Midday Sunson was powerless to stop his grip from loosening around the handle of his scythe. Each additional swing of the tool worsened the tingling numbness in his fingers, and he could tell that his trembling body was just inches away from its breaking point. Even the simple feat of staying on his feet was proving difficult as he stood knees buckling in the blazing hot wheat field with heavy streams of unwiped sweat pouring into bloodshot eyes.

Heatstroke.

It was his second run-in with the condition since he had been brought to the plantation, and he half-heartedly hoped that it would actually manage to kill him this time: seeing as he had already lost everything besides his life, that final step did not seem so daunting.

The scythe fell from his hands, landing with a soft thud in the topsoil beneath. He looked to his shaking hands and let out a sigh.

It had been two months since his arrival. What had once been fairly healthy young man was now a shriveled husk of his former self, with little more than bruised, sunburnt skin covering a now almost skeletal frame.

His legs finally gave out.

Midday dropped unceremoniously to the ground as his last thread of strength snapped. Next thing he knew, he was face down in a disgusting pillow of dirt from which he made no effort to free himself. There was no point in trying to survive, he thought. All that awaited him upon recovery was more anguish.

He had not been there long, but Midday already understood that nobody escaped Elvanera Plantation. The almost weekly executions of slaves who had tried to leave had made that obvious enough. Death was a mercy that swiftly came to those too weak to endure the intentionally cruel conditions of the plantation—a description fellow prisoners had been saying he matched since his arrival. And so he laid flat on the ground as the sun melted him away.

Midday laid there unmoving for a few minutes more before an unexpected urge washed over him: If I’m going to die either way, I might as well be facing the sky when the time comes. See the blue one last time, I guess. Midday wasn’t sure why the thought had popped into his mind, but he nonetheless summoned the last of his strength and started working to roll himself onto his back.

He was about halfway through the motion, propped up sideways with the side of his head flush to the ground, when the glint of something shiny sticking out of the soil a few feet away caught his attention. The object was mostly buried, and it was only visible for the split second that the sunlight hit it at the perfect angle, but the fact he had seen something was certain.

Curiosity momentarily surpassed his exhaustion. Midday reached over to the spot where he had seen the shiny thing and tried to pull it out. The object in question was very small and so, even though he knew roughly where it was, some amount of effort was expended before his fingers finally ran over the smooth surface of a metallic object covered almost entirely in dirt.

Midday pulled the object out of the soil and took it into his palm. It was a ring: a small copper band covered in tiny engravings of watering cans and soil pots. He stared at the jewelry for a few moments, unsure of what to make of it, before casually slipping it onto his finger simply because he could.

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

His eyes went wide. This was no ordinary ring. No, he knew what this was. The fact that the voice had spoken made that obvious enough: this ring was a special-grade item. He had only seen one other special-grade item in his entire life, that being the ancestral treasure of his native village: a horn that could summon rain once per season—but he had only seen that object. Never in his life had he imagined that he would be able to actually touch a special-grade item, much less have one for himself.

And yet there the ring was on his pinky finger. He had no idea what to make of it, other than that it was needlessly cruel of the gods to give him such an exquisite blessing just before what would probably be his demise. He was no more protected from the brutal sun with the ring than without it and so lay Midday flat on his back, staring at the cloudless blue sky.

A fire ignited in his previously sunken eyes as his gaze met with the painful stare of the sun. He had long since given up hope on life after realizing that he would never escape the plantation, but the discovery of the ring had rekindled his ambition—he now had reason to believe he might be able to improve his prospects. He wanted to reach for the sun.

But to accomplish that required him to survive the present situation. Not an easy task considering how damaged his body already was. He didn’t even have the strength to call for help—not that anyone would have heard him if he did. All he could do was prolong the inevitable and pray that he might survive long enough for someone to find him.

And so did the best thing he could think to: crawl into the relatively cool shade of the tall wheat he had been trying to cut not long ago. Midday very nearly fell unconscious before finally inching his way into the shade, but his will to live was stronger than before and so he was able to force himself to stay awake until the task was complete. Immediately he felt slightly better than before, but his body was already too forgone to recover just with shade alone. This was merely a last-ditch effort at buying time, but that was good enough. He left his feet poking out of the wheat so that it would be easier to find his body.

With that, he passed out.

♦

Midday woke up in a familiar room: the tiny log cabin he and three others begrudgingly called home. It was hardly big enough for one person—much less four—and the decades old slaves’ quarters were in constant need of repairs no one ever got around to doing. Moonlight filtering in through an unfixed and ever-enlarging hole in the wall that nowadays passed for a window told him he had been unconscious for quite some time. It had been early afternoon when he'd passed out.

