The carriage came to a stop in front of Somnial’s manor, and I stepped out gingerly, careful not to nudge my stump as I did. As soon as I was healed enough to travel, we had set out back for Ivarnel, traveling slower for the return trip and getting me back to the capital with enough time to get some additional recovery there before the break ended.

  Both Rikton and Trisellia felt horrible about my injury and each of them wanted to do more for me, but the Obdorn barony simply didn’t have much in the way of helpful resources. Rikton had become incredibly busy arranging to clear the dungeon of Nightmare Ants, and I wanted to get out of their hair so they could focus on that without also dealing with an injured guest and the associated guilt.

  Byron stepped out of the manor and approached to greet us, and I watched him take in my state with the same cool professionalism the man always displayed.

  “Welcome back, master Tovar,” he said after a beat. “Did you have a a good trip?”

  “I did, actually. Until things got, uh…” I lifted my arm, waggling my stump a bit. “A little out of hand.”

  Byron’s lips twitched, but he steeled his expression before turning to Felton and Felris, who had clambered out of the carriage behind me. The siblings bowed their heads, apologizing for not being able to protect me better while I was in their care. I stifled a sigh and shook my head slightly, knowing it was all my own damn fault and they had nothing to apologize for.

  “All right, enough of that,” I said, shooing the two kids back into the carriage. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you when classes resume.”

  I waved with my good hand as they pulled away.

  Gus had unloaded my luggage, including a large burlap wrapped package: the mandibles of the Nightmare Ant soldier that took my hand. The guards who had rescued me had killed it, and its corpse had been offered to me as a reward for defending Felris.

  Apparently it contained some profitable elements, but I ended up leaving the bulk of it in the more capable hands of the local experts to process and sell. Rikton promised to forward me the profits that came from it, and I told him to send them to my parents in Redding. They would need the extra funds to help pay for help come harvest and to buy meat through winter, and possibly help in the fields next spring. Even if I could make the trip myself, I wouldn’t be much help now.

  The only part of the monster I was personally interested in were the mandibles. They had cleanly sheared off my hand, which was obviously bad, but I was also intrigued by the natural weapons. I wasn’t sure what they were made of, but they held up against metal blades, and in some cases could even cut through metal. I knew monsters were originally made from mana, and I could sense the existing mana circuit in the mandibles, even once removed from the rest of the monster.

  I had learned about weapons made from monster parts in my studies and looked into it further on my own. They were considered a bit archaic and had fallen out of favor with the standardization of forged arms, but there were still some people who practiced the old ways. Mostly, I was interested in how they seemed like they could be strengthened with [Mana Manipulation], which most mundane metal weapons didn’t make much use of. I presumed that contributed to the power of the Nightmare Ant soldier’s bite. If I could find someone with the know-how, it would be neat to get the mandibles turned into a pair of blades, even if I couldn’t really use them anymore. At least I could hang them on my wall as decoration, and a reminder not to be so damn cocky.

  Byron stepped up next to me as I looked down at the luggage. I motioned at the bags that I would normally have grabbed myself. “I could use a h…” The joke died on my lips. Suddenly, I was tired and mad at myself again. “I could use some help,” I finally said, trying not to sound too bitter.

  “Of course, master Tovar,” the butler said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you head inside and see master Somnial.”

  I nodded, then wandered into the manor, making my way to the library. More often than not, that was where the old Sage spent his time, his nose buried in books, and this time was no different. I knocked lightly on the door to get his attention, and he looked up, surprised to see me. I wondered if he forgot I existed after a couple of weeks away.

  His surprise compounded when I waved at him, given the lack of my hand, but then his expression cooled.

  “Come here, let me take a look,” he said, unexpectedly unperturbed about my amputation.

  Then again, he did win a war against the demon king, I thought. He’s probably seen worse.

  I approached where he was seated, and pushed my lack of hand out to him.

  “May I unwrap these bandages?” he asked, and I nodded.

  Somnial delicately unwound the bandaged injury, which had mostly scabbed over already, and he examined it thoughtfully.

