Chapter 19: The Spoils

Chapter 19: Chapter 19: The Spoils

The moment the quest completion was verified in his mind, a warm, golden pulse of vitality erupted from Eric’s Mana Heart, washing across his battered frame like liquid sunlight.

The sharp, stabbing ache in his bruised ribs melted away in seconds. His torn shoulder fibers knitted back together, the deep purple discoloration fading into smooth, unblemished skin as superficial cuts sealed without a scar. Even his depleted stamina surged back to full capacity, replacing the suffocating exhaustion with crisp, vibrant energy.

Eric pushed himself up from the dirt, rolling his shoulders with a long, relieved exhale.

*Thank heavens for that instant Level Up,* he thought, testing the flexibility of his left arm. *Without it, I would have spent a week coughing blood, or worse, forced to buy one of those thirty-thousand-credit potions just to walk straight.*

Across their soul tether, a faint ripple of spiritual feedback flowed from Eric into Coal. While the leap from Level 1 to Level 2 wasn’t massive enough to trigger an immediate breakthrough for the crow, the residual mana refined Coal’s glossy plumage, soothing his bruised wing and nudging his experience gauge upward.

"Let’s catch our breath, buddy," Eric murmured, leaning against a cool limestone boulder. "Then we secure the haul."

His eyes drifted down to the two colossal Gorgefiend carcasses sprawled across the red-stained crater, and his expression instantly twisted into a grimace.

*We have a massive logistical problem... My inventory only holds three cubic meters.*

Eric rubbed his temples, letting out a dry, frustrated sigh. ℯℯ𝑙.

*These two behemoths are over four meters each. There is zero chance they fit in my subspace. But leaving them here to rot means throwing tens of thousands of credits into the dirt. Am I really going to haul these beasts back to the gate by hand?*

With a six-hundred-thousand-credit debt ticking down, walking away from liquid cash was out of the question.

After a brief breather, Eric drew his iron shortsword and knelt beside the fallen titans. Carving into their chest cavities with practiced care, he extracted two vibrant, walnut-sized *E-Rank High-Grade Mana Stones*. Dense with pulsing elemental energy, he slipped the pair of crimson crystals into his inventory.

Next, he used his blade to chop down several thick, fibrous ironwood saplings from a nearby grove, stripping the branches and binding the trunks together with tough wild vines to construct two heavy timber sleds. He rolled one four-meter carcass onto each frame, lashing them down tight.

The extraction portal was roughly one and a half kilometers away.

Eric gripped the vine harness of the first sled, planting his boots into the turf as he dragged the colossal dead weight one hundred meters forward. He dropped the straps, jogged back, and hauled the second sled up to match.

*Pull. Drop. Jog back. Repeat.*

High above, Coal maintained a vigilant aerial patrol, scanning the tall grass to ensure no opportunistic scavengers ambushed his tamer while his hands were tied. Meanwhile, Eric easily tucked the smaller quarry, the two dead Riftspawns and the single Fleshcrawler, into his 3-cubic-meter system inventory.

By the time Eric dragged the two massive sleds across the final stretch toward the extraction portal, he was drenched in sweat, his lungs burning and his boots caked in mud.

He leaned heavily against the steel frame of the portal gate, panting harder than he had during the actual life-or-death battle.

"Haaah... haaah... made it."

Inside the dimensional transit bay, the gatekeepers and Association staff turned to look at the portal and froze in stunned silence.

A lone teenager in a torn, soot-stained hoodie had just dragged two four-meter, peak-Mortal Gorgefiend carcasses out of a Level-1 Rift using handmade timber sleds.

*Whistle.*

An Association officer stepped down from the control platform, shaking his head with an amused grin. "Look at this haul. You’ve got some nerve, kid. Need a hand moving those two small mountains?"

"Yes, please," Eric gasped, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "That would be a lifesaver."

"Logistics squad! Bring the flatbed haulers over!" the officer barked into his comm-unit.

Within minutes, two heavy-duty utility skids rolled up. Industrial winches hoisted the massive Gorgefiend carcasses onto the reinforced beds, ferrying them toward the main processing bay.

"Head over to the liquidation hall, kid," the officer said, clapping Eric on the shoulder. "They’ll have the assessment ready at the counter."

"Thank you, sir."

After a quick five-minute break to down a cold bottle of mineral water, Eric walked into the material intake hall.

The evaluation team was already finishing their diagnostics at the central scale.

"Ah, Sir Eric," the lead appraiser said, looking up from his data-slate with visible respect. "We’ve completed the breakdown on those two Gorgefiends. Excellent bone density and minimal trauma to the primary hide plates. We can offer 20,000 credits per carcass, totaling 40,000 credits for the pair."

"I also have these to register," Eric said, tapping his storage subspace.

*FLASH.*

The carcasses of the two Riftspawns and the Fleshcrawler materialized neatly across the steel counter.

"Let’s see..." The appraiser measured the specimens with a pair of calipers. "The Fleshcrawler is worth 1,500 credits. The two Riftspawns took heavy physical trauma, so their pelt value is reduced, 250 credits each. That brings the smaller batch to 2,000 credits total."

"Works for me."

Eric pulled out his smartphone and displayed his banking QR code beneath the scanner.

*BEEP.*

[TRANSACTION NOTIFICATION]

Account Credited: +42,000 Credits

Sender: Association Liquidation Bureau

Current Available Balance: 392,200 CREDITS

Looking down at the 392,200 credits resting securely in his account, a wave of profound satisfaction washed over Eric.

*Nearly four hundred thousand credits banked in just two days,* he thought, stepping out of the facility into the cool evening breeze. *And I still have another Gacha ticket waiting in my inventory.*

He looked up at the violet twilight settling over Riverdale’s skyline, adjusting his collar with a faint smile.

*I’ll spin the wheel once I’m back in the attic. It’s getting late, Emily and the kids will be waiting for dinner.*