The image was seared into the collective memory of Oakhaven: Yorick, a man known for his brawn and drunken brawling, writhing on the ground, his hand a shattered ruin, defeated not by a fist or a blade, but by a piece of fruit. The tomato in Ren's hand, glowing with placid indifference, had become an object of legend before it was even eaten.
Ren, looking genuinely apologetic, tried to offer the very same tomato to the whimpering Yorick. "Here, maybe this will help with the pain?"
Yorick scrambled away from the proffered fruit as if it were a venomous snake, his eyes wide with terror and agony. "Keep it away from me! Keep that devil-fruit away!" he shrieked, before his friends helped him stumble away towards the village healer.
A profound silence hung over the square. No one knew what to say. Ren just looked down at the tomato with a puzzled expression. "Well, that was rude."
Lyra stepped up beside him, her earlier tension gone, replaced by a look that was one part amusement and two parts exasperation. "I do not think he will be bothering you again," she said dryly. "Nor will anyone else." She scanned the faces of the villagers. The fear was still there, but it was now heavily mixed with a new, potent ingredient: absolute reverence. They were no longer just afraid of him; they were beginning to worship him.
Ren, wanting to escape the awkward atmosphere, decided to forego finding Old Man Hemlock. "Let's just head back," he sighed, placing the infamous tomato carefully back in his basket. "This town is too stressful."
As they walked away, the villagers parted for them like the sea before a prophet. The path back to the farm was quiet, but the silence felt different now. It was the sound of a reputation being forged in real-time, solidifying from rumor into undeniable fact.
Meanwhile, in a dimly lit, ale-soaked tavern in a town a day's ride from Oakhaven, a different kind of notice was drawing attention. A man with a scarred face and a missing ear—the same man who had fled Giles's general store—was speaking in hushed, excited tones to a trio of unsavory-looking mercenaries.
"I'm telling you, the fruit glows," the man, whose name was Silas, hissed, leaning over the grimy table. "And the farmer is just a boy, soft in the head. He has a cat-girl with him, but she's just one woman. The treasure… a basket of that fruit would set us up for life!"
"Glowin' fruit?" one of the mercenaries, a hulking brute with a rusty axe, scoffed. "You've been drinkin' the cheap stuff again, Silas."
"I saw it with my own eyes!" Silas insisted. "And there's more. The Silent Fang Guild just posted a bounty. A big one." He unfurled a slightly crumpled piece of parchment he'd 'acquired' from the local guild branch.
It was a bounty notice. It featured a stunningly accurate charcoal sketch of Lyra.
WANTED: LYRA, 'THE SHADOWCAT'
REASON: DESERTION & BREACH OF CONTRACT
REWARD: 500 GOLD SOVEREIGNS (ALIVE), 250 (PROOF OF DEATH)
KNOWN ASSOCIATES: AN UNIDENTIFIED FARMER OF UNUSUAL ABILITY
LAST SEEN: OAKHAVEN REGION
NOTE: TARGET IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. EXERCISE ABSOLUTE CAUTION.
The mercenary captain, a wiry man with cold, dead eyes, snatched the parchment. He whistled low. "Five hundred gold… That's enough to buy a small keep. For one runaway cat-girl?"
"See?" Silas said, his eyes gleaming with greed. "We go for the girl, and we get the glowing fruit as a bonus. The farmer boy is a nobody. We snatch the girl, grab the fruit, and we're rich!"
The captain stroked his unshaven chin, his cold eyes calculating. The risk seemed high, but the reward was astronomical. "Oakhaven, you said? A sleepy little village on the edge of nowhere?"
"Exactly!" Silas confirmed. "Easy pickings."
The captain grinned, a chilling sight that revealed several missing teeth. "Alright, Silas. You lead the way. You get a ten percent share. We'll pay this 'unusual farmer' a visit tomorrow night."
Riding along the King's Road, a lone figure on a magnificent white charger was making excellent time. The rider was clad in gleaming, unadorned steel plate armor, polished to a mirror shine. No house sigil, no personal crest marked the armor, only the subtle insignia of the Eldorian Crown etched upon the left gauntlet. This was a Knight-Errant, a direct agent of the kingdom's will, bound by oath to the Archmage and the King himself.
This particular knight was Ser Kaelen, a man known for his unwavering dedication, his sharp mind, and his terrifying proficiency with the longsword sheathed at his side. He was not a man given to flights of fancy, which was why his current mission troubled him.
"A rogue Shadowcat," he murmured to himself, his voice muffled slightly by his helmet. "Anomalous life energy. Reports of… deliciousness." It was the strangest mission brief he had ever received.
He had just passed through the last major town and had spoken to the local magistrate. The rumors were already spreading, carried by traveling merchants and gossips. They were fantastical, of course. Tales of a farmer who could throw tree stumps like pebbles and kill monsters with apples. Ser Kaelen dismissed most of it as rural exaggeration, the kind that grew with every telling.
But he could not dismiss the official reports from the Mage's Spire, nor the bounty from a guild as professional as the Silent Fang. Something was happening in Oakhaven, and it was his duty to uncover the truth of it. He spurred his horse onward, the setting sun glinting off his polished helm. He would arrive in Oakhaven by morning.
Back on the farm, Ren was happily planting his new 'Blue Leaf' carrot seeds. Lyra, having proven surprisingly adept with a hammer and saw under Ren's simple instructions, had managed to patch the roof and secure the collapsing wall of the shack. It was still a shack, but it was now a sturdy, waterproof one.
"There," Ren said, patting the last mound of soil. "They should sprout by morning if the tomatoes were any indication."
He stood and stretched, looking at his small, expanding farm with a deep sense of satisfaction. The sun was setting, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. The 'Sun's Fury' plants gave off a gentle, warm glow in the twilight. Lyra was sitting on the stoop, sharpening one of her daggers with a whetstone, her movements economical and precise. A strange domesticity had settled over the place.
"It feels peaceful," Ren said aloud.
Lyra looked up, her emerald eyes catching the last rays of light. "For now," she said softly. She could feel it in the air, a subtle shift, like the pressure dropping before a storm. Her senses, enhanced by the tomato, were screaming at her. They were being watched. Not by the villagers, but by new eyes. Greedy eyes. Professional eyes. And somewhere, far away but drawing inexorably closer, a presence of disciplined, formidable power.
The quiet, simple life Ren so desperately wanted was already over. He just didn't know it yet.
She finished sharpening her blade, the soft shing-shing of steel on stone the only sound in the growing dusk. "Ren," she said, her voice low. "Tonight, I will not be sleeping."
Ren looked at her, saw the grim seriousness in her expression, and for the first time, a flicker of genuine unease touched him. "Is something wrong?"
"Trouble is coming," Lyra stated simply, her gaze turning towards the dark woods. "But do not worry." She gave him a confident, almost feral smile. "I am a very good pest deterrent."