Gork came back to the cabin a few minutes later with a large stone in his arms. “We’ll put the contract on this rock.” He let it fall from his arms, and it landed with a loud thud. He then proceeded to pick up the piece of soft limestone they used to write tallies onto the beetle wrestling leaderboard and brought it over the new stone. “Alright. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Midday nodded, still a tad dumbstruck by the strangeness of the situation.

“Okay. Here are the terms I came up with: in signing this contract Midday Sunson consents to the use of force by Gork Treeson, Glauster Fogson, and Romulo of Umola Woods for the purpose of ensuring that he consumes Devil Peppercorn with each meal for the duration of time until this contract expires—and the expiration will happen either after one month has passed since the creation of this contract or whenever the supply of Devil Peppercorn supple runs out, whichever comes first.” Gork paused, allowing Midday to process his words. “Are those terms acceptable?"

Midday gulped. “Uh, yeah, I guess…”

“Alright! That settles that then.” Gork got to work with scribbling down the terms of the agreement on the stone while Midday watched, feeling more than a tad anxious about the whole thing. After about thirty seconds of waiting, the doctor spoke: “Done! Now all you’ve got to do is sign it.”

“…And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have a proper signature, would you?” Gork took a second to think. “Just put a symbol that represents you on it.”

“A symbol that represents me, huh? That’s easy. Hand me the chalk, I guess.” Gork gave him the piece of limestone and, with that, Midday got to work drawing the best depiction of a sunflower he possible could with his incredibly limited artistic ability: it was just a big circle surrounded by a bunch of petals. He spent about a minute making sure he had it how he liked it.

“A flower?”

“A sunflower.” Gork set the chalk down and sighed. “So it’s done then?”

“Yeah, the contract is officially in effect. So brace yourself, because you’ll be having a Devil Peppercorn infused breakfast this morning.”

Midday could only groan. This was for the best, he knew, but knowing the truth and fully embracing it were not the same thing. Despite only having signed the contract a few seconds ago, he was already starting to wonder how he might go about getting out of it. He shook his head, clearing his mind of these thoughts, and resolved to try his best to take things one meal at a time.

Glauster came back with a pot full of water not long after the contract was completed and started working on breakfast while Gork told him about the agreement Midday had locked himself into. Glauster laughed at this, finding it amusing, and agreed without hesitation to help not because he was especially invested in Midday’s wellbeing, but moreso because of how funny he thought it had been to see Midday flopping around like a fish as he did the night before.

“Okay,” said Midday, hoping that the chef—with all his culinary knowledge—might have some ideas for nullifying or at least weakening peppercorn, “So with all that said, is there anything you think we can do to make it more palatable?”

“Not really,” answered Glauster without hesitation, “My specialty is in making good-tasting ingredients taste great, not making bad-tasting ones taste acceptable. Plus, I’ve never cooked with an agricultural treasure before. I hear they have all sorts of special properties to contend with.” He stirred the oatmeal he had been working on. “But maybe I can think of something if you give me a reason to. It would be a lot of work on my end though…”

Midday narrowed his eyes. Of course it had come to this. Glauster was very-well adapted to the life of a slave, and he knew how foolish it was to offer one’s expertise for no charge—even to a friend. “And what’s your price?” asked Midday.

“Well, I want to put a big emphasis on the maybe here.” Glauster took the pot off the fireplace and set it down on the floor to cool. “Frankly, I do consider myself a great chef by all means but, even still, I’m no ability user—and I reckon what you’re asking me to do is a job for one. This is an agricultural treasure, after all.” He divvied out the soup, setting each bowl out on the table before sitting down. “That said, I can definitely try to figure something out—so long as you compensate me for my time, that is.” Glauster grinned from ear-to-ear. “But let’s worry about that later. It’s time for breakfast! Now get to work on grinding that peppercorn… Or else!”

