Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Corbin’ time
Somewhere far far away the corniest man of all time, Regulus Cornass, meditated in a dark and desolate cavern all by himself… And his hundred something wives or whatever, they’re all irrelevant. The point was that he was waiting. Waiting for a sign to present himself. A sign of when it would be his moment.
For the moment it would be Corbin’ time.
“Hmmmm.” He did this humming thing again as he felt the corny energy course through his body, enlightening him both figuratively and literally as he began to gently float above the rocky ground.
And then it hit. His sixth sense, the corn sense, suddenly flared causing him to open his eyes and orient himself to his surroundings, taking in the sound of water clashing from the waterfall… the waterfall? “Huh?”
There was apparently a waterfall flowing over the cavern’s entrance so he stopped floating around and walked over there and peered off the edge to see the waterfall trail down into the abyss.
“Wait, how in the world did I even get here again?! What is this lameass place?!” He screamed aloud when he realized he was somewhere that not even corn could shine, off the side of the literal edge of the world. The great waterfall itself. Unpopped kernels streamed off the edge of the world with the flow of water. What a waste of beauty.
This hobo monk hippie adventure shit was totally unlike him. That mumble wasn’t rhetorical. How the hell did he get here?
Regulus was cornfused, and turned around to yell, “Speak, women!” at his hundred something wives all bundled up together, doing their best to not freeze to death, ”How the fuck did we get here?! Don’t any of you lasses have some kind of common sense?! Who in their right mind can see the end of the world and go ‘hmm yes, let us have a honeymoon camping trip’ - That I, your beloved husband, did not agree to! To bring me somewhere without my consent is a violation of my rights, I’ll have you know! I demand to speak to your manager about this or you’ll be hearing from my lawyer!”
The verbal onslaught is all but a daily occurrence to his wives so they already had an infallible solution to deal with it. One that had always stood strong against the tests of bullshittery, time and space.
Draw sticks.
So they huddled together while their husband was still going off and started drawing sticks until one went ‘Ah shit, here we go again.’ when she drew the ‘manager of the day’ stick then proceeded to get violently ejected from the huddled group of maidens. She was launched into the air, bounced up against the roof of the cavern and painfully landed by his feet.
“You there!”He pointed at her, “Answer to me by explaining yourself as to why you dare drag me out here in violation of all my rights, lefts, ups and downs. It better be a good excuse this time or your corn rations are getting cut until next month.”
While dreading to be the voice of reason in a nonsensical world, she jumped to her feet and stuttered out, “Erm well y-you seee-”
“Out with it already, I did not grant you permission to waste my precious time. Aren't you aware that time is the most valuable thing in this world, the one thing that definitely no one can ever get back? And then you proceed to have me wait around for you to make up your mind on whatever insufficient excuse you can make up. I refuse to be insulted like this.”
Still intimidated by his corniness, she pulled herself together to answer cohesively while she still had a window for responding before he rants again. “Well truth be told, none of us wanted to come either. You kinda just crowded us into a cornfield while mentioning something about it almost being ‘corbin time’ or whatever that means then-”
Out of nowhere, the gospel in Regulus’ pocket started playing a tune, the notification sound of when he has a new quest objective hint.
‘Corn in the truck, corn in the field Corn in the bottom of a moonshine still’
He loved his ringtone so much so instead of opening it like an irresistible itch, he let it play out, jamming to the beat under all his wives' awkward stares.
‘Corn in a kettle, corn in a skillet Corn in a jug, hot damn, you can feel it Corn for the chicken, corn for the deer Corn for as far as you can see around here
The “manager wife” tried to continue with her explanation but he pulled a cob of corn out of thin air and gagged her with it then went back to hitting the griddy in his signature corny fashion.
End this song the way it began Started with a C and end with an N Corn Yeah, all that corn Corn’
“Alright now that that’s over, let’s see if it’s actually corn this time or that sixhead midget witch is bitching for me to do something again.” He took his gospel out of his coat’s pocket and sniffed it, picking up a thick scent of corn. “Ah yeees, it is indeed corny this time.”
He gleefully opened the book, flipping to the most recent page inscribed by fate itself and there it was. The next step of his corny adventure was laid out before him in his very own handwriting.
