Later, I learned that the light was accompanied with a loud bang, along with a wave of destruction. Apparently the moment it touched me, the spell split back into two, and since it occupied pretty much the same space, it resulted in a massive explosion of steam, ice and fire.

Few things I was right about though. While the blast was powerful, it was mostly contained - I took the brunt of the hit - it was, after all, what they were aiming for. The crystal worked as I expected and absorbed most of the loose mana from the resulting unstable spell. The room withstood the explosion - we got to thank the crystal walls for that, they were indeed incredibly sturdy.

While Jacob and Odar were far enough to react and duck down, avoiding most of the aftermath, For was in the epicenter and took the main part of the explosion along with me. She survived, but with some very nasty burns - both from fire and the hot steam along with frostburns from the pieces of ice and something they called “frostfire”, what I assume was what the core of the spell was made of.

You might want to call me lucky - because I survived. There is no chance that if it was a regular person that got hit by that spell, or any monster that I’ve seen so far, they would’ve been alive. If not from the heat, or rather the temperature, it's a bit weird with that spell, then it would’ve been from the massive amounts of loose mana, or just plain blunt trauma.

From what I understand, the remains of the spell itself got absorbed by my crystal, but not early enough for me to not get burned. When I woke up, I was wrapped from head to toe in bandages and definitely still in pain.

I was lying in bed, in a very familiar room - just one floor below where the “encounter” happened. I could still faintly smell the smoke from the incense For’s resident herbalist used, trying to wake Jacob up from coma and in the process incapacitated the head of Red Mages. Next to me, on the small stool, there was a stack of clean bandages.

I tried to sit up, but to no avail. Every single muscle in my body was screaming with pain and refused to cooperate. Sighing heavily, I gave up and just was lying there, trying to collect my thoughts.

That’s when a familiar face entered the room - the herbalist in question herself, carrying a jar of some thick, crimson red liquid.

-Hi.

My voice surprised us both. She definitely did not expect me to be awake and almost dropped the jar on the floor. I, on the other hand, got startled by how it sounded. It was different and the change itself hard to describe… Like there was something new in it, an additional melodic tone that I did not ever remember having, yet still pretty much the same in general. If I had strength, I’d probably flinch too.

She yelped and instantly ran out of the room, spilling some of the contents of the jar.

Not long after, I got visited by two people. First Odar, who I was surprised to see, who quickly told me to shut up and told me what happened after I passed out.

I learned that it was him who carried me here and convinced them to take care of me. Jacob was apparently on the fence between throwing me out of the window from the highest tower and wanting to treat me immediately himself.

After all, I did save For from their own stupidity, and they both knew that. Who knows what would’ve happened if she took the spell head on. From what he told me, she was still recovering. And a bit angry at both me and them, asking for an explanation.

-Yeah, I also would like to know that too - I finally said.

On the sound of my voice he flinched as well.

-I told you to be quiet. We don’t know how bad the effects of this magic are. Judging by your voice, it also affected your throat.

I nodded and instantly regretted it. Even that small of a movement was painful.

-Eise and Jacob will be here soon.

I responded with a questioning look.

-Eise was treating you up till now and even though I might not agree with her… methods… I can’t argue with effectiveness.

Ah, the herbalist. So that was her name.

-The bandages you have are soaked with some “special balm”, as she called it. You don’t want to know what’s in that.

That sounded ominous. Knowing her and her ideas I was surprised that I was conscious at all.

I groaned and wanted to ask anyway, but before I was able to open my mouth, we heard someone knock at the door.

-That’s probably her. Come in.

Back with her, now a bit intimidating to me, jar, Eise entered the room along with For and Jacob.

-For, you’re here too.

-I heard Mor’s awake and Jacob said he’ll only explain after he wakes up. I am not letting him get away without properly telling me why I am covered with bandages now.

They both stood next to Odar and looked at me expectantly.

I responded with a confused look, or rather I would, if the bandages weren’t in the way.

For a good minute, everyone in the room went quiet, waiting for someone to start explaining.

-Okay. Let me start then - finally spoke up Jacob, looking at me with some mixed feelings on his face. - For, do you remember the stories about your father’s travels?

-Which one? And what does that have to do with anything?

