86. Saving A Child

Zoro feeds the starving little girl with the very wet bread porridge. It's so wet that it looks more like a soup than porridge and that's what he wants because this kid's stomach is still too weak to process something heavier.

He holds the little girl up because she doesn't have any strength to sit. She is barely conscious now, so Zoro needs to feed her slowly. Her weak consciousness is also the reason he needs to give her liquid food like this bread soup.

The "bread soup" is also mixed with a crushed Military Ration Pill or also known as Food Pill. It's an emergency ration in the form of a pill that is packed with nutrients. Shinobi often eats them during war because they don't have time to eat.

Most Food Pills can fill one's stomach for 3 days and 3 nights. But then the eaters will exhaust almost all of their chakra at the end of the 3 days duration. This type is like a drug that forces their bodies to work beyond their limits.

There are also weaker types that can only fill their stomach for a few hours like a normal food and this type also has much lighter side effects because it's basically just pills with normal nutrients while the stronger type is full of chakra and energy stimulant.

Zoro always stocks the weakest type because he often eats them when he doesn't have time to eat. But he only has a few strong type food pills and never uses them till this day.

The strong types are just for emergencies and he has never been in any situations where he needs to fight for 3 days and night without any time to rest or even eat.

He'd rather eat the weakest type food pills that basically are just compressed food a few times a day or munch jerkies or biscuits during fights rather than eating the strong type food pills.

Sure they can't replenish chakra instantly like the strong type, but Zoro barely uses his chakra in battles. His fighting style depends more on physical strength and even he rarely needs to use Haki, so the strong type is quite useless for him.

Munching dried food is more effective for him to replenish his physical energy as he has a strong metabolism thanks to his abnormally strong physique. So he can absorb the food's nutrients very quickly and turn them into energy.

"Hang in there, kid. You will be fine, so don't give up and eat this. Come on, gulp it down!"

Zoro tries to keep the little girl awake by talking to her. She needs to stay awake even a little to gulp down the bread soup. Thankfully, the taste of food seems to keep her brain awake, so she gulps down the bread soup weakly.

"That's right, eat slowly. I have a lot of food, so no need to rush. You can eat as much as you want later, but eat slowly for now."

The bread soup will fill her stomach and the weak food pill's nutrients will be absorbed quickly by her body. So she will be fine as long as she can eat some of the food.

Surprisingly, she finishes the whole bowl even though she eats very slowly because she is barely conscious. Her eyes have gotten clearer now, but she is still too weak to move her body. Only her eyes can move to look around.

Zoro carries her deeper into the forest because it's cold near the river. He leans her on Torao's tiger-sized body after wrapping her with a blanket. Then he sets a fire to warm them because it's getting dark.

Now, he can cook a proper meal for them. He makes a soup filled with vegetables and meat seasoned with blended seasoning powder he bought in the market.

The blended seasoning powder is such a life saver for someone like him who travels a lot and can't cook well. He just needs to pour some into his food and it's done.

Zoro makes sure to cook the food longer than usual to make the veggies and meat really soft and tender so the little girl with a still weak stomach can eat it easily later.

The food aroma is really tempting and it awakens the little girl. Her stomach grumbles and she wakes up. She opens her eyes and her sight goes directly to the pot that hangs above the fire.

"Oh, you're finally awake, that's good. But you better not move yet, your body is still too weak to do anything even though I've given you some food before. Wait a minute, kid. I will feed you this soup after it's done."

"Who..... you?" The little girl asks with a very weak and slow voice.

"We can talk later. Save your energy to munch this soup instead so you can get more energy to talk. Just stay still until the food is ready."

The little girl seems to want to try something, but she stops and stays silent. She seems to be able to think properly already because she immediately does what Zoro tells her and just looks at Zoro.

The soup is ready after a while and Zoro puts a small amount into a bowl. He cools it down until it's not too hot and feeds it to the little girl slowly.

Thankfully, she can munch the vegetables and meat. He has made sure to chop them into very small sizes and even cooked them until they become very soft for her to eat easily. So it's good that he has done it correctly.

She really is starving though because she eats a lot of the soup before falling asleep. Zoro lets her sleep on Torao's stomach because he doesn't have any soft and comfy beds to use. He can sleep on the hard ground just fine, so he never needs to use the bed when he camps.

The next morning, the little girl wakes up and she already has some energy to move. But it seems her stomach was still too weak to process all the food she ate last night because she vomited quite a lot of it.

"Let's just eat a little at a time until your stomach gets better, alright?"

"Y-yes." The little girl answers with a weak voice while drinking water.

Torao has turned into his normal cat-size form to avoid scaring the little girl in his tiger-size form. The last thing they want now is scaring the little girl to death when she is already scared of her bad situation.

"Thank you, uncle. I thought I would die from hunger." The little girl thanks Zoro with a really weak voice while leaning on a tree after eating a little bit of the soup again.

"You're welcome. Have you felt better?"

"Yes, but I still feel weak."

"That's normal. You haven't eaten anything for days, right? But seeing you quite well hydrated, I assume you drink the river water to survive. Thanks to that, you could hold yourself longer, but the river water must've upset your already empty stomach. That's why you can't eat food normally yet."

"Are you a doctor, uncle? You know a lot." She still asks very weakly.

"No, it's from experience. I don't know how many times I only had water to fill my stomach for days."

In Zoro's past life, he was a really poor homeless guy who rarely could even eat. So he often just survived by drinking water. Obviously, he didn't drink clean bottled water and drank whatever water he could get to quench his thirst.

"E-experience?"

"Yeah, my life was difficult back then. Well, it's fine now. Rather, I'm more concerned about you. What happened?"

The little girl looks down before tears start coming out of her eyes.

"That's....." She seems hesitant to tell Zoro.

"You don't need to tell me if it's too traumatic."

"N-no, it's okay."

She says it's okay, but she actually stops talking for quite a long time.

"M-my family, we were attacked by a group of people. They suddenly came and attacked our home at night, saying they were tasked by Gato to kill us."

"Gato? That name sounds familiar somehow."

"Gato was my father's former employer and also his cousin. He's the richest man in our country. My father worked for him before, but quit a while ago after knowing that Gato's company was doing illegal business. When he came to our house with his henchmen, he said that he can't let someone who knows his illegal business leave his company alive. So he came to kill my father, my mother, and me."

Zoro is already filled with anger now, but he suppresses it to avoid scaring the little girl.

"My father tried to hold them while my mother quickly took me and ran away. Our house was near the coast and we had a small boat. So we tried to escape with it. But before we could leave, those thugs arrived. So my mother tried to hold them and only sent me away. T-they.... They killed my parents."

The little girl cries harder. Zoro doesn't know what to say or do, so he lets her cry to release all her emotions.

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Chapter 126. Otogakure

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