Part 3

It had been an hour since Knight finally fell asleep, although it had also been around half an hour since he had woken up.

He was uncomfortably spread on a mess of rags that were barely protecting him from the sharp granite edges of the cell’s stony floor.

How do they do it? Knight had experienced what insomniacs felt like at night, sharing many of their problems in his horrid slumber, and now hailed them as brave soldiers. With his heavy eyelids weighing down his frustrations, he tried for a few more minutes of rest.

After these few minutes of uncomfortable rest, Knight's eyes creaked open and saw a dimly lit figure towering above him.

"Won tea, ouy" A cold grating voice pierced Knight's weak ears.

"Wh… What?" A groggy Knight replied, resting a hand over his eyes, I can’t even understand speech? How tired am I?

No verbal response came. Instead, a hard cone was slammed against Knight's tired body, nearly breaking a rib in the process.

"Aargh, what the fuck?!" Knight cried as he attempted to jump out of his makeshift bed. The attempt could only be called an attempt as he was instantly pinned down by what could only be explained as one flipper-like rock.

Before he could register whatever had suddenly pinned him to the jagged floor, the tall figure threw two cold rocks at Knight before proceeding to leave with a sharp grunt.

Rubbing his languorous eyes, two pieces of bread entered the centre of his vision.

"...B-Bread? They're as hard as rocks.” Knight muttered as he languidly grabbed the edible rocks, sitting in the process; they were small enough to fit in his right hand, his left still uselessly drooping.

A quiet growl could be heard from Knight's stomach, making him realise the emptiness inside the cavern his body held. Shit, the night before I came here, I got about two hours of sleep and went the whole day without food just to play football.

Knight remembered that he hadn’t had any food for pretty much a whole day right now; the confusion from his new situation had swallowed his stomach's emptiness, only allowing it to come back to him at this moment.

Just as Knight started to inspect whether this bread really was edible, he noticed a dirty blue blanket strewn on the large pile of rags where a girl was hidden, in the corner of his eye.

Wait, don’t tell me that blanket is actually hair…

Turning his head slightly, his suspicion was confirmed. He also noticed that she was cuddling one specific grimy rag close to her mouth; and that she also had one eye peeking open.

Oh, she's not cowering entirely under them rags now huh? Knight thought as he resumed his inspection if the rock-hard bread.

Before he could even look at the bottom of the bread, he heard a growl, much louder than his.

The girl was crawling closer, but immediately hid her face in the grimy blanket she was cuddling seconds before.

Knight stared intently at her, waiting for her to reveal her face.

He waited for nearly a minute to pass before the girl softly removed the rag from her face, revealing her soft dirty face. With her ling dishevelled hair covering most of her face, Knight barely caught a glimpse of two teary golden eyes.

With the lifeless stare of Knight’s faded eyes on her own, she inadvertently fell backwards, pulling the rag over her shiny eyes once more as she dropped to the bundle of blankets, frightened from Knight's glare.

"Oh, sorry about that.” Knight tried to apologise softly. Although it came out as a rough and fake apology instead. He didn't like admitting he was wrong, he usually tried to act like the smart one, despite failing half of his exams. However, despite his academic scores, he was quite perceptive. She definitely wanted food. Well, I’m too hungry to give her any.

Knight rotated the two rock-hard pieces of bread over with the help of his feet - as it was nigh impossible with one workable arm - to notice a few splodges of green, disgustingly contrasting to the white bread, leaving Knight quite repulsed for one moment.

"Here." Knight tossed the two mouldy, rocks in the direction of the girl.

She started to pick them up, before clumsily scurrying back to her corner as she made eye contact with Knight. She failed to even pick the bread up.

What is with her? Does she have a serious case of shitting her pants? She cries every time we make eye contact.

Knight tried thinking about her strange actions, before forcing himself up and lazily picking the up the two rocks.

