The coughing sound started to grow louder, Rico tried to ignore it as much as he could but the sound started to get closer to the end of the bushes, thus becoming in front of Riku sitting on the gray rock.
Rico, although he tried to appear indifferent, was holding the knife firmly, ready for any unexpected incident, and so he stayed for a while, just listening to the loud coughing sound while he was in his place, a little confused by the situation.
After a few seconds, the coughing sound stopped and the place became quiet. Rico, however, remained prepared for anything that could happen amidst this sudden silence. Then, he turned slightly back while still sitting on the rock, then looked back towards the place where the coughing sound was coming from a moment ago.
"It seems like it has stopped," Rico muttered in a low voice.
Rico didn't want to go and check the situation, but after regaining his composure, he moved off the rock and settled on the soft grass-covered ground, then cautiously headed towards the bushes.
The knife was in an attack position, in case anything happened, he had considered the possibility that a predator might accidentally target him after crossing the bushes, his thoughts were limited so that was all he could come up with or at least expect.
Rico walked through the bushes and started looking for the person or thing that made the strange coughing sound, and after taking a few simple steps, his foot bumped into something, something that seemed a little soft.
When he turned his gaze towards this thing, he found it, the owner of the voice that was coughing a moment ago, an old man wearing luxurious sky blue clothes embroidered with distinctive and beautiful patterns, but what was most obvious to Riku was that blood was covering half to three quarters of the man's body.
"What the hell is this...?" Rico said, confused and uncomfortable.
The man was in such a bad position, you could easily tell he had been stabbed, but for some reason... the stab wound was deep, so deep that it was far from being a human wound.
The injury was in the stomach, but what injury? It was literally a hole in the flesh, Rico realized with just one look, this old man had been attacked by a strange creature, most likely a creature from the unknown continent.
"Oh my, this is so terrible, I can't help but feel sorry for this man."
Rico looked in all directions, as if to make sure that no one was around, and he stepped back a little to make sure that he came here alone.
"He's a dead man, and as I see he has a bag, it's actually intact." He sat on his knees as he examined the man's body.
"Noth... nothing will happen if I take it, right? I need the money so... so I'll look... I mean I'll..."
Rico looked confused by the situation, he wanted to search the dead man's intact bag, hoping to find something he could sell and profit from, but after a few moments, he made up his mind and pulled the bag from the man's hand.
" Now ... Let's see what's in here , from his appearance I can guess that he's a rich person, he must have something expensive in this bag." He examines what's inside the bag.
Rico took out some tissues, and more tissues, and more and more tissues, all he found inside was tissues.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!! ARE YOU FACKING KIDDING ME!?" He threw the bag in front of him a short distance with force.
"Is this man just a pretender who stole some fancy clothes and nothing more? Damn...he deserves to die like this!" He looks at the man's body nervously and annoyed as he curses him.
Throwing the bag nervously, something shiny came out of the bag, something that seemed to be precious and expensive, as if it was a crystal or something like that.
Rico didn't notice it at first, until he got up on his feet restlessly, then his eye came across that shiny thing, for a moment... he thought it was just a piece of a mirror, but he decided to approach it in the end and pick it up.
"This thing... is not a mirror at all."
After he grabbed it, he started to turn it right and left and in all directions. It was definitely not something ordinary, its smooth texture, which was in contrast to its appearance that looked like a randomly shaped piece of stone, was dazzlingly and distinctively shiny.
"This thing... looks familiar, where did I see that ?" He looked at the stone intently.
Rico's gaze was precise, there were some doubts in himself about the truth of this stone, as if... he was aware of the nature of this small stone in his hands, and in a moment... his features suddenly changed.
"Wait! Could this be… th… the Moonstone?!" he said in a loud voice with astonishment and awe.
Moonstone, which is classified as the most expensive thing in existence, a stone saturated with magical energy, legends say that this stone fell to the earth more than 1000 years ago and formed the giant lake that lies between the two continents and was called the Moon Lake, and the stone that was pulled out at that time - the Moonstone -.
Moonstone is often used in industrial fields as a source of energy, or in medical journals to treat wounds and reattach severed limbs, and this has been proven by experiments.
But as expected, something as expensive as this was not left freely to the public, as it became in the hands of rulers who only according to their desire use the stone.
Rico read all this in the library of the old man who raised him when his family abandoned him. Although Rico is homeless and without a family or shelter, he is not stupid or ignorant, so he realized... that what he has in his hand is...
"Moonstone! It's unbelievable!! But... it's too small to be a moonstone. From what I know about it, it's a very large, unstable stone that can only be dealt with in special ways that are not mentioned in the books I've read. What I have in my hand now is... a fragment of a moonstone."
"This fragment itself is insanely expensive. I can't believe I got it now!! I'm lucky~" Riku said with great happiness.
It was a moment of history for the boy Rico, this fragment could be worth tons of gold, with this he could live happily and not worry about finding a job, being without lineage finding a job is harder than applying to horizon Academy itself.
But his joy did not last long…
"Huh? I feel something… on… my hand?" He looked at his hands holding the stone with a slight tension for some reason.
Then Rico felt something, a feeling that what was in his hand was starting to disappear, he quickly looked to see that the moonstone fragment was starting to melt, or so he thought.
"Wait wait wait!! What's going on?! Why is the fragment melting!!!?" The tension and anxiety were clear on his face as he said this.
The stone was melting strangely, and the strangest thing of all was that it didn't fall from the palm of his hand, but...
"Huh? The fragment... entered... into the palm of my hand!!!? How is this?! I... I don't understand, what the hell is going on?"
The shard had been in the young man's hand moments ago, but now it was gone, and where did it go? In the palm of his hand that he was holding the shard in, as if it had merged with him.
"I... I'm not sure about this, I've never read about something like the Moonstone melting in this way, anyway, all of that doesn't matter now... What matters is the fact that I lost a fortune," he said with obvious annoyance and disappointment.
There was nothing left for Rico here, so he decided to leave and pretend that he hadn't seen anything at all, it was an experiment with unsatisfactory results for the young man, but on the bright side... he had touched a shard of the Moonstone that he had only read about in books.
"Huh?"
But at some point, suddenly, Rico's eyes, specifically the whites of his eyes, turned visibly red and that was followed by... an incredible amount of pain and burning.
"Huh? Ughh... Wait, my eyes... my eyes!!! UGHHHH!! MY EYES... THAT'S HURT! SO HURT!!!! WHY!? What happened?! DAMN IT!!!" He screams and writhes in pain.
He kept writhing in pain, until he threw himself on the ground while holding his eye, tears falling from the intensity of the burning he was currently feeling, as if a large amount of dirt had fallen into his eye.
After a full minute, Rico lost consciousness completely while he was lying among the bushes after his voice became hoarse from the intensity of the screaming and wailing...