Chapter 13: How To Become A Tyrant.

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"One cannot think well, love well, or sleep well, if one has not dined well." — Virginia Woolf

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Tessa shook her head at the sight and said to Alex, "What about you? Do you have a relevant question?"

Earlier, before he knew that he could be beaten for asking an irrelevant question, he would have said his question was relevant if someone had asked him. But now, the sight of that bloodied baton made him uncertain of the relevance of his question.

However, he wasn’t willing to give up on this question because it concerned his life and freedom from the gluttony worm, so he gritted his teeth and said, "How do I become a Tyrant?"

Tessa sighed. Then she raised her baton.

Instinctively, he moved away from her to dodge the hit. But just as he moved, the baton struck his forehead, cracking it open.

Because he had tried to dodge her attack, she was forced to use more force to catch up to him. The result was an injury far worse than he would have gotten if he’d stayed still.

As pain erupted from his bleeding skull, everyone around him burst into laughter. His eyes were ringing with pain, but he could hear their amused laughter as a droning sound in the background.

"Actually, that’s my fault," the red-skinned Big Boss said as he held his belly and laughed. "I put the idea into his head, making him think it was relevant.

"It seems only one of you had some sense," Tessa said, commending Barnabas.

But Barnabas wasn’t listening to her. The smell of blood beside him had sent him close to his limit of restraint. Now he was focused on the corpse like it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

When the red-skinned Big Boss saw this, he said in a grave voice, "I have a bad feeling about this."

Then the red Big Boss stretched his massive hand towards Barnabas’s head and snapped his thick fingers in his ear. The snap was so loud it startled Barnabas, making him focus on the source of the sudden sound instead of the meat on the table.

"Stop cheating," the green Big Boss said as she slapped his hand away.

In response, the Big Boss smiled and asked, "Why so serious? It is just a game."

"If it is so insignificant, why are you cheating?" she said, snapping at him.

While the two Big Bosses were bickering, Tessa said to the three of them, "When I say go, you go. When I say stop, you stop."

"Or else," she said, hefting her Baton to remind them of what was in store for them.

Then she said, "Go!"

’I would rather starve to death than eat the corpse of another human,’ Alex thought in disgust as he buried his head into the corpse.

Apparently, he had lost control again. But this time, the loss of control was more subtle.

He didn’t know how he bent his head and didn’t become aware of what he was doing until his face was deep within the meat. This was partly because he was too hungry to resist.

As he took a bite, he thought, ’This is not right.’

As the flesh touched his tongue, he thought, ’This is not half bad.’

He changed his tune again as the flesh went down his throat, thinking, ’You know what? This is not bad at all.’

As the flesh was swallowed, his brain was flooded with dopamine. The feeling of pleasure flooded his mind, overcoming his disgust and inhibitions.

He knew it would happen, and when it did, he didn’t see much of a problem with it. In fact, he was fine with it.

He even had the presence of mind to comment on his food, thinking, ’It tastes like chicken. And apples.’

’No, it is apple pie. Or is it chicken pie? Anyway, it tastes good.’

Gone were his inhibitions and gone was his resistance. What else was he supposed to do? Not eat? That’s just stupid.

’I need food, and this is the only food I have. So I have to eat.’

’If I don’t eat, I won’t have energy to heal, and I won’t have energy to produce Life Anchors. This concerns my life and death, so I have to eat.’

’I need the strength anyway. Tessa said this will make me stronger faster. If I become very strong, I will regain my freedom. Then I can use that freedom to eat something less taboo, like beef and mutton.’

One by one, he came up with logical reasons to support eating the corpse. As for right and wrong, that had been thrown to the very back of his mind.

The combination of the pleasure of eating and the logical reasons supporting it was so potent that he didn’t stop eating when he heard Tessa say, "Stop."

’What is even her problem?’ he thought in anger. ’I need to get rid of her, or she won’t let me eat.’

The other two heard her instructions, but they ignored her. They continued with their heads buried in the flesh and did nothing else as the Baton smashed into their skull.

For Robert, the pain struck him out of his stupor and reminded him of what he should do. He was reluctant, but he pushed himself away from the table. He was clutching the back of his head as he did so.

Barnabas, on the other hand, was more resistant to coercion. He refused to stop after the first hit, so she had to hit him again and again.

She hit Barnabas three times before he stopped eating. By then, the back of his head had been bashed in. The bones in his skull had been squeezed into the soft brain tissue underneath, and some gray matter had been pushed out of his skull through the wound.

As for Alex, his reaction was more proactive. He actually lifted his head from his meal before she could hit him. But he didn’t stop there. He stretched his hand towards her face to hit her.