"Now this is what I'm talking about," Nathan grinned.

  Yellow light illuminated his face, the source none other than the content of the chest, gold. Lots and lots of gold filled the chest, well, the majority of it. The box was divided into two compartments, one compartment which was two-thirds of the chest contained gold, and it was filled to the brim with the glittering metal. The other compartment contained a singular item, a ship. A miniature version of a ship to be exact, but Nathan wasn't really bothered by that, the gold was what mattered.

  "The dwarf sure was a weird one," he muttered to himself.

  He spared a glance at the miniature ship toy ship, chuckling as he imagined the Commander playing Captain with the miniature ship. Of course, the toy ship could have just been for decoration, but if it was, then why wasn't it displayed outside the chest like the weapons? The longer Nathan thought about it, the more he had to concede the fact that he was missing something; maybe the ship was a childhood memento, something for the commander to look back on and reminisce about his childhood.

  With a half-shrug, he returned his gaze to the glittering coins, trying but failing to keep his hands from reaching for them. He wanted to touch them, to bring them to his face and observe; it was a battle between self-control and curiosity, and, as so often was the case, curiosity won. A notification popped up as soon as his hands brushed the closest coin.

  [Stash of Coins Discovered;

  Scanning stash…

  Cursed... No

  Lootable… Yes.

  Do you wish to loot 500,320 Raahal coins in this chest?

  Should I?

  Nathan wondered; it was definitely a question worth pondering. From what he could tell, he'd gained enemies by taking what hadn't belonged to him. The outpost he'd converted to his stronghold was one of such things; the commander's gold could very well be another.

  The outpost he'd claimed was quite reasonable as he'd needed it even before he'd known what the system had in store for him; the gold, on the other hand, wasn't a necessity for him. He'd gotten enough food to last the winter, plus whatever the nightlight was; taking this gold now could alert whoever or whatever had sent these guys to the island that their workers had been killed and looted, an outcome Nathan hoped to avoid by all means.

  A second demon Taloth situation would throw him into a pit he might not be able to climb out of; at the same time, the sponsors of the miners would probably figure out that something was wrong when they stop getting whatever it was they received through the portal—probably the nightlight. When they did — which was probably going to be soon — Nathan would be utterly and completely screwed, and so would his budding faction.

  That's right, I'm a leader now; everything I do affects them.

  With a sigh, Nathan dropped to the floor like a sack of bones, his mind whirring as he tried to come to a decision—a wise one. The old Nathan would've just claimed two coins and moved on, but he wasn't the old him; he was different, better, older, and hopefully wiser. The possibilities were rife, but there was one common theme in every scenario he ran through his mind.

  They won't let me go scot-free.

  The thought caused Nathan to sigh dejectedly; as always, actions had consequences, and this was one of them. The sponsors of the miners definitely weren't going to let him go after he slayed their miners and destroyed their portal just because he left their gold—or the Commander's gold—intact. If the sponsors were anything like Earth's big corporations, then they'd most likely want to take out the gnat—that was Nathan—that had destroyed their supply line and slain their workers.

  The mind-boggling part would probably be that they'd not do it because their workers had been slain and they wanted to avenge them. No, they'd do it because they wanted to restore their supply line, and if Nathan's assumption about what was going to happen was anywhere close to the mark, then that would mean that those nightlights were more valuable than he'd thought.

  "Corporate schemes," Nathan muttered in disgust.

  There's only one thing that I can do at this point, and that's to take the gold.

  His mind had been made up, but yet he hesitated to confirm his decision to the system; a part of him reminded him that while the sponsors would not let him go scot-free, they might have mercy on him and make him pay for the damages he wrought upon their business by him serving them for some time in some capacity instead of outright killing him. While it wasn't an enticing idea, it was a lot better than being hunted down by an alien corporation that had more Ra'ahal coins than he could literally imagine.

  Hunted down was a strong word; they might not even have to look that hard for him since he'd still be on the same island that they'd sent their miners to. The realization made everything seem much worse to Nathan; suddenly the simple task of just eradicating the miners and destroying their portal might just have landed him in a worse predicament.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I'll just shore up my defenses and that of Blood Rock as best as I can; a life of servitude isn't worth living, especially if I'm going to be owned by aliens.

  Even if Nathan was going to be pardoned by the sponsors in exchange for service, he highly doubted that he'd be sent into a mine to work off his debt; no, someone with his skills would probably be used as a hitman—if they were into those kinds of things—or a bodyguard or a pawn in a proxy war against Earth. A pawn that would be used to kill his own race, Nathan resisted the urge to throw up at the thought.

  I accept loot.

  [500,320 Ra'ahal coins were transferred to Nathan Orion.]

  "Half a million," Nathan said in disbelief.

