Why are there so many gods here???

One Man is Hard to Find

Cale drifted in the sweet confines of sleep for three seconds. He wished he'd genuinely passed out, because at least then he wouldn't be woken by the sounds of screaming and crying from every angle.

After realizing that some of the screaming was probably Ji-an in excruciating pain, which was much more reasonable than whatever the others were screaming about, he sighed and gave up on getting a moment's rest. He had forgotten that it was very unlikely that anyone else had the slightest clue what to do with a battlefield amputation.

He sat up, wincing at the sting each movement sent shooting through his cuts.

For some reason, that only made the group scream louder.

On and Hong were by his side in the blink of an eye. They hovered hesitantly next to his bloodied body. The two kittens looked like they wanted to clamber onto his lap as they usually did, but they were holding themselves back, staying just shy of touching him.

Cale thought for a moment that it was because they didn't want blood in their fur, but he pushed that thought aside. They cared about him. He had to remember that. He shuddered a little, remembering the hours of lecturing he was forced to listen to every time he insinuated that one of his allies didn't care about him. Remembering the last lesson, he realized that they probably didn't want to irritate his wounds.

Right, because he wouldn't be able to fight as effectively with worse wounds. That made sense.

He wanted to ask where their brother was, but he tasted black blood welling up in his throat, spilling over into his mouth. He swallowed. It quickly filled the space again, tickling the back of his throat.

On looked at him disapprovingly. He gave her an innocent look back, pretending not to know what she was judging him for, then stood up to go make sure Ji-an wouldn't bleed out.

The black blood came even faster, a small amount slipping between his lips before he could stop it. He turned to the side as discreetly as he could and spit out the mouthful.

He ignored the screaming--

- What did you do?

- Cale, you ◼◼◼ ◼◼ idiot! You can't be trusted with your own ◼◼ health for one ◼◼◼ second, can you?

--both inside and outside of his head.

He was also ignoring the near-constant stream of constellation messages, but he usually did that anyway.

As he rushed closer, he could see Ji-an lying on the ground with most of the group surrounding her. The tourniquet was doing its job. Ra was pressing gauze from the first-aid kit onto the stump and trying to hold a conversation with the shaking woman – good, keeping her awake was vital.

The cut had been clean, but it was still a giant open wound, a fleshy mess that Ji-an now had to be extremely careful with. Infection was too easy.

Or was it? The constitution stats might affect infection rates, and it may even speed up healing...

He knelt down next to Ji-an. Her hazy eyes seemed to recognize him, and she furrowed her brow, weakly grasping his wrist with her one remaining hand.

"Ji-an, level up your constitution as much as you can. Don't bother saving your coins."

When her eyes moved to focus somewhere in the air, he waited for her attention to come back.

"What—" she rasped, then coughed, wincing at the dryness in her throat.

"I cut your arm off."

The room stilled. All eyes turned to Cale, expressing anger and shock and who knows what else. Ji-an pulled her hand away from his wrist. She glared at him. It was a miracle that she was coherent enough to understand him; in fact, it was a wonder she was even conscious.