled the muscles of his back, highlighting the V-taper of his spine.
He turned to look at me, a dark smirk playing on his lips.
"Feed me. If the food is good, I might decide not to kill you for your creepy hobbies."
I nodded quickly, my legs shaking as I climbed out of bed.
I survived. Again.
"What do you want to eat?" I asked, moving toward the tiny kitchenette.
JieMi leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. He watched me with eyes that were still too sharp, too intelligent. He didn't believe the 'Muse' story at all. I could feel it. He was just keeping me alive because I was useful.
"Something warm," he said. "And if you try to poison me... I'll feed you to my shadows piece by piece."
I lit the stove, my hands trembling as I reached for a pot.
[System Notification]
[Target Suspicion: 80%]
[Target Intrigue: 95%]
[New Quest: Breakfast of Champions.]
I didn't know it yet, but looking at his reflection in the window, I saw him touch his chest.
Right where I had touched him last night.
He looked confused.
But confused or not, the monster was in my kitchen. And he was waiting for breakfast.
[Chapter 4 - End]