Gustav was walking back to the others, while being distracted like a schoolkid staring at their smartphone.

If anyone were looking at him from afar, they would have wondered why he didn’t react to the Almiraj sitting in his path.

Suddenly Gustave felt a piercing pain in his stomach area. He looked down and saw a horn sticking in his flesh. An Almiraj had launched itself and was now dangling in the air, slowly slipping back out.

His brain needed a few moments to process what had happened. A few moments to process how much pain he was supposed to feel.

Half a moment passed and he started collapsing forward. The Almiraj slipped out with the motion. His hands shot towards his wound trying to cover it. Adrenaline was shot into his body, bile was rising up and pushed down to make place for a shriek coming out of his mouth.

His knees hit the grass, but the pain was suddenly gone. His eyes were on his wound the entire time. It had closed completely half a second after the horn had left his body.

Even with the pain being gone, his brain was still expecting pain.

He felt a weird sensation of phantom pain building up, absolute clarity from tons of adrenaline pumping through his veins and the onset of nausea, all at the same time.

Using the period of clarity he looked up at the Almiraj, no more than a meter away from him. He tried to reach for it, but with his knees on the ground he could not take the step it would have taken to close the distance it had created.

The Almiraj had not been idle while he had suffered. It had turned around and was already hopping away when he tried to catch it.

Gustave vaguely heard people in the distance, clearly saying something and getting closer, but he could not make out what was being said. Not while he was in his current state.

He quickly got to his feet, not letting the aggressive animal out of his sight. He got ready to receive the charge it was setting up, when he heard something else.

Another Almiraj was approaching rapidly from his right side.

He didn’t know if he had time to look for it and scrambled a quick step backwards, hoping it would miss him.

It did miss. Shooting past him it quickly came to a halt.

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The first one however had started its charge and was upon him too quickly to completely dodge it. He raised his arms out of reflex, interposing it between his upper body and horn.

The horn went clean through his forearm and the impact turned his previous backwards stumble into a fall.

Different from before his body was already full of adrenaline, enabling him to act despite the injury, without going into shock first.

While falling he grabbed the head of his opponent with his left hand. He pulled the horn out of his right forearm while the animal was trying to get out of his grasp, thrashing wildly. Twice, its hindlegs hit him in the chest with more force than he would have attributed to the small, 2 kilo heavy creature.

He switched the Almiraj to his right hand, this wound had closed too, looked for the second Almiraj that had appeared out of nowhere and spotted it charging at him again.

With a little more time he interposed his catch instead of his arms.

The horn buried itself in the flesh and the creature in his hand let out a terrible squeaking noise.

Gustave let go of the creature in his hand to grab the next one. He did catch it, but the one he had let go of was still alive, hopping away to set up its next charge. Its wound had closed, same as his own injuries.

For an instance, Gustave didn’t know how he could properly deal with that, until he remembered how he had killed the first one he had encountered.

He broke the neck of the Almiraj he currently held in his hands.

Expecting it to work, he was surprised when its head realigned. The creature was clearly still alive and kicking. Literally.

Gustave didn’t have the necessary time to re-break the neck. The next charge was incoming.

He once again interposed his prey, the horn once again pierced skin and flesh, but this time the wound did not close when the horn left the body. It had left a gigantic hole, compared to the size of the creature and lifeblood was quickly leaving its body.

Not taking any chances he kept the slowly dying body in his hands making sure it would die while also intending to capture the remaining Almiraj, like he had done a few times already.

His plan worked. The Almiraj shot forward, burying its horn in its conspecific, creating a second hole. While it was stuck Gustave let go of the dying one to grab the still unhurt one.

He looked at the one he was holding now. It had been pierced by its companion and he had foolishly released it, thinking it would die. Instead its wound had closed as fast as his wound had healed.

If he was healing, why did he think they would not heal? He was in a crazy game world with npcs and quests. Why did he expect anything to be normal? He would have to take a moment for introspection later.

He broke the neck of the Almiraj in his hand. It healed. He broke it again. It didn’t heal. Finally dead.

“What the fuck.” Was all he said before his brain realized the life or death situation had been resolved.

His stomach and underarm muscles started cramping, the nausea from before hit him full force and he fell to the ground. He curled up assuming a fetal position, his left side on the ground. A moment later he started heaving while tears started coming.

He wasn’t crying to let go of emotions, or because of pain, or stress. Even if he was honest with himself he couldn’t tell why he was crying. He wasn’t even really crying, but the tears were falling regardless.

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“Hey guys! There’s a guy on the ground!” Someone shouted.