-Quite a bit. You see, as you know, all three of us traveled together for a long while. Along the way we met various people, and lost a bunch of them as well. To unfortunate accidents, sometimes wild animals even, but mostly to monsters.

-Get on with it.

-And one monster in particular left some very nasty memories with us. I am talking about crystal remnants.

-Yeah, yeah, I remember you mentioning it a few times. What of it?

-Did I ever tell you what that exactly was?

Odar rolled his eyes, apparently not in the mood for long explanations.

-Can you get to the point? Maybe you both have the whole day, but I’d like to finish this as soon as possible and report to the king.

-You’d rather explain yourself?

He sighed, annoyed, and started talking instead.

-Crystal remnant, or a crystal revenant. A type of a humanoid-looking monster that takes the shape of a human being to lure its prey and strike when it’s off guard. The resemblance is often undistinguishable, if not for one distinct detail. As a core, it has a large crystal embedded in it that functions as a heart. It’s very resistant, both to magic and regular weapons.

The whole room turned to me.

-And Mor... well, he looks very similar to one...

I was about to protest, but, surprisingly, it was Jacob who defended me.

-That’s what I thought when I first saw him after he woke me up. That’s why I reacted how I did. But now… I am not so sure…

He started pacing around the room.

-More importantly, how did you not notice? - he asked. - I mean, even Eise got scared and you just sent him my way like nothing happened? And Odar, why didn’t you stop her?

I was about to ask what the hell he was on about, but he beat me to it.

-Notice what? I wanted to ask this question for a long time - he said, turning to Jacob. - I met this man a few times already, yet the only change that I noticed happened thanks to our spell. True, the first time he was mostly covered but still…

Jacob blinked and looked at Odar directly, confused.

-Can someone finally explain what the fuck are you talking about?

My question made all of them jump. I feel like they forgot that I was even in the room, yet I was the main topic of this conversation.

-Right… - finally said Jacob after a moment of silence. - Eise, do you have a mirror?

She muttered something about it being in the other room and quickly ran out of the door.

-Let’s start with the obvious. Whenever anyone wants to admit it or not, you are definitely not a crystal remnant.

Jacob said something under his breath that did not sound very kind, but did not correct him.

-But you are also not… normal. I think you probably figured that out already.

Eise came back with a small mirror in hand and handed it to him.

-Take his bandages off. Just from the upper half for now.

She nodded.

This time I managed to sit up, although not without a number of painful grunts and a solid help from Odar, after which Eise started to slowly unwrap my face.

Surprisingly though, as she pulled more and more of them off me, the pain started to slowly fade away, probably thanks to the fresh air.

Half way through though, I started noticing weird looks from For. I mean I know I was burned, but couldn’t be that bad, right?

-Before you take a look, please answer me one question.

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-And what might that be?

-Are you really the same person that I first met in Arbo? - slowly asked Odar.

I just rolled my eyes.

-Well, obviously. Come on, stop playing for time, can’t be that bad.

He shrugged and raised the mirror.

I expected many things. Scars, deformations, you name it. But to my amazement, what I saw was… a crystal. Half of my face was made of a crystal. Familiar one in fact, it looked eerily similar to the one I had in my side, it was even slightly glowing to boot. And on top of that, I was half bald. Well, that one I should’ve expected, I did smell my hair burn thanks to their spells.

The first instinct of mine was to pat myself down and check how far this went, but I still was lacking strength. On my face, the “border” between what was flesh and what wasn’t was going up from the middle of the chin, across the nose, around the left eye that was still intact I want to add, and going up and back towards the center of the head.

Even the other part of my face wasn’t exactly untouched. While it generally looked like flesh, it was strange, almost glistening, like I was wet.

The sudden change in my voice now made sense. To be honest, I was surprised that I was even able to talk at all, since at least part of my neck was crystal now.

He noticed my sudden attempt at movement.

-Yeah. I also don’t understand.

I looked at him. I understood more than he thought. But how much should I tell him?

-Eise.

She flinched at her name.

-You’re the one who was taking care of me, right?

-Y-yeah.

-Tell me, how much?

-Excuse me?

-How much of me is like this?

She suddenly turned red and looked away towards the mirror and muttered something quietly in response.

-What?

-Left…

-Left what? Speak clearly.

She took a deep breath.

