Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Hunger

????????????????????️

---

The sound of rock repeatedly bashing against a stick and the centipede crawling around his face woke Dumog up from his 12-hour long sleep. He was so disorientated that he thought that he was still in the Savepoint Bar.

His eyes swollen, lips cracked and dry, he reached out to his hip and grabbed his water gourd. Tongue out, he shook it above his head only for the droplet to fall on the centipede trying to enter his mouth.

He yelped and ran out of the tree stump, tripping on its roots. His jaw hit the ground and his mouth closed shut. The centipede, which was halfway inside his mouth, was sliced in half. Its juices sprayed the roof of his mouth.

“Usually you cook it before eating it,” Amihan threw him a gourd with fresh, cold water. “There was a stream nearby,” she continued shaping her new stick with a chipped stone.

Dumog drank a quarter of it in an instant. “Bah! Don’t tell me that was breakfast.”

She threw a pouch that had barely a handful of berries, nuts, and mushrooms in it. It was half of what Amihan collected around the area while he slept.

“Well, beggars don’t have a choice!” He laughed. “Er, I think that was how the saying goes.”

Amihan continued working on her tree branch. It had a big knot on one end, like a club, then it tapered into a blunt spike on the other end. Dumog questioned its lethality against the Kobolds, though he was sure that she could kill him with it.

 

While eating the foraged food–sucking and licking his fingers to get every piece of it–he relives the fight that cost them their meal that would’ve lasted them a week. Then that same old Kobold stole his idea of turning the metal plate into a shield. Thinking about him only annoyed him and made his morning worse.

After finishing the handful of scraps, he licked the juices off his right hand. He was still thinking about the fight yesterday. Then, he finally remembered the final blow that ended the fight. The same right hand inside his mouth was inside the Warg less than 24 hours ago.

He removed the hand out of his mouth and stared at it, wet and shiny from his saliva. Pressure rose up from his stomach to his throat. Amihan stared at him during the whole sequence. She ran to him when he started making a face, his cheeks puffing up.

“Don’t you fucking dare throw that all up! Swallow it! Keep it down! We don’t know when the fuck our last meal is.” She yelled and raised her staff above his head.

Teary-eyed, the day’s meal reached the back of his throat. It refused to go down, tickling his uvula. He covered his mouth with both hands. Thinking about the possibility of it being their last meal for a while, he steeled his soul and swallowed the bile.

“Ugh, yuck,” he managed to keep it inside him.

They both sighed and crashed to the ground. The day had just begun but they were both tired and hungry already. It reminded Dumog of his first year not living with his parents. For the largest time, this was Dumog’s idea of independence. Starving because of your own choices. Granted, he did spend most of his budget on alcohol and treating other people for their recognition when he was in college.

The hunger made him think about his family. They were probably the only ones who would be concerned about his sudden disappearance. But thinking about it some more, he realized that they probably didn’t know that he wasn’t in their world anymore. It would take a few months to a year until they would start questioning his abrupt silence.

He laughed at the idea of them rejoicing because he hasn’t asked for money in a while, thinking that he got a proper job. That was what Dumog hoped was happening back home.

Re-evaluating his choices and accomplishments in the two months he had spent in another world, he realizes that he has yet to do anything he truly wanted. His main goal was to be a hero, but he had no idea what that meant nor where to start. He was still half-naked, maybe getting real clothes was his first step.

He asked himself, out loud, “What does a hero do?”

“What are you mumbling about? Are you losing your mind?” Amihan asked.

“Save the beautiful princess from the evil lord while defeating his minions? Stop an evil group who's trying to take over the world? Maybe start somewhere small like defending a small town from an incoming horde of bandits or monsters?” He went on and on.

Amihan tuned him out and continued working on her stick. For her, hunger represented not an idea but a time in her life. There were days as a kid when she was more beat up and hungrier than she was now. And even if the difference between her life then and now were night and day, the hunger was a reminder to her that those days could return.

This only made her angrier about their current situation. The only reason that she left her old life behind was so that she would never feel that way again. Helpless, mindless, without autonomy, just to survive.

Her real reason, however, was to find out the reason why she was still breathing, why she was the one to survive the trials. She would ask herself that every night. But oddly enough, the thought never came up as she was falling asleep last night. Was it the near-death experience prior or was she starting to forget? Guilt pierced her heart, as she felt undeserving to forget.

Dumog abruptly stood up and looked at her, a grave expression on his face.

“What?” She angrily asked him.

