Bounty

*

Bowed at his feet were kings and queens and emperors of all shapes and sizes, monarchs to the several races of this god-forsaken planet. Gods and demi-gods lined to be at his beck and call, these masters of worlds subdued to mere servants in his presence.

At his fingertips he could feel the destiny of the universe, the threads that kept it together... his alone to weave and shape. All of this was his, as far as the eye could see and as much as the mind could fathom, from the most massive star to the smallest particle, he was Caeser and it all belonged to him.

Yet even with all this, the burning desire that had been sparked aflame within him was just barely quenched. Despite having conquered so much, he still looked to the infinite abyss outside of his universe and wondered who owned it all.

"Mister!" a voice called out.

~Mister? Someone named Mister owns the abyss?~ Edric thought to himself.

"Mister!"

With that second shout, Edric felt his universe begin to unravel at the seams, as a piercing bright light began to eat away at all he could see.

"No. No... stop it!' he shouted, as his god-servants disappeared into thin air.

"Mister! Please wake up!"

With that, his entire universe became nothing but intense light. After a few seconds, the formless light began to take shape, until eventually the image of a small girl covered in blood came into view.

"Afina, I do honestly hope that you never find true happiness," Edric whispered with a sort of faraway tone, his heart aching from the loss of a perfect dream.

"What's that Mister?" Afina asked, her cute face scrunched up in confusion.

"Never mind that," he replied, before staring at the ceiling, trying to savour the fleeting feeling of godhood before it completely disappeared from memory.

An instant later he remembered what had happened before he passed out- the monster, the smoke... how was he still alive?

He looked to his left, then to his right -where the trapdoor was. He slowly crawled towards it, his body still a little numb, before looking over into it. 

The black smoke that it once exuded was completely gone, and he could now peer into it without anything obstructing his vision. There was a room down there, and from the little light that travelled into it from outside, he could see beautiful purple flowers lined all along the ladder that led down.

After his body had properly recovered, he slowly made his way down the ladder. Something told him that whatever had once infected this place was now a thing of the past.

At the bottom of the ladder, in a compartment along one of the walls, was a sort of lamp-like contraption made from glass and brown wood. He fiddled with it for a few moments, trying to find the nob that activated it, before eventually discovering an odd rune inscribed at the bottom.

The moment he touched it, it began to emit a pulsating cool blue light. With every pulse the light grew more intense, until eventually, it was so bright that it seemed like the room had a sun of its own.

~Magic,~ he thought to himself, noticing how the rune shifted to a different shape before the light stopped pulsing.

"Mister, you forgot your Sealing Blade," Afina shouted from up top, snapping Edric out of his curious daze.

"Bring it down here," he shouted back dismissively, before looking towards the rest of the room. 

The purple flowers that lined the ladder continued on to the walls, so densely packed that it almost seemed like the walls themselves were purple, instead of the dull grey colour they actually were.

The ground was covered in vibrant green vines, that branched off into smaller vines which climbed the walls and fed nutrients to the flowers. The ceiling was much the same.

~I was never one for gardens, but this place looks... beautiful,~ Edric thought to himself, as his eyes travelled towards the back end of the room.

There stood a chest made of sparkling ebony wood, with strange glowing runes constantly shifting and changing along its surface. To make it even more suspicious, all the vines in the room seemed to be coming from it, and even as he watched, he could see more and more vines growing from behind it.

"Is that a bounty? So you really 𝙙𝙞𝙙 defeat the nest," Afina whispered in awe, startling Edric for a moment. He had been so invested in the sight, that he hadn't noticed her come down behind him.

"Bounty?" he asked, his voice not betraying his lack of knowledge on the subject.

"I only learned about it in school. It's what you get for fulfilling the clear request of a diety right? Is that why you lured the other monster here? Because your diety asked you to clear this nest?" Afina asked, looking up at him as if he were a god descended.

~Nest? You're telling me that monster was a... what did Edrea call it? A gatekeeper? Then where are the gems?~ he thought to himself, as he slowly approached the bounty at the end of the room.

Despite Afina's claims, he was still a little sceptical about the chest, after all, it was very hard to trust something whose surface shone with power and changed constantly.

~Hmm, then maybe this gatekeeper is a zero-gem gatekeeper? It only makes sense, after all, I get the impression that as strong as that monster was, it's nowhere near the same league as the one Edrea slaughtered,~ he thought to himself. A little annoyed at the fact that he was openly admitting to being nowhere near the same power level as such a fragile-looking girl.

"Are you going to open it, Mister?" Afina asked, already beside Edric. Once again, it startled him. He was beginning to suspect that she was some sort of ninja in disguise.

"Can you stop with that Mister stuff. Just call me Edric," he replied with a side glance, before slowly moving his knife towards the chest as if to poke it.

The moment it made contact, the wooden chest opened with a satisfying creak, releasing a cloud of golden mist. Within it, two golden cards floated, their surfaces shimmering with latent power.