Alz’s released the tension in his body when he set foot on the winding passageway. He felt an odd sense of security whenever he was in this place, perhaps because of his first encounter with this place, so he naturally relaxed as he returned.

[I’m back]

Alz voiced out quietly with a lonely expression.

Now that he had found a solution to the water problem, it was time to solve the food problem as he walked straight into the room at the end of the corridor.

When he entered the room, the first thing he did shoot a vengeful glare at the hemispherical device which lay quietly on the floor. This device was indirectly the culprit behind him missing the arrow before and Alz still felt the stinging pain in his head now.

He then approached the first shelf he went to when he arrived and slowly caressed the shelf while observing it closely with his eyes.

“This will work!” His face lit up in delight as he confirmed the feasibility of his idea. Without hesitation, he took out his dagger and started cutting out parts of the wood from the shelf.

The shelves here had all been sitting for a very long time and the wood had long since dried out, making it the ideal material for starting a fire.

Alz first cut out a large slab of wood. He then cut out thinner slab of wood and started carving it into a cylinder. He held the cylinder to the large slab of wood and gouged out a cavity in the wood that was the thickness of the cylinder by slowly whittling off the sides of the hole.

He looked down at the two pieces of wood and nodded in satisfaction. He then proceeded to carve out some smaller pieces of wood shavings and a few moderately sized pieces of wood before bringing everything out to the passageway.

He was planning on making the fire at the passageway this time as he did not dare to start a fire above ground in his current condition and the room was simply not an option with all the flammable materials in it.

While he was carrying the first batch of materials out, he casually looked around the room when suddenly, his steps halted, and a sharp glint flashed in his eyes as he focused his gaze on a book on the shelf.

Since he was unable to read them, he was thinking of testing if they could be used as fuel. There was a lot of wood from the shelves in the room, but this wood was valuable wood capable of being used for fire starting, he felt like it was a waste to use to use it to fuel to the fire.

This time was an exception due to his condition, but he had initially planned on gathering wood from the forest to fuel fires when he recovered. If the books could be used to feed the fire, he would be able to avoid this entire tiresome and risky process.

He retracted his gaze and proceeded out to unload the first batch of items at the passageway before returning to carry out all the wood he gathered from the shelf in batches to the passageway.

When he was done, he went back into the room and walked over to the shelf which he had broken the protective layer on before.

He had already carved enough wood from the shelf to cook the meat, so he was just going to grab a book to test if it burned.

He felt slightly bad towards the people who made this room by doing this, but his guilt was soon washed away when he thought of how nobody could read the books anyways.

He casually reached out and grabbed a book from the shelf, holding it in his hands. He wanted to do a casual inspection of the book to confirm the materials when suddenly, his hand froze. His mind went blank for a moment as he tried to comprehend what was happening.

He rubbed his eyes as if doubting his eyesight, but nothing changed. He first revealed an expression of confusion, but it quickly transformed into an expression of shock and elation as his eyes and mouth both opened widely while the ends of his lips curled up slightly.

[T-The Prin-ci-cipu-l-es of Mo-mo-de-r-n Ec-o-no-mic-s]

Alz read out slowly and awkwardly in a language distinct from the elven script, a language he had never heard before.

He quickly flipped opened the book and started looking at the words within the book as his grin got wider and wider. He flipped through several pages while staring intently at the words printed on the pages before slamming it shut and placing it back on the shelf.

He took several deep breaths, but his heart kept racing faster and faster, showing no signs of calming down. His face was beet red and visible drops of sweat started to trickle down his forehead. He pinched his cheeks to check if he was dreaming but he quickly moaned in pain.

He winced slightly but his grin quickly recovered into an even wider grin as he tried to grab another book to confirm what just happened. However, just as he was reaching out, the stinging pain in his head suddenly intensified.

He crouched down and held his head with both his hands as cold sweat formed in his palms. He groaned in pain and fell to the floor a short moment later and rolled about on the ground. After about five minutes, the pain finally subsided and Alz stopped rolling about.

He dazed out while staring at the white ceiling for several minutes before focusing his eyes and slowly getting back up. He felt that the stinging pain in his head became slightly stronger than before the episode as he looked at the books with fearful eyes.

Suddenly, a loud growl echoed across the room and Alz felt a pain assault him from his waist. He looked down at his stomach with a bitter smile and turned his eyes back to the books.

Although, now, all thoughts of burning these books faded from his mind and he quickly turned away from the books and started walking towards the passageway.

When he reached the entrance, he paused for a moment and looked at the hemispherical device in thought before continuing out of the room.

After he exited, the lights in the room shut off as darkness filled the space once again.

His face was filled with thought as he walked over to materials. He was very excited when he found out that he could read and understand the ancient script.

It was a mysterious feeling. He knew that he had never ever seen any of those words before yet they all felt so familiar when he read it. He somehow knew how each word sounded and the meanings being the words would mysteriously float up into his head as he read each word.

However, this also came at a cost. He was not certain if his episode earlier was due to him reading the words, but it definitely happened right after he read the words and he really did not want to try it again.

The stinging in his head also became stronger than before, something he clearly felt after the episode although it was still weaker than right when he woke up.

He shook his head and looked down at the materials before him. Whatever the case, there was no doubt that he needed to fill his stomach first, so he squatted down and started his preparations for making a fire.

He had been taught and even done this several times back in the village, but it always took a lot of time and effort and he usually wasn’t very successful.

His eyes started to become unfocused as he recalled the times when Link always finished first and came to laugh at him and Polon who were always struggling to start the fire with Lein standing by the side watching over all of them with that eternally unchanging face.

This lasted for a moment before he snapped back to the task at hand. All he could do now was hope that the quality of the materials used this time could make up for his lack of skill and strength in his current state.

He grabbed the cylindrical rod and pressed it into the hole he gouged out earlier and placed the rod between both his palms. Then, he started rolling the cylinder back and forth as quickly as he could.

Before long, embers started sparking and the wood soon ignited as a smile floated in Alz’s face. He quickly threw the wood shavings onto the embers, causing them to grow larger, growing into a fire. He then placed a piece of wood in to feed the fire, causing it to burn stably.

He nodded as he looked at this but just as he was about to reach out for the meat, he realised that he had forgotten to make skewers to pierce the meat with and a stand to hold the skewer. His movements paused awkwardly as he looked down at the fire.

He sighed as he grabbed one of the few remaining arrows in his quiver and broke off the arrowhead, using it as a skewer as he pierced a piece of meat he had cut apart using his dagger earlier and placed it above the fire.

Stick by stick, he enjoyed his first meal since he left the village as he devoured the day-old wolf meat entirely, finally sating his hunger. He then proceeded to put out the fire with some water from his container while drinking some as well.

His only thought at the end of the meal was “I WILL MAKE A STAND FOR THE SKEWER NEXT TIME, FOR SURE!” as he looked down at his extremely sore and numb left hand with tears in his eyes.