… Perhaps he's illiterate and therefore wouldn't be able to read a gospel-encrypted text, yet alone normal writing but his gospel’s writ had to be conveyed somehow. This ‘innovative’ method simply made its writ even more beautiful to him.
Tracing a finger along every line, he marveled at the skilled cornsmanship behind every stroke of this work of art. He used to have to ponder at all the hidden meanings and riddles that the gospel naturally spoke in, but these days it all flows to him like a stream of corn.
“Holy corns, it’s finally gone!” He exclaimed out of nowhere, full of excitement, “That shitty tree with the giantess kink finally got taken out! Look at it!” He showed off the book to his wives like it was breaking news; the cure for death was found while he just painted the next Corna Lisa.
They didn’t have enough collective brain cells to decipher what “Tree X” means but they all started giggling and laughing uncontrollably at the other page as soon as they got a good look. Something about how that red thing looked suspicious. So he closed the book and put it away but they still kept going at it.
Regulus felt like they didn’t really get what the tree drawing meant so he facepalmed out of embarrassment that he would need to spell it out for them.
“Stop laughing, this is serious news, that tree was Flugel’s tree and the x means just got canceled on this plane of existence for not liking corn! Doesn’t a single one of you have the slightest idea how long and hard I’ve been trying to cornolize the Laifus plains? To make use of that vast field of green, begging to be filled by yellow? Every time I tried, that oversized piece of driftwood kept sucking up all my precious crop’s nutrients with its roots that spanned across the plains, which starved them to death. But now it’s finally gone! C’mon you whores, all of you were sitting there on your asses right next to me the whole time I was out in those fields fighting for my cobs! If I, as your husband, can’t even command your aid, then I will at least command your respect for what I contribute to society.”
“...” They all went silent and did their best attempt at a poker face to not have to endure another rant.
But then one whispered “Amogus” and the laughter kicked up again even louder than before. Even though they all knew it wasn’t funny in the slightest, they couldn’t help it. A couple more decibels and the cavern would risk collapsing and crushing them all. Well aside from Regulus that is, because he’s too corny to die. “Alright that’s it you skanks. I’ll go be corny all by myself if you’re all going to be so unappreciative and mocking the corny blessings this world has bestowed upon your precious husband and would rather giggle at some dumb joke from years ago, which even back then wasn’t that funny.”
He started walking over to the cavern exit, where the corn kernels were still streaming off the side of the world and his wives we’re all started screaming something along the lines of: “Ayo where the hell are you going?!” “Wait, we’re sorry, take us with you!” “Do a backflip, ya coward!” “No, don’t do it, there’s more to your life than corn!.. uhh maybe. Scratch that, prolly not.” “How are we supposed to leave? What do we do?!” “Yo broke ass better not be thinking you can dip out on my alimony payments by dipping out on this world!”
Ignoring their panicked protests, he double flipped them all from behind because he’s just that cool and kept walking closer and closer. The call to the corny has been heard loud and clear by him and he’s on his way.
When he got to the very edge, just one step away from an oopsie into the abyss, Regulus used his corny authority on his body to puncture holes in the cavern’s wall with his feet then used that technique to leave the cavern by clinging to the wall and walk up the side of the world, causing slight tremors with each step.
“You bastard if this collapses because of you or we don’t make it out, we’ll haunt you for the rest of your life!” One of the wives called after him, but he still didn’t give a shit because he’s feeling so fabulous rn.
Going up against the forces of gravity and logic itself, he stayed determined on the path of the corny and kept walking upstream of the waterfall, unblinking in his strides even as cornfish fell off the world and slapped against his face on its way down.
Soon enough he reached the surface and continued on his trek to the Laifus plains despite now walking at the bottom of a river. He was so excited about all the cobs he’ll be corning when he makes it there that he increased his walking pace to absurdly inhuman speeds.
He walked so fast that in just a few seconds he accidentally splashed the entire river into the void, eradicating the ecosystem that the elusive Cornfish inhabited. Before he made it extinct, the Cornfish were already a rare and endangered species of fish that mutated into becoming part corn due to the corny runoff of Regulus’ unconventional farming practices of doing corny stuff until it somehow works.
