Chapter 334

  A Hand, A Foot, And A Mouth Disease

  You can always have too much of a good thing. I learned this early as a kid. Too much water makes you drown, or have so much cytolysis that your body will eventual die due to water intoxication. Not fun.

  It is the thought of having too much of a good thing that draws my attention now, as I am looking at what appears to be a build your own mutated zombie theme park experience of finding lost and discarded limbs. Limbs that all glow with signs of apparent over saturation of mana.

  Yes, Umbra led us to the exact right spot. The spot where he discovered the one corrupted human hand that after chewing and receiving the cure for, produced a case of mild flatulence.

  Pfft.

  Even now I could see the mutated Dire Phase Wolf still having apparent bouts of indigestion, as his body tries to expel the corrupted mana particles producing a near rainbow-like effect thanks to my Angel’s Sight.

  “Eww, I always imagined that sight as a kid, but now seeing it as an adult and in real practice, it’s not as pretty as I thought it would be,” Gwen my ever honest daughter notes.

  “What’s that?” Penelope questioned.

  “Your dog, he just farted rainbows. Well if rainbows started off at the green spectrum and then went out from there.”

  “Oh,” Penelope added then seemed to turn to me for confirmation, I just nod my head. Then as if trying to understand the change she came to the next logical question. “Was he doing this back in the lab?”

  “No,” Gwen answers while she and I Both shake our heads no.

  “Why not?” Penelope asked, as if rainbow colored flatulence was apparently a new standard.

  Gwen shook her head indicating she didn’t know, while I answer with what seems the most likely.

  “I believe his body has just now gotten to the point where it is actively trying to dispel the rotting portions from his body.” I surmised as I turned to face the still squirming pup.

  “Pained whimper.” Poor Umbra quivered slightly, before getting up to try to run away as far as possible, as it did, it slipped into the realm between worlds and took off running into the distance.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Penelope questioned.

  “Probably for the best that you let him go, nature is calling,” I begin. “Besides if we try to get him back, Gwen might break another vacuum.”

  “I was eight mom,” Gwen states defiantly as if that should just wash away everything.

  “It was the best vacuum cleaner we ever had,” I reply nostalgically. Fortunately, Penelope is here to stop us from going too far down memory lane here.

  “Will he be okay?” Penelope asks, a note of concern in her voice as she tensely wrings her fingers together.

  “Yeah, he just needs to find a proper area and he should come back. If not, Kujo here can take us to him, right?” I stated, as I turned my attention to the giant war beast of fur and slobber underneath the three of us.

  Kujo for his part turns back awkwardly to look at me, causing all three of us to have to twist and jostle in our seats. I just glide upwards a bit, but Gwen and Penelope need to use their newly acquired Strength to maintain a grip on Kujo’s back to remain upright. Then once he makes eye contact with me, he nods his head in agreement, before straightening back out and looking forward for any signs of incoming monsters.

  Honestly, Kujo’s instincts are great with the whole watching for unknown predators, as the discarded limbs and body parts tend to show.

  “You know not all of those are human, right?” I ask, when Penelope looks down at a particular set of claws that looks like it could have come from a quadrupedal wolf variant, maybe one of Kujo’s distant and uncured cousins or something. Having that thought, I make possibly the most astonishing discovery.

  Floating away, I go out over the ground.

  Sizzle.

  I can already feel the draw and drain of my energy reserves out here in the Blighted lands, but it is mild. Almost the same thing as one might expect while going to the beach, without actually being able to enter into the ocean. Warm, blisteringly hot, but still not too hot due to the ocean’s presence right there. This is the same, especially after spending a month… there.

  Shaking my head, I dismiss the thoughts of being there and what it meant. Then go back to what is truly important, magic and magical discoveries. That is when I grab the paw that Penelope had been looking at and pull it up to my flying form with Telekinesis.

  Once it is in range, I open my third eye and stare. That’s when I make the most interesting discovery.

  “Oh wow,” I state out loud, as I try to put into words all of the different variables that my mind is now processing.

  “What is it mother?” Gwen asks, a note of concern in her voice.

  That’s when I try to put into words exactly what I was thinking. “First, I want to note that that this appendage seems to be shed by the same exact safety features that the hand that Umbra found for us had.”

  “Meaning what? That all these limbs were discarded as a safety feature for having consumed too much mana?” Gwen asks. Hearing her speak I am glad she is actually paying attention. Also, the still glowing appendages are dead giveaways that something odd is going on.

