My eyes went wide. I had just gotten a restoration. Just minutes ago, and now there was something wrong with my gut that quickly? Even if I was the most stressed out, neurotic person, with mental issues, and everything else, there was no possible way this made sense.

I knew a restoration fixed the body except for curse damage. The twinge of pain could only mean that there was a living tumor or something inside of me. What the Astrologer had done to the Divine Empress, he had done to me as well.

Blood drained from my face. My hands trembled. I just stood there in the plaza of Neo Brasilia unsure what I should do. The pain was becoming more frequent and much more damaging. It had only been six days since the last restoration and I experienced crippling pain when I entered the city.

Six days. I just had six days before it would become too much. That was before. It was picking up frequency. I just stood there unsure how to handle this. I needed to think, really think right now. Whatever I decided would be something I needed to commit to.

I went back to the store and purchased five flasks and system created beer to fill them. “Excuse me,” I looked up and there was a woman. “Champion Michael?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I replied. I let her lead me to the in city base and the Commander in charge. There was no update on the Divine Empress or the war unfortunately.

I requested a quiet room to sit and think after I was offered her office, I declined and took a storage room, a chair, and a table to sit on and asked to be alone.

Thankfully there was no pushback and I sat in the room, thinking about my current situation. I pulled up a flask and drank the system swill. It tasted meh, so it was swill, and system swill sounded like a catchy name for this brand of beer.

I was no alcohol connoisseur so I had no idea what type of beer it actually was and I didn’t care. I just drank in the room with my eyes closed, not wanting to think right now. I needed to be calm. After the first flask was done, I dropped it and went to the second.

I couldn’t tell if I was getting buzzed, but just sitting with my eyes closed and drinking was helping me focus my thoughts and not panic too much. There was still a lot of panic going on with a large bit of denial.

The bomb was real. I could no longer pretend it wasn’t. After years of grinding, fighting, and traveling I knew my body. I knew it before and after a restoration. That stomach twinge after the restoration and the sharp pain beforehand, was more than enough proof.

It was a hard piece of information to admit to myself, but it needed to be done. I could lie to others, but lying to myself would only hurt me and I had sworn not to do that. With the mental confirmation and acceptance out of the way, the question now was, how to handle the situation.

My skills weren’t fully upgraded. I wanted to get gestureless for Force Wave which was one more upgrade and then ten more for Aqua Sphere. In addition, I needed to fight a level 5 monster, take a look at the skill crystal, get crafting crystals for the super weapon, and then climb a tower for a meta-point.

Before, I had thought I had loads of time. I would have finished out the skill upgrades in another eight days or so on top of fighting a level 5 monster. The crafting crystals would take longer, depending on if I could find a suitable level 5 monster to grind them from.

That would not be easy and would take up a lot of time. There was no time for that before a resolution was needed on the bomb in my gut. That was the real issue and time crunch factor.

There were four options I had to deal with it. The first option was to do nothing and get frequent restorations. The hope was, that if there was a critical failure of some kind in my body then I could survive the bomb.

That was no longer an option. The pain was getting worse and more frequent. I had thought it would be an explosion, but it was clearly some kind of curse damage that was leaking into my body. That meant option one which had been my first choice before if there was something wrong, was no longer an option.

Option two was the one I was looking at right now while sitting and drinking. I was trying to mentally sense what was wrong with me. Both with my Sense stat and all my other stats. There was nothing I could tell. I had done that when the sharp pain had hit me entering the city.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I even had a mirror, pulled up my shirt, and looked at my flat gut to try and see if there was a problem. The issue was that energy Sense stat did not reflect well in mirrors. Mirrors reflected light, not energy, which was annoying.

Still, with a bit of twisting and head bending, I didn’t see a problem in the lower two thirds of my body. I also didn’t sense anything either while focusing on my body. There was just a twinge of pain, but nothing I could pick up.

The Divine Empress had years and still struggled to deal with the Astrologer. She had the Master Fleshcrafter as well. While her issue was in her head, it was probably no less serious than my issue currently and she struggled for a long time.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine that. Just trying to find what was wrong with your body, and mentally defeat it with pure energy manipulation. No wonder why the Astrologer had been confident, and she had been held back for so long. Years, it was mind boggling.