Midday swallowed. He had been dreading this with all his heart. Even so, he had already given up his ability to back down. Feeling that it would be quite humiliating to have Glauster and Gork pin him down and force the food into his mouth, he picked up the Devil Peppercorn canister and took out a bead. He stared at the bead for a while, hesitant to move onto the next step.

“What if I just swallow the bead whole after eating the actual meal? That would still work, right?”

Gork frowned. “Romulo said it had to be ground up to work, didn’t he?”

“He did…” Midday stared down at his feet. “Well, what if I grind it up but save the powder for after the meal and eat it like a dessert?”

“I feel like you already know the answers to these questions.” Gork’s frown deepened. “The way Devil Peppercorn works is by boosting the nutritional value of food. It technically has no nutritional value on its own, so you need to have it in tandem with food to get results. But you already knew that. It’s common knowledge. Stop stalling and get on with it.”

Midday tensed up as he dropped the Devil Peppercorn bead into the mortar and started crushing it with the pestle. “Okay, but what if I make the portion size of the food in question really small so that eating it all in one go is easier?”

“You could do that, I suppose.” Gork shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t see any issue with that—at least not as I understand the crop. Though you’d still be eating one bead’s worth of Devil Peppercorn either way, so the taste would be just as bad,” he paused, “and it might not fully absorb if the portion size is too small.”

“And you also managed to eat an entire bowl’s worth of peppercorn-infused soup last night without issue,” added Glauster. “Just eat all of what I gave you in one go, I say. The end result will be the same.”

“R-right, well…” Midday noticed how heavy his arms felt as they held up small bowl containing the peppercorn. “So…” He hesitated, not quite able to bring himself to take the next step.

“10. 9. 8.” Glauster started a countdown. “7. 6. 5.” He stood up and approached Midday. Gork, understanding what he was trying to accomplish, did the same.

Now faced with the pressure of both two people standing beside him and a foreboding countdown, Midday forced himself to move. He dumped the crushed-up Devil Peppercorn powder into his oatmeal and sighed.

“4. 3. 2.” Glauster continued all the same, still unsatisfied.

Midday panicked. He had been hoping that the countdown would end with him adding the peppercorn into his breakfast. Now though, he understood that the it would only end when he actually took the plunge and ate his oatmeal. He stared at the bowl in anguish, aware of the steadily approaching hands of Gork and Glauster coming toward his shoulders. He had to act now. Midday closed his eyes and brought the bowl to his lips, tipping it sideways in an effort to finish it all as quickly as possible.

The bowl fell from his hands a few seconds later, the torture having already begun.

♦

Midday groaned as he came to his senses. The experience had been just as intense as before, with the only difference coming in the form of length. It felt like a whole day had passed but, as he opened his eyes and looked through one of the cracks in the walls, it became apparent that it was still very early in the morning. Probably 1 hour on the dot. That seems to be how it works…

He laid there in bed for a few minutes, still recovering from the hell he had just been pulled out of ever so suddenly. Seeing as nobody had said anything upon his awakening, he realized that he had the cabin to himself: Romulo was still at work while Gork and Glauster had probably left not long after he had finished his breakfast.

Midday still found it crazy how the taste and texture of Devil Peppercorn were so intense that they could completely overtake all other senses. Gork, he realized, had even managed to replace his bandages on his hand again without Midday ever noticing.

He had been fully conscious throughout his journey through hell, he knew that for certain, and yet the agony had blinded him to anything happening outside of his mouth. It seemed impossible to think that he ever might get used to eating something like that, and the knowledge that he would go through the same torment again at dinnertime filled him with never-ending supply of dread even though the meal in question was still more than 10 hours away.

The first thing he did upon getting out of bed was walk over to the Devil Peppercorn canister and take out a single bead. By the end of the day, he hoped, the small bead he now held in his hands would become a mighty vine bearing fresh cloves of Devil Peppercorn. After stuffing it into his pocket, Midday grabbed his scythe and left for the fields.