Minori ground his teeth, chest rising and falling with pained breaths. His left hand clenched the table's edge, knuckles white, while the middle-aged female elf in front of him prepared to reset the mangled finger that Xuefeng had so neatly broken.
"All right, I'm ready now—wait, hang on!" he pleaded, face twisted with apprehension. But the moment he opened his mouth to speak, the elf made her move.
A crack reverberated in the small wooden chamber, and Minori's cry of agony tore through the air. He slammed his head back, nearly biting through the rag he'd stuffed between his teeth in an attempt to stifle his own screams.
"You said you were ready," the woman snapped, exasperated, patting his newly aligned finger to confirm it was straight. "Stop making such a fuss. If you hadn't done something so stupid, you wouldn't have gotten hurt to begin with."
