After asking Eric, Iris found a bag of grain as a gift for Gray, and even used a rope to tie the bag of grain to its short neck so it could carry it back to eat.
At lunch, Leo and the beastman cubs making unburnt bricks at the kiln came to the cafeteria. It happened that Eric hadn’t left yet. One by one, seeing Gray waddling behind Eric, their eyes lit up, and they rushed over to touch it all over.
Fortunately, Gray’s mouth had been tied beforehand.
Eric looked sympathetically at the chick surrounded by the cubs. He saw it widening its round eyes, panic-stricken and wanting to run away, but it was tightly surrounded by a group of cubs, with countless small hands and small claws touching it everywhere.
Even so, Gray didn’t try to use its tied sharp beak to attack. Its wings could move freely, but it also restrained itself from moving them; otherwise, it could have flapped a few children away.
It seemed the intelligence of magical beasts was very high. Eric, who was originally standing guard vigilantly on the side, saw this and smiled with satisfaction. Gray must have understood the words he said just now, which was why it didn’t take any resisting action.
"Alright, leave it alone. Gray just hatched today, don’t scare it too much. Later, when it grows up, I’ll let it carry you guys to fly."
Eric coaxed the cubs, talking for a long time before finally making them keep a distance from Gray.
Its mouth was tied, but it still had wings and claws. In short, let Gray get used to everyone first, then letting it interact with others wouldn’t be too late; absolutely no one could get hurt.
"There’s a new dish today, go eat quickly. Wait until Gray gets used to your scent, then come play with it again, okay?" Eric said to the cubs with a smile.
The cubs were extremely curious about this rare little magical beast.
Not only Iris, but actually, the beastmen rarely saw such a small magical beast too. But they listened to Eric’s words, and furthermore, there was a new dish to shift their attention. The cubs, who were originally reluctant, cheered happily when they smelled the fragrance in the air and went to find Jessica to ask for food.
"No wonder people say a child’s face changes like the weather in March." Eric smiled and shook his head.
Arthur stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly at Eric’s smile, his feet as if grown into the ground, not moving.
"Let’s go, let’s go deliver food." Eric turned back and called out.
As if waking from a dream, Arthur snapped out of it, his face flushing red as he followed behind.
Eric always felt that Arthur had been very strange lately.
It wasn’t about him following wherever Eric went; after all, since picking up this silly dragon, Arthur had liked following behind him. Now that Evan was gone and there were no natural enemies, the time he spent following just became longer.
The strange thing was that this guy had recently lost his enthusiasm for food!
This point was truly strange to the extreme. Eric was about to suspect if someone had used a disguise technique or magic to create a different Arthur!
This dragon, even when suffering the backlash of a forbidden spell, losing his memory, unable to turn back into dragon form, and losing almost all his power, still hadn’t forgotten to eat.
He fell into the trap dug by Sam, and the first thing he did was bite tight onto a wild chicken’s butt; even when Eric saved him, he still wouldn’t let go!
Such a glutton, yet in the past few days when Eric continuously made new dishes, he showed no enthusiasm, often zoned out, not knowing what he was thinking, and was contemplative even while eating.
But the frequency of following Eric hadn’t decreased. Aside from working in the cafeteria, he stuck behind Eric at all other times.
Due to Arthur’s absent-mindedness lately, Sam angrily sought Eric out to complain:
"Arrange another job for him; I’m running out of basins here! Who knows what’s wrong with this guy; he had learned how to knead dough, but now he’s starting to destroy things. The cafeteria has been busy enough these days; tell him to step aside and stop adding to the trouble!"
This time, Eric couldn’t ignore it anymore. He felt quite a headache as he pulled Arthur, who was dejectedly cleaning up pottery shards, outside.
"What’s wrong with you lately? Why are you distracted doing everything? I see you even start spacing out while eating." Eric asked suspiciously.
Arthur looked down at Eric, moving his lips not knowing what to say, while his ears and face slowly turned red.
Again. Recently, the way Arthur looked at him always made a wolf’s fur stand on end. Eric probed:
"Did you remember something? Can you turn back into dragon form yet?"
"Not yet, it’s just..." Arthur hesitated and stopped, his eyes darting around: "I seem to be sick. My body is always hot, and my heart beats very fast."
Especially when seeing Eric.
This symptom was indeed a bit strange; no wonder Arthur’s face was flushed. Eric was a little worried, standing on tiptoe to touch his forehead: "Not hot, looks like it’s not a cold. Could it be due to the process of recovering the dragon form?"
Before, when Evan was about to fully recover, he didn’t seem to have these symptoms. Maybe because the species were different, the manifestations were also different. Eric rested his chin on his hand in thought.
He fell into deep thought, while Arthur stood beside him, stiff as a statue.
"Prob... probably," he stammered in reply.
Because of the sowing, Eric indeed hadn’t had time to pay attention to how far Arthur had recovered lately. He scratched his head helplessly: "So do you feel any changes in your body?"
Arthur thought for a moment: "My strength seems greater. Also..."
He hesitated for a moment, then suddenly a ripping sound was heard behind his back as his clothes tore, and two giant golden wings spread out.
In an instant, Eric’s vision went dark - literally dark.
"Quick, quick, quick, retract them!" Eric looked around furtively like he was doing something bad. Fortunately, it was the busy season, so the Monkey tribe members were all working in the fields, and the rest were busy in the cafeteria.
He didn’t have time to examine closely what Arthur’s wings looked like. Just in case, he hurriedly urged him to retract his wings. This idiot didn’t even know to pick a safe place before transforming. If someone walked by and saw, it would be troublesome.
Arthur gloomily retracted his wings, leaving only two holes in the back of his shirt, thinking to himself, Eric indeed doesn’t like things without feathers (fur), boo hoo hoo.
Unaware of his thoughts, Eric breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead:
"Oh mother, you scared me to death. It seems you are recovering quite well. Those symptoms are probably just side effects of recovering power. At this rate, it won’t be long before you can change back."
He patted Arthur on the shoulder, comforting him: "As for your memory, who knows, maybe one day it will suddenly come back; don’t worry."
"I’m not worried about that," Arthur muttered with a sense of grievance.
Eric just thought he was acting tough. Having learned the cause of Arthur’s "illness," he felt somewhat reassured.
"Everyone has gotten used to the work these past few days; I don’t need to go to the fields often. Sam and the others are at the cafeteria, so the Dwarves don’t all need to stay and cook. I plan to take some Dwarves to build a paper factory; you come help too."
That’s right, the busy little patriarch Eric didn’t just return to the tribe because of Arthur’s matter; he also planned to build a paper factory.
When building the sewage system for the tribe a few days ago, Eric had also had people complete the drainage system in the areas zoned for building workshops. Whether it was a paper factory, a livestock farm, or a slaughterhouse, a drainage system was necessary, only that the paper factory was more important right now.
Arthur nodded. He didn’t really know what the paper factory Eric spoke of was for, but for whatever Eric wanted to do, just agreeing was enough.