A Gift for Yeon
What would it be like if you could eat and eat without ever getting full, and still taste every bite? It would depend on the person, of course, but most people, given enough food, would probably keep going until they were satisfied.
And what about someone who hadn't properly eaten in years? Choco watched Yeon chew away with single-minded dedication, facing a mountain of food piled on the table like something out of a comic. This was what happened when you grabbed whatever she'd said she wanted, more or less at random. They'd probably blown through more than half of everything they'd earned at Yelloy Barrier Fortress.
"Is that some kind of quest?"
"She's really going to town on that food, though."
"Is that an NPC next to her? Those clothes are pretty fancy."
The festival was winding down and the crowds had thinned, but sitting at a table near a busy plaza and eating with that kind of intensity was always going to draw an audience. And because Choco was sitting right beside her, she was getting stared at too. Well — a high school girl putting away food like there was no tomorrow, with a little kid in shrine maiden cosplay next to her. Of course people were going to look. Choco sighed and picked something up from the mountain of dishes.
The pride of the Mirni Festival: Mirni bread. Shaped like the face of a bearded middle-aged man, one bite filled her mouth with a sweet bean paste that practically danced across her tongue. It really was delicious. Her expression brightened of its own accord as she took another bite — and then she noticed the chatter around them had gone strangely quiet.
"Whoa... did you see her smile just now? That's insanely cute."
"I already got a screenshot..."
Ugh. So noisy.
Her face scrunched up as if the smile had never happened, and she whipped her head around — only for every last onlooker to snap their gazes away as if they'd never been staring. Choco shook her head. Then, ignoring the eyes on them, she spoke to Yeon, who was still tearing through the food without a care in the world.
"Does eating thus please you so?"
"Yeah! It feels like I haven't eaten anything in forever."
Yeon swallowed the mouthful she'd been packing into her cheeks in one gulp and grinned. Realistically, that should have made her choke — but a game was a game, after all.
"But is it truly all right to eat so much? No matter how I consider it, consuming this much ought to incur some manner of penalty."
"Huh? What penalty?"
"Well..."
Choco fell silent, turning the question over. She had floated the word penalty, but the truth was she had no idea what kind there might be. She had never piled food up like a mountain and eaten her way through it, either. Al Fantasia was full of every status effect under the sun, though, so it didn't seem impossible that a debuff might kick in. And overeating being bad for you was just common sense, wasn't it? She shook her head. Eating too much in a game wouldn't affect anyone in the real world. There was no real reason to stop her.
"...Never mind. Upon reflection, even should there be a penalty, it would hardly be of consequence."
If any of this food had worked like a potion — if it had carried a recovery effect — Choco might well have put her foot down. Items like that sometimes came with an Addiction title that weakened healing over time. But nothing in this mountain of dishes had an effect like that. They were festival food, true to their name and their purpose, and nothing more. They were just pointlessly expensive. Choco eyed the 300,000-gold heap with that thought in mind.
"That aside, do you truly intend to finish all of this?"
"If I can't finish it, I can just stash it in my inventory, right?"
"It would be rather heavy, you know."
An inventory was not a bottomless backpack. It held only so many items, and it had a weight limit besides. Go over that limit and your movement took a penalty, no question. That was why Choco wore her heavier equipment or carried it in a separate pack. Stash it in the inventory and you hit the cap and ate a stat penalty; carry it yourself and there was no penalty at all.
Yeon thought that over for a moment, then clenched a fist as if she'd made up her mind.
"I'll do my best!"
"There is hardly a need to try so hard... If you cannot finish it, you may simply discard what remains, may you not?"
"No way! You'll get punished if you throw food away!"
Did that saying even apply inside a game? Choco stared at her, incredulous, but Yeon just kept shoveling food into her mouth.
Come to think of it, where did those two go?
Se-jin and Ho-jin had vanished around the time Yeon had really gotten down to eating. They could take care of themselves, she was sure — but she was curious all the same. Especially after hearing that Se-jin didn't much care for festivals, thanks to all the men who wouldn't leave her alone. With Ho-jin beside her, nobody was likely to try anything with Se-jin... but was Ho-jin himself all right? The question had just drifted through her mind when she spotted the two of them walking over from a distance, as if summoned by the thought.
"It looks... pretty much the same as when we left...?"
"She is eating with reasonable diligence. But where have the two of you been?"
"They call this the land of mines, so we went to look at some jewelry."
"Jewelry?"
Choco pulled her gaze away from Ho-jin, who was staring at the mountain of food in blank dismay, and asked again. Se-jin tilted her head at the sudden spark in Choco's eyes, but she lifted her right hand all the same. A ring set with a small, finely cut red gem sat on her index finger.
"Yeah, there was a lot of pretty stuff. So I bought one."
"Does it have some worthwhile ability attached?"
"No? It was just a regular accessory."
"Ah. Is that so?"
The interest drained from Choco's face so fast it was as if it had never been there, and Se-jin was left a little nonplussed. For Choco, though, the reaction was only natural. Jewelry was supposed to raise your stats, or have a decent spell built in. Wearing something with no effect at all would just get in the way when you went to grip a sword.
