Aslan and Safiya had tied ropes under the razor stalker's body and begun dragging it back to their new camp against the tree, with Symon following along behind them, watching the trail of blood the creature left in its wake.
Part of him felt bad about having Safiya lug the big monster around, some deeply ingrained Earthly notions of chivalry making him think he should offer to do it. Of course, the short woman was in possession of a physique he would have previously believed was only attainable through the heavy use of steroids, were it not for the existence of the Divine Ledger, so he kept his mouth shut. The sooner he internalised that he wasn't on Earth any more, the better off he thought he'd be.
Walking behind the others, he frowned to himself. They others seemed incredibly unbothered by Serik's death, a man they had sailed across seas and fought through many life-or-death situations alongside, if his previous tales around the campfire were to be believed. They were even whistling a simple tune in tandem as they dragged the corpse of the monster who had slain their friend through the grass.
"Keelgrave, is there a reason these people don't seem particularly sad after their friend just died?" he thought towards Keelgrave.
"What? Keelgrave, I can't just go up to them and ask why they aren't sad about their dead friend!"
"Wa—, why not? Because it's insensitive, that's why."
Symon wanted to know too, so he'd just try and be diplomatic about it. Jogging up to the others — while keeping a wide berth — he asked a leading question he hoped would politely lead to the answers he wanted.
"So... what kind of funeral arrangements do we need to make?"
Aslan responded to him as he continued to haul the monster's corpse. He wasn't even slightly out of breath, as if he was just out on a normal stroll. "Funeral? That is not needed. Our people, the Dumosi, know that to give your life to kill a superior foe is the greatest of deaths. There is no purpose in having a funeral, as Serik's soul is surely already with the ancestors."
Oh, so it's a Valhalla type of thing, Symon thought. "I see... so we're happy for Serik?"
"Exactly so, friend Symon," the man said with a smile.
He wasn't sure how he felt about that. It was good the others were in a positive mood, but this talk of the afterlife unnerved him. He hadn't been religious in his past life, but the fact that his Ledger contained two Blessings implied the existence of something beyond him. It wasn't necessarily an all-powerful God in the Abrahamic sense of the word, but there was definitely something — he still had the vaguest recollection of communicating with two entities in that transitory period between his lives.
All that was to say that it was a very real possibility that Serik was indeed currently celebrating with his ancestors, drinking, making merry, and being celebrated for having such a courageous death.
It was a nice thought, at least.
----------------------------------------
With the razor stalker now dead, the trip back to their camp was predictably uneventful. The campfire was still going, providing a welcoming aura as the suns dipped precipitously close to the horizon.
Serik's body had been quickly moved away from the camp, and Symon was grateful he didn't have to look at him. The others had a very utilitarian view of the corpse, stripping it of all useful possessions and leaving the body far off in the grass, where it wouldn't attract any creatures to their camp. It felt harsh not even giving the man a burial, but their culture considered the body left behind as a fleshy shell, with the true Serik having passed on. To give any significance to the remaining body was to imply the soul had not been worthy enough to ascend on its own.
It made a certain kind of sense, and Symon even had some evidence supporting the existence of a soul considering he had a spirit living in his vessel, but it still made him uncomfortable to hold the dead man's sword.
"He's not using it," Aslan had said before dropping it — sheathed, of course — onto Symon's lap. It was simple and unadorned, but appeared well made and maintained to Symon's untrained eye. It didn't have any rust or noticeable scratches in the metal, although its scabbard had obviously been in use for a while. Hilt included, the weapon was almost as long as his hand and forearm put together — its blade and hilt length made it clear this was a sword intended for one handed use. The edge was very sharp and it could no doubt be used quite effectively... in better hands.
Cool as it would be to fight with a sword like a knight of old, he had to admit that he was essentially a complete beginner when it came to combat. He would treasure the gift, but he would be better served by the simplicity of clubbing his foes with a big metal pipe — until he learned how to use it, he'd be just as likely to cut himself as he was whatever monster he was fighting. He would be keeping it, of course, but he didn't intend for it to see any real combat until he'd received even just a basic level of training.
But the sword wasn't the only thing he'd earned by slaying the razor stalker, he'd yet to check out the rewards from his Ledger. Turning away from the rest of the group — Aslan and Safiya were both discussing something in their native language as they poked and prodded at the monster corpse — he summoned his Ledger, the grass at his feet twisting and rearranging themselves into letters.
[ Status:
Name: Symon
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Class: Cursed Healer
Strength: 0.81 {+0.03}
Constitution: 1.08 {+0.09}
Acuity: 0.85 {+0.05}
Intelligence: 0.82 {+0.04}
Will: 1.08 {+0.07}
Vessel (Vitality): 9/13 {+5}
Abilities:
Idealise (7) {+3}: Consumes Vitality to return a living target to its peak state. This ability automatically applies to the wielder and cannot be disabled.
Seize (8) {+2}: Absorbs Vitality from a target and stores it in the wielder's Vessel. This ability automatically applies to valid targets and cannot be disabled.
Essence Bond (5) {+1}: Permanently bind your essence to that of a spirit's.
Passives:
Pain Resistance (4) {+4}
Poison Resistance (0)
Running (5) {+1}]
That was... really damn nice. It turned out that surviving what should have been lethal wounds was a great way to train your healing and Constitution. Everything except for his Poison Resistance had improved, even his vessel's capacity. He still didn't know precisely what increased it, but he wasn't about to complain.
Thankfully, an increase in his vessel's capacity didn't translate to an increase in its physical size, or at least not to a noticeable extent. He'd hate for it to grow to some ridiculous size and make him unable to move or something.
