"You..." Max swallowed hard, unease written all over his face, "can regrow limbs, right?"

"Yes, probably," Alice answered, trying not to think about the implications of that question.

"I will be honest with you. Between having to get them out, treating the wound, and whatever magical fuckery these roots might get up to, I do not think that I can guarantee your survival once you return back to life. Between all the things I know can go wrong and the probably much larger number of things I don't know about, I think it would be safer for you to take off your arm and let it regrow, no matter how long it might take."

Thinking back on it, Max had o problem admitting that the reason he became a nurse was that he wanted to help people. However, he didn't become a doctor because he didn't want to deal with situations like the one in front of him. No matter which field they worked in, a doctor would sooner or later become a bearer of bad news, and that was something he didn't want to experience a second time.

But now, here he was, telling a girl that she needed to have her arm amputated and wait for it to regrow on its own? Not once in his life had he felt this incompetent. Just the thought of it went against anything he had ever learned. Medicine wasn't a field where one could simply wait for problems to solve themselves, but now, that was basically what he was saying.

"Do the roots go farther up than what is visible?" the question was already the first step onto a road that he wouldn't be able to turn back on.

"About halfway up my upper arm," Alice answered, her voice shaking slightly. She expressly did not look at the concerned limb while she said so.

"Okay, just to make sure, we should take it off just under your shoulder. If even a sliver of that stuff stays inside your body when you return back to life, who knows what it might do."

"S-sure," Alice answered uneasily.

"Just, give me a moment to prepare myself," her voice gained more strength as she found something else to focus her mind on.

Alice thought not about what had happened or what she was about to lose. Instead, she focused on how to regain it as quickly as possible from her current situation.

Her resources were a total of three level-ups and a large number of souls all around her. The level-ups were easy to decide on, and although she was going off her plans once again, the situation made it more than necessary.

The first level up went right into Soul-binding just like she had planned, albeit with the additional goal of giving her more slots to bind Troll souls. It wasn't meant to be some kind of revenge, albeit it might double as something like that. No, it was for the very pragmatic reason that those increased her Bodyreformation Stat.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Soul-binding Lv 6

Costs Mana.

Bind 6 souls permanently to yourself.

Bind 12 souls temporarily to yourself.

Breaking the bond destroys a soul permanently.

Binding a soul to yourself gives you some of the abilities from when it was alive.

You can also bind souls to objects.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

For now, she decided not to focus on the possible implications of the upgrade to her Skill, instead focusing on what to do with the remaining two level-ups. Originally, she had waited until after the fight so she wouldn't upgrade Skills according to necessity, since that might skew her Status badly sooner or later. Her original plan had been to reflect after the fight if she needed a significant boost in offense or defense, or maybe a bit of both, and put her levels into Bone armor and Necrotic burst, before focusing on Undead constitution and her Stats.

But now, more than anything else, she needed both of her arms. As such, both went into Soul absorption.

The last step of her preparation was one she was already pretty used to. Walking among the battlefield, Ava accompanying her silently, Alice began the cycle of collecting souls, and absorbing them for more Mana, before using that to collect even more souls until all her resources were back to full. Finally, she bound the Troll's soul to herself for the cost of fourteen Mana, quickly going back to get back what it had cost her.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Name: Alice Liddell

Level: 25 (25)

Level-5 Skill point: 3

Class-primary: Necromancer 79%

Class-secondary: Warrior 82,2%

Resources:

Stamina: 21/21

Mana: 14/15

Soul energy: 20/20

Primary Stats:

Muscle-density: 30+7+30%

Stamina: 20+1

Mana: 15

Magic power: 15+4

Secondary Stats:

Soul energy: 20

Vitality (B): 0+6

Bodyreformation (T) 7+15/100

Mana regeneration (T) 18/100

Leg strength (B) 10+10/100

Skills:

Soul collection Lv 1

Soul sense Lv 3

Undead constitution Lv 1

Flesh grafting Lv 1

Soul absorption Lv 5

Soul-binding Lv 6

Bone armor Lv 1

Necrotic burst Lv 1

Taunt (B) Lv 0+2

Pack mentality (B) Lv 0+1

Monstrous strength (B) Lv 0+3

Buffs:

Monkey soul: (2)

Magic power +4

Leg strength +10

Taunt +2

Raptor soul:

Muscle-density +1

Stamina +1

Pack mentality +1

Troll soul: (3)

Muscle-density +6

Vitality +6

Bodyreformation +15

Monstrous strength +3

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Idly, she noted that in total, her Muscle density was at fourty-eight, and with leg strength at ninety-six for her legs in specific. It was strange to think that her legs were almost ten times stronger than they should be.

