He woke up a few hours later. Careful not to repeat my earlier mistake, I kept by his side the whole time. Sometimes he’d actually make a noise—something I thought him incapable of—though this was mainly in the form of whimpers. Combined with the way his body flinched and jerked every so often, it was all too clear what kind of dream he was having.

However, as much as I want to rouse him out of his nightmares, I don’t think he’d want to wake up to that. I mean, he got knocked out cold. When you’re passed out, you probably shouldn't be awoken forcefully, right? Not that I know anything about that sort of stuff. I’m just assuming.

Still, it’s far from fun to watch.

Absently, still waiting for him to wake up, I claw off a piece of my still-scorched back, bring the piece of half-charred, half-cooked, half-raw flesh to my face and take a bite. Chomp chomp chomp.

Ulcer Tolerance Lv.4>

Mmmh, good stuff.

As I move to take a second bite, I notice a bit of movement in the edge of my vision. I glance down and find Simel staring at me, eyes wide. Huh. How long has he been doing that?

I almost take another bite of my own flesh before realising that maybe Simel doesn’t like seeing it, so I stick it in my inventory. Man, it’s hard having to keep track of what he might or might not like. So far it’s pretty comprehensive, but if he starts to not want to see simple stuff like me dismembering things, then I might need to kindly ask him to goblin up.

…Oh, yeah, he’s not going to say anything. Right, I forgot that he’s basically mute. Erm…

“So, uh, have you learned your lesson?” I try my best to talk in a reprimanding-mother voice, but it doesn’t work too well. He seems neither confused nor disobedient. Just… resigned. He’s not even trembling anymore, which would have calmed me down an hour or so ago, but now? Absolutely not. I try to steel my heart, but it’s difficult. “See, the outside is… There’s the soot, yeah, but there’s also a lot of dangerous monsters that can kill you and tear you apart and eat your flesh all in no more than ten minutes.”

Of course, I can do it in approximately three minutes and forty-two seconds, but I won’t because Simel is my friend.

“If you go out into the desert on your own, you’re gonna die, Simel. Or get hurt. And I can’t let that happen, because you’re my friend. And friends don’t let their friends go get hurt. Alright?”

He stares at me like I’m some sort of exotic predator. I don’t really know what to make of his gaze so I try to continue.

“Now, I don’t know exactly why you thought that running out into Death Desert the Experience would be a good idea, but if it was purely to get your adrenaline fix, then I can’t stand for it. Dying is bad, okay? It’s not good to die. Only losers die, and you’re not a loser, are you?” He gives me a long, unblinking stare. “Right, exactly. I mean, what were you even thinking? That you were just going to stumble out into the soot with no provisions save for that piece of skin to-go, and not die? You’re lucky I was there to stop you.”

Of course, he doesn’t say anything in response. Across his neck, a dark-blue bruise has bloomed, suspiciously hand-shaped. I gulp and turn away, crossing my arms.

“Really, if you would just talk to me, then…”

There’s a little grumble. I blink and look back at Simel. He’s turned a shade paler. Wait. Is he…?

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“Are you hungry?” I ask, more surprised than anything. “Is that it? Did you run away to get, like, provisions or something?” Of course, he won’t say anything or even acknowledge that I said anything at all, but the sweat beading on his forehead is all the confirmation I need. “That’s it, isn’t it? Oh, gosh, Simel, you didn’t need to run away for that! If you’d just told me I would’ve gone and grabbed whatever you needed!” A little thought hits me. “On the other hand, do you really need those kinds of provisions? I’ve got plenty of stuff on hand. I mean, take for example…”

Reaching out, I gouge a piece of flesh from the floor and hold it up. It twitches in my grip and I grin proudly. “—The crib himself! Indeed, much like a fairytale gingerbread house, this spacious condo is built of one-hundred percent edible materials. Amazing, right?” Smiling, I hold the piece of flesh closer to him where he lies on the lung. Like a vampire from a cross, he recoils back, eyes wide and hands trembling. The smile on my face twitches a little. “What, you don’t want it?”

And for the first time since our reunion, he actually gives a response of some kind. Namely, by vigorously shaking his head back and forth like his life depended on it.

My jaw slacks open. H—he responded! That’s wonderful!

