According to the teachings of the church, the afterlife is filled with light. The surroundings are brimming with a warm, radiant glow that can brighten the soul just by looking at it. People bathe in this light of mercy, and as they do, all fear and regret fade away, leaving them in a state of tranquility.
(If that’s the case… then… could this be heaven…?)
As he stood, enraptured by the golden space stretching before him, Leo entertained such thoughts. Just moments before, he had felt someone’s hands around his neck and heard a strange voice. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in this place.
Leo absentmindedly rubbed his neck, forgetting the tense moments he had just experienced, and became lost in the scenery with a look of ecstasy. The surreal sight of him floating in mid-air, still clad in his priestess robe, should have given him plenty of things to think about, but the beauty of the place made him forget all his concerns.
Above him, it was golden. Below him, it was golden. To his left, to his right, ahead and far ahead—everything was golden. Sparkling golden particles drifted playfully through the space every time a light chiming sound echoed.
The soft gradation of color was filled with a noble hue, and the space itself felt like the utopia Leo had always dreamed of.
But then, a voice echoed from behind him.
“Do you like this place that much?”
He spun around in surprise. The owner of the voice entered his sight, and Leo’s eyes widened even further. Not only did his eyes widen, but his mouth gaped open as well.
(Golden… a woman…?)
Before him stood a vision of his ideals, in the form of a woman. Her hair, flowing luxuriously down to her waist, shone with a golden radiance. Her face, beautifully structured, held lips with a bewitching smile and a playful golden sparkle in her catlike eyes. Delicate golden bracelets adorned her slender arms. Her body, full of feminine curves, was clad in shimmering golden clothes.
She was elegant, sensual, and enchanting, like a lady of the lake—perfectly imperfect, which made her all the more intoxicating.
“Welcome to the world within the gold coin.”
The breathtaking beauty smiled at him in a way that seemed to test him. Hearing her slightly husky voice with a hint of languor, Leo swallowed hard.
“The… world within the gold coin…?”
The situation, the words echoing directly into his mind, and the otherworldly allure of the woman before him—all of it made the truth clear.
(Could it be… the spirit of gold…!? Am I really meeting the spirit of gold right now!?)
As he realized this fact, his heart began to race. His head felt like it might burst, and his breathing quickened, giving him the sensation of a nosebleed.
Despite having never been smitten by a human before, Leo was now swept up in a storm of emotions like a young boy experiencing his first crush.
And as his emotions reached their peak, he shouted loudly, “I love you!! …Ugh!”
But just as when he opened his mouth at Lake Carneirent and accidentally swallowed water, a thick lump now entered his mouth.
(Is this… gold!? A lump of gold!? Amazing! I don’t want to suffocate, but I do want to suffocate!)
Amid his confusion, Leo clamped his mouth shut to follow his survival instincts.
The spirit of gold watched Leo’s series of actions with a mixture of interest and a hint of exasperation.
“You refer to yourself as ‘I’? Do you often confess your feelings to people you’ve just met? You’re quite the charming young girl, but it’s a bit of a waste.”
“Uh…! Oh no! You dislike ‘I’!? I mean, uh, me! I’ve been saying ‘me’ all my life! And, uh, sorry for shouting so suddenly! I, well, I don’t have much experience with women, so I’m a bit inexperienced!”
Leo scrambled to adjust his speech.
“Well, that certainly explains a lot…”
The woman seemed perplexed, making Leo wish he could smack himself. Meeting his long-admired spirit should have been the opportunity of a lifetime, yet here he was, struggling to even hold a simple conversation.
He imagined the spirit might be taken aback by his sudden confession, but that didn’t stop him from blurting out.
“Uh, usually, you’d ask about each other’s annual income or savings goals to get to know each other better, right? I can’t believe I said that! How embarrassing…”
“That’s a little odd to me…”
“Or you might ask about someone’s preferred type of currency. Different strokes for different folks, right?”
Leo hurried to explain as the spirit of gold began to tilt her head in skepticism. He couldn’t afford to lose even a speck of her trust.
The radiant golden woman kept a somewhat dubious expression on her face, but she eventually shook her head and shifted topics.
“Well, let’s put that aside. I am, as you might have guessed, the spirit of gold. An unofficial spirit, you could say. Understand?”
The spirit paused, waiting for his reaction.
“Wow! Of course! No reaction is needed! I’ve always believed in your existence! I knew it all along!”
Leo’s enthusiastic response surprised the spirit, causing her to widen her golden eyes slightly. She then offered him a smile, sensuous enough to take one’s breath away.
