Arc | Chapter. 155: Breaking a Leg (Patreon)

Chapter. 155: Breaking a Leg

I had enjoyed my day with Taylor quite a lot. It felt… like it grounded me to reality, if I had to put it. I had escaped the Forgotten Places, and I was back in Arlas ⁠— I still didn’t really care about my identity or other things. But in some way, I felt better, things that didn’t matter to me before started to matter to me now.

For instance, a small part of me wishes I could’ve dragged Taylor along with me. Of course, I understood that she was an emperor, or… empress. I also understood that we solely bonded over art and nothing else so it wasn’t like she was my best friend or anything, but I was looking forward to seeing her again.

Another thing that I now suddenly cared about was…

A sigh left me. “Alright, better late than never.”

We were still flying over the ocean.

It was time to make clothes.

My clothes were made out of ice. Thin threads woven together to create them, and of course, they had been torn in the Forgotten Places. If I was honest, given my magic had changed a bit, I was unsure about my skills when it came to more delicate things like this. However…

I looked down at myself. My shirt was ripped apart, showing my sides and part of my shoulders. My jacket was nowhere to be found⁠— probably corrupted somewhere. Maybe a corrupted armor artifact? That would be cool. My pants too were ripped to shreds, and a broken necklace hung from my neck. My ice leg was completely exposed and I actually didn’t even have boots, so my working leg was barefoot.

Finally with a sigh, I decided to take off my pants. Lily said nothing and finally, I saw my naked legs, more specifically looking at my left leg. I saw the connection of the ice to my flesh, it was… a weird sight. It didn’t look bruised or anything but… I also didn’t dare to remove the ice to see how the stump looked.

“Lily, I think as soon as we are back in Draliz, I’ll ask you to help me get my leg back.”

“I will.” She nodded. “You know, when I met you during our dragon reunion, I was a bit scared when you killed the Dragon of Frost so I didn’t interact with you much.”

“Right…”

“But you know, these past few days with you have been nice.” She nodded to herself. “You’re nice, Arc.”

I smiled.

“Hopefully that wasn’t too weird to say…” she continued in a whisper.

“It wasn’t.” I looked at Lily. “Thank you for all the help.”

“Ah, yeah.”

Then there was silence as I went back to running my hand over my leg, feeling the pale skin and the ice. A small sense of dissonance coming along with it. Normally I ignored it, but… it was such a weird feeling.

I shuddered and decided to focus on making new clothes, it was a bit more tedious to restore my current ones ⁠— or so I judged. Still, before making clothes wasn’t a hard process but it still took a bit of concentration, however now with my new magic I was… not looking forward to this.

I took a deep breath and began to weave ice threads. At first it was a bit messy and the texture didn’t come out uniform but after an hour of adjusting I found I had brand new pants which I quickly put on.

Each article of clothing was honestly a slight struggle given the different textures but I grew more proficient at it. First were the boots, then were my two shirts which I quickly wore and finally came my jacket. The jacket itself was easy enough, the felt on the other hand took me about two hours.

But after that, I had shiny new clothes that felt softer and better than ever. Arcane magic was truly something else in terms of quality ⁠— perhaps the sole reason the keeper of order had sent me there was so I could have better quality clothes; so benevolent.

Though once I see him again I’ll rip his leg off, see how he likes it.

Now fully dressed I closed my eyes, relaxing under the familiar yet new sensations of my arcane magic woven clothes. I was sure that if people were aware of its nature they’d scream at me for using such rare magic to create clothing, but I didn’t really care. And so, I reveled in wearing clothes.

That said, the thought of me walking around in torn clothes and spouting what was essentially nonsense to people was… kind of amusing. I was done doing that ⁠— doing that in torn clothes anyway.

◇ ◇ ◇

I knew I said until Draliz, but…

I wasn’t too keen on Ceylon seeing that I was missing a leg, and after the night I had grown extremely aware of my leg, so. I was now in the most prestigious alchemy shop in whatever the city was called, Lily was present too though she wasn’t too comfortable.

