The revelation of the piece of cake surprised Zarin. Even if he hoped that his nose didn't lie to him, he had low expectations of its existence.
But in the end, a miracle happened, as his hopes came true.
As the spirit brought the piece of cake out of nowhere, it started munching it. It took less than two seconds to eat the entire piece, which was big enough to cover Zarin's palm and still have some extra out of it.
Then the spirit moved her hands once more and made another piece of cake appear. The new piece of the cake looked identical to the last one and got devoured just as fast.
'Why does she eat all that cake? 'Zarin thought to himself as the entire situation confused him.
Sprits shouldn't be able to eat normal food, and that cake looked quite normal to Zarin. Although it kept appearing out of nowhere, he had seen Eddie do the same thing.
Of course, Eddie most likely had a tool that helped him do so, but that didn't mean that others couldn't do so without one. Enchanted tools, in the end, were shortcuts to Skills that others could use after all, with the luxury that anyone could use them.
As the spirit had four more, two more pieces of cake, she paused. Then she once moved her hands in a different motion this time, as a chocolate cookie appeared in her hand.
This time, she devoured the cookie in less than a second, as it was much smaller than the cake pieces. After that, she summoned cookies the same way nine more times and devoured them just as fast.
After that, she changed her hand movements, and a lollipop appeared on her hand. This time she didn't munch on it but licked it, but its speed was similarly intense. Still, instead of a couple of seconds, it took her almost a minute to finish it, and then she made another one.
'How much of a sweet tooth does she have? '
Zarin was confident that if he had eaten everything she had, he would have gotten sugar overdosed and possibly been sick. But she was a spirit, so she shouldn't have that problem.
Since Zarin didn't know what to do with that creature and had no chance to take any of her sweets, he decided to head back. His [Stealth] was still on cooldown, and he probably could wait for it to finish, but the forest would have affected his mind too much if he did so.
Still, even without the Skill's effects, he could be careful enough. The spirit seemed to be too focused on eating than its surroundings.
But Zarin had underestimated how much the forest had affected him, as when he turned to leave, he stepped on a weak branch and snapped it.
As he did so, silence followed, and no sound came from the spirit's direction.
Zarin currently had his back on her as he turned to leave and didn't know what she was doing. But the lack of noise meant that she had heard him.
As he was ready to make a run towards the clearing, the figure of the spirit appeared in front of him. She actually moved through him, stopped in front of Zarin, and turned to look at him with a lollipop in her mouth.
Zarin swallowed some saliva as he wasn't sure how dangerous she was, as he couldn't see her level.
"Good morning? How is it going? Been a while since I had seen the soul with the skin around. Most times, they have just bones or nothing. "
The spirit let out some giggling as she continued sucking on her lollipop, but at a much slower rate than before.
"Well…. hello there. I… I was just passing by. "
Zarin didn't know what to say, but she didn't seem hostile.
"Oh, so you are out for a walk? I miss walks. It used to be so fun, especially when I had… I don't remember its name, but pets make it fun to have walked. "
Zarin nodded at her as he slowly made his way around her.
She kept moving, though, to keep herself in front of him, so he kept moving closer to the clearing.
He noticed that she didn't walk, as she had no legs. Her lower half was like a long skirt, and no feet came out. She was hovering in the air and kept moving, making no sound.
She kept talking about other activities she was alive could do and didn't seem to notice where Zarin was heading even if she kept staying in front of him.
Since she was in front of him, she was the first to reach the edge of the woods, but her movement stopped before getting into the clearing. It was almost like she hit an invisible wall that prevented her from getting out of the woods.
"What is that? "she exclaimed as she turned to see what stopped her movement.
Zarin quickly moved around her, getting into the clearing, but kept his eyes on the spirit to be safe. The moment he got out of the woods, a look of confusion filled the face of the spirit.
"Where did he go? We had started being that close," the spirit said with obvious disappointment in her voice.
At that point, Zarin felt something taping his right shoulder. He turned and saw that it was none other than Eddie behind him.
"I see that you already made a new friend, "he said with a clear, teasing voice and a wide grind on his face.
"Why can't she see us? Is it that monolith? "
Zarin couldn't tell that the monolith wasn't that simple, but he couldn't detect any energy or mana. Still, the whole place seemed clear of the drowsing effect in the woods, and now he knew that the spirits couldn't get into the clearing.
"More or less. But don't count on it too much. If we draw the real dangerous ones, they may bypass the field. You are lucky you encountered Pretti, as even if she is pretty old, her power among the spirits is relatively low. "
"Pretti? Did you know her before she died? "
Spirits, most times, were souls of individuals with unfinished businesses. Of course, there were other ways for spirits to be created, but that was the most common one.
"No. I don't. Her spirit form is older than me, after all. I just had some discussion time with her in the past, and she introduced herself as Pretti Sweet. She has an interesting punish-loop. "
"Punish-loop? Do you mean her sweet eating routine? "
Eddie just nodded and then started walking towards their camp.
"Hey, wait. Are you just going to end that discussion like that?"
Zarin knew a few things about spirits, and some skills exclusive to them, which Lady Emlyn's father had unlocked. But there was no mention of punish-loop, so Zarin was interested to learn how it worked.
"There is not much to say. No matter how they got created, Spirits don't belong in this world. So if one stays in this world for long and doesn't have enough power, they enter a punish loop.
"The reason for those tests most times is to help them end their unfinished businesses, if they have any, or just bring an end to their bond with this world and go to the next. But not all are straightforward or easy to complete.
"For example, Pretti's punish loop is going through different sweets until she can taste something. But spirits cannot taste anything, so she just keeps repeating eating the same things repeatedly. By my understanding, though, she can only create anything with a sweet taste; that's why others call her Pretti Sweet.
"Other than eating and trying to find people to talk with, she doesn't do much else, so people let her be."
After hearing the explanation, Zarin felt terrible about the spirit called Pretti. Even if he was a fan of sweets, being destined to keep trying them without actually being able to taste them sounded like actual living hell.
They reached the camp, and Zarin noticed that the branches he had gathered were at a corner.
"How about you make a campfire, and then we can start making something for us to eat? "
Zarin noticed the suggestion, as he really wanted to eat something. Watching Pretti eating all those sweets had opened his appetite, and he hadn't had something to eat for quite some time.
Didn't take Zarin long to make a campfire, as he had gathered everything he needed. His scouting knowledge proved helpful once more. He also made a simple hand drill using a small branch and a flat wooden piece.
By using it, he produced some sparks to set on fire some dry leaves he had gathered to start the fire on the campfire.
In the meantime, Eddie had brought out what looked to be two dead rabbits, and he had started cleaning them and removing any cookable meat of theirs.
Zarin helped him cook them, as he had hunted those rabbits and cooked them in the past month.
As they waited for the fire to cook them, Zarin asked Eddie something he wanted to do for the past hours.
"Could you tell me everything on your Status Window? "