He opened his eyes and found his vision blurry. Raising his hands, he realized that he was alive. His wrists were hurting and from how he was hurting.

Two bruised ribs.

A two-degree burn on his side and there was something else. Something that was weakening his body. He felt tired and yet he wondered how he could have lived. He looked up. And saw the figure of Mana sprawled on the floor, broken, wounded, her legs were burnt alongside her back.

Gabrio moved. He forced his weakened body up and crawled using his elbows. He leaned on the side of the tree. Then realized that his hands were shaking.

He couldn’t move his jaw and he had to set it. He held on to his jaw and arranged it forcibly and he arched his back in pain. He spat blood and blinked. He reached out for his kit, and inspected her burns and wounds.

You didn’t have to do this. Why? Because you wanted to pay it back? I’ve no need for it. A doctor saves, and shouldn’t be the one needing saving.

He started by taking out the water he used to treat wounds and carefully poured it on her wounds. He reached out for the medicine he was planning to treat the infections of the people in Lord Seke’s domain and instead treated her with it.

Gabrio didn’t notice that there were spirits watching him. These tiny balls of light watching his action. One of them was a gray spirit who had been keeping a strange cloth on its body.

Gabrio didn’t notice. His attention was on making sure that all the wounds on her body were being treated. He didn’t have time. She was experiencing shock and the severe burns on her meant that it might be because of infection. Gabrio wasn’t sure what the constitution of the Elven was and though he had seen illustration from the tome. But right now Gabrio didn’t have the luxury to be hesitant.

His mind was focused. His fingers moving and before long he found her breathing rightfully. For good measure, he wrapped her burned wounds with gauze and moved her body to a place with a shade. She was placed in a canvas and was wrapped in a blanket. He left the extra clothing he carried on the side, and finally focused on his wounds.

I can’t breathe with this bruising. I probably have a concussion, and my side has burns, not as bad as she has, but it must have meant the light I saw was hers.

Gabrio could remember that saving light. He had tried to fling her away. It was not because he didn’t care about his life. But it was simply because it was what he thought when looking at the situation. He had tried to save Ristina’s friend. It was his own choice and he had no regret for doing what he did.

No need to think about anything else. Just save her as best as you could.

He would have done it to everyone. That’s what he was good for. He was hurting all over and this thing that was wrecking his body made him sure that there was something else other than burns that was corroding him.

It’s going to kill me. Ah, I thought I escaped out of that place. It seemed that I was too hopeful.

Then Gabrio turned his eyes to Mana. She could read the fleet, but he has no idea where they were flung. The air was different in this place and it was warmer. It was a heavily vegetated jungle and Gabrio lamented that he didn’t bring enough ammunition for his pistols.

“To think that I would result to this,” Gabrio fished out the needles he prepared for his patients. He injected one and let his head rest on the tree.

“Ah,” he moaned. “That’s good.”

The pleasure of the opiate was numbing him. It was a poppy drug that his master had taken to make sure he would be able to last long enough.

“And I said you were crazy when you were taking this. I guess it isn’t as crazy as I think now.”

That drug was the worst. It made him violent. It made his Teacher lose his mind at all the shadows he was seeing. But there was a time where he would look at Gabrio and that violent desire would calm and the Teacher that he knew would return.

“How did it end up this way?” Gabrio muttered. He knew he had to vocalize his thoughts unless he wanted to go crazy.

Not today.

Not yet.

At least, I want to go home.

Sleep in my bed in the Galleon.

One step at a time. The task is impossible.

How do I reach it?

No, don’t let that thought come in your head. Just lift up your legs, then set them down, again, and again until you reach home. The end is my failure, and at least I’d die back home. Not in this forest. I need to get her home.

“That’s what a healer would do,” Gabrio said.

His eyes lost light for a moment before he suddenly inhaled air sharply. He coughed. His lower teeth chattered and he was breathing heavily.

But surprisingly, the calm went back to Gabrio’s face. Like a switch was flipped and he reached out to the sky as if he wanted to grab something.

“Light…”

He reached it out desperately then cried out as if he was robbed of this light. Gabrio let out a hollow laugh as he then slapped both of his cheeks.

He crawled to his bag and checked out the medicine that he had. He also checked the fallen branches and started wrapping his bruises with the branches acting as braces for his limbs.

His eyes were blurry, and it was probably the concussion that did it. Gabrio didn’t want to stay in this forest for too long. That was one of the ironclad rules of the people he was taught by.

“Still, was that light causing this?”

Gabrio observed Mana. He didn’t know what that was, but that light he witnessed simply saved them. She had saved him from the grasp of death.

