While on their way to the first room, Alice started up a conversation with Arlo.
"Hey brother..... I was awake when... When you killed Octavia" said Alice while Stuttering and fidgeting her fingers.
"I also overheard something about demonic parasites. You're not going to kill me too right?"
Arlo thought carefully about how he wanted to answer her. He couldn't care less about Alice or her emotions, but her ice magic might become useful so he had to put on a false persona Infront of her for the time being. He would try to suppress the urge to ask for money and try to become a perfect big brother. By this point he was decently good at putting on a fake mask and hiding his true intentions with this facade. He just wanted to manipulate her for a while before chosing whether or not to kill her. To be honest this decision had nothing to do with rational thoughts, he just thought it would be fun, he was just using her for entertainment.
Arlo wanted to make a even more sadistic smile and turn Alice's skin into a body suit, but he held back and changed that sadistic smile into a false gleeful one. He was already constantly happy (Joy: SSSS+++) so it was pretty easy to put on happy expressions, though sad and angry expressions were pretty hard since he didn't have those emotions. He'd only be able to mimick those emotions from observation but not from heart so he wouldn't look that genuine without practice, Alice was the perfect test dummy (dummy thicc? UwU).
"There's no need to worry, you don't have those parasites in you (Pay me not to kill you!!). Even if you did, I would even make the whole world my enemy to protect you. You're my sister remember (No you're not! You're just a weird stranger)" Arlo was bitting his tongue through the whole sentence.
Alice's uneasy expression suddenly changed into a blissful one and her eyes started to sparkle after hearing Arlo acknowledge Alice as his sister. Arlo wanted to scoop her eyeballs out and eat them, but he just kept it as a thought.
"Well that's a relief brother, but I'm starting to wonder if killing Octavia was the only way. Shouldn't there be a way to get rid of the parasites without Killing anyone?"
Arlo didn't care if there was a way or not and just gave the most convenient answer he could think of.
"I'm not an expert at this subject so let's ask Alfreda about it later. If there happens to be no other way than killing the host, then I'll try my best to find one"
Alice seemed quite happy with Arlo's answers and hugged his arm during the short way left to the first room.
They reached the room and entered it, all of the supplies were still there so they started to pack as much as they could carry. Arlo put a tent and some sand cat meat in his bag and carried the two barrels of water that Bjorn brought all the way here. Alice was in the middle of packing up Octavia's tent and found something, it was a book but it wasn't a Grimoire. It was Octavia's journal. Alice called Arlo over to give him the journal, so he placed down his barrels and took a look inside of the book.
Most of the content wasn't revolutionary so he just skimmed over it. Eventually he found something interesting. "Yesterday we came across some weird creatures on our way through orange stone gorge. They were weird black humanoid animals with wings. I can't give a more detailed description because we all lost consciousness a short time after we saw them. When we woke up, we couldn't find a single trace of them. Were those creatures just an illusion? That can't be since the others also recall seeing the same thing"
The creatures Arlo read about fascinated him quite a bit. "Could those creatures be demons? Maybe that place is a demon base?" He decided to have Alfreda take a look once he's back at the fourth room. They carried the stuff they packed and made their way back.
"Alice, do you happen to know where orange stone gorge is?"
"Orange stone gorge? Not really sure but if you head further west, the sand becomes orange so my best guess it that it's somewhere in that direction"
Arlo noticed that Alice became more sluggish and out of breath the further they walked. The luggage she brought was definitely too heavy for her so he asked if he should carry some of her load.
"What? No, I can definitely carry this much"
"Look just let me take some of it. You're going to get back pain if you keep this up" said Arlo, trying to increase her affinity towards him.
Alice declined again, but Arlo just took some of her stuff anyway. After walking further, he noticed that Alice became fatigued again so he took even more luggage. This continued until Arlo had taken all of Alice's stuff.
"Hey brother, I love you" said Alice while giving the biggest smile.
Arlo just ignored it and kept walking. They made it to the fourth room after a short while. Inside they saw Alfreda lying down on a bed of holy light.