"Come on," Ava took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Yes," Alice answered, turning back towards the rest of the group. She knew that she was just delaying. Wasting time in a situation where she shouldn't.

"Are you ready?" Max asked when the pair returned to the group.

While Alice had been preparing herself, the others had set up a short-term base outside the area where the Goliath had summoned all the roots.

"I'm as prepared as I will get," Alice answered with a non-sequitur, doing her best to ignore the hacksaw Max was carrying.

"Lie down over there," the healer said, pointing at the empty space in the middle of the group's formation.

As she was told, Alice lay down on her back, Ava quickly appearing behind her, offering her lap to her girlfriend. Quickly, the redhead took off Alice's helmet, pressing her palms on her girlfriend's ears.

"Thanks," Alice mumbled silently.

Off to the side, Max got ready as well, taking three ropes and a thick plank out of his backpack.

Taking his patient's arm, he wound the first rope around it tightly. While undead, her blood was stagnant within her veins, but cutting off the blood flow preemptively couldn't hurt, doing so right under her shoulder.

Then, he took the plank, tying it tightly to the back of her upper arm on both ends.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and put the saw down to the side. Taking out an especially sharp knife and some sterilizing alcohol, he went about disinfecting both of the tools, Debby having the questionable honor of holding them while he didn't need them.

When he had put together the content of his backpack, he had worked together with Jenny and Lucy, brainstorming what he might need. When Lucy had brought up the possibility of having to do an amputation out in the field, he had taken it for a morbid joke. Still, he had taken the saw and ropes since they seemed like things that might become useful for other things as well.

With a grim expression, he brought the knife into position and placed the first cut.

While Ava was talking to her, trying her best to distract her girlfriend, Alice's attention was almost entirely on her arm. It was a very strange feeling. She could clearly feel the blade inside her flesh, but despite that, there was absolutely no pain.

At some point, Alice had read an article on the internet about how pain actually worked. Apparently, 'pain' wasn't actually a sensation. Instead, it is the result of the brain realizing that something is wrong with the body. That resulted in a situation where, after certain types of back injuries, one would still feel pain despite having fully healed already. But with professional help and by enduring the pain long enough, the brain could be made to realize that there actually wasn't a problem anymore.

The current situation, Alice assumed, was similar but in reverse. Since she was currently undead, her mind didn't assume any kind of injury to actually do meaningful damage to her body. Thus, she could feel it happen, but it wasn't painful.

Finally, Max had cut through the last bit of flesh, leaving only the bone to be cut.

What was even stranger, Alice realized, was the fact that she actually was still capable of moving her hand, despite none of the nerves still being connected.

Finally, Max took the saw into his hands, carefully inserting it into the cut.

Realizing what he was doing, Alice decided to help the man a little, using Flesh grafting to push the flesh that was about to get cut away out of the way.

Max noticed but didn't comment. He had simply no idea what the appropriate reaction was to a patient who helped the doctor with their own amputation. Should he reprimand her for interfering? Should he thank her? He just didn't know what to say, and thus, he said nothing.

When the cold metal of the saw got drawn across her bone for the first time, Alice was reminded of a visit by the dentist. But while she could still feel the vibrations throughout her entire skeleton, at least the high-pitched screech their tools created was replaced by a lower rumble with intermittent breaks as the saw was pushed and pulled back and forth.

However, even if the sound was different, the üicture was a good distraction. With all her focus, Alice summoned up the scene of a dentist praxis. The smells, the sounds, the atmosphere. She hated it, but it was still better than reality.

With a small 'crack', Alice got pulled out of her fantasy. The feeling from most of her left arm had disappeared from one moment to the other like someone had just pulled the plug.

Alice had to restrain herself quite a bit to resist the urge to grab or look at her left arm. For a while, Max continued working on her, putting his tools away and probably disposing of her severed limb.

"The wound in your side looks good. Your own healing can probably deal with it without any problems," Max said a while later.

Actually, Alice had almost forgotten that the Goliath she fought on her own had managed to injure her.

"Okay, the wound in your side isn't too bad, as I said, but your arm is going to take about four to eight weeks to heal, just as a reference when using your own healing," the healer quickly briefed her before directing his words to the others, "everyone, hold her down so she can turn back."

Under crying, screaming, and sobbing, Alice experienced every scrap of pain she had been allowed to miss out on since turning undead, compressed into a few seconds. The wound in her side and the burning of overstrained muscles were, however, barely even noticeable. It all got overshadowed by the burning pain caused by the roots burrowing through her left arm and the sensation of that getting slowly cut off.

