Chapter 8: Death Is Temporary, Bread Is Forever
Spring’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline as he looked over their inventories. "You didn’t get caught," he said, with the tone of a man revising his opinion of someone in real time. "And you didn’t take all of them either."
The golden glow of max affinity ticked quietly in the corner of Liam’s vision.
Spring exhaled through his nose, glanced at Elizabeth, decided she was Liam’s problem and not his, and turned back to the counter. "As promised. Keep the meat. I know your type, you’ll find a use for it that would make a normal man’s stomach turn." He reached past the toad carcasses toward the pile of rabbit feet and frog legs. "These I’ll be taking though."
Liam typed without hesitating.
[Do you have a foot fetish?]
The shop went silent.
Spring froze mid-reach, jaw locked, one hand still hovering over the rabbit feet. A long moment passed. Then he exploded into a fit of coughing that didn’t fully disguise the fact that his weathered cheeks had gone a very specific shade of crimson as he swept the items into a crate with frantic, refusing-to-make-eye-contact energy.
"That is not relevant," he said, in a voice that suggested it was at least a little relevant.
Elizabeth turned her head slowly toward the three-foot wolf standing beside her. "What is actually wrong with you."
Liam watched Spring’s retreating back with the serene expression of a man who had asked a completely reasonable question. Spring regained his composure with visible effort, cleared his throat, and dropped a heavy leather pouch on the counter.
[+90 Silver]
[Title Acquired: Friend of Spring — Effect: +10% Affinity with all NPCs]
"Good work," Spring said, with the dignity of a man who had not just been asked about his relationship with rabbit feet. "Better than expected."
Liam’s total updated quietly. 125 silver, a cooking kit, and a permanent NPC affinity buff. Not bad for a day that had included being paralysed face-down in forest dirt.
The crackle hit before anyone could ask what it was, a low BOOM rolling through the floorboards followed by gold and red light bleeding through the doorway and washing the shop in warm, flickering colour.
Elizabeth was already moving toward the door. She stopped, looked down at Liam, and without appearing to think about it at all, reached down and grabbed his small gauntleted hand.
"Come on," she said. "Event."
Liam looked at her hand. Then up at her and then at Spring, who raised one eyebrow with the quiet interest of a man watching his favourite tavern drama unfold.
[Ok], Liam typed, and let himself be pulled outside.
The village had been rewritten. The sky had dropped from afternoon to deep indigo in seconds, packed with stars that pulsed like they were breathing, and every player in the server seemed to have converged on the central plaza at once. Elizabeth pulled him through the crowd until she found a low stone ledge away from the crush, sat down, and tugged him up beside her.
The fireworks started.
Gold, red, and blue layered across the sky in patterns too deliberate to be random, reflecting off a thousand pieces of armour below. Elizabeth’s grip on his hand loosened into something comfortable rather than navigational and she looked up with an expression Liam hadn’t seen on her face before.
Genuine, uncomplicated wonder.
"Okay," she murmured. "That’s actually really nice."
[Event Reward Tier 1 — 50 Gold awarded to all participants.]
The plaza erupted. Fifty gold on Day 1 was the kind of number that broke economies and started arguments on forums. Liam accepted it with the composure of a man who had already mentally moved past currency as a concern.
Then a second notification pinged, quiet and private, visible only to him.
[Item Received: 3x Baked Bread, 1x Candle]
[Message: xoxo — Hestia]
Liam stared at it.
Xoxo, he thought. The goddess of the hearth is sending me baked goods and signing off with kisses and hugs. I have been in this game for six hours.
"What did you get?" Elizabeth leaned over.
He tilted his screen toward her. She frowned. "Bread and a candle. Is that cooking stuff?"
He nodded.
She seemed like she wanted to say something about that but decided against it and looked back at the sky instead.
[This is nice. When are you getting off?], Liam typed.
Elizabeth blinked, caught off guard. Something briefly crossed her face that wasn’t quite competitive and wasn’t quite sad. "When the event ends, I guess," she said, and left it at that.
[Event Reward Tier 2 — Life Skill Enhancement Items distributed.]
Liam’s inventory flared.
[Cooking Inventory Unlocked — Unlimited minor ingredients provided: salt, pepper, water, basic spices. Condition: Primary ingredient must be personally obtained.]
He read it once and read it again. Did the mental calculation of what unlimited seasoning meant when combined with a 10,000x buff multiplier and ingredients nobody else was collecting because they thought cooking was a joke profession.
[...Am I bugged?], he typed.
"Let me see," Elizabeth said, leaning over with the instinct of someone who processed information by reading it herself. She went quiet for a moment. Then: "Liam, that’s insane. You never have to buy seasoning again. That’s a complete economy bypass on Day 1."
[This game is really good], he typed.
"You’re definitely bugged," she said. "But apparently in your favour."
Her own panel pinged. She leaned forward to read it and for the first time since Liam had encountered her in this game, something purely joyful crossed her face, unburdened and completely unguarded.
[Horse Taming Kit Acquired — Includes: Sugar Cubes, Capture Ropes, Basic Handling Tools.]
Her cat tail flicked once, then kept going, batting back and forth with a rhythm that had nothing to do with being composed or untouchable or Rank 1 anything.
Liam watched her for a moment. That’s the girl from the podium, he thought. Not the one who looked like she was holding the ceiling up. The one underneath that.
[You have a good smile], he typed.
Elizabeth stopped swinging her legs. She looked down at him with an expression she hadn’t fully prepared, something open and slightly off-balance. "Oh," she said. "Uh. Thank you." She looked back at the sky. "You really remind me of someone, you know. I didn’t realise Liam was such a common name."
Liam looked at the fireworks and said nothing.
The music swelled, then faded into something lower and older, a vibration that moved through the air rather than across it. The golden text in the sky thickened and shifted from yellow to deep crystalline white.
[Event Reward Tier 3 — Permanent Appearance Sync Initiated.]
The world went white.
Oh, Liam thought, with the calm of a man who had already had a very long day. That doesn’t sound good.