Chapter 34

It was already nighttime when they finally returned, so Fares quickly cooked them a meat stew with somebody tempering herbs he got from Healer Raya's garden.

Sniffing the food, Mona immediately knew that it was different, so she scurried towards Fares to see what he was doing. It was always fun for her when Fares was around, he was always doing new stuff she did not even know about. So she decided to try to watch him whenever she could.

When Fares scooped up a part of the stew to taste it, Mona stared at the stew moving through the air using energy with wide eyes and drool falling off her cheeks.

"Do you want to taste it?" Fares asked, noticing the gluttonous look in her eyes.

She nodded her head hastily before he could rethink his decision. Fares laughed at her and moved the stew towards her, when it reached close enough, she jumped on it and chomped it in one bite.

As soon as the food entered her mouth, her face lit up in indescribable happiness. "It ish, sho delishus." She said, munching on a meat piece.

Fares smiled and pat her head lovingly, she reminded him of his little sister, she was a glutton too and loved this type of stew.

Fares cooked the stew with mint, thyme, and sagebrush plant. He just needed lemon to perfect it. It was an extremely healthy food that also had many medical uses, as soon as Fares saw it in the garden he came up with this method on the spot.

"Come on, let's go! Everyone is waiting for the food." Fares said, snapping out of his daze, and carried the pot towards the living room, which was just behind him where he was standing.

Placing the pot on the stone table, Fares cut a few rock formations from the outside using his energy hands and made stone bowls with it, just for this occasion.

Smelling the food, both Azkar and Zena smiled from ear to ear.

"Can't wait to try that." Azkar said, running his hands together in anticipation.

"Hey, I get to eat more, I have already missed so many of Fares' meals." Zena said drooling.

"No, everyone will eat equal portions." Azkar argued.

"What are you even still doing here? It is already over with my problem." Zena made a valid point, making Azkar's mouth open and shut like a fish in the sea.

"Okay, that's enough, I have made enough for everyone. Also, Zena, you will limit your food today, we will go hunting tomorrow. And you, Azkar, why are you acting like a 12-year-old when you're a good deal above 100?" Fares lectured them sternly, making them lower their heads in embarrassment.

After dinner, Azkar finally left as Mona went to sleep with a nice round belly from overeating.

Outside, Fares sat on the floor about to enter cultivation. However, before he could begin, he noticed a presence behind him.

"What's wrong? You can't sleep?" Fares asked as he turned back. He knew that presence too well, she was the first person he met in this world after all, without her, he would be dead by now.

"No, I just thought there was something on your mind since earlier that day." She said understandingly as she approached him.

"Well, I miss my family. And knowing that I can't reach out to them whenever I want makes it all too much for one person to take." Fares let out for the first time since he came here.

Zena's expression plummeted as she remembered something. She then stared into the distance, before saying, "There was once a little girl, she had a wonderful life. She was always smiling and giggling, she was too mischievous that everyone would always have something to say about her. But her parents always supported her, so she never stopped.

One day her parents told her that she was going to have a sister and that she must be her idol. A few months later, she had got a sister. She was so happy that she always carried her when she went to play every day for 2 whole years.

But on a rainy day, while she was playing with her little sister, people were calling for help a dangerous beast was attacking the human villages one by one. Yes, there was more than this village people in this village were living on the outside where the sun could shine. When that disaster took place, almost every village has been wiped out, and the remaining villagers grouped up to make this small one.

The little girl's parents told her to take care of her sister until they saved all the villages and got back. But they didn't, she kept on waiting and waiting, but nothing has changed." Zena stopped for a while before she broke into tears.

Fares hugged her tightly, rubbing her back with his hands. He felt bad for reminding her of such a painful memory. He may be sad for not being able to contact his family, but at least he knew that they were safe on earth, it was a peaceful era after all.

Taking a deep breath, she continued, "Even when everyone returned from the fight, her parents didn't. She always believed that they would come back, so she would wait and wait every single day until she and her sister were out of food.

Left with no other option, she had to hunt. So she left the village searching for food, but the outside world was too cruel, everything out there could kill her with a single breath. She had to face many dangers every day just to hunt the lowest of the animals to survive.

However, one day on her way back, she saw the survivors of the hunt with her parents arguing. She sneaked up on them thinking, that she could get a clue about where they were. What she heard shocked her to the core. Her parents hadn't been killed by the monsters, it was these people who did so.

One of those people was Azkar, the village chief. The girl decided to ask him about the accident, but he just told her what the others did, that the village flooded by an unnatural tsunami and a Mossé, the king of the waters, ate them alive. However, out of sympathy to her, he gave her a piece of meat that 'apparently' was taken from the beast's tail that they had severed before it managed to escape.

She couldn't do anything against them, even if she knew of the truth. So she decided to use that meat as a stepping stone to get stronger. And so she did, every day she would eat the meat and fight stronger beasts. She taught herself everything, the idea of asking for help from the people who killed her parents never crossed her mind.

On a fateful day, she was hunting a Quetz and was thinking of a way to attract his attention. Luckily for her, there was a clueless boy of was the perfect bait. He was such a great bait that he exposed the Quetz weak area, allowing her to slice it cleanly in one hit. It was impossible for her at the time to fight such a beast, but she did thanks to him. By then, she had the confidence to take on similar enemies." Zena finished, after sobbing uncontrollably for a while more in silence, she raised her head to look at Fares tenderly, she thought that she was lucky to meet him.

Fares thought to that time as he finally understood what had happened to the Quetzalcoatlus. So he was the bait? He felt kind of hurt, but happy at the same time because she shared much of her life with him. It meant that she trusted him enough.

Fares then wiped her cheeks with his thumbs as he said with confidence, "Don't worry, we will get stronger together."

He had already found a way to make the population in this world cultivate using the crystals. He just never wanted to speak of it to anyone when he was not sure who is a friend and who is a foe. And he was right, if he did tell Azkar previously, only God knows what would have happened with information like that.

Fares thought that he had to thank Smooka for this. That smart animal has an extreme sense of danger, even though Fares was not sure if this is what Smooka was scared of, he still counted it as one.

"Mhm." She nodded drowsily as she fell asleep in Fares' arms, enjoying the warmth of a man she had never felt before. Not long after, she closed her eyes and fell asleep on Fares' warm chest.

It was the first time she told anyone about this, not even her sister Mona knew. She finally took that huge load off her chest, and for the first time in years, she could finally sleep soundly just as the time she could when her parents were alive.

Fares did not want to interrupt her peaceful sleep, so he decided to lean on the wall, and he too fell asleep not long after.