Chapter 138: The Finished Journey
Threshold reached. 2.20k XP.
Your Level has increased to 19.
Due to achieving Level 19 in the Minute Mage Class, you have been granted the following benefits:
-You have gained 1 Endurance.
-You have gained 2 Conjuration.
-You have gained 1 Intelligence.
-You have gained 3 Stat Points.
-Recursive Growth has activated. You have gained 1 Endurance, 2 Dexterity, and 1 Intelligence.
-Time Loop Talent Rank has increased to 19.
Threshold reached. 2.50k XP.
Your Level has increased to 20.
Due to achieving Level 20 in the Minute Mage Class, you have been granted the following benefits:
-You have gained 1 Endurance.
-You have gained 2 Conjuration.
-You have gained 1 Intelligence.
-You have gained 3 Stat Points.
-Recursive Growth has improved from reaching a tenth Level. You now gain 6 random Stats each time your Level increases.
-Recursive Growth has activated. You have gained 3 Strength, 1 Endurance, 1 Dexterity, and 1 Conjuration.
-Soft Cap has increased to Rank 11.
-Time Loop Talent Rank has increased to 20.
-Time Loop has received a Usage Increase.
-You may choose an Upgrade for Time Loop.
-You may choose a Talent to obtain.
The icy beam impacted straight into Xhag’duul’s face, killing him instantly. His head fell back into the dirt, and I received my notifications. Thousands of XP, two separate Level-ups, everything. With the fact that the XP was split between three people, and the fact that XP rewards scaled less quickly than XP requirements, it was honestly unexpected that I’d have even gotten the XP for two whole Levels from a single kill. That sort of thing would typically only happen at the lower Levels.
But my mind was occupied by none of that. Instantly, I turned and stumbled over to where Erani was lying. She was alone, but as I approached, I saw Ainash suddenly appear out of thin air and run up to her. She must’ve just gotten down from the mountain and deactivated her invisibility.
At this point, Erani had tightly wrapped the wound from her missing hand in fabric torn from her shirt, which slowed the bleeding somewhat, but clearly didn’t do enough. The stump ending halfway down her forearm was still leaking blood despite the makeshift bandage and tourniquet she’d used, and her clammy, halfway-conscious face did nothing to make it look any better.
I’d gotten a Usage Increase for Time Loop from Level 20, and my first thought was that maybe I could go back and redo the fight to prevent her from getting hurt. But, honestly, I didn’t trust myself very much to be able to actually do that fight any better than I already had. Really, it was a miracle that we were alive. Getting through uninjured would be impossible.
Besides, the idea wouldn’t work even if I wanted to try. I remembered from my first Usage Increase, I had to wait until the next time Time Loop refreshed at midnight to actually get access to the new use of the Talent, so I still had zero uses remaining. I’d just have three tomorrow.
Ainash knelt down next to Erani as I continued to stumble over. With a broken right arm and left leg, I didn’t exactly have much mobility, and my Health, down to 27, was low enough that it didn’t assist me in dealing with the injuries at all.
My Stamina was still low, at 59, but I desperately needed the healing from Regenerate. The moment I got over to Erani, I collapsed down next to her and activated the Talent.
You have activated Regenerate. You will gain 32.2 Health over the next 10 seconds.
52.6 Stamina Cost. Your Stamina is 6.
Ainash looked over at me, and, upon seeing my own various injuries, began to panic. She kept looking back and forth between me and Erani, hands shaking as they hovered above us.
“C…can only use ability to heal one person in week,” she said. “If heal mother, cannot heal father.”
“It’s okay,” I responded, breathing heavily. “My wounds aren’t lethal. And they’ll heal eventually. Use it on her.”
“B, but do not know if—”
“Just do it!” I said. Erani was losing more blood and more Health every second. Now wasn’t the time for uncertainty.
Ainash nodded and gingerly reached down, removing the makeshift bandage Erani had wrapped around her stump. Erani barely reacted, staring off into space with only a slight wince when Ainash pulled the cloth away to let me know she was still alive.
When the patch of fabric fell from her wound, I felt a wave of nausea overtake me as I gazed at the horrific injury. Strings of flesh hung down, still barely attached to her main body, blood continued to leak from the ripped-open veins, and the white of her exposed bone stared at me like the eye of some horrific monster.
Ainash slowly placed her hands on the messy mass of flesh, and closed her eyes.
Seconds passed, and I waited with bated breath. Please, I thought. Please work.
Suddenly, a flash of light flared around Erani’s arm. I saw the various cuts and wounds covering her skin close up. Her face regained its color. And her arm…it began to mend!
