Vikram and his group had moved forward in their journey, without that carriage so that they could move a little bit faster. But the problem was...
Vikram was feeling odd...
Very odd...
It was the first time that someone had rudely pushed him away. If it was on Earth, he would have always been the center of care and priority. Even if people had meant ill of him, they would have at least kept an outward appearance of goodwill.
He was a terminally ill patient after all.
But now, he was rudely pushed aside without a care in the world. He was bound to feel odd.
But he had a clear distinction between oddness and caution.
The giant in front of him was dangerous. Hell, anyone in this group was threatening to him. Now, he knew what he was supposed to do.
It was just a simple rule...
To survive.
But that simple rule was difficult to keep in this barren desert.
Vikram had asked this whole group about the details of his journey one by one, and he had found that they were the remnant force of the great Empire of Kanthar. A land where he ruled.
Rammess II had luckily escaped the civil strife that occurred in the capital to the Forsaken Lands of Blood, shortly known as Blood Desert.
Vikram was thinking of how and what he was going to do next, but he was stopped by an old man who was about 50 years old. He was a slave who had escaped with his group. He looked at the old man for a second, and he could see that the old man sweating like a pig as he looked at something with trepidation.
He followed the direction of sight where the old man was looking, and what he saw had stunned him still.
He saw red painted all the sand in front of him, and there was a carcass of a camel that was half-eaten lying beside a tall cactus plant. Again, Vikram was feeling odd, looking at the red half-red, half-green cactus plant.
"Heh, it seems that we will be having a feast today, huh!" The warrior trio bellowed as they saw the duplex-sized camel carcass. Vikram was also relieved. He had seen what the storage of their rations was, and it was grim. But this carcass would solve that problem.
One of the trio—Vikram tried to remember his name but shrugged it off. He was not good at remembering names, he strutted forward with large strides.
The hunched-back old man, who served as the steward for Rammess, The Great, his father. He held a major position in the empire, and he remembered from this body's memory fragment that he held great respect for the hunched-back old man.
The hunched-back old man coughed, and Vikram got close to check if the old man was okay or not.
"Old man, is your age getting to you?" Vikram said as he slowly patted the back of the old man. The old man coughed a little bit more and looked at the Vikram with a genuine smile.
"Your Majesty, don't sully your hands by touching us mere specks of dirt." The old man said as he moved away from Vikram, and Vikram nodded helplessly.
"Come on Old man, ther-"
"Hey, you!"
It seemed that the warrior who was about to take the carcass had returned and gestured to a female who was about to reach 16. She was a beauty indeed, and Vikram had noted that she was the one who rejected the advances of the warrior duo before this journey had ever begun.
"You go! and take that carcass back here. Bring the help you can get." Vikram squinted his eyes at the warrior intently and shook his head.
The female slave and her mother began to get nervous. They knew why they were picked, but they couldn't do anything. So, they looked at the old man who was a slave who had stopped Vikram before.
'It seems like he is the slave group's leader.'
The old man was helpless and powerless, so he looked at the only person who had any authority. The slave group turned to look at Vikram, and naturally, the warrior group also turned to him.
The tension was palpable in the air, and the decision was in his hands.
Vikram yawned as he stretched his body, and shooed the slaves.
"If you really think you can follow us and do no work..." His words were left incomplete, but the intentions were clear. The mother and daughter were left devastated, and the warrior duo had a savage smile looking at the mother and daughter.
The problem was not the carcass, and it was not because the slaves were lazy. Hell, they were the ones in that carriage that weighed god knows how much and carried it across the desert.
The problem was what would come after taking the carcass. The warrior duo was going to find something wrong about the mother and daughter, and then...
The mother, daughter, and a couple of male slaves moved toward the carcass in despair. The mother and daughter were at the forefront though.
No one was willing to offend the warrior trio.
The group moved forward and they inched closer and closer to the carcass, and the mother and daughter duo couldn't help but feel more and more dread.
Dread from what was going to happen.
So they didn't notice what was in front of them.
The mother and daughter suddenly felt that they were cruising through the air, and their body slammed into the sand. They stood up in panic as they fumbled and looked at who had tossed them like that.
They were sure that the warrior duo couldn't wait to find a mistake in what they did and were going to blame them because they took too much time for such a 'simple task' such as this.
But when they stood up, they were confused. The one who threw them was not the warriors, but the prince himself. They felt more dread, was the Tyrant's Son going force-
"Everyone! Stop!"
Vikram shouted as the slave group came to a sudden halt, and he glanced at the backside. Even he was surprised that his body had this much strength that he could literally toss bodies.
'Is it because my body is strong?'
Vikram looked at the cactus plant with trepidation and moved back slowly with the group.
'Or is it because their bodies are lightweight.'
"Wha-"
The warrior duo was about to say something, but Vikram snapped his fingers and pointed at them, and motioned them to shut up. Even though they didn't like it, they were curious to see what was happening.
"Tsk" Vikram at first felt as though he heard the warrior trio 'tsking', because they were annoyed at him. But when he intently listened, he knew that the sound came in front of him.
It was the goddamn cactus plant!
He looked as he found that the cactus plant's red bottom split into two to reveal two sets of horrifying teeth that would put even Venom to shame.
The 'plant' that revealed its true nature swayed forward, opened its eldrich mouth of darkness, and swallowed the whole carcass that could last the whole group for two days in one gulp.
He could even hear that nasty gulp!
His spine felt a jolt of fear and trepidation as he looked at the mouth slowly forming a smile that could put trauma into even the strongest of adults. Vikram felt as though the plant was looking at him and smiling.
Why?
It was not the first time Vikram didn't get the answer to his questions...
Vikram slowly moved back and returned to the group. He looked at the mother and daughter. They were rather fine, with both their faces in grimace as they had eaten sand when he had tossed them. But they were both grateful to him.
Well, Vikram had just saved them from monsters...