6 Chapter 6 - Damn I (2/2)
”Much obliged, now if you could show me where the toilet is, I would be thankful.”
The guard gave Kenji a long look, then pointed to a chamber pot beneath his bed.
”Oh, eh, yes of course. How silly of me to forget,” rummaging with his bandages and cloth, Kenji both didn't need to go to the toilet and didn't understand how to get his - device - out to operate the procedure with.
Yet the guard continued to stare, and Kenji felt abashed as he had to turn around and say,
”Mind if you pop out of the room for a bit? Can't go while you're watching.”
The guard gave him a long look, turned, and stomped out. The wooden frame shuddered with the force of the door slamming shut, Kenji peering between his legs with concern.
”Maybe this species doesn't need to go?” he hoped.
”Indeed, they internally combust the waste material and excrete it as sweat,” a familiar so close to perfect voice said. The woman appeared as a normal village girl. Messy chestnut hair, sunburnt skin dashed with freckles, and sky-blue eyes that analysed Kenji head to toe.
”I've been meaning to speak to you. What's with this body, why am I an old man bound in chains?”
”You're weak too, you would be powerless in a strong breeze. But that species you've started this game as has its advantages. For one, as part of the Mimic family, you do not need to breathe. Neither can you be poisoned, and you have a strong resistance towards blunt damage.”
Kenji thought that very useful if he ever needed to win a bet of who could hold their breath the longest, but wasn't planning on doing much deep-sea diving in a monster-infested world. Yet he did appreciate the poison part. The period dramas he loved to watch had been so full of rich Lords poisoning one another that he hadn't even yet touched the soup for fear of betrayal. Confident in his promised immunity, Kenji finally attempted to sate some of his hunger.
”But that alone isn't enough to make you as rare as you were. No, any Mimic can do as much as that.” Kenji looked up mid-scoop to find the woman showing him was seemed to be her favourite finger, a bright girlish grin letting loose dark cracks around her mouth.
”So, does it happen to work with my missing mouth?” The reason Kenji had looked up mid-scoop to begin with, was because there was no mouth to be found beneath his beard. He didn't know how he was even breathing. It was rather worrying to discover soon after, that his chest did not, in fact, move as was the custom for living beings.
”Put your hand in the bowl, it should come quite naturally. Any part of your body can consume sustenance, just like any truly civilised species. To think some lowly creatures must use intestinal tracts...disgusting.” The woman spread fresh wrinkles about her little upturned nose.
Peering uncertainly at the hot soup, Kenji built up the courage. Diving two fingers in, he squeezed his eyes shut and yet was not immediately scalded. The soup drained away into his...stomache? Did he still have one of those?
All the same, Kenji was filled with heat and exhaled to fired steam into the air.
”Wait, if I can shoot steam, where is my mouth?” Searching again under his ragged beard Kenji found only bandage and chain.
”That's related to your special ability. You're a forbidden type of Mimic, an ancient variation of their ancestor species, the Changeling. You can make a mouth wherever you want a mouth really. But that's not the most important part, in three seconds the guard out there will die. Then you will eat his corpse.”
Kenji dropped the spoon.
”I'll what?”