Chapter 2: Golem's Loot

Riku Takahashi stood on the grassy hill like a man who had just been handed the keys to the universe and immediately remembered he didn’t know how to drive.

The wind tugged at his cloak again—dramatic, insistent—like it was trying to convince him he was the protagonist.

Riku looked down at his boots, then at the forest ahead.

The forest did not look like a place that cared about narrative structure.

It looked like a place that ate people.

Towering trees rose like pillars holding up the sky, their trunks thick and ancient, wrapped in moss and shadow. The edge of the woods was a jagged line of darkness. The air beyond it carried a damp, green smell—earth, rot, and something faintly metallic that made Riku’s instincts itch.

He swallowed.

“Okay,” he said to nobody. “Step one is… not dying.”

He patted his belt again, searching through pouches like a man checking pockets he’d never owned before. There were items he couldn’t name yet—glass vials filled with swirling colors, bits of chalk, a folded map, a small dagger with a simple leather sheath, and the thick spellbook.

He pulled the book free and stared at the cover.

No title.

Just embossed symbols that looked like gears locked around a coin.

Riku’s gaze drifted to the golden coin in his hand. It pulsed faintly, as if recognizing its twin.

His skin prickled.

He opened the book.

The pages were filled with neat writing—ink so dark it looked almost wet—yet the moment he focused on the symbols, his mind… caught .

Like a lock clicking into place.

The letters stopped being nonsense.

They became words.

Riku blinked hard.

“…I can read this.”

His eyes darted across the page.

Basic Field Spells — Beginner Adventurer Edition

Under that were short entries with simple names: Spark , Cleanse , Bind , Glimmer , Ward , Coincall —

Riku froze.

“Coincall?”

His finger traced the word, half expecting it to bite him. The description beneath it was short.

Coincall: Draw nearby loose currency and minor valuables within a small radius. Weak effect. Strongly affected by “Fortune-aligned catalysts.”

Riku stared at that last line.

Fortune-aligned catalysts.

He looked down at the golden coin again.

Then, slowly, a grin crept across his face.

“…No. No way.”

Riku held the book in one hand, the coin in the other, and felt something in his chest tighten—not fear this time, but the sharp, electric feeling of opportunity.

All his life, money had been something that escaped him.

Slipped through fingers.

Rolled into gutters.

Vanished into the pockets of people who never had to count coins to survive.

Now there was a spell that literally said: draw currency to you.

Riku exhaled a laugh, half-crazy.

“This world is getting robbed,” he whispered.

Then his stomach growled.

Loud.

Riku paused, expression flattening.

“…After lunch.”

He tucked the coin safely away in the front pouch and forced himself to breathe. He couldn’t let greed sprint ahead of survival. Not yet. Not on day one. He’d seen enough people in the city make the mistake of chasing the big score and ending up face-down in an alley.

He took three steps toward the forest and immediately understood why the road existed.

The woods did not invite you in.

They judged you.

At the treeline, sunlight thinned into golden threads that couldn’t quite pierce the canopy. The air cooled by degrees, damp and heavy with the scent of moss, sap, and ancient earth—like the forest had been breathing for centuries and had no intention of stopping just because a newcomer showed up wearing fresh boots.

Riku stopped and tilted his head up.

The trees weren’t trees.

They were monuments .

Trunks as wide as houses rose into a ceiling of branches so high he couldn’t see where bark ended and sky began. Some of them twisted in spirals, wrapped in vines the thickness of ropes. Others had pale runes half-swallowed by wood, glowing faintly like embers caught under skin.

Even the shadows looked old.

He swallowed.

“Okay,” he whispered. “So this is the ‘beginner area’ that definitely doesn’t want beginners.”

A winged shape drifted through a shaft of light—too slow, too large, too quiet.

A dragonfly the size of a small dog hovered above a fern, its translucent wings catching the sun like glass. It stared at Riku with jewel-bright eyes, then buzzed away with a sound like a distant motor.

Riku watched it go.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t panic.

He simply accepted, with the resigned calm of a man whose life had already taught him the universe enjoyed absurdity.

“Of course.”

He stepped into the forest.

The ground softened under his boots, thick with fallen needles and damp leaves. Mushrooms grew in clusters along the roots—some dull and brown, others luminous, breathing faint blue light like underwater lanterns. A deer moved between the trunks ahead, but when it turned its head, its antlers were threaded with tiny floating motes that shimmered like coins in sunlight.

Riku paused.

The deer stared back.

Then, politely, it vanished—no sprint, no startled leap. Just gone, like the forest had blinked and decided it didn’t want witnesses.

Riku exhaled through his nose.

“Alright. Great. Even the wildlife is magical and disrespectful.”