As soon as Alice's mind became clear enough to do so, she activated Soul absorption a total of ten times, the wave of warmth spreading through her body, driving away the pain within mere moments.

Slowly, Alice sat back up, noticing that Harry and Carl were lying on their backs about two meters away. Thinking back, Alice shuddered at the memory of pain. But in hindsight, she realized that halfway through, her legs had come free.

"Are you two okay?" she asked the men.

"Yeah," Carl groaned, "But we need a different solution for this. There is no use trying to hold you down if you can lift us up wholesale. Why do we have to do that in the first place?" he asked in Max direction.

"It's so she doesn't injure herself, obviously," the answer came immediately.

"You know," Alice commented, "If I activate Bone armor, I don't think that will be necessary anymore."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Also, even if it's not quite enough, it still makes more sense for me to get injured a bit more than risking that I injure every single one of you."

"Fine. If you are confident that it is enough. But only until I get some kind of painkiller or anesthesia Skill. Also, let me take a look at your arm," their healer conceded.

"R-right. Here," Alice turned her left side to the man, taking for the first time a peek at it herself.

Where she had once had a complete arm, now all that was left was a stump. However, it didn't look quite like what she had expected. Sure, it was still a stump, but instead of smooth skin, it ended in a roughly three-and-a-half-centimeter thick bulge of skin covered in distorted scar tissue. It reminded her of a certain superhero who, just like her, had a penchant for getting heavily injured and still continue fighting. Albeit, she had to admit that she wasn't as funny by a long shot.

"How many souls did you use to heal yourself?" Max asked her curiously.

"Ten, for now. Why?"

"That scared part? It's what has already regrown. Rough guess... I would say two-hundred, two-hundred-fifty souls maximum, and your arm should be back. Though I have no idea if your skin will stay like that," Max said, his voice optimistic.

Over two-fucking-hundred souls?! Alice thought incredulously. Before she could complain, however, she took a look around, coming to a realization. Just in this fight, they had fought and killed over a hundred enemies easily.

Sure, they would do whatever it took not to get into this kind of fight again but considering that they would continue leveling for a while still, the chances were high that she would have her arm back before they returned to base. And even now, there was still a large number of souls around.

Again, she went through the area, absorbing and collecting souls, using another ten to heal herself before topping herself back up. And, for the first time, she could actually see her healing at work. It was a bit of a bizarre sight, seeing her stump suddenly bulge out, growing and expanding as the scarred end of her stump suddenly doubled in length in the span of a second or two. Just from the way it looked, it wouldn't have surprised her if it had continued growing into some alien tentacle, trying to take control of her body.

"Hey, Ava, can you lend me one of your knives?" Alice finally asked.

"Sure, you need a new weapon either way, don't you?"

"Well, that too. But right now, I just want to test something. My Soul binding Skill," Alice said while pointing at the black whisps that were still swimming around her body, "got an upgrade that allows me to bind souls to objects. Since it should be some kind of enchantment, I wanted to test that out."

"So, you want to put a Monkey soul into a knife? Shouldn't you test it first with something unimportant?" Ava asked, grabbing a random stick from the side of the road.

"Yeah, your right. Who knows what it actually does, right?"

"Try it on this," Ava gave the stick to Alice.

Well, let's see, Alice thought, taking the stick and activating her Skill.

The first thing she realized was that the process of binding a Soul to an object cost her exactly as much Mana as it would binding it to herself.

Within a few moments, the soul suffused the previously ordinary stick, and after just a few moments, a system window opened up in her mind.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Item: Soulbound stick

Mana: 0/3

Magic power: 5

Durability Lv 2

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Durability Lv 2

Passive

This object is more resistant to damage.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

"Hmm... Hold it," she put the stick into Ava's hand, "can you see a system message?"

"No. I don't think so."

"So only I can tell what the exact abilities are?" Alice wondered, quickly relaying the data to the other girl.

"Interesting. I wonder if the Magic power and Mana have an effect on Durability. I guess Mana doesn't since the Skill is passive and there is no mention of it using any, or is there?"

"No, there is no mention. You think I should try breaking it? To see how much the Skill actually does."

"Go ahead. It's just a stick anyway," Ava agreed.

Alice grabbed each and of the stick with one hand... For a moment, she looked confused at the stick, then at her left shoulder. With a wry grin, she passed the stick to her girlfriend, "Do you mind doing the honors?"

"Y-yeah. Sure," Ava looked uneasy but still grabbed the stick.

With a snap, it broke in half.

"It was definitely a lot harder to break than I had thought," for a moment, Ava fell into contemplative silence.

"You know what? I wonder what would happen if you bind a soul to a magic crystal."