Chapter 45: Not To Judge.

In general, the fresher the food, the better. So cooked meat and corpses were not as good as fresh meat.

From his experience these past few days, qualitative differences don’t show up until the meat comes from an extraordinary source, like an Apostle or other extraordinary creatures who’ve broken their evolutionary limit.

Even day-old corpses of Apostles are better living creatures. They provide more energy and increase his anima by a greater proportion.

And of the flesh of extraordinary creatures he has eaten, the flesh of other flesh titans ranks first. After that are the flesh of extraordinary beasts and monsters. The flesh of other kinds of titans is the worst.

Not only is the flesh of other titans difficult to bite and eat, but it is also difficult to get. After all, titans aren’t known for being generous with their flesh.

So if he wanted to get the worst kind of extraordinary flesh, he would have to fight and kill a titan, a difficult feat which has further reduced the efficiency of their flesh. This has made normal flesh from humans, sheep, cattle, and goat, which are easy to acquire, more appealing to him.

Of these appealing options, the ones that were already dead and required no effort were best. The fact that he could reach out and take them made them almost too much to resist.

Right now, two such great options stood before him. There were the girl and the sheep. Both would be easy to acquire, in his opinion. The only thing standing in his way was Robert.

As he weighed his chances of defeating Robert, the girl beside him, looking to do anything other than watch her brother eat a sheep, said, "I’m Leila."

"I was the one who didn’t want to leave my brother. He took the blame for me. I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you."

"Hmmm," Alexander said in response, not looking at her.

He wasn’t exactly ignoring her. His two normal eyes looked at the sheep, but his two bottom eyes focused on her as soon as she started talking. It was just that the two bottom eyes were looking at her a bit too intensely.

The intense stare made her shiver in fear. But she didn’t give up what she wanted to do.

She only looked away slightly as she said, "Robert told me that he had told you about where he hid the money so that you could tell me. He also told me that you saved his life. I’m grateful for your care."

Alexander finally decided to talk to her. But he still didn’t look at her as he said, "I didn’t do anything."

"Yes, he told me where he hid the money. But I didn’t tell you about it, so that was a waste of effort."

"I also didn’t save his life. I only tried to delay the inevitable. It was the transformation that saved him."

"Don’t mind him, Lelia," Robert said between mouthfuls, blood dripping from his mouth.

"He is just being humble. Without his emotional and physical support, I would have died before the transformation. He told me to hold on, so he saved my life."

As he was speaking, drops of blood scattered from his mouth onto his surroundings. Fortunately, the shower of blood was light and short-lived.

After speaking, Robert buried his head in his meal again.

His sister, Leila, chastised lightly, saying, "You got blood on me. You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full."

"Sorry," Robert said, stopping to eat.

His face was bloody, and his tongue looked horrifying. Yet, Leila didn’t seem to mind.

She said, "At least there’s a lot of water here. I can wash whenever I want."

Seeing this reaction, Alexander was intrigued. He couldn’t help but ask, "Don’t you think he is a monster? Don’t you find his eating habits disgusting?"

She smiled as she said, "He is not a monster. He is my brother. As for his eating habits, all I can say is that I know what it feels like to be very hungry."

"I am not a stranger to starvation and feeling like I could eat anything. I am also not a stranger to eating blood."

"My brother has fed me his blood before when we had nothing to eat, and I drank it without a care in the world. So who am I to judge?"

When he heard this, Alexander decided to look at the girl. He was curious to see what kind of person said those words.

As he turned his head to look at her, he saw a girl about 16 years old. Her head was bowed lightly, and she was fidgeting with her dress. Because her head was bowed, she didn’t notice him looking at her.

Alexander became silent for a while, thinking about something. He was considering whether he should ask the question on his mind or not.

After dwelling on the matter for a few seconds, he said, "Didn’t he tell you that he eats humans and could eat you?"

In response, she nodded and said, "He told me. But I don’t care."

"I know that he won’t harm me. I trust him."

"Besides, I don’t discriminate against people based on what they are capable of or what people like them have done. I discriminate based on what the person has done."

"Well said," Alexander said, nodding in agreement.

"But for your sake, I hope you’re not wrong. Because if Robert can kill and eat you, someone he cares so much about, there might not be hope for people like me. Losing control might only be a matter of time."

She looked up then and said with a smile, "If Robert is confident in you, then I am also confident in you."

Alexander could only shake his head. He lacked the confidence the brother-and-sister duo had in him because only he knew how close he had come to eating Jessy this morning. Only he knew how easy it would have been to eat her.

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A/N: Please, don’t forget to vote with your power stones and golden tickets. Thank you for your support.