Slumrat Rising

This is the life. Truth sighed contentedly. He stretched and twisted, deigning to eat a chunk of melon as the spellhounds ran furiously up and down the lines of traffic. How did I live without a spatial ring? What kind of miserable existence was that?

”Have your documents ready for inspection! Commercial vehicles into the far left lane! Carriages with two or more people in the second from the left lane! Everyone else, find another lane and wait for inspection!”

I’m not sure I’m really getting this novel. The title is kind of throwing me for one thing “The Black Bellied Farmer’s Wife Is Abusing the Merchants- ‘I can’t fight her noodles!’” What does that even mean? Is ‘noodles’ a sex thing here? Or black bellies? Because, and I’ll admit to my ignorance here, sounds like a turn off.

“Documents.”

”Here. Say officer-“

”No questions!”

”Sorry! Yes, Sorry!”

Or is the farmer the one with the black belly? My grammar is still pretty iffy, and reading the language is pretty tough even with the System helping out.

”Taking a load of pillows to Beizhan, eh?”

”But that is not the last stop on your trip, is it!”

”No, no officer. As you can see, I am also carrying four hundred kilos of barley to Beizhu. The address is properly listed there, as is the receiving party.”

Truth glanced over at the pallets. They were towering stacks of shrink wrapped he-didn’t-know-what. They both seemed densely packed. He could hazard a guess about which were the pillows, but he wouldn’t put money on it.

”Alright, open the trailer. We will run the dogs through.”

Hmm. Wonder how much the bribe will be?

”Yes officer, at once!”

Wait, really? Is it because there are so many people watching? You bastard! I was all comfy.

Grumbling, Truth swept up everything into his spatial ring and hopped on top of one of the pallets. Nearly braining himself in the process, the roof was low, and he hadn’t finished adjusting to his new level. He wound up sprawled on his belly, balancing on top of what he was confident was sacks of barley.

They smelled kind of nice, in a grainy sort of way. Very slightly toasted.

Then he swore, spasmed clear off the barley and grabbed his iron horse. He shoved the pallets around quickly, made a gap for the two wheeler, and lay on top of it. Fingers crossed it would work.

The trailer doors opened, and spellhounds with glowing red eyes bounded in. They sniffed eagerly, nosing through everything. Doubling back a few times to examine where Truth had his little bowl of melon. Eventually they piled out of the wagon.

That it?

The biggest dog Truth had ever seen jumped into the wagon. Heavy enough to make the wagon bounce on its springs. It appeared to be equal parts fur and muscle, with a face like a bear and the eyes of an emperor.

It drew in long, deep breaths, and when it exhaled, dust stirred the length of the floor. Piercing eyes swept over the pallets.

“Explain yourself! These sacks are labeled “Malt” not Barley!”

Was that… did I just see…

The delivery man stood at the gate of the wagon, bowing towards the dog and trying to explain under the supervision of a couple of soldiers. And all the spell hounds.

“Officer, Malt is a type of barley that has been processed. I don’t know the details, but if you open the sacks, you will see that it is indeed dried barley. I am taking it to the Golden Lion Brewery in Beizhu.”

”Hmph. Private Tong, call it in!”

A dog with a badge. You could be a police inspector and a demon in Onis? That was a new one on him.

A private hurried off, then back. In a whisper that would have been only audible to a demonic dog and Truth, he said- ”Sir, it’s a conflict in the regs. All food products are to be labeled based on the type of food they are, but malted barley technically is both barley, and a separate product called ‘Malt,’ which can be classified both as a food and an ingredient.”

Left unspoken was that the supervisor was leaving it to the demon’s discretion.

Opportunity for a bribe number 2?

”Alright. Do a better job keeping this wagon clean, I can smell food in here.”

”Eh? I mean, yes, yes, of course! I will mop it out after my deliveries are done.”

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”See to it that you do. Alright, close it up. You are clear to proceed.”

Truth felt an almost painful sense of dislocation. The demon dog was diligent in his work, not a jerk, and didn’t even hint at a bribe. What was this world coming to? Was there nothing he could rely on anymore?

He waited until they were through the checkpoint to start reading again. Beizhan was further north than he wanted to go, but it was solidly west of the Northern Capital. He would hop off at a rest stop if necessary, or just ride down from there. No worries. By the end of the day, he would be in Volcano Country.

“Volcano Country” was what he considered the area directly impacted by Great White Mountain’s eruption. The actual lava flow, while enormous, wasn’t actually any danger. It was just too far from any cities or towns to be a real worry. The real danger was the ash.

There had been a phoenix crucified at the heart of Great White Mountain. Mined for its magic, and who knows what else. The lava was more than just molten basalt, it was the phoenix’s blood. And it’s hate.

Truth got out at a rest stop. Beizhan was just too far out of the way, he decided, and he was eager to load up on more hot food. The vinegary, savory foods here were growing on him, especially the way they seemed to throw garlic, ginger and scallions on everything.

He was disappointed. The rest stop only had bagged snacks. Truth sighed, spent some of his stolen loot actually buying something for a change, and amused himself by spreading rumors amongst the teamsters.

