The journey to Tolemac should only take about 2 days, however, as they were trying to stay out of sight from their Notre Dame incident, the team decided to take the long road there, through the dense forest. And as Liam estimated they will need to take about 4 days with their speed, however, that was alright based on what Kyle had to say.

“ 4 days will be more than enough time for anyone to run far away from Notre Dame, by the time we reach Tolemac, the search should have been far away already.” Kyle said “They will never think that we would have the balls to stay in Tolemac, where the Royals and its leaders stay”.

But as they moved forward, one thing remained to be clear, Maria's condition was not going to get better anytime soon. She barely got any sleep. Everynight it was night terror and cold sweat for her. Everytime Maria closed her eyes, the memories of when she got tortured by Gabriel came rushing back, they haunted her dream and slowly took their toll on her physical condition as well. The final night before they reached Tolemac, it was still the same story, Maria could barely sleep at all.

“We have to do something for her,” Luna told Liam. It was their turn to keep watch as the others were sleeping. Well at least Allan and Kyle were, Maria was just faking it, she just layed down and tried to rest without going to sleep.

“Maybe when we get into Tolemac, we will rent a nice place for her to rest rather than camping outside the forest.” Liam spoke.

“Do you really think that is all it takes?” Luna asked.

“No … but that is the only thing we can do. She hasn’t told us anything about what happened to her and even if she did, she still needs to overcome this on her own else she will never truly be free” Liam spoke.

“That sounds like …” Luna was saying.

“ Kyle’s words, not mine” Liam said.

“Do you believe so too ?” Luna said.

“Yes and no. I really think that she needs to overcome it but I don't think that she needs to do it by herself” Liam said. “Time like this we need to show her our support”

Luna agreed, but then the problem still remained: “what can they do ?”.

Time passed by and it was Kyle's turn to keep watch, however, he was not by himself this time. After trying her best to fall asleep and failing, Maria gave up and stood up and went to Kyle.

“ Still can’t sleep ?” Kyle spoke. Maria just shook her head and then sat next to Kyle.

“You know … You can talk to us if you want. I can’t promise you that I can even come close to understanding what you have been through or how much it has affected you. But I can try” Kyle told Maria.

In return, she did not say a word to Kyle for the longest time until she finally spoke out to him “Do you know how our body feels pain Kyle ?”. Kyle did not reply knowing she was going to give him the answer anyway.

“Our body will send a shock wave to our brain and that is how our body could tell that we were in pain and where the pain is coming from” Maria said. “When I was in the Temple, I was put into a dream-like stage. And inside of that prison, I watch myself getting tortured and killed for days”.

“That is not real, it’s only in your head…” Kyle was saying.

“NO NO NO NO NO !!!!” Maria spoke out while her hands were holding onto her head, she leaned forward and started to cry out “It is all real, I can feel every single second of those tortures. The pain rushed through every cell of my body, I could feel everything he did to me and every time I closed my eyes, those images… those pains come rushing back” Maria cried out.

“I’m sorry for coming too late” Kyle spoke while padding her on her back. Her voice woke the other who was still sleeping, they all heard what she said and could understand a small part of the horror that she had been through.

After that, Maria was too tired and cried herself to sleep. It was a heartbreaking moment for everyone who stood witness to the scene. The young woman had been through something that none of them could ever even come close to understanding.

“We can’t leave her like this forever” Allan said, “we have to find a way to help her”.

“Luna, you are our only hope with this one” Kyle said.

“Huh? why ?” Luna replied.

“We need a woman’s touch. Just be by her side for now that is enough, don’t treat her like a damaged person or anything like that.” Kyle said.

“What? Shouldn’t we do everything we could for her at this moment” Allan spoke.

“No, she needs to do this on her own. We will be there for her and offer her our hands when she needs us but she must first stand back up on her own two feet. Doing everything for her, making her feel weak and relying on us all the time is not the way” Kyle replied.

“Are you sure about this?” Luna said.

“Trust me on this.” Liam spoke out. “he knows what he is talking about”

“Enough for now, you guys get back to sleep. We will reach Tolemac by noon tomorrow, be ready for everything” Kyle said. Allan and Liam got back to sleep but not Luna, she stayed behind and had a few quick words with Kyle.

“You haven’t taken good care of the others. But please look after yourself as well Kyle” Luna spoke to Kyle. He looked back at her and smiled.

