The atmosphere across the village hall courtyard in Suka Makmur plunged into a chaotic sea of panic. News of the melon fields suddenly withering, turning black, and dissolving into putrid sludge swept like a lightning storm through every corner of the community. Dozens of farmers, laborers, and investors scrambled in every direction with pale faces, screaming out each other's names while sobbing hysterically.

Amid the frantic morning turmoil, Danu marched swiftly through the panicked crowd. His breathing was ragged, yet his gaze remained fiercely sharp and resolute. In his right hand, he carried a mid-sized sample of a melon plucked straight from the edge of a villager's plot—a fruit whose interior had already blackened and begun oozing foul-smelling slime.

Danu sped up his pace toward the village hall veranda, where dozens of residents and community leaders had clustered around the coffee table on weak knees.

"Move! Out of the way! Give me room!" Danu shouted loudly, his voice cutting through the villagers' weeping.

Several locals catching sight of Danu snapped their heads toward him with wide, shocked eyes. They recognized the young man—the very boy they had mocked in that exact same spot just days prior, the youth they had branded unstable for prophesying the village's ruin.

Danu finally mounted the wooden steps of the veranda. He stood tall before the gathered crowd, who now stared at him with a mix of shock, confusion, and lingering stubborn pride.

Breathing heavily, Danu lifted the rotting melon sample high into the air so everyone present could witness it.

"Listen to me, everyone! Hear me out!" Danu roared with a deep, booming voice that echoed across the entire hall grounds, gradually subduing the nearby cries.

Kasim, standing in the front row with his clothes stained in farm mud, glared at Danu with a face flushed bright red. Kasim's chest heaved violently while cold sweat poured down his forehead.

"Danu...? You little bastard... what on earth are you holding?!" Kasim snarled, his voice trembling heavily as he pointed a finger at the ruined fruit. "Why are you bringing a rotting carcass here for?! Come to gloat over our misery, huh?!"

Danu shook his head slowly, fixing Kasim with a look of profound pity.

"I am not gloating over you, Mang Kasim," Danu answered firmly. "I came here to salvage whatever can still be saved from this disaster!"

"Salvage what?!" Mardani yelled from beside Kasim, the farm foreman's face ashen as a corpse. "Our fields are completely ruined! The stalks are rotting, the roots have melted into black sludge! Everything's gone in a matter of hours!"

"Not everything is gone, Mardani!" Danu shot back instantly, raising his voice to cut through the foreman's panic. "The root vascular systems are compromised by the Fusarium fungus, but some of the fruit up in the northern beds hasn't fully infected its outer rind yet!"

The village hall veranda fell dead silent. The farmers stared at Danu with bated breath, digesting every single word.

"You mean... you mean there's still something we can save?" an elderly farmer asked with a violently trembling voice, stumbling forward toward Danu. "Tell us, young Danu! What do we do now? Do we need extra fertilizer? Or spray expensive chemical treatments?!"

Danu locked eyes straight onto the old man, then shook his head decisively. "Chemical treatments are useless now, old man! The fungal poison has already saturated the soil network!"

"Then what are we supposed to do if we don't spray?!" Kasim panicked, gripping his own collar in frustration. "Just spit it out if you actually know a way out!"

Danu hoisted the rotting melon sample high once more, shouting out a verdict that pierced the heart of every single listener:

"CHOP THEM DOWN NOW! HARVEST EARLY TODAY!"

Danu's cry left the assembled villagers stunned.

"Early harvest...?" Mardani muttered in disbelief, eyes blown wide. "But the fruit is only half-ripe! The size isn't maxed out yet! If we harvest today, market prices in the city are going to crash!"

"Better losing half your selling price than losing one hundred percent of your capital, you fools!" Danu snapped sharply, cutting through Mardani's hesitation. "If you wait until tomorrow morning, every fruit in those beds will melt into putrid slime without a trace! Chop the stalks down now, gather the fruit that's still semi-firm, wash them clean, and dump them on out-of-town brokers just to rescue your baseline capital!"

