I’ve always wondered how common it is for someone to vomit after killing a person for the first time… or not, since that would be exaggerating. I just did it every time I saw it happen in movies, anime, and novels.
In such stories, they usually described that reaction of utter disgust when good-natured characters did it or at least witnessed it in person. That is, kind, good, or innocent people would cry between vomiting to emphasize how wrong it was to take the lives of others.
A way to raise awareness, perhaps.
However, reality doesn’t work that way, or at least not for me.
Sure, someone might say that I don’t feel so bad because the boy is still moving before my eyes, but I doubt that seeing him lying on the ground, with blood pouring out of every orifice of his head, is a relief.
I have killed him, and that is an irrefutable fact.
Ultimately, it is not difficult to guess the limit of regeneration that our bodies possess. A line separating life and death that is perfectly discernible to those who think about it carefully.
That’s the food and the time.
Eating is essential to replenish the energy used for healing. In addition, there is also another decisive factor that leads me to think that his death is assured, and that is that, regardless of whether someone was healed from a badly injured eye, it’s all over the moment a mortal wound is received before regeneration starts to work.
In short, I must be careful with blows to the head, both giving and receiving them…
Back to the first topic, how guilty do I feel about my actions? Well, that answer is more complicated than merely saying much or little.
First of all, the truth is that I feel sick. Not so much that I want to expel the contents of my stomach, but enough that my arms on the ground shake like branches being whipped by the wind.
I’m still not sure what it is that disgusts me, whether it’s the memory of the soft sensation my fists felt on impact, whether it’s the smell of blood and urine coming from him, or whether it’s simply the guilt of having taken the life of someone so young. After all, it was not a damn sinner like adults are, but a child who had done nothing evil so far.
So many first events have come together that, combined with the headache I have from straining my brain beyond the usual, have made me feel like I’m about to faint.
However, there are also other things that prevent me from passing out peacefully. Such is the case with hunger, the pain of my wounds, and last but not least, the muffled applause heard behind me.
”Clap; Clap; Clap…”
Not much time has passed since the fight ended, probably less than a minute, so I’m still sitting on the floor in front of the dying young man, besides I don’t have the energy to turn my head back and see who is the one clapping. Yet, I don’t have to do so, as there is only one person here who could sound that way.
The giant, covered in metal armor, clapped with his leather gloves.
‘Fuck’
I don’t need to know what brought my actions to his attention, as whatever it was, it’s not good news for me. After all, it means that I stood out. I differed too much from the others, so much so that he, who only looks a little smarter than the other ogres, noticed.
Needless to say, if he did it, then so did the old man.
What a worrying matter. What should I do? Run? Scream? Kill me before it’s too late? There are so many cards in my deck that I’m having trouble deciding on one…
Anyway, for the moment, I just have something I have to do.
With my teeth clenched even before I began to move, I increased the strength in both arms, supporting myself with them on the ground and then doing the same with my knees to stagger to my feet.
Following that, and after giving a loud sigh, I turned to the audience behind me that was now silent, just in time to see the two women approaching where we were standing. Besides, whether by chance or fate, one of them was the girl I had been trying to get close to for the past few months.
Unfortunately, I was too tired, sore, and hungry to give her enough attention. So, when they reached my side, I just gave her a friendly smile and a gesture with my hand, indicating that I didn’t need her help to return to the cave.
Although while doing so, I ended up choking on the blood coming out of my cut lip, for which I coughed a little before spitting out the red liquid that flooded my mouth and starting my way to the entrance.
As I walked, I noticed that the distance between me and her had widened by a meter or two, but I didn’t think much of it. After all, my brain was working hard to pretend all was well with my body.
I acted like that partly out of pride and mainly for safety, as I didn’t want a group of dangerous beasts to see me weak, tired, and wounded.
Having advanced for a couple of minutes, I reached the first room from the entrance of the cave, where, as quickly as I could, I entered and, after placing myself in a corner invisible to the next group to pass, I put one of the fingers of my right hand in my mouth so that I could bite it without making too much noise.
I put too much strain on my injured leg. I should have let it rest a little longer, but I didn’t feel comfortable staying in that place any longer. So, now I am paying the consequences for it. The pain I feel is a lot, although it comforts me to think it doesn’t compare to the pain I felt when I was born.
‘One, two, three…ninety-three…seven hundred and thirteen…’
In my mind, I started counting the numbers from one to infinity, trying to endure this without screaming.
‘…nine hundred twenty-one… that’s enough’
Finally, when the pain subsided to a great extent, I took my bloody, salivating finger out of my mouth, of which my bones ached from the bite, and with the back of my other hand, I wiped away the tears in my eyes.
”I was actually right to resist fighting someone in my past life, for while it is fun to watch battles in fantasy, real blows, and injuries are not so much”
After letting out that murmur, having made sure no footsteps were approaching, I stared up at the ceiling for a while as I listened in the distance to the faint sound of the noise those guys were making as they watched the kids fight.
”Thud; Thud; Thud”
‘Well, that’s all’
Having tapped the walls three times with my head, as if pressing a switch, I motivated myself to act, forget and ignore.
Crouching down with the support of the walls, I carefully sat down on the floor so as not to suffer any more. Then, I removed the only garment I was wearing, and with a stone I had picked up beforehand, I began to cut a not very big piece of it.
As I did so, by inertia, I looked at the wound on my chest, which had stopped bleeding, only to be surprised to discover that I still had my right nipple.
Apparently, it had not been completely torn off, although it hung with only a thin thread of skin.
Well, I didn’t know if that was good or bad news, as now I had to decide if I would leave it there waiting to connect to the rest of my body on its own or if I should rip it out to allow a new one to grow.
”Hmm…”
A complicated decision I would make another time because now that I had finished tying the piece of animal skin to my calf, it was time to resume the journey to the meat and soup buffet.