He followed what looked like an animal trail, winding between roots like knotted serpents. Once, he spotted a frog perched on a mushroom cap, but its skin glittered faintly like wet gemstones. Another time, he watched a procession of ants march across a log—each ant the size of his thumb, carrying bright flecks of crystal that sparked when they bumped together.

Riku stared at them, then at the crystals.

Then he stared a little longer.

“…No,” he told himself firmly. “We are not mugging ants on day one.”

He took a step away.

Then took another step away just to prove his maturity.

He had barely gone twenty yards when a low, distant impact rolled through the forest.

THOOM.

Leaves trembled. A flock of birds—some normal, some glowing—erupted upward, scattering into the canopy.

Riku froze.

A second impact followed.

THOOM.

Then shouting.

Not animal. Not monster.

Human voices.

Riku’s body went still, instincts sharpening the way they always did when trouble could also be opportunity.

He moved carefully toward the sound, crouching through ferns and slipping behind a fallen trunk. He kept the trees between himself and the noise until the forest opened into a clearing.

And there it was.

A stone ruin, half-swallowed by ivy, stood in the center like the ribs of something long dead. Broken pillars leaned at odd angles. A cracked archway jutted out of the earth like a tooth.

And in front of it—

a golem .

It wasn’t the small, clumsy kind Riku had seen in games. This thing was a walking cliff-face, built of boulders and old masonry, its chest packed with glowing ore that pulsed like a furnace. It moved with the slow certainty of something that didn’t need speed because it couldn’t imagine losing.

Every step crushed grass into dirt.

Every swing of its arm displaced air in a blunt, murderous wave.

Facing it was a party of adventurers—four of them, spread out in practiced formation.

A broad-shouldered fighter with a shield that looked half-cracked already. A robed mage with a staff sparking in rhythmic bursts. A lean rogue darting in and out like a shadow. And a priest-like woman in light armor, hands glowing as she barked healing words over the chaos.

They weren’t winning.

Not yet.

The golem slammed a fist down, and the fighter barely raised his shield in time. The impact threw him backward across the clearing like a toy.

The mage shouted, hurling a bolt of crackling light into the golem’s chest.

The magic hit.

The golem didn’t care.

It turned its head—slowly—toward the mage.

Riku watched, wide-eyed.

The mage’s posture stiffened in the universal language of “Oh no.”

The rogue cursed and sprinted to intercept, throwing something small that burst into a cloud of glittering dust at the golem’s face. It didn’t stop the monster, but it slowed it, confused it—just enough for the healer to grab the mage’s sleeve and yank him out of the path of a sweeping stone arm.

Riku remained behind the fallen trunk, breathing carefully.

He assessed the scene the way he used to assess crowded sidewalks.

Where’s the danger?Where’s the exit?Where’s the money?

Then he saw it.

Near the ruin’s archway, partially covered by a cloth, sat a pile of loot: a leather sack bulging with coins, a small chest with ornate hinges, and a couple of glittering items that looked like gemstones or enchanted trinkets.

A reward stash. A haul they’d already secured or were about to secure.

Riku’s eyes narrowed.

He didn’t need to be a veteran adventurer to understand the obvious.

They were risking their lives for that pile.

Riku’s heart thumped.

His stomach—still not fully satisfied—made its opinion known with a low growl of interest.

And somewhere in his chest, an old voice whispered the same thing it always had whenever he saw money within reach.

Take it before the world takes it first.

Riku hesitated.

He watched the party fight, watched them bleed, watched them strain against something too big and too strong.

He could help.

He could try.

He could also die.

And while dying a second time sounded like it would make for a very embarrassing cosmic report, Riku was not interested in finding out if there was a third chance.

He looked down at his pouch.

The golden coin pulsed once, warmly, as if offering a solution.

Riku swallowed.

“Alright,” he whispered. “Comedy genre, don’t fail me now.”

He slid the spellbook out just enough to see the page title without fully exposing himself.

Coincall.

Small radius.

Loose currency.

Minor valuables.

He could do this.

He just had to get close.

Riku moved.

Low and quiet, he slipped from behind the trunk and crawled along the edge of the clearing, using tall grass and broken stone for cover. The golem’s attention remained on the party. The party’s attention remained on the golem.

No one was looking at the shadows.

Riku reached the ruined archway and pressed himself against a cracked pillar. The loot pile was only a few steps away.

The leather sack sat there like it belonged to him.

Riku’s mouth went dry.

He pulled the golden coin from his pouch.

It warmed his fingers immediately, like it approved of theft in principle.

“Fortune-aligned catalyst,” he murmured. “Yeah. That’s me now.”

He held the coin in his palm, took a steady breath, and whispered the spell.

“Coincall.”

The air tightened.

Not visibly—nothing flashy, no grand burst of light. Instead, the world seemed to listen.

Then the loot pile made a sound.

A soft, unmistakable clink.