The stringy bits of flesh dangling from her arm patched themselves together. The bleeding stopped. And, as I watched, the wound itself began to cover itself. Skin grew around the stump, slowly closing the open wound, covering the red tissue, and eventually covering the bone. It’d healed the wound, now it just needed to regrow the lost limb. The light seemed to glow especially brightly around her arm, and I held my breath, waiting for the ability to work its magic.
But then…it stopped. The glow faded. It was done. Erani had no more bleeding cuts or purple bruises. But she was left with a single hand.
Her eyes fluttered, and she seemed to regain the half-lost consciousness now that she’d been healed. Her breathing quickened and she looked around, clearly trying to find the enemy we once thought unbeatable.
“He’s…” I coughed. Regenerate had helped with my own injuries, but it didn’t do much to heal the worst of them. At least now I wasn’t as susceptible to further damage. But I took a breath and continued, trying to calm her fear, “he’s dead. We killed him.”
Erani took a breath, and I could visibly see the tension leave her body. “Thank the gods. I didn’t know if we were ever getting out of that.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled as I lay in the dirt.
She looked over at me, and suddenly her eyes went wide when she saw my rough shape. My right arm and left leg, each bent in one too many places, the rest of my severely beaten body, I was sure I didn’t exactly look healthy.
“Arlan! Are you okay?” She rushed to get up and bend over, reaching out to grab me. “Ainash, why did you heal me and not—”
She stopped when her arms got close to me, and I saw her eyes. They were staring at her left hand—or rather, where her left hand should have been. At the arm that ended in nothing.
“I…” I breathed out, “I’m sorry. We couldn’t—”
“Mother! Am so, so, so, so, so sorry!” Ainash flung herself at Erani, tackling her with a hug and knocking her to the ground. “Could not, was not able to, the ability…I failed! Am so sorry! You, I, I will, I am, I will try to fix it! Will use ability next week, as soon as is available, to heal you. Will see if it works. I…”
“We’ll figure something out,” I nodded.
Erani didn’t respond. Her eyes showed the same far-off look now as they did before, when she was only barely half-conscious.
With a grunt of exertion, I sat myself up, holding myself up with my good hand planted in the ground. The adrenaline had faded by now, and the bolts of pain began radiating through my injured limbs once again, but I still couldn’t worry about that. There were more important things at stake, for now.
“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s get moving. Those boulders made a lot of noise, and other monsters might be on their way now to investigate. We’re close to Barinruth, we should get there while we can.”
Ainash nodded and stood, with Erani hesitantly following soon after. She still didn’t say anything. Ainash bent down to help me stand, letting me wrap my arm around her shoulder so I didn’t have to put pressure on my leg. If I used Expedite on myself, I could probably keep myself standing and walking for at least long enough to get us to safety. Then I could rest.
“Erani, are you good to move?” I asked. I knew she was probably physically fine, but mentally…losing an arm would be a big shock for anyone. I also had another motivation for asking—getting her to talk at all. She’d been completely silent ever since she noticed.
She looked over at me, and I looked back. I wouldn’t move until she confirmed she was okay to continue. A few seconds passed, before she muttered, “Y…yeah.”
“Okay. We’ll get you some help as soon as possible.”
“I…We should get help for you, first.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I don’t die,” I chuckled, pain radiating from my broken arm when I did so from the slight shake. “But just know that this isn’t permanent. We can do something, somehow. Alright?”
She was silent after that.
“Okay,” I said, taking that as her telling me she needed some time to think. “Let’s get moving. Shouldn’t be too far until we get to safety.”
A few minutes passed as we traveled, and eventually the battlefield behind us faded out of sight. We were moving much, much slower than normal, due to my injuries—I had to be constantly supported by at least Ainash, if not Ainash and Erani together, and even then I could only stumble along—but we were still making steady progress. It’d probably only be a couple hours before we got to the nearby outpost we’d seen before.
“Keep an eye out for monsters,” I said to Ainash as we moved. “You’re our main defense against them. Don’t worry about dropping me if you need to defend us. Both Erani and I are really low on Health, so keeping any attackers far away is a must.”
“Okay. But will try not to drop you. That would hurt.”
“Thanks,” I laughed. “If something unbeatable attacks like that Dragon we saw before, though, then, I don’t know, we can figure something out. Try to run off with Erani and I’ll hide, or—”
“Do not think that will be problem,” Ainash cut me off. “Dragon was who helped me kill the bad guy!”
“Wait, what?” I asked. “How? What even happened back there?”
“When you first came back with time power and said you could survive attacks from bad guy, could feel that you were lying. Knew you planned on dying to save us. So told mother what you were planning, and we made plan, too. Did not leave when we turned invisible. Mother stayed with you to make sure didn’t die, and I went to get help from Dragon. Knew where it was because of knowledge from future!”
“But I never even saw it during the fight. How did it help you kill the Demon if it never showed up?”
