A little while later, just as I was starting to worry he might have tried to take off, Simel returns from his break. He seems thoughtful as he trudges in through the door, but I’m just glad I didn’t check up on him mid-way. I close the door behind him.

“Did it, um, go well?” I ask. He gives a brief glance over his shoulder but nothing more. Yeah, okay, I don’t think I need to ask anything more. In a bit of a position swap, I plod after him as he walks through the crib and back to the main area. I had hoped he would have gone for the cactus, but instead, he just goes over to the furthermost corner and sits down, almost as though he doesn’t want my company. But that’s just speculation on my part, and I’ve never been that good at reading people to begin with, so assuming he doesn’t want to talk to me—or, rather, have me talk to him—would be a bit silly.

Shaking off such thoughts, I trot over to him and take a seat a few metres away. And then, I just sort of watch him.

He isn’t really doing much of anything. Mostly just staring out into space with an expression that might unfairly be described as ‘somewhat shell-shocked’, but I can’t see why he would be making that expression, so I think this is more of a meditative state. I usually close my eyes while meditating, but maybe this works better for him? He is a mage, after all, so there might be some difference there, too.

Meditation might not be too bad. I generally prefer meditating after I’ve accumulated some life-threatening damage, but each to his own. Crossing my legs, I sink into a gentle sort of meditation.

Do the right thing.

Do the right thing.

Do the right thing.

…Eugh.

Peeking an eye open, I glance at Simel.

…Yeah. Right.

I really need to ask Moleman about this stuff. I’m sure he’ll know what the right thing is.

For about an hour or so, we just sit in silence. It feels like we’re having some sort of moment, so I don’t want to be the first to stand up, but just sitting here and doing nothing is killing me. In the end, I start passing the time by biting off my own tongue, letting it regenerate and then doing it again. It has a surprisingly chewy texture, but it isn’t all that hard to bite off.

Right as I chew off tongue number twenty-seven, Simel suddenly stands up.

I blink at him. “Oh, awe you—” The second I open my lips, a mouthful of blood floods out my mouth and down my chin to splash the front of my chest and the floor. Simel, who had glanced at me, freezes in place. My eyes flash down to the front of my chest and back up to Simel. “Hey, noh, thish iwwent…”

Talking just makes blood splatter everywhere. Shit.

Frantically, I try to wipe the blood from my chin and chest but it just smears it everywhere. Closing my mouth I swallow down the blood but since my tongue is still freshly bitten my mouth just fills back up again within seconds. Okay, this doesn’t look very good. At all. Standing up as well, I hold up my hand in the universal ‘just one second’ gesture. Okay, if I activate both regeneration meditation and moving meditation, then…

Moving Meditation Lv.7>

I gulp down another mouthful of blood, and after only about half a minute, the bleeding stops. My head is starting to ache a little but it’s okay. I turn to Simel, rubbing the last of the blood from my chin and chest. He hasn’t moved a hair in the minute or so since he stood up. If he tried to pick up a gig as one of those human statues he could make like a million in a day, I’m sure. “Sho, uh, yeah, sowweh, I wash…”

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His brows squeeze together ever so slightly.

I hold up my index finger. One more minute and my tongue will have regenerated enough to talk. He stares at me. A minute passes in tense silence. My tongue has mostly regenerated, though it still feels raw and other. “So, um…” I chance a smile. “Are you ready for lunch?”

He doesn’t answer, which is just as much of an answer as anything else.

After that, I tried to get him to eat the cactus, but he didn’t really want it. He seemed more pale than he was yesterday. To make sure he ate anything at all, I went out hunting for fresh cactuses, and since he’d need a surplus while I was at the conference, I made sure to grab even more than just one. It wasn’t very easy to carry all of them, but I was able to get five and after that, I reached my max carry limit because my legs began to tremble and I couldn’t run anymore.

I did at this point get attacked by a pack of big tarantulas, but I was able to defeat them by using my weight and the cactuses to my advantage.

“I’m back!” I shout as I enter the crib, once again giving a silent sigh of relief at Simel not trying to go get himself killed again. Striding inside the room, I dump all five cactuses on the floor. “I got like, five whole cactuses! And I think I figured out how to carry them best. If you just stack them atop each other, they’ll attach to each other super tightly, and everything works out!”

