Divide and Conquer(4)

Loran breathed heavily as he stared at the now-dead Iron Ant. He raised his hand to push his hair out of his face, stopping as he now got his first look at the damage.

Looking at it made his stomach churn. His hand was simply missing, his arm seeming completely normal until it abruptly stops in a mess of blood and torn muscle an inch or two below the wrist. Surprisingly, it looked like the bone had been a fairly clean break, but Loran was in no state to be thinking about that at the moment.

He could feel panic, and possibly his breakfast, rising in his throat. He forced it back down; he needed to think clearly, now more than ever.

Turning around, he located his severed hand about ten feet away, and his backpack was twenty feet away.

'This is probably an awful idea,' he thought as he grabbed his missing appendage, 'but it's not like I can get better treatment anywhere else.'

Running over to his backpack, he put down his hand and removed the damaged bracer from it before digging through his supplies, quickly pulling out his waterskin and a leather pouch.

There wasn't much water left, but there was just enough for him to rinse of his hand and his wrist. The water stung, sending lightning bolts of pain through Loran's veins, but he kept working. With the wounds now cleaned he opened up the pouch, containing a few handfuls of Wolf's Boon.

'I can't imagine any of this will heal right, but it should be better than no hand at all.'

He had to work fast, if he applied the moss and moved too slow the wound would close without reattaching. He couldn't apply the moss after since that would only heal the outside and leave him bleeding internally.

Laying down his backpack to use as a smooth surface, he poured out the moss clumps into a small pile.

He went to grab his hand but first decided to put the leather pouch in his mouth. He would need something to bite down on in a moment.

Picking up his hand, Loran positioned his stump and lost appendage on opposite sides of the moss. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the hand against his forearm, creating a thin layer of moss between the two.

"MHHHH!" Loran bit down on the leather pouch almost hard enough to bite clean through it. Not a single thought existed in his mind except for pain, wordless and all-consuming. Not only was he pressing directly against an open wound, but the sensation of the Wolf's Boon taking effect was only making it worse.

Using the moss had always given a slight burning feeling, but now it seemed to Loran that actually cauterizing the wound would've been less painful than this.

After a few seconds that felt like hours passed, the pain faded. His body went limp, laying in the grass he stared at the sky. A few minutes passed as he caught his breath and collected himself. A part of him didn't want to look, but he needed to know if his gamble paid off.

He opened his menu.

[CRIPPLED HAND]

Remaining Duration: 1824 Days, 23 Hours, 50 Minutes, 12 Seconds

Reduce DEX by 10%

"...This fucking game…"

Loran couldn't tell if New Eden Online was meant to be brutal or forgiving.

They were trapped in a death game, but leveling up was quick enough that most threats were trivialized within a few weeks.

They soon dominated the initial area, but the next area had a monstrous difficulty spike with monsters that could cripple you in a single attack.

Now the game allowed them to basically perform high-level surgery with moss but was still going to leave him crippled for years.

'Forget it,' he decided, even if it was years away, the fact that it would heal on its own was as much as he could hope for. Still lying in the grass, Loran raised his arm and got his first look at just how crippled his hand was going to be from now on.

Moving his arm still hurt, although it felt more like an intense soreness than anything else. The spot where his arm had been severed was now a mess of incomplete scar tissue.

'I thought the moss didn't leave scarring?'

He looked closer and realized that he wasn't looking at scar tissue, but rather the spots where skin and muscle hadn't been aligned properly but were forced to heal by the moss. Small spots were still raw and bloody where there hadn't been enough Wolf's Boon to close the wound.

'Looks pretty badass actually,' he concluded, 'but what about the bones.'

Since he had been able to lift his arm without making it fall off, the bones had definitely healed enough to support their own weight. He began pressing against the injured area, trying to feel the break. Sure enough, Loran could feel a distinct ridge that hadn't been there before. The bones were misaligned. It was only slight, perhaps a quarter of an inch off, but Loran wasn't sure how bad that could be.

'Now for the important part.'

Loran began moving his hand through a series of stretches to check the conditions of the muscles and nerves.

