Watching Jeanne's face light up with an "epiphany" as she finally remembered something important, Talulah felt it might be necessary to take the child to a doctor to see if she was suffering from some kind of neurological aftereffect.
Why did it feel like this girl was becoming more and more foolish? Her performance today was even more dim-witted than Talulah's worst days! She lacked all of her usual cleverness; instead, it felt as though her brain had completely rusted over.
For a long moment, Talulah stared at the girl in front of her with a gaze that mixed sympathy with intense scrutiny, trying to deduce whether Jeanne had genuinely become stupid or was simply playing dumb. After observing her closely for quite a while, Talulah couldn't determine whether Jeanne's intelligence had actually regressed or if there was some other cause. She simply let out a slow sigh and stopped paying attention to what Jeanne was doing.
"??????" Jeanne watched the Draco observe her for a long time. Talulah's expression—looking as though she wanted to speak but had something stuck in her throat—was incredibly strange, and that subsequent sigh was even weirder.
Has some kind of change occurred to my body that these two are hiding from me? Jeanne carefully inspected her body, but nothing seemed different! Did these two draw a turtle on my face while I was asleep?
Jeanne looked suspiciously at the mysterious fire dragon, feeling an impulse to grab her upturned tail and demand to know what was wrong with her. Fortunately, having just woken up, she managed to pinch that impulsive urge in the bud before it could manifest.
"Speaking of which, aren't you going to go ask her now? I noticed the doctor was quite concerned about you; she even took time out of her busy schedule to check on your condition while you were asleep!" Seeing that Jeanne had no intention of seeking out Kal'tsit even after hearing she wanted to speak with her, Talulah questioned her thoughts out of curiosity. Jeanne's behavior was indeed rather abnormal!
If this had happened in the past, the moment Jeanne heard someone was looking for her, she would have tossed her food bowl aside and run out to ask what they wanted, rather than sitting here continuing to eat. What was wrong with her today?
The moment the question left her mouth, Talulah realized the answer. The child had slept for five consecutive days without eating a single bite of food; she was probably starving and desperately focusing on her meal!
With that thought, Talulah immediately stood up to fetch more food, saying as she walked, "A single loaf of bread isn't going to be enough for you, is it? I'll go grab a few more!"
Perhaps because she saw Jeanne eating so quietly, Talulah assumed it was because there was no food left in the house, so she turned to head out to secure a few more loaves of bread. Look at her, she's tearing the bread into tiny little pieces just to eat it! When has she ever torn her food into such small crumbs before? Is it just because she's too lazy to move...
"That's enough, that's enough! Jeanne has already eaten four large loaves of bread plus an entire pot of soup! Even if you bring more, she'll just keep eating them, and then what are we going to do about dinner!" Seeing Talulah turn to leave before Jeanne could even react, Alina stepped out to stop the thick-headed dragon from feeding her further. Jeanne had already eaten plenty; she couldn't be allowed to gorge herself any more!
Even though she knew that no matter how much food Jeanne consumed, it wouldn't negatively affect her health, Alina still believed that Jeanne's food intake should be maintained within a reasonable limit. When considering her gluttonous nature and her ability to digest absolutely anything, Alina didn't use her own appetite—which was that of a normal person her size—as the metric. Instead, she used the baseline of the Reunion movement's largest eater: Patriot.
Jeanne's maximum daily food allowance was set at five times Patriot's capacity; if she exceeded that, Alina would absolutely refuse to let her continue eating! Usually, however, Jeanne wouldn't eat five times Patriot's volume anyway. Eating was merely a way for her to maintain a pleasant mood; consuming that much food would be pure waste.
As for replenishing her energy, Jeanne still relied on the crude Originium ore dug up by the earth wyverns. Fortunately, that landship possessed refining equipment; otherwise, she would have been forced to chew on raw rocks to survive, or worse, gnaw on the active Originium crystals growing out of the Infected.
Whenever Jeanne thought of that scenario, she felt a profound wave of gratitude toward those wealthy, spendthrift nobles, and she genuinely hoped those fools with more money than brains would come looking for trouble as often as possible! If they came just a few more times, Jeanne estimated that everyone in the vanguard could be outfitted with the most advanced gear currently available in Ursus! If such a golden opportunity were presented to anyone else, surely few would refuse, right?
