One day we chanced upon what was undoubtedly a farm, complete with irrigation channels. I was perplexed.

“Who farms here?” I asked. As far as I knew the players only ate for amusement and they could easily get a range of delicacies in the restaurants available in the town. The eviluns were mostly hunter gatherers.

Sam frowned at the farm curiously, scratching his chin.

I caught a movement in one corner of the farm. Peasants.

Sam smiled suddenly.

“My suspicion was correct,” he said. “These farms belong to the Zombies.”

“The zombies?” I asked. “The undead?”

“Yes,” Sam said. “I have never come across zombies before. But I heard from other players that they are quite peaceful and give free coffee to visitors.”

“Peaceful zombies?” I asked. Those two words did not fit very well with each other. The word 'zombie' only brought horrifying images of a reawakened corpse, shuffling feet with arms outstretched, making growls and groans. 'Peace' was the last term you would associate with a zombie.

“They are a neutral race, neither eviluns nor player helpers. They have no enemies. Hence they are peaceful,” Sam replied. “Let’s go have some coffee.”

We approached the side of the field where three peasants were busy putting seeds into the soil. Two males and a female. There was something very wrong about their arms and hands and I felt queasy.

“Hey!” Sam called. The three peasants turned. My insides went cold seeing their partially decomposed faces, their rotten teeth and their glazed eyes. It was a wonder that a swarm of flies had not overwhelmed them.

The zombies waved back.

“Just came to visit you guys,” Sam said. “Where is your village?”

“Just keep going straight,” the zombie woman said. I hadn't expected her voice to be so soft and feminine, it took me by surprise. “And welcome!”

“Thanks,” Sam said.

“I am not really in the mood for coffee,” I whispered to Sam, but he didn’t respond. I wondered briefly how things would have gone if Zombies, instead of Skhites, had saved me.

In just a minute, the trees gave way to a large clearing previously hidden from our sight. A number of houses populated this clearing. Apart from the fact that it was a village of Zombies, it looked just like a normal village. There were barefoot children running about giggling. Men and women engaged with daily chores.

Sam pointed at a large well-decorated bamboo house that looked like it was meant for visitors. As we moved towards it, a gourd that some zombie boys had been playing came rolling in front of me. I kicked the ‘ball’ back to the boys and they laughed excitedly like I was Messi.

We reached the house. Tables were lined inside it like some restaurant. We went and sat at one of these. We were the only guests that day. A zombie attendant came.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked. “Because that’s all we got.” He was not being blunt, just straightforward.

“Sure,” Sam said. “How much do we have to pay?”

“It’s free,” the zombie smiled and went away.

“See? Like I told you, they are quite nice,” Sam said to me.

From the bamboo house it was possible to see numerous small farms surrounding the Zombie village. Zombie men and women were toiling hard on the farms. They were growing the same crop everywhere. It was a strange crop that produced a single large white fruit at the top.

“What exactly are they farming?” I asked. Sam shrugged.

“Dunno,” he replied. “Like I said, I have never been in a Zombie village. Dharti is big and I only know so much about it. I have only explored a certain chunk of the forest. This is the farthest I have come from the town.”

The Zombie brought us our coffee in two mugs. The coffee was foaming at the top and I liked its strong nutty aroma.

“What do you farm?” Sam queried the attendant.

“The Evil Crop,” the zombie replied.

“The Evil Crop?” I blurted.

“We get Evilese from these plants,” the zombie said.

“Why would you need Evilese for?” I asked, very confused. Only the Eviluns needed that. The Zombies were a neutral race.

The zombie smiled.

“You certainly do not know a lot about us, do you?” he said. “Not a wonder since we keep our distance from others most of the time… You see, we zombies were a race of eviluns a long time back. But then one of our ancestors discovered the Evil Crop. So now instead of risking our lives to kill players for Evilese, we just farm the Evil Crop to meet our requirements. We were not a neutral race from the beginning, instead we earned our neutrality. Now nobody has any motivation to kill us because there is no reward for killing neutral folks.”

I thought that was brilliant.

So many Skhites and Hornies had lost their lives for the sake of evilese, when they could have just grown evil crops.

“If it’s so simple to obtain Evilese from these plants, then why do the Eviluns even bother hunting players?” I asked.

The waiter chuckled at my words.

“Well, it requires patience to grow Evil Crops,” he said, “Patience is a great scarcity in all races of Eviluns. Plus, you need to develop the skill to grow the Evil Crops. It’s not easy. The crops require a good amount of care and attention. There are challenges you face farming the crops. To be honest, killing players is a far quicker way to get Evilese.”

The waiter left us, telling us to enjoy the coffee. I took a long sip of the coffee, swishing the warm liquid around my mouth, the taste of coffee beans lingering on my taste buds. I couldn’t help but dwell on the Evil crops. One of the prime reasons that I didn’t really want to be a king anymore was because of all the violence that the Skhites and the Hornies participated in just to procure evilese.

If I could somehow eliminate that then I would be able to actually enjoy my powerful position. Being a king would be a breeze then. My hemophobia would be happy too.

Sam’s mirth broke me out of my thoughts. He had already finished his coffee and was looking at me grinning from ear to ear.

“What?” I asked him.

“So you are thinking about becoming a king of farmers now?” he said, reading my mind.

“What’s wrong with that?”

Sam shook his head, chuckling.

“That Shaman predicted that you are destined to become the king of all the Eviluns, right?” Sam said.

“Yes, so?”

“I was just wondering,” Sam said, “if you actually achieved your destiny and if you turned all the Eviluns into agriculturalists, then all the players would log out from the game world and never log back in again.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because there would be no fun left in Dharti anymore,” Sam said. “These people log in because they want to get out of their mundane lives. They just want a little bit of fun. They want to do things that they can’t in the real world.”

“Dharti might be a game world, a source of entertainment for the players,” I said, “but it’s not a game world for me.”

Sam pursed his lips with some degree of seriousness.

He shrugged.

“You think you can convert your blood-loving followers into peaceful farmers?”

I did not reply. In fact we did not discuss evil crops again for the remaining duration of my vacation. The idea of farming would still play occasionally in the back of my mind, however as the days passed it began to seem like something that was quite irrational, considering the deep-rooted blood thirsty nature of those over whom I ruled.