Perfect.
That took a very long time.
I don’t know exactly how long, because I haven’t been working on getting a time keeping skill just yet, but it definitely took longer than I would have liked.
But I know this will be worth it.
Now, I should get back to the real world. I hope Gloria stayed out of trouble.
As I focus back onto the world around me, I immediately feel a pain manifest on the left side of my body.
[Right, left, now right again! Hah, your movements are too simple!]
What’s going on?
In front of us, there’s a snake flailing its tail around wildly. Somehow, Gloria is dodging each one of the swings that come close enough to hit us. Occasionally, the snake makes a motion that makes it seem like it’s about to lunge and bite us, but Gloria is unphased whenever it does and it backs away.
{Uh, hi?}
[Oh, hi Fir! Welcome back!]
The snake launches its tail at us again, hissing and rattling.
[Hold on, lemme finish this guy off.]
While its guard is down, Gloria grabs the snake’s neck in our mouth, and after a few seconds of the worst crunching noises I’ve ever heard, its flailing stops.
[There, that’s food for the next few days.]
{...You’ve been eating snake?}
[Mhm. It’s pretty good, you’d like it!]
{I-I don’t know…}
[Well, we don’t have any other immediate food source, so you’re gonna have to try it. Here, let’s talk while I drag this back to shelter.]
{Mm, okay. Oh yeah, what’s this pain I’m feeling?}
[Oh, yeah, that. Got wounded while fighting one of those snakes, no big deal.]
{Are you sure? It feels pretty bad.}
[Does it? I got used to the pain, so I kinda forgot it was even there.]
{Yeah. Are you sure it’s no big deal?}
[For sure! It’s been a super long time now, and it hasn’t killed us yet!]
{Gloria, how long has it been exactly?}
[Uhh, I dunno… I’ve moved shelters seven times now, and I usually slept two or three times per shelter, so if each sleep is a night…]
{That sounds really bad! If the wound is still here after such a long time, it must have been bad!}
[You’re overreacting! Sure, it was pretty bad at first, but I shoved some mushed up plants in it and it got better.]
If Gloria wasn’t dominant in the body right now, the blood would have drained from our face.
{You what?! Gloria, please tell me you’re joking! You got a terrible injury, and the first thing you did is shove random, unknown plants into it?!}
[Um, yeah?]
{Why?!}
[Well, even if some of the plants are bad, some are bound to be good too, and the good ones will cancel out the bad ones, probably.]
Ugh… What do I do?
If I want to fix this I need to…
Tch, I have no choice.
Healing magic.
Thirty… I have no idea how much we have. But at this point there’s no other option.
{Yes.}
Now, the level one healing magic spell, low heal. It’s not enough to fully recover the wound, but if I keep using it, eventually it should level up until we get something good enough.
I focus on the area of the wound, and begin manipulating mana to flow towards it. With the knowledge from the skill, I construct the magic circle inside the wound. As the mana flows into the circle, I can feel the exposed portions of the flesh begin to harden.
It seems the most low heal is able to do is basically scab up a wound. That’s fine for now, but we’ll probably need something to sterilize the wound soon.
[Ow! It kinda burns!]
{Deal with it for now, it’s healing.}
[It was gonna be fine on it’s own…]
{I’ll admit, you must’ve got lucky when shoving plants in there, because it’s weird that we’re even still alive with that wound. But I’m not leaving it up to chance anymore.}
[I’ve been fine up until now.]
{Better safe than sorry.}
[I guess so…]
After many minutes of awkward silence as Gloria drags the body of the snake back to the shelter she’s set up while I heal our wound, we finally make it.
Like usual for our shelters, it’s just a tiny hole dug into the ‘ground’.
[Welcome home!]
As we step inside, I notice something strange wriggling around on the ground.
{Gloria, what is that?}
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
[Hm? Oh! I forgot to introduce you! This is Mushthew, I picked him up a while ago and I’ve been carrying him around ever since.]
{...Why?}
[Well, I thought it kinda sucked that we were stuck eating that goo and nothing else, so I decided to build up our resistance to spores so we could eat Mushles!]
{Seriously?}
[Yep!]
{Well, as long as you’ve been making sure we’re secure before you do it…}
[Of course! Who do you think I am?]
