Strawberry Devil in a Fantasy World

I couldn't get a wink of sleep as expected. Instead, I had a long chat with Smoothie.

"Mother, as much as I want some siblings, if you're worried about the seeds, why not just prevent them from developing in the first place?"

"I can do that? How? And, no children. None. I never wanted any."

That last bit really sounded harsh but I just felt children were a burden no matter how cute they were. It wasn't like I particularly hated them or anything!

"That's fine as well! I get to keep you all to myself. Teehee!"

"Just tell me how to get rid of those seeds already."

For me to rely on Smoothie just didn't feel right at all. My pride was being squashed all over the place. I really wished I was the more knowledgeable one. That strange ability of hers was seriously a cheat on the highest level. She might as well be a directory or an encyclopedia.

"Use [supply chain], and by combining [synthesis] and the traits |gourmet| or |reaper|, you can modify the plant bodies' features."

I would have never figured it out myself. She really is too smart. Maybe I should keep her around, an encyclopedia I can refer to at any time.

I followed her advice. Lo and behold, a new path opened within my [supply chain] menu allowing me to modify quite a few features. I could even modify the colors of strawberries.

Seedless strawberries, I think I deserve a major science award for this new invention.

Once I removed the seed option, I browsed through some other features.

Actually, there was something new I discovered. I could add different levels of [charm] into the strawberries themselves, making them even more addictive. However, that had a price tag next to it in the cost of mana which I still couldn't see on my status yet. Apparently this ability was automatically applied at the lowest level on all the strawberries grown.

"Is there a way to remove this addictive property from strawberries?" I asked since I wanted Haelley to try one. Just simply removing [charm] from the strawberries didn't seem to do the trick.

"If you remove it now, who's going to eat them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Mother, you're too dense!"

"You brat, how could you! I'm not dense. You're just too smart for your own good."

"Look, since your evolution, your strawberries are now lethal after high quantity consumption. Without the additional addictive properties, those poor fellows will keep eating more to get their doses, right? Eventually, they'll all die out from overdose."

"Oh, that's what you meant. But wait, can't I just remove that property?"

"You can't remove a trait. The trait |reaper| is the cause of it."

I was stunned. The implication of this was huge, meaning it would stop my Strawberry Empire from growing because my fellow citizens would just all die. That wasn't what I wanted.

"How do I stop them from dying?"

"Add the antidote in there," she stated with a smirk.

"You should have said that in the first place!"

I thought about it, I really did. However, a major issue came up. I didn't know how to create an antidote. In this case, since the cause was from a trait, I didn't even know where to start.

"About the antidote, how? You just said it was a trait issue."

"Mm... I don't know?"

And here I just thought that you were super reliable.

"Alright, I'll keep it at the same level. Do you know how many it will take for someone to die?"

"I would say five a day depending on their resistance and stats."

Five a day? Where have I heard of that before? Hmm. Hmm! That's right, that rabbit demon. I wonder! But, even if he did eat them, he had super high stats and extreme resistances.

"What stats are you basing it off of?"

"Spiritual. Your strawberries steals 'spiritual' stats."

I've become a soul stealer? Isn't that something only demons did? No. Way. That means I'm a demon now? I don't want to be a demon though.

"That can only kill certain fey beings, right? And how come I'm not affecting anything through touch? Can you explain what exactly 'traits' are?"

In this situation, it was as if Smoothie was the parent and I was the kid. All I was doing was bombarding her with questions after questions. It couldn't be helped since there were too many things I wanted to know. In the first place, I didn't understand how "traits" worked other than they were akin to passive abilities or built in features.

"If I told you everything, you would ditch me here, no?"

"I won't. I promise! You can come with us."

She held out her pinky, "Pinky swear?"

I was pretty sure those parrots didn't teach her that and I had no memories of such in this world.

"Who taught you that?"

"Secret! Now, promise me!"

"Fine, I promise," as we hooked pinkies.

"Pinky, pinky, whoever tells a lie will have to bite off their own big toes," she sung.

"Wait, there's a punishment? Isn't that too cruel?"

"It's too late to back off now!"

I sighed and resigned myself to this fate. Only after we pink swore did began explain what all these traits were all about, specifically my traits.

The "traits" literally just meant traits as the features that defined an individual just like having my senses and my appearance. These traits would sometime lead to abilities and vice versa. Evolution would also sometime grant abilities or traits or both. In special circumstances, leveling up could grant them, according to Smoothie. 

"I want your [soothsayer] ability."

"Maybe you'll get it if you super wish for it!"

Apparently, there were many unknown factors involved in obtaining both abilities and traits. Desires, feelings, species and actions were some of the likely contributing factors. For example, |gourmet| was likely due to my excessive consumption of life.

"How come I have |devious| and you don't?"

"Because you're bad, very bad."

"Was it that bad?"

"Yes! That trait might also lead to you evolving into a demon."

"That's no good. I'm a nice plant! I want to be an angel at least."

"You mean a death angel?"

"Ughh, never mind. Let's go over all of my traits. I need to make sure I understood them all properly."

The first one we went over was |bewitching|. It was a trait that both of us shared. It was associated with the ability [charm] as if it just the obvious thing. This was the reason why I couldn't completely turn off the addictive properties in strawberries. The trait itself skewed our appearances to look very glamorous to the general populace in the vicinity. It did not reflect how we understood beauty but it was all in the eyes of beholder. This meant if the general populace loved "ugly" things, then my appearance would be somewhat ugly. However, it wasn't the end because the effects were supposed to be mostly subtle and it could be reset through transformation type traits and abilities. In our case, we were plant fey beings, so we could just merge with our plant bodies and re-emerge.

The second one, |devious|, was self explanatory. It made me a bit evil, only a tiny bit evil! Just to be clear, I was not evil. Also, it might grant me "evil" abilities and traits in the future. And as mentioned before, there was the possibility for me to evolve into a demon in the future. Hopefully, that day would never come.

Becoming a demon lord? No. Way. But, having that demon rabbit eat dust doesn't sound so bad.

The next one was |rapid growth|. Again, it was mostly self explanatory. Smoothie said it affected all my stats, both the hidden and visible ones. Still, I kind of wish it made me smarter. It wasn't fair that only Smoothie gained her smarts so fast. She probably had some other hidden cheats.

|Parallel bodies| was a trait I had explored very little since it had evolved from |cloning|. The cloning function still worked just fine. The difference was that the evolved trait allowed me to create parallel bodies.

"Wait, what do parallel bodies really mean? I don't get it."

"I think you can create more fey bodies? I don't fully understand it either."

"Your ability isn't telling you the details?" I asked.

"It is but if it is true, then you can have two or more fey bodies roaming around."

"Say what!? How do I control two?"

"That part, I don't understand. I think your consciousness get split?"

So, it's something like splitting my soul I guess.

It just sounded like such a high spec trait. Unfortunately, I wasn't high spec enough to make use of it at the moment.

"Never mind, I won't try it. Anything else to that trait?"

"You always have a copy of your fey body living within your plant bodies."

"Oh that's good, I'll never have to worry about dying!"

"Unless they kill all your clones."

"True, but that's a tough feat. I bet only a demon would be able to do something like that."