He clamped hard on the knob, ignoring the strange rusted grime on the surface thanks to his gauntleted hand and turned it to open the door. It was a decrepit room filled only with strange furniture and dusty shelves. Otherwise, it was absolutely barren compared to the last room. It wasn’t even worth looting the place to put into his pack.

He opened another door, just a few feet away. This time, it was utterly empty. Just a window that showed nothing but darkness. He could only assume that the window was showing more of the interior of the place, but had no light source so it was utterly black.

He refused to believe that they were in some strange void with no hope of returning. Nope, it was just an utterly dark interior of the place.

He opened another door. This time, it looked like the latrine, but it was… well, he decided not to comment on it. The smell alone was enough for him to push away the idea. If he was desperate, he would go immediately, but right now, his belly was aching for sustenance.

Hearing Clara’s claim for hunger brought the two to realize something extremely crucial– They didn’t have any food to eat. That alone brought Zeke into hunter mode as he perused each room he found. But no matter where they go, it was the same thing.

Emptiness beyond reasoning. It was a giant castle with absolutely nothing inside. Barely anything of mention other than the weapons they found and some crappy furniture.

“This is getting ridiculous…” Zeke muttered to himself. The more he got upset, the more hungry he felt now.

It’s been a few hours since they woke up from whatever they found themselves in. So far, they’ve been doing nothing but search around the castle like headless chickens.

He looked back to find Clara pressing her lips tight. Not out of fear from the situation, but of hunger. Her creased brows and teary eyed face made Zeke feel even more incompetent as the only man of the group.

He knew that such a thing is pointless to think about in this tense atmosphere, almost ridiculous even. But he still felt that he should do something. Mikella, on the other hand, tried to put on a tough face as she smiled gently at her.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find something.”

“I know,” Clara spoke softly, nodding in understanding.

The more Zeke watched the scene, the more surprised he got. Rather, it felt disturbing seeing how mature Clara was. Far as he knew, kids tend to act out and cause a ruckus–especially if they’re hungry.

Putting that thought aside, he needed to figure something out. Deciding that no plan would be made, he kept charging forward, uncaring about the situation at hand anymore. If it kept going like this, they would be too hungry to even move.

“Zeke, calm down,” Mikella spoke gently to him. “There’s no reason to charge ahead like that. There could be something dangerous in the corner or something!”

Zeke grimaced. Mikella had a point. He was panicking too much. But the hungrier they get, the worse it’ll be for them. Plus, he heard it’s not a good idea to leave a child starving too much. Wouldn’t it hamper their growth or something? He read about it in something once, so that was why he was pressuring himself to find something.

If only he could find a room with some food to eat, but where…

“Wait…”

He’s been going at this all wrong. He’s been finding hallways filled with doors, but since when did castles ever had food stored in random rooms? There’s only one place all castles share when storing food.

“Follow me,” Zeke suddenly said, shaking Mikella to respond.

“W-What’s going on?”

“I think I know where we need to look for. But it’s gonna be a long walk.”

Mikella followed him as he ordered, but she still showed a hesitant face. Zeke was only guessing at this point, but his hunger was making the decisions for him.

So far, they’ve been walking across large hallways and corridors, so perhaps they were in one of the towers of the castle. Then all he had to do was find some stairs. As he walked further, the hallway slowly turned to a corner, and eventually they found a spiraling staircase. The design was truly impressive as though they were in a royal castle. It was made entirely out of marble, unlike most of the strange sections of the tower where it felt like time has wrought old age.

But his stomach ignored the rest of the details as he kept going down the stairs. He looked beyond the railing, seeing more of the castle’s interior.

For each section of the spiral staircase, there was a platform to get off from and enter into a separate floor of the tower they were in, but Zeke kept pushing all the way to the bottom with the girls.

After what felt like hours, but really half an hour, they finally reached the bottom. It showed more of a homey atmosphere as the spiraling staircase led them to where everything was made of lavish wood.

It was like falling into a separate dimension where time just shifts between eras at different locations.

“What is going on?” Mikella noticed as well, creasing her brows in confusion. “How is this place made up of so many different things? You would think it would break apart considering how fancy it was at the top…”

Zeke could only nod in silence at that, still unsure of where exactly it was at. No matter how fantastical it was, it still didn’t make sense. That only made the monster that felt like a ghost all that real to him now. He kept pushing onwards, eventually reaching another hallway made up entirely of wooden walls and floor. The scent of wood, almost like pine, finally hit him as he kept walking.

But then he felt something warm bathing the air. The temperature seemed to rise a little. When he turned a corner, he noticed giant double doors that seemed easy to push forward, the kind that swings back on their own using the hinges.

He stepped forward and pushed them aside, causing the doors to creak loudly as he finally found what he was looking for.

“Jackpot…!”

Zeke almost wanted to clap himself on the back as he stepped into the room known as the pantry. As he expected, the medieval looking stove was somehow on, the fire still burning the wood deep within the iron-barred cage. Around it were several long rectangular tables filled with utensils. What–he hoped–looked like meat was hanging on metal hooks straight from the ceiling above them.

