I wasn't going to just sit here in my silk-lined box and pass them by. I'm not the Queen. I am Arthur—an old man who lived a long, difficult life before waking up in this young skin. I've survived the worst humanity has to offer, and I know exactly what hunger means.
"Master Art, we shouldn't—it's dangerous—" Elsa started, her hand reaching out for my arm in a gesture of protection.
I flinched back instinctively. The phobia was back in full force now that the adrenaline of the fight had faded, and my skin crawled at the thought of the contact. I gripped the door handle instead, my knuckles white. "I said stop. I'm a merchant, aren't I? And it looks like this market is in desperate need of a literal miracle. I don't leave potential customers behind."
I stepped out of the carriage. The sound of my clean, expensive boots clicking against the cracked, parched earth felt like an insult. The contrast was disgusting—offensive, even. Here I was, draped in a "God-Skin" jacket that could repel blades, smelling like "Ocean Mist" and sandalwood, while these people were breathing in the dust of their own extinction.
"Alright, System," I whispered, pulling the phone from my pocket. My thumb moved with a frantic energy. I bypassed the "Snack" section—no time for chips or lollipops now—and scrolled straight to Agricultural & Humanitarian Aid.
"Let's see if a thousand points can buy a rainstorm and a buffet," I muttered.
But as I scrolled, my heart sank. Five minutes passed. Then ten. My eyes scanned descriptions of Soil pH Testers, Advanced Irrigation Blueprints, and Weather Modification Satellites that cost 50,000 VP. There was nothing that could help them now. Nothing that could fill five hundred bellies in the next ten minutes.
"What the hell am I doing?" I hissed at the screen, my frustration boiling over. I didn't need a blueprint for a dam or a bag of fertilizer that would take months to work. I needed food for the masses. It had to be cheap. It had to be fast. It had to be something these people could actually eat without their starving stomachs rejecting it.
I looked at the small boy sitting ten feet away. He was staring at my hands where the phone was but saw nothing, his eyes wide with a terrifying, silent expectation. He thought I was a god. I felt like a failure.
"Think, Arthur," I told myself, my thumb hovering over the Bulk Provisions tab. "Think like a man who had to live on five dollars a week."
I looked around…to the sky then to the death that surrounded this village. I shivered.
The sun was a punishing, white-hot disc hammered into a sky that refused to bleed even a single drop of blue. It hung there, motionless, baking the hamlet of Oakhaven until the air itself felt brittle, like it might shatter if you screamed too loud. There was no wind—not even a pitying breeze to move the heavy, cloying stench of the "Famine Curse." It was a smell that stuck to the back of your throat: the scent of dry rot, festering sores, and the sour, metallic tang of bodies whose internal fires were simply going out.
I stood there, sweat prickling under my God-Skin jacket, staring at my phone screen until my vision blurred. Five minutes turned to ten. I felt like an idiot. I was scrolling through high-tech irrigation and atmospheric stabilizers while people were literally turning into dust at my feet. I was a man from a world of abundance, paralyzed by too many choices, while these people lived in a world of absolute zero.
I looked at the three people who had become my anchors. Elsa was holding her breath, her silver hair limp in the oppressive heat, watching me "tap the oxygen" as they thought I did. Barnaby and Herbert stood like twin pillars of iron, their eyes filled with a terrifyingly pure admiration. They didn't see a panicked old man in a young body; they saw a savior contemplating a miracle.
"Elsa," I croaked, my throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper. "What am I supposed to do? What can I give them that fixes this? The sickness, the curse, the hunger… it's too much."
Elsa stepped closer, her expression shifting from worry to a strange, calm certainty. "Master Art," she whispered. "There is no need to burden your mind with complex weaves of power. I am a hundred percent sure—I know it in my very blood—that your Divine Candy Pop Relics can save them. I am the proof. My curse, the darkness that ate at my lineage for centuries… it vanished with a single taste."
Behind her, the two massive men nodded in solemn unison. They weren't just guessing; they were witnesses.
The lollipops. The high-fructose, artificially flavored, five-point lollipops.
Could it really be that simple? In a world where mana and curses were the currency of life, was the "fuel" of my world—pure, concentrated glucose and chemical additives—the ultimate antidote?
"Elsa," I said, my voice gaining a bit of its old sass as the plan formed. "Get the bag. The Divine Pops. We're going to run a clinical trial."
I pointed to a boy sitting near the carriage wheel. He looked like a sketch of a human drawn in charcoal—hollow-eyed, ribs like a birdcage, his skin covered in weeping sores that wouldn't heal because his body had nothing left to fight with. He looked like he was about to check out of this life in the next hour.
Elsa, accompanied by the towering shadow of Barnaby for protection, approached the child. The boy stared at her silver hair as if she were a literal angel descending into his personal hell. She held out a bright, crinkly-wrapped strawberry pop.
The boy looked at me. I nodded, my heart thumping against my ribs. "Try it," I said, my voice softening. "I'm not sure what it'll do, kid, but it's free. And it's a hell of a lot better than dust."
The boy's trembling fingers fumbled with the wrapper. He had never seen plastic; he didn't know how to unlock the treasure. Elsa gently helped him, peeling back the film to reveal the translucent, ruby-red sphere.
One lick. That's all it took. I swore I saw a literal flicker in his eyes—a spark of blue-white light that hadn't been there before. Then he took a deeper lick, then another, his tongue working with a frantic, desperate energy.
A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers. It was like watching a time-lapse video of a flower blooming. The grey, ashen tint of his skin flushed pink. The weeping wounds on his legs began to knit together, the skin smoothing over as if a phantom needle were stitching him back together. His sunken eyes filled out, turning from a cloudy grey back to a vibrant, living white.
He was being revived. The "sugar rash" was literally out-muscling the curse.
But then, his head lolled back. His small frame began to sway—the "Sugar Crash" I had seen with the others was coming for him. The pure energy was too much for his starved system to process.
"Elsa! Don't let him go under!" I yelled.
She reacted instantly, her silver hair flaring as she chanted a stabilization spell, her hands glowing as she smoothed out the violent surge of energy in the boy's veins. The boy jerked, blinked, and then sat up straight. He looked... healthy. Not just "not dying," but actually alive.
The silence that followed was broken by a sob. The boy's sister, a girl who looked like she was made of twigs, crawled forward. The boy looked at me, a silent plea in his eyes, holding the stick of his lollipop like a sacred relic. "Permission... to give to my sister?"
"No," I said, and for a second, the crowd grumbled in fear. I reached into the bag Elsa held. "Let her have her own. Give her the lemon one."