A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 137: i'mscaredforyou

     "F-Fir?"

     "Hm?"

     "You're making a scary face..."

     "Oh oh," I realized, but I wasn't able to erase that grin. I covered as much of my expression as I could, rearranging my hair and slapping my hand over my mouth. The change of my teeth sharpening and my nails hardening, elongating to points, was really just too fast. "Sorry..."

     My expression probably didn't say it, but I did. That Dragon had way too much control over me.

     "Sherfire?" Lucia pushed through the door where it'd been left ajar. "What's wro-Firea! Your arm! We've told you not to take the slime off!"

     ...I didn't remember taking it off, though?

     But there were little bits and pieces of blue on the floor, steaming like someone had just fried them in a pan.

     "Oh, sorry...I'll replace that later..." I put the pieces in my storage. Maybe I could've reproduced it later or something, when the [Gaze of Berdine] decided to work properly. "Oh..."

     My arm really hurt. I understood what the Dragon wanted, although it caused me major pains to do it.

     I heated up my hand. It didn't really take any specific spell to do it, just forcing it to happen with my overly-restored MP gauge. Really, that thing...looked a little bit bigger than before...? Well, it must've not been very big. I hadn't looked at the numbers yet, just focusing on clutching my shoulder. I didn't even have a stump of an arm there. Thanos had been nice enough to cleanly rip it off.

     "Hey, Fir, what are you doing?"

     "Fir?"

     My arm began to smoke. Steam. Whatever. It was sending up a very visual tell that I was manipulating magic, along with the stench. Burning meat.

     "Fir! Stop! I have other slimes!"

     "Fi-r-"

     "I'm just cauterizing it, chill," I told them, casting other spells. Well, it didn't seem like I had to worry about not being able to use magic for that three-day "after Dragon" period I sometimes had. Really, that inner persona was causing me such pains. I had no doubt that it was behind many of the things that went wrong in my body. "[Minimize Feeling]. There, see? Now I can't really feel it."

     I couldn't seal it completely if I wanted to put my arm back on. I mean, sure, I could, but it would look very weird and the bones would chafe. Also, I'd have had to reopen it to put my arm back on, which didn't seem like it'd be a very pleasant experience...

     I mean, there were like two other ways I could've done it, but they seemed like such a hassle. I was in for the short term anyway, so what did it matter that my arm would just be an open wound for a while? I had cleaning magic, so there wasn't really a need to take off my clothes to bathe. Sure, Magaris used to get mad at me because "you're not really clean if you don't properly bathe," but so what?

     "Now...a covering." I'd never suspected that my arm would get ripped off someday, so I didn't have a cover for my shoulder. I didn't want anything touching it, so of course I was going to find something sturdy to protect it for the time being. "Hm..."

     I went to my storage. Normally I had all sorts of things in there that I didn't even need but was just hard-pressed to give up. Really, so many things that could be useful someday.

     Hoarder.

     "I-I'm not!" I exclaimed. Really, I considered slapping a giant metal plate over that pool if that Dragon didn't shut up. It'd never been so vocal before. "Shut up!"