Chapter 3: First Night

The car was quiet.

Daemon sat in the back seat, spine straight, hands resting stiffly on his knees.

He had never been in a car like this before.

Leather seats. Cool, filtered air. Not a single rattle or bump from the road outside, like the vehicle didn’t even acknowledge the ground it was driving on.

*Rich people don’t even feel the potholes.*

Beside him, Victoria sat in silence, looking out her own window.

Neither of them said a word.

The city rolled past the glass. Skyscrapers stacked against the sky, their glowing windows blurring into long streaks of light as the car moved through traffic.

Daemon watched it all pass by, but his mind wasn’t really on the view.

*Married.*

*I’m actually married.*

Hours ago, he’d been an E-Rank nobody, eating instant noodles alone in a cramped apartment. Now he was sitting in a car that probably cost more than he’d earn in ten lifetimes, next to a woman the entire world knew by name.

He glanced at her.

Victoria’s expression hadn’t changed since the ceremony. Calm. Unreadable. Like none of this was strange to her at all.

*What is she thinking right now?*

He didn’t ask.

On her side of the car, Victoria kept her eyes on the passing skyline, though she wasn’t really seeing it either.

*An E-Rank Hunter.*

*My husband.*

She had spent her entire life surrounded by power. S-Rank Hunters. Guild masters. People whose names alone could end careers. And now she had bound her fate to a man with no rank, no name, no reputation.

*If the ancient records are wrong, this changes nothing.*

*If they’re right...*

She didn’t let herself finish that thought.

Instead, she simply watched the city lights blur past, and said nothing at all.

---

The car eventually slowed, then stopped.

Daemon looked out the window, expecting something enormous. A mansion, maybe. Something that matched the Hale name.

Instead, he saw a modest two-story house, tucked quietly at the end of a narrow street.

It wasn’t small. But it wasn’t the kind of place he’d imagined either.

The street around it was silent. No traffic. No noise. The neighboring houses looked almost identical — clean, private, deliberately unremarkable.

*A safehouse.*

*Somewhere no one would think to look for her.*

Victoria stepped out first, without waiting for him.

She walked to the front door, unlocked it, and turned back toward him.

"Come inside," she said. Her voice was flat. Not unkind. Just efficient.

Daemon followed.

---

The moment the door opened, the smell hit him first.

Dust. Stale air.

He stepped inside and immediately understood why.

Clothes were piled across the couch. Empty takeout containers sat stacked on the counter. A thin layer of dust coated most of the surfaces, like the house had been left untouched for weeks.

Victoria sighed.

"I’ll have someone come clean this tomorrow," she said, already moving toward the kitchen. "I haven’t had time."

Daemon said nothing. He wasn’t in a position to complain about mess. His own apartment hadn’t exactly been a palace either.

"There’s water. Juice, if you want it," Victoria added, opening a cabinet.

"Juice is fine," he said.

She poured him a glass without another word.

Daemon took it, glancing around. A staircase led to the second floor.

"Your room is upstairs," Victoria said, noticing his gaze. "First door. Mine’s beside it."

He nodded slowly.

*Right. We’re married. We live in the same house now.*

It still didn’t feel real.

---

They both went to freshen up before dinner, retreating to their separate corners of the house without another word between them.

Daemon stood under the shower, water running over his shoulders, and let his thoughts finally catch up with him.

*So this is my life now.*

*I have a wife.*

*A wife who’s dying, and somehow I’m supposed to be the one who saves her.*

He almost laughed at the thought.

*I can barely save myself.*

An E-Rank Hunter with no guild, no contract, no achievements to his name — now carrying the weight of someone else’s survival on his shoulders. It should have terrified him.

Somehow, it didn’t.

*Whatever happens after this... I’ll deal with it.*

*One day at a time.*

It was the only plan he had.

---

By the time Daemon came downstairs, Victoria was already in the kitchen.

She stood at the stove, moving through the motions of cooking with a kind of stiff, careful precision — the precision of someone who had clearly never done this before in her life.