Sure enough, those hadn't healed properly at all.

A few movements felt awkward or pained, the muscles having been reconnected but not fully healed. He was able to make a fist without much protest, but it was lacking his full strength; he probably won't be able to hold a weapon with his left hand anymore.

The mobility was also compromised. His wrist was lacking its full range of motion, and although there wasn't much pain he couldn't rotate his arm properly either.

Just as the game said, his left hand was crippled.

'Bates is going to be so smug when I get back,' he thought, already dreading the situation. He closed his eyes, focusing on [DANGER SENSE] 'Hopefully, these will be able to shut him up.'

Loran didn't know when they had shown up, but there was a trio of Moss Wolves approaching him. He had first noticed them when he was scrambling to fix his hand.

'They probably saw me fight the Iron Ant and want to finish me off now that I'm injured.'

The smart thing to do right now would be to try running for the camp to either fight off or scare off the wolves, but Loran couldn't be in a worse mood right now. He was frustrated, and three wolves would make for excellent punching bags.

'Besides, I need to figure out how I'm going to fight with only one arm. Better to do that before running into more ants.'

With his eyes closed, Loran waited as the wolves slowly drew closer. As they silently moved, Loran's remaining right hand steadily crept towards the Bone Pick to his side. Soon, his fingers closed tight around the weapon's handle.

The wolves either didn't notice or didn't understand his movements, and continued closing in on Loran.

Then, when the wolves were only a little more than ten feet away, the two to the sides rushed forward to attack.

Loran rolled towards the wolves, bringing his spined pick down on the head of the one aiming for his throat. It tried to dodge but was helpless as the large spike of bone buried itself into its skull, killing it instantly.

The other attacking wolf, having missed, quickly turned and lashed out at Loran with its claws.

Loran tried to push off of the ground but put too much pressure on his left arm, falling down as the wolf's claws dug into his shoulder.

He rammed his elbow into the wolf's snout, knocking it away for a moment as the last wolf came charging toward him. Loran swung his pick, making the wolf retreat and giving him an opportunity to stand.

Facing one of the wolves, the one behind Loran tried to jump onto him thinking that Loran wasn't paying attention. Loran easily ducked under the attack and swung his pick upwards. The wolf was able to twist its body in the air, turning what would've been a fatal attack into a deep gash in its side.

Loran was about to attack again, but the other wolf began slashing at his feet, forcing him to dodge. After a moment the injured wolf joined in on attacking him, the two wolves sequencing their attacks to give Loran no time to even consider attacking.

'I see, one of them is an Alpha then,' he thought, noticing their heightened coordination. 'This must be a young Alpha just starting its own pack. They got unlucky.'

As the Alpha went for another attack, Loran activated [SPRINT] and swung his pick at the wolf's throat. The Bone Pick tore through the beast's jugular, leaving a gaping wound too large for the moss in its fur to close. The Alpha wasn't dead yet and was about to start rubbing the wound on its mossy forelimbs to stem the bleeding, but Loran didn't give it the opportunity.

Loran began toggling [SPRINT] on and off again as he harassed the Alpha with attacks. The Moss Wolf tried to protect the Alpha, but while it was enough to stop most of Loran's attacks from landing, it wasn't enough to give the Alpha Wolf time to heal.

Soon enough, the Alpha Wolf collapsed from the intense bleeding. The Moss Wolf stumbled as the Alpha fell, giving Loran an opportunity to land one more attack to finish it off.

With the battle over, Loran was breathing heavily. The fight was more exhausting since he only had one functional hand, but overall it wasn't that much more difficult.

'Still, that Iron Ant was tougher than I thought it would be, and it was weaker than the one I fought with Yang. There's no way I can handle these things solo.'

It frustrated him, but there wasn't room to argue. Perhaps if he hadn't been crippled he could think about getting stronger, but now the gap had widened by too much.

'...Whatever… moping about it won't change anything.'

Gathering his equipment, Loran reequipped his discarded bracer and put his other Bone Pick in his backpack. Taking out a length of rope, he tied the bodies of the wolves and ant together and began heading for the campsite.