The God of Ruin’s Pocket Change

CHAPTER 5: The Inflation Effect

I woke up to the sound of whispering.

It wasn't the soft, soothing whispering of wind through celestial willows. It was the frantic, terrified whispering of men who thought they were in the presence of a sleeping tiger.

"Is he breathing?"

"Don't look at his chest! You’ll burn your eyes out!"

"Should we wake him? The offering is getting cold."

"You idiot, it's a raw potato. It's supposed to be cold."

I opened one eye.

Three faces hovered above me. Twitch and his two goons were leaning over the mattress, their eyes wide and bloodshot. They looked like gargoyles that had fallen off a cathedral and landed in a sewer.

"Good morning," I said, my voice thick with sleep.

They screamed.

It wasn't a loud scream but they scrambled backward so fast they tripped over each other. Twitch slammed into the stack of tires, sending them rolling across the concrete floor.

"He wakes!" Twitch cried, pressing his face into the dirt floor. " The Golden Sleeper returns to the waking world!"

I sat up, cracking my neck. The mattress hadn't improved my mood. My back felt stiff, which was an insult to my divine physiology.

"Stop screaming," I groaned, rubbing my temples. "It’s too early for worship."

I looked around the bunker. The red emergency light was still buzzing, casting long, eerie shadows against the lead walls. Anya was already awake. She was sitting in the corner, cleaning her knife with a piece of rag. She looked tired, her grey eyes rimmed with dark circles.

She didn't bow. She just watched me.

"You snore," she said flatly.

"Gods don't snore," I corrected, standing up and stretching. My joints popped like pistol shots. "We resonate with the frequency of the universe."

"Well, the universe sounds like a dying pug," she muttered.

Twitch crawled forward on his hands and knees. He was holding a rusted metal tray above his head. On the tray sat a single, sad-looking potato. It was bruised, covered in dirt, and looked like it had been dug up from a radioactive exclusion zone.

"Breakfast, Great Lord!" Twitch announced, his voice trembling with pride. "We pooled our resources! We sold our shoelaces! It is... an organic tuber. Unprocessed."

I looked at the potato. Then I looked at Twitch’s boots. Sure enough, they were flopping open, the laces gone.

"You sold your shoelaces for a potato?" I asked.

"It was an honor!" Twitch beamed. "A small sacrifice for the One Who Flicks!"

I sighed. This was going to be my life now, wasn't it? Surrounded by idiots who treated a root vegetable like a dragon’s egg.

"Eat it," Anya said from the corner. "They haven't eaten real food in a month. If you refuse, they’ll probably kill themselves out of shame."

I picked up the potato. It felt gritty.

"Thanks," I mumbled. I took a bite. It tasted like earth and metal. I forced myself to swallow.

"Delicious," I lied.

The thugs wept with joy. They hugged each other, sobbing about how the Master had accepted their tribute.

"Okay, party’s over," Anya said, standing up and sheathing her knife. "We need to move. The lead shielding in this bunker is good, but it’s not perfect. Russ, your... inventory... has been leaking radiation all night."

"I kept it in my pocket," I defended.

"Doesn't matter," she said, walking over to the heavy blast door. She placed her hand on the cold steel. "Money creates heat. Not temperature heat—economic heat. It warps the reality around it. If we stay here too long, things will start to change."

"Change how?" I asked, finishing the potato in two more bites.

"Mutations," she said grimly. "Pests in Sector Z are attracted to Value. Rats, roaches... they feed on the energy residue of currency. When you introduce a Ten Dollar Bill into a zero-value environment, you’re basically ringing a dinner bell for every monster in the sewers."

As if on cue, a heavy thud shook the blast door.

The room went silent.

Twitch and his boys stopped crying. They pulled out their knives—crude shivs made of sharpened scrap metal.

The door groaned. The steel plating buckled inward slightly.

"Someone's knocking," I said.

"That's not a person," Anya whispered, backing away from the door. "That hit was too low. Too heavy."

The sound of metal tearing filled the small room. Claws punched through the bottom of the blast door like it was wet cardboard.

"Debt Rats!" Twitch yelled, his voice cracking. "They found the scent!"

"Debt Rats?" I raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like a bad metaphor."

"It's not a metaphor!" Anya shouted. "Get back!"

The door ripped open.

A creature squeezed through the gap. It was the size of a wolf, but it was hairless. Its skin was pale and translucent, pulsating with blue veins. Its eyes were glowing red dollar signs—literal, glowing symbols where pupils should be. Its teeth were made of silver.

It hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pipe.

"It smells the bill!" Anya yelled. "Russ, keep the money hidden! If it sees the cash, it’ll go into a frenzy!"

The rat lunged.

It didn't go for me. It went for the closest source of value.

The rat leaped at the thug, its silver jaws snapping. Twitch screamed, raising his arm to protect his face.

I moved.

I didn't have my divine speed, the potato hadn't given me that much energy but I was still faster than a mutated rodent.

I grabbed the rat by its tail in mid-air.

It was slimy and cold. The creature shrieked, twisting its body to bite me.

"Bad dog," I said.

I swung the rat like a flail and slammed it into the concrete floor.

The rat didn't die. It bounced. Its rubbery skin absorbed the impact. It hissed again, scrambling back to its feet, looking more annoyed than injured.

