30 Back On Track

"Avic... Avic..! Avic!"

Avic slowly opened his eyes to see Custos and Eliisabet standing over him. He groaned in pain. His head throbbed from an excruciating headache that plagued him. His body also felt quite sore in certain areas as if he had just finished taking a beaten.

"...Ugh... What happened?" He moaned.

"Good. You're finally awake," said Custos with relief.

Eliisabet took a deep breath of relief. For some reason, she had a strange feeling that Avic wouldn't have opened his eyes again. She was glad to see that he was okay.

"Are you hurt?" She quickly asked.

As soon as the words left Eliisabet's lips, Avic threw himself up, immediately putting himself on guard. This frightened both Custos and Eliisabet considerably. He swung his head around frantically as if looking for an enemy. His eyes widened and he seemed to be in a slight state of shock. However, the only thing that met his eyes was a ray of sunshine creeping up over the horizon.

"Avic, is something wrong?" Asked Eliisabet.

"W-where's Gatio?!"

Eliisabet and Custos glanced at one another in visible confusion before turning back to him.

"Gatio? Are you referring to the big guy who summoned that Scarlet Witch? You killed him, didn't you?" Queried Custos.

"Wait, he's dead? But how..? I don't remember killing him..."

"That's what we'd like to know. He had tied up Lori, Eliisabet, and me after ambushing us from behind. But I managed to break free of my restraints and escape. When I got here, Gatio was laying right next to you in a pool of his own blood with a dagger wound to the side of his neck. Are you saying you weren't the one who killed him?"

Avic held his head in discomfort as he tried to remember.

"No... I don't think I did. I remember fighting him after beating that Scarlet Witch but he got a few good hits in on me and then I think I passed out. I don't remember anything after that..."

"Then if Avic didn't kill him, who did?" Asked Eliisabet.

"Can't say," answered Custos. "But we should just be glad that it's all over for now. I'm not in the mood for another fight."

"Hey, where's Lori..?" Asked Avic sadly.

"She's back in the carriage... She's not doing the best right now..."

Avic then looked up at both Eliisabet's and Custos. He could see the guilt that was pressed against their faces. This made sense given that they had brutally murdered Lori's mother by mistake. That wasn't something anyone could accept so easily.

"I don't want you blaming yourselves for what happened... This is all my fault and I take responsibility for it. If I didn't propose to fight that monster then none of this would have happened. As usual, I ruin everything... Damn it..! Nothing ever goes as planned when I'm around... Sometimes I wonder if I'm cursed or something..."

"Avic, we don't want you blaming yourself either. If any of us are going to take the blame then we should accept it equally. We could have debated the issue but we didn't. That makes all of us a little guilty here. But even though all of this happened, I don't believe we made the wrong decision. Since the Scarlet Witch was being controlled by that Sicarius, I believe things would have ended up like this, no matter what we did," comforted Eliisabet.

Avic nodded in acceptance but it wasn't an easy thing for him to get over. However, he knew that they couldn't dwell on it for too much longer. They were still in the Wilderness which meant they could easily be attacked again. It was best for them to get a move on.

"I've got the Scarlet Witch's head," said Custos, changing the depressing topic. "We still need to get to Discite City to present it for our applications so we should get going. We have around a day left at most and we're still a far way out. If we hope to make it in time, our rest stops can only be a total of five minutes at most."

"I don't know. Walking is out of the question now, isn't it? We need transport. Unless we have something that can help us move a lot faster then we have no hope of making it," contemplated Avic.

"Well, we do have transport."

"Huh? We do?"

"Yup. I'm not sure if you noticed but only one of the merchant's horses had been killed. The one that died was the one with syncope. As for the other one, I made sure to take it with us last night to a temporary hiding spot we found."

"But that's only one horse and there's four of us. It won't be able to carry that many people"

"Well, that Sicarius, Gatio, wasn't all bad news. He had to have something he used to travel through the Wilderness and it just happens to be another horse. He left it close to where he had tied us up. So that makes two horses in total. Eliisabet and I can ride on one horse while you and Lori can ride on the other."

"That's good then. I can work with that but what will we do with Lori? We can't bring her with us on our journey."

"We already have a plan for that," interjected Eliisabet. "We'll take her to Discite City with us then pay some traveling merchants to take her back to Initium safely with them. We'll have Mister Amon take care of her for us once she's there."

Avic nodded in approval. It all sounded plausible.

"Okay. We probably shouldn't waste any more time here. We should hurry and get going."

Custos and Eliisabet then watched as Avic walked off toward the carriage to find Lori. However, they didn't know how to feel. They couldn't tell if Avic was coping with everything that had happened so far. His usual jovial smile was non-existent on his face.

"Avic, you're okay, right..?" Asked Eliisabet carefully.

Avic then let out a long sigh.

"Well, I could be better but things could also be a lot worse. To be honest, I'm more relieved that you guys aren't down in the dumps yourselves. If you were then I'd feel a lot worse than I am now."

"So you're okay then?"

"Okay enough to chow down on some turkey and take a long nap!"