“Pizzaman?” The mayor rolled the word over in her mind. “That sounds made up.” She turned to the guard. “I want you to use your analyze ability. Confirm if this is true.”

“Sure thing,” The guard agreed.

Pete could feel the guard’s eyes on him, but more than that, he could feel something like static buzzing in his head.

He guessed it was the analysis spell. As the guard check Pete’s job, Pete panicked. Even though he’d received the prompt saying he was a pizzaman, he hadn’t seen if that carried over to his status page. Pete willed that status page to the forefront of his prompts, and he evaluated it.

“He’s not lying.” The guard declared. “I see it on his status page, clear as undercooked egg whites. He is a pizzaman.”

“Pizzaman?” The nervous mayor spoke even faster than before. “What’s a pizzaman? I’ve never heard of a pizzaman. Nick, have you ever heard of a pizzaman?”

“I’m sad to say that I haven’t.” The guard answered. “Though, he did mention food to me before. He called it pizza. I didn’t ask him about it because it isn’t steak. When food isn’t steak, eggs, or bacon, it isn’t food.”

“What’s a pizzaman?” The mayor asked again.

With all the prompts in his way, Pete couldn’t tell if she was asking him or the guard. When she repeated the question, he assumed the question was directed at him...

“A pizzaman makes pizza.” He told her. “Sometimes a pizzaman brings pizza to people in their houses.”

Within microseconds of finishing his answer, she began with another question. “And what’s a pizza?”

“What is pizza?” Pete repeated the question, confused. Who doesn’t know what pizza is? “I don’t understand. You’ve never had pizza?”

“She gets to ask the questions, son,” the guard told him. “You get to answer. Tell her now. What is pizza?”

“Right,” Pete took a few seconds to consider before he answered. “You take a ball of something like bread dough and flatten it into a disc. That disc is the crust. Sometimes people season the crust with garlic, butter, salt, and other spices. Sometimes the crust is thick like bread. On occasion, it is thin and crispy like a cracker.

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“Once you have a crust, you crush tomatoes into a sauce. If you want, you can add things to the sauce to flavor it. Once you’ve made the sauce, you spread it over the crust.” Pete was starting to feel hungry. “From there, you sprinkle grated cheese over the sauce. You can add other things to the pizza, too, like little slices of meat or peppers. Some people put the toppings on top of the cheese. Others like to put toppings under the cheese.”

“Steak sounds better.” The guard declared. “But I like the part about slices of meat. Can you add sausage? Bacon?”

“You can make a meat pizza with all the meats,” Pete confirmed.

Though Pete didn’t see it, the guard nodded his approval. “That makes me happy. Good work, son.”

“Tomato?” The mayor’s expression began to relax. “You need tomatoes to make pizza? Is that why you killed the nightshade plant? You needed to get tomatoes?”

“What?” Pete asked, not understanding, trying to process. Then he remembered the two tomatoes the nightshade plant had dropped. Then he remembered that tomato plants are a type of nightshade. It all came together for Pete, and he understood.

“That makes sense,” the guard said. “You saw the girl in trouble, and you wanted to help her. When you realized you needed the tomatoes for your pizza, you knew you could help her because getting tomatoes was part of your job.” The guard dropped his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“Uh,” Pete mumbled. “No problem…”

“No hard feelings, right.” Pete turned back, so his limited field of vision was on the guard. Now, the mustache appeared happy, turned up at the corners like it was a smile or something. “That was brave of you to save her. Good work, son. But why did you act like you have amnesia? You could have said you were doing your job.”

“About that…” Pete began.

“Can you kill the other tomato plants, too?” The mayor interrupted. “Of course, they’ll respawn again. Even so, it takes them a few days to reach the town from their respawn point. Since you need tomatoes, you can keep hunting them, right? Keep them away from the town?”

Another prompt filled Pete’s vision:

You have been offered the quest, “Nightshade Slaughter.” Completion reward: 100 len, 200 experience points. Do you accept the quest?

As he read the prompt, the ominous voice accompanied it. He wondered what determined if the voice would accompany a prompt because it didn’t come for all of them. From what he could tell, it appeared for non-combat pop-up prompts. He’d have to test it out later.

Pete reread the prompt, ominous voice accompanying the reading… And Pete considered the quest rewards. He didn’t know what len was, but he guessed it was some type of currency. He didn’t know if 100 of it was a lot or not. More impressive was the 200 experience points.

Between that and the individual experience from each monster, he could gain at least two levels from the quest. He wondered how leveling up would work but didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.

“Two things,” Pete began. “First, I did fall out of a tree, hit my head, and I can’t remember everything, so please be patient when I have questions.”

“Okay,” the mayor answered, asking. “What is the second thing.”

“Second,” Pete adjusted his hat before scratching his cheek and continuing. “I accept. I’ll kill the Nightshade plant.”

The prompt changed:

You have accepted the quest, “Nightshade Slaughter.” Put an end to the malignant plants and begin your journey as a pizzaman.