The others were all inside the cabin having a beetle wrestling match when Midday finally returned late in the evening. Things were looking rather intense, and Midday, despite his exhaustion, sat down at the table right away to watch the battle from up close. Nobody spoke a word upon Midday’s entrance nor would they until after the match was finished. Such was the intensity of beetle wrestling.
Romulo’s beetle—Tomulo—was a member of a small, weak species with a thin exoskeleton and almost nonexistent horns. By all means, his beetle should not have been able to stand on even ground with Big Beetle Beater, which was the name of Glauster’s beetle. Even so, Tomulo had a mastery of “beetle martial arts”, a term coined by Romulo, that all humans and beetles present had to acknowledge as nothing short of artful. The way it consistently kept its body low to the ground so that it would have the deftness to dodge the unrefined yet powerful-due-to-size attacks of Big Beetle Beater was something worthy of respect.
Even so, Tomulo could hardly even garner so much as a flinch from its opponent, which was almost ten times heavier than it. Tomulo’s refined technique, borne out of an intense training regimen of Romulo’s design, meant nothing in the face of such an enormous disparity in raw power. Taking just one direct hit from Big Beetle Beater would almost certainly send Tomulo off the plate and onto the table, marking its loss.
And yet Tomulo showed no signs of giving up. The beetle wanted to win, not just for the sake of receiving tasty fruits from its master, but also to prove that its long (relative to its lifespan) journey as a warrior had really meant something. That it had really achieved something worth celebrating.
The humans watched with focused eyes, hoping to see the underdog they had all grown attached to over the month since Romulo had found it sitting on a tree branch try its best and win. Even Glauster, whose beetle was currently in the process of fighting Tomulo, was feeling conflicted. He wanted his beetle to win so that he could challenge Midday’s beetle in a championship title match, but he also wanted Tomulo to achieve the victory it had worked harder than anyone else to achieve.
The battle raged on and on, with Tomulo’s movements gradually getting slow and Big Beetle Beater’s speed remaining about the same. If this was an endurance match, Tomulo stood no shot at victory. BBB—as he was known amongst the cabinmates—could simply stay put until Tomulo wore itself out and then strike the final blow. Its victory had been all but guaranteed from the start.
Sure enough, the thing everyone had expected from the start finally happened after more than five minutes of hard-fought battling. BBB had landed the finishing blow, a simple uppercut that had sent Tomulo just barely off the edge. It was over.
Romulo picked up Tomulo and offered reassuring words, telling the beetle that he would make improvements to his diet and training. “You’ll be the champion someday, Tomulo! You just need to work even harder.”
Glauster picked up BBB gave it the berry that had been offered as the prize for whichever beetle won the match. BBB wolfed it down and lounged idly on Glauster’s hand. “I guess it’s time to fight the champion…” He looked to Midday.
“You sure about that?” Midday grinned. If there was one thing he was confident in, it was his beetle. Mister Potatoes was a member of a rare species of exceptionally large beetles—in which full-grown adult males could weigh as much as 20 pounds. Mister Potatoes, however, was still very young though, and he only weighed maybe one or two pounds. Even so, that was far larger any regular beetle could ever hope to be. He was the true indomitable fortress of beetle wrestling, and nobody had even come close to beating him. “Be my guest.”
Glauster shook his head. “You know what? BBB just finished a match less than a minute ago. He needs to get some rest.”
“Let him have it then.” Midday looked over to Mister Potatoes, who was currently hanging from the ceiling in search of pests to hunt and devour. “The champion is busy right now anyways, it seems.”
“Plus,” added Romulo, “We already have quite the show in store for us tonight. Don’t we, Midday?”
“Umm…” Is he talking about the peppercorn? Are really doing this in front of them? Midday bit his lip. He had been hoping that this would be a covert ordeal. "Maybe?"
“Glauster, how long until dinner?”
“Well, we can eat whenever.” Glauster looked at the fireplace, where a boiling pot of oatmeal & lentil soup resided. “But you already know that. You were the one who asked Gork and I to wait several hours for Midday to get back so that we could all eat to together.”
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“Yes I was… but do you know why I did that?”
“Uh, no? You grinned like an idiot and said it would be a surprise when I asked you. You said that same thing over and over again.”
“Well, it’s time for the surprise to be revealed. Serve the soup, please!”
“Sure.” Glauster took four bowls off the nook above the fireplace and divvied out the soup, taking care to give everyone equal proportions despite the obvious gap in dietary needs between Romulo and everyone else. He set the bowls out on the table and looked to Romulo. “Okay, so now what?”
