Chapter XXVIII (28)

  “Sir! Have you awoken?”

  Mitsuko spun on her heel, tearing her eyes from Wan’s lifeless husk to face the door. The door that clicked as a key unlocked it from the other side.

  “We’re coming inside. While you may not be human or even a related species, I must say it was still quite a shock for our staff to find you like that. It’s a relief to hear you’re on the mend—”

  A Kemon butler with the antlers of a deer froze in the now open doorway. He and Mitsuko locked eyes. Mitsuko, who was currently halfway out the window.

  “Ah. Sorry. Wrong room,” she said meekly.

  “Intruder!” The word boomed and shook the interior inn.

  Mitsuko threw herself out the window. A blast of vines caught her foot halfway down and dragged her toward it. She slammed into the brick wall. The inn itself came to life. Bricks flew out from the wall. She swung to the side and dodged one. But another two slammed into her. One clipped the side of her head while the second went straight into her gut. Her vision swam but she fixed whatever concussion she might have just acquired with a quick Mend.

  Then Mitsuko hacked at the vines holding her with her sword. But the insides of the vines were unlike a natural plant. Instead, they had the tenacity of steel cords. And for every one she chopped through, four more vines grew out from the tangle and added itself to those holding her foot in place. It was like fighting a hydra. Ironically, in both cases, fire would be an ideal solution.

  “This is going to hurt,” she muttered to herself, trying to prepare mentally for her next stupid plan. She put the tip of her sword under the wad of vines, closed her eyes, and chopped down. She put all her weight and effort behind the blow. The vines might now be too thick to hack through easily, but that didn’t mean her sword lacked a sharp edge. She screamed in pain as she sliced through her ankle. She didn’t slice through the entirety of the appendage, but gravity did the rest of the work, ripping her foot off and letting her fall into a large bush below.

  She was dimly grateful that the bush wasn’t covered in thorns this time.

  “Mitsuko!” Holly ran toward her, absolutely horrified as she stared up at the wad of vines above that dripped blood.

  “Mend,” she said weakly. She felt a bruise on her abs fade away and her breathing came easier. Likewise, the gash on her face sealed back up. But her leg remained foot-less.

  “Well, shit.”

  “Hm.” Sterling padded up. “I suppose this is not a good time for lectures so I will withhold my crit—”

  “Fuck! Mitsuko! Your leg! Your foot! Where is your foot?” Holly grabbed Mitsuko and started dragging her off.

  “I got caught,” Mitsuko muttered.

  The pain wasn’t that bad. Okay. It was genuinely some of the worst she’d ever experienced at any point in her life, including both before and during the Prismatic Spiral. But even still she managed to right herself and hobbled using Holly as a crutch.

  “Absolute idiot!” Holly berated her. “Just lie when people find you! Or explain yourself and get a stern talking to! Normal people don’t amputate themselves at the slightest inconvenience!”

  “Wan is dead,” Mitsuko said numbly.

  “Impossible. He’s immortal.”

  “I saw his corpse.”

  “An illusion.” Holly sounded confident.

  “I accidentally sat on it.”

  “A body double.”

  Mitsuko closed her eyes. She was feeling lightheaded. She lacked the energy to argue or explain.

  Holly guided her to a massive tree with roots that arched out of the soil. She stuffed Mitsuko down under the tree and then started weaving an illusion over them to keep them out of sight. Once that was completed she took out her belt knife and began etching in the wood a divination ward to keep them out of sight magically.

  “You maimed yourself! You stupid, stupid, idiot,” Holly scolded her as she worked on the spell.

  Meanwhile Mitsuko got to work stopping the bleeding from her stump of a leg. She used her belt to cut off circulation. She sucked in through her teeth as she tightened the leather above her ankle. She took a few quivering breaths, then reached into her pack and took out a healing potion. She took a sip then dribbled the rest on her stump. It accelerated the healing process and she watched as the stump began to scab over. She’d performed an amputation on a civilian once before, but it was an altogether different experience to watch her own stump begin to take form from her missing foot.

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  “I do admire your tenacity,” Sterling added from the side. “And it is only a temporary inconvenience. These sorts of experiments with our spells are exactly why we decided to put the question restriction in place this time. Giving yourself opportunities to push and test your limits is key in advancing the magic in the allotted time.”

  “This time.” Mitsuko glared at the cat. “So in your last attempt you let your Champion know everything.”

  Thankfully Holly was too busy muttering insults while carving more glyphs to notice Mitsuko growling at the cat.

  “Last time was not something anyone wishes to replicate. Trust me when I say this is far preferable. You gain a further understanding of your abilities and can advance them more effectively when you fail.”

  “Fine. So I take it I can’t fix severed limbs. Any other limitations I should know about?”

