Baoba was starting to get worried.
Everyone of those were serious revelations !
He would never have imagined Pando had... problems. To think they not only existed, but were so serious they pushed her into this situation !
For him, Pando had always been the example of competence everyone should follow, and although nothing was ever perfect, she was pretty damn close in his eyes.
So, he kind of counted on her to not have any secrets to share, and thus lower the expectations for him.
His turn was approaching, and he did not have anything that crazy to tell them !
While he was trying to think of a good enough secret, time unfortunately did not stop.
There had been a small pause, because Baoba's impression of Pando was shared among the team. They were all surprised to see this new, more extreme side of her. Even Urtica had half forgotten about his guilt and dared to look at her with a surprised expression.
Venus snapped out of it first. "Oh wow, I had no idea you could, like.. be angry."
"Yeah, right ?" Capcsium was bewildered. "She's actually a real, normal person, that's so cool !"
Hearing this, Pando frowned. "What exactly did you think I was ? I'm pretty sure I show enough emotion to at least convey my personhood."
"You do not." Baoba had enough brainpower to both search his entire life's memories and speak his mind."Ever since this expedition started, I've been trying to determine whether or not some shapeshifter took your place. If you hadn't been that helpful, I might have even decided it was true."
He shrugged. "But to be fair, I'm asking myself this question about everyone of you, so it might be on me."
Now they were looking at him with puzzled looks instead.
"Huh ? Wait, you even doubted we were ourselves ?" Capcsium was shocked.
Baoba responded quickly : "Yes, I also suspected the Lord to be a tree we passed, I seriously thought about a dream being a magical warning, I've questioned the integrity of our compass, memories, and map, just in case we weren't going in the right direction, and I tried to guess your real level in chess, because I just couldn't believe you were actually this bad. I do a lot of things."
Venus abruptly got up. "Hey, we're getting better, okay ?"
He scratched his head. "I mean, I guess your growth isn't exactly zero, but..."
He expected an outburst of anger, but instead, Venus smiled deviously.
"Hmm, you talk a lot now, but you've been pretty silent this whole time... Are you perhaps hoping we forgot about you ?"
'Oh no...'
She crossed her arms as she continued smiling : "How about you take your turn now, Captain ? Please, we're dying to learn your deepest, most personal, most unimaginable secret."
The whole squad got silent and focused the second they heard those words.
It was worth noting that Baoba had not been very socially involved during the training camp, even if he thought so. Additionally, he was not one to talk about himself, when he talked at all.
A few years in isolation from any sentient being will do that to someone.
Therefore, even though they knew about his lack of official papers, and were pretty clear on his nonexistant family situation, the clever captain was like a big question mark in their heads. They were extremely curious.
Where did he come from ? When ? Where did he learn all his knowledge ? Dark elves usually lived much further south, and he mentioned doing the journey twice. How did he get here so young ? What did he do then ? Did he have help ? If so, who helped him ?
And where did that strange metallic material he had summoned earlier come from ?
This last one was not actually benign. Those objects came in all sorts of different shapes, and they didn't look like they were organic. Was that not violating the rules of his blessing ? It at least didn't come from one of the beasts they hunted together.
Baoba had never provided any answer to any of these questions. This was a rare occasion.
And so, now, all of their eyes were drilling holes trough him.
But he still hadn't found what he could say.
He closed his eyes, thinking even harder. And then he thought a little more. And a little more.
....
And a little more.
Or rather be would, except now it just felt like too much time. The others had been very cooperative, and let's not forget this deadly situation they were in was his fault in the first place. Right now, he really didn't feel like taking up too much space.
However, he hadn't come up with a single new idea. So he just blurted out the first thing that had come into his head.
"I'm.... I'm actually left handed."
...
Baoba was definitely learning a lot these days. Before this, he didn't know silences could be this loud.
"Wait a minute." Venus frowned."That's not even true. I distinctly remember you using your right hand to refill our bottles. And I'm pretty sure you hold your sword in your right hand, too."
Pando confirmed with a curious look : "That's right. You also use your right hand to block the sun, to throw us stuff, to wipe off sweat, to scratch your head, and even to carve those chess pieces and draw the board."
