Once Alex was done with his bath, he changed into the clothes he had in his storage bag and walked back into the guest house he was brought to. He arrived at a room where the chief’s daughter sat with food before her, ready for Alex to eat.
Alex looked at the bowl and plate and noticed that they were wooden. It seemed metal wasn’t so readily available that they could make them just yet. Or maybe they liked it better this way.
He could see steam coming off the food even from far away, so it had to be prepared just now. They were being quite hospitable, it seemed.
‘Is it because they think I’m a person from the desert?’ Alex wondered. He still remembered how the man’s attitude fully changed when he believed that.
‘Why did he ask me that?’ He decided to ask the man once he met him again.
Alex walked into the room and noticed that the food looked… strange. There were three parts to it from what he could see.
One was a sort of cooked dough, seemingly made with a lot of water in it. The other was a sort of thick soup with chunks of greens floating in it. And on the side was a stack of dried cured meat, all pressed together to form a big chunk by the look of it.
Alex sat before the food, looking around to see no utensils. “Where is the spoon?” he asked.
“You don’t eat this with a spoon,” the daughter said. “You must eat it with your hand.”
“Okay…” Alex said and looked back at the food, two of which most definitely needed spoons.
The daughter seemed to understand his concerns and explained. “Take a piece of that meat.”
Alex did as told and tore off a small piece of the large chunk of cured meat. To his surprise, it came off quite easily. It was a little crumbly too.
“Now place it in there and tear off a chunk of it together.”
Alex placed the meat in the slightly sticky cooked dough and brought out an entire chunk of it.
“Press the meat inside and create the shape of a small cup. Then, dunk it in the soup and eat it all at once.”
Alex did exactly that and finally ate it. As he ate, he raised an eyebrow.
While the flavor was nothing to mention, the texture was rather nice. The stickiness of the dough helped with the crumbliness of the meat, the entire thing coated in every place by the thick vegetable soup.
“This is quite nice,” he said and went for more.
The daughter smiled. “Please enjoy.”
She sat to the side, watching while Alex ate. Alex did find it awkward that she would just sit there and even asked her to go on her way, but she wouldn’t leave.
When he finally finished, she asked if he wanted more.
“No, I’m alright. That was enough, thank you.”
The woman nodded. “I hear you may be tired. You should rest for now.” Afterward, she took the plate and bowls and left.
Alex was alone in that room.
He didn’t really have to rest, but he didn’t want to interact with anyone else either. ‘My mind feels refreshed, I should just continue breaking the seal,’ he thought.
He looked around the room and saw nothing he could use at all. So, he decided to train with the table.
Using his Intent to make a table float was way too much for him at the moment. So, what he tested instead was to simply move it. If he could just give a small push, it would be great.
Moving the table turned out to be a much tougher task than he thought. He had to give his everything to do such a simple task, and even then, he was failing.
The issue he noticed was that it took more strength to get the table to move than it would to keep it moving. So, he needed quite a bit of strength to get over that initial hurdle.
And sadly, he didn’t have it.
‘Well, I tried. That should be enough training anyway. I need to save what I can for the seal.’
He took a short break before attempting to fight the seal again.
As he sat around doing nothing for that short while, he was reminded of something.
‘What did she mean by me being a walking omen?’ he wondered. The chief’s words sounded ominous to him since she talked about death. ‘Do they believe anyone with white skin and black hair to be bad luck?’
Only the three women acted that way, so maybe they knew something about it.
‘I should’ve asked the daughter when she was here,’ Alex thought.
Alex sat on the bed, feeling a softer mattress than what the Baylords had. He was certainly seeing better things here than what the Baylords had.
‘And yet they get most things from the people in the desert?’ Alex thought. ‘How can the people in the desert have more than these people have?’
It did not make sense to Alex yet in terms of resources. People living in lands full of irrigation opportunities should have more developed societies.
Perhaps he would find that answer when he got to the desert. For now, he needed to attack the seal again.
After four attempts at the seal, Alex found himself not able to continue. His head buzzed like he was drunk off the strongest wine in a while. Training against the table instead of simple rocks had affected him more than he could imagine.
He lay on his back and closed his eyes, letting the world around him slowly fade away. As he let his mind rest, everything faded to black as he went to sleep.
The next time Alex awoke, he saw the chief standing over him, a long knife in her hand. And the moment she saw him open his eyes, she thrust the blade down into his heart.