<Alex, Real - All Dead? Is It Permanent?, 4th Floor of a Burnt Out Art Gallery>

Alex couldn't spend attention on the still twitching former-Initiate, now spider-lady, still bisected on the floor.

He ashed the separated part just to be safe before moving on. After all, the last thing they needed was her recombining and coming after them again.

Alex slashed the ravager who had tackled him, bisecting it and allowing him to ash it, even as he rolled with the landing, returning to his feet.

He did take a moment to glance at the notification that he'd been ignoring, confirming that she was, indeed, one of those they were looking for.

Initiates' Fate Discovered: 5/6

He grimaced, continuing his sprint for where Natasha and Grant were dealing with the last flesh golem, ashing all those he could along the way. After all, he wasn't about to leave bags of health, flesh, and muscle lying about for the flesh golem to claim.

By the time he arrived, the flesh golem was wriggling on the floor in six pieces, and he ashed those as well, paying the higher mana cost to overcome what little of its magical resistance that remained. The others finished the last of the remaining enemies, and he dusted them as well, finally finishing the clash.

Alex and Natasha worked to shift Grant's broken and dislocated shoulder back in place so that Alex could transfuse health over and heal the man.

Grant let out a long sigh of relief and smiled. "Thank you, Alex."

"Happy to help. We're in this together."

The other's smile grew, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

It had been needed, but that healing and last stint of fighting—along with his other fighting and damage taken—brought him dangerously low on his resources, even if he wasn't actually 'wounded.'

Alex Johnson HP: 1448/5840 [5940] SP: 1983/4977 MP: 321/1980

He snorted to himself at the silly fact that his MP was three, two, one, then grimaced again. "I'm… I'm in a bad way, all."

Natasha and Grant held their weapons at the ready even as they looked around, ensuring there were no more undead incoming.

John holstered his pistols—not that that made him any less lethal given how quickly he could draw them—and walked over to spider-lady, the last undusted enemy. "She's not doing so great either."

Alex sighed. "Yeah… I didn't really intend that."

The older man shrugged. "Took her out of the fight when we needed it."

Alex staggered over, his earlier energy that had allowed him to sprint around somehow spent. "True, but… We're here to try to save her."

"Whether she wants it or not?" John cocked an eyebrow.

Alex shook his head. "That's hardly fair. Just because someone is altered to 'like' their horrid state, that doesn't mean they don't need saving."

Natasha grunted, then. "Careful with that reasoning, Alex. You can justify a lot with that sort of logic."

He gave her a hard look, and she shook her head.

"I'm not disagreeing in this instance. I'm just saying that your reasoning could apply to situations that I think you'd not agree with."

He scrunched his nose, considering. Then, he nodded. "Fair enough, but what now?"

Grant came over. "Can you un-turn her, or whatever?"

Alex considered. "Probably? I'm down to around fifteen hundred HP." He was going to continue, but then, he saw the others' reactions and hesitated. "What?"

The three gave him confused looks. Then, Natasha's expression went flat. "Alex? What percentage of your health is that?"

He frowned, looking and doing some quick math. "Around twenty five percent." He shrugged. "Why?"

John shook his head and moved off to the side, pulling out some food before beginning his post-fight routine.

Grant barked a laugh, and he moved off to do the same in the other direction.

Alex frowned, looking to Natasha. "What?"

"That is near enough to two thirds of my HP."

He blinked at her. "You only have a bit more than two thousand?"

"Give or take. How quickly will you recover it?"

"Eleven minutes or so? But I doubt we'll get that time." He shook his head regardless. "But the real issue is my mana."

"Oh? Why didn't you say that?"

It was his turn to give her a flat stare. "I hadn't gotten to it."

She sighed and nodded. "So…? What's the bad news?"

"Three hundred and change. With that, I'm on the edge of being able to un-turn her—assuming my assumptions and understanding are correct—but that will bottom me out."

"Recovery?"

"Just more than seven per minute."

Grant called out around half a mouth of jerky. "Use your mana rejuvenation potion."

Alex hesitated. "But… I already used a health one earlier."

Grant shrugged. "Better to use it than be dead. I think the math works out to that being a full refill for you over the next five minutes. Is that right?"

"And then some… yeah. How did you know?"

