D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Content Warning for Marigold’s crazy training

— Kat —

Kat let out a sigh. March had placed her large hand around Marigold and asked “Will this convince you to take things seriously?”

Of course, there was only one response from Marigold, which was to moan loudly and say “Yes harder!”

So obviously March hadn’t learnt her listen like Kat and Lily assumed. “You do realise I can crush your skull like this? It wouldn’t even be hard,”

“Hey, if you’re set on this whole ‘crushing my skull’ do you think you can do it with your thighs? I’ve always wanted to know what that was like!” said Marigold cheerily.

“You do realise that would kill you right? Thyme would be very upset with me… though considering it’s you perhaps not,” said March sternly.

Marigold just laughed, “Oh you think that would kill me? Nah, I can regenerate my head. Got a certificate to say I can do it and everything! Took forever but yeah, nah I wouldn’t die. I might not be able to compete tomorrow, but I’ll be good again eventually!”

*Excuse me… what the fuck? I’m worried about permanently losing an arm. Even if it’s not likely to be a problem now I’m Rank 3… I wouldn’t risk massive brain damage!*

[Yeah pretty sure that isn’t normal… must be a Marigold think.]

March seemed to consider Marigold’s words for a few moments before removing her hand. Marigold just pouted at March prompting Kat to ask. “So… not to pry but… is that really a thing you can do? I’ve got pretty good regeneration myself… but I certainly wouldn’t risk getting my skull crushed… even in a more serious situation,”

Marigold shrugged and said, “Well it might be different for a demon like you but it is something that can be trained in someone with regeneration affinity. It’s hard, and usually not worth it. I mean, there are stories about regenerators that can completely rebuild their bodies from a single drop of blood… and that’s just a thing you can do when you get to a high enough rank.

“I had to put in a lot of time and effort to be capable of regrowing my brain at Rank 2. It was a massive pain in my ass to get done, and not the good kind. So much fussing over me by my parents, and like, I do understand why, but eugh, it probably wasn’t worth it. Took me a massive amount of time to finish the training and I’ve never needed it in a real fight,”

Kat and Lily looked at each other. “Ok… I have to ask… how do you even train something like that?”

Marigold looked around and seeing the eager gazes on everyone that didn’t know, roughly, how it was done decided to explain. “Alright, so… it’s not the cleanest of explanations. Honestly if you’re really squeamish you might want not want to hear the full explanation. The first part is mostly safe but well… I guess I’ll let you know when to cover your ears.

“So the first thing you need to be aware of is that a regeneration as an affinity… well it wants to fix things. It wants to fix YOU. Though for this, most importantly, it remembers. Now, the downside is that it takes forever for a regenerator to learn something that isn’t regenerating. If a fire wizard takes a year to learn a basic water spell, it would take me about a decade. It’s not quite that bad… but not far off either.

“So anyway, you need to train your regeneration a bit. The first thing, is just minor cuts and bruises, then you move onto making sure it DOESN’T heal things like your muscles when working out. Then the step is making them heal faster and stronger, instead of just returning them to how they were before.

“That then leads into… well ok this part is where things start to get a bit uncomfortable for a lot of people, so skip the next seven paragraphs to skip over the most serious stuff. Right, they all gone? So the next part is broken bones. You need to not just fix or regrow the bone, but you need to remove all of the bone shards as well. It tends to be easiest to force them out of the body rather then breaking them down, but you need to be able to do both.

“The step after that is organ repair, something that is surprisingly automatic until you get to your heart. That shit is complicated. You have to be able to keep your entire body functioning while missing your heart and regrowing it. At the same time, it needs to accept your heart being placed back in your chest if possible. So… you get trained by having your heart ripped out and then placed back in, or ripped out and left out.

“No concern for all the bone bits that are just left lying around, and no real concern for all the blood that just pools in the cavity. It is a massive pain to get right. Especially when you regrow half your heart and then have your old heart shoved back in. Still, you need to go through it all to ensure that your regeneration can work out the most optimal way to put you back together.

“Then… then comes the hard part. So, brain damage is a big deal. Healers need to be Rank 4 to deal with everything except minor issues. So you better be sure. It doesn’t just involve fixing things medically, but taking a whole tonne of tests to ensure that you didn’t lose any memories or cognitive functions from… well having your brain damaged.

“The first step of this is having a small needle poked through your eye and through anything else in the way, and then into your brain… and then it’s just left there. You have to get it out, and ensure that you can still see. My father had all the Rank 4 healers in the kingdom watching for problems. Which… I mean that’s like two old ladies and a young looking elf that’s actually around five hundred but anyway.

“So… that was scary even for me. The worst part? Once you get used to fixing it, then you get knocked out with a sleep spell so that you can’t consciously direct yourself to fix it. A lot of people never get past this stage. They just… can’t do it. Now the reason that’s a problem is well… if your head gets crushed you can’t think to fix yourself.

“I did manage it. First try too. I mean, I did all the exercises and practiced healing myself all the time even in my sleep, but even people who reach that stage can’t always deal with the more serious issues while unconscious. Especially at just Rank 2. Anyway, the next step is cutting off the top of the skull, and then a thin layer of brain matter along with it.

“You’ve got to grow back the skull, the brain, and your hair to be considered a complete success. Then it just escalates from there. Next is a strong blow to the temple where you get to deal with bone shards in your brain, then it’s a sword struck straight through the middle of your nose. After that it’s sword through the ears… and then finally you get your head cut off.

“Now, the tricky part there is that you need to be able to regrow a head from your body, and a body from your head. It takes WEEKS to regrow the whole body but I managed it. Once that’s all done then everything else is just a matter of double checking… and doing a whole bunch of written tests to make sure you remember everything you should and you’re still sane,”

“Marigold… what the fuck?” said Lily, who paused when she saw the thoughtful look on Kat’s face. “Don’t you get any ideas Kat,”

Marigold shrugged and said, “Yeah I wouldn’t really recommend it. As I said, I haven’t actually needed to use that training. Sure better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it… but by Rank 5 you can always get away with stuff like that, usually Rank 4, and some people work it out late Rank 3… I just pushed to get it done early. Honestly, the masochism really helps for that kind of training. Pretty sure it wouldn’t been a lot worse if I wasn’t into most of it,”

“I repeat, Marigold… WHAT THE FUCK,” said Lily.

Marigold shrugged and said, “Look, when you spend your childhood training your regeneration pain stops being a problem, and when you start to find it arousing you start escalating and when you’re a regenerator you can escalate A LOT. Most people don’t go… quite so far because of the recovery time. When you can recover by fixing yourself up in your sleep well…”

[Kat. I want you to promise me NOT to do that.]

*But…*

[NO. I do not care how much safer it could make you. I forbid it. I’m abusing my girlfriend privileges for this. You WILL NOT under any circumstances, attempt this.]

*Ok. If it worries you that much. I wasn’t exactly keen on it… but it seemed like a nice safety net. *

[No.]