“Dragon was one who brought boulders to kill bad guy with! Could not convince it to fight bad guy with us, but could convince it to bring very heavy boulders. Did not tell it that I would use boulders to kill bad guy, but it does not need to know!”
“Oh, huh.” Yeah, I supposed it made sense that she’d have needed to find those massive boulders somewhere. No way she just found them lying right by the cliff edge, at least. “Well, I’m glad you were smart enough to come up with a plan like that. Thanks for saving me.”
“It is okay. But only if you promise not to do that ever again! It made mother very sad. And me too.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. I won’t. At least, I’ll consult you two before trying to let myself die like that again.”
“Apologize to mother, too!”
“I will.” Glancing over at Erani, I saw that her gaze was cast downward, watching the dirt as we walked. “Hey.”
She looked up and over at me.
“Sorry for, uh, not keeping my promise. I shouldn’t’ve kept you in the dark like that. You didn’t deserve it.”
“Um,” her voice rasped, and she coughed to clear her throat. “Uh, it’s okay.”
“I’ll make it up to you, alright? Take you out on the nicest date once we get to Barinruth. Good food, maybe we can see a play…”
She laughed. “As nice as that sounds, I don’t know if we’ll have the money for that.”
“I’ll make some, then.”
“Okay, sure,” she rolled her eyes.
“No, seriously. I’m taking you on that date. I think we’re long overdue for one. And we could probably both use some cheering up. Just a bit of regular life to break up the…all of this,” I did my best to gesture all around myself with one arm broken and the other hanging around Ainash’s neck as she helped me walk.
“Well…okay. Yeah, that sounds nice. Thanks.”
“Besides, I also need to get back my collateral,” I smiled. “I stayed alive, didn’t I? You gotta give it back, now.”
“Hm,” she smiled back, “I suppose that was the deal.”
“Yeah, though it’ll probably have to wait. Not exactly in good enough shape to go exploring a city right now.”
She nodded. “We can find you a Cleric. Maybe that outpost you found at the end of this road has one?”
“Ainash is the one who remembers what was there,” I nodded to my side, where she was helping to support me. “Did you see anything like that?”
“Um, no, do not think so. Mother was one talking, and only talked to some Humans. Do not know what ‘Cleric’ Human looks like.”
Yeah, that made sense. Though even if we didn’t find anyone, Regenerate would eventually heal me. It would bring my Health back to full, at least, and having a high Health value would accelerate and strengthen my body’s natural healing process. It’d still definitely be easier to just get someone to heal me instantly, though.
As for Erani…well, she clearly didn’t want to talk about her injury. But there were ways to work around it. Powerful magic could do just about anything, as long as you could find someone to do it for you, so I was confident we could solve that problem.
We continued traveling in relative silence for a while longer. Slowly—and painfully—we continued to make our way through the canyon. My Stamina/Minute was at 1.63 after my most recent Level-ups—which I was still hoping to make my choices for, after we got to safety—and that high amount of regeneration seemed to more than make up for the amount of Stamina I spent on my slow, careful walking.
It was nice to travel and gain Stamina while doing so, feeling slightly more refreshed as the time went on, though the net amount of Stamina I gained after the expenditure from movement was pretty miniscule. I still desperately wanted to sit down so I could give my broken leg a break, but with Ainash helping me walk, it wasn’t too bad.
But despite the fact that I was slowly gaining rest as I limped through the mountain pass, I was suddenly made aware of how exhausted and vulnerable I was when I saw something.
A trio of figures approached in the distance, coming from the direction of the Barinruth Empire.
“Halt!” One of them shouted. I could tell they were probably guards, with their crested armor and weapons in-hand. They were still pretty far off, though, so I couldn’t make out many details. The speaking one stepped forward. “Who are you, and why are you here? We heard a disturbance earlier, did you have anything to do with that?”
Ainash instantly reached for her whip, but I squeezed my supported arm around her to stop her. These weren’t enemies. At least, they didn’t seem like they were.
I cleared my throat, preparing to respond. But before I could, the same lead guard continued, “don’t bother answering yet. We have Truth Stones, and want to make sure you aren’t telling any lies. Either turn away and leave this place, or come with us so we can verify your statements.”
I looked over at Erani. Seemed like the guards at the outpost came to us after hearing those boulders fall. “Should we go with them?”
“I don’t think we have any choice,” she said. “Unless you plan to head back to Koinkar.”
Yeah, seemed like it. Though the Truth Stones would be an issue. I, for one, didn’t exactly want my identity getting out. They probably didn’t know my face, but I was sure that at least my name had probably gotten to the neighboring countries. And even if these guards didn’t recognize it, someone would.
We needed to figure out a plan for that, and fast. But for now, there was only one real thing I could say.
“Sure,” I called out. “Just get us some medical attention first.”
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