Then another thought struck her, and she turned back to Se-jin.
"Speaking of jewelry — were there necklaces as well?"
"The place I went only sold rings, but... there probably are, right?"
"Is that so? Then let us go and see."
"...What?"
"Ho-jin, I leave Yeon in your care."
"Huh? All of a sudden?"
Ho-jin echoed her in bewilderment, but Choco was already hustling Se-jin along. Left with no choice, Se-jin turned around and led her back the way they had come.
The streets still glittered as the festival drew to a close, but the crowds were nothing like they had been at the start. The moment night ended, these streets would go back to being ordinary again.
The stretch Se-jin brought her to was as quiet as the one they had walked through. Merchants were already folding up their stalls, and shuttered shops were a common enough sight.
"It looks like everyone's packing up. Are you still going to look?"
"It will take some time yet before Yeon has eaten her fill, after all."
Choco said it as they walked — then let out a small ah and turned her head.
"More importantly — have you any money?"
"What? Money?"
Se-jin stared at her, looking for all the world as if she'd just been shaken down in an alley. Choco scratched her head.
"Well. I came along once the thought occurred to me, but all of our gold is with Yeon."
With no inventory of her own, every gold piece she earned went straight to Yeon. She had never imagined she would need money of her own, and carrying it by hand was heavy besides, so she had never given it a second thought. That said, she could hardly turn around now and ask Yeon for some. Not after sneaking off without the girl in question knowing. Se-jin caught on a beat later.
"Oh — are you trying to get a present for Yeon?"
"What other reason could there possibly be?"
Choco looked at her as if that should have been obvious. Se-jin only tilted her head.
"Well, you're a girl too, Choco. I figured you just wanted one for yourself."
"...I have no particular interest in adornment."
She hadn't as a man, either. Aside from the clothes she absolutely had to wear, she had never put on a single piece of jewelry. Even the accessories she'd worn in-game had all come with item effects attached.
"Saying that while wearing those clothes, though..."
"This is...! No. Never mind. So — have you money, or have you not?"
Choco bristled for a second and started to snap back, then caught herself and flicked her fingers in a little well? gesture. She looked for all the world like a kid shaking someone down in an alley. Se-jin laughed under her breath.
"I bought a ring, so I don't have that much left. About 50,000 gold?"
"That should be more than enough. It is merely a simple ornament with no item effects, after all."
"I wouldn't take it that lightly. This one alone cost 100,000 gold."
"O-one hundred thousand? That much?"
"That's what it was."
Choco's eyes went round at a figure she had never seen coming. Se-jin nodded, her face perfectly honest.
It's that expensive?
There was no earthly reason a plain accessory with no item effects should cost that much. The Black Wolf's Eye — which granted +10 Agility when worn, and dropped from the Black Wolf pack that bossed Lucifen Forest — had traded for 100,000 gold, and that was a boss drop...
A word flickered through her mind, and she muttered it before she could stop herself.
"Inflation...?"
"Huh?"
"No, it is nothing. At any rate, 100,000 gold..."
Choco fidgeted this way and that like a restless dog, then heaved a long sigh.
"For now, let us simply look. Even as we linger here, more and more merchants are packing up and leaving."
Finding the right place, however, proved difficult. The stalls still open were selling rings and earrings and the like; shops with necklaces could be counted on one hand. She couldn't understand why they split the jewelry up by type in the first place. When she asked, one merchant told her:
"Well, everyone's got different skills. Plus necklaces are easy to make, so they don't sell for much."
"For a reason as trivial as that..."
The answer was so simple it left her briefly vacant — but she couldn't stop looking.
Watching Choco head for the far outskirts of the market, Se-jin asked,
"But why a necklace specifically? You seem pretty set on it."
"Because Yeon wanted one."
She said it remembering the way Yeon had murmured to herself, looking at the Dryad's Essence after it had returned to its original form.
"If she wants it, then giving it as a gift is only natural, is it not?"
"I guess so."
Wanting something and being given it as a present didn't seem quite the same thing to Se-jin, but she nodded instead of saying so.
They wandered a good while longer before a merchant caught Choco's eye — an old woman who had spread a cloth out on the street, her face a nest of wrinkles, clearly well on in years. The wares in front of her didn't look like much, either. Unlike everywhere else, though, she was selling jewelry of every kind. Choco stopped in front of her, crouched down, and looked over the display with care. It was all red gems, no different from the one on Se-jin's finger. Something that glowed blue, like the Dryad's Essence, would have been nice — but they were all red, without a scrap of personality among them. It wasn't as if the mines only produced red stones. She was frowning her way through the lot when the old woman spoke up.
"Looking for a present for your sweetheart, little one?"
"A— a sweetheart? What manner of nonsense are you suddenly spouting?"
"You say that, but you're picking things over awfully carefully. Almost like you're choosing a gift for someone important."
The old woman chuckled. Choco's face tightened.
"Hmph. What business is it of yours to whom I give a gift?"
"Fair enough. In that case — how about this?"
Clink — the sound of necklace chains striking one another as they fell stole her gaze before she could think.
A red gem of brilliant hue caught the light in her golden eyes.