As the shrill voice reached his ears, Blaine couldn't help but swallow a stifled scream.
The corpse was horribly mauled, with half of its abdomen cleanly ripped off, a testament to how grizzly the person's untimely end was.
Although the corpse was just as rotted as the one Blaine had witnessed at the intersection to enter Redpine City, he could still vividly remember the original state of the body.
The visage of a smiling young woman with short blue hair flashed across his mind as he compared the woman from his memory with the figure before him.
The corpse's blue hair had already been all but lost, with a few strands here and there on its mostly bald scalp attested to the fact that they were once there.
The shock from the sight almost caused Blaine to drop his meal onto the dirt floor.
The figure looked around at the people around Blaine, who happily consumed their meals while chatting and laughing.
"We… We were just like this, too… Once… Don't you remember?"
The figure's hideous voice assaulted his ears, but the pain in Blaine's heart was far worse.
Memories that he desperately tried to suppress bubbled from inside as the scene before him was replaced with a scene of several younger boys and girls enjoying a meal together.
Some looked at Blaine and smiled before pointing to their meals and giving him a bright thumbs up.
Two of these people were a boy with bright, fiery red hair and a girl with short blue hair.
Moments later, the scene changed as he witnessed the red-haired youth horribly battered to death by an axe that was larger than his entire body.
Then it changed once more, showing a scene of the blue-haired girl screaming in agony as a large horned humanoid monster ate her alive.
Just as Blaine instinctively winced, trying to close his eyes from the sight, the scene was replaced by the sight of his current group.
"...Do you …Remember… Now?" The figure asked.
Blaine tightly clenched the red chitinous leg in his hands to the point his knuckles turned white.
"You will lose them… Fail to protect them… Just like us…" The corpse taunted, "Soon… They will join me… And the others… All people you let die…"
Blaine turned to the group with a look of panic breaking through his normally stone–like mask.
"Watch… As history repeats itself again…"
Just as Blaine rotated his head back to face the figure, he noticed that the corpse… Was already gone.
Letting out a small sigh, Blaine looked down at the crab leg in his hand.
Suddenly… He didn't feel hungry anymore.
***
After finishing their meals, the group members took turns taking naps. A pair was stationed outside on night watch duty while the others slept.
They cycled through the originally chosen groups of two, allowing everyone to get sufficient rest.
Being the odd one out and a non-combatant, the princess just sat in her car seat after waking up, seemingly lost in thought.
Feeling hungry, Cecelia reluctantly consumed an MRE ration… Though she threw the nearby pile of monster corpses a hesitant look.
Sighing, she shook her head.
Just as she was internally debating, the van doors opened, and Lorie and Ginny came inside, waking up Blaine and Lyn.
The latter two were the final pair for the night.
Since Blaine had gone out of his way to cook for everyone, he was given the best watch shift.
Lyn, being his designated partner, also benefited from preferential treatment.
As Blaine groggily rubbed his eyes and stepped out of the van, he made his way to where he had set up his small pop-up restaurant a couple of hours earlier.
However, he had no plans of reopening anytime soon.
Although he still had quite a lot of seasoning left over, the crab legs had sat out for too long now for them to eat for breakfast.
But that wasn't the only reason.
After being reminded of painful memories he usually kept buried, he completely lost his desire to cook again.
At least… For other people.
Blankly staring at the small spot, he plopped down beside it.
"Are you sufficiently rested?"
Hearing a voice belonging to a certain middle-aged woman, Blaine turned around and nodded.
A good night's worth of sleep had done wonders for him.
In fact, Blaine was fully ready to fight at a moment's notice should the need arise.
Lyn gazed at the young man as her mouth opened to speak.
"You're so young… Yet so capable. I can see that the rumours of you being a genius aren't baseless."
Blaine stared back at her emotionlessly, not feeling anything in particular from Lyn's genuine praise.
Seeing this, she paused for a moment before continuing.
"Though… Simply labelling you as such wouldn't do you justice. People can only see the results… which is the tip of the iceberg, while oblivious to the hard work needed to produce those results."
She turned her head and gazed at a certain princess who, at the moment, was sitting inside the van.
"Which is why I wanted to ask you a favour… Please… Don't judge others the same way. There are a lot of people who bottle up and hide things deep inside. However, sometimes, when a person can't hold them back anymore… Those hidden things come out, whether they like it to or not. Judging someone based on what they show on the surface is rarely a proper measure of the what kind of person they truly are."
Though he didn't know why she was telling him this, hearing the usually taciturn woman speak so much at once, Blaine couldn't help but diligently pay attention to Lyn's words.
Seeing this, a small smile formed on the middle-aged woman's lips.
"Given that this was the first time I could talk to you one-on-one, I figured this needed to be said. Although the final choice is up to you, I hope you'll at least remember what I said."
Without waiting for Blaine's response, Lyn turned around and walked over to the other side of the van to take up her watch post.