“Thanks, but I'm fine. You should get back to sleep, it will be a long day for you tomorrow.” Kyle replied.

“The others are too busy with their own issues to notice, but not me. You haven’t got much sleep either, have you?.” Luna spoke as she touched the dark circle under Kyle’s eyes.

Kyle turned his face away immediately, “I’m fine. I will get more sleep when we reach Tolemac.”.

“Lie” Luna shook her head and said “I have noticed that you have slept even less ever since we decided to go to Tolemac.” Luna said. “What makes you so stressed about that place ?”.

“You have very sharp eyes, have I ever told you that” Kyle said.

“Multiple times.” Luna replied. “Now can I get a straight answer out of you?”

“Why would you need to know that?” Kyle said with a cold and uninterested voice looking away from Luna.

“I don’t need to. But I want to” Luna said. ''Are you feeling responsible for what has happened? You know that it is not your fault right ? Don’t be that cliche macho man who always has to urge to protect the other. Like I told you before. We can and have to protect ourselves with or without your help.” Luna turned Kyle around and looked Kyle straight in his eyes as she spoke those words.

“It’s not the past I’m worrying about, it’s the future. ” Kyle said.

“Tell me.” Luna said “I’m serious. If something is really bothering you this much, you can tell me.”

“Sometimes it is a blessing that we don’t know what is about to happen.” Kyle replied “If I tell you this. It might change everything for you.”.

“Just cut the BS and tell me already !” Lna replied.

“Throughout everything we have been through, all of the crazy events and secret missions. Do you notice something in common ?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah, something is always trying to kill us. But that’s to be expected shouldn’t it.” she said.

“Time, Luna. There is always a time limit.” Kyle said “From the first day, everything we did, they set a time limit for us to finish it. Three days to get out of the forest, 3 days to prepare for the heist, one week to ruin the wedding day, and so on. But when it comes to when we will have to face the final boss, to earn our way home, there is no time limit to be seen.”

“Isn’t that a good thing. We can choose our own destiny then.” Luna said.

Kyle laughed hysterically “ Do still remember what the Lady with blue hair told us. We are being watched. And for them, it is just fun and games. We are nothing more to them than characters in a videogame or in a movie. They don’t care what will happen to us. If they get bored, who is to say they won’t throw us right to our dead.”

Kyle's voice then turned deeper and more serious “You guys probably haven’t noticed. But ever since we came here, we have been following orders from the game. Without much of a choice, they told us where to go. I mean think about it. There is just too much coincidence. The Lady told us to head to Débutant town, then the only road from it led to Casablanca City, where we somehow met probably the most important character in that city on our way. Then everyone we asked always told us to head to Notre Dame. And of course shit happened there too and forced our hand. And now we had no choice but to head to the nearest place to hide, Tolemac.”

“That is … indeed too much of a coincidence…” Luna said in deep thought.

“It’s a script they had for us. And we are just making it come to life for them.” Kyle replied “There are already hundreds if not thousand that came before us. And they all shared the same fate. Do you know what they must have in common ?”

“They must have gone through what we have. To entertain those people. To follow every crazy event that they had planned.” Luna replied.

“And they all failed.” Kyle said in a cold hard voice “If we continue to follow everything they want. Then we will share the same fate. We don’t know when we will have to face that Demon Lord or what ever the fuck they called it. It could be tomorrow, it could be 5 minutes from now or maybe even 50 years from now. Knowing the fact that we will have to face something unimaginably difficult that almost no one before us had ever successfully done, but not knowing when, it terrifies me.”

Luna was fully shocked “You …. afraid ?”

“I’m only human. No matter how strong and crazy you all think I am, there is a limit to what I can do.” Kyle said “I envy them. Being able to rest easy at night not caring about maybe the Demon won’t just show up and kill us off right that moment. Not knowing when to anticipate it, but knowing for the fact that we are definitely far from being ready for it ... I just can’t close my eyes.”

Luna placed her hand on Kyle’s shoulder “You have been keeping it all to yourself this whole time. It must have been such a burden on your shoulder. I wish we could have shared it with you.”.

“Get some rest, Luna.” Kyle said “Forget about what you just heard if you can. It will make your time here just a little bit easier.”.

Luna replied “You too.”.