  At her comment I nod in agreement, then respond, “yes, apparently these new zombie-like creatures are shedding their appendages like diabetics that get golden tickets to Billy Zonka’s candy factory.”

  “Mother,” Gwen chides.

  “What?” I ask.

  Hearing my response, Penelope delicately cuts in, “that is pretty dark.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  At Penelope’s comments I pause and realize while accurate, it might have been a bit too dark. Taking a deep breath to center myself, I focus and then restart.

  “Fine, you are right. It might have been in bad taste, but it still gets the point across. The host body wants energy, be it granulated sugar, or in this case mana. Then tries to get some for the body, only to take on too much, and ultimately causing parts of the body to shut down in response.”

  “Let’s say I believe you on the mana portion, what has you concerned?” Gwen asks, not really wanting to get into a debate over health-related benefits.

  “The concern,” I begin, but then pause as I decide to let Gwen view the same exact appendage and see if she can understand why I suddenly think it is a big deal. “Here you take a look and tell me what you see.”

  With that the appendage floats closer. Even now, in this odd state, I can feel it still partially absorbing part of my Telekinesis.

  “You are going to need to hurry, before it ruptures with excess mana,” I comment remembering my earlier comparison to osmosis, or more accurately cytolysis, where the cells take on too much water and burst. Here these modified cells are still trying to take on excess mana and are soon going to burst.

  Finally, after a few seconds of looking and staring, Gwen eventually gives up. Even after using her normal third eye to see if there is anything different.

  “It looks just like a Dire Phase Wolf’s paw,” she comments.

  “Very good,” I state, before casually tossing the near to bursting paw away.

  POOF!

  Magically infused chunks of Dire Phase Wolf paw burst out onto the sands and open area of this overly hot and oppressive Blighted land. Cascading bursts of glowing and supercharged skin particles dropped and fell to the ground. It was pretty, in an absurd and slightly disgusting way that this world had of trying to normalize violence.

  “What about that did you find interesting?” Penelope asked, her voice curious as she stared at me intently. Yet, as she stared I didn’t feel uncomfortable, as I knew she was only curious about what I had to say and what I was noticing.

  “The interesting thing was that the first limb we found was that of a human, one that was clearly infected with the blight.” I stated, listing out the facts that Gwena and Penelope both nodded their heads at, upon hearing. Then I went in for the new findings.

  “Whereas this new paw, like those of the Kujos had been cured of the blight, meaning what?” I ask, putting the information out there on what was easily a silver platter, but for whatever reason Gwen seemed to miss it, likely because it was such an obvious answer.

  “That a member of the Kujo pack died?” Gwen asked, a note of concern in her voice.

  “What? No, this was a real and Healed Dire Phase Wolf, one that didn’t make the cut to enter the Kujo pack, so it was added to our zoo. A zoo that apparently had a few animals go missing after the war, well now we know were some of those animals went.” I reply, mentally noting that we might want to check and see how many animals are still left in that zoo, and use it to see if there are any new finding we can come up from their now being Blight free for so long. Fortunately, I am pulled away from this tangent of a thought by Penelope, who states my original point I was trying to make flawlessly.

  “It can cross body types, meaning that this new disease is independent of a body having the Blight, or being cleaned?” She asks.

  “Yes, that’s it exactly. This new infection, is immunity agnostic, meaning it can infect a body independently of whether they are being ravaged by the Blight or not.” I conclude.

  Then looking down, I see that an apparently regular dog leg was also amongst the limbs.

  “Ahh,” I let out, seeing the much tinier leg and picking it up to view it to see if my assessments are correct. Unfortunately, a quick scan with my third eye quickly reveals my assessments are correct. This is clearly the leg of a regular sized dog.

  “What is it?” Penelope asks, automatic compassion in her voice.

  “This paw belonged to a pet dog. Likely one that was lost during the battle,” I comment. Then focusing I realize that while this dog might have lost a leg, its saturation level wasn’t so high as to be near bursting, at least not yet.

  Still this gave me a chance to refine my technique, I drop the paw to the ground and focus on what I will do next. Rather than causing IBS, I wanted an actual process that could heal people, or at the very least allow me to bring them back. As it was now, with these foreign anti-bodies within the nucleus of the cell it was tough to get it right. That was why I decided to use this paw as an example.