"It was just a guess based on what you've said before. So, with that confirmed, it's an easy enough choice. Do what you can, then take the potion before you bottom out. Finish the healing, and hopefully come back close to full. Then, after she's healed, we bring her along the best we can. As the un-turning process is forwarding the quest, the System shouldn't send any new waves at us, because we aren't delaying." He gave Alex a meaningful look.

Alex barely held in his snort. Right, so he wants me to go as slow as reasonable, hopefully staving off the 'get-on-with-it' enemies. He frowned, then gave a slow nod. "Alright. Does that work for you two?"

Natasha nodded, and John glanced up before shrugging. "Fine with me. I don't mind watching for enemies while you get this one sorted. We only have one more floor to investigate."

"And one more initiate." Grant added.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

John nodded before turning back to his guns.

Alex frowned, watching as the man cleaned and checked his guns for the umpteenth time during this outing. "Is that really necessary?"

John shrugged, keeping his focus. "Maybe not, but it's relaxing for me, and it allows me to apply some bonuses. Plus, it gains me experience in my second class so…" He shrugged again. "Seems reasonable to do."

"Ahh, I see." Alex smiled weakly, returning his focus to the task before him.

Natasha narrowed her gaze. "Your stamina is low too, isn't it." It wasn't a question. "You've been pushing hard."

He grunted. "Yeah. I'll eat while I work. Can you… sit on her or something? Keep her from flailing about?"

She shrugged, amiable enough to the idea. "Fine."

They walked over to the spider-lady who was actively trying to drag herself away. Her attempt wasn't very effective.

Alex took a moment to examine her before he knelt down and placed his hand on the woman's low back… what was left of it at least.

He'd cut off one of her legs, splitting her hip just inside that leg. That was a serious injury, and even if he did un-turn her, he wasn't hopeful about the woman's chances at survival afterward.

He remembered the man down in the gallery. He'd been split in half in truth, but this was barely better than that.

"Alright. Healing first, then un-turning… or more likely doing them at the same time."

He poured HP into the undead woman, commanding the HP to fight back the undeath and heal the flesh that remained. He did not try to 'heal' the undead flesh, as he couldn't imagine his magics having a positive effect on such.

The result was that the flesh around the wound slowly became more pink, the blood shifting to red even as skin grew over the exposed insides.

It was seemingly normal, human skin, even if it was darker than Alex's own.

The woman seemed to have been Indian, or Middle-Eastern, before being turned.

Hopefully she will be again… if she isn't still? He frowned, then shook off the unnecessary thoughts.

Soon enough he reached the edges of his mana, his slower pace keeping him from bottoming out his health as well.

Reluctantly, he pulled out the potion of mana regeneration and downed it, the feeling entirely different than that of the health regeneration potion.

This one felt like drinking a vastly over-fizzed soda, but instead of feeling the need to burp, he felt like his mana pool was bloating, even as the MP he had available began to shoot upward faster than even his health usually did.

Over the next five minutes, he continued to work, using as little of his resources as he could to keep the process going.

In the end, he ended up using near to two thousand health and five hundred mana.

That left him topped up on MP, and only barely better off with his HP than he had been.

Alex Johnson HP: 1949/5840 [5940] SP: 1998/4977 MP: 1980/1980

His consumption of food and some rest had helped his SP climb a bit, but not really significantly.

He needed sleep.

He blearily remembered that he had a notification waiting for him, and checked, dismissing it after he saw that it was a repeat, telling him that there was nothing more his Life could learn from 'this' flesh golem about resisting magic.

Returning his focus to the world around him, he looked down. Before him lay the unturned woman, face down and unconscious, naked save the blanket that had been laid across her.

She was missing roughly a third of her torso and her left arm and leg. From what he could tell, his health had been spent to reroute and at least tentatively connect the remaining internals. He had no idea if she could live like this, or if she'd even ever wake up.

But I tried. I did my best. He hitched, then snorted a laugh.

Natasha glanced at him, clearly on the edge of irritation at the seemingly irreverent sound. "What?"

He shook his head, trying to hold off her ire. "I was just thinking that I wasn't sure if this was the right call, but I was still glad I tried." He then tapped the button-pin on his lapel. "Then, I remembered this."

She gave a half smile, her irritation melting away. "Ahh. You did your best?"

"Exactly."

Alex stood, stretching and groaning. Even without any wounds, being low on HP felt like being sick. It wasn't like there was any specific impediment—no specific symptom—but he just felt bleh.

