Alex acted in reflex and grabbed the knife before it reached his body. He grabbed the blade by its edge, a hair’s width away from hitting his chest.
The chief’s eyes went wide in horror when she realized what had happened. She screamed in panic and tried to pull back the knife, but Alex kept holding onto it, trying to make sense of the situation.
He sat up, still holding onto the knife. He looked around, and to his surprise, there were more people in the room than just the chief. Her daughter was there, along with the other woman, as well as the two men who had found him there.
His head still roared with ache. It hadn’t been that long since he fought the seal and went to sleep. He had been woken up before he could be mentally rested.
“What’s going on?” the other woman asked. “Did he not eat the food?”
“No, he ate it all,” the daughter said.
“You forgot to put the poison in it then,” Tulana said.
The four argued with each other while the chief desperately tried to pull the knife away from Alex.
He pulled on the knife suddenly, dragging the woman toward him. Then, with his other hand, he grabbed her by the throat as he slowly stood up from the bed. He choked the chief while she failed to get out of his grasp.
“Why are you trying to kill me?” he asked. The pain in his head made it difficult to think with a calm mind. Anger was all he had for them at the moment.
“L-let go of my mother!” the daughter cried.
“Unhand the chief!” the other woman cried out at the same time. The young man, Tulana, didn’t say anything and instead directly chose to attack. He ran toward Alex with a spear pointed at him.
Alex pulled the knife away from the chief’s hands and threw it toward Tulana. The knife stabbed through Tulana’s thigh, likely doing more than just leaving a nasty cut.
He grabbed the spear from Tulana with his Qi and pulled it toward him, holding it pointed back at the other three.
The man named Reval, who had pointed a bow at him that morning, ran away immediately, no longer wanting anything to do with them.
With him gone and Tulana on the floor with his broken leg that was profusely bleeding, there were only the other two women who could talk.
“So, who is going to answer me?” he asked, the spear now pointed at them. His hands kept choking the chief, who couldn’t speak at all.
“P-please, let go of my mother. She will die,” the daughter cried out, falling to her knees. “Please, forgive us.”
“Speak!” Alex shouted, his voice carrying a strength that shook everyone to their deepest core.
“F-forgive us,” the other woman cried. “We were greedy. We should have known better than to steal from you.”
“Please, forgive us. Please don’t kill my mother,” the daughter said once again.
Alex’s face turned even grimmer than it already was. “Don’t lie,” he said. “What could you steal from someone like me who has nothing?”
“We… we wanted to steal your magical pouch!” the older woman said quickly.
Alex paused. “My pouch?” he asked, looking down at his storage bag that he had tied to the front of his belt. “How do you know what it is?”
“He recognized it,” the older woman said, pointing to Tulana. “He told us what it is. That you desert folk can keep things in there that would be impossible to carry around.”
Alex narrowed his eyes at that moment, slowly coming to an understanding that the people in the desert carried around storage bags. Which meant that they likely had cultivation bases as well.
Alex finally learned why the young man had thought of him as someone from the desert. “I see,” he said. “So I was brought here from the very start so I could be stolen from, wasn’t I?”
The two women froze at that moment, fearing what was going to happen next.
Contrary to their horrible expectations, Alex didn’t kill the chief at all. Instead, he simply dropped her to the ground, completely unconscious at that point with an imprint of his palm on her neck.
He walked toward the daughter and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her away. The daughter fought back, trying to pull herself away. “Where are you taking me? No!” she screamed. The other woman was just too scared to do anything.
Alex stopped and turned around, his eyes glaring at her. “If you don’t want me to kill your mother, then you will come with me.”
As Alex dragged her away, the daughter could do nothing but willingly follow him.
Alex walked out of the guest house and stopped for a moment when he saw a group of people outside rushing toward them. It appeared that the man who had run away had brought people over.
Alex was too annoyed and still had a bit of a headache to care much about them. He placed the spear next to the daughter’s neck and stared at each person. “If anyone moves, your chief’s daughter will die. Now move back.”
People didn’t seem to trust his words, but when a trickle of blood flowed out of the chief’s daughter’s neck, they immediately stepped back, no one trying to do anything.
Alex continued dragging the daughter toward her house.
“P-please, forgive me. Please… please don’t…”
Alex didn’t care for a word she said. He dragged her until they were inside the house, at which point he threw her before him.
The woman fell, looking back up in fear.
Alex’s eyes weren’t on her at that moment, but rather around the house. “Since your tribe has trades with the people from the desert, you should have one here,” he said slowly and looked back at her. “If you don’t want me to kill you and your mother, go and bring me the sunheart you have here.”