Bronsen:

FuckFuckFuckFuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Bronsen sprung up, only to see Alice's arms jammed between those enormous scissor teeth. He tried to attack, but the animal managed to swipe him with one of its paws before it went back to attacking Alice.

Bronsen skidded back towards the cliff drop-off and barely managed to stop himself from plunging over the edge. Leaving gouge marks in the dirt where his hands had convulsively gripped to bring him to a halt, he jumped up, brought out his sword, and streaked over the ground towards the back of the animal.

By now, Alice's screams had doubled again. But, at least, the animal appeared to have temporarily forgotten about him. Using his increased strength, speed and combat ability, he lunged and rammed the sword right through the animal's neck. He was in luck; he hit and severed the spinal column, so the animal promptly stopped moving.

Now what? Oh.

Alice was still screaming.

He jumped right over the dead body, hit the ground and skidded before ending right in front of Alice. She was kneeling, looking at the two stumps where her arms used to be, and wailing and screaming her head off. Both stumps were bleeding copious amounts of blood, so Bronsen, primarily acting on autopilot, gripped each stump with his hands and gently squeezed. The bleeding stopped.

Oh shit, oh shit.

He almost puked from the dreadful sight. Alice saw his horror and revulsion and tried to scream louder, but she was already at her maximum.

Ding! [Emotional Control] is now maxed out!

Ding! [Regeneration] added with an initial 50 points.

Ding! Remind Alice that her arms will grow back after a month.

You also gained 150 points from killing that Lesser Grass-Eating Hippoxilla.

There was abrupt silence from Alice.

"Lesser. Grass. Eating. Hippo?" she said, pronouncing each word separately.

"Fucking Bullshit! What the fuck hell is Lesser about that monstrosity? Grass Eating? It has huge fucking teeth!"

Still held by Bronsen, Alice seemed to have regained her sanity, only to start losing it all over again.

Ding! It has separate teeth at the front of its mouth for biting off and eating leaves. The 'huge fucking teeth' are just part of its defensive armaments.

Snow was lightly falling, bare trees and scattered rocks surrounded them, and the Hippoxilla's (Lesser) body was still cooling off before her. Also in front of her, holding the stumps of her arms, was Bronsen.

"Bronsen. You fuckwit!"

She dropped the discussion about the Hippoxilla and concentrated on the more important subject—who was to blame for this terror?

"Bronsen. You ran off and left me! You charged ahead without the slightest caution! And now I've lost my arms! What the fuck hell are you going to do about that!"

ShitShitShit. It is my fault. I didn't mean to cause this pain! But I did anyway. Shit, now Alice hates me.

Freaking out, even with his maximum emotional control ability, he let go of her arms and stepped back.

At least the bleeding has stopped.

Only Alice started screaming again.

"Goddamn it! Don't let me go! Please, never again leave me alone! I'm utterly hopeless. Hold me, you jerk! Protect me!"

She lunged forward at him and wrapped her arms around him. Or, she tried to. This wasn't possible with two stumps roughly cut off at the elbows. But at least she could also wrap her tail around him.

"OK! OK! I won't leave you! Also, remember, System-chan says your arms will regrow again."

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Ahh"

With that, she regained some degree of control and replied in a much more normal voice.

"Right. OK."

There was silence, each hugging the other. Bronsen also managed to get his feelings under control.

What do we do now?

Hint: Alice will need to eat about five times more than usual.

It's up to me to do something.

"Alice, we must get you back to the cave for protection. And, and, this carcass, we, I mean I, will have to get it down, and skin it, and hack off as much meat as possible, and save it in the cave, and cook a lot, and, well, also I need to get a pile of snow and store it in the cave for water, and, well, I'm sure we can manage. I hope."

Ignore the fear and terror I'm feeling. She must have it a lot worse.

"Yes. Do it! Just don't leave me alone!"

Sadly, the first thing he had to do was leave her alone, sitting in the snow. But only for a short period. And he only went a few metres away. He shoved his arms under the back of the hippo, straightened his back and knees, and boldly heaved the body forward a metre or so. After repeating this a few times, he launched it over the edge.

"That's a lot of meat."

Then he picked up Alice and tucked her under one arm like a parcel. He called upon his sword and stabbed it into the ground a half metre in from the edge, held it with his other hand, and carefully leveraged himself over and down. Since the cliff wasn't vertical, he could slowly descend. It was, however, much more difficult than going up. Dismissing his sword, then recalling it to jam it into a crack for stability during his descent, was a great help.

At the bottom, they both looked around.

"Bronsen," said Alice, her voice shaking, "The wargs are looking at me..."

