Shadow Slave

Grasping the coin in his fist, Sunny took a step forward, then cautiously walked around a thick vine sprawled across the floor of the small cabin.

Or was it a wall?

Since the ancient ship was laying on its side and at an angle, it was hard to differentiate the floor from the ceiling. The surface beneath Sunny’s feet was skewed, forcing him to bend to be able to keep balance. The piles of debris and the vines weren’t making things any easier for him.

By now, Sunny was almost sure that the vines were a part of a larger creature. His suspicion only grew when he climbed through the narrow doorway and left the cabin. Finding himself in a wide corridor, Sunny felt that the sweet smell permeating the murky air became much stronger.

Here, everything was covered by a thick layer of reddish moss, with twisted vines growing through it as they stretched in every direction. Sunny could help but feel as though he was now inside some giant being, with the wooden carcass of the ancient ship serving as its bones, the moss representing its flesh, and the vines being its veins.

The warm breeze that blew through the wreck at rhythmic intervals reminded him of slow breathing of a slumbering giant. It came from somewhere deeper in the ship, bringing with it the sickeningly sweet smell, and then disappeared for a dozen seconds, only to appear again.

‘Let’s, uh… not do anything to awaken that thing, then.’

Sunny thought for a few moments, and then decided to keep both shadows wrapped around his body instead of sending them to explore the ship. In situations where a confrontation with an unknown enemy could happen at any moment, having them close by was of paramount importance… at least that approach had saved his life many times in the past.

Taking a step forward, he felt the moss spring under his foot, and then swayed. His vision blurred slightly…

‘Argh…’

His worse expectations did not come true. Unlike the Blood Blossom, the tiny grains of pollen — or spores, or whatever it was that he had breathed in — had not tried to take root in his lungs and grow through his flesh. Instead, they simply poisoned him.

The posing had entered his lungs, then traveled to his bloodstream, and was now spreading through his body. Sunny could easily see himself losing consciousness and falling to the ground, his body then becoming overgrown by the reddish moss, slowly digested by it, turned into nourishment for the creature that had usurped the wreck of the ancient ship…

But he wasn’t going to.

As soon as the poison entered his bloodstream, Blood Weave went into a frenzy. It seemed to really dislike anything alien invading its territory. Slowly but surely, it went about destroying the toxin.

Sunny just had to endure the pain.

Summoning the Cruel Sight, he used the shaft of the spear to help himself keep balance and waited for his vision to become clear again. After a minute or two, Sunny slowly exhaled and continued on his way.

A few minutes later, still suffering from pain and weakness, he picked up a second coin from the moss and stared at it for a second.

The beautiful person with a crescent moon drawn on their forehead smiled at him with a carefree expression. Sunny frowned in response.

‘What are you so happy about, fool?’

Turning away, he noticed another coin gleaming in the moss a couple of meters further down the corridor.

…It was almost as if someone left these coins here like breadcrumbs to lead an unsuspecting treasure hunter to their prize.

‘…Very convenient.’

Full of unease, Sunny walked other to the third coin, picked it up, hid it in his pack, and then cautiously moved deeper into the wreck.

Soon, he approched a wall with a massive gate barring it. The wooden surface of the wall had cracked and was bent outward, as if something was pressing heavily on it from the other side. The vines out here were especially thick and vernicose, shining in the beams of sunlight that fell through a wide hole in the hull of the ship right above. The sweet smell in the air was almost overwhelming.

Sunny stared at the warped wall, a grim expression on his face. Although he could not see through it, he could feel the shapes of shadows on the other side.

Hidden from him by the thick bulkhead was a much larger, vast and open space. He judged it to be the main cargo hold of the ancient ship. And in it, something massive was moving, slowly expanding and contracting. Brown vines that had devoured the wreck all originated from that place.

The sickening breeze that blew through the ancient ship from time to time came simultaneously with the contracting of the massive shadow.

Sunny lingered for a while, then decided that he had no desire to disturb the slumber of that being. Instead of trying to open the door, he jumped up, grabbed the edges of the hole above him, and climbed onto the exterior of the ship’s hull.

He was reasonably sure that a treasure such as miraculous coins would not have been stored in the main hold with the rest of the mundane cargo, anyway. Unless he was absolutely certain that he had no other choice, he was not going to enter it.

Sunny was of a rather high opinion about his abilities, but not so high as to forget all fear. That thing inside was not for him to fight, at least not yet. How was he supposed to kill a giant mass of vines and moss, anyway?

Instead of trying, he walked on the sloping hull of the ancient ship, carefully avoiding breaches through which thick brown vines were crawling outside, and soon passed the area of the main cargo hold.

Now, he was approaching the shattered bow of the ship. Out here, the hull was heavily damaged, with most of it being riddled with wide cracks, jagged holes, and splintered boards.

The sight of it made Sunny wonder about what had happened to the graceful ship he had seen on the miraculous coins. The vessel was obviously not an ordinary one… why had it crashed here, on that remote island? Why was its bow in such a devastated condition? What had the ship sailed on, to begin with? Had it just flown through the skies?

If so, maybe the Crushing had gotten to it.

Feeling that he wouldn’t be able to remain hidden in the shadows on this treacherous surface, Sunny crawled back inside and landed softly on the carpet of moss.

…Just a few steps from where he found himself, several golden coins were gleaming on the ground, with one more laying further down the dark corridor.

Sunny cautiously gathered them, then moved deeper into the wreck.

It wasn’t long before he found the compartment that must have served as the ship’s treasury.

He knew that there was something special about it instantly… simply for the fact that the floorboards around the heavy door were the only place on the entire ancient ship that was completely free of the reddish moss, the vernicose vines, and the air near it was void of the sickeningly sweet smell of the poisonous spores.

Standing in from of the door, Sunny smiled.

‘…Eureka!’