Crumbling under Lord Ukhazol’s intense pressure, I reluctantly admitted, “……Y-yes.” Miffed, Shuna quickly turned his face away, unintentionally confirming the charge.
The King of the Tree Spirits turned to directly face me. “I could apologize ’til I’m blue in the face, but that wouldn’t do much for ya. So here, Otherworlder, let me bless ya with some of my graces. Though I doubt they’ll do much for yer expeditions, they can’t hurt to have, either.”
“Uuugh,” Shuna groaned unhappily. I mean, I’ll take it as long as it doesn’t interfere with anything else.
“Hold out your finger.”
“Okay.” I held out my index finger toward him, and Lord Ukhazol touched a digit to my fingertip. A small bright light bloomed where they met.
This feels exactly like E.T., except there’s a miniature grandpa on the other side instead of an alien.
“Right, my graces are now yours. It ain’t much to speak of seein’ as how I’m lower on the ranks ’n’ all, but go ahead ’n’ use ’em all you want.”
“Sorry, what does it do again?” Seemed important to know.
“Ye’re now the proud owner of the Tree Spirit King Lord Ukhazol’s power to…grow delicious vegetables!”
“That’s……amazing!!” Now that’s my kinda grace! I better make more room in our garden!! We’ll plant some garlic, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, herbs, bell peppers, cucumbers… The sky’s the limit. Our diet’s about to go wild with variety. I can make my very own Eden here!!
“But wait, that’s not all. Before ya start plantin’, raise your arms up to the heavens ’n’ call my name. I’ll throw in some preventative pain reduction from all the aches of farming.”
“Magnifique!” Hell yeah, this is what I call an Other Dimensional miracle—talk about a godsend! “Wait, can I just go ahead and do a full covenant with you? I’ll worship you like crazy, I promise.” It felt kind of like cheating on Lady Mythlanica and Lady Glavius, but this directly affected the offerings I could make for them. They probably wouldn’t mind if I made an exception just this once.
“Ahhh, as a fellow Otherworlder, I wish I could, my friend, but ya’d have to come all the way out to my island for that. My divinity’s tied to this land, ya see. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it a thousand times, but I’m nothin’ fancy.”
“Nooo!”
“Souya, don’t be so dramatic. What good will planting some random vegetables do for our adventuring?”
“What. Did. You. Say?” He didn’t get it. I seized him by the shoulders. “Do you have any inkling how much work it is to prepare all our portable provisions and snacks for breaks in the dungeon?! Can you even imagine how much easier my life will be if I can grow my own tasty vegetables?! Can you?!”
The produce we got from the local farmers had an overpowering bitterness and primitive taste. But the biggest issue was the sloppy management of the items, which meant I had to sift through my haul after I bought it. Almost every day, I’d cut into something only to find wriggling worms inside. If we could plant our own vegetable garden at the campsite, Machina could take care of it and genetically engineer higher-quality strains. To top it off, our friendly god’s divine blessings would guarantee they’d taste good. I couldn’t ask for anything better. I’d have to start plowing the field straightaway.
“I mean, yeah, you’re a good cook, for sure. I’ll give you that. But if it’s that much of a pain to deal with, then why don’t you just buy the adventurers lunches?”
“Are you insaaane?! I can’t just feed growing girls and boys lumps of bread and butter!! They don’t even provide a fraction of the essential vitamins and nutrients your body needs, you know?!! And don’t get me started on how utterly unmotivated you all got when we used meal packs from the market. When we broke for lunch, you all looked over at me with sad puppy dog eyes and sighed, remember?! I sure as hell will never forget that! As if that weren’t enough, you didn’t even have a third of your usual fighting spirit, did you?! I can’t afford to slack off on our diet! Which reminds me, Shuna, you need to eat more vegetables. Actually, I’m just gonna start force-feeding them to you.”
“Fiiine, my bad. The tastier, the better. But I’m not eatin’ that flying-rabbit food. Not a chance in hell.”