  “It was a Nightmare Ant soldier,” I started to explain once the silence got awkward. “No one’s fault but my own. I wanted to see the dungeon, and it turned out there was an infestation. The baron’s fighting it back now.”

  The sage nodded, acting as if that were a daily occurrence in life, and I supposed that when he was my age it might have been.

  “I know you can’t do anything about it,” I said, thinking back to what Somnial had told me when I asked about my father’s arm.

  “I can’t regenerate your hand like the [Saint] could, but I can heal the wound, at least,” he murmured, before starting to invoke a substantial spell.

  I hadn’t considered that. My father’s severed arm had healed up naturally by the time I met Somnial, and he had told me that he focused more on offensive spells, but the old sage had spent a lifetime collecting magics. It wasn’t surprising he would pick up some basic healing, in retrospect.

  As the glow of the spell faded, I breathed a sigh of relief. The absence lingered, but the pain was gone.

  Somnial patted the end of my stump. “That’ll do for now,” he said with a slight frown. “I should practice that spell more.” He turned back to his book, mumbling to himself.

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  “Thank you,” I said, lifting up the healed amputation. I had anticipated months of painful recovery from this injury, and just like that, it was done with. “When can I learn that spell?”

  “Hah,” the old man barked, looking up from his book again. “Not until you’ve mastered the basics, at least.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” I said, then told Somnial about how I succeeded in casting [Create Light] and [Create Water] in the dungeon. He had me show him the light spell, and nodded in approval.

  “We can talk more about infusion… but you should learn it from Somnius first,” he said with a grimace. “I don’t need him yelling at me about corrupting his students.”

  “Right, yeah. I’ll be learning it in class this term.” I had no plans on telling Somnius that I had already cast magic, as the grumpy professor was rather rigid in his lesson planning. “Well, in the meantime, I’ll be borrowing the grimoire for [Create Fire].”

  Somnial waved towards his bookcase, already back to reading his own grimoire, and I grabbed the book with my good hand before leaving his library. By the time I got back to my room, I found my luggage already unpacked by Byron and the manor staff. I sat at my desk, and settled myself back into my routine, thinking about how things were going to change for me and my new circumstances.

  * * *

  I was lazily laying in bed the next morning when there was a knock at my door.

  “Uh, come in,” I said, lifting my head off the pillow. I had woken at dawn, as usual, but hadn’t got up, since there was no point if I wasn’t going to be practicing my [Swordsmanship].

  Byron peeked his head in my room. “You’re late,” he said, dropping the formalities as he did when training me. It was the only time he was hard on me instead of the usual kind, servile butler. “Hurry up and get dressed and meet me in the courtyard.”

  Before I could object, he had closed the door. I glanced down at my stump, then shrugged and pulled myself out of bed.

  The aged swordsman was waiting for me in the courtyard with our practice blades, as usual, and I walked over to him sourly. He tossed me the practice blade, and I reactively lifted my right arm to catch it, only to pull back and dodge the flying wooden sword, which clattered to the ground.

  “Byron,” I said, waggling my right arm. “Did you forget about this? I can’t train anymore.”

  The swordsman-turned-butler arched an eyebrow at me, then tutted. “That’s rather defeatist of you, Tovar.”

  I looked at him incredulously. “What?”

  He peered down at me. “You think you’re the first swordsman to lose his dominant hand?” He shook his head. “The Guardians gave us two.”

  Before I shot back at him in anger, I looked down at my left hand. The idea of relearning how to fight left-handed had seemed so absurd that I hadn’t really even considered it, but I was going to have to relearn how to do everything else with my left hand, anyway. Writing was going to be a massive challenge, for example, and I never once considered just giving up on my studies and the ability to write. If I could learn to be legible with my left hand, I could also learn to swing a sword with it.

  I spent most of my life working diligently, learning the sword. Even if it took me years over again just to regain the same level, what was wrong with that? I was facing an infinite future, and I would have to overcome harder challenges than this.

  “You’re right,” I said, coming out of the reverie of my realization. Walking over to the sword on the ground, I picked it up with what used to be my off hand and returned to the ready. “Sorry, Byron. Please continue to train me.”

  The old butler smiled softly. “Certainly.”