-The whole left side of your body is like this. E…even the arm.

-Arm? - I looked down, even more confused. - I don’t have an…

I stopped talking, because where my crystal stump used to be, I had now been wrapped tightly with a bundle of cloth. A large one.

-Can you take that off?

Without a word, she started unwrapping my, what supposed to be, a stump of my left arm.

The more I was seeing, the wider my eyes were opening. It was indeed the part of Origin Crystal, I was sure of that. But that was not the weird part, to that I was already sort of used to. The weird part was that now, instead of a stump and a bone stuck inside of a crystal, it formed a full arm, even with fingers and all.

-Huh.

-Yeah, that is a problem.

-Speak for yourself - I laughed. - I feel like it’s quite the opposite.

He looked at me, puzzled.

-Can you even… use that? - asked, quiet until now For.

I tried moving my fingers, and, surprise surprise, I actually could. What I assumed earlier was just a phantom pain in my arm, spiked up. Interestingly, along with the pain, the crystal pulsed, or rather my whole side did, with a dull glow.

Sudden light made all of them jump.

As I tried moving the whole arm, the pain started to go away along with the glow, and, for the first time in a long while, I had a working left hand.

I raised it up and tried to look at it more closely. It was semi-translucent, but even though I couldn’t see anything that resembled a bone inside, nor muscle.

The whole group was looking in amazement at how I slowly was stretching my fingers and trying out the mobility of this new apedgage. To be honest, it was not half bad. Even though it was not as good as the real flesh - the joints were not able to move all the way as they were supposed to, thanks to the thickness of the “skin” - everything beat the lack of an arm though. When I wanted to actually compare it to my other arm, I realized that the other one was still very unresponsive.

Testing out the agility of the new hand, I tried unwrapping my other arm, but as soon as I touched the bandages, I felt a sudden jolt of energy and pain, almost like electricity mixed with heat, striking my fingers.

That surprised all of us. Others, because it made my side glow even brighter again, and me, because the pain actually felt familiar.

-What the fuck are you doing? - instantly jumped up Jacob and I swear he was about to pull a weapon on me, before, off all people Eise spoke up.

-Sir, that’s my fault. I should’ve warned you all before, but I think that is a side effect of my balm…

On that note everyone, including me, shuddered. Seems all of us had their own opinion about her “alchemy”.

-What is that even? - asked For pointing at the jar she brought.

-You don’t want to know - repeated Odar quietly. - Anyway - he started, out loud - we are happy to see you so cheerful, congratulations on getting a prosthetic and all, but I think we have some questions.

-Yeah, yeah, just one thing. Eise, you used that balm… how exactly?

-Ah, I soaked the bandages in it and…

-What did you use as a base? Please don’t tell me that it’s the thing I had with me…

-The thing?

-Infused water.

-I… yes?

Suddenly everything made sense.

-Please, someone take this off me.

Everyone looked at me, puzzled.

-I know, this situation is very unusual and you most likely had no idea what to do… but who did even let you take it?

-D-did I do wrong? - she asked with a trembling voice. - I didn’t…

-I did - spoke up Jacob. - You should be thankful, we don’t have much medicine to spare and thanks to that you managed to…

-No, no - I interrupted him. - I understand, it’s hard to get a good base for anything out here, and since it was mine you assumed…

I sighed. Next time I’ll have to make sure that my bags are properly secured.

-Just take this off me. And be careful.

She nodded and started unwrapping my arm first.

-You mind explaining what the fuck is going on? - asked finally For, who apparently ran out of patience. - Okay, I get it, he attacked you cause you look like some monster or whatever, but that doesn’t explain why the fuck you look like this nor anything else for that matter.

I looked at her, angry.

-You might not know, but I am barely able to move right now, you should be happy that I am even able to talk. I saved your skin, you could at least try and be patient.

-Pff. Right, saved. You lit me on fire and then…

For a second, she looked confused, trying to remember something.

-What exactly happened later… my memory is sort of foggy…

-You jumped in front of their spell.

-And then he shielded you from it.

-Yeah, basically that. But why the fuck would you do that?! - asked Jacob angrily. - Even if he’s not one of those things, and that is debatable…

-Fuck you.

-...that is still not something a sane person would do!

She looked at all of us, dumbfounded.

