Chapter 23: [Vol-1] Ch.23 The Beginning of a Slow Recovery

Getting used to moving with my leg in this stone support cast is going to be a real pain. It's exceptionally heavy to start with, and I really need some kind of crutch to make this work properly. Thankfully, I do have some spare wood, so I should be able to make a crutch that is light enough to use. Wood permitting, I'd like to also make a lighter cast to wear, but for now, this one will have to do. With that in mind, I use the wall of the entrance to slowly maneuver myself back up to my room.

I pass by the slaughterhouse room as I arrive. It's quite the scene. The goblin is still dead where I killed it, and the other imps are drained as well along the wall. As soon as I get a crutch made, I'm going to need to inspect the corpses, and see if any of the meat is still good. I can't imagine all of it has gone bad this quickly, although from looking at the goblin, it might have, since I didn't properly handle it after it died.

For now I hobble over to some of the last of my dried imp meat, and eat it. I was quite hungry after not having eaten for a few days, so I ended up eating a lot. Then I gather as many good pieces of wood as I can and begin piling them up on the desk. Unfortunately, the buckets are too heavy for me to move given my current state, so instead I'm forced to carry a few pieces of stone at a time.

I need to make two things. One, a new blade for carving wood, and two, the crutch. I am by no means a skilled wood crafter, so I intend to supplement my lack of skill with stone shaping to attach pieces together. First though, I need a small blade for shaving wood away, so I begin shaping some of the stone marbles from before into a blade.

Thankfully, a blade is a fairly small object, so it doesn't actually take me all that long to make. I'm not certain that this is the best possible shape, but it should do. If not, I can always modify it further with stone shaping. With the knife made, I begin whittling at the wood I brought over. I begin by shaving off the bark to get a good idea of the structure underneath.

By the time I'm tired and ready to sleep, I've fully removed the bark from the pieces, and selected the handful that I intend to use for the project. Tomorrow, I'll get to work on shaving them down, and shaping the joints where I'll use stone to secure them.

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I wake up and check my status first thing in the morning.

<LEGENDARY IMP>
Level: 37
HP: 82/378
MP: 112/112
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation, Mighty Imp
Magic: Stone Shaping

Well, I'm healing slowly. Which I guess is at least better than not healing at all. This brings up more questions than answers to me though. What exactly is HP? Last time I was somewhat close to death, I actually healed relatively quickly. This time though, it's much slower. I suppose more research will be necessary on this subject in the future. I'll also need to re-evaluate my position on fighting. I only was as aggressive as I was because I assumed that as long as I won, I'd heal in a day or two, but obviously that was a bad assumption.

Today, I really need to finish my crutch early, so I can butcher those imps before they spoil completely. I basically want to make holes in the ends of the wooden pieces, then I'll just form stone through and around the joint to make it immobile. It's not perfect, but it'll be functional. To do this I'll make a hand drill so that I can easily make holes through the wood.

The hand drill, drilling, and making of the crutch took longer than I would have liked, as most of the day has passed, but I finally have a working crutch, so I can at least get started on the butchery. I definitely won't have enough time to do all of it today, so instead, I'll just focus on moving the dead goblin body out of the room, which when you factor in the crutch, and that I still haven't opened the entrance to my sub-cave up, will take the rest of the day.

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I briefly inspect the dead goblin before beginning to drag it out of the sub-cave. I'd have liked to autopsy it, but it's pretty disfigured, and its digestive juices spilled inside it during our fight, and it's already begun rotting and smells pretty bad, so I'll just dispose of it asap. When I finally drag it to the cavern, and look out into it, it's the same view I've seen twice before now. Dead imps strewn about, and no dead goblins to be seen. Well, other than the one I'm putting out here.

For today though, this is the extent of what I can do. I'm definitely not a fan of this cast, as it is slowing me down significantly, so I hope that it'll heal enough that I won't need it at some point, or that when I prestige or evolve, the problem goes away. For today though, all I can do is rest and hope for a better tomorrow.

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Today, I can finally get to butchering the imps that I have in the slaughterhouse room. The buckets of blood have become quite disgusting, but in my current state, I can't do much with that except to seal them, which I promptly do using stone shaping.

The first imp that I begin the process of butchering is in pretty decent condition all things considered. The entire abdominal region is basically ruined due to how long it's been here, but the limb meat is still good. I generally don't harvest much from the abdomen anyway, so I didn't lose much from this one. As I repeat the process through each imp, I find a similar result in each of the imps, but by the end I've got a nice amount of meat again, which is good, because until I'm healed a little more, I have no intents on trying to leave the cavern. It's already hard to navigate the cave, and I feel like the crutch plus heavy cast would make it impossible.

Given my current state, I have very few things I can actually do while I heal. Anything that requires large amounts of physical labor is basically out the window. I also need to be somewhat careful with my wood. I have gathered quite a bit in the past, and have enough for a few weeks, but I should consider trying to keep my fire as small as possible, since I won't be cooking anyway.

There are three things I'd like to make. A wooden brace to replace my cast when it has healed more, a backpack style holder for a bucket, and a weave basket if I can make one. The only one of these that I can really even work on at all right now is the wooden brace, so that's what I'll do. I'll still use stone for some parts of it, but it'll be a lot lighter than my current cast. I just need some long straight pieces of wood, and then I can form stone rings around them to hold it all in place on my leg. For right now, the cast helps keep me from being able to move my leg at all, which is vital for healing.

I get to work selecting pieces of wood that can work for this project, and come up with 5 pieces that are the right size and shape. I was really hoping that there would be at least 6, but I'll have to make due with what I have. For today though, that's all I have time for.

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I got to work bright and early working on the sticks for my leg brace, and by noon, they're pretty much done. I've shaved the bark off them, and fashioned a space on both ends of each to grip the stone I'll mold around it. Which means I'm basically waiting around until I heal more before I try to do anything too radical. I suppose until my HP reaches a much higher point, I should just stay around in here, and use my leg as little as I can.

I still have more of the refining of rock I can do, and if need be, I can expand my current room a little to get more stone. With my plan set, I begin the boring process of hand refining the stone as I wait for my leg to heal more. My biggest concern right now is my leg healing properly, so if that means I'm going to be bored just refining stone all day, it's the price I'll have to pay.

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