But for a Slime

Joe’s mana evaporated from him and Joe huffed in pain as he was left with nothing. It left him so quickly that Joe became stunned. He panted a few times then looked down at Garnedell’s leg and despaired, seeing only the smallest amount of change to the wound. Joe panicked a bit then firmed himself. Gotta stop the bleeding! Gotta… This spiked a memory and he suddenly remembered. In the bath! Played with healing only parts! Can…

Joe quickly looked back down at Garnedell’s leg and focused on only healing the blood vessels and nothing else. But a growling roar caused him to look up. Down the long corridor, he saw a massive beast of shadows and waving dark tendrils. This… really…

Joe grabbed Garnedell and quickly picked him up with a struggle as he desperately juggled his sword and spear in his hands while lifting Garnedell in his arms. The five or so star weapons he left tumbled across the floor behind him, uncaring of them. He fought to stumble to the closest crossing leading off the main path. He checked his map really quickly and realized the path he was heading for was a dead end. A small amount of relief came to him as he stumbled on towards the path and into it before setting Garnedell to the ground a good couple meters back into the path, giving himself plenty of room to fight if he needed to. His pack tumbled to the floor next to Garnedell and he quickly pulled out several weapons and shields, laying them on the floor next to Garnedell to quickly grab if he needed.

Please go past. Go past! Just… go past! Joe chanted under his breath while he remained kneeling next to Garnedell, holding the wound together and adding as much pressure as he could to both legs.

“Hold here! As hard as you can! Don’t let go!”

Joe really wanted to heal Garendell, but his mana was absolutely empty, and the presence of a new monster so close made Joe worried about trying to dip into his personal reserves and leaving himself lightheaded and dizzy from the headache of mana depletion. Can I even get in the right mindset? I’m… could… Joe threw aside his worry and struggled to draw out his own personal mana and couldn’t. Panic robbed him of his capability to reach his mana and he finally quit trying with a soft curse when the shadow bear like beast flowed around the corner unnaturally, almost as if it did not have any weight to it. Joe leapt forward, dropping the sword in his left hand to replace it with his shield and then stepped over Garnedell’s sprawled legs to meet the shadow bear full on.

He met the first charge of the shadow bear with his shield, not wanting to chance harm considering he was already down a bit of HP, followed by a sharp short ranged spear thrust. The shield slam was strange, almost as if he’d charged a pile of pillows. Despite the strange sensation, he still saw the bear stumble back and Joe ignored the strangeness and turned to the fight with a vengeance. Gotta end this now! He shot a point into his spear at hypersonic speeds even as his spear buried itself in the shadow bear. Huh… like stabbing a pillow again, that’s pretty weir… nope! Focus! The bear yowled in angry pain, struggling to retreat and Joe simply stepped forward with the bear’s retreat and made sure to keep the spear buried into the bear.

It only took a few moments, moments that felt like eternity, but it was enough and the bear died, although in one of the strangest ways Joe had ever seen. It curled up on itself in midair, floating above it before it turned into a wisp of black fog that shrunk until it vanished. The shadow was completely gone. Joe blinked, shocked, staring at the event but when Garnedell panted a soft groan, Joe immediately turned from the beast and ran back, leaping over Garnedell’s legs once again before turning to face the entrance where presumably a lot more monsters would soon be coming.

Mana! Mana… how’s… Joe frowned, over a hundred or so mana had recovered but Joe couldn’t complain. At least he had some and now there were no more monsters. He could afford to use a bit of his personal mana, if he could connect. And he should recover quite quickly. Joe immediately turned his attention back to the wound in Garnedell’s leg and shuddered in fear. The blood was gushing from the wound even despite Garnedell’s efforts to keep the wound tightly closed.

“Hold your left leg! I got your right. Just … hold it!”

Garnedell groaned and moved his hands to his left leg which was only gouged half way through. Joe took over the right leg and put much more effort in making sure everything was lined up carefully before quickly focusing on the wound. Magic heal… only the blood vessels! Biggest first. Reconnect the biggest arteries first… biggest arteries first… biggest arteries fir… Joe panted hard, forcing mana into the leg even as he chanted to maintain focus. Suddenly, the spurting blood quickly lessened to soft surges. Joe breathed in relief, then fearfully looked back up at Garnedell to see him still panting, eyes squeezed shut in pain. Joe stifled his sigh of relief and quickly turned back to his efforts while glancing towards his mana. Almost all gone… already! That’s… still not enough! More!

Biggest veins now. Biggest veins. Get that healed… Joe continued to focus on that before shifting to medium arteries and veins next. The spurting blood quickly changed to small dribbles and Joe breathed a greater sigh of relief before looking over at the other leg to see the same massive gushes as had been before. He’d finished off all his mana by then, but he could … wouldn’t wait and he quickly pushed Garnedell’s hands.

“Move your hands. Move them… move…”

Garnedell fought against him and Joe finally forced his hands away after slapping him firmly across the cheek to get his attention.

“Hey! Hey! Listen to me! Move your hands! I got this… move them!”

Garnedell move his hands and trembled, clutching his hands to his chest before they fluttered in agony, seeking something to do but unable to think of anything before they returned to his chest, clutched together again. Joe grimaced and turned back to the immediate issue and quickly lined up the wound once again, careful to hold it in place.

