Becoming A God In Another World With My Crush-Chapter 52: For Survival Reasons

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘❦✾❦∘∙⊱⋅•-

The heavy double doors leading to the dearly missed outside world groaned softly as Xander gave them a cautious push... and to his surprise, they opened without resistance as if they weren’t trapped here for hours and made to witness horrors beyond them.

"...Oookay," he muttered, pausing with one hand still on the handle.

Alyhana stepped up behind him, her voice quiet but filled with tentative hope as usual. "It’s really open..."

She glanced around slowly, her fingers brushing the edge of the door frame. "The magic’s gone, so the house isn’t trying to keep us in anymore."

Xander nodded once and glanced over his shoulder. "Alright. Come on—let’s get out of here before it changes its mind."

But he didn’t hear footsteps behind him.

He turned and found Iris still standing at the edge of the foyer, her arms stiff at her sides, eyes narrowed at something low and out of sight in the corner of the room.

"...Iris?"

When she didn’t respond, he stepped back inside, brows furrowing. "What is it? Let’s move."

She didn’t answer him immediately, her expression unreadable. Then she crouched down slowly, her fingers brushing against something wedged beneath a collapsed shelf and a layer of dust.

"I... think I found something," she murmured, not taking her eyes off it.

Xander frowned. "What?"

There was a soft metallic clink as she pulled out a worn canvas bag from the shadows and loosened the ties at the top.

A shimmer of gold spilled through her fingers. "...Huh," she said flatly, with her eyes as wide as saucers. "Well, damn."

Alyhana moved closer, her eyes wide. "What is that?"

Iris opened the bag wider so they could see and they saw gold coins, dozens of them.

Xander blinked. "How much is this?"

Alyhana stared for another second before she dropped to her knees beside Iris. "That’s... that’s zeymari! That’s a lot of zeymari. I’ve never seen this much money in one place before—there has to be at least three hundred zeymari in there."

Iris tilted her head. "Zey-what now?"

"Zeymari," Alyhana repeated, still in slight awe. "Gold coins, oryn is silver, and narev is copper. With this much zeymari, we could probably buy a small castle. Or rebuild this one, honestly."

"So, you’re telling us..." Iris gave a low whistle. "We’re rich. Like... really, truly, rich."

Xander raised a brow, but said nothing yet. The weight of it settled over them slowly — not just the coins, but the realization that someone had left this here. And whoever it was... didn’t make it out.

And Elina probably made sure of it. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

He glanced back toward the door, the fresh air waiting just beyond, but it suddenly felt heavier to step through it.

Xander bent down and rolled one of the coins between his fingers, examining the worn insignia pressed into the metal. "So we hit jackpot."

Iris grinned and turned to him. "You in the mood for a private island, nerd?"

Xander chuckled in response and stood up as Alyhana still looked nervous, her hands twitching slightly like she was resisting the urge to purify the whole bag on the spot of any negative lingering aura.

"...Don’t you think it belonged to someone?" she asked carefully. "I mean—obviously it did, but—"

"It was probably from thieves," Xander said flatly, his voice quiet now. "Looters. Raiders, maybe. People who got greedy and wandered in here... and never left."

Alyhana looked up sharply at him. "...You think the ghost killed them all?"

Xander gave a slow nod. "Yeah, Elina said she did."

Alyhana’s head turned slowly, her expression changing as something clicked into place. "Elina...?" she echoed softly. "That was the ghost’s name?"

Xander nodded once, not meeting her eyes. "Yeah...that was her name."

For a second, nothing moved. Even Iris, who usually had a quip locked and loaded for moments like this, didn’t say anything.

The silence wasn’t forced. It just... settled around them naturally, heavy like the dust in the corners of the room.

Alyhana’s eyes drifted back to the bag. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "All of this... it came from the people who never made it out."

Iris stared at the manor walls, her smile gone now. "They thought they were getting rich," she said quietly. "They didn’t know they were walking into a death trap."

And then Iris broke the silence like a rock through glass.

"Well," she said, slinging the bag over her shoulder and grunted at the heaviness, "I vote we keep it."

Xander snorted, shaking his head, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement as he took the heavy bag from her noting it was a heavy as a feather to him.

Alyhana, still blinking at the sheer amount of zeymari that had just been stuffed into Iris’s satchel, suddenly panicked.

"W–Wait! You can’t just take it!" she said, voice rising. "That’s stealing from the dead! That’s a punishable offense, taking from the dead can trigger a spiritual backlash! Or a haunting hex! Or eternal bad luck—or all three, combined!"

Iris just looked at her like she’d heard it all before and wasn’t particularly impressed.

"Bold of you to assume I wasn’t already cursed," she said flatly, pointing to her pink mark between her tits and glanced at Xander. "but I’m spiritually and physically bound to this creep."

Xander fought the urge to roll his eyes.

Alyhana spluttered. "That’s not how this works!"

"It’s how it’s working now," Iris replied, completely unbothered.

"I–it’s really disrespectful to the dead and we’re good people who shouldn’t take what doesn’t belong to us–"

"I doubt the dead would care..." Iris replied, "because they’re, well...you know...dead and all."

"This is wrong–"

Xander shrugged, casually leaning his weight onto his sword because this wasn’t even the top ten strangest thing to happen today.

"To be fair," he said dryly, "we could use it. Vimea and Gaea weren’t exactly rolling in cash and didn’t give us much to travel with, we’re still broke and on foot."

Alyhana froze, then, almost like a switch flipped in her brain, she stood straighter and cleared her throat.

"...Okay," she said quickly, "maybe just one or two coins won’t hurt."

She raised both hands before anyone could question it.

"For...um, survival reasons," she added.

Xander gave her a look, one brow raised.

"That was fast."

’Whats with the one-eighty?’ Xander thought.

"I’m being reasonable!" Alyhana said defensively, clutching her chest. "I’m not saying we take all of it—just enough for supplies. And healing ingredients, and maybe new shoes."

Iris laughed, already securing the bag tighter in her satchel.

"We’re taking it all, Hana." she said smugly. "Congratulations, team. We survived a haunted manor and we aren’t poor anymore."

Xander turned back toward the open door, the cold light spilling in from outside. "Yeah...come on, let’s go."

Alyhana paled and whispered a prayer for the gods and spirits to forgive them for their sins, as Xander smiled a bit at her actions.