That wasn’t all. He found several barrels of what he expected to be fruits. A barrel filled with apples, bananas, grapes, oranges, and finally what looked like pears.

The strangest part was that each one seemed to be of a different color. Apples aren’t red and oranges aren’t… oranges, somehow. But as long as they looked like food, he couldn't care less.

“Did you find it?!” Mikella almost shouted in glee. Zeke turned back to find her running into the pantry, her eyes almost tearing up at the sight. “Finally…! Clara, look! We found some food!”

“Yay!” Clara nearly shouted, but her shout was low compared to her sister’s. Zeke couldn’t help but wryly smile as the kid sister had more sense to be quiet than her older sister.

Not that he could blame Mikella though. He was so happy to find food that he could cry. He swore never to take for granted of running out of food compared to their easy lifestyle in their world.

But more than anything, he was glad to find something to actually eat. Now… exactly what can he eat here, though?

He approached one of the barrels, carrying what looked like apples, but he was sure they weren’t. He saw different colored apples before…

But he never saw blue apples before.

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Eventually, he pulled one from the barrel, gripping onto the surface and feeling the weight. It felt like an apple, weighed like an apple, and it looked as succulent as an apple.

He turned it over left and right, and he even sniffed it a bit. It smelled… like an apple too, he guessed. He never really paid attention to apples before, but it didn’t seem like it was rotting or something.

Actually, he was surprised to find even the meat hanging from the ceiling somehow edible looking. Then again, he planned on putting aside the meat. If there were knights made up of ghosts, he feared what the meat was made from.

“D-Do you think it’s safe to eat?” Mikella asked. Now that she saw how hesitant Zeke was to eat it, her ecstatic look now changed to doubt.

Zeke wanted to say yes, but he wasn’t sure. However, after seeing Clara stare at the apple, seemingly in wonder at it, he couldn't help but take the plunge.

Reinforcing himself, he opened his mouth and took a bite out of the apple. Mikella put her hands up to her mouth in surprise as Zeke was surprised to find out how juicy the apple was, the liquid streaming down from his lips as he bit onto the contents.

He kept chewing and chewing, tasting the apple for anything strange. Instead, his mind spun as a wonderful sweet taste creeped into his taste buds, and soon exploded in a wonderful fruity delight.

He took another bite, and another. His belly hungered for more as the taste alone was enough for him to keep chowing down all the way to the core. Before long, the apple was left with nothing but a husk of its former self, no sign of any blue color and just a white core with a black seed at the center like any other apple would have.

“It’s so delicious…!” Zeke turned to Mikella with widened eyes. “You should try it!”

No longer hesitating, Mikella took an apple for herself and gladly took a big chunk of the apple. Her face lit up in absolute joy, and once again took another bite before she herself finished the entire apple whole like he did. She took another one and handed it to Clara who watched with envy at the two.

“Here, eat this. It’s so good!” Mikella cooed, handing the apple to Clara.

Clara hesitated, looking at the strange color herself. But soon hunger took over as she took a small chunk with a hesitant bite. Juice flowed from her mouth as she tried to eat it, but soon her eyes widened like a doe in headlights.

“Wow…!” Clara’s only word exuded before she began to devour it like it was going away forever if she didn't.

“Easy, Clara. Eat it slowly or you’re gonna have a tummy ache,” Mikella beamed as she took her hand and wiped the juice off her mouth. She didn’t care what sort of mess she had in hand as she readily watched Clara eat her fill.

It filled Zeke’s heart with joy knowing that at least Clara was able to eat. He looked back at the barrel full of these strange apples. It wasn’t like this was the first apple he ate, so he was surprised at the dense flavor hidden behind such a small blue-colored apple.

Was it some sort of magical apple? He shrugged it off as he tried to take another one.

> You have eaten an Attribute Fruit.

>

> The limits of all of your attributes have been increased by 50.

Zeke had to double-read what he just read. Then he looked back at the apple in his gauntleted hand.

“What the…?”

“Whoa, hey, Zeke! What does my limits being increased mean?”

Mikella shouted, getting his attention as she clearly had the same notification as he had. Clara, on the other hand, looked puzzled as she wasn’t initialized into the system for some reason.

“I don’t know,” Zeke shook his head. “Honestly, I never heard of that. But apparently these aren’t just normal fruits–they’re… Attribute Fruits?”

“Are these good?” Mikella asked, tilting her head. “Does this mean our attributes increased?”

He wondered at that and opened up his status screen. Unfortunately, nothing noteworthy appeared.

“No, nothing changed for me. You?”

“Same here,” Mikella shook her head. “Did it even do anything?”

Zeke got even more curious after this. Then a random thought appeared in his head.

“So there are limits to how many points we can spend on a single attribute?” Zeke wondered aloud. “And without these Attribute Fruits, we can’t increase those limits and get stronger?”

