Chapter 54: Aftermath
Pangs of phantom pains pulsed from Mitch’s arm, yet all he could do was laugh.
His dominant side was right, meaning he blocked most attacks with his right arms.
It was also his right arms that were the most hurt. They lacked skin and muscles in many places.
Well, one lacked everything.
The lion had crushed the bones and ripped off any remaining tissue and fascia.
What remained was half of his forearm.
Mitch ripped off his clothes and started wrapping them around his wounds. The battle might be won, but he was still bleeding.
He then choked the blood flow to his ripped-off arm, hoping to not bleed to death.
Katherine’s attempts to talk to him turned into a faint buzzing as his vision was starting to blur from the combination of pain and the blood loss.
He kept swaying as he climbed the hill, focus slipping and head throbbing.
Well at the top, he saw the hunting squad running some ways away from him. The battle had gone on for a while, but it had luckily ended before the legios had gone too far away.
Mitch took a deep breath and shouted out in frustration.
"IIIIISAAAAAAAC!"
He screamed a few more times before his vision turned completely black and his body fell forward, rolling down the hill.
—
"Where... am I?"
Opening his eyes, Mitch was greeted by a familiar view, yet he was too dizzy to remember where.
"MITCH! Thank Khad, you’re alive! I thought you would die. Why did you do something so stupid? You could have just returned to your personal dimension and waited until you got enough Mynt to incarnate again."
Katherine’s berating caused his already pounding head to hurt even more.
Looking around, he found himself in the chief’s house, his body covered in salves and wrapped in bloody hides.
He was completely alone in the hut. Next to him there was a basin filled with water and hides, presumably used for washing and rewrapping his bandages.
’Slow down, Katherine,’ Mitch whispered, his head too muddled for her fast-paced questioning. ’First, how long have I been out cold?’
"Hmph. You’ve been out for about three days. I really thought you would die, you know?" Frustration from being ignored was apparent from her tone, but she held nothing back in explaining the situation. For some reason, Mitch felt like she also sounded a bit desperate.
’Do you know what happened after I fainted?’ Mitch disregarded that thought and asked. He didn’t expect her to know.
And as he expected, "No... I see the world through your senses, so if you faint, I am basically put on standby mode. More accurately, I get transported to a dark void."
Mitch felt like what she said didn’t make sense. ’How would you know that three days had passed unless you—no, you didn’t!?’
"Do you feel bad now? Do you realize how worried you made me now? You could have been killed! Why didn’t you just leave that body?"
The only method that came to Mitch’s mind for Katherine to keep track of time was by staying awake in that isolated environment.
He couldn’t even imagine that kind of torture.
As part of a trial in a game, he had been locked in a completely black, soundproof room for an hour.
He couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear, and couldn’t feel. Nothing. An infinite void.
In that one hour, Mitch had contemplated taking his own life numerous times, even with the trial warning him that suicide was impossible in there. He just wanted to feel something, even if it was pain.
Yet Katherine endured three days of that without completely losing her mind.
’I’m sorry... I just didn’t expect the lion to become so decisive at the end. But hey, look on the bright side. I killed an Infused animal with my own strength for the first time.’
"Don’t say it with such pride! You lost a few fingers when killing a Sparked one, and this time you lost a hand. Are you going to sacrifice an arm to kill a Bloomed? What about when fighting a Tempered or a Pulsed? What are you going to do then, huh?"
Mitch shrunk back, knowing Katherine was right.
Indeed, he had lost a big part of the advantage legios held over humans this time. Disregarding the fact that he almost died, how would he help conquer this world if he had to offer part of his body every time he met a stronger opponent?
’I understand. Next time, I will be more careful, I promise. You asked why I didn’t leave this body back then, right? Well, I thought about it and came up with two reasons why I shouldn’t.’
Katherine turned quiet, waiting to hear his reasoning before digging into him again.
’The first reason was that it would be risky. Sure, the rats are reliably increasing their numbers, giving me more Mynt. But if they get killed, or the lions tracked the villagers back here, my plans would be set back by a lot. It might even result in me dying anyway.’
She had to agree it was a reasonable excuse. She was willing to accept it, but she still felt like it would have given him a higher chance at survival than this.
"And what’s the second reason?"
’... I don’t know how to.’
"Huh." No screaming, no reprimands, not even the slightest tease. Just acceptance.
Turns out, Katherine was more willing to tolerate that answer than the first one.
"Huu. I’m sorry, that one’s on me for not explaining it to you. From what I know, you just need to channel your Mynt into the air in front of you, with the intention of it becoming a portal."
’Do I lose anything if I just open the portal and nothing walks through?’
"No, the Mynt will return to your body. If you transport your soul, it will consume a small amount of Mynt, but not a ton. You will only consume a lot of Mynt if you walk through with any other physical object, like your body."
Getting a verbal confirmation, Mitch raised his amputated arm and channeled his powers through it.
A portal appeared in front of him, showing a white space with a television and a black sofa.
Having tested how making the portal works, Mitch canceled the channeling and pushed himself off the ground, grunting in pain.
"The rats have been very busy these days, but it should be fine if I burden them a little bit more."
