Determined, Kyne tore off a strip of flexible tree bark and tied it tightly around his foot, trying to stop the bleeding. It wasn't perfect, but it would help.
He continued walking, now visibly limping. Each step was a stab of pain that radiated from his foot up through his entire leg. With every meter, he left a trail of blood on the bluegrass, small red stains marking his path.
The day advanced. Kyne observed the forest, distracting himself from the pain by watching the surrounding life. He saw birds with three wings, flowers that sang softly when the wind passed, and mushrooms that pulsed with bluish light.
But as the larger sun began its descent in the sky, something changed.
A headache emerged, not the common throbbing pain, but something sharp and localized behind his eyes. Along with it came a sensation of heat that began in his core and spread to his limbs.
Fever.
Kyne was forced to stop, sitting with his back against a thick trunk. Weakness took hold of his body, mixing with the constant pain in his foot.
Only then did he properly look at the wound.
It was bad. Much worse than he had imagined. The foot was swollen, the skin taut and shiny, with a reddish-purple coloration that extended up to his ankle. Red streaks, lines of infection, climbed up his leg. Yellow-green pus oozed from the entry point.
Kyne observed the wound with a curiosity that grotesquely contrasted with the severity of the situation.
"Definitely infected." He murmured, his voice weak and hoarse.
He thought about what to do. He could try to clean the wound, but with what? The lake water was contaminated. He had no medicinal herbs, no knowledge of this world.
He decided to just wait.
A small smile touched his lips, despite the situation. This would be a new experience, death by infection. How would it be different from poison? From parasites? From impacts?
He remained there, leaning against the tree, watching the sky change from blue to orange, then to purple, as the fever consumed his body.
Consciousness became irregular. Moments of clarity, in which he watched the blue ants climbing the trunk behind him. Moments of delirium, in which the branches of the trees twisted into familiar shapes. His parents, the knife in his chest, the Steel Eagle.
Two hours after sitting down, it came.
His breathing became shallow, then irregular. His heart, which had been beating fast from the fever, began to fail in isolated, spaced, weak beats.
Kyne closed his eyes, not in fear, but in acceptance.
The darkness was peaceful this time. Like falling into a deep sleep after an exhausting day.
...
[You died from an infection.]
[You received: Basic Immunity to Bacteria (Rank F-)]
[You will respawn in 3… 2… 1…]
Kyne was reborn with his foot completely healed, no swelling, no pain, and no fever. He took a deep breath, the fresh air of the now advanced night filling his lungs.
"It seems I can die easily and quickly from any, absolutely anything around here." He observed, standing up and testing the foot that hours earlier had been gangrenous.
"That must be because of my rank, right?"
The question went unanswered, echoing in the nocturnal forest.
He looked around. Night had fully fallen now, the giant moon bathing everything in bluish light. And with the night came the cold, a damp, penetrating cold that made his skin prickle.
Beyond the cold, a new sensation. Sleep. A deep tiredness that weighed on his eyelids.
"Hmmm." Kyne murmured, rubbing his arms to warm himself.
"I think I'll sleep around here tonight. But I need a campfire. This cold is kind of annoying."
There was little time left before the two suns completely set, but it was already dark enough. Kyne began to work.
He gathered dry branches, some fallen, others broken from trees. He found smooth stones to create a containment circle. The hardest work was creating the fire.
He tried the friction method, spinning a stick rapidly against a base of dry wood. Thirty minutes passed, his arms aching, his hands forming blisters, before a thin smoke appeared. Another ten minutes until a tiny ember showed itself.
With infinite care, Kyne blew on the ember, feeding it with thin slivers of dry tree bark. A tiny flame emerged, threatening to go out with every gust of wind.
He shielded it with cupped hands, feeding it with larger twigs, then small branches. Little by little, the campfire grew, first a small fire that barely warmed his hands, then a decent flame that cast shadows on the surrounding trees.
Kyne smiled, satisfied. There was something primitively gratifying about creating fire from nothing.
Night arrived completely. The cold, which had made him shiver before, was now pushed back by the comforting heat of the flames. Kyne sat close to the fire, his back against a warmed rock, watching the flames dance.
And then, as always happened, the thought came.
It was not a rational thought. It was not a practical thought about survival or progress. It was one of those thoughts that rose from the depths of his mind, the same thoughts that made him swallow a stone at seven years old, the same ones that made him jump off the cliff.
Kyne looked at the campfire.
The campfire, with its orange and yellow flames flickering around a blue core, seemed to look back at him.
"And if…"
The sentence was not completed aloud but echoed in his mind. And if? What if he jumped into the fire? What if he experienced death by burning? What would it be like? Different from cuts, different from impacts, different from poison.
What would it be like to feel his skin char? To feel his muscles contract from the heat? To feel his eyes boil in their sockets?
The thought came, and there was no turning back.
Kyne did not hesitate. He did not ponder. He did not reason.
He simply stood up, took two steps back to gain momentum, and then ran toward the flames.
His body struck the center of the campfire with an impact that scattered embers and burning branches in all directions.
For an instant, an infinitesimal instant, there was no pain. Only heat. An intense, oppressive heat that wrapped around his body like a blanket of lava.
Then the pain came.
It was different from anything he had experienced before. It was not a sharp pain like a knife nor a deep pain like breaking bones. It was a pain that began on the surface of his skin, screaming in protest, and then burrowed deeper, layer by layer, as the fire consumed him.
Kyne opened his mouth to scream, but the superheated air burned his lungs, turning the scream into a hoarse hiss. His skin wrinkled, then blistered, then darkened. The sweet, metallic, horribly familiar smell was the smell of his own flesh cooking.
He fell to his knees in the middle of the flames, his eyes wide as he watched his hands turn to charcoal. The pain became something beyond pain, an absolute presence, a single reality that filled every atom of his being.
And then, in the midst of the hell he had created for himself, in the final microseconds before his consciousness unraveled, Kyne Fritz smiled.
Because now he would know what that sensation was like.
...
[You burned to death.]
[You received: Fire Resistance (Rank F-)]
[You will respawn in 3… 2… 1…]