Kill the Sun

When Nick woke up again, he directly went to Wyntor to ask him about the Screaming Coffin.

Apparently, the Screaming Coffin still hadn't moved.

By now, it had been consuming that one corpse for over twelve hours.

After a bit of talking, Nick went back to the hotel and checked up on Horua.

Luckily, Pator had dealt with Horua while Nick was working, which made things easier.

Every couple of hours, Nick returned to look at the Screaming Coffin, and after some time, Nick's times when he checked up on Horua perfectly matched the times he checked up on the Screaming Coffin.

After sleeping for four hours, Nick checked up on Horua and the Screaming Coffin again.

Nothing had changed.

When it was time for Nick's shift to start, he checked up on the Screaming Coffin again.

It still hadn't moved.

'It's been over 28 hours by now. If it were hungry, it would probably move around the Containment Unit and search for some food,' Nick thought. 'Does this mean that it takes more than 24 hours to consume a corpse?'

Before starting his next shift with the Dreamer, Nick told Wyntor to check on the coffin again.

When Nick came out again, he asked Wyntor, and Wyntor had something interesting to tell him.

"About six hours into your shift, it started to move around the Containment Unit," Wyntor said. "Right now, it's walking around, trying to escape to find some food. Luckily, it is very weak, and it doesn't even try to break the walls. It simply tries to find a way around the walls."

'Six hours after the start of my shift?' Nick thought. 'That should be about one-and-a-half days after I fed the corpse to it.'

Nick nodded. "Got it. Let me check up on it."

Wyntor nodded back and went into his office.

While Jenny was working with the Dreamer, Nick checked up on the Screaming Coffin.

But before he did, he checked up on the amount of Zephyx it produced.

'30 grams!' Nick thought in shock. 

30 grams was a lot.

'Is that like one gram per hour?' Nick thought.

30 grams was about as much as the Dreamer produced daily. 

Sure, the Screaming Coffin produced that in about 32 to 34 hours, but one also had to consider that it was only an Early Hatchling.

If the Screaming Coffin managed to become a Mid Hatchling, it might produce just as much as the Dreamer or even more.

And best of all, it didn't need anyone that was working with it.

It just needed a corpse.

Before entering, Nick took out the Zephyx storage of the Containment Unit and brought it into Wyntor's office.

As the Chief Zephyx Extractor, it was Nick's job to record all the produced Zephyx and to bring it to the sales department, which was just Wyntor at the moment.

Then, Nick entered the Screaming Coffin's Containment Unit again.

Sure enough, it was currently crawling around the Containment Unit like a spider with thirteen long white legs.

'It looks quite creepy,' Nick thought.

Nick imagined the Screaming Coffin silently walking around the forsaken parts of the Dregs on the hunt for some food.

But then, Nick had another thought.

After weighing his options for a bit, Nick decided to try it out.

He walked closer, and when he reached the Screaming Coffin, it started to use its long white bandages to encompass him.

But before it could do so, Nick kicked it.

The coffin lurched away but didn't get damaged since Nick hadn't used all of his power.

Nevertheless, Nick's kick was enough to tell the coffin that it didn't have the power to eat him.

Nick walked closer to the coffin.

And then, he jumped.

Donk!

And landed on top of the Screaming Coffin!

The Screaming Coffin immediately fell to the floor and pulled its bandages inward.

After that, Nick just sat down on the coffin.

Silence.

Nothing was happening.

"Come on!" Nick said with annoyance. "Move around a bit. I wanna ride you!"

However, the Specter just didn't move.

After a couple of minutes, Nick just sighed and walked away from the Screaming Coffin.

Another minute later, the Screaming Coffin slowly pulled out its white bandages again and started to circle the Containment Unit again.

'I don't think I can domesticate it. I think it's a bit too dumb to be a useful mount,' he thought with disappointment.

'Anyway, I should get some food for it.'

Nick left the Containment Unit and saw Pator.

"Hey, can you work a bit longer for today? I have somewhere to be, and I need someone to look out for Horua for the next two hours or so. Naturally, you will get paid for the extra time," Nick said.

"Sure, no problem!" Pator said. "Thanks for the extra money!"

"Thanks, Pator," Nick said with a smile before walking out of the warehouse.

'30 grams of Zephyx is about 30,000 credits in total. However, every corpse costs around 15,000 credits, and with the other costs, the Screaming Coffin only produces a profit of about 12,000 credits per corpse.'

'Luckily, none of my Zephyx Extractors need to work with it, which means there's more remaining for me!' Nick thought with a smile.

'That's about 2,000 credits more per day with only a little extra work!'

'Although, I have no idea what I should buy with all of this.'

'I'm earning so many credits, but they are just sitting in my bank account, collecting dust.'

As Nick reached the guard outpost, he stopped and scratched his head.

'Isn't that kind of what I've hated in other people in the past?'

'Just months ago, I thought that it would be great if everyone could just give a little of their overabundant wealth to help others.'

Slowly, Nick started to feel bad about having so many credits.

But he also felt like he deserved to have all these credits.

It was a complex mix of contrasting emotions.

Nick absentmindedly talked with the guards, and about a minute later, he came out with a token for a corpse.

'I don't even need the money to help the Dregs since I am paying for the corpses with the company's card,' Nick thought as he looked at the token.

'I really need something to do with my money.'