  She had known in the moment that it would be a long shot to get the Mend spell to work to fix a missing limb, but she had panicked and taken a gamble.

  “How about I tell you what your level of Mend can do, rather than what it will someday be able to accomplish?” Sterling offered. “At its current level, Mend will revert you back to a healthy state. But the body is a uniquely difficult material to work spells on. Ask any witch and they’ll tell you the majority of decent hexes need to be carefully tailored for the individual or they lose their potency over time. That’s why they gather bones and blood and hair of their victims.”

  “Healers manage just fine,” Mitsuko stated.

  “They still perfect their arts based on a specific species.” He paused. “Unless the art of rejuvenation and restoration has expanded in unexpected ways in the last thousand years?”

  “No,” Mitsuko admitted. “Humans usually work on humans, Kemon on Kemon, and so on.”

  “Oh. I admit that's a bit disheartening to hear. Still, like I said, it’s the expected outcome. As I said, tailoring spells for specific flesh makes it easier.”

  “It’s my body.”

  “Which is why you can already accomplish so much at such a low level. But attaching severed parts is trickier. Not to mention the severed foot was not on hand or easily accessible for the magic. Even if you were successful, you would have been dragged up the brick wall again and reattached there. Not unless you wanted to create an altogether new foot, but that would be—”

  He cut off suddenly, his glowing green eyes going wide. Despite herself, Mitsuko smiled.

  “Something for a higher level?”

  “I did not say that!” He bristled and stalked off to the far corner of their den.

  Mitsuko considered. That was good to know. Even if it didn’t help her now. Sterling’s rambling little lecture had revealed a lot about the future capabilities of her spell. Hypothetically, in the future she would be able to heal severed limbs, heal others, and create missing objects. That last one was especially interesting. She suspected it would be like when an elementalist created their element instead of just using what was on hand. A more taxing spell, but also incredibly useful. How far could she stretch a power like that? It surely had sharp limitations. Something to look forward to.

  Which was nice, since at the moment she struggled to think of any decent near future. She was missing a foot, the inn definitely would be looking to punish her for trespassing, Wan was somehow dead, and it was still only the first day of their loop. Unless she wanted to die and waste the week, she had six days as a crippled wanted criminal to enjoy.

  “Good, you at least got the stump all sorted out,” Holly said, taking a seat next to her. “I was worried I’d turn around and see you passed out.”

  “Not dead yet.”

  “Mitsuko. Seriously, what were you thinking?”

  “That I didn’t want to be blamed for killing one of the most important people in the Hon Empire?”

  “Wan is not dead.”

  Mitsuko shook her head. “You didn’t see him. There was no life left in him.”

  “But nothing can kill Wan. Remember when he got stabbed in the neck and barely noticed? Or when he fell into a chasm filled with boiling water?”

  “I remember all of that. And I still know, he was definitely dead.”

  “Oh. That is…not ideal.” Sterling returned from his sulking, having been eavesdropping on their conversation.

  Mitsuko didn’t respond verbally at the cat, she didn’t want Holly thinking she’d completely lost it, but she did narrow her eyes at him.

  “You said he was immortal?” Sterling asked. “That may have interfered with some aspects of the Prismatic Spiral.”

  “He was fine before,” Mitsuko said.

  “Exactly.” Holly nodded, believing that Mitsuko was coming along to her line of thinking.

  “Before you killed the first guardian,” Sterling said. “I…can’t say more. But that may have changed a few things.”

  “Will he be fine?”

  “Of course,” Holly said. “It’s all a misunderstanding. I can’t believe you cut off your foot. What came over you?”

  “Ah.” Sterling looked uncertain. “I’m not supposed to reveal this. Especially since it’s something that will likely motivate you to meet more of the sages and gain levels.”

  Mitsuko narrowed her eyes at him.

  “But…just this once for the sake of your peace of mind I will part with a sliver of information. I will admit that he will likely be fine once the Prismatic Spiral ends and the dome shatters. Assuming you’re successful.”

  “Thank you,” Mitsuko said through gritted teeth. At least that much was a relief. But it meant she couldn’t rely on Wan’s funds or connections. They had a few coins in their bag, but most had gone into paying a deposit on their travel. A deposit Mitsuko thought they would not likely be getting back from the ship’s dead captain.

  Mitsuko rested her head on the tree root.

  “Am I good to sleep, Holly? I feel horrible.”

  “Hm. I wonder why that is,” Holly said dryly. “From escaping a sinking ship? Or rowing for several hours? Or perhaps it was fighting a troll and getting thrown off a bridge? Oh. You know what, you’re probably tired because you sawed off your foot.”

  “Yes. Am I in the clear?”

  Holly sighed dramatically. “Yes, Mitsuko, go to sleep. I’ll keep watch and figure out what to do next.”

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