The first nights were the hardest.
Jomo often sat alone at the ledger desk, staring at the sealed vault door behind him. He could still smell the blood from his transformation, a sharp copper scent that lingered in his memories.
Villagers came, hesitantly, to deposit their shells and bronze charms. He gave them receipts, just like the MC had taught him.
Each night, Jomo practiced his handwriting and memorized the faces of every client.
He whispered his master's name to himself like a prayer before sleeping.
"You will return. You promised."
For the first few months after they left, Jomo expected them to return at any moment.
He polished the brass vault handle each morning and checked the account ledgers each night, keeping everything precise, down to the last shell. His memory, unnaturally perfect since his rebirth, never failed him.
But time marched forward and they didn't return. So Jomo adapted.
Year 3
The village changed. New houses rose, more elaborate than the old mud-brick ones. They emulated the vault'sarchitecture, stone and wood. Traders from neighboring regions began to pass through, hearing whispers of a place where even the poorest could store wealth without fear of theft or corruption.
The Vault Bank became central to the economy. Jomo began issuing clay seals. These were just stamped tokens bearing the vault's emblem. These were used to represent deposits in the bank. After a deposit was withdrawn they would be quickly destroyed. These tokens could be exchanged like currency, so long as the deposit was equal in value to the thing being exchanged for. This revolutionized trade which brought about the first cheque system.
People started calling Jomo "Vault-Keeper Jomo."
But no one remembered the man behind the vault. Only that he never aged.
Year 4
A woman came to the Vault weeping. Her daughter was gravely ill. She offered Jomo a necklace of carved ivory an heirloom that had belonged to her mother and her mother before her.
"I need medicine from the south," she sobbed. "But they won't sell to me unless I show them wealth."
Jomo accepted the necklace and then later that night left quietly.
By dawn, the southern merchant woke to find the medicine gone from his locked vault, and a small pouch of shells left in its place.
The woman found the cure at her doorstep. She never questioned where it came from.
Year 6
A faction of rogue traders tried to burn the bank to the ground, jealous of Jomo's growing influence. They struck at night.
But as they lit the torches, Jomo stood alone outside, watching the flames lick the bank's outer wall.
He walked into the fire and walked out unburnt. The arsonists screamed. One ran into the jungle, never to return. The others were found unconscious their eyes wide open in horror.
From that day, no one dared approach the Vault with ill intent. They began calling him "the Flame-Walker."
Year 7
The hunger gnawed sometimes. Deep in his gut, a craving not for food but for warmth, red and pulsing. But he endured. Jomo lived as a man, not a monster.
He gardened in the evenings to keep his mind off the thirst. He taught children simple math and ledger keeping. He hosted community councils. And always, the Vault came first. He was even elevated to the ranks of the nobility because of his relationship to the vault bank.
One night, a thief broke into the vault. A desperate youth seventeen years of age seeking his mother's heirloom necklace.
Jomo caught him silently and in the quiet, under the storming sky, the boy screamed when Jomo's eyes glowed faintly crimson.
Jomo did not drink his blood although he wished to taste it. He gave the boy the necklace and warned him to never return.
"Thank you sir" the boy had murmured while walking away.
"Don't steal ever again" said Jomo
Rumors spread of the bank being watched by a spirit, a guardian. Jomo embraced the myth.
Year 12
By now, the village was a trading hub, bustling with merchants and foreign tongues. What was once a humble mud settlement had grown into a city of 10,000 And the Vault stood at the center of this whole revolution.
Several influential merchants tried to buy it. Others tried to muscle in. Jomo and the ghoul guards never gave an inch.
When a merchant lord tried to force a hostile takeover by burning a competitor's vault branch, Jomo personally returned the victims' stored goods with interest. The merchant lord disappeared the next day. No body was ever found.
No one dared cross the Vault Bank again. People said Jomo made people vanish.
Year 13
A young boy, Kelo, began visiting Jomo each day, asking questions about the bank and how numbers worked.
Jomo taught him everything: arithmetic, record-keeping, interest, trust, ethics.
"Why do you do this?" Kelo once asked. "Why help us?"
Jomo smiled faintly. "Because one day, the one who gave me a second life will return. And I want him to find something worthy waiting."
"I want him to find worthy tools to use to further his interests."
Year 15
The village had grown.
A barbaric festival emerged in one of the slums where criminals were killed and buried under market stalls as sacrifices to "the Vault spirit."
Jomo stormed the plaza during the ritual.
With terrifying speed, he disabled every man involved, paralyzing one with a mere stare. He crushed the skull of the high priest with a single hand.
"I am not your god," he roared. "I am his servant."
After those words, blood flowed. The people learnt to not revere him but to awe at the one who he worships. He became a silent guardian. A judge no court could challenge.
Year 20 – The Cracks Appear
Jomo's reflection began to betray him. Creases carved slow trenches down his face. His hair turned silver at the edges.
Still strong. Still commanding. But the cost of refusing blood crept in.
One morning, he found a single tooth had fallen out.
He wept. Not for fear, but because he felt himself slipping from what they made him.
So he sealed a letter, placing it inside the deepest vault chamber — the place no one but they knew about.
It read:
"The Vault stands.
I have kept it pure.
But I am no longer who I was.
Forgive me, Master.
— Jomo"
Year 25
Without telling anyone, Jomo commissioned the building of a black stone shrine behind the Vault bank. No one was allowed to enter.
Inside were only three things:
A statue of his master, ageless with his fangs hidden behind his stoic face. A slab with the words: "He will return." and the original blood-slicked furs Jomo had worn during his transformation, now dried and framed.
Many villagers believed the shrine held divine power. Some left offerings. Others prayed there but Jomo never entered it again.
Year 30
The skies blackened with heavy rain for the first time in a year. Thunder cracked like drums of war and the people watched from their stone houses. They felt that the air had shifted and the atmosphere was different.