”Is it just me, or do the cops seem extra scared? Those rumors about them getting killed must be true.”

”It must be Jeon Special Forces that are killing off internal security. Might be a good time to settle some grudges.”

”I mean, untouchable cops are looking very touchable, aren’t they? And besides, they will just blame everything on Jeon.”

He had no idea what impact that would have, but… teamsters got everywhere. They would repeat and spread the rumors. People would start to get ideas. The professional paranoids would start focusing on the enemy within. It wouldn’t stop the war- far from it. But it might cool it down a little.

Out on the road and heading south. There were fewer army convoys than he imagined. They were still well back from the border, of course, but for some reason, he imagined endless trains of wagons all rumbling down the mountains towards Jeon. So far, nothing.

The sky was darkening, though. Turning deeper and deeper shades of red. If the lava contained the Phoenix's hate, the ash contained its contempt. The ash was drifting south west, pushed along by the prevailing winds. It caught the northernmost bit of Jeon, a much larger piece of Onis, and then on to the rest of the world.

The dust was rocketing high up into the atmosphere, where the fine dust could be carried almost indefinitely. Kept flying on the wings of the Phoenix, was Truth’s morbid conclusion. Which might have been chalked up to normal consequences of a volcano blowing up, but… this was the height of summer. Prime growing season. And suddenly the sun was getting that little bit dimmer.

Truth had thought there would be one last… if not good then decent harvest. It wouldn’t have been enough on its own, not with the Shattervoid embargo. Still. “Something” would be a hell of a lot better than the “nothing” that they would have soon enough.

He processed that thought. How many meters of storage space had Sally gifted him? More to the point, wasn’t he the one going around telling people to stock up on canned foods?

Truth turned at the next exit, found the nearest market, and got excessive.

Two hundred kilos of rice later, along with pretty much every dried bean, canned fruits, canned vegetables and every canned stew that didn’t trigger traumatic memories later, he was back on the road. He didn’t even make it out of the driveway before he doubled back for forty kilos of salt and the entire contents of the spice and dried herb racks. And sugar. He snagged enormous sacks of sugar.

Anything else? How did fresh produce keep in the nowhere space attached to the ring? Pretty well, to judge by the melon. But the store staff were already starting to raise a ruckus about the mysteriously vanishing shelf’s worth of food, so he decided to cut things short and move on down the road again.

Pausing only to snag twenty kilos each of potatoes, onions, and carrots. They keep, he reasoned, and you can do an awful lot with them.

He left the balance of the stolen cash at a cash register. Who knows if they would accept it or call the cops. He probably underpaid anyway.

Right now, food was still coming in. Prices were skyrocketing, but food was being delivered. Papering over the rapidly widening cracks in the food system. It wouldn’t last.

He was another hundred kilometers down the road when the next spike of paranoia hit. He had stockpiled water, tea and juice already, but just… traveling portions. There was a rest station up ahead. A rest station that mysteriously saw all its bottled water vanish, even the big two liter jugs.

He would have to think about how to filter water later. Between the body cultivation and his level, he ate much less than most people. Much less wasn’t none. And who knows? He may have more mouths to feed.

Better snag a few tarps too. Never know when you need shelter, and they don’t take up much space.

He forced himself to push past the paranoia for the moment. The logical end result of his thinking was a bunker in the mountains, with everything he needed to ride out two years in complete isolation, including the ability to harvest magic. On the one hand, now was absolutely the time to do that. Should have done it years ago, ideally. On the other hand, that wouldn’t get him Starbrite’s head. And that was the only thing that would really save him and his.

If Jeon hadn’t rolled out rationing already, it would very, very soon. They knew the famine was coming. War was a good opportunity to get out ahead of it. They already had the Denizens subsisting on rations issued by the government…

There was a lurch, but he managed to catch up with his own thoughts.

They already had the Denizens on rations. Once again, he had underestimated the vile efficiency of the Jeon bureaucracy. If they were already training up a slave caste, why not extend the food supply for their betters in the process?

He would bet there were silos, well defended, impeccably vermin-proofed silos, of wheat, rice, corn and other staples. Entire warehouses of fermented cabbage, sealed in jars and buried in the ground. You could live a long time on rice and fermented cabbage, even if you didn’t have fresh veggies.

Thin living, though. Very thin. Truth wondered what they would do for meat. Jeon beef was, he had heard, the very best in the world. He didn’t believe those ancient families and corporate lords would suddenly decide it was acceptable for them to do without.

All this, and the volcano kept spewing ash up into the atmosphere. Dimming the blue sky. Dying it orange-red. A preview of the flames to come. Truth had seen pictures of the plume. It crackled with infernal lightning. Streaks of flesh obliterating fury crawled up and down the heaven blotting pillar of ash. Not that anyone needed a reminder that this was punishment.

The only component on Truth’s appalling iron horse that was new was the demon. He had summoned the demon himself, barely a week ago. He pushed it as hard as he dared. Racing south under the cloud. Ready to plunge back into the fire.

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