Shadow Slave

'This is… sort of grim.'

Sunny was falling through a boundless, empty void of cold darkness. Far below, false stars were shimmering with pale white light. Their radiance, however, did very little to illuminate the Sky Below. Everywhere around him, there was just… nothing.

Sunny was still resting atop the treasure chest, holding onto it with his one healthy hand. He had no reference point to measure how far he had traveled, but suspected that the distance was swiftly leaving the realm of mundane sense and logic.

He was not very educated, however, even he knew that a falling object would forever accelerate at a steady pace… theoretically. That meant that every second Sunny was falling, his speed was increasing exponentially. By now, it had to be simply insane.

But he did not really feel that speed. All he felt were wisps of cold wind caressing his skin from time to time. If there was one good thing about the situation, it was that he had accumulated a bit of shadow essence and was able to summon the Puppeteer's Shroud again. So he wasn't naked anymore, at least.

If there was one thing he did know, though, it was the approximate speed with which he could glide forward with the help of the Dark Wing. Adding the weight of the dead treasure to the equation, he could more or less calculate the distance he was covering horizontally. With that in mind, he guessed that he would reach the middle of the Tear in around a day…

Problem was, he had no reliable way to measure time, as well. There were some clues he could try to use, like the rate of shadow essence regeneration or the state of his wounds, but they were not exactly reliable.

In heroic stories, characters often found themselves in similar situations. Every time that happened, the hero somehow managed to measure the passage of time by the state of their facial hair. Sadly, despite being eighteen, Sunny could not grow even the most pitiful of beards. That was a real shame.

'...I guess I'm not hero material.'

With a bitter sigh, he stared at the lid of the treasure chest and tried to assess his physical state.

Things weren't good, but they also weren't very bad. He had sustained minor internal damage due to the Crushing, as well as several rather ugly wounds in the battle against Mimic. The half-healed cuts left on his body by the Mirror Beast had also opened at some point, and were now hurting once again.

The worst injury was, of course, his broken arm.

His mental state was also somewhat in shambles after being ravaged by the visage of the Strings of Fate. Luckily, there seemed to be no long-lasting effects. Even the splitting headache was already growing fainter. Sunny also could not remember the exact details of what he had seen, as if his mind completely erased them from his memory to protect itself.

The only thing that remained was the fragment of the memory that he had preserved on purpose — the image of the thread of golden light leading deep into the Tear.

Sunny stared at the black nothingness, waited for a while, then slowly exhaled.

'Great. Now what?'

There was no answer.

***

Sunny had no idea how long — he

'Might as well…'

did

but instead, what he saw was a miniature version of it. A box made

the Covetous Coffer looked more mean than graceful… somehow. As Sunny stared at it, the lid of the box raised slightly, revealing rows of

He blinked.

all I can manage

head, Sunny looked at the Coffer and said in an uncertain

"Come here."

box, and it scurried over before

fingers, then cautiously opened the lid of the box. Luckily, it didn't try to bite

into the box. Although it seemed rather small,

'...Perfect.'

closed the box, patted it on the

leather. Using his one healthy hand and his teeth,

coins

for a bit.

the endless abyss turned out to be way less exciting than he had thought.

of things he had

cautiously shifted his weight and crawled to the end of the chest. There, he used the Moonlight Shard to widen a crack on the

roll out of the last strip of

going

he removed his broken arm from its sling, and then proceeded to

sharp, blinding pain pierced

that his arm did not look

have