His Will had shot past the first tier, apparently meaning he had a stronger will than anyone who hadn't benefitted from the Ledger. He wasn't sure if he agreed. He could be pretty stubborn when he needed to be, such as when he clung onto the razor stalker and took all those slashes just to kill it, but this wasn't something impossible for a normal human to attempt. Sure, they'd have to be a little crazy, very brave, or a bit of both, but it could definitely happen. So then how could the Ledger say he was better in this aspect than everyone on Earth? He wasn't even confident he'd have the willpower to make it through an army bootcamp, so how could he be called better when plenty of people had done exactly that before?
He didn't have a guidebook for this Ledger, but he still thought he knew what all the words meant, at least. Perhaps he just didn't fully understand the concept of Will?
Oh well, an improvement is an improvement.
He'd improved a lot since he'd first arrived in this desert, both in terms of stats and in a more mundane sense. He was a lot more confident in his ability to beat minor monsters such as the centipedes, and he trusted his magic with his life despite only having it a short while. His changes were gradual enough that he didn't really notice them, but when he took the time to test them...
Quickly cracking out a few pushups, he found his muscles barely straining as they smoothly pushed his body up and down. It took until the twelfth repetition before his vessel started sending out tiny waves of vitality to his muscles, so he stopped in order to not waste the precious resource while it was still so limited. It used up so little he could barely even notice it leave his vessel, but he wouldn't waste even that. Even without his healing, he definitely could have kept going with his exercise — something that would have been impossible for him on Earth. Although, if he did have enough vitality stored up, he could theoretically do pushups for hours with no break. He wondered what kind of effect that would have on his Strength...
As he'd gotten down to do his pushups, he realised he'd forgotten something important. They'd stopped hurting a while ago, so it had somehow completely slipped his mind — maybe he'd been unconsciously trying to ignore it — but he was still missing four fingers on his left hand. All his other injuries had healed, and he still had plenty of vitality stored in his vessel, but his fingers hadn't changed much. They'd long since sealed over and stopped bleeding, but there were still only tiny nubs extending from his knuckle instead of the full fingers he'd hoped for.
Simply put, this made Symon very uncomfortable. The only reason he was merely uncomfortable and not freaking out was because of the description of his healing magic, still shown in the grass at his side. Missing fingers would surely mean he wasn't in a 'peak state', so why were they still gone?
Sitting down and concentrating on the feeling of the vitality flowing through his body, he watched as a small amount exited his vessel and traced a path down towards his hand. Once it arrived there... it stopped.
Hmm, I haven't seen that before...
Indeed, his vitality was never completely still, even when it was inside his vessel it continually churned and spun around itself like clothes in a washing machine. His hand was slowly growing saturated with vitality — it was neither leaving nor being consumed to heal him. Holding his finger stumps right up to his face, he inspected them closely. Like the rest of his body, there was plenty of dried blood but no current injury, just smooth skin over their ends. As he watched, the vitality continued to float around in his hand aimlessly, as if it were confused.
It had always known exactly what to do with all his previous injuries, so what was different about this one? Obviously this was the first time he'd actually lost a part instead of having a simple injury, but he didn't know why that would make a difference to the magic. He continued to stare at his hand and missing fingers for some time, vitality slowly trickling in until something finally happened.
Right before he decided to simply force more vitality into his hand and hope it worked, the slowly growing cloud of vitality seemed to reach a critical mass. All of a sudden, the tiny pool of vitality began moving towards his finger stumps, like a plug being pulled out of a sink's drain.
The first thing he noticed was the itching, the feeling of something foreign under his skin. It felt like a splinter was in each of his fingers, or like they had open wounds someone had poured sand into. There wasn't actually any pain, but it was uncomfortable enough that he almost wished it hurt just to take his mind off it. Ignoring how queasy it made him feel, he forced himself to allow the process to continue, keeping a close eye on his hand all the while.
After the itching came the writhing, little spasms over the smooth skin of his stumps that made it look like worms were moving under his skin. Before he could complain to Keelgrave about how gross his magic was, the feeling of splinters in his stumps intesified as tiny bone spurs pushed their way out into the open air.
"Shit man, is all healing this... visceral?" he mentally asked the spirit.
He supposed that was nice, but he was finding it difficult to think about a future career right now. The first knuckle bone of each finger was now fully protruding from his hand, tiny tendrils of red flesh growing up it like a plant's vines. The bone slowly inched its way upwards, flesh slithering up to surround and hold it in place as it went.
After a few minutes of discomfort, the final bit of flesh grew into place on his fingertips. Joy at having his fingers back warred with how brutal the process had looked, but the fact it hadn't even hurt meant he didn't have much room to complain.
The freshly regrown fingers looked identical to how they had before he lost them, even regrowing his nails to the exact length he always cut them to. Experimentally flexing them a few times, they felt completely normal. He still didn't have an explanation for why his vitality had behaved so strangely in taking so long to start fixing his fingers, but he was grateful enough to have them back that he didn't care too much as to the how of the matter.
Despite taking so long to finish, the process hadn't used up as much vitality as he'd been expecting — only four points, meaning he still had five left. And with the threat of the razor stalker no more, he didn't have to worry as much about needing to maintain a reserve in case of an unexpected emergency, as the Dumosi adventurers had been in the grass plains for at least a week without encountering a single threat anywhere near as strong as the razor stalker.
Considering they'd even been actively seeking out a powerful monster to slay and bring a trophy back from without any success until now, he decided it wasn't a big risk to share some of his recent windfall of vitality with the others in order to ease their wounds.
Glancing at the dead stalker's massive scythe arms, he decided he'd keep a reserve, just in case.