Kaira and Yuka exchanged glances. Then they started laughing.
Quietly at first. Then louder.
Kaira clutched her stomach, the laughter echoing. Yuka covered her mouth with her hands, her shoulders shaking.
Duggi, still huddled on the floor, murmured something inaudible.
Tairo finally closed his mouth. He blinked a few more times. Then he looked at Hawke with a new expression, something between respect and fear.
"You..." His voice came out slowly. "You almost killed him."
"That wasn't my intention!"
"Almost killed his ass," Tairo corrected.
"He deserved it, he attacked me suddenly!"
Kuggi, who was still processing, finally spoke. "How did you do that? He's big. You're small."
Hawke looked at his own arms. Then at Duggi's body huddled on the floor.
"I don't know." The answer was honest. "I just... did it."
Grandma approached. She stopped in front of Hawke, her eyes narrowed, assessing him. This time it wasn't distrust. It was... curiosity and calculation.
"You seem useful," she declared simply, licking her lips. "Very useful, you'll help them a lot."
'What kind of usefulness is she thinking of?'
The old woman turned her back, heading back towards the cave entrance.
Kaira stood up, stretching her arms above her head. The movement stretched her thin body, she yawned and shook her hair.
"Good morning, Hawke." She smiled. "I see you've had your morning fun. You're getting along well with them."
"Fun?" Duggi shouted from the ground. "THAT WASN'T FUN AT ALL!"
Yuka walked past him, still giggling softly, and patted Hawke on the shoulder.
"You're funny," she said. "I like you."
Hawke stood there, processing everything.
'I woke up between two hot chicks, was thrown through the air, did impossible somersaults, almost impaled a man on the ceiling, and now they're calling me funny.
This world is crazy, whatever comes is a bonus.'
But my stomach ached with hunger.
And there was the promise of fruit in my destiny.
He left the cave like the others who went out to sunbathe, leaving Duggi still huddled on the ground, his hands firmly planted on the protection of his own tail.
Chapter 29: Fire and Food
The air outside was cool, still carrying the morning's dampness and the smell of wet earth. Hawke moved away from the entrance, seeking privacy among the rock formations that looked like stone fingers pointing to the sky. He wanted a more discreet place to urinate; apparently, even in such a primitive group, it wasn't common to relieve oneself in front of others.
''I can't just pee in front of everyone. There has to be some limit, at least that.''
He removed the strip of roots that held up his improvised leaf shorts. and finally relieved his bladder. The sound hitting the stone echoed faintly, mingling with the distant song of unknown birds.
As he finished, his gaze wandered over the area. And he noticed something.
A trail.
Not obvious, but it was there. Broken branches at a specific angle. Crushed leaves with a trampled pattern. Something, or someone, had passed by there recently.
'An animal? Or maybe it's an enemy, I should take a look.'
It seemed to be of medium size, judging by the spacing of the tracks. Not very big, but not small either. The kind of creature that could be dangerous or could be lunch.
Curiosity overcame fear.
He followed the trail, walking slowly, trying not to make a sound. The tracks led between smaller stones, then through low bushes, until...
Ah.
There it was.
The egg.
Large, green, with dark brown spots as it should be, not broken, it wasn't just shell. Simply dropped behind a thin bush that barely hid anything. It looked like a misshapen stone if it weren't for its perfectly oval shape.
"Is this what you call hiding, Kaira?"
Any animal that passed by would see the egg immediately. Zero camouflage effort. It was almost an inviting offering.
"I thought they had eaten it during the night. But no. They just... left it here as if it were any old item."
So the "disgusting" thing had really worked. The girls had internalized the concept. Now they looked at the egg and saw something repulsive.
"Shit. This means they're going to travel hungry today. Without energy. They're going to collapse along the way."
Hawke felt a pang of guilt; traveling hungry could put the group in danger.
He looked at the egg. Then at his own stomach.
GROOOWL
His stomach growled loudly, complaining of the lack of food with a painful urgency. He hadn't eaten anything since he woke up in this world. How long had it been? A day? More? His body was beginning to feel the effects: weakness in his legs, occasional dizziness, difficulty concentrating.
"I don't know if I can take another day like this. I need to eat something."
And there was the solution. A giant egg. Pure protein. Fats. Nutrients. Everything a hungry body desperately needed. He just needed... prepare it.
'I'm going to fry it. That's it. I'm going to fry this egg and prove once and for all that cooked food is better than this barbarity of eating everything raw like an animal.'
Hawke didn't want to prove anything to anyone at that moment; it was just an excuse to fry the food, the first step that could get him to eat.
But first, he needed infrastructure. An improvised stove. A cooking surface.
He started searching. Flat stones to make a base. Dry branches to make a fire. Dry leaves to serve as fuel.
He found a large stone quickly. It must have been about forty centimeters in diameter, about fifteen thick. He crouched down, ran his fingers underneath, and lifted it.
It went up easily.
TOO easily.
This... this stone must have weighed about fifty kilos. Maybe more.
But it felt as light as styrofoam. He held it with one hand, testing the weight. Nothing. Zero effort. Like a soccer ball, he lifted it above his shoulder; he could throw it without any effort.
Damn. I'm WAY stronger than I should be.
It wasn't the stone that was light. It was him who had become absurdly strong. A normal human, from his world, wherever he came from, would have difficulty even lifting that thing off the ground. It would require two hands, a lot of effort, and he would probably complain about his back the next day.
But for him? Not at all, it was easy and natural.
And for anyone in the cave, it would likely be the same experience. He remembered the girls pulling the giant rock from the door. The old woman moves it by herself in the morning. Duggi, who has strength equal to his own in the competition, stands out. No one here is a normal human; the rules are different.