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Tutorial Rewrite 6
🕑 Added 2023-01-07 14:53:35 +0000 UTC…Okay?
When I peek open my eyes, the window is gone, but if I close them, it returns again. I have no idea what that is or what it means. It’s some sort of European language I think, maybe Latin? Spanish? Italian? Who knows. What I do know is that I have no idea what it’s supposed to translate to. I mean, even if it is Latin or something, that doesn’t help me. Hm. Now that I look at it, considering that mezzo is middle in Italian, I guess this must be that fateful language. And I only know that one because my parents had some unfortunate obsession with trying to turn me into a child musical prodigy. Shame on them that I got stiff fingers and suck at the piano, I guess.
But even if I knew every Italian music word, that still wouldn’t help me here.
It’s Italian. It’s a so-called canto. That means nothing.
Putting that aside, I got the healing skill, so now It’s just a matter of time before I’m back on my feet and able to take arrows like they’re spitballs!
…
…
…Or, it might take a bit longer than that. Let’s just take a quick look at the clock…
<Top—Status—Community>
<00:46:47
Day 2>
<The second attempt will begin in
29:23:14:13>
…45 minutes was all it took for all three to die, huh? That said, it seems the next attempt will begin in about a month. Whatever an attempt is…
I wave aside the window.
For now, let’s just focus on not dying. Meditating seems to work, so I’ll just keep doing that until I feel better. However long that’ll take.
Slowly, over the course of several hours, I accrued both pain and tolerance skills and levels. After about two hours, I realised with a certain amount of unhappiness that there is no pain tolerance skill. And even the other tolerances, from Piercing to Bleeding to Poison to Unconsciousness, are very weak. I can hardly even notice the effect at all. But once Poison Tolerance reached Level 4, it seemed to finally outweigh the poison enough to ward it off fully. But the arrows are still in my body, and it didn’t take long for me to realise that even though Auto-Regeneration was at Level 3, it couldn’t heal away the arrows. There was only one way to remove them.
I’m not sure where I heard it, but the least damaging way to remove an arrow is to push it through completely, not to pull it out. This went pretty well for the ones on my arms and legs since they had already gone the whole way through, so pushing it the rest of the way didn’t mean much. But my left shoulder was different. It had only gone halfway in before getting stuck against my shoulder blade. I know this because if I move my left arm, I can both hear and feel the arrowhead scrape against the inside of my bones.
I couldn’t just push it through nilly-willy. Either I shifted it enough to get it out below or above the shoulder blade, or I pulled it out.
After gritting my teeth for a long time, I decided to simply pull it out. My vision was still dancing with white and black dots from the blood loss, but I still had to do it. My Bleeding Tolerance had reached Level 5 but it would have to be enough.
Grabbing hold of the arrow’s body, I prepare myself. Breathe in, breathe out. Just like when I meditated. One clean pull. That’s all I need. One clean pull…
I tense my arms. Just one, clean, pull!
I pull with all of my strength and feel the arrow twist inside me and the last poison inside the arrowhead spread into my blood and my flesh getting carved as the arrow moves and my jaw snaps shut and I grit my teeth in pain but my fingers are trembling and slick with blood and the body of the arrow slips out of my grip and I almost fall forward, making her shift in my lap. “Argghhh…!” I unwillingly groan. God. Jesus. That was… not good.
<You have learned:
Interior Damage Tolerance Lv.1>
Great. Wonderful. I bet that’ll be extremely useful this next time that I pull it out. Clean pull my ass…
I grab hold of the arrow again. Touching it sends little electrical jolts of pain through my shoulder and chest but it doesn’t matter anymore. I clench my fist around the arrow. Two clean pulls. That isn’t too much to ask for, is it? Of course not. But that’s all I need, so here, we… go!
I don’t even pull it a fourth of the way out before the arrowhead hooks onto what I think is my collarbone and in the absolute mind-blotting, toe-curling pain of this, the thin body of the arrow in my hand snaps in two. My breathing feels ragged. It didn’t hit my lung but it's damn close. I… I really don’t have any choice but to push it through, do I? Yeah. I don’t.
The body of the arrow snapped off so close to my body that I can barely even reach it anymore. But I need to push it the rest of the way in. Otherwise, I lose mobility in my entire left arm. I don’t know if this stage has any monsters or enemies, but if it does, I’ll need my shield arm. I grit my teeth again.
I just need to push it through. It’ll have to go above the shoulder blade. That’s the only way.
I clench my left fist and squeeze my eyes shut. And then, placing my right hand on the splintered end of the arrow, I push.
<You have learned:
Interior Damage Tolerance Lv.2>
The arrow carves mercilessly through my flesh, severing tendons and gnashing through everything I have, scraping along my shoulder blade as it does, making the sound of metal against bone reverberate through my sore skull. Push, push, push. Once it finally no longer presses against my shoulder blade, the remaining half of the arrow has gone so far inside my shoulder that I have to push my fingers deep inside my own shoulder to properly push it out, making blood squeeze out of the hole and run down my tattered clothes.
But after several minutes of this, I finally feel the arrowhead start to push against the hard and rubbery skin of my back. After a few unsuccessful attempts at pushing it through, I reach back my left hand and hold down the skin while pushing with my right, which finally lets the arrow burst back out into the free air. I pull my right hand back out of my shoulder and pull the arrow the rest of the way with my left, tossing it aside once it’s no longer stuck to me. The whole arrow is red, and so are both of my hands and almost half of my hoodie.
<You have learned:
Interior Damage Tolerance Lv.3>
<You have learned:
Bleeding Tolerance Lv.6>
<You have learned:
Lesser Auto-Regeneration Lv.4>
I feel dizzy, but with this, I can finally rest a bit more properly. It might be optimistic thinking, but if this dark forest was filled with any beasts or monsters, they would have sniffed me out already. Unconsciously, I press her closer to me.
I close my eyes.
It wouldn’t be right to say that I slept, I was in too much pain for that. If it was meditation, then it was an incredibly deep one.
<You have learned:
Meditation Lv.2>
<You have learned:
Hypnagogia Lv.1>
When I come back to, my injuries are mostly healed. I still feel groggy and my brain feels fuzzy and weird, but I’m not in any immediate pain. All of my resistances have levelled up pretty well, but I don’t feel invincible in the least. One hit to the head and I’m dead.
How long has it even been since I entered this stage?
<Top—Status—Community>
<19:00:02
Day 2>
<The second attempt will begin in
29:04:59:58>
19 hours. 19 hours just to recover from a few arrow wounds.
Then again, if this was the real world, I’d probably be dead. Dead and buried. I wonder how long it would have taken someone to find my corpse? If it was one of my coworkers, they’d probably loot me and leave me to the masses to find. Or something. I never did get too close to them.
But enough about that.