“Then, it must have been you all along.”
(What?)
Not fully comprehending her meaning, Leo asked, puzzled.
The spirit did not elaborate, simply shaking her head, and gracefully floated to sit in the air, crossing her legs.
“It’s a secret. By the way, you were lucky. That gold coin on the altar saved you. The bloodstains on it were a bit inconvenient, but it served its purpose.”
The shift in topic left Leo blinking in surprise.
The gold coin is stained with blood… it seemed he was inside the gold coin that had been left as an offering to the dark spirit. Just as Lake Carneirent had tried to drag him underwater, this was her domain.
Leo had been taken into hiding within the gold coin.
(Inside a gold coin! It’s like a dream! But no, this isn’t it. You saved me! How kind! You are truly the best! The absolute best!)
“No, well, the reason you ended up in this mess and caught the attention of Alir Ad might be partly my fault.”
As Leo’s excitement overflowed into shouts, the spirit of gold shrugged.
Puzzled, Leo tilted his head as she stood and twirled in place.
(Oh my goodness!?)
In the next moment, the spirit transformed into the radiant form of the light spirit from the Ritual of Praise.
Her lustrous black hair and golden eyes now framed her perfectly beautiful face. She spoke with a solemn expression, “If that is what you desire,” uttering a phrase that seemed so befitting of the light spirit. Then, with a playful expression, she stuck out her tongue and said, “Just kidding.”
“See? I was the one present at the ritual.”
Leo’s eyes widened in shock. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His mind raced as he tried to comprehend what he just witnessed.
“You know, Alir Ad is unable to summon the light spirit because he has been consumed by darkness. This means he couldn’t call upon the light spirit for the ceremony. But without the light spirit, the ceremony would have been compromised, and he’d be suspected of corrupting the spirit orb.”
“In desperation, Alir Ad approached me with an offer: to pose as the light spirit at the ceremony.”
According to the spirit, many spirits, including those of wind and water, can change their form freely, but they can’t alter their eye color. So, the spirit of gold, with her natural golden eyes, was one of the few who could imitate the light spirit.
The spirit of gold floated down to sit again, crossing her legs gracefully.
“I accepted his offer because I liked his terms. I thought I could pull it off. I’ve often been mistaken for the light spirit anyway because of the way I glow.”
“Indeed, the people present there must have all been deceived. They were praying, kneeling, and speaking to me in grand ancient Elrand language, even though they didn’t officially recognize me. It would be one thing if it were the ‘noble spirits from old times’ like light and water, but I could understand their intent well enough even without them speaking the old-fashioned Elrand language to me.”
“So I watched with amusement the priests who translated everything into ancient language and the priestesses whose faces were stiff with tension, uttering blessings without any heart in them.”
“Elrand is so beautiful, the spirit of light is the best, I truly believe it.”
“Watching those young ones, I thought, ‘Oh my, they can’t even see through my disguise.’ But it would be impossible for the spirit of light to be a fake. I told myself it wasn’t their fault, but still felt a bit bored and just let the ceremony pass by.”
“Then, a girl with purple eyes praised me. You spoke with such passion from the bottom of your heart, without once mentioning the spirit of light. Your words about radiance and brightness sounded almost like praises to the spirit of gold. It felt like you were speaking to me directly, and it made me happy.”
“Hehe, you were simply praising this land, but I must have a corrupt mind. You sounded like a ruthless merchant trying to convince a landowner to start a tourist business. It was so funny I couldn’t help but laugh.”
“Ha, ha.”
It was just as it seemed. But Leo decided there was no need to lower his own evaluation, and he dismissed it with a vague smile.
The spirit of gold snapped her fingers and returned to her original form, happily picking up her golden hair. “And then you said my hair should be golden! You think that’s better than the black hair of the spirit of light. That’s just fantastic!” She tilted her head slightly and gave him a playful, teasing look.
“I thought, ‘It seems like she’s really looking at me…’”
“Yes… Yes, of course! I will always seek out your form. I am your loyal servant!” Leo declared with determination.
Even if it was a coincidence, Leo declared it was true and nodded firmly. That was the essence of Leo’s quality.
But the spirit of gold then looked slightly apologetic and said, “I’m sorry. If I were to uphold the contract I made with Alir Ad, I should have gotten angry at you there. How disrespectful to the spirit of light! But I didn’t do it. That’s why he might have thought you saw through my true identity and feared his plans would be exposed, which led him to take action like this. If you hadn’t called me at that time, you might have lost your purity and life. I’m sorry.”
