Halvir still looked confused.
His face clearly showed dissatisfaction.
Anindira took a deep breath and let it out rather forcefully.
Then she smiled again and patiently resumed her explanation.
“Kak,” Anindira called softly, “the vegetables I usually eat are cultivated vegetables.”
“What is culti-vation?” Halvir asked with a serious expression.
“Hm…” Anindira murmured, thinking of how to explain it.
“Well…
cultivated vegetables are plants that we intentionally grow ourselves.
We take care of them until harvest time.
More or less like that.”
“I think I know,” Halvir replied.
“Some Herbivores do something similar.”
“H-her…
her?” Anindira tried to repeat the unfamiliar word, her tongue stumbling slightly.
“Her-bi-vore,” Halvir dictated slowly, teaching her a new word.
“So some of your people do that too?!” Anindira exclaimed excitedly.
“Yes.
Herbivores do it.
They don’t like hunting, so they plant things.
Most of those plants are used for medicine, which is why Hans is quite familiar with them.”
“Oh…
so it’s more for medicine than for food.”
“Not exactly,” Halvir immediately corrected her firmly.
“The Herbivores eat them.
We don’t.”
“What do you mean?” Anindira frowned in confusion.
“They grow them because they actually eat them.
We only trade hides or meat when we need those plants for medicine,” Halvir explained.
“So…
you don’t eat vegetables at all?” Anindira asked to make sure.
“We do eat them,” Halvir answered with a nod, “if there is something wrong with our bodies.”
“Ha!
That’s not a good habit!” Anindira declared firmly.
Halvir, who had been casually turning meat over the fire, stopped and looked at Anindira seriously.
“That kind of diet is wrong!” Anindira continued in a loud voice.
“Meat, vegetables, and fruit should be balanced.
Food shouldn’t become medicine only when we’re already sick.
We eat precisely so we won’t get sick!”
“Is that how you eat?” Halvir asked, his gaze sharp.
“Yes,” Anindira answered firmly.
She had already grown accustomed to Halvir’s expressionless face and piercing gaze, so she was no longer surprised whenever he became extremely serious.
The man stared at her closely, as though reassessing Anindira’s entire physical condition.
“Why should it be that way?” Halvir asked again.
This time, his tone was gentler—a sign that he was genuinely trying to understand.
This conversation concerned Anindira, and that alone was enough to make him pay close attention.
“I already told you,” Anindira replied firmly.
“You eat to prevent illness.
Not only after you’ve become sick.”
“Eating them when we’re sick…
isn’t that enough?”
The two beings from different worlds still did not fully understand each other’s way of life or way of thinking.
Halvir viewed everything from the perspective of a powerful Beast—a body that rarely became sick, rarely became fragile.
He was not accustomed to thinking about women, let alone their health, because women were extremely rare in this world.
Because of that, he had always cared only about things he considered important…
or things his world considered important.
That fact had not been fully realized by people who had long been accustomed to living according to traditions passed down through generations in this world.
“Huft…” Anindira let out a long sigh.
“Fine.
I won’t argue any harder about this.
Let’s just stop here.”
She realized that she still knew too little about this world.
Anindira did not want a trivial disagreement to create distance between herself and Halvir.
In her mind, this topic could always be discussed again later—when she understood this world better.
“As you wish,” Halvir finally said.
Then he added firmly, “But you still like those wild vegetables, don’t you?”
He wanted to make sure Anindira was not eating them out of necessity.
“Yes.
I still eat them to maintain balanced nutrition.”
Anindira did not realize that Halvir had absolutely no idea what the last word meant.
However, because of his pride, he did not ask.
He had already become accustomed to hearing unfamiliar terms from Anindira’s world.
As long as he understood the general meaning of her sentence, he did not care if one or two words sounded confusing.
“What’s the difference between those wild vegetables and the vegetables grown by your people?” Halvir asked again.
He seemed interested in continuing the conversation.
“You said they taste different.”
“Yes,” Anindira replied.
“Where I come from, wild vegetables are usually bitter, astringent, and leave behind a strong grassy or earthy smell.
That’s why many people stop eating them,” she explained while pointing at several plants nearby.
“Look over there—things like spinach and wild anting-anting.
This one too…”
Anindira lifted a bundle of poh-pohan leaves that Halvir had picked for her.
“People in rural areas still eat them quite often.
But in the cities, not many people know them anymore.
