"You feeling any better now?"
I raised my head at the sound of Lily’s voice.
"A bit."
The windows and entrance of the lobby rattled constantly against the wind relentlessly crashing into it. We’d eventually been forced to use our bags to brace the door just to prevent the spoiled thing from swinging wide open.
Even with all that, small streams of snow constantly seeped into the room through small openings in the fras.
As I’d expected, the snowstorm had evolved into a blizzard.
The transition occurred about an hour into our stay in the lobby. The snow had been increasing steadily, alongside the gradual darkening of an already dim sky. It was evening already.
Then suddenly, as though reaching so critical mass, the skies completely darkened. The wind picked up insane speeds imdiately, nearly flinging the door off its hinges.
Luckily, it hadn’t. Else, we would have been forced to retreat deeper into the apartnt.
I shook my head, trying to shake off the gnawing sickness still clinging on to .
Although I felt better, it wasn’t by much.
I was just much less likely to collapse when standing up, also less constantly hamred with the urge to puke out my now empty stomach.
At least, my rabid fever had gone down a notch.
I sighed, before properly focusing on the movent before .
Maki and Lily moved around the room, picking and breaking any piece of wooden furniture they could get their hands on, before dumping it in a pile at the centre of the room.
As though noticing my gaze on them, Lily explained.
"We’re building a fire."
"Oh... That’s good."
Sothing like that might have been a beacon to our position normally, but the blizzard more than covered up for it now.
Nothing would be moving around in that storm—well, except maybe the Predator. But the bastard wasn’t here yet.
The only monsters we’d be exposing ourselves to would be those in the building. However, if they were the type to co out of hiding because of a fire, then they would have attacked us the mont we entered the room.
We hadn’t exactly been stealthy in doing so, after all.
Besides, my body felt unbearably cold beneath my clothes. The heat patch I’d slapped on my chest earlier had already gone cold.
Only three remained, so I couldn’t just use another one willy-nilly.
When Maki deed they’d gathered enough, she pulled a lighter from her bag, gently flicking its fla on before lighting the pile on fire.
The fla didn’t catch imdiately, slowly trailing along the wood, before a steady fla finally burst open on the pile.
A black acrid smoke followed it. Though for once the cracks in the windows were useful in siphoning the bitter smoke away.
Both girls were already warming themselves near the fla. I wasted no ti in waddling my way to join them around it.
Pulling my gloves off, I placed my chilly hands near the fla. I sighed in relief, as the toasty fla chased the chill that had entrenched itself in my palms.
I heard movent beside . Turning, I found Maki fiddling with a can of rations.
My face grimaced at the sight.
My stomach was in absolutely no condition to be ingesting that slop. Maki didn’t seem happy to be eating it either.
Lily looked between both of us, before letting a light chuckle. She extended her palm towards Maki.
Maki only gave her a suspicious look, before she sighed.
"Co on, hand it over. I won’t eat it, promise."
Maki yielded at that, carefully dropping the can into Lily’s hand. The girl smiled before standing up, heading towards the bags by the door.
She shuffled around them a bit before returning with two more ration packs.
She popped open all the cans with practice, before nestling them against the fla.
"You know you aren’t typically ant to eat them cold, right?"
’Oh... We didn’t cover rations in survival class, did we? No wonder it tasted like slop before.’
Plus, everyone in the novel had eaten theirs cold.
Seeing my confused reaction, she laughed.
"You know surprisingly little about rations for an orphan."
I coughed awkwardly.
"I never knew you could cook them before."
From what I’d seen in the diary, before the previous Victor t Anna, he lived in completely subhuman conditions.
Getting proper heat would have been completely out of the question.
So the statent wasn’t entirely inaccurate.
Lily gave a pitying nod, before picking up the hardtack from the packs. She broke them into small pieces and dumped them into the cans.
Stirring them with a small spoon,
"We used to prepare them like this whenever we got proper heating around the orphanage."
It didn’t take long for the surfaces of the soups to start bubbling. The mont they did, Lily slipped on her gloves before carefully dragging them away from the fire.
She slid one to each of us, before taking the last one for herself.
I looked suspiciously at the blackened can below . I could see Maki doing the sa in the corner of my vision.
On the other hand, Lily took a spoon from the can, blowing on it lightly before eating. Her lips curled into a smile as she did so, like the slop was actually enjoyable.
Of course, I wasn’t dumb enough to go around trusting her good-for-nothing taste buds.
In the end, I caved before Maki, carefully taking a spoon from mine as well.
If it tasted like a soup before, it was much more of a porridge now. That at least helped even out the chunkiness a bit. The previous clashing tastes had also blended to form a slightly sweet taste to a now otherwise bland porridge.
In the end it was still slop, slightly better slop. But slop nonetheless.
Seeing eating must have given Maki the push she needed to take a spoon as well.
The girl didn’t imdiately spit it out the mont it touched her tongue. So that was nice.
I pushed through the chore of forcing the slop down my throat. The warmth helped a lot in that aspect. I had no doubt that I would’ve puked if I even attempted taking it cold.
My stomach still felt a bit queasy from my burden.
Sighing, I set down the can, before staring straight at the crackling flas chewing through the furniture. The fire likely wouldn’t last us till morning, though hopefully I’d be asleep when it went out.
I scratched my head in consideration before speaking.
"I... tend to get sick if I overexert myself."
Both girls perked up at that. Though Maki didn’t seem all too surprised by the knowledge.
In the end it was sothing they’d figure out eventually. I reckoned it was better to tell them now, than in the middle of a fight.
Maki broke the silence.
"You sure handled yourself pretty well for soone that seed sick half the ti we were out there."
"You noticed?"
Not that it was much of a surprise, but she nodded.
"Still, you weren’t joking when you said you were much better with the crossbow. How did you pick up the skill that fast?"
I could only smile at that.
"I can tell you. That is, if you’re willing to tell your burden."
"Yeah, not happening."
I shrugged.
"Worth a shot."
Not like I didn’t already know. But it was a good way to shut down questions from her.
Lily chid in.
"I guess it all makes sense now. Since you’ve told your burden, I’ll tell you mine as well."
I stopped her right there.
"Is your burden going to affect you, or your performance during the simulation?"
She paused, considering it a bit.
"No. I don’t think so."
"Then, I’ll do you a favor. Don’t tell us anything about your burden. In fact, don’t tell anyone anything about your burden if you can help it. The only reason I told you of mine is because you were bound to guess it eventually."
I tried to ignore the disappointed look Maki was giving from the side. I would be disappointed in anyone giving up such an opportunity too.
I wasn’t doing this because I’d suddenly grown a heart of gold or anything of the sort. Lily was connected to an orphanage in the slums, a damn good one at that.
The fact that they regularly got food, and even proper heating at tis spoke volus. Especially in a place like Sector 8, bordering a literal warzone.
Orphanages were a di a dozen in places like that. Most of them wouldn’t have even half the things Lily had been talking about.
That showed a lot about the orphanage—or more specifically its owner. They had to be an insanely well-connected person to pull off sothing like that.
There was a ton of work to be done in the slums to fix the story.
Naturally, I was doing this to get in Lily’s good books. A connection to her was a possible connection to that person. Learning her burden wasn’t all that important in comparison.
"I guess that does make sense."
While she wouldn’t understand the value of what I was telling her right now, a month in the academy would be enough to open her eyes.
Maki just sighed sadly at the sight, before moving on.
"So? We’re in the city. What’s the plan now?"
Reviews
All reviews (0)