"I meant that you could have these, I'm not hungry." This time Knight thought better than carelessly throwing the rocks and walked towards the hidden girl.

"Come on, I’m shy too you know." Knight began coaxing her out, "Am I that scary that you can't even say a word to me?" Well, he wasn't particularly scary, but he had been throwing a few intense glares towards the poor girl every now and again. Not to mention that he had started his prison life mindlessly muttering to himself. It was rational for the girl to be scared.

"I'm gonna be real, I have no idea why I'm here but hey, you look a lot hungrier than me, so eat up." He waited a couple of minutes, holding back his impatience.

Finally, movement could be seen as a hand popped out, "Ah, thanks for being so cooperative." He placed the two pieces of bread into awaiting hands.

Knight, still tired, decided to rest against the rugged wall, watching the girl’s movements. She placed one in her left hand, and with the other in the right, before smashing one on a particularly sharp jut of the ground, denting the bread.

Knight, annoyed at this obvious disrespect for his kind deed, remarked with a click of his tongue. “Oh, so that’s how your gonna treat my offering?”

Although apparently, she had not meant to offend Knight and immediately knelt with her face touching the rough floor - she was bowing to Knight.

“I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry master!” She whimpered in a soft, frightened voice, shedding a tear alongside it.

Startled Knight wanted to reply, but changed his mind. He thought about the current situation, mainly to take some of the strain of this weird world away from it.

Why the hell is she calling me master and getting so upset over one little thing I said? She was the one being disrespectful. Well, whatever, I guess I quite like the sound of this 'master’.

"Eat up, ignore what I just said…" His voice now filled with kindness despite a sly smug appearing on his face.

"Mhm" murmured the girl, wiping the tear from her round face, before immediately covering her whole body in rags yet again, slouching back in the corner.

However, Knight hadn't finished what he was saying, "Buuuut, you have to talk to me… aaand you have to stop covering yourself in those God Damn rags!" Knight's expression was kind, but his final words were harsh, though strangely enough. the girl seemed to listen to those harsh orders, as her face popped out of the rags.

She had some soft bread in her left hand; in her right was the hard bread. It seemed she had smashed it so she could get to the softness inside, or the ‘somewhat’ softness.

"Ah, thanks for coming out, enjoy your bread" Knight spoke with the smug look engraved onto his face

Heh, smart girl, but that's mouldy bread.

Before he could continue laughing to himself, the girl silently extended out her left hand after stuffing the soft bread in her small mouth. The other hard rock was still cupped in her right hand.

"No, no, no, I gave that to you" Knight kindly rejected her offer, not feeling like eating mould anytime soon. However, the hand was still extended.

"Nah. Seriously, I'm not hungry. I had a huge feast before getting thrown in here." Knight lied, a facade of kindness showing in his eyes.

"... N-no" Words stumbled out of the girl’s mouth.

"No?"

"L… Lie" The girl had found Knight out.

How the fu… No, if this is really an isekai then I'll need help. She looks vulnerable so she'll definitely help if I can assure her that I'm not scary.

Deciding to ignore how she knew; with his 'perfected' poker face, he tried persuading the girl, perfectly mixing honesty and fake kindness, "yeah…I lied. But that doesn't change anything, I lied for you. I can't resist helping a poor girl in need, so eat up; I may be hungry, but you need it more."

The girl turned her head in response, her messy hair falling out of position, revealing her beautiful and endearing golden eyes.

For a moment, she stared intently into Knight's eyes, the two pairs heavily contrasting; bright enamouring gold to a murky rejecting green, or much simpler, dazzling orbs to faded eyes.

Knight stood, speechless for a moment until he remembered his goal. "So, will you accept both of my gifts?"

Turning away at the sudden question, the girl nodded in agreement and quickly burrowed under a seemingly increasing pile of white rags.

This left Knight to his thoughts, allowing his mind to stray away from the important matters, wait a second, doesn't mould make bread soft…?