blueteamnovel Chapter 135 : Chapter 135
Chapter 135 : Chapter 135
As soon as he realized that there were fish in the river, the excited Half-wit jumped straight into the water.Leaving the guy to rummage around in the water, I examined the fish Ratel had caught.
Although its size was a bit small, it didn't seem like a species that originally lived in a cave.
It seemed that a few fish had been swept along when the river overflowed.
Fish were a decent food source, but that didn't mean I could just mindlessly stuff them into my mouth.
Because they could be harboring poison that humans couldn't eat.
“Is it okay to eat?”
As if having similar worries as me, Ratel muttered.
If there was a difference from me, it was that the guy knew the solution.
“Hey, Half-wit.”
At Ratel's call, the Half-wit approached with a wary expression.
When the Half-wit came close enough, Ratel stuffed the caught fish into the Half-wit's mouth before anyone had the chance to do anything.
“Kkwek!!”
Apart from being startled, the Half-wit reflexively chewed and swallowed as soon as food entered his mouth.
At the forced feeding act that happened in an instant, everyone quietly looked at the Half-wit.
“Kkweeeek!!!”
Ending with the guy smacking his lips with an indifferent face, Ratel calmly opened his mouth.
“If we watch for a little bit, we'll be able to tell whether it has poison or not.”
The furious Leader yelled from the side, but it wasn't like he could take back the fish that had already been swallowed.
I just quietly nodded my head at Ratel.
Vowing that I would never accept and eat anything the guy gave me from now on.
***
Even after 30 minutes had passed since he ate the fish Ratel gave him, the Half-wit didn't show any particular abnormal symptoms.
If anything, he seemed to have become more active.
Excited about something, the guy jumped into the puddle, wading through the water this way and that, and reached out his hand toward the fish.
Judging by the way he acted, it was clear that his hunting skills had always been terrible.
Seeing a guy who wanted to fish caused such a commotion without even knowing the basics of fishing.
If it had been a long, continuous river instead of a narrow puddle, all the fish would have already run away.
Watching the Half-wit miss all the fish, Ratel quietly took a spot in one corner of the puddle.
Thanks to his excellent spot selection, the guy was able to snatch the fish leaping up to avoid the Half-wit.
It was a situation where the Half-wit did all the hard work and Ratel caught the fish.
“Kkwek, that bastard…….”
As if that sight made him quite resentful, the watching Leader muttered while grinding his teeth.
“Kkwek, I'll stuff a fish into that bastard's mouth right now too.”
“Kkwek, just leave him be.”
When I stopped the guy who was shifting his body as if he would argue right away, the Leader looked at me with an incomprehensible face.
“Kkwek, he isn't a guy who would die from eating a little bit of that.”
He probably wouldn't even get an upset stomach.
He was a guy who would survive even if deadly poison was poured into his mouth.
“Kkwek, how do you know that?”
“……Kkwek, I just know by looking. Kkwek, a human as toxic as him won't die from something like that.”
When I vaguely answered because I had nothing particular to explain, the Leader let out a hollow laugh in disbelief.
“Kkwek, are you making fun of me? Kkwek, then why did he feed it to the Half-wit first?”
I was about to answer the Leader's question, but I was at a loss for words.
Right? He wouldn't have died from eating a little bit of that anyway.
It wasn't like the taste would change just because the Half-wit tried it first.
Pondering for a moment at the Leader's sharp question, I reached one conclusion.
As expected, wasn't it to torment him?
Ratel seemed to strangely dislike the Half-wit.
Above all, I had seen a few times where Ratel deliberately approached the Half-wit and whispered something, causing the Half-wit's face to turn completely pale.
However, speaking honestly would only be like pouring oil on the Leader's anger, so I held my tongue.
“Kkwek, I'm saying just leave him be. Kkwek, if you're really dissatisfied, try catching them yourself.”
With that level of depth, he wouldn't drown unless he was really unlucky.
Not pleased to be asked any more about Ratel, I also raised my body.
I felt like I had to join that bizarre fishing if I wanted to at least secure a meal for myself too.
“Kkwek, are you telling me to hunt?”
Following me with his eyes as I stood up, the Leader asked back.
It was an expression that seemed to say the act of hunting directly was unfamiliar.
“Kkwek, forget it if you think you can't.”
This time, I wasn't particularly teasing or provoking the guy.
I just thought his hunting skills would naturally be lacking since he was a guy who had stayed cooped up inside.
However, the guy must have definitely taken it as me scraping his nerves to provoke him again this time.
“Kkwek……!”
The Leader snorted out a breath and stood up from his spot.
And he confidently strode toward the puddle.
Looking at the back of the guy's head as he walked away, I had the illusion that the picture was already being drawn.
The image of the Leader stubbornly refusing to accept food given by a human again today, and Ratel answering that he could just starve to death then.
***
Compared to his bold approach exactly as I expected, the Leader's results were abysmal.
The Leader's face looking down at two minnows was incredibly gloomy.
“Kkwek, with this size……shouldn't we let them go?”
I thought it was a custom to release fish that were too young.
“Kkwek…….”
The Half-wit compared Ratel's mountain of fish with his own results that barely covered the floor, and cried pitifully.
I wasn't much different from the Half-wit.
In the first place, I didn't have that much greed for things like raw fish.