I was born and raised in the city, but I often visited my hometown.
My mother and grandmother are healthcare practitioners.
Because of how they raised us, my whole family is very accustomed to eating vegetables.”
She paused briefly and took a breath before continuing.
“The wild vegetables here are different,” Anindira said softly.
“Maybe it’s because the air is clean, there isn’t any pollution, and the groundwater hasn’t been contaminated.
That’s what makes them taste so good—not inferior to cultivated vegetables at all.
I genuinely enjoy eating them.”
“Do you only eat cultivated vegetables?” Halvir asked cautiously.
There was concern hidden beneath his tone.
“What about meat?”
“The amount of meat you give me is already a lot,” Anindira answered with an innocent smile.
“The portion you give me in a single day is enough to cover an entire week’s meat intake for me.”
Their conversation still had not ended.
Halvir’s expression continued to show displeasure.
His pride as a *Sapphire felt challenged by something as simple as wild vegetables.
“Why so little?” Halvir asked.
“You eat meat, so you’re not a Herbivore,” he continued confidently.
“Then Hans was right—your clan is weak.
Your father couldn’t provide enough meat for you to eat.”
After voicing his thoughts, Halvir felt relieved and returned to turning the meat over the fire.
He did not notice how Anindira’s expression instantly hardened.
“Kak, I’m angry!” Anindira exclaimed, glaring sharply at Halvir.
“I don’t like it when someone insults my father.”
Her voice tightened, and her eyes widened slightly.
“Don’t insult my father.
I don’t like anyone insulting him—even if it’s you!”
Anindira’s gaze was direct and filled with anger, fixed squarely on Halvir.
Her reaction clearly showed that Halvir’s words had offended her, even though Halvir himself did not understand exactly where he had crossed the line.
“She’s angry because I pointed out her father’s inability?!” Halvir shouted inwardly, unable to look away from Anindira.
“Should I apologize to her?!”
Anindira returned his stare without backing down.
Her eyes remained sharp, still carrying anger that had not completely faded.
“No!”
Halvir’s voice echoed in his mind after several moments of thought.
“I wasn’t wrong.
That’s simply the truth.”
Yet his body disagreed with his own thoughts.
His jaw tightened, his shoulders stiffened, and his gaze—which should have been cold and intimidating—instead looked uncertain.
“You’re acting fierce, but your eyes look sad,” Anindira muttered inwardly, still annoyed.
“Honestly!”
She let out a soft sigh.
Halvir had remained silent for too long, staring at her without saying anything.
Anindira could feel his fluctuating emotions—the subtle tension rippling through the air ever since she had snapped at him.
“Dira, be careful!” Anindira warned herself.
“No matter how well Halvir treats you, this isn’t the time to provoke him.
You still don’t fully understand this world.
Be patient.
Don’t act recklessly!”
Her survival instincts spoke up as well.
A faint fear crept into her heart—a warning that sometimes yielding was the only way to stay alive.
Anindira drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the night air.
Slowly, her heartbeat calmed.
She soothed herself—and without realizing it, she was also trying to calm Halvir.
“Kak,” she called softly as she reached for Halvir’s hand.
The touch startled Halvir slightly.
“My world is different from yours,” Anindira continued, keeping her voice calm.
“But just as your people protect women with everything they have…
the men in my world do the same.”
She looked at their touching hands before raising her eyes to Halvir’s face again.
“As someone who has been protected wholeheartedly, of course I will also give my best support in return.”
She paused before speaking again, this time with unwavering eyes.
“Physical strength is not everything in my world.”
Halvir did not look away.
He listened to every word.
“I don’t know how to explain it very well,” Anindira continued, swallowing nervously.
“But you already know this—there are far more humans in my world.
Many times more than the population here.”
A faint smile appeared on her lips.
It was not arrogance.
It was pride.
“Isn’t that enough to prove that we aren’t as weak as you think?”
But the smile soon faded.
“Even so, numbers aren’t everything either.
Victory, success—everything depends on many different factors.
Circumstances and conditions always play a role.”
She let out a long breath.
“That’s all I can say.
I’m not very good at explaining things like this.”
The words left her mouth, bringing a small sense of relief.
At the very least, she had expressed the reason for her anger—especially regarding her father.
After that, both of them fell silent.
The campfire continued to burn.
The night seemed to grow deeper.
And between them remained a heavy silence—not merely tension anymore, but the process of two people trying to understand each other’s worlds.