Biggest arteries! Biggest arteries… now. Biggest… ugh! Joe’s mana bottomed out and suddenly the mana sucked from him in a violent rush and he fell into relief that he was able to connect with his personal mana despite the unpleasant pain that ripped from him. In fact, the relief of connecting with his personal mana allowed him to release more and he returned his focus to healing the wound. He was able to keep his focus with greater ease now, except for the small hiccup of a moment in the middle from the surprise and pain of the violent outrushing of mana, and pushed his mana into Garnedell’s left leg.

Biggest arteries… Biggest arteries… Suddenly the pain of the mana flow lessened quite a bit and Joe took that as a hint that things had healed and he turned to the next. Medium arteries… medium arteries… mediu… The mana surged again with a massive swell then quickly faded to a trickle once again and Joe quickly shifted. Biggest veins now… come on… Biggest veins… The mana expenditure slammed into him, sucked from him like a high pressure hose and Joe grunted to hold it until the explosive flow faded to a trickle once again. Joe grimaced, the pain of pushing his personal mana getting close to being too much. Mana… I need… a … skills?! Jobs!

His mind raced as he turned to his available skills. His eyes raced down the page but found nothing for quite some time until he saw mana manipulater. Mana efficiency, mana power, and mana control! That… He immediately swapped out a job, not even realizing he’d ripped out navigator for the new mana manipulator job. His eyes continued scanning down before they arrested on the Saga chaplain. MP! And MP Recovery! That!! I can… He grinned in excitement. Replace Loki job with that for now… or… can’t change sub job! Joe growled in anger then quickly swapped out one of his combat jobs immediately without even looking. He didn’t care.

Swapping back to his main page, Joe grinned to see his max MP take a massive jump including adding in another six hundred MP. Joe grinned and returned to his healing. He quickly shifted his healing efforts to medium veins and continued on, moving to the next smallest ones in turn whenever the mana faded away once the healing was accomplished. Once the largest issues in both legs had been finished, he quickly went back to the first leg and began calling for the smallest capillaries to be healed, the mana flow from this almost as bad as healing the largest arteries and veins.

Despite the quick and massive outflow, it stopped almost immediately and Joe blinked in surprise before trying once more. When no mana flowed from him, he quickly went back to the other leg and did the same, experiencing the same massive surge which stopped almost immediately. Joe blinked, surprised to see an end. He looked up to see Garnedell still grimacing in pain, panting heavily and Joe sighed in relief. Right… bought some time… gotta check…

Joe turned his gaze back to the leg and found both massive jagged wounds now only dripping a tiny bit of blood sliding out the sides. Is it done? Maybe… Joe quickly put a hand on each leg then froze, struggling to hold himself up even as he grew a bit dizzy. Joe shook it off with a couple deep breaths and began again. Heal all blood vessels. Heal them back to a hundred percent. Heal… A small amount of mana spurted out, splitting in two down both hands before fading into Garnedell’s leg then stopped and Joe tried one more time, but experienced no mana spurt. Joe sat back with a sigh of relief and sat on his haunches. As soon as he relaxed, however, a yowl and a deep growl erupted from the same place the shadow bear had come from and Joe groaned. Couple minutes to rest… then up to fight.

Joe sat back and Garnedell looked at him, fear in his eyes and Joe smiled at him.

“Hey! Hey! We’re pretty good. You should be fine until after the surge. You’re not bleeding anymore, but just make sure… keep an eye on it, OK? I know it hurts, but… can’t… I don’t have any more mana. Can you just keep an eye on it?”

A small amount of relief came across Garnedell’s face and he nodded with a small smile and Joe stood.

“Gotta kill a couple monsters. Get the star spark killers. Then heal you. I’ll be back when my mana has recovered a bit, OK?”

Garendell struggled to smile at that, but nodded and Joe stood.

“Keep it clean and be careful, but you should be pretty safe now. I’ll slowly heal it, but you shouldn’t die at all, now, OK? Just… don’t move, try not to jiggle it or hurt it. It… it’s still going to hurt a lot! Sorry, but… you’re… crap! Gotta go.”

Joe sprinted to the corner and peaked around the corner. He found the corridor empty and the five star spikes tumbled down the corrider in random places where Garnedell and Zilnek had dropped them. He sprinted out and grabbed them before returning to Garnedell’s side. He didn’t care to really be careful and dumped the five spikes off to the side beside Garnedell but between him and the hallway where the monsters were coming from before kneeling beside him and dumping the few points of mana he’d gained.

“Good?”

Garnedell smiled, although his face was pretty pale, “Yup. Not bad.”

Joe made sure to keep a smile on his face to hide his concern but nodded and turned to carefully look at the wounds. He pressed upon his legs cautiously but Garnedell still groaned and Joe offered a soft sorry but still made sure to look in to see if there was any source of bleeding. Garendell’s bleeding really concerned him. If I can control that… that’s going to be… He put careful effort in making certain, relieved to find no other source of bleeding and grinned as he looked back up at Garnedell.

“You should be fine. Just need to finish the healing, OK?”