Just One Bite
The Sand Ghost was dead. It had been one hell of a long fight. Phase one was mental attacks, phase two was a sand-zombie apocalypse, and the final phase three was straight-up summoning a frozen kingdom. But Thirin had pulled it off. She had literally ground the baby-formula thief into dust.
Thirin nodded to herself in satisfaction.
Thirin never forgot to deliver one last insult to the Sand Ghost. A witch of her caliber had standards, after all.
She looked around and clicked her tongue. The Sand Ghost might have been an idiot, but its gaslighting game was top-tier. The mental assaults laced with illusions and psychological analysis had been so cunning and sly they were almost admirable. How the hell could it read people like an open book and spit out exactly what would mess them up?
That part was actually impressive. I kinda wanna learn how to do it.
For this one brief moment, Thirin wanted to master gaslighting more than she wanted to achieve Rebirth. Because deep down she was a rotten modern person who got a sick, secret thrill from controlling other people’s emotions.
-Srrrk.
At Thirin’s feet, the shattered remains of the Sand Ghost’s sacred relic—the Sand Bottle—began to gather. The grains of sand pulled toward one another until they formed a single, brilliantly glowing orb that floated gently into the air.
Thirin tensed for a second, but that was it. She simply stared at the thing hovering in front of her. No creepy voice came from the orb. No evil presence leaked out. It just floated there, radiating an almost mystical, ethereal aura.
“Hmm.”
A thought flashed through Thirin’s mind.
Can I… eat this?
Everyone knew the national rule was that boss rewards were meant to be eaten. Still, something made her hesitate. The Poison Core would absorb any toxins, so she wasn’t worried about poison, but what if swallowing it cursed her with the Sand Ghost’s grudge or something?
“......”
“?!”
While she was still hesitating, a massive explosion roared from behind her.
“What the actual fu—!”
Thirin spun around in a rage, sword already drawn.
“Boss fights are supposed to end at phase three, that’s the national rule! Phase four is crossing the damn line!”
Her whole body trembled with fury. She was going to wipe every last member of this Sand Cult or whatever the hell it was off the face of the earth.
Tense, she glared at the thick cloud of dust rising from the collapsed entrance. A figure holding a sword staggered out of the haze.
Thirin adjusted her grip, ready to charge—then froze the moment she recognized who it was.
“...Stalker guy?”
It was Klaus. His entire body was covered in dust and blood. Tears of blood streamed from his eyes, and he kept coughing up more. He looked like a ghost who had crawled straight out of hell.
The moment Klaus spotted Thirin, he smiled—literally spraying blood as he did.
Then he pitched forward and collapsed.
“......”
Thirin stared at the scene with a blank face.
“What the hell is this guy doing now?”
She walked over to the unconscious Klaus and checked his face. Not a twitch. He was completely out cold.
Thirin was genuinely stunned.
Wait, I told him to take the kids and run. Instead he comes back with bombs and pulls a suicide charge?
This stick-like bastard’s way of thinking had completely surpassed Thirin’s common sense.
If Klaus had known what she was thinking, he probably would have coughed up blood from pure stress.
Thirin let out a long sigh, grabbed Klaus by the leg, and dragged him out of the temple. By now an entire night had passed; the sun was almost directly overhead.
“...!”
The most noticeable change was that the sandy path outside the temple had completely vanished. Not a single grain remained, as if it had never existed.
Thirin’s sharp ears and keen eyes picked up something else.
Clop-clop-clop-clop!
The sound of many horses galloping like mad.
Thirin watched the direction the noise was coming from, body tense. Soon a group of mounted soldiers appeared. Imperial Guard security forces. At the front was a familiar face—the security captain who had aged dramatically overnight. The Imperial forces had finally mobilized.
Klaus had driven the carriage full of kidnapped children like a madman down the highway. The moment he ran into our patrolling soldiers, he shoved the kids and the carriage at them, turned his horse around, and raced straight back to the city.