An Elven-kin’s beauty was no joke. Even at Mana's injured look, Gabrio, despite what he had seen, he couldn’t resist looking at Mana’s body. It was hard to resist when she was simply beautiful. But instead of lust, he only felt aching guilt.

A guild that made him think less of himself. “You bastard,” he mocked himself. “You got saved and this is how you’d think. No wonder you got thrown to this place. Repay her. It doesn’t matter.”

That momentary guilt turned into will. She was not waking up so he steeled himself and dressed her using the clothes he had spare. It was men’s clothes, but right now she needed the change.

“Shit, it looks like that monster caused her a lot,” Gabrio carefully dressed her and laid her down again. He then turned his attention to the backpack-chair he crafted using the fallen branches, the canvas that he had and the vines to act as a harness so she won’t fall. Even if she was elven-kin, she would need time to heal.

Gabrio was confident that the attack she suffered that both saved their lives were causing this semi-comatose state of hers. But even though she was in this state, the spirits naturally were attracted to them and this bothered Gabrio. Spirits attracted light, and their curious concern to the spirit-blooded showed their attitude to her. Even at the farthest part of the world, they existed and watched over their family.

“They are lucky,” Gabrio heaved the backpack-chair combo and bit his lip. Though he was confident in his body strength. This thing wreaking havoc in his body was making it hard for him. He didn’t think of the pain. He persuaded himself, again, and again to keep moving forward.

The area was thicker than any forest he had been. Climbing a rough hill, he was able to circle around the narrow pathway up this hill until he found himself on top of the hill.

“You have to be shitting me.”

Other than the spine of the world and its curves. Gabrio was sure that although they were still in the spine of the world. He was far from the place that he wanted to be. He couldn’t see through the horizon with the cold mist forming above the trees.

It was simply an endless sea of trees. Behind him was snowscape that reached the horizon line. He couldn’t see the sea either. Not even the gigantic gate that towered in the center of the continent.

“I don’t have enough time,” Gabrio said to no one.

“I cannot go home.”

He was too hopeful about his situation. His body wouldn’t last with the affliction in his body wrecking him. It wouldn’t be long until his whole being collapses and he was sure that he wouldn’t even last five months. With the drugs that he had, he could survive, endure, and make it halfway.

If he abandoned Mana right now. He would be able to survive for more than five months without the strain.

“But I cannot do that.”

He threw his delusion.

He faced the truth that he wouldn’t leave the forest. But she can leave and probably find her way back to the fleet as long as she regains her health and consciousness.

As long as he keeps her alive. She would live. She was an Elven-kin and her powers would allow her to reach the fleet.

Even if he abandoned her. He wouldn’t make it. His body would not last long and it won’t take long for this creepy affliction inside his body to destroy his health completely.

Gabrio, realizing all of this, sat cross-legged on the edge of the hill with his chest aching, eyes blurry, and cheeks wet. He wiped his eyes, and made body-shaking sobs before going silent.

He turned to the sleeping Elven. Gabrio stared at her for a moment before nodding and accepting the choice he had made for himself.

If he couldn’t reach the fleet in time. And even if he reaches the fleet in time, it didn’t matter because he was sure that the affliction that was rotting his body was going to take him first.

He was truly afraid.

All that he had in his mind was how the affliction was weakening him. The thought keeps repeating inside his head so much that he felt going insane.

The shameful parts of him wanted to give up on her. She was an Elven loved by the spirits. There was no reason for a mortal like him to worry about people like her.

The lesser parts of him wanted to give up and sit down and wait for his end. What was the point of it all? What was the point of struggling when in the end he would still be six-feet under the ground, no matter what choice he made? It wouldn’t matter if she wakes up. The affliction had been spreading and he could feel it.

The hateful part of him wanted to ‘enjoy’ the last moments of his life. There was a beautiful elven woman that he could do anything that he wanted to and no one would know. And even if she did wake up, he was confident that he could maimed her, prevent her from speaking and singing her Artes.

After all, he could blame her for this hopeless situation.

She had saved him, but in the end they were still far from being safe.

And yet despite all of that. The ‘doctor’ that cared told him to stop. He couldn’t allow himself to make those awful choices. He had tried to save her life, and in return she tried to save him. Now he was thinking of such hateful things.

This was the price of his life. A debt that Gabrio of Fort Rava was willing to pay in full. It didn’t matter if it was foolish for him to do so. Even if it meant nothing at all.

He will at least haul a patient out of this.

Gabrio breathed in and steeld himself.

He carried Mana down the hill and steeled himself.