Chapter 30: Treasure Chests, the Totem Hare, and starlings

"Who the hell is messing with me?"

Nathan had no idea what to make of this either.

He turned it over and over and came up empty: "This abandoned Between has treasure chests?! Was it originally some lifelike game arena? Do bloodborn beasts drop loot when you kill them, then? I've killed plenty of bloodborn beasts outside—why hasn't a single one dropped anything? And those three beasts I just killed—no XP either?... Is the place this derelict because it was badly run and the servers got shut down?"

Nathan's imagination blew wide open, one wild theory chasing the next. If the bloodborn he'd met weren't all fluent in every kind of black tech, he'd never have dared think this far out of the box. He couldn't begin to picture how this abandoned Between could have been designed as a game arena, but he still couldn't beat down his curiosity, and walked toward the first treasure chest.

Going by his gaming experience, a treasure chest meant loot—but it also meant a fight might be coming.

Barely ten-odd minutes in, Nathan found the first chest. To his enormous surprise, it was an actual dusty-gray bronze box, a good half a person tall, very archaic, even giving off a faint ghost-light—practically afraid nobody would notice it.

Nathan's spirits lifted and he leaned in close. Before he could even reach out, the chest went clack and opened all by itself. Excited and buzzing, he poked his head slightly over and saw seven or eight items inside.

A black-and-red tight-fitting combat suit; a very high-tech-looking crystal; a camo backpack; two packs of cookies in metal boxes and one strangely shaped bottle of mineral water; plus a small pile of triangular white coins.

Nathan thought to himself: "More and more like a game!"

He picked up the camo backpack first. Whatever material it was made of, it was feather-light in the hand—way lighter than the school bag he usually carried.

When he reached for the crystal next, a fierce light suddenly blazed out before his eyes...

"Sealed war-beast located. Unseal?"

Nathan hesitated a beat before realizing the voice wasn't coming from the Comet-Gem Mantis at all—it was coming from the crystal in his hand. His eyeballs nearly popped clean out of his head from the shock. Still, it confirmed his guess as true: this abandoned Between had originally been designed as a lifelike game arena, mothballed for who knows what reason, but still carrying countless gamified traces.

Nathan had no use for a new war-beast, but he couldn't beat down the curiosity, and barked softly: "Unseal!" The crystal in his hand cracked on command, and out sprang a little rabbit, snow-white all over with burning-red eyes.

Nathan opened his palm and the little bunny hopped right onto it—and immediately a spirit-wave link connected over.

"Battle beast: Totem Hare. Built-in skill: Windstrider Stride—boosts the host's speed by thirty percent!"

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Pfft!"

Nathan's disappointment was total. Next to the Comet-Gem Mantis, the Totem Hare's usefulness took a massive haircut—thirty percent more speed and that's it, not a single combat skill. For him the perk was barely worth keeping—totally worthless.

Nathan casually sealed the Totem Hare war-beast back into crystal form, tossed it into the backpack, and stowed the combat suit, the two metal-boxed cookie packs, and the weirdly shaped bottle of mineral water in there too.

When he went to grab that little pile of triangular white coins last, his hand closed on nothing—and the gold sigil ring he'd long since forgotten about pinged with a prompt: "Someone has transferred 100 starlings to you. Accept?"

"A hundred starlings? What the heck are those?"

The gold sigil ring, made of who knows what, had actually survived his vitae resonance and Umbral Turning without getting assimilated by the Star-Swallowing Form.

Nathan asked offhandedly, expecting no answer—but the face of the gold sigil ring lit up, displayed a line of text, and explained in a crisply modulated tone: "The starling is the Concord's internal universal currency. The official exchange rate against the dollars is one starling to one hundred dollars. However, very few are willing to trade starlings for dollars, because most goods circulating inside the Concord do not accept dollars payment. On the black market, a single starling typically runs between one hundred fifty and one hundred eighty..."

Once again the bloodborn's tech level floored Nathan, and he had to mutter: "And they even explain it in such detail!"

Knowing what starlings were, he was all the more certain that every weirdness in this abandoned Between had to tie back to the Concord—and a whole lot of the previously unthinkable suddenly explained itself.

Ten thousand dollars isn't exactly a fortune in the grand scheme—but as a middle schooler, Nathan's Christmas money and allowance combined came to only a few hundred dollars a year. To him, a hundred starlings already counted as a "small fortune," and never mind that a hundred starlings on the black market went for well above the official exchange rate.

He didn't linger long at this chest; part excited, part curious, he dashed off toward the second one. The second chest sat inside one of the ruined houses—identical to the first, another big bronze box, springing open on its own without Nathan lifting a finger.

This chest held a lot less than the first—just three items: a small pile of triangular coins, and two sheathed short swords.

A vague grab, and sure enough, the gold sigil ring pinged again: "Someone has transferred 100 starlings to you. Accept?"

He chose to accept, and the gold sigil ring displayed the transfer-received notice again.

Another deposit. Mildly exciting, but Nathan didn't dwell on it—he picked up the two short swords and casually drew one.

The short sword was about twenty-eight inches long and two fingers wide, clean and simple in design—no telling its era. The blade was forged from who knows what, transparent from tip to hilt; held up before his eyes, a wisp of water vapor could faintly be seen steaming inside the edge, quite the curiosity. The edge was wickedly sharp; in the hand it pressed a chill on you, yet weighed next to nothing, as if it weren't there at all.

The camo backpack from the first chest happened to have exactly two slots on its straps. A lightbulb went off: he slid the two short swords in, a perfect fit—giving the distinct impression that the backpack and the two swords were a matched set.

Two weapons in hand, Nathan was feeling pretty pleased with himself—so pleased he clean forgot that this abandoned Between was crawling with danger. He drew the two short swords and re-seated them over and over, having an absolute blast playing with them.

He was right at that knife-and-sword-loving age, and the two short swords were exquisitely made—of course he adored them, practically couldn't put them down.

Two treasure chests in the bag, Nathan's nerve had grown too. Ruined and gloomy as the village remained, that crushed, oppressive feeling from the start was gone.

The third chest was farther off—dead in the heart of the village.