Daemon watched for a moment, debating whether to offer help.

"I can manage," Victoria said, without turning around. "Sit down."

He sat.

A few minutes later, two plates were placed on the table.

Oat milk. Scrambled eggs.

It wasn’t much. But Daemon picked up his fork, took a bite—

And blinked in surprise.

*This is actually good.*

He hadn’t expected that. Somehow, the meal was simple, but well made. Balanced. Nothing burnt, nothing undercooked.

He glanced up at Victoria, only to catch the faintest trace of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth before she noticed him looking and smoothed her expression back into neutrality.

Neither of them said anything about it.

They ate in silence.

---

When the plates were empty, Victoria finally spoke.

"I know you have questions," she said. "A lot of them."

Daemon looked up.

"We’ll talk tomorrow," she continued. "I need to sleep."

He nodded.

"Okay," he said. "We’ll talk tomorrow. Good night."

Victoria gave a small nod in return, then rose and disappeared up the staircase without another word.

Daemon sat alone at the table for a moment longer, letting the silence settle around him.

*Tomorrow, then.*

He climbed the stairs and stepped into his new room.

It was spacious. A large bed. A desk. A closet already stocked with clothes in his size, though he had no idea when that had been arranged. Everything he could need, already waiting for him.

He sat slowly on the edge of the bed, the weight of the entire day finally catching up to his body.

Then, quietly, he muttered the word that had been sitting in the back of his mind since the wedding hall.

"...System?"

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then—

Ding!

A faint screen flickered to life in front of him.

---

[Welcome, Host.]

[Ancient Bloodline System — Initialization Complete.]

[Host: Daemon Miles]

[Bloodline: Nameless (Unidentified)]

[Bloodline Growth: 0.1%]

[Status: Dormant]

Daemon stared at the screen, eyes wide.

More text appeared beneath it.

[Basic Functions Unlocked:]

[— Status Window]

[— Quest Log]

[— Bloodline Growth Tracker]

[Advanced functions locked. Further unlocks require Bloodline Growth.]

He blinked, and the screen responded, shifting to something new.

[Status Window]

[Name: Daemon Miles]

[Rank: E]

[Bloodline: Nameless]

[Bloodline Growth: 0.1%]

[Strength: --]

[Skills: None]

Nothing else.

No grand power. No hidden talent revealed. Just a blank, mostly empty status screen, staring back at him like a promise that hadn’t been kept yet.

Daemon exhaled slowly.

*That’s it? That’s the whole system?*

He didn’t know whether to feel amazed or disappointed.

*A quest log. A growth tracker. And apparently... nothing else, for now.*

---

He leaned back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling.

*Okay. So I have a system.*

*A system that apparently activated the moment I got married.*

That couldn’t be a coincidence.

*It has to be connected to Victoria somehow.*

*Bloodline Growth.* The system had used that phrase twice already. His bloodline. The one nobody could ever identify. The one that had gotten him rejected from every guild in the city.

*Maybe it wasn’t useless after all.*

*Maybe it was just... waiting.*

He didn’t have any real answers. Just questions stacking on top of more questions, with no way to sort through them tonight.

*I’ll figure it out tomorrow.*

*I need sleep too.*

He closed the status window with a thought, watched it fade into nothing, and let his eyes fall shut.

Within minutes, exhaustion pulled him under.

---

Morning came quietly.

Victoria woke earlier than usual, her mind already running through the day ahead.

*Someone to clean the house. Someone to handle groceries. I’ll need to arrange it before I leave.*

She hadn’t slept well — new arrangement, a stranger sleeping down the hall. But there was no time to dwell on that. There was too much to manage.

She made her way down the staircase, already mentally drafting the list of calls she’d need to make.

*Cleaning service first. Then—*

She reached the bottom step.

And froze.

The smell hit her before anything else did.

Something warm. Something cooking.

She turned toward the kitchen, and stopped completely still in the doorway, unable to move for several long seconds.