Sacred surgeon sacrifice

Cheep... What if you were to give the girl one of your eyes using the Sacred Surgeon spell. That way, she may be able to perform the task. Although extremely risky, it is currently our only option...

I can’t believe I’m about to do something this insane, Tamashi jested internally, Awayuki’s words playing in his mind on repeat.

There were seven rarities for the System spells, weapons, and artefacts: common, rare, epic, heroic, mythic, astral, immortal. The Sacred Surgeon spell was of the heroic category, making it extremely rare and powerful, as well as quite expensive.

It could heal almost any physical or soul wounds, as long as the patient was still alive. Its main drawback was that it required a lot of mana for the really difficult surgeries. But there was a workaround for that, as well. The healer simply had to find a donor—either a living human or a recently deceased corpse—to take the part they needed from. Well, as it turns out, the donor could be the surgeon themselves, as well.

So, with no other choice but to sacrifice his own eye in order to save his life, as well as Awayuki’s and Uyumi’s, that was the decision Tamashi made.

“Awayuki,” Tamashi sighed, taking a deep breath. “Please use your cold to make the area around my right eye as numb as possible. If any serious damage occurs, I’ll just heal it, since I’ve got Sacred Surgeon for another fifteen minutes.”

The way Tamashi managed to get his hands on a spell as rare as the Sacred Surgeon was rather simple. He had, once again, cheated.

Kchámolié dice of ERROR!: an artefact of the heroic category. Usually, it appeared as two completely ordinary dice. One was made from polished white marble with a golden tint, the other with smooth obsidian, embedded with faint traces of ruby. If a person were to use them individually, nothing would happen. However, the moment the dice were thrown at the same time, by the same person, they would become illusory, as if fading out of the fabric of reality. Then, they would somehow merge and multiply at the same time. Light would grow distorted around the dice, and when they finally stopped rolling, they would return to normal, exactly the same as before they were thrown. Only now, an inscription would be carved into the ground, naming the acquired spell that the dice user would gain.

That’s right, these dice were nothing but a fancy, and extremely expensive, way to gamble. The artefact had a twenty-four-hour cooldown before it could be used again, and the spell it granted would only last for one hour.

Normally, anyone sane would not buy such an artefact, since the crafting recipe alone cost 100 million coins.

Tamashi, though, had found a loophole.

Before the name of the spell the dice gave fully appeared, the ground would glow with one of five colors: blue, green, purple, yellow, or pink. Each color represented one of the five rarities the dice could produce from the Spell: common, rare, epic, heroic, and mythic.

Usually, if a person were to roll blue or green, they couldn’t do anything about it. Tamashi, however, could. All he had to do was use the Fall Asleep spell right after the color of the text appeared, and the whole process would be reset, giving him another chance; he could do this for as long as he wished, basically guaranteeing a spell of the heroic rarity at a minimum—given he had the patience for that.

So, as a precaution, Tamashi spent close to four hours resetting the Kchámolié dice of ERROR! by falling asleep for one second at a time before he finally got a heroic-level spell: the Sacred Surgeon. While that wasn’t the most useful of spells in combat, it was probably the most powerful healing spell Tamashi knew, so he definitely wasn’t going to complain, especially now, when the spell was about to save his life.

“Awayuki, are you ready?” Tamashi checked with his fluffy companion one last time.

“Cheep!” (Ready!)

“Uyumi?” Tamashi inquired, making sure the girl wouldn’t do anything stupid.

“I-I’m ready,” Uyumi responded with a shaky voice, making Tamashi worry a bit.

“Alright,” Tamashi declared, “let’s do this.”

Tamashi put his left hand over Uyumi’s right eye socket, while Awayuki almost froze his face, numbing it as much as he could without it literally falling off.

Then, Tamashi started his incantation:

“With the power granted to me by the unreachable heavens, with the knowledge of my predecessors rooted in my mind, with the pride of all who heal the wounded...”