  Byron led me through my forms, mirrored from how I knew them so I could lead with my left instead of my right. When needed, he showed me single-armed variations, as well as methods of using my right forearm as a support where I would normally have gripped two-handed.

  There was no muscle memory to speak of. I constantly battled my instincts, and regularly had to switch my feet around when I tried to lead with the wrong foot. We did no sparring and no drills, only form work to retrain my neural pathways. Even just that had my left shoulder aching, as I relied more heavily on small muscles that I had developed much more rigorously on my other side exclusively.

  It was going to be an uphill battle, but when I put down my practice sword, I had a smile on my face.

  After the training, I told Byron I had acquired another level in my [Swordsmanship] skill in the fight against the ants using his training. We talked about adapting the sword for fighting monsters, and how I could avoid losing my second hand in future fights.

  “We can continue your training in that direction,” he said. “Though first you have to regain your former proficiency with your new circumstances.”

  Byron excused himself to see to his duties for the day, and I decided to continue exercising to make up for my previous defeatism. I went through my mental list of calisthenics, many of which I would need to adapt or find alternatives for. If I could get a prosthetic made, I would be able to balance out the sides and could probably still do most of my exercises.

  In the meantime, I planned to focus on training my lower body more aggressively. Honing in on plyometrics and explosive leg strength would help my mobility and speed. In addition to a prosthetic, maybe I could get some boxes built for box jumps. I would need to work on breakfalls and how to roll out of them better, especially with one less hand. I’d ask Byron about it later.

  I decided to bleed off this newfound energy by going on a run. I laughed at myself for giving up so quickly on training my Body after the accident. I still had legs, didn’t I? I started jogging away from the manor, taking a wide route around the busy markets.

  While I knew parts of Ivarnel quite well, it was a big city, and there were areas I knew much better than others. I didn’t feel like getting lost, so I stuck to roads that I knew which would be quieter than most. I ran past the academy, which was eerily quiet given that it was still summer break, then made to do a lap around another familiar residential area, where Felton and Felris lived.

  It wasn’t that surprising, then, that I encountered one of the two. A voice calling my name caused me to stop and turn around, finding Felton chasing after me. He looked panicked.

  “Tovar, are you all right?” he asked once he caught up, panting. “What are you running from?”

  “From? Oh, no. I’m just… running. For exercise.”

  Felton looked at me like I was crazy, then did a double take when he saw my unbandaged arm. “Your arm!”

  I glanced down at it, then back up to the green-eyed boy. “Oh, yeah. Somnial used a healing spell. All better,” I laughed, waggling it. “Kinda.”

  A look of confused consternation crossed Felton’s face. “And you’re still training? After… all that happened?”

  I shrugged. “Byron talked me out of my funk. Started working on left-handed [Swordsmanship] this morning. It’ll probably be a while before I’m able to fight even half as good as I could before, but it’ll come with practice.”

  Felton’s eyes fell, and he stared at the ground in silence. The silence grew longer, and I shifted feet, starting to feel awkward.

  “Felton? You good?”

  The boy looked up at me, clutching his fists. Intense emotion was written plainly on his face, but I didn’t know what he was so upset about.

  “Felris told me all about what happened in the dungeon. If I had fallen with her instead of you, both of us would have died.”

  “It was a freak accident, Felton. It’s not likely to happen again.”

  “Maybe,” he said, and sniffed. “Or maybe our carriage gets attacked by bandits one day. Or a dungeon breaks and monsters swarm our home. Or even just a common thief attacks us in the street. I can’t protect her.”

  “Yet,” I clarified. “It’s like you said, you’re training to be a mage. Once you learn a few spells—”

  “That’s the thing! You learned two spells, in the dark, inside a dungeon, on your own. And you’re still training the sword!”

  I frowned. Was he jealous? I was worried this was going to ruin one of my only friendships in this world, but then the young lad shook his head and surprised me.

  “I was being a fool. Dad tried to teach me, but I always brushed him off to focus on academics and magic. I figured it could only be one or the other, but you showed me how wrong I was.” He grabbed my good hand. “Tovar. Will you train me?”