There was no other way to describe it.

He was so, so glad that he recovered HP faster than might be expected. Who knows? Maybe something like this could happen back before the System. It's why some people just died, even with nothing seeming to be wrong with them, or why others said they just felt off at times. Low HP?

It was an interesting thought, but hardly pertinent.

He looked around grunting in irritation of his own.

John was closest this time. "What's up?"

"It's just the nonsensical layout of this building."

Grant threw his hands up. "Thank you! Right? It's clearly been designed for this 'mission' or as a base or whatever rather than in any way that made sense. Imagine having an office's worth of people have to go through your art gallery every day for work? Have we found any bathrooms? Yes, but not many, not easily found or reached. And the stairs? This place would be classified as a death trap in our world."

Natasha grunted, added her two cents. "Video game logic."

"Yeah, yeah." The hammer man shook his head. "Doesn't make it less irritating."

Alex grinned at that.

"What?"

He shook his head. "It's like reading books. There's always something that the author got wrong, and if that's 'your thing?' It ruins it, or at least has the potential to."

Grant grunted in turn, and John laughed. "Yeah. 'Clip' versus 'magazine' was always a big one for me. I mean, come on, it's not that hard to get right."

Alex shook his head. "I almost stopped mid-series when D-Day was referenced as having occurred adjacent to the Mediterranean."

Grant frowned, but John groaned.

Natasha gave Alex a skeptical look. "Really? That seems like a foolish mistake."

Alex shrugged. "Yeah. It really cost me a lot of trust for the editors involved too. Still, the series was good enough that I kept going regardless."

Grant snapped his fingers. "Right! It should have said that it was next to the English Channel."

The other three looked at him. The younger man shrugged. "What? It's not like I think about D-Day very often."

Natasha shook her head. "Americans…"

John huffed a laugh. "Well, at least we aren't overly obsessed with our victories?"

She gave a half smile at that. "I suppose."

Alex regarded her for a moment then decided to go for it. "You know, I never asked: How was life in Russia? You don't really talk about it much."

She met his gaze levelly. "I can't complain."

He frowned, opening his mouth to ask further, when John barked a laugh, and Grant chuckled. "That's an older joke, but it checks out."

Natasha gave a half smile, and Alex decided that he had missed a joke somewhere. He'd figure it out later. "Alright, alright. So… what do we do with her while we clear the last floor?"

"Bring her with us?" Grant suggested.

That got three flat looks before Alex sighed. "Yes, Grant. We aren't going to leave her here on the floor."

The young man lifted his hands in a gesture of acquiescence. "Hey, you're the one who asked."

"So, we bring her along, and whenever we encounter enemies, we lay her down, and John stays close?"

They grunted at that.

Natasha moved closer. "I've some spare clothes; give me a moment, and I'll get her dressed."

The men moved away, and as Natasha worked, they agreed that John would carry the woman, as he had some experience with fireman carries in some of his more esoteric shooting matches. In that way, he wouldn't be too inhibited at the start of any engagement.

Thinking about clothes had Alex remember the rents in his coat. He looked down and verified that, yes, it was still cut. Hoping against hope, he used Basic Life Transfusion to send health into the coat, hoping to repair it.

Unlike with his sword, the coat soaked up the health, rapidly pulling back together. It was very much an undirected process, and Alex felt that it was a bit less efficient for that, but they were in a hurry.

It took barely any health at all to repair the great coat, and when he inspected it, he couldn't even see where the damage had been, unlike all the repairs on his dadao. Natural fibers vs steel I suppose?

And that's all the time he had.

When the woman was clothed and up on John's shoulders, their group moved toward the stairs, checking the whole floor as they went. In the end, they found nothing, but the few minutes did wonders for Alex's health, if not his mana.

Well, we work with what we have. He hesitated then, causing the others to stop behind him. "Oh! You can't complain. I get it."

All three turned to regard Alex in bafflement.

Natasha shook her head. "You've been thinking about that this whole time?"

Alex frowned, then shook his head. "What? No. It just came to me."

John interjected then. "And it took you this long?"

"Hey, I was thinking about other things."

Grant grinned toward Alex. "Not very quick on the uptake, are you?"

Alex grimaced. "Well, forget you all. I thought it was funny, now that it clicked."

They all shook their heads, or otherwise expressed their humor at the delay.

"Whatever… Let's go re-kill the undead."

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