Chapter 45: A Sacrificial Arm

“Hey! Where’s the scanner?” I noticed a small hexagonal part under the giant laser cannon of the mechanical spider.

(It seemed like this spider had a cooldown after firing that super laser, so I got a chance to observe it carefully.) The scanner was almost identical to the palm scanner on the magic cannon in the palace, with that same pale blue crystalline plate.

“So if I touch this, will this big spider break too?” I felt a surge of hope!

“Princess, is there something under the spider’s cannon?” I shouted. The noise from the mechanical spider’s movements was deafening. But before I could finish, another laser swept toward me. I ducked my head quickly, watching a beam as thick as a palm slice past my face.

“What?” the princess replied, her voice exhausted. From the clashing metal sounds on her end, I could tell her attacks were slowing down.

“Is there a palm scanner there? The one I pressed in the palace! The one that broke the magic cannon!” I didn’t know what it was called, so I kept describing it.

“Yes, there is! It looks similar! Oh! Should I bring you over? Wow!” The princess seemed to get knocked. “No, I can’t reach you at all!”

“Ah, okay! I’ll figure something out!” I shouted back. (Even though I was screaming at the top of my lungs, my voice was still ridiculously cute.) I didn’t know why I said that, but at that moment, a very bold idea formed in my mind.

‘Should I throw one of my arms over?’

I really didn’t know what I was thinking, but I figured losing a leg or an arm was better than dying here.

I had finally met so many normal people! I didn’t want to die in this godforsaken place!

‘Forget it! I’m going all out! Which hand was it in the hall? Oh, left hand. Good, very good, excellent. Left hand. Left hand.’ I swallowed, enduring the sharp pain in my right leg, and tremblingly stood up while bracing against the wall corners.

I didn’t know what expression was on my face now. Fear of death and amputation? Hope of survival? Dread of what I was about to do?

Either way, I adjusted my breathing. “Inhale… exhale… inhale… ha…” From my several previous reckless peeks, I learned that the lasers came horizontally, diagonally, or vertically.

So to avoid being ridiculous, I’d better choose a vertical cut and stick my left arm straight out.

‘Then, chop it off…’ I swallowed again. Sweat covered my head. This was self-mutilation, dammit!

Then I’d find a chance to throw my hand to Princess Qiaolu. Yes, that’s the plan.

I took off my shirt and tucked it into my skirt, so I could tear off a strip to bandage my arm after it was cut.

I twisted my body repeatedly, imagining what I should do, and muttered, “When you see a vertical laser, spin back quickly and stick only your left arm out!” I repeated it three times.

“Ha… ha…” I panted continuously. Honestly, I was about to die from nervousness. My heart was about to jump out!

I steadied myself, peeked out, and stared intently at the mechanical spider’s little tentacles.

Suddenly, a vertical laser slashed down!

“Now!” I spun back quickly and stuck my left arm outside the wall. With a teng sound, my pale white left arm fell onto the ground covered in my blood.

Then an overwhelming pain instantly shot through my nerves.

“Ah!” I let out a miserable scream. My childish wail echoed through almost the entire ruin.

Though the sound was incredibly cute, its shrillness was impossible to ignore. Even the listeners felt the pain. I felt it myself. My face twisted, tears streaming uncontrollably.

I breathed heavily, plopped down on the ground, saliva dripping from the corner of my mouth.

My left arm was gone. Blood kept flowing. It hurt! It hurt like hell!

“What’s wrong?!” the princess asked worriedly, but I had no mind to answer.

This was my left arm, connected to my heart! I quickly used my right hand to grab my shirt and bit off a strip of cloth with my mouth, then wrapped it around the remaining stub of my left arm.

I held one end of the cloth in my mouth and the other end in my right hand, pulling it tight.

“Mmph!” The sharp, burning, and icy pain made me groan through clenched teeth.

“I can’t… ha… I’ve lost too much blood… I need to throw my left hand over quickly…” I was almost fainting.

I didn’t care about anything else. Right now, I had to immediately throw my still-warm left arm to the princess.

“Princess! Catch!” I shouted with the last of my breath, lunging forward to grab my left arm and toss it toward her.

But as I shouted, my vision began to darken. Severe blood loss made me collapse to the ground, losing consciousness.

But just before my vision went completely black, I seemed to see the spider crumble and fall apart.

“Ha.” I let out a faint laugh, then fell into complete darkness.

“Ah… am I dead again?” My vision was pitch black. I couldn’t feel where my body was.

“Ah… hahaha, I can’t believe I actually threw my own hand. Haha.”

I thought blankly. I really admired myself.

These past few days had given me a whole new understanding of death.

Sometimes I thought dying wasn’t so bad, sometimes I feared it, then wanted to die again… Now I didn’t know how I viewed death.

But at least, I felt this death was meaningful! At the last moment of my life, I made a great decision.

“Heh, cutting off my own arm. That would never have happened in my original world… heh.”

I recalled the stupid thing I did in the ruins.

“Maybe… because I’ve experienced it before, I dared to do it.”

After all, this wasn’t my first time losing a limb, hahaha…

“Hey!!! Is anyone there?! Where is this?!”

I called out alone in the pitch-black environment.

“Is anyone there?!”

But no one answered.

Everything around was still dark. If this were an anime, it would save a lot on animation costs!

“Wait, is it… that goddess from last time?”

I suddenly recalled that in the Demon City, I seemed to have killed the goddess… just because I asked her my name once.

“Oh my god. No way. Did the divine realm get deleted because the goddess exploded last time, so I have to stay in this black world forever?!”

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