Too happy to really care about the fact that his first communicative expression was staunch refusal, I quickly move on. “Okay, so no crib-meat, huh? Cool, cool, very cool with me. I don’t mind!” Excited for some real conversation, I put the piece of meat back into my inventory, simultaneously pulling out close to a dozen pieces of meat. “Okay, so, you’ve got basically a whole buffet of choices. We have tarantula meat, drake meat, bird meat, lizard meat, gobli—” I choke on my words. Moving on sheer instinct, I toss the piece of goblin meat back into my inventory. Nothing to see there, nope, not at all. Sure, Simel looks like someone drained all the blood from his face and replaced it with white paint, but that doesn’t matter. I clear my throat. “Ye—up. Lots of great, uh, choices here. I can really recommend the tarantula meat. It’s basically like crab meat, but big.”

He briefly looks away from my face to stare at the meats in my hands. His body starts to tremble and he shakes his head again, just as fiercely as before.

“Huh?” I say. “You don’t want it?” He continues shaking his head, which would technically make for a double negative, creating a positive, but by reading the atmosphere, I’m able to tell that he just really, really, really, really doesn’t want my meats. Weird. “Well, uh…” I frown. The meats disappear from my hands and go back into my inventory. “There’s only really one kind of meat left, but…” Slitting a line across my forearm, I pull out my brachioradialis, presenting the lean piece of flesh like it’s an unresponsive snake. “I wouldn’t recommend it, my meat is really lean and stringy. Not yummy at all. Also, I think it might be slightly necrotic, so…”

Simel takes one look at my forearm, leans over to the side and promptly pukes up what seems to mainly be stomach acids and nothing more.

“S—Simel?!” I cry, reaching out to try to help him, but he slaps my hand away.

I look at my arm. Oh, okay, I get it. I stuff the muscle back into my forearm. “Is this better?” He won’t even look at me. He’s just taking brief, shallow breaths. Did I do something wrong?...

This feels like the perfect moment to pat him on the back or something, but I can’t bring myself to. At this time, I don’t think he’d like it all that much.

I guess, in this position, the only thing you can really do is to move on and try to ignore the puddle of vomit on the pulsating floor. “Do you, uh,” my gaze briefly flickers down to the puddle, “eat meat, like… at all?”

For a second or so, he just sits there, half hunched over the side of the lung bed. Then, after some time, he shakes his head tiredly. I can feel a wave of simultaneous understanding and confusion wash over me. He turned vegan? No, wait, vegetarian? I don’t know. He didn’t seem too hyped to eat the tarantula meat, so maybe he’s more of a vegan? I don’t know. This is kind of worrying, though. I wonder what brought it on? I can remember with fairly good confidence that he ate soup with meat in it while we were in the cage, so this must’ve happened after that.

Unfortunately, it’s not like I can actually ask him how or why, so I guess I’ll just accept it. “No meat, huh…” This makes things just a teeny tiny bit more complicated for me. I have eaten the plants on this floor, but I didn’t really make any habit of keeping them in my inventory unless they were poisonous enough to let me train my resistances. There was this one cactus that was safe to eat, unlike all the rest, but…

“Well, erm…” I scratch my neck. “Look, I could probably go get you some grub and stuff, but…” I pull my lips tight. How do I say this properly…? I sigh. “See, I can’t really go out to get you stuff to keep you alive if I can’t know you’ll still be here when I get back.” To accentuate my point, I make a couple of nice, visible gestures. “I don’t want to tie you down, Simel, because that just shouldn’t be needed amongst friends, okay?” Not to mention the fact that if I were to tie him with anything, it would probably be my own intestines. Going by the way he reacted to my forearm, I can’t imagine that he’d enjoy that.

His left eye twitches. Right. “I could bar the door somehow, but, I mean… That shouldn’t be needed either, right? You’re a smart fellow. Certainly more than me. If you know anything, it should be that the desert just isn’t a place for little goblins all on their own. You’d die. And you know that, don’t you?”

Eyebrows furrowing slightly in the tiniest expression of frustration, he looks down at his lap.

“I don’t need much, Simel. I just need you to promise not to run out and away while I’m gone. Okay? I shouldn’t be gone for too long. Unlike most other things, I can’t smell you. Not even your clothes. If you get lost, I can’t save you.” I try to catch his gaze but he won’t look at me. No matter. “Can you promise me that you won’t run away again?” He won’t look at me. “Please. Just a single nod will do.”

The corners of his lips dip into a frown. His hands curl into a fist. Head hung low, I let him think—let my words sink in fully.

And, after almost a full minute of silence…

He gives a nod.