Moving on, Regulus proceeded to the Laifus plains like a force of pure cony energy, making his surroundings appear like horrible CGI as he sped across the continent while his movements were still somehow classified as walking. With no need for breathing, bathroom breaks, detours or traffic stops, his pace was unrelenting.
That is, until he came across an innocent looking roadside lemonade stand run by a little girl with long blue hair.
Tis’ was a sight that Regulus D. Cornass could not afford to leave overlooked. He had spent his entire life building up his corn empire to what it is today, he out-corned all the other known cornists to be the sole producer of the all world’s corn and was now on his way to make corn the only viable food in existence. But to accomplish this, he must stomp out all competition, including the young and promising entrepreneur before him.
“Ah! Where the hell did you come from!?” She got up from reading a book, startled at Regulus’ sudden appearance as they were in the middle of nowhere. “Erm, I mean, welcome to Myne’s lemonade stand! All proceeds will be donated to support children’s literature, would you like to make a purchase?”
“Tsk, who in the world raised you to have the audacity to dare run a business without a permit in a public area? Do you have no shame, no morals? Or is it that you simply think you’re better than everyone else and your rights should be respected above all others because oh boy you have another thing coming, you brat! Honestly what kind of delinquents could have possibly raised you this way? Won’t you take a minute to think about their reactions and have some self reflection on your actions? I shouldn’t need to spell it out for you, you seem like the bookworm type at least so you should be somewhat non-braindead but as the good samaritan I am, I will selflessly sacrifice a few minutes of my valuable time to assist you in your wellbeing.”
“... Is that supposed to be a no because even I’m not reading all that.”
“...” Regulus deadpanned for a moment at how not a single word of his rant had gone through the little girl’s thick skull. His efforts were completely wasted discoursing with her. Myne awkwardly fumbled her fingers, “Weeell the price for a cup of lemonade is one gold coin and sugar for an extra two silvers. Sooo are ya buyin’ today?”
With an irritated eye twitch, Regulus muttered “Oh heell naaw.” as he checked left and right to see if they were still alone or if a carriage was going down the road. Seeing as the coast was clear he took a cob of corn out of his pocket and hurled it at her lemonade stand where it detonated upon impact.
“WAAAAAGH!” and like a Gmod ragdoll the little Myne was sent soaring aflame from the corn’s explosion.
“Let that be a lesson to you, you little shit!” He angrily shook his fist in the air, completely unscathed despite being in the corny blast radius.
With a corrupt and predatory business woman taken off the streets, Mister Cornass got back to walking to the Laifus plains, now feeling good about himself for taking care of that predatory menace of a lemonade stand.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Back in the cavern his wives sat around wondering what’s their next step. They’re in an isolated cavern far far away from any civilization, they only have corn as rations and it’s freezing cold.
Getting sick of it they finally decided to do what they do best. The forever safe solution to every problem the cruel world throws at them.
Draw sticks.
And then one by one they started drawing sticks again to see who they’d have to sacrifice to the corn god for salvation.
…
“Oh come on! I was already the manager today, you can’t do this to me!” The same one from earlier has been reelected for the position of sacrificial lamb. She appeared to be complaining about the lack of health insurance.
“The sticks hath spoken. No time to explain. Get on the cob.” Somehow all the other wives were now dressed in dark robes with a poorly drawn cob of corn on the cavern’s floor with creepy cult like candles at the edges.
“Nooo I don’t wanna, get away from me you corny freaks!” She attempted to resist but who is she to deny the stick? She was eventually subdued and put on the cob where she started sprouting a small hedge of corn that rapidly grew to a healthy three meters in mere seconds.
One by one, the other wives entered the corn patch and by the power of cornyportation, they found themselves exiting the corn patch back at Regulus’ corn farm. The place they’ve all been conditioned to call their home.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
After intensively speed-walking for only a couple hours straight, Regulus reached the Laifus plains. How does one traverse an entire continent on foot like a salaryman late for work but not fully committing himself to running? Well that’s a secret for only the world’s corniest.
He walked right up to the fallen over trunk of his arch nemesis in life; Flugel’s tree with the biggest victory smile he could fit on his already-smug face while ignoring how the white whale’s beheaded carcass was rotting under it. At long last his centuries long feud with some fucking tree on the side of the highway has come to an end. Quite the unexpectedly sudden end, may he add.
