Book 1
Chapter 20: Temple of Quid: The Coin and the Curse
The priest's words hung in the air like a death sentence, echoing off the fancy spires. Everyone in the antechamber froze. Narutama stood rigid, his hand still gripping the hilt of his katana. Laluna winced from the invisible data static screaming in her mind. Ichiban remained as immovable as a slab of stone, observing everything and nothing at once.
Ken, of course, only tilted his head.
"Overdrawn? Nah, you've got it all backwards. My account's infinite. That's like the exact opposite of overdrawn."
He gave the altar another slap, as though trying to wake a lazy appliance.
"Cough it up, buddy. Don't be shy."
---
The Coin That Shouldn't Exist
The altar responded—not with the chime of sacred acceptance, but with a pained groan like a jammed cash register. Its carved runes flickered violently between gold and a sickly red before it shuddered and spat out a single, unnaturally glowing coin.
The altar groaned, then...plink!. A glowing coin rolled down the steps, wobbling as if it regretted existing.
Ken's eyes lit up with immediate and total victory. "Ha! Free sample! Told you this place had perks. Stick with me, there's always freebies."
"Is it a game?" Fluffy asked, his head tilted. He watched as a carefully stacked pile of scrolls toppled over for no reason.
"It's better than a game, Fluffy," Ken said. "It's a miracle!"
Narutama's gut told him something was off. Even from a distance, he sensed its weirdness: it felt like a solemn promise made out of thin air. His katana rattled softly in its sheath, shuddering as if trying to get away from the creepy coin.
---
Pigaro's Unwanted Snack
Before he could shout a warning, Pigaro waddled forward, his eyes half-lidded in his signature state of boredom.
"Ah, splendid. Heaven itself coughs up spare change." His long, prehensile tongue flicked out, snatching the coin off the polished floor. He swallowed it in one gulp.
The high priest screamed, a raw sound of pure sacrilege. Narutama shouted a useless, belated warning. Ken just clapped his hands together, beaming.
"Nice catch, buddy! That's using your head!"
Pigaro burped, a surprisingly deep sound for his size. A faint, shimmering symbol began to glow on his sagging belly. Two overlapping circles—one pristine, the other visibly cracked and bleeding light. He wheezed, utterly unimpressed. "Blegh. Like chewing rusty coins dipped in holy soup. Never doing that again."
His ears twitched, and he let out a sudden, powerful sneeze that blew a layer of sacred dust off the altar.
The priest fell to his knees.
"Blasphemy upon blasphemy! The Altar of Prosperity has been corrupted! The Curse of Clause 7-B has passed to your beast! The spiritual debt is now bound to his very essence!"
Pigaro snorted, exhaling a small, glittering cloud of golden dust.
"Curse, is it? Hmph. Feels more like divine indigestion. Highly inconvenient."
But the curse made itself known quickly. It radiated outward from him like a ripple through some cosmic accounts payable department, a wave of minor misfortunes that seemed to orbit Ken.
When Ken tried to adjust his cape, the fastening snapped, dropping the garment into a puddle of spilled candle wax.
When Narutama took a single cautious step, a perfectly level floor tile chose that moment to wobble, pitching him into a brief, humiliating stumble.
When Laluna raised a hand to steady her rune-nails, a stray scribal quill fell and smeared dark ink all over her cheek.
All were small things, but all circled Ken like vultures.
"Whoa," Ken said, grinning as he scooped his soiled cape off the floor.
"Hah! See that? Comedy gold! This temple's a stand-up act."
Narutama's stomach turned over. He felt the subtle, precise cruelty lurking just beneath the comedy. His katana remained stubbornly dull in its scabbard—mocking him, proving useless in the face of a curse that couldn't be cut down.
He clenched his fists, knowing in his bones that this was debt, manifest and infectious, calling in its payment through a thousand tiny humiliations.
Pigaro waddled back to Ken's side.
"I do hope you're pleased with yourself, Master of Infinite Balances. Thanks to you, I've gone from mild sniffles to a full-on plague subscription."
He wheezed, then coughed up a puff of glowing dust.
"Ugh. I can feel it. The interest is already compounding."
Ken only patted Pigaro, his cheer undimmed. "Don't worry, buddy. We'll pay it off later. My credit's good everywhere."
---
The Lingering Overdraft
The high priest fully collapsed onto the sacred steps, mumbling broken prayers. Laluna rubbed the ink off her cheek with a frown. Narutama remained silent, his eyes locked on the faint, cursed symbol still burning on Pigaro's belly—the coin of fate, eaten but far from destroyed.
For the first time, a cold thought crystallized: this curse is not meant for Pigaro. It is meant for Ken. The beast is merely the collateral.
A brick dropped out of nowhere and thunked Ken on the head. He grinned.
"What'd I tell you? Even the ceiling's paying attention to me!"
Narutama didn't laugh.
The temple was quiet and intense. The priest mumbled to himself, and Pigaro kept sneezing glitter everywhere. Ken just whistled a weird tune and started herding everyone toward the exit.
Each step they took seemed to trigger a fresh, minor annoyance. None of it was truly harmful, but the pattern was too precise to be mere chance. It followed Ken like a mocking, invisible shadow.
---
By the time they stepped back into the open air, the sun had already dipped below the horizon, staining the sky with oranges and purples.
The Temple of Quid loomed behind them, its magnificent spires flickering faintly as if struggling to reset its systems.
Narutama looked back just once, feeling the undeniable weight of their invisible debt now trailing the party like a chain.
Pigaro grumbled about "unpaid cosmic balances and accruing penalties."
Ken just stretched and grinned.
"Well, that was easy! Free coin, no smiting, and I'm starving. Dinner time!"
Narutama said nothing, but the echo of the priest's words continued to gnaw at his soul.
Overdrawn.