Shadow Slave

Summoning the Covetous Coffer, he commanded the toothy box to climb inside the… bigger, toothier box and open its lid. Then, he started whistling a lighthearted melody while throwing the heavy coins inside.

'One, two, three, four… ah, what a day to be alive… five, six…'

One after another, the miraculous golden discs disappeared into the Coffer. After a while, Sunny shifted his weight slightly, got more comfortable, and continued gathering his spoils.

In the end, he had recovered almost fourteen hundred coins from inside the dead devil. Just as Sunny had expected, the entire top layer of the treasure pile had turned out to be real.

That was an incredible, astonishing boon! Suddenly, everything that had happened seemed worth it…

Almost.

Glancing at the lightless void around him, Sunny sighed.

'Who knows if I will even be able to return to the Sanctuary? Without the altar, these coins are just dead weight.'

Somewhat disheartened, he lingered for a few moments, then turned his gaze back to the opened treasure chest.

The top layer of the treasure pile that he had successfully plundered was indeed real, but beneath it…

Sunny struggled to keep the contents of his stomach inside. Beneath the treasure, the limbs and organs of the Mimic were tightly packed together, taking up most of the chest's volume. The whole thing was soaked in black blood and producing a sickening stench, not to mention looking like a butcher's nightmare.

'Disgusting… so disgusting…'

Thinking about how repulsive the sight in front of him was, Sunny used the Moonlight Shard to cut through the terrible sludge and fished out four large soul shards with a wide smile on his face. After cleaning them up a little, he placed the alluring crystals inside the Covetous Coffer and dismissed the Memory with a feeling of great satisfaction.

After that, Sunny stared inside the treasure chest with a dubious expression on his face.

The thing was… he only had around three days worth of provisions left, stored neatly inside the Covetous Coffer. If he rationed his food, it would probably last him for about a week. After that…

Sunny scratched the back of his head, then shuddered and closed the lid of the chest with a loud thud.

'...I'll think about it when the time comes. But, hopefully, it never does!'

With that, he climbed back onto the dead devil and rested for a while, looking into the darkness.

As time slowly passed, Sunny grew more and more solemn. Finally, he came to a frightening realization.

…He had nothing else left to do.

***

"This is going to be a problem."

eternity later — or just a few hours, who knew — Sunny was sitting on top of the

what else would he be doing? There was nothing else

silver blade shining with a bright radiance. He was using its [Light Eater] enchantment to summon the sunlight the somber spear had absorbed and project it into the darkness of the Sky Below. Thanks to that light, the shapes of his two shadows could be clearly seen,

his

I have never been this bored. How are we going to survive weeks of this crap? What do you

to his right hesitated, then raised a fist encouragingly. Its sentiment was

"You got this!"

left stared at him grimly, then simply shook its head. Its meaning

"Just give up already…"

blinked a couple of times, then

just relax and do nothing? That's right… never! If you think about it, guys,

for a while,

literally have no choice but to do nothing.

glanced at him, then covered its face

for a bit before giving him a timid

Sunny frowned.

go crazy? I am not going to go crazy! I'm so done with being crazy. Been there, done that,

didn't answer, making him huff

am I even speaking to you two? It's not like you even have

Cruel Sight, letting the darkness shroud everything once

a while,

I don't have better

had he put the Ordinary

***

days had passed — at least Sunny suspected that it had been three days, since that was how long his shadow essence usually took to fully recover without the

that was the worst,

appeared, or disappeared, or was there at all. There was nothing but empty darkness, the

And falling.

would encounter evil, colossal, inconceivably horrifying creatures

almost hoped to encounter a stray titan or

were prone to going insane in

day thinking about this and that,

Mirror Beast and the Cruel Sight. Why was the silver spear even called that? Then, he

called the Cruel Sight because its polished blade

coins, the Mimic, and the person called

while, he guessed that Noctis had been the captain of the ancient ship, the master of the Mimic, and the person whose face was depicted on the miraculous coins. Noctis was also probably the one who had created

why they could only be used

Kai, Effie, and Cassie

He wondered about Nephis.

Sunny stared at the counter that

he had studied all of his Memories and the