-I… I… don’t know, actually… - she started, rubbing her bandaged arms. - I remember… him summoning the contract… the fire…

-It was just me trying to convince you that I was still the same person. Didn’t work.

-Yeah, the contract, I figured… - said Odar, scratching his chin. - But that doesn’t explain why she jumped…

He froze for a second.

-I remember you muttering something before the explosion. What was that?

-Hm? Ah, I think it was a protection spell but it fizzled…

-Wait. Protect. You said protect. The contract was out… did that…?

For looked horrified at me, then at Odar and started yelling at Jacob.

-YOU ARE TELLING ME THIS… THING HAS THAT MUCH POWER OVER ME?!

-Calm down, it’s…

-I am not calming down! THAT WAS YOUR IDEA! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?

-I DIDN’T KNOW, OKAY? I never expected that he would be this powerful.

It quickly got awkward real fast, but I couldn't blame her. I was just glad that it was not me she was shouting at. It did not look like it was going to end any time soon though. Even Odar moved a few steps away from them, yelling at each other and started helping Eise who was still slowly unwrapping my bandages.

She was done with my arm and went ahead to unwrap my torso.

As I was slowly trying to move my other hand, I started considering what that exactly meant.

Somehow, even without my intention, part of the spell got “funneled” through the contract, making her, instead of my mana, respond to the “protect” command. Hell, blood contracts are scary. I probably should be more careful about that…

-We don’t even know if the contract is still active! It most likely got destroyed!

-Like hell it did! You know that it’s not possible, even if he’s some sort of a freak of nature.

-Nature has nothing to do with my state - I calmly said, waving my normal hand to her.

She shuddered, looking directly at the mark, reminding both of them that the contract was indeed still in perfect condition.

-I am pretty sure it’s still fine, but I can check if you want me to…

-NO! - yelled both of them together.

Odar was carefully observing this weird spectacle of ours, lost in thought it seems.

-Mor, how are you feeling with… this? - asked me Odar, when Eise was done with my bandages.

That was the question. I actually felt pretty good overall. Since she removed the wrappings from me, all of the pain from my top half was gone and I was freely able to move my hands.

I carefully inspected my new half.

The border between flesh and crystal continued from my neck, pretty much straight down the half of my body. Touching it for the first time, it felt… strangely warm and familiar. Like the one that my new arm consisted of, all of it wasn’t completely like a rock solid substance. While very hard, it was also slightly, well, let’s say malleable. It was mostly noticeable right at the border of the flesh, along with the strange glow I noticed on my face before. On the other hand, parts furthest were just straight up crystal - rough and sharp to the touch, but still warm.

While the hand was a bit translucent, the rest was not. The crystal had a slightly pink, flesh-like color that turned almost white on the edges.

-Actually, pretty good. If I finally get the rest of the bandages off me, I feel like it’s going to be better than ever, really.

-Mhm, that’s nice and all and I am happy that you seem to not mind this… situation - said Odar, a bit indifferent to all this - but I feel like I need some explanations. From what I heard, I assume that you somehow got tricked into forging a contract between For and Mor. And then, when the things heated up, he used it to defend himself. Am I right, Jacob?

-More or less - he, visibly annoyed.

-That still does not explain the crystal. If you’re not a remnant, then what is this all about? I am sure our spell was not the issue here.

He looked at all of us questioningly.

-To be honest - butted in For - he was always a weird person. And with relations to even weirder ones. That’s the reason I agreed to let him join.

I laughed.

-Reason? I thought it was because of you being stubborn and not believing me and “being tricked” into a contract that you proposed yourself.

She scoffed at me, but did not say anything.

-That still doesn’t answer my question - said Odar unwaveringly.

-Listen. While I am thankful that you saved me from this lunatic - I gestured at Jacob - you also joined him first. I am not going to tell you anything. It has nothing to do with you, nor your king.

-Every time I heard that it was always the opposite. I am not taking any chances.

-I would like to hear that as well. Even though you used me…

-Not on purpose.

-Even though, you saved my life - she gestured towards her bandages. - Believe me, when I came to, it looked worse. Only thanks to Eise I can actually walk now.

-Wait wait wait wait… How long was I out?

-Oh, right. I forgot. It’s been about a month - said Odar like it was nothing.