"Blum Ogma…" Gerald quietly repeated the name and drank a few gulps of water.
He then returned the waterskin and tried to stand up, only to lose balance and fall to his knees. Every movement was painful, but he preserved and used the sides of the wagon to get a grip.
That's then he noticed a horrifying change, and his eyes opened wide. His left hand was not moving!
The silver prosthetic was simply hanging there without life, weighing him down. He focused his mind on the hand and willed it to move, however... nothing happened.
His heart suddenly started beating faster and faster and his breathing became similarly quick and shallow. He couldn't feel Mana anymore!
Panic started to set in, and he ignored his injured body, stumbling out of the wagon with trembling limbs.
"Get up, get up!" he mumbled while shaking his metal hand, however, it remained dead and unresponsive. The anxiety was increasing exponentially, and soon it started transforming into anger.
Blum noticed his unusual behavior and tried to help. "Hey, what's wrong?" He placed his hand on Gerald's shoulder briefly.
"Get away from me!" Gerald roared and struck him on the chest with an open palm. The man's eyes bulged out and he flew back, rolling on the ground for a few meters afterward. Meanwhile, the shout attracted a lot of attention, and a few people came running.
Gerald's eyes darted frantically from one place to another, until his gaze landed on a sword beside the wagon. It was the Orc Slayer.
He detached his silver hand, which was now just a useless piece of metal, threw it aside, and picked up the sword instead. Within a few seconds, and with a few powerful jumps, he then disappeared into the forest.
Soon the warriors came running and arrived at where Blum was laying on the floor, helping him stand up.
"What happened?!" Tabbris shouted after the man recovered from shock.
"I-I don't know!" the man answered and shook his head. He touched the metal plate on his chest where a palm was left imprinted. "Such power… Luckily I had enough padding beneath it." He breathed out a nervous breath and wiped the sweat that started gathering on his brow.
"Where is Gerald?" Sera also came and after seeing he was missing, she couldn't help but ask.
Blum pointed towards the forest without saying a word.
"He's the one that shouted?"
"Yes… He appeared to be having a nightmare before waking up," Blum said and took a book out of his pouch.
"I wrote down a few things here..." He quickly flipped through pages of words until he arrived at the most recent page.
"Here, it was extremely confusing, so I wrote it down. He said something about being hungry and killing, then he laughed… it was creepy. He also mumbled something about monsters and snakes and then he repeated the word 'fang' many times in the end."
Blum then closed the book, "He woke up soon after that and he appeared extremely confused at first… I tried to help him, but he attacked me and then ran away suddenly. That's all I know."
"That sounds like nonsense Gerald usually says in his sleep, you shouldn't overthink it too hard," Xilia chimed in to express her opinion.
"True," Sera agreed. "Last time he came home, he started to shout about monsters and such in his sleep, it's nothing new."
"Hmm…" Ravian that came with Tabbris expressed his doubts, saying, "Even if that's so, why did he attack him and then run away? His body clearly suffered severe damage, he should be resting! Something is wrong, what if he went mad because of Mana overuse?"
"Could be," Tabbris said while deep in thought. He stroked his chin in a thinking manner while his unfocused eyes stared at the ground. "However, mentioning monsters, snakes, and then a fang… Isn't that the exact description of the Brown Fang from the Blood Sun Viper Sect?!"
"The Beastmaster? Why would it be her?"
"Oh my god! Are they colluding with the monsters?!"
"We're screwed!"
As some started to panic, Tabbris took a deep breath and shouted. "Silence!" He looked across all the faces present, "Even if it is that crazy woman, even she wouldn't do something stupid like that! It's the Goblins and Orcs we are talking about! No man can reason with them, much less a woman…"
"Oh yeah, I might have overreacted…"
"True, a woman negotiating with Orcs… Heh…"
"I don't even want to think about it."
Bleagh!
A guy suddenly threw up out of nowhere.
"I did think about it," he admitted weakly and with a pale face.
Tabbris helplessly covered his face with his hand and sighed. Keeping a group of disorganized warriors was such a pain!
But then, a reflection in the grass attracted his attention. He went to check it out and found a hand just lying there. It was heavy and made almost entirely out of silver.
"Wait a minute…" Tabbris's eyebrows shoot up as he suddenly realized something.
Wide-eyed he suddenly shouted, "Did he lose his magic?!"
***
Gerald ran through the forest as fast as his body allowed him to. He rushed through the bushes and low-hanging branches that were hitting his body.
He just ran until he had to stop due to pain and exhaustion. His body was covered in bandages, but he suddenly started feeling he couldn't breathe, and so he tore them all off in a panic.
His breathing was rapid and shallow, and his body was trembling from shock. His skin looked like it was torn into a thousand pieces and then put back together. Lines of wounds lined his entire body, and scabs already started forming in certain places. Only now, due to his overexertion, many reopened, and fresh blood started to seep from these wounds.
Sitting down beside a tree, he buried his head between his knees and hugged his legs. The sword lay beside him.
"I can't…. I can't use it… It's gone…" Barely audible words escaped his quivering lips as he repeated them over and over.
Every time he tried to feel or cast magic, either nothing would happen, or he would get a headache that made him wish he was dead.
Losing his magical powers was one of the most dreadful things he ever experienced. Even death didn't scare him as much as the fact that his magic was gone.
After all the struggles he experienced to reach his height, the freedom of flight, the overwhelming firepower, the fun tricks that magic allowed him to do…
It was all gone! In an instant! Stranded in a world of magic while being unable to use it... It was worse than his most terrifying nightmare!