Chapter 63: Sweet and Sour

A fruit boasting multiple hues, shifting across its surface in the manner of a rainbow was naturally something quite hard to forget. I’d kept it at the back of my mind, and would have dealt with it earlier if not for two things. Initially, there was the matter of a mild compulsion effect the fruit exerted, one that made me want to eat it immediately without any further thought. Once I’d recovered my wits, this all but screamed ‘trap’, and I refused to be done in by a piece of fruit. But even with this in mind, I might have been tempted to investigate further, if not for the fact that I had no idea where to begin. In the absence of clues or favourable circumstances, the fruit had remained in my storage, safe and sound until I had time to deal with it. At least, that had been the idea.

“I definitely did not remove it earlier,” I muttered, drawing upon a rarely used feature of the System, the Log.

As the name suggests, the Log allowed me to view all the messages received up to the present, which was very helpful in cases like this. Less helpful was the lack of category filters or any search functionality, meaning the only method available was to slowly scroll up through every prompt I’d received. Even if the System wasn’t too verbose, there was still quite a bit to trawl through. I persisted nonetheless, and eventually I found the initial entry.

[Rainbow Fruit stored.]

From there, I scrolled back down, all the way to the present, reading every line along the way to double check my work. Sure enough, while the Rainbow Fruit had entered my inventory, it never left, merely vanishing at some undetermined point that wasn’t found in the log. I couldn’t even pinpoint the exact time, not any better than an eight hour timeframe,, because there wasn’t any form of version control for the storage, so it only recorded the conditions when I manually viewed it. Needless to say, this only happened a few times a day at most, so that was a dead end. Without any further clues to follow, I was about ready to give up the search; it was only a strange looking fruit, at the end of the day, and it wasn’t as if I could go inside to take a look myself. Unless? Suddenly inspired, I decided to give it a try, attempting to absorb myself into the hidden space that served as my inventory.

[Storing yourself is not allowed. Too many people got themselves killed in the early days, trying to fold space into a pretzel.]

It didn’t work, but at least the System was kind enough to explain why. Onward to Plan B then. My mask was hanging down around my neck, which I preferred when it wasn’t needed, as wearing it for long periods of time tended to chafe. After putting it back on my face and tying it in place, I headed to the corner of the carriage, where the other resident was sleeping inside an empty wooden crate: yet more proof that cats across every world shared the same brain cell. Peering over the edge of the crate, I found Pumpkin sprawled out on his back with his belly up, somehow demonstrating the height of comfort while sleeping on a hard wooden surface. Truly, there were benefits to having a thick coat of fur!

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Pumpkin, are you awake?”

Pumpkin didn’t reply, doing his best to play dead. Or maybe it wasn’t his best, and he just wanted to annoy me, because the slight twitching of his ears looked far too intentional to me.

[Salt Pork withdrawn.]

I tossed a small piece of meat into the crate, landing close to Pumpkin’s head. Almost immediately, he rolled back upright and began to dig in with gusto, making me roll my eyes at his shameless behaviour. I didn’t interrupt him however, as that would only make the gluttonous cat ornery, and less likely to cooperate. I wasn’t hungry either, so all that was left to do was stare at him in the meanwhile.

“What did you want?” Pumpkin eventually deigned to address me, after finishing his second dinner for the night.

“When you’re stored inside my inventory, are you aware of your surroundings?” I asked directly.

“Sure,” Pumpkin replied, accentuating his answer with a loud burp. “It looks like the inside of a stone house, kinda like the one back in town where the guards put the drunks.”

“The guardhouse?“ I blinked. “Why were you in the guardhouse?”

“I didn’t go there very often, but once or twice, they forgot to let the prisoners out before they croaked. I wasn’t going to pass up a free meal, life’s hard on the streets.”

“Lovely,” I muttered. “Let’s pretend I never heard that. Anyway, back on topic, could you head inside and take a look for me? I’m pretty sure there used to be a Rainbow Fruit inside, but it’s not showing up on my status page any more.”

“Oh, is that all?”

Pumpkin yawned, before flopping over again, until he was once more resting on his back.

“There’s no need to go looking, I already ate it.”

“Right,” I sighed, pinching my nose.

I wasn’t truly angry, just frustrated with myself for wasting time. I should have checked with Pumpkin first, given his food-oriented way of life, but that was easy to say after the fact, hindsight being 20/20 and all that.

“Did you experience any strange effects from it? Any problems with the stomach or similar?”

“Nah, I’m all good, though I’d rather never eat one again, if that’s alright with you.”

Pumpkin shuddered, his fur standing up straight as he seemingly recalled an unpleasant memory.

“As soon as I saw the fruit, I had this strange feeling, like I had to eat it right now. It was sweet going down, like a melon, but the aftertaste? Try eating a lemon, peel included, that’s probably the best comparison.”

“Ah.”

I briefly considered the ramifications of Pumpkin, the cat who regularly ate dead bodies, refusing to eat something, before crossing the Rainbow Fruit off my palate for good.