Midday spent the entire day working out in the fields: swinging his scythe with bloody hands caused by the freshly reopened wound on his finger, sweating under the sweltering daytime heat, and bleeding through the bandages wrapped around his calf. It was grueling work, and the Devil Peppercorn still had yet to materialize any benefits whatsoever. Even so, he knew better than to let the pain stop him from finishing the quota. After more than 13 hours of work, he had just barely managed to finish his quota before sunset, which was so eminent by the time he was done that the sky had already taken on the cascading hues of nightfall orange and pink.

He sat down atop a pile of fallen wheat, trying to regain his strength before starting his journey to the forest where his Devil Peppercorn vines resided. Watching the sunset, Midday sighed: he tried to keep his thoughts optimistic, with things like how he might go about getting a better scythe or perhaps another one of the agricultural treasures, but more often than not he found it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel—for the tunnel in question was just so unbearably long. Devil Peppercorn was just the first step of a long staircase and yet he was struggling with even that. If freedom was the ultimate destination, just how long would it take to get there? Just how much more would he have to suffer? He sighed. In all likelihood, he would never escape the plantation. Nobody did. Not even the people with the best prospects to do so. As members of the weekly fight club, there was no question that all the people who were getting executed that evening were far more talented than he would ever be and yet, without exception, all of them had failed in their pursuit of freedom.

Midday was not a talented individual; he knew that much. The only reason he had any prospects at all was because he had stumbled upon a magic ring he by no means deserved. Making good use of it, he believed, required more intelligence, more determination, and more skill than he could ever hope to have. All 3 of his cabinmates could have made far better use of it than him, he was sure of it.

He sat there for a while until the sun had fully set behind the distant yet never out of sight barrier walls. The watchmen who appeared as barely visible specks atop the wall from where Midday was sitting started their nightly work of recording who had made or had not made their quotas—using sight-enhancement Abilities which were further bolstered with the aid of something called ‘binoculars’ to easily see several miles into the distance. Midday hated the watchmen and the surveillance they represented a great deal but, like most things in the plantation, all he could do was quietly despise them and nothing more.

With another sigh, he rose to his feet and started toward the forest.

♦

It was almost pitch-black by the time Midday made it to his destination. What little light the already faint crescent moon provided was reduced even further by the ceiling of leaves above that hungrily devoured the moonlight.

The result of this darkness was a disoriented Midday who had to rely mostly on memory—which was not very helpful, seeing as he had only been to his spot in the forest a few times by then—to navigate. He tripped several times on the way there and was bleeding a little after getting cut on thorns, but Midday did not care. Making sure he used all 3 charges of his ring took precedence over everything else. He fumbled his way to the sunflower that marked where the ring was buried and dug it up:

“Effect Added. Elvanerean Ring: Accelerates growth of any plant the user points at by one year. Can be used 3 times per day.”

Midday wasted no time in feeling his way to the ancient oak tree that housed his Devil Peppercorn vines and pointing the ring at it. Trying to spend as little time as possible in the forest was his usual protocol, but the rush was especially important today. Now that nighttime darkness had set in over the forest, it was safe to say that the dangerous wildlife was already on the prowl. Leaving as soon as possible was at the forefront of his concerns.

The ring launched its charge for the day at the vines, sparking a rapid explosion of growth as the plant continued wrapping itself around the tree trunk and, more importantly, spreading its tendrils over the branches which would soon bear fruit. It was too dark for Midday to discern much in the way of specific details, and he wasn’t sure whether any peppercorns had formed yet, but it didn’t matter if they had: he had no intention of harvesting them that night either way. All he wanted to do was make sure he used up all his charges.

Another blast of green light. Yet more growth followed. The Devil Peppercorn was certifiably massive now, with 5 years of growth technically already under its belt, and Midday thought he could see the drooping silhouettes of densely packed bunches of beads forming. He struggled to see the specific details, but it seemed as though the beads in question were much smaller than the beads that had been in the canister.

One more. He pointed his finger, waited for the ring to charge up, and released a burst of light not long afterward. As the light shot out, he used the illumination it provided to catch a peek at the drooping bunches of what he was now certain were Devil Peppercorn beads—albeit not fully mature ones yet. A smile spread across his face upon seeing this. There were dozens of beads, maybe hundreds, in each clump, all waiting to be harvested. As the plant received its third year of growth for the day, the beads ripened into genuine-article Devil Peppercorn, complete with the signature bright red color, but one thing bothered Midday: they were still much smaller than the ones in the Devil Peppercorn canister. Are mine still not fully mature? Or are the growing conditions limiting their size? It made sense that the products grown in Neighborhood 6, which had nigh-flawless growing conditions for the crop, would be superior in some aspects to what he could grow in Neighborhood 8’s microclimate. Is it just size though? Midday sighed. He would have to do some experiments later. But that was later, not now. All he needed to do for the moment was leave the forest and head to the cabin. As such, he did exactly that.