The Hero Should've Known Better

Chapter 9: Mandrel

"The food's here," the Healer said. "And did you get any useful info out of him?"

She sat at the table, as Ronn took a seat next to her.

"What do you mean?" the Hero asked.

"Well, think about it. Did he answer any of your questions directly, or did he just side-step them?"

Ronn took a moment to think.

"I could not tell if he was lying. But his behavior seemed suspect," Ronn said.

"That's because you've never had a conversation with him that doesn't involve fighting!" Junil exclaimed. She was speaking in as loud of a whisper as she could. "You can't just say that you know if he's lying or not!"

Ronn's helmeted head turned to look at Junil. "I wish to believe that I am a good judge of character."

The two sat at the table. Before them were two plates of a meat stew, both of them steaming hot.

"A good judge of character for Humans. What about Demonfolk?" the Healer asked.

"I am capable of reading Demonfolk, to an extent," Ronn replied. "General Forge may have been a challenge, but I can understand him. Regardless, we should begin eating."

"That's because the total amount of time you've ever interacted with him is probably less than an hour! You can't just—"

"Junil."

"—expect us to figure him out with—"

"Junil."

"—three minutes of conversation! Seriously, we need to—"

"Junil."

"—go and talk to him again—"

"Junil. Eat your food. It's going to get cold."

The Healer blinked, then looked down at the bowl of hot stew that had been placed before her earlier.

"Huh... we should, it's— Wait, now don't you change the subject, Ronn!"

"I have taken your opinions into consideration," the Hero replied. He lifted the mouthpiece of his visor up. "It is too late to pursue General Forge at the moment. We will do so tomorrow."

Then, Ronn began to shovel spoonfuls of the stew into the opening on his helmet. Although he was definitely eating the stew, it wasn't something that could be seen from the outside; the darkness of his helmet made it impossible to see his mouth, much less his face.

"Fine. But we'll need to get to the bottom of that. Hurry up with eating, gotta go to sleep early tonight for an early morning."

Junil shoveled a spoonful of the stew into her mouth. She immediately coughed and gasped, almost tossing the spoon across the table.

"Ouch, hot! Hot!"

"Be careful, Junil. The soup is hot."

"Would've been helpful if you told me that earlier!"

The two ate their meal in silence, the only sounds between them being the scraping of their spoons on the bowl and chewing.

Then, Ronn broke the silence.

"Perhaps we should return to New Frontierland."

The Healer, who had been idly gazing out one of the windows, looked at Ronn.

"What?" she asked.

Ronn looked down at Junil. "Indeed, we may need to return."

"Are we really returning to New Frontierland?" Junil asked. "After getting the tickets and everything to get here?"