Tamashi’s chest started emitting a radiant white light, which was pulsating in sync with his heartbeat.

“...I, Tamashi of the Ume, a Sacred Surgeon and a miracle of the heavens, offer my right eye as the sacrifice for this divine operation...”

Right as he said those last words, the pulsating white brilliance moved from his chest to his right eye in a split second.

Despite Awayuki’s efforts, unbelievable amounts of pain coursed through his entire body, before focusing on a single point—Tamashi's right eye.

He wanted to scream and curse, but couldn’t, since a single wrong sound would disrupt the incantation, and Tamashi would have to start all over again. So, he just gritted his teeth and bit his lower lip, causing a drop of blood to seep out, only to immediately freeze because of Awayuki’s influence.

“...To Uyumi of the Amane, a pitiful human in need of sight, who has suffered the world’s cruel darkness.”

The pure white glow first moved from Tamashi’s right eye back to his chest, before traveling through his left arm into Uyumi’s right eye socket.

She flinched and let out a startled and painful yelp, but managed to stay still, while Tamashi continued.

“Oh, I pray for the blessings of the almighty heavens, grant this lowly servant of yours this gift, permitting this Sacred Surgeon the use of the power of miracle.”

The brilliant light turned from perfect white to rich gold, shining even brighter than before.

Seeing the incantation has been successful so far, Tamashi finally uttered the last sentence.

“With this gift of the Gods, I thus end this divine operation and offer my eternal gratitude to the eternal heavens.”

After Tamashi was done, he promptly removed his hand, and the golden light gradually receded from Uyumi’s face.

Tamashi exhaled in relief and collapsed on the ground from exhaustion, while Uyumi, who had her eyes closed again, was still kneeling in the same position, looking like a statue.

“Did... did you say you offered me your... eye?” Uyumi slowly asked, unsure if she had heard him correctly.

Tamashi rested on his elbows and answered while studying her face carefully, a tiny part of him worried something may have gone wrong.

“Why don’t you open your eye and see for yourself?”

Hearing those words, Uyumi gasped. She started breathing heavily and shivering, before finally gathering the courage to do as Tamashi advised.

As her eyelids slowly opened, it revealed her left eye socket was still empty; however, her right one was not. Instead, a beautiful eye of azure color was now presented on Uyumi’s bewildered face, as she slowly blinked and looked around for the first time since losing her vision, which she had thought would be permanent.

As her brain finally adjusted, the first thing she saw was Tamashi’s exhausted face, with Tokyo’s ruins as the background. What stood out the most was Tamashi’s right eye, which was now entirely missing—removed so cleanly one would think he never had two eyes to begin with.

Tears slowly started forming in Uyumi’s new eye, as well as in her still-empty eye socket. Tamashi grunted, annoyed.

“What, not happy with me and this hellhole being the first thing you see after so long? Well, too bad.”

He proceeded to stand with a painful grunt and summoned his marvelous polearm from his inventory.

“It won’t be long before I lose the Sacred Surgeon, so let’s get on with it. I will now lend you this spear. After a few practice swings, you will cut off my right arm here at the shoulder. That way, you won’t be the useless burden you were before, actually helping us survive. Understood?” Tamashi explained while pointing to his right shoulder with the polearm's tip.

Uyumi stared at the polearm for a bit, then at his right arm and shoulder. After some hesitation, she agreed.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” she replied resolutely, already reaching for the weapon.

“Wait a sec,” Tamashi stopped her. “I’ll make it shorter so it’s lighter and easier to handle. I don't want you chopping my head off by accident.”

The polearm’s handle began shrinking, becoming much smaller—only about twice the blade’s size.

He was about to hand her the spear when his expression suddenly shifted, and he shouted: “Get down!”

Uyumi did so without hesitation, immediately crouching and covering her head with her hands.

A split second later, Tamashi’s strike whistled right above her as it cut something down in one swift motion.

While Uyumi had no idea what was happening, Tamashi grabbed her by the waist and jumped down from the roof without a second thought.