Chapter 172 - Fruit

The piece of paper trembled slightly.

"Y-You just killed it?"

The pale grey of light also let out a faint crying sound, as though agreeing.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"It's not like it was a person."

The piece of paper stuttered over its words.

"B-But it was just running away!"

The necklace turned to the piece of paper with a bit of confusion.

"Why does it matter so much? Even if it was a person, it's not like it was one of us."

For a few moments, there was only silence. The piece of paper didn't know how to respond.

An exasperated sigh came out of me.

"Plus, weren't you the one that killed like, countless people for the sake of your resurrection magic or whatever? I never judged you for that."

The piece of paper let out a few faint groans, almost like it was in pain but suppressed them as best it could so that we wouldn't notice.

"I... I suppose that I am wrong. For whatever reason, my mind still clings to these strange morals."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"If you know, then that's good. Anyways, could you tell me anything notable you see?"

The piece of paper curled up slightly like it was nodding.

"Ok."

We began waking forward, while I turned my head to the side so that the very corner of my vision was ahead of me. It took a little bit of time to get used to looking in a direction without looking directly at it. However, doing so was easy enough because I had already done something similar before.

Keeping my head down and seeing things with only my peripheral vision.

"It appears that I can see certain things, but only if they are in the corner of my eye."

The necklace gasped.

"That sounds a little frightening!"

I laughed.

"Well, it isn't. At least not for now."

The piece of paper constantly twirled around.

"Uh, there seems to be a bush of berries over there."

It pointed using the corner of its page.

I tried to look in that direction with the corner of my eye, but couldn't see anything.

"Hm... I don't see it. Let's try something else."

Like that, the piece of paper continued to point to various locations and described what seemed to be a magical wonderland, but none of it was visible to me. However, that wasn't the case forever.

The piece of paper pointed towards a tree.

"I see a lot of what appear to be glowing yellow fruits. They look like bananas, but are much smaller."

I tilted my head in that direction, but none of us had much expectation. But immediately after, I raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, I see it."

As Noah described, they were small little glowing things in the shape of bananas. Quite a few of them were bunched up together, forming several bunches that hung from the tree. The piece of paper let out a faint gasp.

"Maybe you can touch it?"

I nodded and walked over to it. After wrapping my hands around one, I felt the smooth and silky texture that came with it.

"Huh."

With less hesitation than I probably should have had, I tossed it into my mouth and began to chew. Well, I tried to chew.

The moment it entered my mouth, it began to melt. It was soft, almost like I was eating a cloud. As for the taste, it was bittersweet with a hint of salt. Though I wouldn't like to eat something like this on a regular basis, it was still enjoyable.

The necklace gasped.

"You were able to eat it!"

The piece of paper trembled.

"Why did you do it so easily! What if it was poisonous?"

After swallowing, I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know. This is the easiest way to find out though."

The pale gale light let out a curious humming sound. It slowly got closer to one of the fruits to the point it touched it. Then, it began to cry soon after.

The necklace hurried over and comforted it.

As for the piece of paper, it let out a soft sigh.

"It appears we can't consume them because... this is the form we are in."

I nodded absentmindedly before eating another one. It quickly became apparent that these things were quite filling despite their small size. The black fruit was obviously far above it, in a league of its own, but that fact still stood.

After just the third glowing fruit, I felt extremely full. It would be quite hard to make myself eat anymore.

However, there was a reason I wanted to continue.

"I can... see things."

Though it was blurry and seemed to be coming in and out of my vision, I saw what appeared to be black gas. Mixed in between were countless shadows of various beings, however, their figures were not only incoherent, but vague.

It was like I just took a peek at the monsters that were hiding around me.

Then, like it was all a dream, I couldn't see any of it anymore.

The piece of paper turned to me, its voice filled with curiosity.

"You see something? What do you see?"

I rubbed my chin with my thumb and forefinger.

"There were shadows after I ate these fruits. However, it only lasted for a few moments. I probably have to eat more of these and eat them fast for that to happen."

The piece of paper paused for a moment.

"...If that is the case, it appears to be a progressive system. The more you travel down it, the more you can see or touch."

I nodded.

"Well, I guess I have to work up an appetite."

Suddenly, wild gales of wind whipped around me as my skin tore open. I immediately began casting the growing spell. At the same time, I moved my only hand to the stump on my shoulder and peeled off the flesh.

After all, I lost my arm earlier on.

I grit my teeth in the pain and couldn't help but let out a pained groan. Blood began flowing freely from the wound while my body hurriedly tried to repair it. The process was a little slow, so I decided to pause the growing spell and cast the healing spell instead.

In a few moments, the wound regenerated, but the actual increase of my arm was unbelievably small. I was forced to tear it open again and casted the healing spell once more.

My body sent countless panic signals to my brain, begging it to stop. However, I resisted my natural instinct for survival and continued to peel away at my skin.

It did not take long for me to feel hungry once more, as I expected. And so, I ate another couple fruits.

The necklace trembled.

"...Oh dear."

As for the piece of paper, it began muttering to itself.

"I think that I've done something similar to this in the past..."

Like that, I continued to repeat the same routine. Recklessly tear away the flesh covering my wound, cast the healing spell to repair it, and eat some fruits.

The progress was painfully slow. As Leon said before, the goal of the healing spell was to save one's life, not repair one's wounds. In other words, the moment it sealed up the stump, the healing stopped.

At the very least, a tiny bit of additional flesh grew, making each cycle amount to something. However, it was not much.

After what I guess was roughly an hour, quite a bit of my arm regenerated, almost all the way up to my elbow. In that time, I ate an extremely large amount of fruits. The tree actually only had a few left.

However, that was not going to be a problem. I continued casting the growing spell and targeted the tree. After a few moments, more of these fruits began to form. Though it wasn't super fast, it was growing at a speed that could be noticed by the naked eye, which was still pretty decent.

A strong sense of sleepiness had assaulted my sense. I didn't realize it at first, but these fruits seemed to have the effect of making someone tired. After thinking about it for a while, I realized that fact was a little scary.

The tree made things fall asleep, making them defenseless.

It was probably bad to fall asleep next to these things. However, I really didn't need any help staying awake. After all, the fresh pain of tearing off my flesh was more than enough to make me shake it off.

More than sleepiness, my mind was feeling pain just from processing the messages my body was sending.

And so, I continued the process once more.

The shadows slowly became clearer in my eyes, while the flickering images of monkeys appeared. As time went on, they no longer flickered, but became clear to me even while not in my blindspot.

One of the monkeys was watching me curiously, as though wondering what I was doing.

Then, it suddenly lifted up from the ground and began turning into black ash.