"I understand..."
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but our last contact with your son was two weeks ago. You know how these areas are."
"Oh, yes, of course."
"And don't worry, the compensation for his death will be deposited today."
"..."
"Well, I'm going to go now."
"..."
I closed the door right after the two men left. My heart was heavy...
My son...
Because of us... Because of me...
I couldn't even cry as I lay curled up in bed. Alone.
Guilt clouding any reaction.
All because of our incompetence as parents...
My son deserved a better mother.
.
.
.
Two weeks earlier...
I stared at the mana stones for a few moments when the big guy handed them to me... Sigh.
"Is there any way to use this?"
[Absorb it.]
"Really? That's it? That's the only thing a constellation can tell me?" I asked, playing with the mana stones, throwing them up and catching them.
I certainly wasn't burning up with energy... Definitely not. Anyone who said otherwise was lying. Anyway...
"That advice is kind of useless, since I already know that. Tell me the truth; you just want to see me suffer a little more, right? My body has low mana conductivity; you must already know that."
[Yes.]
"... Fair enough. But at least pretend a little."
Yeah, there's not much else I can do. I don't know of any other method besides absorbing these bombs, and my time is running out anyway...
And what's a fart to someone who's already shit themselves?
"Big guy, protect me." I smiled, giving a thumbs up without my thumb, in the face of your clear hostility, and shoved the mana stones into my stomach. My pale face lost even more color.
But it was the most efficient way now. I ran my hand through my hair one last time.
Goodbye, for now, my friend.
On top of everything else, I'm going to burn alive now. It would have been better to have died right away.
I smiled, feeling my body combust. A red flame spread for dozens of meters. Burning everything it touched, contained only by the intervention of the big guy.
I looked at my friend, smelling a strangely pleasant odor as my skin melted, seeing how he was doing, but...
My feathered friend really did have his ass turned to the moon. His digestive system was better than expected.
The bond was broken; otherwise, he would be burning now. Or not...
He was different from me. And that wasn't exactly an injury.
Not to mention his high mana conductivity. So, probably nothing would happen.
Bastard. Not even to burn a little bit next to his buddy here.
Tsk, is that what you call friendship? Where's that thing about suffering together?
Of course, I also used this moment for something else. I snapped, or at least tried to snap, my fingers in flames at the moment the bond was broken.
This little show was mandatory.
I hope the big guy believes that I can control whether or not his son suffers. Otherwise, I'll walk, walk, and die on the beach...
Well, now what? How do I control this thing? I'll end up losing about 70% of all this energy, and I might not be able to heal myself completely. No, that's a fact.
I spent a few minutes trying to control it and came to a conclusion...
It was like flying a plane with a Peugeot engine and using the T-Rex itself as fuel.
It's really a waste to use condensed mana for that. I could improve my mana conductivity or create mana circuits normally, but what can I do?
At least it will purify my body, so my mana conductivity will improve by about 10% when I'm done. Work is work, and gain is gain. No one can say otherwise.
My smell really is good...
What a situation, two days ago I was arguing about which was better, breasts or butt, at Zé's bar. Of course, I said I preferred personality...
An abundant personality, full of curves and thick thighs, where I could sleep peacefully, now I'm here burning alive.
Life really is curious.
The only thing we can really do is live it the way we want...
No regrets. Trying and doing what we want.
Yeah, maybe this experience wasn't all bad; I learned something obvious and gained a story to tell my grandchildren. That is, if I manage to get out alive, it doesn't even have to be in one piece, just alive.
What will I do next? I'm kind of tired of living for others...
As I delved deeper into my thoughts, time passed. Minutes, hours, days...
Rain and sun. The darkness of night, too.
And the big guy watched me all the time while my feathered friend recovered as the days went by. He still couldn't fly, but it was something.
It was also something to see him stumbling in his attempts.
Almost two weeks or so had passed when the flame finally went out, and I shook his hand, missing two fingers. My fingers and eye were truly irretrievable.