Shadow Slave

The island Sunny was resting on was a strange one. It was rather large and covered in soft grass, with ancient stone columns protruding from the ground here and there. Most of them had long toppled and been shattered to pieces by some unknown disaster. The ground itself was full of depressions and generally uneven, as if it had served as a battlefield for giants once.

The reason why Sunny had come up with such a metaphor was not coincidental. The main feature of the island was situated at its center, and appeared to be a giant, rusty metal hand. Hence, the isle was unimaginatively called the Iron Hand Island.

It was well known to the Awakened anchored in the Sanctuary because very few Nightmare Creatures ever came here, and thus, many humans used it to rest during their journeys.

However, today, Sunny wasn't the only visitor to the peaceful island.

A rather ugly monstrosity lay dead in the shadow of the giant iron hand, its blood forming a large pool. It had a body like that of a snake, two powerful hands protruding from a human-like torso, a head with a long and toothy muzzle, and two leathery wings.

From the looks of it, the creature had landed on the island due to heavy injuries, and then succumbed to the most recent Crushing. Its body seemed broken and flattened, with sharp bone splinters protruding from the torn scales.

Sunny's interest was naturally piqued, because it wasn't every day that he stumbled on free soul shards. Additionally, and more intriguing, the shadow had noticed something glinting on the ground near one of the abomination's hands.

'Huh…'

Standing up, Sunny looked around, and then headed to the center of the island.

Soon, he reached the rusty metal arm and dove into the shadows, emerging on top of it. Standing a good ten meters above the ground, he stared at the carcass of the dead Nightmare Creature to make sure that the shadow didn't miss anything.

…Everything seemed to be fine.

With a shrug, Sunny jumped down and landed softly on the grass near the massive monster. Walking around it, he approached the spot where the abomination's hand lay on the ground, its five long fingers ending in terrifying claws.

"Gee. You were a scary one, weren't you?"

He didn't need to wonder about who had done the monster in. On the Chained Isles, Nightmare Creatures constantly fought each other. Winged ones like this one were often caught by the inhabitants of the dark side, torn to pieces, and devoured.

This one had been relatively lucky, all things considered.

Bending down, Sunny picked up the small object that seemed to have fallen out of the creature's hand and stared at it with a dubious expression.

"...A coin?"

Indeed, he was holding a heavy golden coin. Which didn't make any sense.

Nightmare Creatures were not exactly known for participating in commerce, and humans did not use coins. If they needed to trade, they either bartered with suitable items or used credits — of course, credits didn't exist in the Dream Realm, but the transaction would be honored when both parties returned to the real world.

So where could a gold coin come from?

Sunny stared at the coin for a while, then turned it around. There was a depiction of an archaic ship on one of its sides, with a tall mast that had an actual tree growing around it. A beautiful human face stared at him from the other side, a carefree smile on its lips.

The person had high cheekbones, long hair, and exquisite features. Sunny couldn't say if they were a man or a woman, just that they seem rather charming. There was a crescent moon drawn on their forehead, and… well, that was about it.

Sunny studied the coin some more, and then thought despondently:

'That thing is definitely cursed, right?'

It just had to be. What else was he supposed to think after finding a mysterious coin near the corpse of a monster that had died a violent death?

…But it didn't seem to be cursed.

Sunny had a rather good intuition about these things. He also had the sight of a person who had inherited a part of Weaver's forbidden lineage.

Looking under the surface of the coin, Sunny expected to see a malevolent spellweave, or at least something strange, but there was nothing.

From the looks of it, the coins… was just a coin.

The only strangeness about it was that it seemed a little bit warm to the touch.

"Huh…"

Teacher Julius would have been delighted if he brought him a sketch of a genuine Dream Realm coin. Cultural artifacts like this were few and far between. It wouldn't result in Sunny receiving any contribution points, but the old man was easy to please.

With a shrug, Sunny shoved the coin into his pack and turned to the dead monster.

"Let's see how many shards you're hiding, ugly lizard…"

He summoned the Moonlight Shard, enhanced it with two shadows, and cut into the tough hide of the Nightmare Creature. For a while, luck was on his side. He quickly retrieved two bright soul shards… so quickly, in fact, that Sunny grew sure that there had to be a third one inside the carcass.

"A demon, huh?"

That was where his luck ended. The body of the demon was too heavily damaged, so when he tried to fish out the third crystal, its stomach burst open and spilled its contents all over the ground.

"Argh! Curses!"

Sunny was so disgusted by the idea of being doused in the putrid slimy mass that he instinctively teleported a few meters away.

Then, he tilted his head and stared down.

Covered in repulsive, acidic liquid, three more coins — as well as something that resembled a piece of a wooden chest — lay in the quickly melting grass.

'Did this guy… try to eat a treasure chest?'

Sunny shook his head, walked around the disgusting mess, and quickly retrieved the last soul shard.

Since golden coins were rather useless to him and he already had one to sketch, he had no intention of retrieving the rest.

'No thank you…'

By that time, he had recovered enough shadow essence to return to the Sanctuary, so nothing was holding him on the island anymore.

Throwing one last look at the giant metal hand and wondering what terrible strike could have separated it from the rest of the theoretical giant, he turned away and walked toward the edge of the island.

The sun was already setting, so he didn't have a lot of time left to return to the Citadel and use the Gateway before the morning came.