Roasted Meat

"Hey, Maicomarlon, what are you thinking about?"

Kaldara's voice snapped Malone out of his reverie. Then he noticed a long sword gleaming right in front of his face.

The sudden sight startled Malone, but his state of mind was far steadier than it had once been.

Once he had quickly composed himself, Malone noticed a small piece of bacon impaled on the tip of Kaldara's sword.

In the flickering firelight, wisps of heat rose from the bacon. Only now did the piece of meat, hard as a stone, begin to give off the aroma it ought to have.

Malone sniffed greedily, and his mouth flooded with saliva.

"Thanks."

Malone thanked Kaldara as he took the cooked bacon off the blade.

But he didn't keep it for himself. Instead, he turned and handed the piece of bacon to Tiffany, who was behind him.

There wasn't much room inside the wooden shed.

To find a clear patch where they could light a fire without setting the haystack ablaze, Kaldara, Teron Gorefiend, and Malone had settled not far from Tiffany in the corner. Malone could reach her just by turning around.

Tiffany had been trembling with fear, but after a long while, she realized that she wasn't in any danger. Gradually, she began to relax.

Mr. Malone is right in front of me! If I can't trust him, who can I trust?

That was what Tiffany told herself.

Just as Tiffany was staring blankly at Malone's back, he suddenly turned around and handed her a dark, charred-looking thing.

"Mr. Malone, what is this?"

As soon as Tiffany asked, she caught the aroma coming from the bacon.

"Apparently it's bacon... I'm not too sure, but it smells pretty good. I haven't figured out where to get you something to eat yet, so go ahead and try it!"

Malone smiled at Tiffany.

"But, Mr. Malone, you haven't..."

Tiffany knew that Malone hadn't eaten anything either. She believed that if he had eaten during the day, he wouldn't have forgotten that she was still hungry.

It was trust without any real reason, but that was simply what Tiffany believed.

"It's fine. You eat first. There's plenty more here."

Malone said with a smile.

"Oh..."

Tiffany cautiously took the small piece of bacon from Malone's hand. Its rind wasn't so hot anymore. The girl held it gently in her palms and nibbled at it in tiny bites.

Malone turned around. Kaldara had already cut off a few more pieces of meat, skewered them on his sword, and set them over the bonfire to roast.

Just how strong was this Blademaster?

Malone looked at the powerful muscles rippling across Kaldara's body. He knew they must conceal explosive strength.

More important was how well he controlled that strength.

Malone recalled how Kaldara had just extended that long blade in front of him without the tip trembling even a little.

What astonishing control!

Malone was sure he was no weaker than Kaldara, but he knew he couldn't do something like that.

And here was such a powerful Blademaster, standing right in front of him, intently roasting bacon.

If the bacon hadn't been stolen from the humans, Malone could almost have believed he was on a picnic. How was this any different from going out for barbecue with a few good buddies right before graduating from college?

"Where'd you get the roasted meat?" Malone suddenly asked.

"From the tent where they store the food," Kaldara replied.

"You can just take it whenever you want?" Malone asked in confusion.

Orcs didn't produce their own food. They relied entirely on plundering humans for their strategic supplies.

If they could take bacon whenever they pleased, wouldn't the Orcs have eaten all their provisions themselves by now?

"Of course not. How could you have such a naive idea?" Kaldara glanced at Malone, looking puzzled.

"Then... are you a Blademaster, so you get special treatment?" Malone guessed. Maybe, like in ancient armies, soldiers of different ranks received different rations.

"Nothing like that... I stole it from there," Kaldara said frankly.

"Stole it?" Malone gaped at him, both because this Blademaster was apparently a thief and because Kaldara was so blunt about it.

"Was nobody guarding the food?" Teron Gorefiend asked.

The Death Knight leader furrowed his brow. As someone concerned about the Horde's future, he couldn't accept the guards being so negligent.

"Of course there were. Orgrim sent the Blackrock Clan's elite warriors to guard the food, but none of them could beat me. Hahaha!"

Laughing boisterously, Kaldara handed a piece of roasted bacon to Malone.

"That's not stealing. That's just robbing them by force!" Malone took the bacon but couldn't help criticizing Kaldara.

"Call it whatever you want. When I feel like eating meat, I beat up anyone who tries to stop me," Kaldara said nonchalantly, then offered a piece of bacon to Teron Gorefiend as well.

"No thanks. We Death Knights don't eat," Teron Gorefiend said, waving away the piece of bacon.

"Death Knights don't eat? That's the first I've heard of it... Then what about you, Maicomarlon?" Kaldara asked in surprise, watching Malone take a bite of bacon.

"I'm the Death Knight who eats. Got a problem with that?"

Malone couldn't be bothered to explain. He knew that the more he said, the easier it would be to give himself away.

"I see..."

Just as Malone had expected, Kaldara didn't press the matter. He simply began wolfing down the roasted bacon.

Malone took bite after bite of the bacon in his hand. It was salty. It didn't compare to the food he'd eaten back on Earth, but it was a lot better than the pot of meat porridge from breakfast.

"Good thing you still eat, or I'd have wasted that bacon on you," Kaldara said around a mouthful, chewing noisily.

"It wouldn't have gone to waste. She could've eaten it, couldn't she?"

Malone jerked his chin toward the woman behind him.

"I've been meaning to ask... what's going on between you and that human woman? You seem... a little too good to her, don't you? You even gave her the first piece of bacon..."

Kaldara glanced at Tiffany, who was eating slowly with her head lowered over her hands, and asked curiously.

"What's it to you... just roast your meat!"

Malone blushed and snapped at him without thinking.

What was he supposed to say? That he'd fallen in love with this human prisoner?

Fortunately, Kaldara wasn't the kind of Orc who liked to pry. At Malone's rebuke, his attention immediately shifted elsewhere.

"Why don't you roast it yourself?"

Kaldara swallowed the bacon in his hand in two bites, then picked up his sword again.

As he skewered more bacon on the blade, he continued grumbling unhappily.