Part 25: Dream Cafe

This was extremely confusing. Whatever the reason he was here, I needed Prince Cinnamint to help me get out of this as soon as possible. In fact, I knew something that he would use in a situation like this. It was just a matter of him being a friend or enemy that worried me.

“Peppie, assist this stranger out of the Jellysand Pit!” he shouted with unwavering confidence.

For those that don’t exactly know what Peppie is, she is a special type of red chibi bunny with small pudgy paws, a white poofy tail, and long pair of ears, who also possesses magical abilities. She is able to summon those powers with ease using her rainbow-colored eyes.

“On it sir!” said Peppie as she followed along and charged her ears to form a sparkly pink energy through them which allowed her to use telekinesis on me with it to get me out of the sticky scenario.

However, because the force she used was a bit too high, I uncontrollably flew into…

Prince Cinnamint himself.

I had no choice but to hug onto him for that period of time which was of course my natural reaction because I didn’t want to fall. Unfortunately, the circumstances of this happening did cause me to look into his eyes, mesmerized by seeing him up close like this.

Suddenly, out of embarrassment, I realized he was talking to me.

“You are holding on for a bit too long…”

I immediately nearly fell backwards and almost tripped before I accidentally landed on top of the green Bibbly Bubble’s head.

Gosh. What did I just catch? Clumsinitis? I stood up to apologize as quickly as I possibly could.

“Ahh! Whoops, sorry I didn’t mean to do that! Believe me I didn’t really have any other way to—“

“It’s okay. As long as you’re not stuck anymore,” he said.

“Yeah, umm… About that…”

I looked at my uniform which was covered in stains, including my shoes.

Wait. A uniform? Why was I wearing my uniform? I was pretty sure I had put on a magenta sweater when I left out earlier…

“Oof. That doesn’t look good… Looks like you’ll have to change your clothes. We have something at the cafe that our employees wear that you can borrow,” mentioned Peppie.

For some reason that sounded suspicious. Like she was trying to hint at something. Was she trying to get me to work at the cafe? If that was true, I had mixed feelings about this.

For one, I was a bit more worried about what they would think if I told them I couldn’t taste or smell at all. They would probably just abandon me here. I mean, my knowledge of recipes were pretty good, but I didn’t really think now was the time for me to be meddling around like that. My nostalgia for this game had impacted me, but I needed to get Imagi back for this. The only way I was going to do that was to enter Candiere’s Cafe and maybe even request entering The Cafe Catalog. After all, I knew what was in there. That plus maybe a bit of evidence that would help me prove my point.

“Your Royal Highness, my name is Ararima Haniki. I know this might sound a bit crazy but—“

“We know who you are,” said Prince Cinnamint.

“You do?” I asked, confused at the prospect of being known in a world I had just entered in real life.

“Duh duh! Of course silly! You’re one of our newest employees! Princess Candiere’s daily selection process finally chose you. By earning Candiere’s Heart Badge, you now get to become a real employee in our world!” exclaimed Peppie.

So playing the game did come with some sort of actual consequence on my end. Well that’s just great. I’m not going to get anywhere if I’m just going to work at the cafe. It was already bad enough that UVOCA was hand grabbing students from Dream Academy here that didn’t suspect it would happen from completing a game. In hindsight though, maybe there is a way to fake it. After all, I would get closer to figuring out who was behind the murders at Dream Academy.

“Alright, I will come with you,” I said before Peppie spun around happily before teleporting all three of us to the town’s entrance of Tartropolatté.