Chapter 84: I Am You

An hour passed with little development, Peace and Yulis still being the only two conscious.

Peace’s injuries hadn’t miraculously healed, and although he’d taken a bite out of the Temple Knights during his fight, doing so again while in his right mind was a bit much, even given the circumstances.

After all...

’That’s the line.’

They were much too humanoid.

So, that method of recovery was off the table. And, unwilling to risk the feedback from another potion, fearing the pain might send him into shock, he simply took the time to catch his breath and adjust to the current state of his body.

Yulis, on the other hand, had taken it upon himself to clear out the area and collect the drops, placing them inside Maura’s subspace bag and squeezing the helmet inside Ralph’s. He left out only one sword, which Peace took, and an armor set that didn’t fit. He’d also dragged the corpses away and brought Ralph and Maura closer to Peace.

Peace grumbled as he lowered his head, then nudged Ralph’s with the sole of his boot.

"Come on, wake up."

With a stern expression on his face, Yulis picked himself up off the ground and began stretching.

"He’s barely holding on as is... let him sleep."

Peace also managed to slowly rise to his feet, using one of the Temple Knights’ swords as a crutch. His new ’trusty’ weapon for the foreseeable future. Though he didn’t know how well he’d be able to use it, given how little he could move his right arm.

’I’m aware...’

Tentatively, he tried to put weight on his right leg, only for it to buckle beneath him.

’Damn!’

Barely catching himself before he fell, Peace braced himself against the wall and looked down at his leg.

It looked fine, but he knew it was anything but.

With time slipping away from them, he needed to find a temporary solution.

’Think, think...’

Peace’s eyes darted from the Temple Knight’s armor to Yulis, then to Ralph’s busted armor.

’Ah... that might work!’

Hobbling over, Peace picked up Ralph’s destroyed pauldrons off the floor.

"I need a favor, Yulis."

"Yes...?"

"I assume you’ve got twine, rope, maybe even sinew... something like that in there, right?"

Yulis nodded.

"Along those lines, yes. Why? Oh— Holy Hope, what are you doing?!"

Peace dropped onto his good knee and began munching on Ralph’s pauldrons. It took a mighty effort, but his teeth managed to pierce the metal, tearing a hole through the crown of one pauldron.

Spitting out the chewed chunk of metal, Peace replied:

"To make a brace and a litter stretcher."

Yulis’s expression grew steadily more horrified.

"How did you— wait, don’t go back to biting it!"

Ignoring Yulis, Peace continued to fashion the pauldrons into a knee brace. He even voluntarily invoked his Hybrid state to puncture holes in the metal, then returned to his Passive state to bend pieces of Ralph’s armor into rods.

Eventually, all he had left to do was shape the pieces to fit.

"There’s something seriously wrong with you... and suspicious."

After threading one of the rods through a gap, then crushing the metal to hold it in place, Peace replied:

"I’d be suspicious of me as well. But trust me, I’m on your side as long as you’re on mine."

"Right..."

Peace slid the unfinished brace onto his knee.

’Now...’

He needed to secure it.

He couldn’t fold the metal over itself to clamp it down because his teeth couldn’t reach.

"Yulis, string."

"D-don’t order me."

"String."

Despite clicking his tongue and souring his expression, Yulis forked over two lengths of sinew, likely bowstring replacements given their thickness and length.

Peace threaded them through the holes he’d made, pulled them taut, then tied them around a hook protruding from one side of the brace.

Once he’d finished, Peace stood upright, putting some weight on his leg.

’Still hurts like hell, and I’ll be stuck moving stiffly... but much more manageable.’

With that taken care of, Peace hobbled over to the chainmail armor set. Then he drew an imaginary line down the middle and began to chomp along it.

Once he’d split it open, he laid the sheet of chainmail flat.

Despite Yulis’s clear confusion over how Peace could bite through metal, especially after denying that he was a monster, Yulis understood what he was trying to accomplish.

Being far more mobile than Peace and accustomed to fine tailoring, Yulis immediately got to work crafting a stretcher out of scraps, something they could drag along the ground rather than having to move each of the three separately.

Well...

The sled he created was barely wide enough to accommodate Maura and Ralph together, or Volkar alone.

"We could just leave Ralph behind, y’know. I could carry Maura."

Shaking his head with a long sigh, Yulis didn’t even respond, as if entertaining that notion was a joke in and of itself.

’Really proving Ralph’s words right...’

About why he’d chosen to stick with hopeful rookies over hardened veterans.

Then again, if they had to leave anyone behind, the clear choice would be Volkar.

Potions were limited and caused exponentially worsening debuffs and terrible pain. That made Maura’s healing essential if they were to have any chance of surviving.

Ralph was their tank and was even slightly stronger physically than Volkar. Without him, every battle would essentially be a free-for-all.

But to-may-toe to-mah-toe, weighing that didn’t matter as Peace wasn’t going to leave anyone behind.

Peace shrugged.

"We could stack ’em."

Yulis rolled his eyes.

"Yes, we could kill them. What a grand idea."

Peace smirked.

"Were you always like this? Or have I brought out the worst in you?"

Yulis frowned and shook his head.

"More like you keep reminding me how alike we are... and I hate it."

Genuinely confused, Peace squinted, then said:

"Alike...? I don’t think we’re alike at all."

Yulis, having made the decision himself, knelt and dragged Ralph onto the makeshift stretcher.

"Ah, what I meant to say is... You’ve really disillusioned me."

"..."

Trudging over, Yulis slid Maura alongside Ralph, barely fitting her on.

"The dry, horrible humor. The pain in your eyes. Desperately convincing yourself there’s a chance of survival... You’re a person no different from me. Of that I’m sure, even if you have white hair, red eyes, and... eat metal."

Taking a drawn out breath, Peace replied:

"For starters, I don’t eat metal, but I can bite through it."