💙Fated Calamity♥️ (FJ/WC)

Chapter Twenty-One

After some idle conversation with Lyrid, Altria learned about how Lyrid had joined the group trip due to his eagerness to learn about the indigenous group, as he was an aspiring historian. Samsara was made up of a number of such tribes and despite their advancement in technology, there were a few indigenous tribes protected by the government, that lived away from the city and survived on their cultural and traditional ways of living. Due to a love for nature photography, Lyrid had desired to capture with his own hands and his DSLR camera, the beauty of the Saga-da town where the village was located in. His interest in the traditional ways of the tribe had allowed him to conduct research, where he was particularly interested in their cultural methods of tattooing, known as 'pambabatuk'. Furthermore, he was interested in meeting and seeing for himself, the oldest villager,  an old 113- year old lady known as Apo Wang Bu. Above all, he wanted to undergo a fresh start in his life as a volunteer, having claimed to have made no achievements in life despite his age. Altria was inspired by his speech and decided to continue without a second thought. She recovered her energy and pulled herself up to resume the journey, walking alongside Lyrid who was carrying her load.

As they ventured onward, she hesitated to tell him the true reason why she had participated the trip. As she worked in the archives which also held an amount of historical knowledge on Samsara, she had long known about the history of the Saga-da town. It had been due to her cousin, and her enthusiasm to meet Apo Wang Bu, that had made her join them.

The journey took more than two hours, due to the frequent stops made by the inexperienced new members, and a lack of training on mountain rock climbing. Lunch time soon came, and Ceries cooked two different dishes for the group: stir fried vegetables and vinegar soy chicken. The dishes were accompanied by steamed rice, which the hungry volunteers finished quickly in relish. The mode for cooking in the village was liquefied natural gas, and they used firewood to start a fire to warm themselves. As Altria possessed excellent culinary skills, she and Astrid together assisted Ceries in preparing the food. She had also volunteered to assist in cooking, which she considered a contribution to charity. Her line had been "Charity is not just about money, skills can be donations too!".