"You can't kill them with blunt force!" Anya yelled, throwing a knife. The blade hit the rat's shoulder and bounced off with a spark. "Their skin is reinforced! They consume metal to harden their hides!"

"Great," I muttered. "Armored rats. What’s next? flying sharks?"

The rat charged again. This time, two more squeezed through the hole in the door.

"We're overrun!" Twitch wailed, cowering behind the tire stack.

I looked at the rats. They were ignoring the humans now. They were looking at me. Specifically, at my right pocket. They could feel the hum of the Ten Dollar Bill. They were drooling—thick, silvery saliva dripping onto the floor.

"They want the money," I realized.

"Don't give it to them!" Anya screamed. "If they eat that bill, they'll evolve! They'll turn into a localized Inflation Event and level the block!"

"I'm not going to feed the rats," I said, offended. "I'm not a charity."

I looked around the room. I needed a weapon. My fists were strong, but if these things were rubbery, punching them would just be tiring.

My eyes landed on the rusted metal tray Twitch had served breakfast on.

"Twitch," I barked. "Pass the tray."

Twitch, bless his terrified heart, didn't hesitate. He frisbee-tossed the tray to me.

I caught it. It was heavy iron. Rusted, jagged edges.

"System," I whispered, testing a theory. "Does this count as a transaction?"

[SYSTEM QUERY: ITEM 'RUSTED TRAY' DETECTED.]

[VALUE: $0.000001]

"Close enough," I grinned.

I channeled a tiny fraction of my will, the same will that used to command stars to align into the tray.

"Inflation," I whispered.

I didn't use the money. I used the concept. I poured my intent into the tray, treating it like a high-value asset.

The tray began to glow. A soft, golden aura wrapped around the rust.

The rats froze. They stared at the tray, mesmerized. To them, it suddenly looked like the most delicious, expensive piece of metal in the universe.

"Fetch," I said.

I threw the tray. hard.

It spun through the air, humming with false value. It flew past the rats and through the hole in the door, clattering down the dark hallway.

The rats shrieked in unison. They forgot about me. They forgot about the Ten Dollars. They turned and scrambled over each other, fighting to chase the glowing tray.

They poured out of the room like water down a drain, chasing the decoy.

I walked over to the door and kicked the heavy steel slab. It groaned and slammed shut, bending the torn metal back into place just enough to seal the hole.

Silence returned to the bunker.

Twitch was hyperventilating. Anya was staring at me, her mouth slightly open.

"What..." she whispered. "What did you do?"

"I created a bubble," I said, dusting off my hands. "Artificial inflation. I made them think the tray was worth a million bucks. They’ll be chewing on that iron for hours trying to extract the value."

Anya looked at me with a mix of horror and respect.

"You hacked the perception of value," she murmured. "You didn't spend money. You lied to the System."

"I'm the God of Excess," I shrugged. "Lying about how much things are worth is basically my job description."

I turned to the group.

"We leave now," I commanded. "If rats found us, the Hunters aren't far behind. And I really don't want to explain to a SWAT team why I'm carrying the GDP of a small country in my pants."

"Yes, Lord!" Twitch scrambled to his feet, grabbing his shoeless boots.

We gathered our meager supplies. Anya checked the hallway. It was clear—we could hear the distant sounds of screeching and metal crunching further down the tunnel.

We climbed the ladder back up to the surface.

When I pushed the manhole cover aside and stepped out into the alley, the sun had risen.

Or, what passed for a sun in this place. It was a pale, sickly yellow disk trying to push through the smog.

But the street... the street was different.

Yesterday, it had been a muddy, depressing slum.

Today, there were flowers.

Not real flowers. Holographic ones.

Projectors had been set up around Old Jenk’s food stall. The stall itself was now covered in gold foil, probably fake. A red velvet rope surrounded the spot where I had flicked the penny.

A line of people, a hundred of them stretched down the block. They were waiting to kneel before the Site of the Transaction.

"Oh no," Anya whispered.

"What?" I asked.

"You didn't just disrupt the economy," she said, pointing at a new digital billboard that had been erected overnight. "You started a religion."

The billboard flashed a pixelated image of my face—taken from a security camera. My eyes were glowing gold.

The text underneath read:

THE WALKING BANK HAS RISEN. PRAY FOR CHANGE.

"Pray for change," I read dryly. "That’s a terrible pun."

"It's not a pun, Russ," Anya said, grabbing my arm and pulling me into the shadows. "It's a target. Look."

She pointed to the sky.

Hovering silently above the district, barely visible against the grey clouds, was a black drone. It had a single, unblinking red eye.

[SYSTEM ALERT]

[HUNTER CLASS DRONE DETECTED.]

[TRACKING SIGNATURE: HIGH VALUE.]

"They're here," Anya hissed. "The Guild found the ripple."

I looked at the drone. It swiveled, its red eye locking onto the alleyway where we stood.

"Run?" Twitch asked, trembling.

"No," I said, buttoning up my hoodie. "We don't run. We walk. If we run, we look guilty."

"We are guilty!" Anya hissed. "You're carrying illegal tender!"

"Details," I said. "Come on. Let's go to the Golden Zone. I need to speak to the manager of this planet."

I stepped out into the street, walking straight toward the crowd of worshippers, with the drone hovering ominously overhead like a vulture waiting for the carcass to drop.