“A whole fifty points, though?” Mikella said wryly. “I mean, we don’t even have all of our attributes combined to have that much. Maybe it’s some kind of glitch or something.”

Zeke honestly wasn’t so sure of that, but Mikella had a point. Fifty points seemed like a lot, but they can’t even see their own limits.

He decided to put it out of his mind. This might be a really good find or just some bug like Mikella said. Either way, food is food.

He tried to take the apples and see if he could put them in his pack. As expected, it took the apple in easily. Then when he thought about pulling it out, he did so with success.

Just as he was planning on jamming fruit after fruit into the pack, Mikella called out to him.

“Hold on, what are you doing?” Mikella asked just as she and Clara were sharing a banana together.

“I was gonna put the fruits into the pack,” Zeke said simply, raising a brow. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re gonna put each fruit in there individually?” Mikella asked incredulously. “Why not just take the whole barrel in there?”

Now Zeke was the one that stared at her in confusion. Looking back at the barrel, it was half his own height, and a few inches wider than him. It was also packed to the brim with all sorts of fruits.

Then he thought about how the packs can just take in the axe and sword without a problem. Honestly, that sounded plausible.

“Huh… good point.”

He wasn’t sure how to pull it off, so he just put the pack down on the ground and left the cover open. Then he bent his knees and tried to hug the barrel to pick it up.

He huffed, and he groaned, and he growled… but nothing of note came from that.

Letting go of the heavy barrel, he breathed heavily, his eyes widened as he felt a sweat running down his back.

“Jesus, this is heavy…!”

“Hold on, let me try.”

He winced as Mikella came over, figuring she can haul this barrel easier than he can. His pride as a man was crumbling bit by bit from this, but then he consoled himself by thinking that her Strength stat is just higher than his.

When she did the same with proper form to lift the barrel, she managed to lift it up by a few inches before dropping it to the ground, leaving a heavy thud to echo across the pantry.

“Shit, that is heavy…” Mikella breathed. Zeke felt justified, then he chided himself for thinking like an idiot.

“Should we just… put the pack over the barrel?”

He wasn’t quite sure how to do this, so he just placed the pack over the top of the barrel and just pushed it down.

It was absorbed in an instant, bringing both Zeke and Mikella to gape at the sight.

“...Goddammit, Zeke,” Mikella cursed. “Couldn’t you have thought of that before?

“Hey, I didn’t see you making any ideas.”

He tried to defend himself, but he honestly felt that this was their smooth brain moment. Then again, with everything that happened so far, they shouldn’t blame themselves.

“Let me try! Let me try!”

“Okay, just be careful now…”

Clara, being an eager kid as she was, was led by Mikella to another barrel and then pushed her open pack forward from the side.

Just like what happened to Zeke, the pack absorbed the barrel one bit at a time, swallowing straight into the tiny portal made by the pack and disappearing entirely.

Clara laughed maniacally like any child would as she kept putting another barrel into her pack while Mikella just watched with a smile.

But then Clara hit a snag as she tried to push the pack into another barrel, only for the pack to just stop itself the moment it hit the side of it.

“Hey! It’s not working!”

“Huh… yeah, it’s not working.”

Zeke immediately took attention as he stood over to where Clara kept pushing the open pack into the barrel. Like she said, the pack was not absorbing the final barrel. At a closer inspection, the portal that usually pops up isn’t actually showing up this time.

“Oh… how many barrels does the pack have already?” Zeke asked.

“About two barrels?” Mikella counted, then her eyes widened. “Oh, so it’s full?”

“Bingo,” Zeke nodded. “I guess these things aren’t infinite to carry more than a few barrels. Maybe it’s by a weight limit, or the amount of items one put into the pack? The barrels did have a lot of fruits inside it.”

“Aww…” Clara wilted, her lips pursed into a pout. Then Mikella just chuckled.

“Then we’ll just use another pack. Here, use mine.”

“Yay!”

Clara’s eyes beamed as she gave her full pack to Mikella, getting the now empty one in return. Then her excitement returned in full force as she swallowed up another barrel.

Zeke watched with amusement at the scene. Not only did they find some food that would last them quite a while, but Clara was also having some fun for once.

He breathed easier, but then realized that while the juices were delicious, they still needed actual drinking water. Thankfully, he spotted a basin filled with what looked like clear water at a distance. Examining it closer, he swished around the water with his hand. There wasn’t anything mucky or grimey on it, and it didn’t look polluted. After putting his pack over the basin and swallowing that one up as well, he grinned.

I’ll never get tired of that.

When he turned back around, a silly grin on his face–his stomach felt a burning sensation, followed by an incredible amount of pain.

They didn’t check the entire pantry well enough. While they were busy finding food and the particulars of the pack, they didn’t realize that a knight was around, slowly approaching them. Their loud clamoring didn’t warn them of the footsteps that approached them.

And when Zeke went ahead by himself to get the basin, that’s when the knight struck. The girls turned to find themselves shrieking at the sight, their eyes widening.

Zeke, on the other hand, just stared blankly at the sword that was now plunged deep into his guts.