It was at this very moment that Regulus began to feel an overwhelming sense of stupidity for himself in a rare occurrence of self awareness. It was only now, looking at the fallen trunk of flugel’s tree, he realized he totally could have knocked it over himself instead of waiting for it to fall over from ‘natural causes’.
He stood there blankly staring at it as he rebooted corn.exe, seriously reevaluating his life choices and career as a humble corn farmer.
What kind of farmer is he if he can’t even do a lil deforestation in the name of capitalism? It wasn’t like he had to set the whole of Elior forest ablaze, melt the permafrost, hack all the trees, unseal the seal and kick whatever’s hiding there in the balls to make sure it stays off his property for good. No, he couldn’t even see past his weakness in his unwillingness to throw hands in a deathmatch against one tree.
Strengthening his resolve to the corny cause, he regained his focus to see his triumphant victory through.
He walked over to the stump of the tree to investigate how this could’ve happened to his beloved mortal nemesis. He concluded the scorched stump was blown out by a large amount of fire magic as he inspected some of the little sparkles of mana crystals that must’ve condensated from the mana enriched atmosphere.
In proper detective fashion he squatted down to rub the white dust all over his fingers. Since he couldn’t smell or taste it when he sniffed and licked it, he started snorting it in lines, rebranding it as “victory dust”.
After he concluded his thorough investigation that spanned all five of his nonfunctioning senses, he stood up, muttering “Ah that’s some goood shit.” then leapt off the stump to finish up his business with the fallen tree.
Even as the most satisfied being there is, he had to admit that it was slightly unsatisfying to know that there’s some weirdo out there who poached his mortal enemy from right under his nose. They didn’t even bother using any of the wood despite cutting down a tree this grand. He looked around on his way there and saw absolutely zero lumbering operations taking place.
Then there’s also the questionable method of how it was cut. Like who thinks to rally up the boys to go learn some high level explosive magic, blow up not just any tree, but his nemesis, then fuck off to who knows where without elaborating? Shaking his head, he realizes he’ll never understand some people. The world is indeed a bizarre place. If only people could act more normal like himself.
Sucking in a deep breath, he prepared himself for the last time he’ll have to rant about this shitty tree in his entire life. World peace was on the horizon and what better way to welcome in the new area than with a heartfelt speech straight from the cob?
“HAH! Look at yourself! Once a mighty tree towering above all, as if believing itself to be better than me, with your branches extending into the heavens themselves. For centuries you’ve stood here, in these very fields of your home, proud and strong as if mocking me and my corn. You may have been a symbol of life and the power of mother nature but your reign has ended! By the end of your lameass era, the true king of the fields shall emerge and reclaim its rightful throne. All hail king corn!”
Regulus put his hands in the air, summoning a floating cob of corn from his immense corny energy.
Out of nowhere, a shadow appeared on the ground behind him and a witch cultist emerged. Adorning black robes, it kneeled behind him and spoke, “Archbishop Cornass, on behalf of Sloth, the cult urgently requests your assistance with capturing the half elf. She is inbound on a dragon carriage-”
Regulus swiftly reached around and picked the cultist up by the neck and screamed into his face so loud that the hood almost fell off. “SHUT THEE FUCK UP, YOU EXTRA, IM HAVING MY CORNY MOMENT OVER HERE!” He reached up to grab the floating cob of corn and used it to bash the cultist’s head in.
He let the body drop to the ground while shaking his head once again, “Ugh, the nerve of some people. Wasn’t it obvious that I was in the middle of something? Walking up to me and daring to speak as if I don’t have the right to remain uninterrupted?”