Gulp, went Bronsen. The wargs had returned. And they were looking at Alice. Or, instead, at her stumps. An undeniable sign of wounded prey, ripe for the picking. They were also casting their eyes over the hippo. Some were even licking their chops in anticipation. But they were also keeping their distance. There was a ring of a dozen wargs about ten metres out from the cave entrance and the hippo body.

Bronsen put Alice down just outside the blocked-off entrance to their cave. The wargs leaned forward, perhaps wondering if dinner would be served soon. Bronsen materialised his sword and flicked it around, producing cracking sounds from air pressure shockwaves. The wargs settled back, sat down, and waited.

"Bronsen, open the entrance and put me just inside. Please," said Alice.

She sat cross-legged, her drastically shortened arms by her side. Every so often, she would look at them and shudder. But, mostly, she looked around, looking for anything dangerous. For example, to ensure that no wargs snuck up behind Bronsen's back as he laboured at skinning the hippo and cutting out as much meat as possible.

Eventually, the cave was half filled with the hippo's roughly hacked-off skin, wrapped around about a tenth of a cubic metre of crudely butchered meat.

Ding! [Butchery] has 12 more points allocated to it.

"Bronsen, can you hurry up and cook a dozen steaks or so? I'm starving."

The trouble was, they hadn't stockpiled any wood. Bronsen looked at the wargs and Alice and decided there was no way he could go out and collect any more, especially since the closest unharvested firewood was a couple of hundred metres away.

Ding! [Fireball] has 15 more points allocated to it.

After some experimentation - "Hey, I can cook the meat directly with my [Fireballs]!"

Bronsen was happy - well, happier than he had been.

And Alice wondered if she could now shoot her [Fireballs]. She concentrated.

Ding! Sorry, no high-speed guided missiles are allowed. That's too much of a cheat.

Damn! How about I merely float it to where I want it to go?

Her [Fireball] popped into existence, then drifted into the sky a few metres. Still concentrating, she mentally ordered it to move away from her, aiming for a particular warg. She didn't like that one; it was the one sitting the closest, and it kept licking its lips as it stared at her. The wargs took no notice of the [Fireball], maybe because, to them, it was an irrelevant moving light not in their way. Once in position, Alice dropped it onto the warg's head. It yelped, sprang up, rolled around in the snow to cool down the burn, and then ran away.

"Got you, you bastard!"

The other wargs looked at each other. Maybe floating lights in the sky weren't irrelevant after all? They all got up and carefully walked backwards twenty or so metres. Then - they sat down again and resumed waiting.

For the next hour, Bronsen cooked meat. Then he fed half of it to Alice and stored the other half inside. Occasionally, he also practised dropping a [Fireball] onto some warg that was getting a bit too presumptuous. Unfortunately, the wargs had wised up to the dangers of floating lights and would merely avoid the [Fireball]. But, at least, they also kept their distance. Eventually, the light dimmed, and the wargs began to get a bit restless. It was time to move in for the night, but the dogs were definitely staying outside.

"Ah, Bronsen, err, I need to do a poo..."

Oh hell. I forgot about that.

"Well, I suppose I will have to help you."

He screwed up his nose as he said this, but, of course, Alice noticed.

"Don't act like that! Do you think I like this?"

"No, no, I mean, it's all right."

It is not alright! I suppose we have no choice.

By now, there was a massive pile of scraps of hide, large chunks of bones and meat, and lots of spilt guts and other delightful innards, all from the hippo. This was all a few metres to one side of the cave entrance. So, Bronsen, eyeing off the wargs, decided to dig a hole just in from the remains of the hippo on the cave entrance side.

Oh, yuck, this stinks.

He kept his gaze off Alice's body as she did her business.

"Ah, Bronsen, if you can wipe my bum now?"

They were still using flat, smooth hand-size rocks for that role since they hadn't found anything more suitable.

This is so embarrassing. And it's all my fault.

It's also a bit like toileting my younger brother a couple of years ago before he finally learned how to do it himself.

He made a conscious effort to get into that frame of mind.

He dropped the rock into the hold, put a handful of dirt and snow over it, then carefully held Alice and gently kissed her head.

"Huh?"

"It's all right, I'm sure we can manage."

"Oh."

While Alice sat in the cave entrance and kept a lookout, Bronsen did his own business. He covered up the hole, washed his hands, gave one last look at the surroundings -

"Those damn wargs are creeping closer."

And then they retreated into their cave. Five minutes later, he packed the entrance as tightly as possible with rocks. He and Alice lit up the interior with hovering glowing [Fireballs].