I clenched my jaw shut as my body begged me to scream.

  Thud!

  The massive frame of the boss fell to the ground beside me, but my focus was on my severed hand.

  I picked it up, immediately trying to awkwardly reattach it to the bleeding stump of my arm.

  Once it seemed to be in a sensible position, I took out every healing potion I had and poured it over the wound.

  I knew that the highest grade healing potions would be able to reattach even severed limbs, but I couldn't be sure if even a dozen low level ones could reattach a hand.

  My mind went white from the searing pain of my flesh binding together.

  After a few minutes of continuously pouring healing potions, I began to 'feel' my hand again.

  "God damn."

  It wasn't perfect, as I still felt that my hand wasn't quite right, but the bleeding had stopped, and my hand was attached to my body, so it was an improvement, to say the least.

  After finally breathing a sigh of relief, I checked the window that had appeared as soon as the orc warrior fell to the ground.

  'Actually... what would my contribution even be?'

  The orc I had just taken on wasn't even a true boss; it was the dungeon's sub-boss.

  There would be another sub-boss on the other side of the dungeon, and of course, the main boss in the middle.

  There wasn't much use in thinking about it, as the calculation loading screen had finally finished.

  'Oh?'

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  The reward was better than I had expected; a regeneration trait was something of great value, even if it was just 'minor'.

  As for the contribution rate, I guess it made sense. Most likely, the 2 sub-boss tunnels were worth 25% each.

  Since I had taken out my whole party, it was likely that any contribution they had was rendered null and thus transferred to me, essentially giving me a solo clear of the whole tunnel.

  "Welp, not half bad."

  Looking back at my hand, I hoped that the minor regeneration trait would provide me some help, but that wasn't the case.

  'Right then, let's gobble up this guy and get the hell out of here.'

  Pulling out Blue from inside myself, a different idea came to my mind.

  "Hey, don't you have some kind of healing? Fix up my hand, why don't you?"

  ?

  "Why are you looking at me like that? I know you healed me up that time, so shouldn't fixing my hand up be easy?"

  ???

  "Alright, bro, just eat the damn monster."

  Nod!

  I was disappointed by Blue's reaction.

  By all means, his healing abilities should be far superior to the potions that I had used; the thing had literally brought me back from death, and now it was acting dumb?

  Did I have to die for him to bother healing me again?

  "Whatever, just eat well."

  ...

  After the orc was devoured, I received a slight increase in my magic power and reflex, but nothing else of note appeared.

  I supposed that the orc was less valuable overall than the dozen adventurers I had eaten beforehand.

  Part of me hoped that I would have been able to receive the orc's regeneration, but that wasn't the case.

  If I had that level of regeneration fuelled by infinite mana, I would probably be able to regenerate my whole body from a single cell.

  Anyway, ignoring all that, there was another reward for me to reap.

  Click, Click.

  Opening the chest that had appeared at the edge of the arena, I looked inside to find a pair of ornate silver gauntlets.

  Seeing the description of these gauntlets, my mouth began to water.

  'Literally exactly what I wanted.'

  But before anything else, the first thing I had to check was whether or not I could actually use the spell contained in the gauntlets.

  As soon as I equipped them, I felt them resize around my hands, forming into a shape that fit me perfectly.

  In addition, they felt rather light, even though they were metal gauntlets.

  "Okay, uh, how do I use this... Aegis?"

  As soon as I said the name of the spell, a large shield with a diameter equalling my height appeared in front of me.

  I stood in shock, with the transparent shield of mana disappearing shortly after.

  "This, can't I just stock up on equipment like this?"

  It was definitely abnormal for a mage to be so dependent on equipment to cast spells, but that didn't matter to me at all.

  If I had to become an 'equipment carried' mage, then I'd be one.