As soon as he reached the security station, he burst into my office like he was going to break the door down. Then he started shouting without even waiting.
He slammed a map on the table, frantically marked routes, and gave a full briefing before I could get a word in.
“The kidnapped children have been rescued and are being transported by carriage. Right now the bounty hunter is fighting the cultists alone. Immediate reinforcements required.”
Then, without giving me time to respond, he ran straight to the armory.
He took three jars of Alchemic Fire without permission and rode here like a bat out of hell. I saw at least three with my own eyes.
“Alchemic Fire?”
“Military-grade explosive. It requires official authorization to remove. He just took it anyway.”
The captain glanced at the unconscious Klaus and continued.
“This is going to cause problems with his record. It’s a serious offense.”
“Hmm……”
Thirin scratched her head. Even as someone from modern Korea, she could roughly guess how huge a crime it was to steal military supplies—especially weapons—and use them without permission. Doing it right in front of his superior made it impossible to deny. In her old world that would have been career suicide at best, prison at worst.
She suddenly felt a little awkward. If she had known, she would have dragged him by the upper body instead of the leg. The slight resentment she had felt at the temple entrance melted away.
“!”
Thirin turned her head. In the distance, a group of soldiers was approaching alongside a face she really didn’t want to see. It was the priest from the Pantheon.
The priest dismounted, gave Thirin a single sideways glance, then gestured toward the temple while speaking to the captain. As always, the priest’s attitude was supremely unpleasant.
I really just wanna smack him once.
The captain said, “It would be best if you came inside with us. We’ll need your account of what happened.”
“Sure.”
The inside of the temple was a wreck. Shattered crystal fragments, broken glass, walls covered in deep gouges and burn marks, and bloodstains everywhere. Floating at the center of it all was the glowing orb, still hovering peacefully in mid-air.
Thirin shrugged and spoke as casually as if she were describing her grocery run at the market.
“Eh, nothing special. The priests of the Sand River or Sand Ghost or whatever kidnapped the kids. Said they needed to offer something of the children. So I beat the crap out of them, and then the Sand Ghost’s main body popped out.”
“......”
“And there was this thing that looked like a sacred relic, so I just smashed it and the ghost got exorcised nice and clean. Kinda anticlimactic, honestly.”
Her story was extremely condensed. She conveniently left out the part where she had almost fallen for the Sand Ghost’s gaslighting. It was boring, pretentious, and embarrassing.
“Exorcised? Watch your words, woman,” the priest said, clearly displeased. “Even if it has fallen, divinity is still divinity. It is not something you may treat lightly.”
“Hmph.”
Thirin snorted.
“A guy who kidnaps kids and sucks their blood—what divinity? Since when did the Pantheon start respecting the constellation of a baby-formula thief?”
“......”
The priest didn’t answer. Instead he turned toward the glowing orb.
“That is a Divine Core.”
This bastard. He changed the subject because he had nothing to say.
While Thirin clicked her tongue internally, the priest continued.
“Some gods who refused to join the Pantheon left behind their divinity materialized in the mortal world.”
“Why?”
“Because they had fallen so far that existing as physical matter was easier than spreading faith.”
A faint sneer colored the priest’s voice.
“Gods maintain their rank through human faith. But those who insisted on standing alone had nowhere to lean. So they hardened a portion of their divinity into material form. That way, even if their last believer disappeared, they could remain in the world forever as matter.”
“Hmph.”
Thirin snorted again. In the end, everyone died anyway, so it had all been pointless—yet the god itself had clung to life so desperately. Typical. The people who claimed they didn’t care about money were always the greediest. Even gods were no different.
She jerked her chin at the orb.
“Then is that thing dangerous too? If we leave it, won’t the Sand Ghost come back to life?”
The priest shook his head.
“Its divinity has already been extinguished. That is nothing more than the pure remnant of power that has lost its master.”
“Really?”
Guess gods aren’t all that special after all.
Thinking that, Thirin turned back to the priest.
“Then since it’s power, can I use it?”
