Chapter 196: Treasure!

He quickly walked up to the chest with anticipation clear on his face.

This was his first treasure chest and he was going to savor it. When he had heard that chests appeared in labyrinth rifts, he had gotten very excited. He always wanted to be a treasure hunter when he was a young boy.

These chests were a big reason why labyrinth rifts, while dangerous, were highly sought after. The items they contained could be very intriguing and powerful.

Though he didn’t care that much for the value of the treasure, he was more excited about just opening it. It could have a pile of coal for all he cared, he just wanted to see what it beheld.

He eagerly approached the chest and crouched down in front of it. Its shining glow made him shiver in anticipation and he reached out to touch it.

He heard Reinera say something to him but he wasn’t focused on her at the moment.

He gently lifted the lid with his right arm and before he could react something leapt out of the chest. It was a black shadow like figure with a huge maw. The jaws of the creature snapped down onto his arm and removed his entire forearm in one bite.

He didn’t even have a chance to retaliate before the thing went back inside the chest without another word.

Well, that was certainly rude, he sadly thought to himself.

It was a common occurrence in labyrinths. Trapped treasure chests would pop up every now and then to trick adventures. And it seemed that this chest was one of them.

He stared aimlessly at the innocent looking chest as his arm dripped blood down onto the stone floor. He distractedly felt Reinera run to his side and try to staunch the wound, but he was too upset to give his attention to her.

My first treasure chest took my arm, he realized depressingly. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he was supposed to get a pile of gold or something fancy to wear, like a crown or cape.

Instead, all he got was a missing limb and a distressed girl by his side.

“You’re going to be okay, Julius! I have a potion that should be able to heal you. It won’t be able to heal your arm all the way, but it will make sure you won’t bleed out,” Reinera said in a panic.

He gently shook her off of him and prevented her from uncorking the potion she took out of her storage ring.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. Which unsurprisingly, didn’t assure her at all.

“We don’t have time to argue. Just take the damn potion before you bleed out,” she yelled at him.

“It’s fine,” he said a little more aggressively. He held up his arm which was no longer bleeding. “See? No more blood.”

“You’re not fine! You just had your arm eaten by a mimic!” Reinera pointed out like he hadn’t noticed that.

He just sighed and stood up to his feet. Then he pumped a little bit of mana and activated [Phoenix Renewal]. The skill reacted immediately, in fact, it was already working on it passively without his say so. However, with a bit of mana, he felt his flesh regenerating at an unbelievable rate. His new healing epic skill proved its worth in gold.

In a matter of seconds, his arm was completely back to normal. Functioning and everything.

“What did you do?” Reinera asked. He detected something that sounded close to trepidation in her voice.

“I got a healing skill,” he said to her.

She didn’t say anything and just reached over to poke his arm as if to make sure that it was really there.

“What are you? Part hydra? That would certainly explain your power for a Tier 2,” she said way too seriously to be joking.

He gave her an affronted look.

“What? It would make sense,” she stubbornly stated.

He didn’t dignify or acknowledge her and turned back to the chest that was still sitting there looking like an actual treasure chest.

“I don’t even want to ask how you are able to regenerate your limbs. I fear I won’t like the answer,” she said under her breath but loud enough so he could hear it.

Julius continued to pretend that he couldn’t hear her and crouched down in front of the evil chest one more time.

“I know you have some treasures in there,” he whispered to the mimic menacingly.

“You know that it can’t understand you right?”

He knew that she was most likely right, but he wasn’t going to give up his first treasure chest opportunity this easily. He would at least try to talk things through like a civilized person.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Mimics were fascinating creatures. They would often mimic valuable things like a treasure chest and surprise their prey when they weren’t expecting it. However, he also knew that they carried items to use as bait. So he was pretty sure that this one had at least a couple of valuable items.

Thus, he was hoping he could convince it to give him one.

“Come on just give me something. It doesn’t have to be something really nice, but I want something. You did take my arm to be fair,” he spoke to the inanimate chest.

Reinera seemed content to watch him try to talk to the monster with a disappointed shake of her head.