"..." Talulah stared speechlessly at Jeanne, who was sitting there eating with meticulous deliberation. She had actually thought the girl had only eaten a single loaf of bread! No wonder—she had been wondering why Jeanne's appetite seemed so small today.
"I think I'll hold off on heading over for now. Alina mentioned that the doctor finally managed to get a day of rest today, so we should let her rest. Since she's already waited this many days, waiting one more night won't hurt anything."
Having finally managed to chew through the incredibly stiff Ursus black bread, Jeanne swallowed the brick-hard mouthful and took a moment to speak to Talulah. As for her previous silence, it was entirely because this stuff was an absolute nightmare to chew dry; even with Jeanne's formidable jaw strength, it required quite a bit of physical effort.
She sat there observing the movements of the other two, secretly regretting that she had finished that pot of thick soup far too quickly earlier; otherwise, softening the bread would have made it much easier to chew.
"You've already eaten so much food, yet you can still sit there and forcefully chew on that kind of stuff? Are you absolutely certain your body is alright? Why do I feel like your desire for food has become even more intense?" Talulah's mouth twitched as she watched her friend relentlessly gnaw on the bread that resembled a masonry brick. She was well aware of the hardness of this particular foodstuff; the villagers deliberately made it exceptionally rigid to prevent it from spoiling!
This was actually one of the better loaves; usually, this stuff was meant to be soaked in soup before consumption. Otherwise, in the hands of an unarmed civilian, it could literally be wielded as a weapon for self-defense. Talulah had assumed that because there was no prepared food left in the house, Jeanne had been driven by hunger to eat this masonry. But thinking about it carefully now, with Alina at home, how could she ever let Jeanne go hungry? Alina's skill at feeding Jeanne was far more professional than her own! After all, most of the time, Talulah still required Alina to feed her as well, so she truly appreciated her hard work.
"It's not like there's anything else to do! Holding onto something to chew on is a decent way to pass the time. Hey, why don't you come over here, and I'll see if I can tease you a bit?" Jeanne half-jokingly pulled out her "dragon-teasing string"—the piece of string she had previously tied to a fragment of Originium—and looked toward Talulah, an eager expression practically painted across her face.
She had been wanting to try teasing Talulah like this for ages, though she was well aware that if she actually did it, the Draco would likely fight her to the death, and the threat of her scratching at her door all night would absolutely become a reality!
"You can certainly try, provided you want to replace your bedroom door every single day for the next month." Talulah maintained an entirely expressionless, deadpan face, her eyes staring at Jeanne as if asking whether she had completely lost her mind.
In truth, she had known this day would come. She had already caught wind of Jeanne's exploits over the past few days, idling away her time by teasing the miniature wyverns, but she hadn't expected this day to arrive so swiftly! Talulah swore that if Jeanne actually dared to use that contraption to tease her, she would spend the next month reciting advanced mathematics problems directly into her ear every single day, refusing to let her off even when she was trying to sleep!
Although Jeanne couldn't guess exactly what Talulah was plotting, the expression on the Draco's face told her loud and clear that she was envisoning nothing good, and that any attempt would only result in mutual destruction.
"Ha, ha. Just a joke, obviously! How could I possibly use a toy meant for those tiny critters to tease you? Besides, it's not like you enjoy eating Originium anyway, so what use would this thing be against you..." Jeanne quickly stuffed the item back into her pocket, hastily bringing an end to the ambiguous exchange before turning back to focus on her large loaf of bread.
"Ugh..." Both Talulah and Alina looked at the bread-focused Jeanne with lines of dark frustration overlapping their faces. Was it just their imagination, or had this idiot's psychological age been sliding further and further into childhood recently?
"I'm going to head out and let the doctor and everyone else know that you're awake. Everyone was quite worried about your condition." With that, Talulah turned and left the house to locate the others. She was well aware that everyone had been deeply anxious about Jeanne's prolonged hibernation, even if they hadn't said it to her face.
This piece of good news should make everyone a bit happier tonight, right? Talulah thought to herself as she walked toward the residential area where the villagers resided.