“......It is pure power. Anyone with sufficient rank may claim it.”
“So I can eat it?”
“......”
The priest didn’t answer. He sounded like he really didn’t want to.
The priests of the Pantheon were always this unpleasant.
The answer came from somewhere else.
“I believe it is right for you to claim it.”
Thirin turned to the security captain.
“Why?”
The captain pointed at the bloodstains all over Thirin’s body and her tattered clothes.
“You are merely a bounty hunter. There was no need for you to risk your life like this over a guild request and such meager pay. Did you know the kidnapped children personally?”
“No. Never met them.”
“Yet you still risked your life.”
“Didn’t, though?”
“At my age, I can tell what happened just from the traces. It must have been quite a dangerous situation.”
The captain nodded as if he understood everything. He had grown somewhat used to Thirin’s way of speaking by now.
He continued.
“Traces of fighting multiple enemies, the amount of blood… there must have been enough cultists to fill this entire temple. Judging by the marks left on your body, the number was definitely in the double digits—probably close to three digits. With that many cultists, you should have noticed before even entering, yet you charged in anyway. Are you truly without fear?”
“There were only five of them?”
“Of course you would say that. And those burn marks and the vast field of glass… those could only have been created by a fire-breathing demonic beast. I cannot even imagine how these cultists could wield such power of flame. It seems they must have summoned an ancient fire dragon.”
“There wasn’t one?”
“Facing a fire dragon. An ordinary person could never do that. Dragons inspire terror. It is an instinct engraved into every living being. Yet you overcame that fear and fought one. I cannot begin to guess how you managed it.”
“I keep telling you there was no dragon?”
“Of course there might not have been. All that scorched ground and glass could have simply been caused by an overturned bonfire.”
“.....Well, I guess that’s possible.”
“Look at the shattered crystal fragments over there. Those were surely a barrier the cultists used to trap you. My goodness. They must have been quite high-ranking cultists. I cannot imagine how they could wield such power.”
“It really wasn’t a big deal?”
“Of course I believe you. But still—a Divine Core.”
The captain spoke seriously.
“Even if it belonged to a fallen cult god, it was still a divinity. To overcome the fear that comes from a god’s voice… the fact that such a thing is even possible is astonishing. I offer my deepest respect for your mental fortitude.”
“I’m telling you that’s not what happened?”
“Of course, if you say it wasn’t, then it wasn’t.”
The captain nodded with a completely straight face.
Thirin felt like she was going to lose her mind.
The captain kept going.
“However, even if it wasn’t difficult for you, that does not make your actions meaningless.”
“.....!”
Thirin was at a loss for words. Something seemed to sink deep into a corner of her heart. It didn’t feel bad, but it was… strange. A very strange feeling.
“......”
“As an officer of the Imperial Guard, I pay you my respects. You have every right to claim that core.”
“......R-really?”
For some reason Thirin felt heat rising to her face. She grew embarrassed and idly scraped the floor with her foot.
“!”
Suddenly the priest’s body began to tremble violently. His head jerked back and forth with a creaking motion like a broken machine, then his eyes locked onto Thirin.
“That is your rightful trophy. Take it.”
“......!”
A deep, ancient voice echoed through the temple. By now Thirin could roughly distinguish between the words of the god and the priest. The captain standing beside her went rigid, his beard standing on end from the divine speech.
Even Thirin was slightly startled.
“What… you said it was some kind of god thing, right? It’s not that amazing? So I can eat it?”
The priest gave no reply. After those words, he turned away without the slightest hesitation.
“W-wait! Priest! What should we do with this temple?”
The captain called out urgently, but the priest answered without even looking back.
“It is unholy. Purify it with fire.”
“......”
The captain sighed. Whether it was the Pantheon or the bounty hunter beside him, both gave him headaches.
Meanwhile, Thirin swallowed hard.
“Maybe with just one bite……”
Maybe with just one bite she could achieve Rebirth.
Thirin snatched the orb out of the air and swallowed it whole.
She really was nothing but a bundle of greed.