PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion

  I wake up.

  My good eye opens, and yet I can’t see. Is it dark? Am I blind from the radiance? Still, I remember the message seared into my eyes.

  [Darkbreaker, lv. 52]

  A sharp breath enters my lungs, and then, finally, the pain sets in.

  My skin, all of it, hurts and aches. Every movement pulls at it, sending itchy spirals of hurt through me. It’s a horrible feeling, but I don’t [Suppress] it, not yet. There is something more important.

  Instead of pushing the hurt aside, I address it. I cast [Flesh Restoration]. The spell ripples out of my core, and it is seemingly more effective when applied to myself than anyone else. Power crawls through my veins, and begins to address damages.

  The light seared my insides. My lungs are scorched, damaged in ways I didn’t even know were a thing. But they heal. Second by second, I pour a stream of mana into it, and my skin starts to itch horribly. It flakes and itches, half formed scabs beginning to flake off. It almost makes me wanna stop the spell. I hate the feeling, but I keep going.

  [Flesh Restoration 3 > 4]

  Apparently, the sheer amount of things that need fixing in my body are enough for the skill to level. Slowly, I empty out my entire vessel of mana. When I’m done, my vision is back, if bleary. It’s dark. I don’t know where we are. Did we end up caught?

  “Inu?” I whisper. “Thatch? Opal? … Sylves?” I hesitate before the last one, knowing my friend was passed out from blood loss. Maybe she is up again. How long was I out?

  Shuffling near me. “Snow?” The voice is familiar. Inu. She’s alive, and close by, which is good.

  “Yes,” I croak. My throat is somewhat healed, but still feels raw and scratchy. Words are a pain to get out, but I still do so. “What happened?”

  Inu shifts into my field of vision, looking down at my open eye. The other one is still a bloody mess, and now, I have more injuries to heal before I can properly address it. Ahhh, what a pain. I wanted to start on trying to modify my body to be stronger.

  “You’re awake,” she says. Something wet drips on my cheek. “You’re awake. Oh, thank goodness.”

  I breathe a long, shaky breath. “Yeah,” I croak. It aches, it scratches, but that’s okay. Inu needs to hear it. “I’m okay.”

  “We’re in the tunnels. The sumeen dropped us off. Paulino said… they said it was repayment for what you told them about our species,” she says. Her voice quivers. She’s speaking just barely above a whisper.

  Paulino is a lying rat. But, in this case, I don’t mind it. My lips stretch into a smile, even as my skin protests and cracks. “Generous of them,” I say. They didn’t do it because of what I told them, they did it because they’re decent people. I probably owe them, just a bit. A small sigh leaves my lips. “What now?”

  “Opal, Bay and mom are out hunting. My mom, ah, Jess. She got offered a job, by now. Butcher. She can make mostly palatable cuts of meat from the insects,” Inu explains.

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  “Hmmm,” I hum. The noise comes easier than the others I’ve made. Jess is proving to be rather reliable, isn’t she? That’s nice. As my mana has regenerated just a smidge, I trigger my healing spell again, focusing on my eye. Inu’s dark figure pulls into view a little more.

  “How did you survive the fall?” Inu asks. “When the floor cracked, you fell on your back. Your spine should have snapped, it…”

  “It didn’t,” I say. “Partially because of my stats, and partially because of… Kuro,” I say.

  “Kuro?” she asks.

  I smile, just a little. “The shadow parasite under my skin. We’re a team, now. It gets to eat whenever I wreck myself, and in exchange for letting it drink my blood… well, I suppose it stops me from dying to fall damage,” I say, and a hacking cough comes from my throat.

  And then, I just can’t stop laughing. It’s hilarious. It hurts so bad, but I just can’t stop. “Hahaha. Haha! Hahahahaha!”

  Another wet drop hits my face, but I can see Inu’s lips twisting into a smile, illuminated by the faint glow of… mushrooms, probably. “You idiot,” she says. “What’s so fucking funny, huh?”

  “That I’m alive,” I moan, even more hoarsely now. “It’s happening again, isn’t it? Like every time. They want me to fail. But I won’t.”

  Inu smiles, wide, fully, as more tears drop onto my skin. They burn faintly, but they’re also pleasantly cool. I don’t bother complaining. “Yeah,” she says. Slowly, her gaze trails upwards. “We’ll show them.”

  For a little moment, we’re silent, matched in our determination to survive. Then, somewhat awkwardly, Thatch shuffles towards me. “Hey Snow,” he says.

  “Heya, handsome stranger. Who might you be?” I ask.

  Briefly, horror flashes on his face. Then, it’s replaced by a laugh. “You idiot,” he says, crying too. “Fuck. Don’t… don’t do that!” He doesn’t sound all that upset, though. Quickly, he wipes his eyes. “Ugh. Dummy. Here,” he holds a phial against my lips. “You need to drink.”

  With his assistance, I manage to get some water into my throat. It tastes of iron and ash and triumph. I live. They tried to kill me when they couldn’t capture me, but I escaped. I’m alive. A long moment passes after the water. “Do we know who attacked us?” I ask.

  Thatch nods. “Yeah. Paulino told us. Paladin of Respitia. Philia, the darkbreaker.”

  It’s her. It’s definitely her. With that alias? There is no doubt. “That’s the one. The one that made the pillar.”

  Inu tenses. For a moment, I feel a spike of mana and fury from Thatch. Then, all at once, the two share a look and settle back down. “She’s dead,” Inu whispers.

  I nod, and Thatch does so, too. There is no doubt. She’s signed her death warrant, already. All we need are more levels. To twist the odds in our favour. I pour more mana into my healing spell, mending my throat a bit to make speaking easier. “Hey. Can you try to push your mana into the mana core in my backpack?” I ask.

  At my request, Thatch smiles. “Way ahead of you,” he says, pressing it into my hand. The light in our little cave shifts. It wasn’t glowing fungus - it was the core, filled to the brim.

  “Before you devour that mana we so graciously present you,” Amelie joins in, “perhaps we can interest you in engaging with the need for sustenance most humans share?”

  Oh, right. Food. I feel hungry. Very hungry. My healing spell probably converts a good chunk of mana to flesh, but it’s not high level enough yet to use only mana. Instead, it probably eats into my fat reserves a good bit, converting all that stored energy into more skin. So, I get to be fed by Thatch too, having him nurse me back to health. He takes care not to touch me. Both out of respect, and because my skin is raw and blistered.

  Only once I’ve eaten a full plate, and my hunger settles down a little do I absorb the mana from the core, filling my vessel to halfway full. I hand the gem back to the others, to be filled again. Amelie and Richard seem to be doing the lion’s share of the donating, and I appreciate that.

  The hiy’ht also occasionally saunters over to me and siphons some of the heat coming off my body, cooling me down. She sucks in big gulps of hot air, drawing out more streams of warmth with some kind of special skill. Then, she gives a small burp.

  My skin knits closed some more. After eating, drinking, talking, and healing, I feel rather tired. “I’m going to sleep,” I tell the others. “Let me know if something happens.”

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