Villain Hiring: Help! Author Wants Me Dead-Chapter 92: An Old Man

I stopped in the middle of the street.

Slowly inhaled.

Exhaled.

And then, my legs started sprinting towards the nearest alley, because if I didn’t, I knew I was going to scream right here.

Not realising how much I had run, I found myself in another one of these confusing alleyways.

This one seemed way more alienated than the other ones though. It was such that I was the only one in this whole street.

Right then, I found a stand-alone shop beside me.

Above the entrance, a faded wooden sign creaked in the wind, its letters nearly erased by time.

I pushed open the door.

A small bell chimed as I stepped inside.

The scent of dust, and something faintly metallic filled my nose.

The shop was dimly lit with some rustic lamps and candles.

Taking a short look around the place to see if this shop was worth my time, I realised that every single item stacked here looked eerie and mysterious.

The shelves were stacked with relics, trinkets, and all manner of oddities. Some were familiar—rusty daggers, cracked potions, and faded scrolls—but others?

Others made even the usually talkative Damien go quiet.

A jar of eyeballs rested on one shelf. Every few seconds, one of them blinked.

Then there was also a hand mirror which reflected not my face, but a dark void.

If all that wasn’t already weird enough, I also found a severed monkey paw resting on a soft cushion.

"You’re telling me people actually buy this crap?"

"Listen," Damien said, "if people are stupid enough to buy a brick labelled ’Magical Rock of Fortune,’ you don’t question it. You exploit it."

Before I could respond, an old man emerged from the backroom.

He was hunched over, wrapped in layers of thick robes, and his eyes squinted at me suspiciously.

"Ahh," he rasped, his voice dry like sandpaper. "A customer. What brings you to my humble establishment, masked one?"

"Curiosity," I replied.

"Curiosity is good," he said, his grin revealing a few missing teeth. "Curiosity leads to discoveries."

"Curiosity also kills cats," Damien muttered.

The old man thought long about it and moved slow enough for me to almost consider leaving when all of a sudden, he shuffled towards a glass display case and tapped the counter. "Perhaps you’d be interested in this." He said.

I peered down.

Inside the glass case sat a simple silver ring.

I raised a brow. "I fail to see what’s so special about it."

The old man raised his grey eyes and grinned. "It screams."

I stared at him.

Damien let out a slow whistle. "I gotta say, that’s probably the worst sales pitch I’ve ever heard."

"It screams?" I repeated.

"Indeed," the old man said. "The moment you wear it, it lets out the most horrifying, ear-piercing shriek you’ve ever heard.

Cursed, they say. Terrifying, they say! But I say—" he tapped his chest, "it is a marvel of craftsmanship!"

Turning it over and over in my hands, I tried to see any special thing about it but failed to find anything else.

Completely useless.

But also… oddly fascinating.

"Maybe I should buy it," I mused, scratching my cheek bones.

Before I could decide, Damien suddenly hissed, "Noah, put that thing down. That’s not cursed. That’s suffering."

I blinked. "…What?"

"That ring isn’t enchanted to scream," Damien muttered. "It is screaming. Constantly. You just can’t hear it right now because it’s sealed."

I slowly placed it back. "That’s horrifying."

The old man just grinned. "So, interested?"

I shook my head. "I think I’ll pass."

"A shame. A true shame," he lamented; going back to the seat behind the wooden desk placed at the corner.

Turning away, I searched the shelves for something else—something less… weird.

I thought Damien would help but every other thing I placed my finger on was a no for him.

As I continued browsing, the shop seemed to stretch endlessly, far larger than it looked from the outside.

Shelves twisted in strange patterns, and the air held an unnatural stillness, as if the entire shop was a bubble separated from the rest of the world.

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I picked up a small hourglass filled with black sand. The moment I flipped it over, the sand didn’t trickle down—it flowed upwards.

"That," Damien muttered, "is how you get cursed into a time loop, and I do not want to deal with that."

Scraed shitless, I hastily set it back down.

Moving on, I came across a deck of cards bound in a thin chain. A single card peeked out from the top, its face blank.

The tag beside it read: Draw at your own risk.

"I’m guessing these don’t predict love fortunes," I murmured.

"They do tell your future," Damien said. "Just, you know… in a permanent way.

Good or bad, once you draw a card, reality shifts to match its prophecy."

I backed away from that one too.

The old man chuckled from behind his desk. "A cautious one, I see. Good, good. Most who enter here leave with regrets."

My face only paled more,

I had no doubts about that.

Further in, I found an old journal with no title. The leather binding was cracked, and the pages were yellowed with age.

Seeing it almost reminded me of the Book of Sin and how much I had tortured it.

I could actually write a book named, "500 ways to open a book" on that topic.

Back to the present, something about this book pulled at me.

When I picked it up, a faint whispering brushed against my ears—too soft to make out words, but enough to send a shiver down my spine.

"What’s this?" I asked.

The old man tilted his head, the long, grey hair on his head tangled into a mess. "Ah, one of my most peculiar possessions.

"That journal… it does not belong to this world."

***

A/N: Dear readers, I’d hope y’all could help me in polishing Noah’s sword —

With this, I start a new event!!

The sword polishing event for the men’s and women’s of culture—

For every 1000 coins worth gift = 1 Bonus Chapter.

For every Magic Castle and above = 6-9 Bonus Chapters!!