Someone had laid him flat on his bed: a long wooden board just inches off the dirt floor. It wasn’t much, but the thin layer of wood nonetheless helped to separate him from the bugs he shared the cabin with. A surprisingly clean linen blanket covered his body and, from that, he guessed that one of his roommates had spent a great deal of effort caring for him. Must've been Gork.

The first thing he did after the initial observations was check to make sure the ring was still on his finger. Miraculously, it was. Guess no one noticed. Using the smallest motions possible, he slipped the ring off and placed it into the pocket of his trousers. Not telling anyone about this.

“Jenjo says you’ve got one hell of a beating coming your way,” said a familiar young man, who was sitting cross-legged in front of the mudbrick fireplace adjacent to the door. He had his back turned to Midday, instead preferring to watch the flames dance. “First thing tomorrow, he says. This is the third time you’ve missed your quota this week… And you know what that means.”

“Yeah.” Midday stared idly up at the ceiling. “The 3 strikes rule. Looks like I’ll be spinning the wheel tomorrow.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and hit the jackpot.” The roommate sighed. “But, then again, Jenjo would probably make you spin it again if you did. He prides himself on his cruelty, you know.”

“Everyone knows.” Midday kept his eyes on the ceiling, watching as a spider devoured a moth ensnared in its web. A few other moths were flying nearby, indifferent to the ordeal. “You must have been the one who found me. Where are the others? They should be here by now, given how late it is.”

“Romulo is out hunting for XP, as per usual, and Glauster is outside. He assumed you were going to die tonight, and he didn't want to see that.

“Can't say I blame him” Midday chuckled, “Well, in any case, thanks for saving me, Gork.”

“Uh-huh.”

Gork Treeson was the oldest of the four cabinmates at 19 and yet he was by far the most naïve. He was the child of a good-natured pair of doctors who treated anyone, relying solely on donations from other good-natured villagers to get by—an upbringing which had imparted an unshakable faith in humanity upon him. In contrast to the other slaves with medical skills, who always made sure to have their patients at the very least swear indebtedness to them, Gork never asked for anything in return. It went without saying that was very easily taken advantage of.

Midday sighed. “How much longer do you think I have before I drop dead for real?”

“Another month, if I had to guess.” The matter-or-a-fact answer surprised Midday. He had asked this same thing in the past, but Gork has always dodged the question. “You came to the plantation at level 5. You were decently healthy, sure, but, at level 5? Physical fitness can only get you so far.” He shook his head. “If only there were a dungeon around here… You could have gotten some XP that way.”

“As if they would let me run it.” Midday frowned. One month to live, huh? That was probably a best-case scenario. Even so, he resolved to surpass that by leaps and bounds. With the help of a special-grade item, he believed anything was possible. All he needed was a plan. “So… seeing as you were training to be a doctor and all before you got captured, you probably know all the best plants, right?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Wishful thinking never did anyone harm.”

“Well, uh, the 'best' plants grown on the island would probably be the 6 Agricultural Treasures of Elvanera Plantation…”

“And which of them do you think would be best for someone like myself?”

“Seriously, where are these questions coming from?”

“It is not fun to think about that which you don’t have?”

“Hmm… Not sure I follow but, to answer your question, if I could give you any plant right now, it would probably be Devil Peppercorn.”

“Devil Peppercorn?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I see. Thanks.”

Midday and everyone else at the plantation more-or-less knew the basic details of each of the 6 Agricultural Treasures. Devil Peppercorn, for instance, was a spice famous for its ability to boost the “healthiness” of any meal. With a little bit of Devil Peppercorn sprinkled in, something simple as lentil soup could become equivalent to a carefully calculated feast planned by a team of expert nutritionists. Midday was confident that if he obtained some and then proceeded to add it into all of his meals, his emaciation would soon be a thing of the past.

That said, amazing as the crop was, there was a terrible tradeoff: it tasted awful. So gut wrenchingly awful that despite the fact that it had been proven to vastly improve the general health and physique of anyone who consumed the spice regularly, almost nobody actually did. There was also the fact that Devil Peppercorn, like any other agricultural treasure, was known to grow extremely slowly even in the magical soils of Elvanera Island—but that was where the ring entered the equation: he could circumvent the wait using its power, provided that the ring worked as he hoped it did.

The remaining downside didn’t mean much to Midday either—for it was either get stronger and live or stay weak and die. Things like bad tasting food were of no concern to him at that time and, with that thought in mind, he resolved to make his first move towards obtaining some of the spice as soon as possible. Survival was a race against the clock, after all, and there was no time to loiter about pondering every possible alternative.

“Whatever you say, Midday.” Gork shrugged, not sure what to make of his cabinmate’s question. “Now go back to bed. You have a beating in store for you tomorrow morning, and the best way to prepare is to get some rest.”

And so Midday called it a night.