Chapter 84: Healing Potion, Regrowing a Severed Arm
"I'm sorry… It's all my fault… I'm just so useless…"
Wu Wenwen's composure finally shattered. Tears streamed down her face, her voice choked with guilt. Though she had been trapped in a daze, she had witnessed everything that had transpired.
"It's not your fault," Liu Haoran grunted, forcing himself to his feet. He was pale and unsteady, but his eyes were clear. "You did everything you could. The only one to blame is that idiot who lied about the item's stats."
With his one remaining hand, he picked up the heavy cleaver from the floor. He then retrieved a strange, form-fitting glove from his inventory. He walked over to Haruto and, without a moment's hesitation, knelt on one knee.
"If you ever need anything, just say the word. I, Liu Haoran, will not hesitate, even if it costs me my life. As for this cleaver and this glove, please take them. The glove allows you to briefly grab ghosts that lack a physical form. The cleaver…" He gave a bitter smile. "You saw what it does. It can slay ghosts, but the user must pay a terrible price. It's powerful, but you can't use it lightly."
Haruto didn't refuse. He accepted the two ghost artifacts, his gaze drifting to the bloody stump of Liu Haoran's wrist.
"Can that hand of yours be reattached?"
Liu Haoran shook his head, his expression grim. "If we had more time, maybe. I could have preserved the hand in ice water and gone straight to a hospital after leaving the instance. Or I could have posted on the forums, looking for a ghost artifact that can summon a Ghost Doctor. There might have been a chance then. But now… it's far too late."
Haruto fell into a thoughtful silence.
He could, in theory, use his Boundary Power to manipulate time, reverting the state of the severed wrist to what it was before the injury. However, his control over his abilities was still far too clumsy, especially when it came to something as esoteric as the boundary of time. He couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't accidentally restore the ghost's cursed hand along with it. Worse, the human body wasn't an inanimate object; with his current level of proficiency, the wound would likely just split open again moments after being healed.
Haruto turned his head, his gaze meeting Kaguya's.
She understood immediately. With a graceful movement, she produced a small, light-green bottle from her sleeve and tossed it to him.
"Help him unwrap the bandage," Haruto said, uncorking the vial as he gave the instruction to Xie Lin.
Xie Lin, startled by the command, looked from Haruto to the small bottle in his hand. A flash of incredulous joy lit up his eyes. He scrambled forward and began carefully unwrapping the blood-soaked bandages that had been tightly wound around the stump.
As the cloth came away, fresh blood began to well up from the severed arm.
"Brace yourself."
Xie Lin took a deep breath and forcibly realigned the severed hand with the wrist. A tremor of pure agony wracked Liu Haoran's body, and the color drained from his face, but he clenched his jaw and held firm.
Haruto slowly and carefully tilted the vial, pouring the shimmering green liquid onto the gruesome wound.
Liu Haoran's teeth were gritted so hard they might have cracked. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples, but he refused to make a sound.
A faint, magical light enveloped the injury. Gradually, miraculously, the severed bones began to fuse and reshape. Nerves, like threads in a delicate spiderweb, re-intertwined. New skin slowly crept across the wound, knitting the flesh together until not even a scar remained.
As the searing pain receded into a dull ache and then vanished entirely, Liu Haoran's furrowed brow finally relaxed. He tentatively flexed his fingers, then rotated his wrist. It moved perfectly. A look of utter astonishment and deep relief washed over his face.
Xie Lin let out a long, shaky breath, his voice thick with gratitude.
"I heard from Wenwen that you're looking for a ghost artifact that can bind an additional person to your team. I happen to have a lead on one. Once we get out of here alive, I swear I'll get it for you."
"How would you give it to me?" Haruto asked, genuinely curious. "Use a Tracking Card to match into my next instance?"
Xie Lin reached into his pocket and pulled out a strangely shaped, almost organic-looking telephone, handing it to Haruto.
"This is a Ghost Phone, a ghost artifact used for communication. It can connect across different worlds. For a certain price, you can even use it to send items via express delivery."
Haruto turned the device over in his hands, his curiosity piqued. He fiddled with it for a moment, discovering a surprisingly long list of contacts and even a chat group named 'Player Kingdom.'
"Keep this one; I have a spare," Xie Lin insisted. "Your world's player forum should have these for sale. You can check when you get back. They're incredibly useful, but since there are a lot of them in circulation, the price shouldn't be too high."
Hearing this, Haruto pocketed the Ghost Phone. He then looked at the damaged ghost camera lying on the floor. "Do you still want this?"
Xie Lin shook his head. "That camera was pushed past its limit. It's completely broken, basically scrap at this point."
"If you don't want it, I'll take it."
Haruto casually tossed the ruined camera into a Gap that opened beside him.
To others, it might have been useless junk, but not to him. He could always send it to Patchouli to see if she could fix it. If that didn't work, he'd just send it over to Youkai Mountain. He was sure the folks at Kappa Heavy Industries could figure it out. They boasted they could 'fix anything' and could supposedly even build Gundams. Besides, they had that 'tenfold compensation for fakes' guarantee.
Trading one use of his Boundary Power and a single bottle of healing potion for so many gains, Haruto actually felt a faint, fleeting pang of guilt.
What he didn't know was that Xie Lin and the others were thinking the exact same thing.
Trading four ghost artifacts—one of which was completely useless scrap—for a teammate's life and a miraculous potion that could regrow severed limbs was, in their minds, an absolute steal. Healing-type ghost artifacts were infinitely more precious and rare than offensive ones.
Xie Lin was already mentally planning to throw in a few extra items as a bonus when he secured the binding artifact Haruto needed.
After confirming that Liu Haoran's arm was truly as good as new, Wu Wenwen finally let out a sigh of relief. She walked up to Haruto and bowed deeply, her gratitude sincere.
"Brother Haruto, thank you… If it weren't for you, I might have…"
"It's fine," Haruto said with an easy smile. "Think of it as a normal transaction. I'm quite satisfied with the outcome."
His casual words only made Xie Lin and Liu Haoran feel even more moved. They knew perfectly well that the potion alone could be traded for an entire set of high-tier ghost artifacts on the forums, to say nothing of the fact that Haruto had also saved Wu Wenwen's life. He hadn't demanded payment upfront, nor had he taken advantage of their desperation to extort a higher price. In their world, that was a kindness of the highest order.
However, Wu Wenwen completely misunderstood his meaning.
A blush crept up her cheeks as she was instantly reminded of her shameful experience from earlier. At that time, for some inexplicable reason, as if possessed, she had changed into that bunny-ear outfit and followed the two men's orders. As an acting major, she had even instinctively put real effort into her performance, adding little flourishes of her own.
Although she didn't regret it—in fact, a part of her was glad she hadn't refused—the memory was still mortifying.
She quickly changed the subject, desperate to steer the conversation back to the instance mission. "So, what should we do next?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Liu Haoran declared with conviction. "We have to kill that monster ahead of schedule. If we wait, that thing might evolve into some kind of pseudo-god before the seventh day. By then, we won't stand a chance; we'll just be waiting for a scripted death."
Xie Lin remained silent, seemingly in agreement with this aggressive approach. But then, Haruto shook his head.
"No. I have a hunch that the 'kill it' in the mission objective doesn't refer to the Lady of the Castle—at least, not the her we're seeing now."
While Xie Lin wasn't one to put much faith in so-called hunches, the fact that it was Haruto saying it made him frown deeply. "Then what? Like Haoran said, we can't just wait around until the seventh day."
At that moment, Lin Xuelao, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly spoke, her voice clear and calm.
"Why don't we ask the butler?"
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