"One coin?"
Seriously—how does someone form a contract with a relic, and the very first thing it says is that?
No explanation.
No ceremony.
Just two words, spoken in a flat, almost bored tone.
One coin.
The relic in question was The Gambler's Mercy.
The reason I still hadn't made a contract with it—despite stealing it from the golden goblin at the academy—was painfully simple.
The condition for forming a contract was to exert all of one's strength, fail… and die.
No metaphor.
No hidden meaning.
Just death.
And the worst part wasn't even the dying. It was how vague the condition was.
Exert all of one's strength.
How much was all?
If I genuinely believed I'd done my best, but the relic decided, "Nope. You were holding back," and killed me on the spot, that wouldn't exactly be a joke.
Especially since, with my knowledge of the original story, there were hardly any situations where I'd ever be pushed to the brink of death in the first place.
