| Chapter 11 | An accord | {1}

PAULDA HAS NEVER felt so estranged as she does now. Honestly, if someone had told her that Saul could even move the edges of his lips, much less smile, she would have called it a bluff.

Yet, there he was, defying all her expectations, sitting, drinking, and laughing with a joy that seemed to radiate from within.

Paulda had witnessed her fair share of peculiarities, from inebriated individuals belting out tunes like a marching band to the unwavering resilience of a mother protecting her child. But this, this was a whole new level of enigma, the icing on the cake of strangeness.

Leaning towards Rojo, she asks quietly, "Rojo, there isn't anything in the food we ate that made him, well...That?"

Rojo whispers, "If that's the case, I need to get a new inventory manager." Inspecting her food, she adds, "Though...I'm sure he hasn't had a bite of food here, so that possibility is out of the question."