They all call me an Outer God.

Chapter 17 Battantuza Coins
"Squeak-"

The wooden door was closed.

Ria saw James again, who stood guard at the door, afraid that something might happen to the patient and he would lose his entire year's salary.

"Did you get it?"

"of course."

Ria pulled out a coin to show the other person, and James's glasses reflected the image of the mysterious object: "So this is what it is."

Ria asked, puzzled, "What is this?"

"The Battantusa coin: when you're having trouble making a decision, flip it, and you'll get the right answer."

For example, if you're unsure of the way, ask it whether to go left or right; the front side represents left and the back side represents right. It will definitely point you to the correct path. It's a remarkably convenient yet also incredibly absurd mysterious item.

"So someone found me using it in the first place? Now that we're just stealing it like this, won't we be discovered?"

Whether the other party can find out is another matter. You should know that everything in this world is conserved and everything has a price.

The disordered among the Keepers of the Secrets traded supernatural power for death, mutation, and the ever-present madness they could not afford.

Ordinary people need to rely on mysterious items to obtain such power, and behind each mysterious item lies countless tragedies. To use them, one must pay a corresponding price.

The outrageous price of the Batantusa coin is that each use requires paying with a random organ from the user, making it a very expensive and mysterious item. However, don't be too worried; perhaps the person who pursued you back then has already had their heart removed and is no longer alive.

Lia remained silent, his gaze towards the coin subtle.

If this thing only takes one random organ, then you have countless eyeballs on your body. Unless you're extremely unlucky, it will only take one eyeball and won't threaten your life at all.

After gaining James's approval, Ria tried flipping a coin.

"Is the last person who used you still alive?"

"Clap."

The coin falls, revealing the inverted pentagram side.

The answer is no.

It seems that the unfortunate fellow did indeed lose his life because of this thing, but the removed organ was probably not something that would kill him immediately, which is why there was a chance to find Lia in the crowd.

However, Ria guessed that the other party might have another mysterious item to help move him, otherwise it would have been impossible to bury him without anyone noticing, and even Mrs. Ster, who lived downstairs, did not notice that someone was missing from the house.

"Are those people from the church?"

"I don't think so. It's more like something the Order Association would do."

The Order Association's daily routine involves capturing mysterious items and then running around the world opposing us. If they can kill someone, they will; if not, they will stay far away. Although most of the disordered are short-lived, they value their lives far more than the disordered themselves.

Those people are reckless melee fighters; what normal person would carry around mysterious items every day?

James solemnly warned Ria not to get involved with the investigators in the Order Association, such as trying to befriend them, as any such contact would only bring trouble.

Ria nodded, indicating that she understood.

"Good to know. There was a disordered individual who had just been recruited who thought he was the center of the world and had no rivals. He went straight to the headquarters of the Order Association. The next day, our undercover agent found a specimen of the disordered individual in the museum under the association's umbrella."

I trust your credentials. There are no fools among the black market dealers. I hope you won't be an exception. It's best to keep a low profile until you gain significant power.

"it is good."

Riamo rubbed his fingers; a sharp pain had just shot through them, likely from an eye that had been taken by a coin as payment. The pain wasn't intense, indicating the eye was small, making the price acceptable. They chatted a bit more about the Order Association before deciding to leave the church.

"It's strange that even though the church building is the most luxurious in the whole town, and the priests give the refugees delicious food and wine, they just don't give them money. People are still poor."

"Heh, guess where these people get their money from?"

James sneered, and Ria didn't say anything more.

They dragged the unconscious pastor aside, and James reached out to cover the man's face: "He won't remember anything when he wakes up."

"A brilliant tactic."

Ria gave a blank exclamation of admiration, then got up and walked toward the outer perimeter of the church, with James following behind him on his right.

The trip went smoothly without any obstacles, except that as they left, they brushed past a group of people holding flags and protesting. Judging from their slogans, they seemed to be protesting against the replacement of manual labor by machines.

“We’ve already run all the way to the remote town of Wins, and the steam monsters are still coming to steal our jobs. We have to smash that bunch of moving iron lumps!”

"Those are man-eating demons!"

"Smash them!"

"Smash them!!!"

"What do you think, sir?" Someone suddenly approached with a pen and paper, asking Ria about his opinion on the strike movement. Ria pondered for a moment, then pointed to his mouth and shook his head, indicating that he couldn't speak.

"……what."

The other person instantly gave an apologetic look.

From the moment the original body was thrown into the mountains to mine coal, it meant that the demand for this type of resource would increase dramatically, and the process of mechanization was destined to be irreversible.

While manual labor cannot be completely replaced in the short term, scientific change is always painful. For a poor town like Winstown, introducing machinery is tantamount to extinguishing all hope and dreams.

It's hard to accept, but people have no choice.

So Ria didn't comment, but because he acted so convincingly as a mute, the person who asked the question patronized him and slipped a Schwarz into his pocket before hurrying away.

James, standing next to him, was grinning from ear to ear. He was wearing a mask and looked like a crow cawing.

"There's no way around it, you look too poor. You're wearing clothes that you probably picked out of some trash can. You look worse than a beggar."

"Instead of mocking the patient's clothes, I think it would be better to ask this gentleman to be merciful and give me some gold coins to buy a new outfit."

Do I look like I'm very rich?

"picture."

James seemed to enjoy the flattery. He weighed the fat on his belly and, to Ria's astonishment, pulled out a wad of smelly banknotes from the folds of fat.

"I didn't expect you to figure this out. Actually, this is your salary. I was planning to give it to you at the end of the month, but if I keep it covered up any longer, it might get corroded by the strong acid."

"So, you're treating, and we'll spend the money first."

Ria instinctively took a deep breath, then choked and coughed. He held the wall for a while to catch his breath before agreeing to the bird-beak doctor's idea.

Money should be spent when it's needed; keeping it will only make it stink, stink in every sense of the word.

Thank you so much for the generous donation! I'll work harder on my writing.


(End of this chapter)