“Have you heard of Devil Peppercorn?” Romulo leaned forward over the table and flashed a devilish grin.
“Who hasn’t?”
“Good, that makes things easy then.” Romulo took a small metal canister out of his pocket and set it down on the table, making sure to put it closest to Midday. “Midday wanted to give it a try, so I went ahead and got him some.”
“What?!” Gork went wide-eyed. “Midday! Is this why you asked me about what medicine I’d give you if I could choose anything? You were planning to risk your life to obtain some?” He winced as if in pain. “They’ll have your life if they discover this scheme of yours! How far back have you been planning this?”
“Ever since you told me about it.”
“Only last night?! How the hell did you get something like this in a single day?”
“I’m not the one who got it. That was where Romulo came in.”
Gork calmed himself down somewhat. “Oh, I suppose that makes sense then. Still! This is not something you should have!”
“And yet here it is on the dinner table.” Midday felt his heart accelerating. He was simultaneously looking forward to trying what just might be his saving grace and dreading its awful taste. But just how bad could it be? He steeled his nerves and braced himself for hell.
Glauster leaned forward to inspect the canister, evidently curious. “Maybe I’ll give it a try too. We just sprinkle it into our food, right?”
“Well, you have to grind it up before you can do that, but yeah. That’s the gist of it. It’s ridiculously simple to prepare relative to the other agricultural treasures.” Romulo chuckled. “Still, I think you should wait until after you see how Midday reacts to eating it. Believe me, your curiosity will be all but squashed once you see how he reacts. Are you ready, Midday?”
“As I’ll ever be…”
Midday picked up the canister and popped of the lid. Inside were a few dozen marble-sized beads. Each one was bright red and shiny, as if to say ‘danger’ in the most obvious way possible, but that did not deter Midday, who had already resolved to eat Devil Peppercorn with every meal. He picked up a bead and brought it up to his eyes. It was incredibly shiny, almost like polished glass. “So how do I go about grinding it then?”
“A mortar and pestle will do.” Romulo, without getting up, reached for the nook over the fireplace using the unreasonably long arms that came with the territory of being ten feet tall. “Here you go.” He set it down on the table in front of Midday.
“Does the number of beads matter?”
“Just do one.”
“But… will using more of them increase the effectiveness?” Midday was in a hurry to see some results. He figured increasing his ‘dosage’ would be a good way to go about doing that.
“Marginally.” Romulo shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking. Trust me, it’s not worth it.”
“Well, maybe not, but if there’s any improvement to be had, I ought to go for it.” Midday stared down at the floor. “All of us know I can’t keep going on like this…” He thought quietly to himself for a moment about how many beads to take. Because of the Elvanerean Ring, he would soon have an unlimited supply. There was no need to be carefully ration or anything like that. As such, the only question he needed to answer was how much he was willing to suffer for his own betterment. “As much as it takes,” he said out loud after some deliberation, “I’ll suffer as much as it takes…”
“What are you murmuring about over there?” asked Glauster.
“I’ll take three beads to start.” Midday tilted the canister until three beads dropped from it into the mortar but, before he could grab the pestle to start grinding them up, Romulo grabbed it. Midday stared up at Romulo.”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” said Romulo. “Take only one or you’ll regret it.” Romulo met gazes with Midday and stared back for a few tense seconds before finally conceding the pestle to his cabinmate. “I didn't realize how serious you were about this."
Midday nodded and took the pestle. After grinding up three beads of Devil Peppercorn, he drew a deep breath and braced himself for what was to come. “I just dump it all into my soup, right?” He held the mortar above his bowl, ready to drop its contents.
“That’s correct.” Romulo and the others were also bracing themselves for the moment he took his first bite. “One final bit of advice: eat the whole soup in one go. That’s the only way you’ll finish it.”
“Then here goes!” Midday flipped the mortar upside down, sending the crushed-up peppercorn plummeting into his soup. It landed with a soft splash and immediately dissolved.
Everyone except Romulo stared at the bowl in bewilderment. The vibrant red powder had vanished instantly, without a trace, and there was no sign of it having altered the soup in any way whatsoever. A tad perplexed, Midday a whiff of the steam coming off the soup. It smelled the same as before.
“Did… Did it work?” He gazed into the bowl, his heart racing. This was it. This was the big moment. The first step toward his goal. How anticlimactic it had been, he thought. He didn’t really know what he had been hoping for, but he supposed something more theatrical would have been nice. “Am I good to eat it now?”
“Yeah.” Romulo tensed up. “Go for it.”
After some hesitation, Midday picked up the bowl and wolfed it down until nothing remained.