The walk back was miserable.
Kaizen dragged a massive bundle wrapped in a dead monk's rag across the snow. It clanked. It scraped. It weighed a ton.
Inside were the spoils of war. Golden trinkets, paladin armors, swords, rings, and chalices he had raked from the temple floor before the cutscene ended.
As soon as he stepped through the broken archway, the magic faded.
Whirrrr.
The golden cathedral dissolved. The warmth vanished. The majestic walls crumbled back into grey, moss-covered ruins.
But the loot? The loot stayed real.
Kaizen paused, his breath misting in the freezing air. He looked back at the empty, silent ruin.
"Five thousand years," he whispered.
He tried to wrap his head around it. Five millennia of standing in the place of a sin, crying over a mistake, unable to move on. It was terrifying.
"I can't even focus on homework for five minutes… How do you hold onto sadness for that long?"
It made him think about purpose. Sir Cassiel had a purpose: Atonement. It was a crappy purpose, but it kept him alive (sort of).
'What is my purpose?'
Kaizen looked at his hands. One held a rag full of gold. The other held a rusty pan.
'Survival? Is that it? Just not dying?'
It felt hollow. He didn't know who he was before yesterday. He didn't know if he had a family waiting for him in the real world, or if he really was just code generated to fill a seat.
"I need to find out," he decided, gripping the rag tighter. "I need to know if I'm real."
He tugged the bundle. It didn't budge.
He tugged harder.
Rip.
A gold chalice fell out and rolled into the snow.
Kaizen stared at it. Then he looked at the two massive bundles he had compiled.
"I am an idiot."
He grabbed his hair and pulled.
"I am a tactical moron! Why didn't I ask for the storage ring?! Why didn't I prioritize inventory space?!"
He couldn't drag this into civilization.
First, it was heavy. He had [ Strength: 3 ]. He was currently hauling this loot with sheer willpower and greed.
Second, it was conspicuous. If he walked onto a public bus dragging a sack of gold and blood-stained armor, he wouldn't make it to the city. He would be mugged, arrested, or both.
"Arghhh!" Kaizen kicked the snow. "I have a fortune, but I can't cash it out!"
He needed a plan.
He dug through the bundle. He pushed aside a heavy breastplate. He ignored the golden goblets.
He found it.
A small, nondescript knife. It was one of the side-arms used by the Paladins.
[ Item: Sun-Etched Dagger ]
[ Rank: E ]
[ Durability: Low ]
It wasn't powerful. It wasn't flashy. But it was small.
"You'll do," Kaizen whispered, pocketing the knife.
He spent the next hour working like a squirrel. He dragged the heavy bundles deep into the treeline. He buried them under a thick layer of snow and ice, packing it down until it looked like a natural drift. He marked the specific pine tree with a small scratch from the knife.
"Stay there," he warned the snowbank. "Don't go anywhere."
He stripped off his heavy thermal suit—he couldn't walk into the city looking like a mountaineer without raising questions—and hid that too.
Then, shivering in his track suit, he began the descent.
Two hours later.
Kaizen stepped off the bus in the city center. He was cold, tired, and hungry again, but his eyes were burning with focus.
He walked past the Fire Demon Pan Seller's spot. The crate was empty. The man was gone.
'Good,' Kaizen thought. 'Hope he got a hot meal.'
He pushed through the bead curtain of Gino's shop.
Clack-clack.
The shop smelled the same: incense and greed.
Gino was behind the counter, polishing a gem. He looked up, and his eyebrows shot into his hairline.
"Well, well," Gino chuckled, putting down the gem. " The prodigal son returns. And you're alive."
He checked a pocket watch.
"It hasn't even been six hours. I gave you two days."
Gino leaned forward, his grin widening.
"Did you give up? Did you come to beg for an extension? Or maybe you're here to say that you failed and I can have your pretty black card?"
Kaizen didn't say a word.
He walked to the counter. He reached into his pocket.
Clatter.
He threw the small, E-Rank dagger onto the wood.
Gino stared at it. He picked it up with two fingers, looking unimpressed.
"A knife?" Gino scoffed. "You want to pay off a hundred thousand crown debt... with a paring knife?"
He pulled a jeweler's loupe from his vest and screwed it into his eye. He examined the blade.
"Steel is mediocre. Edge is dull. Enchantment is barely active."
Gino threw the knife back on the table.
"It's E-Rank garbage. Worth twenty thousand crowns, max. And that's me being generous."
Gino's face hardened. The friendly merchant mask slipped, revealing the shark beneath.
"We had a deal, kid. One hundred thousand. You're eighty short. The card stays with me."
Kaizen didn't flinch. He just smiled.
"Look closer, Gino."
"I looked!" Gino snapped. "It's junk!"
"Look at the date," Kaizen whispered. "Carbon date it with your mana. Look at the engravings on the hilt."
Gino frowned. He picked up the knife again. He pushed mana into his loupe.
[ Appraising Age... ]
Gino's eye twitched.
"Five..." he muttered. "Five hundred?"
"Keep going," Kaizen said.
"Five... thousand?"
Gino froze. He dropped the loupe. It swung on its chain.
He looked at the knife with new eyes. He looked at the faint, worn carvings on the handle. Sun motifs. Prayers written in a language that had been dead for millennia.
"This isn't a weapon," Gino breathed, his hands trembling slightly. "It's an artifact."
"From the ruins of the Sun Temple," Kaizen confirmed, leaning on the counter. "Before it fell. That knife was carried by a Paladin of the Dawn during the Great Purification."
Gino swallowed.
An E-Rank knife was worth 20k. A 5,000-year-old artifact from a lost civilization?
"Collectors would kill for this," Gino whispered. "Museums would pay a fortune."
He looked up at Kaizen. The greed in his eyes was replaced by something else. Respect. And a little bit of fear.
"One hundred thousand," Gino said hoarsely.
"That's what we agreed on," Kaizen grinned. "Debt paid?"
Gino stared at the knife, then at the boy.
"Debt paid," Gino nodded slowly. "You crazy bastard."
Kaizen smiled, flashing his tooth, and Gino knew this crazy bastard was about to say something more crazy.
"You can have it… for free…"