Alex couldn’t ask any more about Death. Neither the chief nor the others seemed to want to talk about the thing, given how very much they feared it.
The chief let Tala determine the contents of the deal between Alex and the city, which Tala was more than happy to do right there in that room. He quickly formed a list of what it was they wanted and gave Alex a bunch of things he could ask for.
Among those, Sunhearts seemed to be the most expensive.
Alex asked for that, as well as all the beast cores they could find.
“You want beast cores?” the old man asked, confused by the request. “Do you have something you want to do with them?”
“Nothing in particular that would be of worry to you, senior,” Alex said. “I just want them for something specific.”
Tala didn’t question it. He had already asked for Sunhearts, so beast cores were nowhere near as surprising a request. “Beast cores and Sunhearts, huh? I should be able to get you around 8 sunhearts and 20 cores. You will have to first make a small batch to prove to us that you can do it.”
“20 beast cores?” Alex thought. Beast cores weren’t going to be of any worth if he got 20 of them, but Sunhearts were what he truly wanted anyaway. 8 sounded like a good number to start with.
Alex nodded, accepting the deal right there.
“I’ll prepare the ingredients right away.”
Tala walked out, leaving Alex alone with the chief and the other few old men that were there around him.
Alex looked at the man, seeing his horn again. The budding curiosity in his heart could not be contained any further. “May I ask something, Chief Yulan?”
The chief raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“I do not mean to offend you with this inquiry, but I would like to ask about the horns on your forehead. Are those real?”
The chief took a moment and nodded slowly. “They are very much real. Are they rare in the place where you come from?” he asked.
“Rare? This is the first time I’ve even seen any,” Alex said. “Let alone the place I come from, I didn’t even see anyone with horns on their forehead in the cities close to here. You are very much the first one.”
“Huh,” the chief said. “It is not that rare in the desert, especially among chiefs. You will find a lot more people with horns if you go deeper into the desert.”
Alex frowned at that moment. There were more demons in the desert? Where had they come from?
‘Were the demons sent to hell just like I was?’ Alex wondered. That felt to him the most plausible reasoning. Unless these people just happened to have a horn and instead weren’t in any way related to the demons.
“Were you born with it?” Alex asked the chief.
“Born? Of course not. The horns are something that grow as we grow. Most people in the city have them, but they don’t grow those because they are not chiefs like me.”
Alex failed to see the connection between the two. “What does being a chief have to do with having a horn? What’s the relation?” he asked.
“We’re not sure, but it has something to do with the Sunhearts,” the chief said. “Most chiefs stay around their Sunheart reserves, which makes this happen for some reason. In cities where there is a larger concentration of Sunheart, more people than just the chiefs end up growing horns on their head.”
Alex got confused for a second. ‘What does a Sunheart have to do with a demon’s horn?’ he thought. He knew very little about demons. In fact, he knew practically nothing at all, not even the propaganda that would’ve been spread during the years of war.
Perhaps the only thing he did know about them was from his memories of the Undying Gods. He had pushed down those memories from so long ago, barely returning to them because of their intensity. But even then, he remembered a few memories from the various Undying Gods.
None of those included anything even resembling a Sunheart. Hell, most of them didn’t even have any sun in them. The clearest memory he had was of the first Undying God nearly dying of frostbite in the middle of a forest in the night.
And remembering the stunning Moon Goddess of that time, she had those horns as well.
Something about the connection that these people had made didn’t make sense to Alex at all. Surely something as big as a pair of horns on a person’s forehead had more to do with bloodline than being around Sunheart.
Alex’s mind went back to Shumi at that moment and the skin-colored horn on her forehead. He remembered her back from when she lay frozen on the bed when he first saw her.
She had no horns.
He remembered his master as well. She had no horn either.
‘How did Shumi get her horns?’ he thought. Now that he was thinking about it, maybe bloodline wasn’t the reason for the horns? Perhaps something else entirely could be responsible for the horns, something he would have to find out on his own.
After a short while, Tala returned with a pile of different herbs and placed them before Alex. He had also brought along a mortar and pestle for Alex to use. It was a massive thing, seemingly made entirely from a large piece of strong granite.
He gave those all to Alex and was beginning to explain the ingredients to him when the chief stopped him.
“Surely our young friend would know what ingredients they are on his own without us having to tell him. We can head on straight to making those pastes.”
Alex turned to look at the chief, who watched him with careful eyes. After a moment, Alex nodded and sat on the ground, growing comfortable.
“Since a healing paste is the one that is most required in a city like this, I will start with that,” Alex said and took a few ingredients to start making some pastes.