I had already passed by the Adventurer’s Guild, getting a B Tier badge and a recommendation letter for the next city. At first the Guildmaster had been skeptical but after freezing a monster in time for about ten minutes he said something along the lines of ‘M-Monster’ and ‘N-Never come back!’ and handed me everything I asked for.

I mean, was it such a big deal? I guess…

Finally, the line in front of us moved and I was now in front of the store clerk. He had small round glasses, formal attire with a vest and a weird looking hat.

“What do you require, miss?”

“Your best Health Potion,” I said simply. “I mean the best one.”

He watched as I cut into the space pulling out the sack of platinum coins I possessed. He stared at it for a second before nodding and telling me to follow. Soon, we found ourselves in a decorated waiting room, wood and felt surrounding us, expensive looking alcohol lined the shelves in our immediate vicinity. Meanwhile at the center were two leather sofas and a coffee table.

“You know…” Lily awkwardly began. “There is a chance the Health Potion’s quality isn’t high enough for the task…”

“Right.” I sat on one of the sofas. “It’s fine.”

Lily sat next to me, evidently nervous as she spoke in a low voice. “B-But if you don’t buy it they might get upset…”

“It’s fine, I need it to get my leg back,” I explained. “If they take issue with their potion not being good enough to do that⁠—”

And the door opened as an old man walked in. His white hair was combed back, and he had a monocle and what resembled a suit. He immediately met my gaze and sat in front of us before opening the suitcase in our direction.

“These are our highest quality potions.”

I stared at the different shaped vials with red and orange-ish liquid. Each of them was A Tier and the last one was even S Tier, but with a single look Lily sighed.

“They are not good enough,” I said simply.

“Not good enough.” The man raised his brow. “Any of these are enough to bring even an S Tier adventurer from near death. What do you want it for?”

“To recover a lost limb.” My tone remained the same but the man frowned.

“The S Tier one should be able to⁠ recover that too⁠—”

“It’s not enough…” Lily began. “I understand that for a normal person all of these are enough, even an S Tier adventurer or that the last one is enough for an SS Tier hero, but if this is all you have then it won’t be sufficient,” she said, letting out a shaky breath.

The man blinked, looking at her. “We do have one more, but it’s price is⁠—”

“Is it above three-hundred platinum?” I asked.

He turned to me surprised. “No.”

“Then bring it,” I sighed.

The man closed the suitcase and stood up with a nod, taking the potions along with him. Once more, we were alone in the room. Lily made small chat, which I indulged; mainly asking if I ever had alcohol, since she was interested in trying it but I couldn’t provide her an experienced answer. Finally, a few minutes later the man came back with a vial that resembled an hourglass.

White lines ran across the length of the glass and the liquid inside was amber.

[ Health Potion from the Hero of Potions. Tier: SS ]

I blinked. “Huh… is the Hero of Potions still around?”

“No, he’s dead,” the man answered, setting it on the table. “Its price is two-hundred-and-fifty platinum. Is this potion satisfactory?”

Lily nodded. “It is very satisfactory.”

“Alright, I’ll buy it,” I said, placing multiple stacks of coins on the table. Once I was done counting, I turned to Lily. “Can you do it now?”

She paused. “Right, I can but… you have to reopen the stump, sorry I didn’t tell⁠—”

“It’s fine.” I turned to the old man who was now confused. “If I stain the sofas and stuff, are there cleaning fees?”

“Five platinum yes… why?”

I ignored his question as I put five more platinum coins on the table, my left leg following soon after it. Then, I grabbed my dagger and cut into the air, taking out my spear and splitting it into the two weapons that assembled it. I grabbed Alfina’s Sword and looked at my leg.

The man looked at me with wide eyes.

“Wait what do you think you’re doing⁠—”

And with a burst of mana I swung my sword down with a thunderous sound.

