'Wait!... Will the system lie to me? Could it just... make stuff up to make me happy?'

Yikes. That was a super scary thought.

And not to mention... why doesn't anybody else know this? Why doesn't anyone in this whole, entire world know about this crazy, insane lore? About the stupid, portal-building old-world humans?

From what he could think, all the people here, every regular person, just... believes that life started 50 million years ago. That's it. That's the beginning of their history books. They had no clue at all about the billions of empty, dead-meat years before that.

It was just... crazy!

The system had been spilling this crazy, world-breaking lore into his head for what felt like twenty solid minutes now. Even though he was walking slower than a snail, just shuffling his feet while he thought, he had finally reached his house.

'Ugh, whatever,' he thought. He could get more answers later. After he got inside, took a nice, hot shower, and just... freshened up.

But right when he was about to put his hand on the latch of his little front gate... someone moved.

A person just... walked up to him. They stepped right out of the dark shadows of the street. They suddenly stood right in front of him and stopped just a few inches away. Way too close for comfort.

The person was wearing a big, black, heavy hood. It was pulled down low, completely hiding their face in shadows. You couldn't see an inch of who—or what—it was.

Alex got super wary, fast. He immediately took one quick step back, getting his balance, his hands ready.

But... it was weird. He sensed no bad intentions. No "I'm gonna stab you and take your wallet" vibe. Nothing. Even though this guy looked shady as hell, it just... it didn't feel like this guy was here to rob him or jump him.

"Who are you?" Alex asked, his voice low and... well, wary.

The hooded figure didn't say a single word.

Instead, they just... extended an arm out from inside their dark, heavy cloak. The hand was covered by a thick, black glove. It was just... sticking out, right toward Alex.

Alex definitely flinched for a second. It was a sudden, weird move, and he was already on edge.

But then... he saw what was on the guy's gloved hand.

And a small, slow smile formed on Alex's face.

...

In the gloved hand of this mysterious person... was a small cheque.

Yep. A bank cheque.

It was just a normal piece of paper, all white, with letters and numbers and lines printed on it. It wasn't a magic knife. It wasn't a secret, glowing crystal. It was a cheque.

Obviously, someone like Alexander knew exactly what a cheque was. He used to handle his rich father's cheques so, so many times back in his old life.

The hooded figure leaned in, trying to sound all deep and scary, but it just sounded... dumb.

"Enjoy this while you can, Goldie boy. Hu hu ha."

"..."

Alex just... stared.

He stared at the man very, very strangely. His brain was just frozen.

He had honestly thought, for one whole second, that this guy was some kind of super-secret, hyper-ninja boss. A real, shadowy, top-level assassin or something, here to give him a secret, world-ending mission.

But then... he heard that. That awful, super-cheesy, thug-ass dialogue.

"Goldie boy"? "Hu hu ha"?

What the hell was that? A cheap movie laugh?

Right then and there, Alex was one hundred percent, completely sure that this man was not a ninja boss. He was just... a bottom-tier dog poop. A total loser.

Alex slowly reached out his hand and plucked the cheque from the man's glove. He didn't even look down at the cheque. He just kept looking straight at the hooded weirdo, with a face that just screamed, "You are the strangest person I have ever met."

The guy didn't seem to get it. He puffed his chest out proudly inside his dark cloak.

"The next time you hear about us, we will be world famous, Goldie boy! Ha ha ha! So long! Hu hu ha!"

And... he just ran away.

He turned around and just... sprinted... off into the darkness.

There was no cool vanishing technique. No puff of black smoke. No whoosh of magic. He just... ran. He actually looked like some average, clumsy burglar who was trying his luck for the first time and was now running away super awkwardly.

Alex just stood there, all alone on the sidewalk, holding this random piece of paper.

"Man," he muttered to himself, finally looking down at the cheque. "What a complete weirdo."

Whoever this guy's "group" was, this "us" he kept talking about... Alex was positive they were just a bunch of wannabes. A whole team of bottom-tier, super-villain losers.

The kind of villains who were so poor and so lame, they probably didn't even have a bathroom in their secret hideout. He was sure of it. They probably just had to use a sad, little bucket in a dark, spider-filled closet somewhere.

Alex finally looked down at the little white piece of paper in his hand.

And... now... he was impressed.

Like, really, really impressed. His eyes went wide, and he had to hold the cheque up a little closer to the yellow lamplight just to make sure he was seeing it right.

He was.

The bold, black, numerical letters printed on the cheque were impossible to mistake. His brain had to count the zeroes, just to be sure. One... two... three... four... five... six zeroes.

It was 2,000,000 crowns.

"What the hell?!" he yelped, his voice way too loud on the quiet street. "Two... MILLION... crowns!"

Even for a "rich dude" like the old Alexander—the guy he used to be—this kind of money was just... too much. This was an insane, crazy, ridiculous amount of cash.

He was pretty sure his new father might be that rich. Maybe. But only if he sold everything. They would have had to sell the big house, sell all the fancy cars, sell every single tiny piece of property they owned, just to see that magical, beautiful, six-zero number sitting in their bank account.

And to think... to think... that those "dog poop" villains... the "Hu hu ha" losers... just had this much money sitting around somewhere? Enough cash that they could just... give it away... to some random guy on the street?

That was just... it was too good to be true. This had to be a prank, right? A fake cheque?

"No!" he suddenly said, clutching the cheque tightly in his fist. He wasn't going to doubt it. "I must not mock those... those... seniors... anymore! I take it all back! They are not dog poop! They are amazing, wonderful, brilliant villains!"

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