Sensing the logic and absolute conviction behind his words, several farmers began exchanging glances. Hesitation gave way to realization as a few grasped that Danu's plan was the sole rational escape route in this lethal emergency.

A young farmer even spun around, preparing to sprint for his fields to rescue whatever remained harvestable. "Let's go! Let's chop them down now! Better than letting it all turn to black sludge!" the young man panicked.

"Hold it right there!"

A harsh, freezing snap cut off the crowd. The voice carried severe authority and suppressed rage.

Instantly, every villager about to move froze in their tracks. The crowd slowly parted.

From behind the ranks, Pak Darma emerged.

The massive loan shark walked with a slow, heavy-footed stride that struck the ground hard. His usual arrogant composure was replaced by a crumpled, tense expression; his batik shirt was disheveled, and the gold chain around his neck rattled violently with his heavy, enraged breathing.

Pak Darma had just returned from his primary fields, and the sight of millions of his melon plants reduced to ruins had incinerated what little sanity he had left.

Pak Darma halted a mere single step away from Danu. Tilting his chin up, he glared at Danu with a deep, razor-sharp venom.

The village hall courtyard fell into a suffocating hush. Not a single soul dared breathe before the furious economic tyrant.

"B-Boss Darma..." Kasim whispered in terror, taking a cautious step backward.

Pak Darma ignored Kasim entirely. His eyes remained locked onto Danu, who stood his ground without a flinch.

"So..." Pak Darma hissed softly, his voice trembling under the weight of pent-up fury. "...you come strutting over here, standing on the veranda of my village hall, screaming orders for these people to slash down their own fields?"

Danu locked eyes straight into Pak Darma's pupils without blinking once. "I am saving them from total bankruptcy, Pak Darma—something you failed to prevent with all your expensive imported seeds."

Hearing the stinging jab, the tendons in Pak Darma's neck strained rigidly. His face flushed a dark, burning crimson.

"ENOUGH, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!" Pak Darma roared in fury, his voice shaking the quiet courtyard.

Pak Darma surged closer, jabbing a trembling index finger directly into Danu's face.

"You think I don't see the filthy game you're running behind all this, huh?!" Pak Darma bellowed loudly, intentionally baiting the listening crowd. "You deliberately spread fake terror from day one! You framed our fields with ghost mold, and now—after your cheap sabotage managed to damage part of our crops—you waltz in pretending to be some kind of hero?!"

The villagers murmured at the accusation. A few began exchanging suspicious glances, swayed by the loan shark's manipulative rhetoric and raw emotion.

"Sabotage...?" a villager muttered. "Could Pak Darma be right? Did this kid intentionally spread disease to wreck our farms?"

Danu furrowed his brow, staring at Pak Darma in sheer disbelief. "Sabotage? You've completely lost your mind, Pak Darma! Those crops rotted because of natural soil fungi caused by your greed for monoculture planting without proper crop rotation!"

"Shut your filthy mouth!" Pak Darma screamed louder. "You think I'll buy your garbage lies about systems and ghost mold?! You're just a destitute farmhand's brat green with envy over our village's wealth!"

Pak Darma stepped in closer still, then with a sudden, violent swipe of his hand, he batted the rotting melon sample straight out of Danu's grip.

Slap!

The sample tore free from Danu's hand, soared through the air, and smashed hard against the cement floor of the veranda, shattering into pieces and splashing black, slimy fluid across the toes of Pak Darma's shoes.

Danu looked down for a second, then raised his gaze back to Pak Darma, his eyes turning glacial.

Pak Darma flashed a patronizing, contemptuous smirk—the arrogant grin of a ruler refusing to accept defeat.

Looking Danu up and down with absolute disdain, Pak Darma dropped the taunting verdict that closed the morning debate before the entire village:

"Don't you dare try scaring my villagers with cheap drama like this, Danu!" Pak Darma proclaimed proudly. "Our farms don't need advice from a beggar living on a rock pile! Get the hell out of here before I order my enforcers to drag you out!"