— “Wake up… Wake up…! Wake up!! Thank goodness his pulse came back! Just what’s with you when you inject that to him?!”

— “You need not be so mad at your father, it was an honest mistake anyway.”

— “Honest mistake?! You killed him! It’s a miracle he’s alive again!”

— “An honest mistake is an honest mistake when you admit to it.”

— “How is your father this nonchalant about killing a man, Min-Min?”

I could hear the voices of my friends from outside of the walls of this dark room even though there’s no walls. It’s dark from all sides except for the lightbulb hanging atop the table—which isn’t even on and it’s probably broken-

— “You gods and goddesses are so full of yourselves! Especially you, you wench!”

— “Watch your tongue, you clothed bones. Don’t you know it’s rude to speak like that to a lady such as myself?”

I turned my attention back to Lida and Death. Okay, if I’m being serious with myself right now, these are supposed gods and controllers of human lives, acting like toddlers over my life.

— “Wench!!”

— “Bones!!”

*Sigh* I’ll just take my leave whilst these two are bickering.

I quietly scooted to the table and grabbed the chalk before dramatically tapping the chalkboard. Not that they’ll notice or anything, I’m just throwing rocks at the injuries—or however you use that phrase.

*Clack…!*

Why did I even do that? Now their attention is on me. Death glared daggers right through my soul after I dramatically tapped on the chalkboard which also disrupted their meaningless bickering.

— “Real funny, boy. But unfortunately…”

A black smoke engulfed his right hand before something materialized… A scythe. It’s slowly materializing and it didn’t help that it had the screeches and pleats of when I stroke the chalkboard. Are these gods even sane?!

— “Help!!! Help me!!! Get me out of this hell!!!”

— “I’m burning!! Please!!–”

— “Help us all escape this hell!!–”

— “Fire!! Fire!!! Fi–”

Damn. Sucks to be these guys in the scythe of death. It kept yelling out in pain along with other voices yelling incoherent things about fire and suffering.

— “...Your luck ran out.”

Death marched, slowly turning the march into a run and slashing everything around him even though there’s nothing there and ran towards me before charging an overhead swing of his scythe as if to kill me… Kill me…? Kill me?!

— “W-W-Wait!!–”

*Clank!!*

— “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Who said you could do that, you bone for brain?”

Lida is blocking the attack with the light of her lamp. Their weapons are shaking, like they’re blocking and using real weapons even though Death’s scythe was hitting the light instead of the lamp.

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— “Why can’t you just let me do my job?!”

— “Can you stop talking about your job for once and let words get to your boney head instead of passing through your ears?”

— “I’m tired of reasoning with you, you wench. The next time we meet, I’ll be in your realm with an army of gods!”

And in a puff of smoke, he forgot his main objective of killing me and disappearing somewhere else.

But just as I thought this was over, Lida looked at me, lamp in hand with a cheeky grin on her face.

— “You looked like you were about to lose your mind on the brink of your life.”

— “I was not!”

She chuckled, finding this amusing… Somehow. Do gods and goddesses actually act like this? How does this world even run with divine creatures like these?

— “I am pretty sure you were.”

She is getting on my nerves! If Death wouldn’t be the death of me, SHE will! I can’t stand her anymore!

— “I was no–”

Lida used her left free-hand to clasp my right hand and I felt something cold and metallic on my palms.

— “What is i–”

— “Guess.”

— “A gold coin?”

Why would she ever put a cold coin on my hands? She knows that I already know that I’ve at least touched a coin like this, right? I mean, it’s rare but it’s not that rare. If I remember correctly, I did get paid a pouch of gold coins.

She chuckled, finding my confused expression amusing… Again, somehow.

— “Couldn’t expect less from a traveling merchant, I suppose.”

— “What does that mean? And what does this gold coin even mean?”

— “Look at it. It’s important to the next act of your life~”

I looked at my palm to see a gold coin.

In my experience of acquiring money from the wares I sell, gold coins of foreign kingdoms have their current ruler’s side profile in them. But that was soon ruled out because it was hard to commission a professional artisan to carve a proper image to a piece of gold so they just stuck to the original revolution of gold coins to reduce the cost of making more…

— “Owens…”

— “…But this gold coin felt new. It was shiny and polished. The side profile of the ruler of the kingdom this came from looked brand new as if it was made recently.”

— “Owens…!”

*Smack!!*

— “What was that for!–”

I looked up from my palm to notice there were more colors than black and white now. I returned back to the real world.

I could see Minnie, Leo, Cass, and Minnie’s father around me in a small bed with the sheets covering half of my body.

— “Sorry, young man. But the beds can’t get any bigger than this. This infirmary isn’t really used a lot so I didn’t bother buying new beds. You’re quite tall, you know that.”

— “That’s besides the point, father! You almost killed him and he woke up talking to himself whilst looking at a gold coin!”

— “Your daughter is making a point Martin, or I should say, Piker. In fact, you did kill him. This isn’t the first time I saw it happen to him where it momentarily felt like he wasn’t there in his body only for him to return soon after.”

— “Don’t butt into family matters– I forgot you’re sister-in-law… I guess this should concern you, if that’s the case. Okay, I admit. I kind of killed him.”

— “It’s fine, it’s an honest mistake. I’m alive no anyway.”

— “See? Even he agrees with my ‘honest mistake’ statement!”

— “I feel like your father is more loopy than Owens a few moments ago, Min-Min.”

***

After staying in the infirmary for a while, I was out and we all went to Minnie’s father’s house and we went to our respective rooms, no one is sharing a room with one another—or at least to my knowledge. Maybe Minnie is sleeping with his father or something.

Anyway, a lot of things happened in a single day—I died; I met Lida again; I almost died to Death himself; and I was given a strange gold coin. I wonder where it came from.

***

I frantically looked around the bushes, rummaging around the weed on the forest ground. I can’t find my coin! I can’t find it!

— “Where is it, where is it! I can’t afford to lose it! It’s my only memento of my father!”

Oh no, no, no, no, no! I can’t lose it! I can’t… I just can’t…