That meant option two was off the table for me as well. While I had faith in myself, I didn’t think I could defeat whatever this was like she had. It might be possible for me, but it would not be short and quick. I was no genius. I just had a lot of tenacity.

Option three was to perform an emergency surgery. I would find the good doctor, have him cut me open next to a pillar, and he would scoop out all my internal organs as quickly as possible without me bleeding to death.

This was the option that most appealed to me. The question was, how long could I live without all my bodily organs besides my lungs and my heart? Could they be extracted quickly enough? Could I endure the pain?

I could take pain and I had taken pain in the past, but this would be a massive amount. I tried to think of all the doctor shows I had watched in the past and organ harvesting. I had no idea how quickly that type of surgery could be done without me bleeding out.

If it was a minute, then I could say sure, but five minutes, ten minutes? I had no idea if I could live. Also, the result might not be guaranteed. But I preferred this option. The issue was just below my rib cage, so around my intestines if I was remembering my internal anatomy well.

While I thought of the area as my stomach, the stomach, was much higher in the body, behind the rib cage, near the heart if I was remembering correctly. Getting back to Doctor Katz would take time. But it would be time well spent.

The fourth option was to climb the tower with the Astrologer trapped inside. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this option one bit. It would take time to climb the tower and the risk of being incapacitated while climbing was incredibly high.

Having gut pains while doing so, could easily lead to a critical mistake and me dying. That kind of risk was unacceptable in my mind. In addition, the Astrologer might not do anything. I suppose there was a fifth option as well.

I could climb another tower. The Astrologer had probably been lying, when he said that the bomb would go off if I climbed another tower. How would a bomb know such a thing?

That made no sense in my mind, so I disregarded that. But I had been wrong in the past and the Astrologer was not simple. I had scoffed at the idea of a living bomb and hadn’t been concerned, and now I was in trouble. I had been wrong about Death. I had been wrong about so many big things, that I was questioning my own judgement.

It was never a simple thing to question one’s own judgement, which was a big reason, why I was sitting and drinking while I thought all this through. I would attempt the surgery and then I would attempt a tower climb if that didn’t work.

I didn’t know which tower, yet, but probably the Astrologer’s tower. It was too big a risk otherwise, and I didn’t want to pick a meta-point to just heal me. While it would be a very good option, I had another idea for my first meta-point in mind.

A healing skill was good, but it wasn’t the best option. Kind of like getting chocolate cake, instead of chocolate ice cream cake. The first was good, but the second one was much better in my mind. That was why I wanted to find another option.

Also, the idea of getting a meta-point at the top of a tower was just speculation at this point. While I felt it was likely, it also felt like another big assumption. Just imagine, getting to the top, and there was nothing up there. It was just some kind of super dungeon that offer a one of a king unique skill that wasn’t what I needed.

That felt just as likely in my mind. If that happened, and I wasn’t offered a meta-point to fix my gut that would be the end of me. I finished off the last flask of system swill and let out a sigh as I dropped the flask next to my chair.

There was a knock on the door. I had given specific orders, I wasn’t to be disturbed. I let out a small sigh. “Come in,” I said. The door quickly opened and the Commander of the city rushed in.

“Champion Michael, the Divine Empress has entered the city. We are in full hiding mode right now, please come to the underground bunker,” the Commander said.

The Divine Empress was here. Well, that wasn’t good. I followed the Commander to the bunker that had been dug out beneath one of the floors. After we entered the top was closed up by a piece of flooring. The room was quite small and dark.

There were ten other people in the room including myself. The ground began to shake. Bits of debris and dust rained down from the ceiling. Everyone was silent. I could tell people were staring at me, but this wasn’t a fight I could win right now as much as I wanted to.

I could tell buildings were being destroyed. Probably all the city buildings. Since this was a level 4 city, our only level 4 city, the Divine Empress had probably tracked it down or figured it out and was now venting her rage.

I heard crashing from above and could Sense large amounts of energy swirling through the city. I held my breath.