Hands on my hips, I turn to beam at Simel with pride. He’s staring at the cactuses. No, wait, I think he might be staring at the curled-up tarantulas impaled on the spikes of the cacti. “Oh, those are…” I purse my lips for a moment. “Firstly, they aren’t poisonous. Secondly, they’re pretty yummy—not as yummy as gob—” I bite my tongue, thankfully not hard enough to sever it completely. Simel doesn’t seem to have noticed. Phew. “Th—thirdly, they aren’t poisonous. So you can eat them. I don’t know exactly what you goblins need to eat, but I doubt you’ll feel very good if you eat only cactus. So… yeah.”

No reaction. As usual, then. Let’s see, the time is…

<19:30:10

Day 364>

04:29:50>

will begin in 04:29:50.>

Yeah, right, okay.

I crouch down next to the cacti and start peeling them. Simel’s standing over my shoulder—at a safe, several-metre distance—and watching. Since it’ll be awkward if neither of us says anything, I start talking, almost only to myself. “I know you’ve got a spell that can make a bit of fire, so you should be able to cook the tarantulas if you want them. Not that you have to eat them or anything. The people from where I come usually don’t eat much arachnids themselves, but there are still some places where people eat them loads, ‘cause it’s better than nothing.”

No answer. But I feel like, maybe, just maybe, I can hear the padding of his feet, stepping just a little closer.

I keep talking. “Yeah, the planet I come from is… It’s real big. Not sure if it’s any bigger or smaller than this place, but it sure is big. The country I’m from is the best place, though. All the other places suck. Our food, especially, is the best.” I gulp. I think he’s standing pretty close now. If he was an enemy, I could probably grab his feet and slice his hamstrings clean off before he could react. That’s how close he is. Not that I’ll do that or anything. But now I’ve sunk into a bit of silence again, so to keep my nerves intact, I keep going. “N—not that your food isn’t good! Yeah, I, uh, I haven’t really eaten a lot of your food, mostly just what, erm, your army guys gave me b—back when I was in the cage, and also a bit that this buddy of mine—Moleman—gave me a while back. Very good.”

I fumble cutting one of the cacti, slicing up my palm. I wince at the blood, quickly wiping it off on my pelt to keep it from getting on the cacti.

“I’m not sure if you’ll believe me, but, erm… I do actually think food is tastier than raw meat. Yeah, raw meat is good, it gives me resistances and all, but on the whole, if we’re only talking taste, then…” I nod, mostly to myself. “Yeah. Real food’s the way to go.”

As I’m mumbling about stupid inconsequential stuff, he finally moves away from my back, drawing a big circle around the pile of cacti before sitting down, cross-legged. He grabs a piece of half-peeled cactus and removes the last bit of skin before popping it in his mouth. The taste makes him cringe back but he still powers through, chewing before swallowing.

I stare at him, unblinking.

Not looking at my hands, I accidentally stab one of my claws square through the palm of my other hand. Damn it—when did I become such a clutz?

Across the pile, Simel glances at the wound before turning back to look at his food. Ignoring it fully. Considering everything, that is probably his best choice.

I frown to myself. “Sorry I keep getting RED everywhere.” He doesn’t answer. When I look up at him, I find his eyes trained squarely on a piece of cactus. Maybe that’s for the better. I gulp. “You know, before all of this, I was pretty normal. Back in my world, people dying and animals getting killed and doing this kind of fighting wasn’t normal. ‘Least, it wasn’t something you saw often. No, my world is a pretty simple sort of world…”

For a few hours, we simply sit around the pile of cacti. I talk. I don’t know if he’s listening or if he’s tuning it out. After a while, I don’t really care, myself. I’m just talking. And, weirdly enough, it feels good to just talk. I talk about the world I came from. The kind of person I was. What I did to pass the time. The people I knew. Anything and everything.

But the world works in specific ways, and that was clear as a certain message popped up.

will begin in 0:00:00.>

has begun. You will be automatically

summoned in 00:10.>