With a dejected apology, Leo mumbled, ‘No, uh, yes…’
After all, it was his idolized spirit apologizing so meekly. It made him want to forgive her completely.
But he also wanted to question her a little about why someone who seemed to possess common sense and morality would help someone like Alir Ad.
She must have read his thoughts because she shrugged her shoulders slightly. “I told you, I liked the conditions. He said if I pretended to be the spirit of light for three days during the Contract Festival, he would build a shrine for me.”
“A shrine?”
It was surprising that she wanted such a thing. Perhaps the spirit of gold preferred real estate over cash. But since she wanted it, she must have had her reasons.
Looking back, it was indeed disrespectful that a great spirit like her had no shrine to honor her. It was outrageous that she wasn’t officially recognized as a spirit.
Just like a man in love, Leo was infuriated by the church’s negligence.
“Yes, a shrine! You wanted a shrine! Of course! It’s absurd that such a great spirit like you doesn’t have a shrine to honor you! Let’s build one! Then you can ascend the hierarchy of the spirit world!”
As Leo enthusiastically warmed up to the idea, the spirit of gold gave a small chuckle.
“Thank you. But it’s not about hierarchy. I thought I might meet someone I wanted to see if I had a shrine.”
“Someone you want to see?”
The unexpected statement made Leo raise an eyebrow. It felt as if she were talking about a loved one with another admirer.
Seeing Leo’s bewildered eyes, the spirit of gold smiled gently.
“Yes, someone I want to see. The one who first offered me genuine and devout prayers. It was long ago… maybe even a thousand years ago, but they prayed for me. They praised me and wanted me with strong words. I was so happy that I flew from this land towards that person, though the sacred verses vanished along the way, so I couldn’t fully manifest.”
What kind of person would interrupt precious prayers to the spirit of gold? Leo was internally furious at the thought of a worthless fool.
Consumed with jealousy, Leo didn’t realize that the spirit of gold was staring at him fondly, and that he had once prayed to her and then stopped abruptly.
With a playful glimmer in her eyes, the spirit of gold continued, “I was so delighted. I wanted to meet that person so much. If I had a shrine, worshippers would gather, and maybe that person would be among them, and we could meet.”
Each time she spoke of the person she wanted to meet, Leo’s frustration grew. It seemed she was being strung along by someone, her pure heart being manipulated.
(That person doesn’t deserve her, I… I will come to her aid)
Leo tightened his lips, but the spirit of gold burst into laughter. “Perhaps you’re right. I may not need a shrine anymore. It would be nice to have one, but I no longer feel it’s essential.”
With that, she leaned forward and cupped Leo’s cheeks in her hands. “Now, what I want is you.”
“Wha-what?”
Taken aback by the spirit of gold’s seductive whisper, Leo blushed bright red.
True to her nature, the spirit of gold enchanted Leo with every word and gesture. Being told by the beautiful, golden spirit that she wanted him, Leo felt like he could die happy.
Confused emotions, both pure and indecent, filled his mind.
The spirit of gold, who embodied temptation itself, ran her finger along Leo’s cheek and asked him in a soft voice, “So, will you believe in me? Will you offer me your prayers?”
“Of-of course! Yes, yes, I will!”
Overwhelmed with excitement, Leo could barely form coherent thoughts. The spirit of gold was captivating, seducing his mind and heart.
“I’m so pleased! Once I gather believers and accumulate prayers, I will become quite a powerful spirit. Fame, power, attraction, wealth—almost anything can be achieved with my help.”
The cheerful spirit hugged Leo tightly and then stepped back to tilt her head.
“You are special. You are my first beloved child. Tell me what you want, and I will fulfill it!”
The offer was extraordinary, a dream come true for Leo.
However, Leo paused to think.
“Why are you hesitating? Anything you want, whether it’s clothes, food, power, or fame, I can provide it if you want it.”
Then Leo had an epiphany.
(Oh)
“Yes, what is it?”
“Well, what I want… I actually want you.”
The spirit of gold blinked in surprise, then her eyes widened.
What tonal whiplash lol. I’m dying over here XD. Leo goes from talking his kidnappers into going on strike over low wages and poor working conditions, then they accidently inhale the funny fumes and are about to rape and murder Leo.
Then Leo is saved by the spirit of gold and goes to gold heaven inside a gold coin. Like this image is basically the same vibe (click image for gif to play):
But damn, even the spirit of gold finds Leo’s greed(via sales pitch) to be so excessive she dismissed it as a possibility. And now the spirits delight over hearing her hair would be better if golden makes complete sense.
Nice leo XD