"Hey… Wake up! Wake up!"
The guy was a bit difficult to wake up. I had to shake his shoulders violently for him to finally open his eyes. With his eyes finally open, I then went on to tell him, "There's something I-"
I couldn't finish off what I was saying before the guy closed his eyes and fell asleep again while I was still talking to him.
I couldn't believe it, to the point I almost wanted to slap his face. But I didn't… I didn't want to cause a ruckus and wake everyone up because once they were awake, I'd have to attend to each one of them, focusing my attention on their needs.
I didn't want to do that yet. I wanted them to get as much sleep as possible before I would have them follow me on my training later in the day.
Instead of slapping the guy, what I did was very simple. I returned to the cauldron to pick up a bowl of soup and brought it towards the guy. However, the bowl of soup stayed in my right hand, I didn't feed the guy.
The food was just there in my hand to give him a nice welcome gift later after I woke him up. As for how I woke him up, what I did was the simple method of squeezing his nose closed for him to not be able to breathe anymore. I suffocated him for him to jerk awake from a lack of oxygen!
The guy gasped for air as his eyes were wide open and his hands were trying to instinctively push my hand that was on his nose away.
"Ah, you're finally awake."
I said to him as I withdrew my hand from his nose.
Continuing my words, I brought the bowl of soup close to his face. "Here, have some cold soup. You need it more than anyone here does." I told him while holding the bowl close to his mouth.
"Uh, what?"
Although the guy was fully awake, his mind wasn't active enough yet. It took him a solid second to realize what I had just told him.
"Oh, thank you," he said after his short-lived confusion just now.
Giving me his thanks, he then stretched his hands out to grab the bowl that was right in front of his face. Before he could grab the bowl, though, I moved it away from his face.
"Sit up," I told him while holding the bowl of soup between me and him.
The guy accepted the bowl of cold soup that I brought closer to him. After a minute, he already consumed half of what the bowl contained; however, I wasn't satisfied with the speed. Due to my dissatisfaction, I urged him to swallow his food faster. He followed this order without complaints, but because he did so, he ended up choking.
"Cough! Cough!" The bits of the liquids from the soup sprang out of his mouth. He tried to close his mouth to not spill the food, but this caused his arm and his attire to get all stained.
The simple tunic of his became wet at a few spots, drawing my attention. My eyes had naturally drifted towards the stained spots, and that's when I noticed, 'The shirt became small!'
It's not the shirt that had become small, but that the body of the guy grew in size. With just one bowl of seasoned water, the guy had aged perhaps a year.
Although I had expected and wanted him to grow, I did not expect it to happen so fast. After all, previously, when he ate from the first meal of the cauldron, he did not grow any older, even after having a refill. Yet, this time, he grew instantaneously!
'Does it have to do with accumulation? Or… Could it be random?' I pondered while continuing to stare at the stains on the tunic of the guy.
"What's wrong? Did I make too much of a mess?" The guy asked, seemingly uncomfortable with the fact that I kept staring at his chest area.
"Oh no no, keep doing what you're doing," I replied without changing the direction of where I was looking. I kept staring at the guy's chest without being aware of how much I was doing it. This was so because my mind was still busy while I was replying to the words of the guy.
"There's more, so get as many refills as you can. Don't worry about the others, eat as much as your physical body can handle." I said next, and while doing so I finally stopped staring. My actions were no longer hindered by thoughts that kept my focus absent. My headspace was finally clear.
With a clear mind, I then added, "Hurry up. You still have like five more bowls to finish."
It was rare for me to see someone as obedient as the guy. He followed everything I instructed him to do and the way he would risk choking to death for me, he was living his life as a literal puppet of mine!
One bowl, three bowls, five bows! I noticed he was clearly struggling, yet he continued to fill up his stomach, just so he could consume five bowls of soup like I had ordered him to do.
"Do I need to eat those too?" The guy asked me, not too long after having had his fifth one. While asking, he had a finger pointing towards the few bowls near the cauldron that had soup in them.
"No, that's for the others," I replied and walked towards the cauldron with the empty bowls. Now my eyes locked on the cauldron instead.
After a while, I stood before the cauldron and forced the last bits of soup into the empty bowl that the guy had been using, and while doing so, I continued my conversation with the guy.
"You somewhat lack physical capability compared to others… That's why I let you go on an eating rush." I told him, who no longer looked like a starved teenager.
"I...uh... I…" The guy was at a loss for words, unsure how to express gratitude for the chance to reach the physical level of the others.