  It'd been that easy to touch his first half a million; it hadn't been all that easy, but still… half a million just by accepting the loot was wild. Nathan tried to keep his breath even as his new reality dawned on him, as a teenager who'd spent most of his time flipping signs to make money to the teen with half a million… apocalypse coins. Sure the coins weren't dollars, but it was the concept and status change that mattered to Nathan. He swore that he'd make the most out of his new chance at life, and everything just seemed to be falling into place for him to keep that promise.

  "Half a milly, I'm rich, baby," Nathan chuckled.

  The coins in the chest had disappeared as soon as he'd made his choice, and now Nathan was left staring at an empty compartment that had once housed thousands of coins. The second compartment still contained the miniature wooden ship; he pulled it out of the compartment to stare at it up close. The detail on the "toy" ship was exquisite; the craftsmanship was outstanding, to say the least. It was almost as if whoever had made them had used a whole year to craft such a piece.

  Nathan considered leaving it behind but ultimately decided not to, for one, it was certainly a cool piece; secondly, he had no respect for the commander that'd make him feel bad for taking it, plus it didn't hurt that it'd serve as a good decoration for his bare cabin, and with his mind made up, he chucked it into his bag of holding, getting to his feet as he surveyed the room once more.

  The table is certainly interesting.

  The thought didn't do justice to the table; it was beautiful even for something that had clearly been made out of wood. He walked up to it, running a finger on the surface of the table, a soft sigh escaping his lips. It felt like resin or epoxy had been used in the finish for the table, but he doubted it. It'd have to be close, though, whatever they'd done to get the table to look that good.

  More importantly, the table would fit right in at his cabin, but the current issue Nathan would have to consider would be moving the table back to his stronghold. He highly doubted that his bag of holding would be enough to take in the tanks, so he'd have to do it the ordinary way, which meant lugging around a table that was going to weigh a ton.

  His current circumstances probably meant that he'd have to scrap moving the table to his stronghold for the time being; however, there were still a couple of things he'd be able to take with him—the weapons lining the wall. His use of the axe to cripple the Commander before decapitating him had been a stroke of luck and still due to the availability of the weapon in his bag of holding.

  If he hadn't had the weapon, then there was definitely a high probability that the commander would've been able to get away from the settlement through the portal, probably returning to whatever hellhole he came from and then preparing an army of sorts to return and reclaim the mine, but fate had held different plans for the cowardly dwarf.

  That's the last of them.

  Nathan thought as he chucked the last of the three weapons that had decorated the wall, he highly doubted that he'd use them as decorations in his cabin, but they'd definitely be put to good use. With nothing left for him to do inside the office of the commander, he left the building.

  "Four out of four," Nathan whispered.

  The office was the last of the four buildings he'd spied; the only other interesting thing in the settlement was the mine, and he was going to hold back and wait till the squad was done with their looting, and then they'd all go in together. He wasn't scared per se of whatever might be in the mine, but it'd be foolish for him to go it alone, and even if there wasn't anything for him to worry about, he'd certainly benefit from the commentary the squad could provide him on the mine. Already he'd been stumped by the use of certain discoveries that he'd made, so it wouldn't make sense in any way for him to hit the mine; he'd rather wait. He looked around for the squad, his eyes locked in on the group.

  Are they fighting?

  They'd all gathered, forming a circle from what Nathan could see. A scream reached his ears, the scream belonging to none other than the berserker, Ruben. Nathan felt his heart rate speed up. What exactly had the Berserker gotten into now that made him scream? With a start, Nathan jogged towards the group, eager to see what was causing such a fuss amongst the squad.

  "… I'm telling you, I didn't do anything funny," Ruben said, pain evident on his face.

  Nathan rolled his eyes as the latest words of the Berserker reached his ears, as he'd finally made it to the group; only someone like Ruben would stick his head into a fire and think that the fire was wrong to burn his hair off. Of course, that wasn't the case now; the Berserker was clutching his left wrist in pain as he glared at a spot on the floor with venom; more like what occupied the spot, Nathan couldn't see what it was from where he was, but he broke into the circle, a grin stretched across his face as he saw what sat calmly in the spot.

  The bunny.

  Nathan couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that Ruben had just been injured by the Neran Rabbit; of course, Nathan had known that the rabbit wasn't the kind of pet to have around on an off day, and the rabbit, just like the rest of them, had had a terrible day.

  "What did you try to do, Ruben?" Nathan asked.

  "Nothing, I swear," Ruben said, the berserker audible gulping as Nathan's stare didn't waver. "Fine, I tried to pick it up."

  "Moron," Ciara said.

  "More like a potato," Tasha rolled her eyes.

  "Hey, words like that hurt my feelings," Ruben whined

  "Idiot," Daniel huffed, before turning to face Nathan. "We warned him not to."

  Nathan nodded in agreement with the ranger's words; by an unspoken agreement, they'd decided to let the bunny be on its own after the death of Yola; after all, the pair had been the closest, and as usual, Ruben seemed to have missed the memo. With a deep breath, Nathan did something he hadn't done in a long, long time: he reached forward to pick up the bunny.