Coins shifted inside the leather sack.

Riku’s eyes widened.

The sack’s mouth—loosely tied—began to loosen further, as if invisible fingers were untying it. A line of copper and silver pieces slid out like obedient insects, skittering across stone toward Riku’s boots.

He stared, stunned.

Then, because the forest apparently had a sense of timing, the golden coin in his hand pulsed brighter.

And the spell’s pull strengthened.

The small chest rattled.

Its lid lifted a fraction—just enough for a thin chain of jewelry and a few bright gemstones to slide out and hop across the ground as though excited to be stolen.

Riku caught himself whispering, “No way,” in the reverent tone of a man witnessing a miracle.

He scooped the coins quickly into his pouch, hands moving like a professional. The gems followed, ticking against one another as they gathered near him.

Behind him, the battle raged.

The golem roared—a grinding, stone-on-stone sound—and slammed both fists down. The clearing shook.

The rogue shouted something that sounded like a curse and a prayer at the same time.

Riku shoved the last handful of pulled coins into his pouch—

—and then he made one mistake.

He smiled.

Not a small smile.

A big, satisfied, “I’m going to build an empire” smile.

The universe punished him immediately.

A coin that had been stuck between two stones popped free and shot across the clearing like a tiny silver missile.

It smacked the golem’s foot with a bright, ringing TING.

The sound was small.

The effect was not.

The golem’s head turned.

Slowly.

Its glowing eyes fixed toward the ruin.

Toward the loot pile.

Toward the pillar Riku was pressed against.

Riku froze so hard his soul nearly stepped out of his body.

“Nope,” he whispered.

At the same time, the party noticed the golem’s shift.

The fighter, panting, looked toward the archway.

The rogue followed his gaze.

The mage’s eyes widened.

And the healer—of all people—spotted the subtle movement of coins that were no longer where they had been.

Her face twisted.

“HEY!” she shouted. “SOMEONE’S STEALING—”

Riku didn’t wait for the sentence to finish.

He bolted.

He sprinted into the forest like the trees were a loving mother and the clearing was overdue rent. Branches whipped his cloak. Roots tried to trip him like petty criminals. A massive beetle the size of a dinner plate crawled up a trunk as he passed, clicking indignantly like it disapproved of his cardio.

Behind him, chaos exploded.

“STOP HIM!” the rogue yelled.

“THAT’S OUR LOOT!” the fighter roared.

The mage shouted something that crackled ominously and exploded a tree stump somewhere far too close to Riku’s left.

Riku yelped and zigzagged through ferns.

“IT’S FINDERS KEEPERS!” he shouted back, then immediately regretted the words, because that was exactly the kind of sentence that got you killed in a world with magic.

Something heavy crashed behind him.

The golem.

It had taken a step—maybe toward the party, maybe toward Riku, maybe just toward the concept of violence in general.

Either way, Riku heard it and ran faster.

His pouch bounced against his hip, heavy with coins and gems.

He didn’t stop until his lungs burned and the sounds of shouting faded into the forest’s endless breath.

When he finally stumbled into a patch of thick ferns and collapsed behind a tree root wide enough to serve as a bench, he panted like he’d just outrun fate itself.

Which, to be fair, he kind of had.

He pulled the pouch open with shaking hands.

Coins glimmered inside.

Gems winked in the dim light like smug little stars.

Riku stared at the wealth and felt something dangerous rise in his chest.

Not just relief.

Not just triumph.

A thrill.

A greedy, electric certainty that made his earlier vow feel less like a dream and more like a plan.

He laughed under his breath, half-delighted, half-horrified.

“Okay,” he whispered, voice trembling with the rush of it. “So… I’m a criminal now.”

The golden coin in his palm pulsed warmly, like it was proud.

Riku stared at it.

Then at the forest.

Then at the pouch again.

He swallowed, the grin returning—sharp, hungry, alive.

“Fine,” he murmured. “If the world is going to be dangerous…”

He cinched the pouch shut and tucked it tight against his belt.

“…then I’m going to be dangerous back. Besides, if i'm making money for myself why care about others?”

What a bastard. Somewhere in the deep woods, a low, distant rumble answered—like the forest itself had heard him and was deciding whether to laugh or bite.

Riku pushed himself to his feet.

He wasn’t anywhere near the city.

He wasn’t safe.

He had no guild crest, no allies, and now at least four very angry adventurers who would absolutely explain “adventurer justice” to his face if they caught him.

But he had money.

He had a spell that could make money move.

And he had a second life.

Riku adjusted his cloak, turned deeper into the trees, and started walking—careful, quiet, and grinning like a man who had just learned the first rule of his new world:

Treasure didn’t just belong to the strong.

Sometimes it belonged to the smart.

And sometimes… it belonged to whoever was willing to run the fastest.