{…}
[What? Anyway! It’s time to eat! You’re lucky, you showed up at the perfect time to try some snake!]
{Don’t tell me you think that’s good…}
[It is! Trust me, you’ll like it. It’s not poisonous or venomous, so there’s no nasty stuff in it to ruin the taste.]
As she speaks, Gloria carefully peels the top layer of skin from the snake.
I’d be lying if I said it looked at all appetizing…
But Gloria said it tastes good, and if it follows the trend of her saying disgusting things taste just fine, maybe this tastes just fine?
Urk… I guess I’ll try it… I don’t know if I have a choice…
Excitedly, Gloria chops off a big chunk of the snake meat, and bites off a mouthful from it.
It’s… not bad?
No, maybe even a little good?
It tastes a little bit like chicken. Not very good or flavorful chicken. But I shouldn’t really expect raw snake meat to taste like KFC, should I.
Gloria was right!
Never thought I’d see the day…
I’m worried now though, with how good this is (compared to what we’ve eaten before, at least) I fear Gloria might want to keep fighting these things.
If the wound on our side is from a single hit from one of those, what would happen to us if Gloria made another misstep?
What a scary thought…
Well, at the very least, Gloria managed to survive all this time, even if just barely. That counts for something.
I am a bit put off by what she calls ‘Mushthew’ though… The thing has been flailing around non-stop since we showed up. I get why she, uh… kidnapped(?) it, and I’m glad she’s working on growing some of our skills, but I can’t help but feel bad for it.
I know very well what it’s like to deal with Gloria, so I can empathize with it to a degree.
Actually, speaking of growing our skills, I should check our status, since it’s been a little while.
Hm, looks like things are developing well.
Oh jeez, confusion resistance is at level eight? She really has been working on that a lot…
What’s up with our HP?
twenty one?
Ah!
That’s probably from the giant wound in our side, isn’t it? It seems like our HP is capped because of how hurt we are...
Ugh, that’s so terrible…
Moving on! How about our titles?
?increases XP gains for mind-related skills
?Increases mental clarity
?Allows for increased understanding and cooperation between different minds
?indirect kills caused by the user are counted as direct kills
?applies camouflage effect proportionate to user’s camouflage skill to traps
?increases XP gains for knowledge related skills
?unlocks hidden evolution options
?Locked
?Increases regeneration
?Increases magical understanding skills
?Increases mental defense
?Increases power of Black Magic
...Cruel?
Just what has Gloria been doing?
Well, whatever. As long as she didn’t piss off something that can actually get revenge on us.
The last detail under Discoverer of the Dead is still locked, I wonder when we’ll access that? Maybe we’ll be able to take a peek at what it is with a higher level of appraisal.
Worrying implications of us having the cruel title aside, the mental defense bonus it has seems pretty nice. You never know when something like that could come in handy.
Maybe some mental defense will help me deal with Gloria’s nonsense…
Mhm, aside from the HP issue, everything’s looking good.
I should work on fixing that while Gloria eats.
[Ahh, that was good. Time to move!]
{Pardon?}
[Oh yeah, I usually move after spending a few days in a shelter. We’re super far from where you’d remember now.]
Ehhh…
{We should stay here at least until we finish that snake, and I’d prefer to stay until that wound is healed up. There’s a massive penalty on our max health because of it, y’know.}
[Really?]
{Yeah! Do you not check our status ever?}
[Not really.]
{Well, you should. Our health is capped at twenty one for now, where it’s usually forty five.}
[Wow, that’s… bad?]
{Yes, it’s bad, very bad.}
[Well, I Guess we could stay a little longer. Mushthew gets restless when he’s stuck inside though.]
It looks pretty restless already, you have it tied up!
{Thank you.}
I’ll have to try to heal our wound fast, before Gloria gets stir crazy and decides to just leave.
Phew, this is hard work.
Now that healing magic is level two, we’ve unlocked a new spell: Cure.
I’m not sure if it will work, but I’ll use it to try to sterilize the wound and get rid of any infection already starting.
If it does work, then we’ll be on our way to a full recovery. If it doesn’t, we’ll end up fighting off a nasty infection until we die.
Glass half full, there’s a fifty percent chance things only go up from here.
Glass half empty… There’s a fifty percent chance things only get worse.
I’ll need to work hard, to hopefully skew the odds in our favor.