With the crown in hand, Minos gave it a closer look. Considering the size of the creature's head, it was naturally impossible for Minos to wear it, so he just inspected it.
It was seemingly made of pure gold, with four spikes, one on each side. The spike at the front was the largest, and had a red gem embedded at the bottom, adding the final touches.
After playing with it for a little bit and not noticing anything special, Minos tucked it away into his spatial ring with the rest of his finds.
Like that, the tomb had pretty much been wiped clean, and Tinka had also finished fiddling with the monocle, turning back towards Minos.
"Anything left?" She asked, handing the monocle back.
"Don't think so." Minos replied, putting the monocle into his spatial ring.
"There is one area we haven't checked yet, though." Minos suddenly said after storing the monocle.
"Really, where?" Tinka asked curiously.
"The corpse itself." Minos said, pointing at the body.
"Gross! No way. If you want to do that, do it while I'm not looking." Tinka said, feeling like that was crossing a line.
"Then you'd better look away, because you're definitely not going to like what I'm about to do." Minos said, as he pulled a piece of cloth out of his spatial ring, wrapping it around his hands as makeshift gloves.
Realizing what Minos was about to do, Tinka grabbed her stomach feeling nauseated, running back into the tunnel where she couldn't see what he was doing.
With Tinka gone, Minos could focus fully on the corpse. With his cloth gloves, he reached out towards the corpse, carefully feeling its body for anything of interest.
Searching the body, Minos couldn't find anything out of the ordinary, deciding to take his inspection to the next level.
Carefully removing the corpse's shirt, its naked upper body was revealed. Its torso wasn't much different from a humans, however the scale was much smaller, making its head look even larger in comparison.
Rubbing his fingers along the corpse's upper body, Minos suddenly noticed something strange.
A certain piece of the corpse's flesh had a slightly different feel from the rest of it. Focusing on that area, Minos eventually realized that it wasn't flesh he was touching.
After a few more pushes, the area slowly began detaching from the rest of the flesh, revealing that it was a piece of flesh-colored leather.
Gently peeling the leather from the flesh, Minos soon had a small palm-sized piece of leather on hand.
Flipping it over, a map was revealed. The ink had long since begun blurring, but maybe because of the dark and dry environment, it hadn't completely faded yet, making it just barely legible.
The map was quite simple, with a large mountain in the middle, an X jotted at the mid section of the mountain.
Surrounding the mountain were only three small trees, and beyond that, the map was empty.
With only this much information, it was naturally impossible for Minos to know where this map led.
It seemed the map's creator only made it as a reminder to themselves, hence why it was purposely made incredibly vague.
Slightly disappointed at the underwhelming find, Minos continued his inspection of the corpse, however the rest of his search revealed nothing, forcing Minos to give up.
Putting the corpse's shirt back on, Minos shut the sarcophagus. After storing the leather map, he tossed his cloth gloves to the side, walking towards the tunnel where Tinka was.
"Find anything?" Tinka asked as Minos exited the tomb.
"Yes, but nothing of value. Anyways, we should leave now, we've already wasted enough time on this little adventure." Minos said.
"That's true." Tinka agreed.
With the two coming to terms, they quickly made their way up the winding tunnel, soon coming back to the entrance.
Naturally, before leaving, Minos used all his strength to rip the strange weapon from the floor, deciding to study it in the future.
With everything cleared, the two finally made their way back into the open, Tinka breathing the fresh air greedily.
"It's only now that I realize how stuffy that place was." Tinka said, enjoying the clean air.
"Well we were probably breathing in corpse dust, which can't be good for the lungs." Minos said.
"Why do you always have to ruin the mood, you bastard!" Tinka said, looking at Minos with annoyance, causing him to laugh.
"I'm just trying to toughen you up." Minos said.
"Well, find another way." Tinka said, ignoring Minos
After the two stopped bickering, Minos helped Tinka out of the large hole, before jumping out himself.
The sun was still high in the sky at this point, making it a good time to begin their journey. Quickly making it back to the coast, the two hopped into the boat, and headed into the sea.
…
It didn't take much rowing for the small island to disappear from the two's view, the deep blue of the ocean becoming the only thing surrounding them. Relaxing on the boat, Tinka couldn't help but ask Minos a question.
"So, how far do you think we are from the tribe?"
"Considering your curse hasn't activated yet, we shouldn't be too far." Minos said.
"Oh yeah my curse… I had completely forgotten about that." Tinka said, her mood suddenly dropping again.
"It's my fault, I shouldn't have brought it up." Minos said, feeling slightly guilty.
"No, you're right, and not talking about it won't make it disappear. Besides, I'm sure we'll find a cure eventually!" Tinka said, cheering herself up.
"That's the spirit." Minos said with a smile.
With the mood slightly renewed, Minos continued rowing, keeping his eye out for any landmark that could help him establish their current location.
"Look, a rainbow!" Tinka suddenly shouted, causing Minos to look in the direction of her finger.
Like Tinka had said, a large rainbow had formed at their side, and coincidentally, the end of the rainbow was in the same location the two were heading.
"Quick, we need to reach the end of the rainbow, it's good luck!" Tinka said with excitement, forcing Minos to row faster.
Seeing Tinka so excited, Minos was happy to help, putting his full strength into rowing, causing the boat to fly across the water.
The two soon arrived at the end of the rainbow, the beautiful multi-colored light scattering over their bodies and onto their boat.
Minos suddenly stood up, reaching his hand out towards Tinka, much to her confusion. Despite not knowing what Minos wanted to do, she grabbed his hand.
Pulling Tinka up, he gripped her by the waist, following the steps of the dance Tinka had taught him when they first met.
Tinka couldn't help but laugh, finally realizing what Minos wanted to do. Following his lead, she began dancing as well, the two moving to the music of the ocean.
The small boat made dancing slightly awkward, but the two didn't seem to notice, fully focused on each other's eyes.
"I bet you never thought you'd dance under a rainbow." Minos suddenly said.
"How could I? I guess it just shows that the heavens' imagination is much better than mine." She said with a small giggle.
"I never imagined I would find someone as perfect as you, so I guess you're right." Minos said with a smile, causing Tinka to blush.
Under the hypnotic sway of the dance, the two slowly got closer and closer, their chests pressing up against each other.
Their faces got so close that they could feel each other's warm breath. The two's lips almost instinctively got closer, soon enough meeting.
Like that, the two kissed passionately under the rainbow's light, the gentle swaying of the boat giving their lips even more power.
It was only after the rainbow dispersed, did the two stop. Tinka looked up into Minos's charcoal eyes, feeling love bubbling in her heart.
"That rainbow was beautiful, but in my opinion, it can't compare to the color of your eyes." Minos said, as he returned Tinka's gaze.
"Stop, you're going to kill me." Tinka said with a laugh, gently pushing Minos's chest.
"Do you hear that?" Minos suddenly asked.
"Hear what?" Tinka responded.
This time, Minos wasn't preparing a cheesy one-liner, but was serious. Putting his ear on the bottom of the boat, he heard the swishing of a tail, like a large fish was heading towards them.
"Fish! And a big one!" Minos said as he stood back up. He could tell this fish was too big to catch with his rod, so he rolled up his sleeves, putting his hands near the water, waiting patiently.