I’ll show you hell—one where you’re crazy for vegetables! You’ll never even see it coming. One day, you’ll wake up and realize you just can’t live without them. Oh, wait, that’s just normal physiology.
“Hmm. I reckon I know more or less what ye’re made of now, Otherworlder. Keep it up and look after my devotees.”
“Of course.” Lord Ukhazol entrusted Shuna in my care. He didn’t have to tell me, though; I meant to look after them both all along.
“Shuna, leave the situation with Bel to her ’n’ me. You go on an’ focus on doin’ yer part. A human life is over as quick as a flash. Spend all yer days frettin’ ’bout someone else, and before ya know it, you’ll be an old man too weak to get up out of bed.”
“Okay, Lord Ukhazol, I understand,” the usually hardheaded Shuna obediently agreed. We didn’t get to see this side of him much.
“And eat yer vegetables.”
“………” Answer him, man! Can’t you see the God of Produce is talking to you?!
“Take good care of yerself now and do all in yer power to work for the greater good. There’s more ta life than the sword. Ya can learn ta fight like the greatest hero there be, but that ain’t gonna help ya when ya take yer hoe to the soil. People are meant ta face all sorts of challenges outside the battlefield, too, ya know. And you, my boy, have a home waitin’ for ya. If the city ever gets to be too much, ya can always come on home to the island.” The homely god sounded like an anxious parent worrying over their child who’d moved away to the Big Apple. “Ack, there I go again, gettin’ all preachy. Let’s leave it here for today, my boy. You call me again any time now, ya hear?”
Lord Ukhazol waved at us, and I waved back. He was a tiny little man, but a solid god.
“Souya.”
“Hmm?”
Shuna turned and asked, “What’re we gonna do about Bel? We still goin’ in the dungeon?”
“Well, there’s only one thing we can do. We’ve got to plan everything again from scratch,” I told him. “………Today’s expedition is canceled!”
What a mess.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Raaagh,” I groaned like a zombie, rolling around in my tent. My plan, my beautiful plan I’d spent three whole days putting together… Now I had to do it aaall over again.
Why did we have to get blindsided like—? Well, I guess I should be thankful it happened out here instead of in the dungeon. Good thing I’d drilled the RCC (Report, Contact, Consult) basics into Shuna over and over again. I don’t even want to think about what could’ve gone wrong if he’d ignored Bel’s condition and we’d all gone adventuring as planned.
I tried asking the current Bel a bunch of questions, but she refused to answer a single one. The entity inside Bel instead declared an I will not respond unless the matter concerns the dungeon policy. This was the trickiest type of being to deal with. They seemed easy to work with but actually followed their own unique codes. If that set of rules didn’t mesh with the rest of the party, we’d have some real problems.
Before all this happened, Bel had proven exceptionally talented at negotiating with other parties. One smile from an angelic young girl like her disarmed and charmed like magic. Lana’s own people hated her, Shuna and Éa had hot and cold personalities that made it difficult to get along with others, and neither my appearance nor notoriety did me any favors. Without Arvin or Zenobia, Bel was our only diplomatic hope. And now we’d lost that advantage, and for what?
This is just not my day. What the hell are we supposed to do now? We’ve got to team up with another party to take a shot at the gatekeeper on the fourteenth floor. Am I gonna have what it takes to make that work out on my own? Though if worse comes to worst, I guess I can always try bribery.
For what it was worth, I gave Lana, Éa, Shuna, and Bel a generous bit of coin to observe what had been going on around the city. I also ordered them to spend the whole day deepening the bonds between them. I probably should’ve gone, too, but first, I had to readjust our plan of action. To be more exact, I had to start entirely from scratch.
“Graaaaaaaaaah!”
“Mr. Souya, you seem stressed.” Machina rolled up my tent’s entrance flaps. And just like that, I had a partner I could fully rely on.
“Sure am. It’s your time to shine, Machina.”
“Agreed.” An adorable smile flashed on the pot-barreled robot’s screen. “Okay, ready to get going?”
“Huh? Go where?”
“It’s a surpriiise! You’ll see when we get there!” she declared and led me off to this secretive spot.