“Speaking of groups of people attacking a small town,” he started, the cogs in his brain turning. “I have this crazy idea in my head.”

“Are you starting to believe your delusions of being a hero?”

“Wait, hear me out. Remember when I got separated from you guys for a short while and I said something about the Kobolds and the Goblins working together, digging a tunnel?”

“Yeah, kind of impossible. They hate each other.”

You are reading story Strangler at novel35.com

“Well, that tunnel was near Greyfield Village. Not only that, that same big Kobold on the warg tried to kill me the first time as well. I can confirm because I rode the thing he was using as a shield down a hill. Then, I got launched from it and I met you guys again,” his arms and hands moved a lot as he explained, he looked like a crazy hobo spouting out a conspiracy theory.

“Ok, it’s the same kobold. But that doesn’t really prove anything.”

“The pickaxe I found was the same one I saw down in the ravines. Also, don’t you find it odd that a whole group of them were not in their territory? Their base is way back there on the other side of town!” His forehead started to get sweaty. “Phew, I think I burned all the calories I ate for breakfast by just thinking.”

“You probably did since it doesn’t get that much exercise.”

He seemed insane with his theory, but Amihan listened and evaluated her past experiences with the Kobolds.

“Those Wargriders were somewhat more geared up than usual. And, the Kobolds teaming up with the Goblins was unlikely, but not impossible,” she agreed with his theory.

He pumped his fist in the air. “Yeah! I know I was right.”

“So, Mr. Hero, with this information what do you think you’ll be able to do? Stop them before they attack the town, all alone?” She asked him.

“Well, I was thinking that we should run back and warn everyone that the Kobolds were going to attack the town.”

“Okay, let’s say we reach town before they attack. Are you just going to shout in the streets that the ‘end times’ were near? Who would believe you? Most normal people wouldn’t give you the time of day when you were trying to sell them those damned rocks,” she finished carving her new hiking stick, it reached just below her ear and could double as a quarterstaff.

“Oh, the messaging stones, good idea. I just need to tell Jacked about it, I’m sure he’ll understand–” he reached into the makeshift pocket inside his diapers. “Shit, I must’ve dropped it during the fight! Amihan, let’s use yours.”

“I threw it at the Kobold during the fight,” she said, looking at her stick up and down appreciating her work.

“Why would you do that?”

“I needed a rock to throw. It was a rock, so I threw. Come on,” she started walking toward the town. A long walk it was going to be.

“So, you’re on board with saving the town?”

“Don’t get it twisted, I left some stuff at the bar. But if they do come and attack, I won’t be anywhere near that place. And I suggest you guys evacuate too.”

“You won’t stay and fight?” He was disappointed.

“Unlike you, I’m not delusional enough to think of myself as one. I’m just a regular person trying to not die,” she was getting mad.

“Not even to protect your own home?”

“That place is not a home. Hookers for neighbors, every night the drunks piss on the front door, and most people expect it to be a whorehouse when they step inside. A home is the last thing a person would think when they see that place.”

Dumog kept quiet.

“And all that nonsense you talk about wanting to be a hero. You saw the pictures on Sinta’s walls? The trees we planted? That’s where the heroes are now. Most of them died before they could see their own children walk. Sinta lost her husband and all her friends because of it, and now she drowns herself with her own product,” Amihan was getting worked up about it.

“I’m sure they did it with the people in mind,” he said, doubting his own words.

Amihan didn’t listen, but she continued on with her rant. “All of that sacrifice, all of that death, for what? Nothing good comes out of involving yourself with people.”

“Still, warning everyone in town is the right thing to do, waste of energy or not. They need to know what we know because it affects their lives, right?” Dumog insisted.

She shot him an intense glare. “You and your morals. Look at yourself, look at us, do you think we could afford to have morals, honor, or whatever you want to call it? I don’t know how you and your people lived in your old world. But, morals are for people who don’t have to worry about their next meal or which tree to sleep under for the night.”

“If it’s so expensive, then why did you save me when we first met? Why did you help me, bring me to town, to safety, and teach me the lay of the land so that I don’t get outed as an Otherworlder? Your words and actions contradict each other,” Dumog was getting mad as well.

Amihan was about to say something back but the smell made her stop. She raised a fist up to signal him to stop. Sniffing the air some more, she confirms its direction and distance.

“There’s a fire nearby, a campfire. It may or may not be the Kobolds,” she said. “I’m going to go check,” she sneaked away.

“Hey, wait for me,” he tried to catch up.

---

---