However, the Half-wit seemed greatly shocked that all the fish caught by the three Orcs combined couldn't even match what Ratel had caught.
Especially the face of the guy looking back and forth between the couple of fish the Leader caught and the Leader's face was filled with disappointment.
“Kkwek!! Let them go, what do you mean let them go!! Kkwek, this is enough!!”
His pride must have been quite hurt as the guy took it out on me for no reason and tossed the two fish into his mouth in one bite.
It was obvious that it probably wouldn't even make a dent in his hunger, but the guy patted his stomach with a deliberately satisfied face.
“That's good. Since your stomach is smaller than it looks.”
Muttering, Ratel roughly cleaned the fish he caught and chewed and swallowed it.
The Leader glared sideways at the fish piled up next to Ratel.
It was an amount where it was safe to say that every single fish in the puddle had been caught by Ratel's hands.
Quietly watching that sight, the Leader opened his mouth.
“Kkwek, hey, human bastard, if you have a conscience, hand the rest over to the Half-wit. Kkwek, it wasn't even caught with your own strength, so why are you shamelessly eating them?”
Suddenly singled out, Ratel stared at the Leader expressionlessly.
“Kkwek, what are you just looking at? Kkwek, hand over half to this side.”
Perhaps thinking he had found an easy target, the Leader's voice was full of strength.
It was the moment I was about to restrain the guy from his increasingly uncomfortable attitude.
Ratel stood up without a word and approached the remaining pile of fish.
A triumphant look flashed across the Leader's expression, thinking the guy would meekly yield the food this time.
I found that Leader more fascinating instead.
To not know the guy even after going through all that until now.
Whether the prejudice against humans that had settled in his heart was too solid, or if he was just avoiding facing reality.
Naturally, Ratel didn't listen to the Leader's unreasonable demands.
Instead, he chose to shove all the remaining fish back into the puddle.
“Kkweeeek!!!”
The Half-wit looked at the fish swimming back into the water with pitiful eyes, but Ratel turned his body as if it was none of his business.
“Kkwek, th-that……!”
At Ratel's action, the Leader jumped up.
“Kkwek, if you weren't going to eat them anyway, you should have just left them, what is this putting them back? Kkwek, you wouldn't have even been able to catch them if it wasn't for that Half-wit bastard, right?!”
He was wrong.
He would have easily succeeded in fishing even without the Half-wit's help.
But Ratel didn't bother giving such an excuse.
“It's my choice.”
Instead, he provoked the Leader bastard's temper once more.
“Kkweeeek!!! What the hell do you mean?!!”
Besides, the effect was exceptional too.
The furious Leader blew hot air from his nose as if he would pounce on Ratel at any moment.
Whether the guy was furious or not, among the fish Ratel had released, the living ones leaped back into the river like fish meeting water.
Watching them made my already nauseous stomach churn.
I pushed the fish left as my share forward.
I didn't want to leave behind disliked food in an emergency situation just because it tasted bad, but it was obvious that if I forced any more down, the urge to vomit would surge.
“Kkwek, you guys figure out and eat the rest.”
“Kkwek??”
The Half-wit, whose fishing results weren't any better than the Leader's, beamed with joy.
Excited, the guy picked up a few fish and hurriedly stuffed them into his mouth.
The Leader watched the guy's unhesitating appearance for a moment before making eye contact with me and abruptly turning his head away.
Is it that he couldn't eat it out of pride?
He was probably a guy who ate what the others hunted on a regular basis anyway.
He made his body suffer by showing pride in weird places.
“Kkwek, unless your stomach is really the size of a fist, what you had earlier wouldn't even be enough. Kkwek, just eat it.”
“Kkwek!! I am not hungry!”
Even though everyone knew it was an amount that made you think even a sparrow would have eaten more than that, the guy stubbornly insisted.
When I wordlessly stared at the Leader, the guy avoided my gaze, perhaps embarrassed by his own lie.
“Kkwek, then I should throw the rest away.”
I dusted myself off and stood up without any lingering attachment.
“Kkwek!!”
Perhaps he hadn't yet escaped the shock of Ratel throwing away the fish right in front of his eyes, as the guy hurriedly grabbed me.
“Kkwek, what? Kkwek, if you aren't going to eat it anyway, it doesn't matter if I throw it away.”
At my argument that there was no real difference between dumping it to him or returning it to the water since it was going to be thrown away anyway, the Leader glared at me with a dumbfounded face.
“Kkwek, it's not that I'm hungry……, but I can't let you make such a waste.”
Strongly expressing his stance that he was never hungry but couldn't throw away precious prey so he was reluctantly eating, the Leader began to eat the fish.
The guy who was chewing the food slowly must have felt less aversion than when eating human food, as he soon began to devour the fish ravenously.
I turned my head at the fishy smell that had grown even stronger.
Although doing so didn't make the Orc's developed sense of smell lose its function.
Turning my head to block out at least my sight, I made eye contact with Ratel who was watching this way.
When I twitched my eyebrows to ask what he was looking at, the guy rolled his eyes.
It was the moment when I was doubting whether that protagonist bastard was thinking of shoving the Leader into the water this time.
The guy suddenly turned his bag upside down.
Whether he turned the bag upside down or wore it over his head was none of my business.
However, the story would be a bit different if the original owner of the bag was me.