Waving his hand as if to dispel the awkwardness in the air, Regulus continued with whatever point he was supposed to be making and faced back to the tree. “That’s right my dear tree, the plains were never yours to rule! It has always existed for corn and corn alone! You were nothing but a thorn in the side of my grand corny plans, but an overgrown weed! Though I must commend your audacity to scoff at my corn. Though it may be modest in appearance, you have been fooled by its unassuming nature just like all the other sheeps in this story. For corn is a survivor, a fighter, a conqueror. So what if your roots remain deep across this entire minecraft biome? The corn stalks will soon cover it all when I’m done inflating my wordcount. I bet they won’t even be around by harvest time since your main body has been felled, whereas corn still stands before you. That’s right; I am the corn! You thought corn was too lowly to have a main body, did you? Save the laugh! For I am Regulus Cornass, the ArchFarmer representative of Corn, speaker of the cobs and sole holder of the right to be corny! Therefore, I hereby declare that for too long have you held sway over the land. And that it ends here. The greed which you have brought to curse this land and deprive it of nutrients ends today. At last!”
He finally seemed done with running his mouth to an inanimate object and closed his eyes, putting his fingers to his temples in an attempt to blow it up again with his mind.
He peaked to see if it was working and a flicker of light and smoke from the whale carcass under the tree caught his attention and it appeared to be growing brighter and brighter.
“Wait what’s that-”
Before he could finish that thought, the mystery object went off like a nuke, blasting Regulus high into the sky. If one were to look closely, one could see him from faraway, falling out a giant mushroom cloud of smoke like a piece of debris.
As he still retained the mass of an average man, he was launched so far away by the blast that he almost got completely blown out of the Laifus plains, nearing the capital’s outskirts.
He landed ungracefully, bouncing several times like a rock in a pond until he rolled to a full stop, covered in ash and smelling like a pile of over-smoked corn. As cool as having the power to make things blow up with his mind was, the downside of him being caught in the blast radius overshadowed this discovery so he wasn’t very appreciative of the experience to say the least.
“Waaah my eyeees.” Since he was looking at the blast directly when it went off, it was like he just got flashbanged and the world was still blurry to him.
“Greetings, Archbishop Cornass.” The voice of a little girl appeared at too perfect of a time.
Since Regulus’ ears were also temporarily blown out, he didn’t hear the little girl or turn around, as he was wondering why he was apparently black head to toe. He quickly started panicking and hitting himself in an attempt to get the ash off as soon as possible so he could get his rights back.
“I’ve come to congratulate you on your triumph over Flugel’s tree today. Although I am aware it was not you who took it down, I thought you would want to celebrate the occasion.” She started clapping with an eerie smile, “To a corny future of no trees.”
Regulus turned around while trying to reach around and dust off his back when he caught sight of a small pale figure next to him. Since everything was still blurry to him, he couldn’t see its true identity, so rather he made an educated guess who was the midget hidden beneath all that platinum-colored hair.
“Oh shit it’s the lorax!” He quickly walked over to it and punted the lorax over the horizon back to wherever it came from before it would try to recapture the plains and plant another tree, undoing his decades of hard work waiting for it to die.
Regulus stood proudly with his hands at his hips, basking in the fruits of a productive day of hard work.
Tree? Eliminated. Lorax? Gone. Corny? Always. Bitches? Three digits.
The last objective for him was to sow the seeds of his own favorite crop so he began looking for a good spot. After a few minutes of wandering around he came across the Laifus highway and figured that it would be the perfect spot to set up his farm. It would have easy access, great visibility and traffic which would be good for selling his corn. It was practically free real estate with advertising. With all those factors combined he figured it would be a prime location.
And got to business and started doing what he did best. His main profession. Farming corn!
“Go go, corny rangers!” He unbuttoned the golden buttons on his white coat to reveal a belt with a golden corn symbol on it. He pushed and turned the corn symbol upside down to begin his transformation sequence as corn kernels started appearing all around him like particle effects.
In a flash of corny yellow light, his ash covered coat was blown off him to reveal his new drip; a raggedy old pair of overalls with a white plaid shirt and straw hat, complete with a straw of corn hanging out of his mouth. He put his hands on his belt’s corn sigil to open it and took out an entire hoe.
“It’s corbin’ time.”
As he said those words yet another corny explosion went off behind him, signaling the start of his shift. Just another day of being a corn farmer in another world for him.
Quickly getting to work, he used his hoe to zone out his corny area then dragged his hoe in lengthy parallel lines roughly a meter apart for the rows of corn he’d be planting. He started planting his corn seeds along the row roughly twenty centimeters apart and two centimeters deep, one by one with the tender care of a mother.