  That said, I am literally going to try to use magic to fix this thing that explodes when exposed to too much magic, not the best of circumstances but still it is better than nothing. Also, I’m fairly certain that this should count towards my good deeds to fix the war? I don’t know. Then thinking about it, I realize that these altered creatures need to be called something.

  Then a thought fills my mind about the way the big one fizzled and exploded into chunks. While I assumed this paw would do much the same to a much smaller scale. And of course, just as I’m thinking of a fun name to divert away from the horrors of what these corrupted creatures are and do, that’s when the system decides to peer into my thoughts and make them real.

  Chime.

  “Dang it,” I call out loud, trying to get the system to stop whatever it is, it thinks it is doing.

  “What happened?” Penelope asks.

  “Da-uh,” I hiss not wanting this to happen, but I feel my thoughts being pulled from me as the system seems to be able to bypass my mental defenses. That or I’ve gotten too relaxed and am not quite capable of keeping them up full time. Regardless of the reason, I feel the thoughts coming from me as I am now being credited with naming these creatures. “The system seems to think that I named these creatures.”

  “Named them?” Penelope asks, and all I can do is nod my head trying to come up with anything different than the stupid names I came up with to define the new species of canines that are infected with this cell mutation, one that is completely independent of the Blight or other circumstances, making these not one but two new species. I can tell this, as I feel the system pulling and tugging away information related to my Taxonomist (II) title.

  “Oh now, how bad of a name is this?” Gwen asks, her question getting to the heart of the problem directly.

  “It’s pretty bad,” I admit trying to fight with the system. There is a pause where I think I can come up with a new name, anything to describe these new creatures, but of course that’s when my mind draws a blank.

  Looking down at the paw before me, I feel a mental click and chime as the new species is apparently able to be identified due to its paw that was dropped as a form of self preservation.

  Yeah, that’s the name the system pulled from my mind. Then looking around, I saw at least two other paws get marked with the same name. Likely the same dog, I was going to make the joke about the dumb dog who got caught in a bear trap, biting off three paws and was still stuck, but that didn’t seem to apply, for the beast in question clearly managed to get away.

  Of course, my scan of the area, also revealed the other paws related to the same infected Dire Phase Wolf.

  At that exact moment, I feel the system coming to life within my mind, and all but teasing me with my inadequacies of naming.

  Wait? Reading those changes, doesn’t that mean that I effectively just became the source for why patient zero was patient zero? That before this, these Super Fizzy Ploofs weren’t able to multiply? But now they can? I don’t think this is a good thing, and I have a very bad feeling about this change. That said, at least it seems I will have an increased status with these multiplying exploding creatures? I’m so confused. Also, there is still that error with experience, but I think the system is trying to tell me what the issue is and worse it is giving me a helpful way to easily solve the issue.

  Huff.

  I am so lost in the system messages, when I suddenly realize that Penelope and Gwen have both discovered my secret. One that I try to mask and overcome, but in the end it always seems to come to light. The fact that I am apparently terrible at naming things.

  “Super Fizzy Ploofs? Did you really name infected dogs to be known as Super Fizzy Ploofs?” Penelope asks, then not even waiting for a response she continues, “those sound-like different types of tissues, not super scary monsters to stay away from.” Penelope stated, and after she spoke, I could definitely see her concern for the kids. Dang it, she was right, even the stupid sounding super scary monsters would have been a better warning than this.

  “Oh, man, that would have been such a better name, can I get a redo?” I hold up my finger as if asking the world to respond. I realize that would have been perfect, or at least better, and I could have used that when I managed to wrestle slight control of naming away from the system and was given a second to enter something new, but then couldn’t even think of anything.

  Silence.

  Nope, of course no one would go with letting me rename the obviously stupid sounding creatures to something more acceptable. I also don’t think that now is a good time to point out that because I named these creatures, monsters that can apparently infect and alter the cells of other living creatures with a type of parasite that grows and imprints itself into every aspect of a new host, before going dormant and seemingly allowing an increased attraction to mana.

  Again, this form of life seems perfect, other than the fact that it absorbs mana and can die from absorbing too much. Apparently, everyone else is done just waiting around, that’s when Gwen asks the obvious question, “okay, so bad naming conventions aside, what do we do now?”

  Hearing her question, I turn my focus down at the paw on the ground I open my third eye as I begin to try to expel the foreign invader to the cells, while trying to ultimately Resurrect the poor pooch. During this time Penelope just looks from Gwen to me expectantly. Seeing Penelope’s expectant stare, I tell give probably the most badass action line I can think of.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to save this puppy…”