"Sarah, can you do it this time?"
The team returned to the church, moving in silence. Shadows stretched across the stone walls, flickering under the dim torchlight.
They scanned the area. Empty. No priests. No patrols.
Sarah took a deep breath, activated Mind Puppet, and stepped forward.
Her expression went blank as she reached for the copper coin on the vault door.
She grabbed it.
Everyone watched as she turned and walked back toward them, her steps steady.
No hesitation. No resistance.
They followed her back to headquarters, where a man sat in a dimly lit room, flipping through old documents with a bored expression.
He barely glanced up as Sarah placed the coin before him.
A long pause.
Then—
"Another dud."
His fingers drummed against the desk. "Go back and do it again."
No questions. No explanations. Just another trip back to the church.
Lance was next.
Same process. Same result.
"Another dud."
Mark followed.
No change.
It was unnatural.
For this mission, they had used an artifact—
Item Name: Mind Puppet
Artifact ID: 5-319
Description: A relic originating from a ventriloquist's doll, capable of controlling the user's thoughts.
Effect: When activated, the user can select which thoughts to allow and which to suppress.
Everyone had failed.
Now, it was Emily's turn.
She gulped, bracing herself as she activated Mind Puppet. A strange numbness washed over her mind as she erased every thought. No fear. No doubt. Just action.
She stepped forward.
And the moment she reached for the coin, the air around her shifted.
A shadow stretched unnaturally from the doorframe, curling like smoke. The copper coin shimmered—then expanded, stretching, warping, shifting.
A figure now stood before her.
Tall. Lean. Dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit. A top hat sat atop his head, and a single monocle glinted over his right eye.
Emily's breath caught in her throat.
"Let's make a deal."
His voice was smooth, rich, carrying an unnatural weight.
Emily remained silent.
"Give me the monocle, and I will give you the copper coin at the door in exchange."
A trade.
Her instincts screamed at her—Don't negotiate.
The Mind Puppet prevented any stray thoughts from distracting her, allowing her to focus on one thing: the mission.
She reached for the copper coin again, ignoring his offer.
The air thickened around her, pressing against her lungs. She took another step forward, her fingers brushing against the coin—
A flash of gold.
A coin flipped in mid-air, but it wasn't copper anymore—it was gold.
Her vision twisted. The floor beneath her feet shifted like liquid. A sickening dizziness seized her, and for a split second—
She was somewhere else.
Dark streets. Gas lamps flickering. Monocles gleaming in the eyes of too many people, all grinning at her.
She blinked.
A rock sat in her palm.
Her breath hitched.
Slowly, she turned back. The copper coin was still on the door.
Had she even moved?
Suppressing a shudder, she clenched her jaw, reached out, and grabbed the coin again.
No resistance this time.
No shadows.
No tall man.
She turned on her heel and made her way back, gripping the coin tightly in her palm as if it might vanish the moment she looked away.
Her teammates followed shortly behind her, silent.
They returned to headquarters and delivered the coin.
The examiner—a man who had seen too many of these artifacts, yet never enough to make sense of them—took it into his palm.
He turned it over.
His brows furrowed.
A hush fell over the room.
"This… isn't a coin."
Emily felt her stomach drop.
The examiner lifted the object into the dim light.
A monocle.
The same monocle the man in black had been wearing.
Emily's fingers twitched.
She looked at her empty palm, her breath coming shallow.
She had held the coin. She had been sure of it.
The silence in the room deepened.
Then, someone muttered, "We were lied to by the coin."
A low chuckle echoed in Emily's ears—
Soft. Amused.
She stiffened.
No one else reacted.
No one else had heard it.
Her gaze flickered toward the monocle.
It was watching her.
And it was still laughing.
____________
Emily stood at the church door once more.
Unlike last time, she was alone. No team. No orders. No backup.
She had pushed all of that to the back of her mind.
She stepped forward. Once. Twice.
Instead of grabbing the copper coin, she nudged it with her finger.
In her right hand, she held the gold coin Luthian had given her.
"This will save you one day."
The shopkeeper had said.
To which she had decided, 'I'll believe it'.
The air shifted. The world around her cracked like fragile glass.
And then—she was somewhere else.
A space of endless reflections, distorted yet pristine. A world of glass.
At the center, a man in black sat at an ornate table, sipping tea. A newspaper rustled in his hand.
"A Seraphim," he mused, not bothering to look up. "You've encountered one."
He turned a page.
"Tell me, did it have five wings?"
Emily didn't respond. Her eyes drifted to the paper in his hands.
Bold, red letters screamed from the front page:
"War God Caught Cheating with the Sun God's Wife!"
Her breath hitched.
The man finally put the newspaper down, adjusting the monocle on his right eye. A slow, knowing grin curled his lips.
"Oh, this? The Divine Yearly News," he said, tapping the headline. "We get such delightful scandals every year."
His grin widened—too sharp, too knowing.
Emily tried not to stare at him, but his face…
It was unnervingly handsome. The kind of face you could look at for hours and never tire of.
She shuddered, recalling what the Seraphim had told her.
"Devils have faces too beautiful, so they may tempt. Angels…"
The memory of the Seraphim's visage sent a fresh chill down her spine.
The man in black chuckled, low and amused.
"Oh-ho, that's what you're thinking." His voice slithered through the glass world. "You see, I'm not quite proficient enough to steal your thoughts. That's on me. But reading them? Even the little fabrications you tell yourself?"
He smirked.
"That, I can do."
Emily swallowed hard, bracing herself to speak.
But the man raised a gloved hand, stopping her.
"The bargain," he reminded her.
His monocle gleamed.
"The monocle for the copper coin."
A pause.
"The offer still stands."