* * * * *

Blood splattered as Chester looked with absolute horror. The leg flew across the room as the sword was placed to the side. W-What was⁠— His mind struggled to parse anything as he saw the woman’s expression hardly change. Even her companion seemed to be stunned.

Why would she chop off her own leg?!

Chester gasped looking at the leg of the woman⁠— it was dripping blood onto the ground that seemed to be freezing from the blood… His mind parsed the sight, the longer he stared at it the less it made sense to him. And then there was the bleeding open wound, he could even see⁠—

Suddenly he felt like gagging as the woman spoke.

“Lily, the wound will close again if you wait too long,” she said with annoyance.

“Ah, yes!”

She hurriedly grabbed the legendary potion and smashed it against the table as if it was nothing but trash⁠— the glass exploded and yet the liquid didn’t. Instead it floated towards the woman’s leg and almost seemed to reform itself into a new leg.

The purple haired girl seemed to be muttering something under her breath before finally she clapped her hands.

With a shining and harrowing pulse of light⁠— the room became a deep purple and a grunt was heard. Then, a second later it all cleared and Chester looked ahead only to see the white-haired woman moving her leg like a child. The sword she had used was

“No more ice leg.” She turned to her companion. “Thank you, I appreciate it a lot.”

The purple haired woman nodded very slowly. “You’re welcome…” she said quietly.

Meanwhile Chester could only stare as the white-haired woman stood up and grabbed the leg that was flown across the room and⁠— she removed the piece of clothing and the boot from it, sliding the loose cut clothing over her leg along with the boot.

What— and a moment later the damage to her pants had been repaired. She looked the same as when she came to the room, no sign of the blood⁠— aside from the now stained floor. Chester just stared, the only possible explanation coming to his mind.

“Are you a hero…?”

“Yep.” She nodded and smiled. “The Heroine of Frost, and thank you I wouldn’t have been able to get my leg back without your potion.”

Then Chester watched as she grabbed the ice leg⁠— which somehow was a viable prosthetic.

“I’ll be taking this, not too keen on my leg being used as an ice cube or whatever else,” she said casually.

“Right…”

Chester then engaged in farewell with the two ladies before they left the room. But, the entire time he was still processing the events that had unfolded, and even after they left he could only think about the sight of the woman cutting her leg off.

Sure, he had found out it was mostly ice but⁠— she had cut through flesh.

Then, he leaned back and just stared at the ceiling as his mind refused to process what he had just seen. Never, in his sixty years in this business had he seen anything like it.

Perhaps it’s time for retirement…

* * * * *

After that, we left the city and continued onto our next destination. Flying over vast forests.

“You know, that was pretty uncomfortable,” Lily admitted.

“I figured.” I gave her a small smile. “Is there anything you’d like as compensation?”

The beating of her wings was interrupted ever so slightly as she hurriedly shook her head. Speaking in a hurried tone.

“No⁠— there is no need to compensate me, I just wanted to… complain I guess… vent?”

“Right…” I slowly nodded. “That’s okay.”

“You know, I just don’t like feeling like all eyes are on me. It feels like every action I take is being judged. It is not until I get to know a person that I stop feeling like this,” she sighed. “I think… I don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Well… I think it’s okay,” I said looking at the sky. “We cannot really change ourselves at such a fundamental level. Perhaps we can avoid acting on our emotions, but even if you put on a mask you’ll still feel like that deep down.”

“That is true…” she agreed quietly.

“But it is also what makes us unique, at least that’s what I think.” I shrugged before lightly smiling. “That’s why I don’t think you should care too much, you are you, you are unique, and that’s why you are Lily, not someone or anything else. And for what it’s worth, I think you make great company, Lily.”

The dragon shuddered, nearly losing the ability to flight as she hurriedly nodded.

“Thank you.”

Hours later, we arrived at the next Adventurer’s Guild, this time to get a C Tier badge.