Baoba was briefly dumbstruck by that lengthy list.
'That's scary... She wonders how we can see her so differently, then proceeds to list out everything I've ever done.'
Only realising afterwards he still had to explain himself, he coughed and responded : "Well, true, I'm more ambidextrous than anything now, but at first, I really was left handed. It took a lot of effort to get to a point where I can pass as right handed, it's one of the hardest things I've done."
And then he stopped talking. Evidently, he don't feel the need to provide more details.
The others, though, felt that need very much.
"Why ?" Capcsium asked. "Why would you do that ?"
Baoba was sort of stumped by this question. Weirdly enough, he hadn't thought about what he would say if they asked him to explain.
"Uuuh... that... is actually a good question."
He looked down at his hands as he continued.
"I remember in the caravan that got me here, where I learned how to write, I was left handed. Couldn't even draw a circle with my right hand. But it was only way later, after I turned back to civilisation from the wilderness west of Medio, that I started to work on it. Everywhere I looked, people used their right hand... Surely, if so many people are like this, it must better, right ?
"I kinda felt.. stupid. For not using the correct half of my body. I thought it was just... such a weakness. I decided from then on, I would only use my right hand, no matter what. It's lucky I didn't have to fight anymore, otherwise I would've had a difficult time. It took me a few years to finally have a passable level. By the time I enrolled, I could already use my right hand like everyone else, and even changed my manners so that it looks like I was always like this.
"Maybe it was because it gives me an unexpected trump card ? I don't know, I just... felt like doing it."
Thinking about it now, it was sort of a weird decision. He had trouble explaining it, because he himself couldn't quite put his finger on the reason.
'I usually actively avoid any effort that isn't absolutely necessary. Why did I change my whole dominant hand ? I would've been fine.'
'Man, I can't even explain my lame secret. How the hell did they do it ?'
"Ok, back up, what do you mean 'from the wilderness' ?" Capcsium pressed. "Since when did you live in the wild ?"
"Oh, that. Yeah, the thing is, I first arrived in Medio as a child, so I couldn't live very well in the streets. No one would give me a job, because they get scared of both dark elves and the homeless, so I could only get scraps. My blessing was not nearly as developed, surviving without much prey to hunt was practically impossible.
"So, after about eight months, I gave up on society and went to live in the pretty tame western wilderness. There were basically no cursed beasts there, only regular animals, and my blessing could finally thrive. I spent a couple years there, and got bored. So I then moved north, in a quest to upgrade my equipment. I made it pretty far, and even found a cursed general that had a crazy though carapace. Its bones and claws were even more resistant, like obsidian, I couldn't even scratch them. I had to repeatedly poison the whole region's water and hide for two weeks to take it down.
"After this, I wanted to make sure this new metal-like carapace material could use its full potential, so I had to get back and find a forge. My social status did not magically get any better in the meantime, so I still struggled. It was around this time that I went right-handed. In the end, I found a nice blacksmith that let me use his forge to train and sleep if I brought him materials.
"There, I learned the basics, and although it would have been quicker with my left hand, eventually I got the hang of it. I became convinced I could mold this metal carapace into any basic shape I wanted, and painstakingly carved some other objects out of the obsidian material. This greatly aided me, so I left again to explore the world, but then I learned about the Hunt, and that seemed better. Turns out, it was."
He raised his head, looked at the wall of flames, and smiled.
"It really, really was."
But his expression quickly fell.
"And now I'm realising that was not what you asked at all. Sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there, uhh, I have lived in the wild since I was 7, and stopped when I was 15. I only spent a couple years in the forge plus all the travels, I then enrolled at 20. Was that it ?"
Dazed, Capcsium responded: "Yeah, that was... that was pretty much all of it."
This was a lot of information for them to process. The world-ending forest fire, which had already taken a secondary role in this cave, got completely forgotten.
Did he casually mention living in the streets ?
Did he just say he killed a cursed general ?
Surviving for so long in the wild as a child was already impressive, even with a perfectly suited blessing. Moving north and fighting off actual monsters was completely insane.
Generals straight up had magical powers. How the hell did he kill one solo ?
Had he shown this type of credentials, even the nobles would have finally shut up.