I stood at the edge of the precipice.
Below me, a sheer drop of ice, jagged rock, and swirling snow. Above me, nothing but the howling wind, pushing against my chest as if trying to finish what the battlefield started.
'Jump', the wind seemed to whisper. 'It's easier.'
"You fucking bastard," I hissed through chattering teeth. "Focus. Unless you want to die like a moron."
Gentting my mind strait? I polished the rocks atached with rops made with strabs of my clothes in the precipite.
I needed a plan. My mind, usually a fortress of logic, was fraying at the edges. Pain has a way of doing that.
I stripped the dead soldiers nearby. Not for armor, but for fabric. I tore the ruined tunics into strips, braiding them with stiff, frozen fingers into a crude rope. I lashed a heavy stone to the end.
"Hold it up there," I muttered.
I swung the makeshift grappling hook. It clattered against the rock face above, slipping once, twice, before catching in a crevice.
I pulled. It held.
Then began the torture.
Climbing with two arms is hard. Climbing with one arm and a stump that feels like it's on fire is a special kind of hell.
I hauled myself up, inch by agonizing inch. My right hand was a claw of frozen flesh. My legs did the heavy lifting, finding footholds where there should be none, jamming boots into cracks that were barely wider than a coin.
Anko's body was resilient. It moved with a muscle memory I didn't possess — a shinobi's grace trapped in a cripple's frame.
Hours passed... or maybe minutes. Time dissolves when every second is a struggle not to fall.
I focused on the rhythm — reach, pull, step, breathe, then again. I stuck to the simple plan: go down, traverse right, find shelter. Away from the hypothetical army. Away from the open wind.
The stump of my left arm throbbed, a phantom limb trying to grasp rocks that weren't there. It threw off my balance, forcing me to hug the cliff face like a terrified lover.
'Move like a shadow. Move like water.'
I was making progress. I was surviving.
It was all fine. Until, I heard it. A sound in the distance... a chatter, a hoot?
'Maybe just my tired imagination.'
I ignored it. I kept moving, my vision blurring from exhaustion.
Then I saw it. Jutting out from the mountainside, defying gravity and logic, was a structure. A broken statue, majestic even in ruin, holding a shattered stone sword toward the heavens.
A treasury of a lost generation. A hidden checkpoint. Salvation.
Having a visual goal was a lifesaver. It anchored my crazy mind, pulling me back from the brink of ecstasy and despair.
'...Just reach the statue... just reach the ledge.'
But the noise grew louder. A cacophony of screeches. And then, I felt something fuzzy under my right hand as I reached for the next hold. Strange... moss?
I looked up.
It wasn't moss. It was fur. Gray, matted, stinking fur.
I looked higher.
A pair of beady, intelligent eyes stared back at me. A flat face. A mouth full of yellow teeth.
A Snow Macaque.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
Of all the beasts in all the worlds. Monkeys.
I hated monkeys. Aberrations that looked like men but acted like demons... chaotic, smelly and loud.
The beast blocked my path, crouching on the very ledge I needed. I tried to be diplomatic. I was, after all, an intruder in his living room.
"Hi... friend," I wheezed, forcing a smile. "Care to help the humble me?"
The ape blinked. It looked at me with a gleam of profound indifference, mixed with a touch of 'you are disturbing my nap.' It scratched its armpit. It looked at the ground. It picked up a ball of hardened snow mixed with... something brown.
My parents used to love taking me to the zoo. I hated it.
Now I knew why.
The ape stopped scratching. It looked me in the eye. We shared a moment of connection across species. Then the brat threw the ball of frozen shit directly at my face.
"Shit!"
I ducked, losing my rhythm. My foot slipped. As I cursed myself, two more shadows appeared beside the first. Big brother, little brother. The whole damn family.
They stood side by side on the ledge, grinning. They chattered, a sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Then came the barrage of snowballs, rocks and... excrement.
I tried to shield my face, to hold on. But a rock hit my good hand. Making my fingers went numb. Just then my grip failed.
"I hate nature!" I screamed as gravity reclaimed me.
[Grace]: Loved by destiny like always, Firekeeper. Truly blessed.
...
I fell.
Hit a sloped roof. The tiles shattered under my weight, wood splintered. Crashed through the ceiling, tumbling into darkness, hitting beam after beam until I slammed onto a dusty wooden floor.
CRACK.
"More broken bones," I groaned, lying in a heap of debris. "Add it to the collection."
I coughed, waving away clouds of ancient dust.
I was inside. The wind was gone and the cold was dampened.
Looking around... I was at the foot of the statue I had seen earlier. Or rather, inside the temple built around its base.
It was a decrepit place. Rotting wood pillars painted in peeling vermilion. Tattered banners hanging like ghosts. It felt like an ancient shrine, a place of worship forgotten by time and gods alike.
It was creepy. It was old... It was perfect!
I checked my status, ignoring the pain in my ribs.
[Status: ...almost starved. Death imminent.]
"My lucky day again," I rasped. "Nothing could be worse."
I tried to stand, but my legs refused. So I crawled like a worm, like a slave, I dragged myself into the main hall.
It was sparse. A few smaller statues of unrecognizable deities. Two altars. One altar held tarnished golden pots, likely for monetary offerings. Empty. The other held... food?
I squinted. There, in a rusted steel bowl, sat a pile of dried berries. Beside them, some dubious-looking nuts. They looked ancient, preserved by the dry cold or perhaps by the lingering mana of the shrine. Nearby, was a pile of old, smelly leather clothes. Monk robes? Priest vestments?
I didn't care about the clothes. I cared about the bowl.
My stomach roared, a beast more ferocious than the monkeys outside. This body —Anko's body — was running on empty. It needed fuel to heal.
I dragged myself to the altar.
The berries were wrinkled, dark purple, almost black. The nuts looked like petrified wood. To a normal man, this was garbage. To a starving man, it was a Michelin-star feast.
"Beggars can't be choosers," I whispered.
I reached out. My hand hovered over the offering bowl. Technically, this was sacrilege. Stealing from the gods. Bad karma. Even so, I clasped my single hand together with my invisible left one, bowing my head in a mockery of piety.
"Sorry, whoever God, Kami, Divine Spirit, or Priest this is for," I muttered. "Consider this a loan. I'll pay you back when I rule the world."
I grabbed a handful of berries. Didn't chew, just swallowed them whole... Dust, dry skin, and all. Next, I grabbed the nuts, cracked them with a rock fond nerby and ate the meat inside.
Then, I looted the few coins scattered around. I found three more blue crystals hidden under the bowl, so I stuffed my face until the bowl was empty.
'What a feast.'
I sat back against the altar, feeling the food hit my stomach like stones. But it was energy. Then, the text appeared. Not red, not gold, purple. The color of bad omens.
[System Alert] [Sacred Offering Consumed] [You have desecrated the Shrine of the Boundless.]
[Curse Inflicted: CURSE OF GREED]
Effect: Hunger increases. Material desire is amplified. The more you have, the more you bleed.
I froze and stared at the text. Thinking 'Worth it.'
Then, I heard it. Not the wind, not the monkeys... footsteps. Heavy ones, rhythmic, like metal dragging against wood.
Something was coming from the shadows of the inner sanctum. Something that wasn't human. Too heavy.
It was coming... and worse it sounded hungry.