Immobilized

"SHIT!" Verzo yelled once he realized how bad he messed up. Eguru immediately asked him what was wrong. "I shouldn't have sat down! I should've been lying down on the ground, my ribs now hurt even more!"

Indeed it was wrong of him to do such a thing. Sitting or curling up your body in any kind of way whilst having broken ribs is doing more bad than good. It damages your body even more as the broken or crushed bones interrupt the blood flow and can even injure organs.

Lying down gives your body the space it needs to not break down completely.

Eguru helped him get away from the tree to prevent even more damage to Verzo's already severely injured body.

"Thank you", he kind of mumbled to his friend as he tried to breath in and relax his body. Due to immense pain it stiffened up.

As Eguru watched Verzo suffer he clenched his fists. His best friend wanted to scream but held back to not do so. 'How are we ever gonna reach Akuta in this condition!? He's not going to be able to move for at least 2 fucking months...!'

If only they had some sort of transportation - a vehicle or wagon for example. Now he wondered if they even had something like that. He saw all kinds of things in Legrandeus but not a single car. 'Did they forget to invent them or something?'

One thing could be done at this moment. But that also required Eguru to to heavy physical work which would make him go to his knees continuously.

Crafting a wooden platform to transport Verzo was the only possible thing for him to manage.

Waiting for help also was an option but you couldn't rely on such thing especially since they were in the middle of nowhere. Who would even travel at this exact time?

Another issue was food. Water wasn't necessarily a problem as there still was a lake near them but what about something to eat? Eguru didn't know anything about plants and mushrooms in this world. Of course he could try to hunt however there is a chance it would go wrong completely.

Right now gathering supplies and recovering was more important than anything else. If they didn't manage to go to Akuta and enjoy the festival Eguru wouldn't even care at the moment. Verzo sure felt the same.

Suddenly an idea came to his mind. 'Lia! I forgot I could text her!'

But where was his phone? Or rather, was it still functioning after that battle? Searching for it he discovered it by the tree he took with him. To his surprise it only had a tiny scratch on the screen. 'Are those phones nokia's descendents or something??'

Also only now did hd realize wifi was accessable anywhere. He was outside of the city but still had a strong connection. By the time he checked his phone there weren't any notifications so went ahead to text Lia.

Only a few minutes later she replied and they talked a bit before Eguru began to tell her about what has happened and in what kind of position they're in right now.

Lia: "What?! How are you gonna get out of there and enter a safe place?"

Eguru: "I don't know. That's why I wanted to ask you if perhaps you'd be able to help us out. I'd be able to send your our location too."

Lia: "Bad timing right now since I'm busy rn but I'll text you later. Hang in there!"

Just like that she was offline again. Eguru let out a disappointed sigh. 'How long do we have to wait until she texts me again? We have time but the sooner we get moving, the earlier we can be treated..'

Eguru had four months to grow stronger and now that they're in this condition he'll have even less time. His recovery would at least take two weeks if he was treated well enough. If not it'd take almost two months which was half the time he had. Waiting so long was something he could not afford. He didn't want to die a third time.

When he got back to Verzo he told him what he was trying to do. Now they had to wait for Lia's texts.

About an hour later they both started to notice how hungry they were, thirsty too actually. Since one of them couldn't move the other one had to go alone. Beforehand he asked what they could eat and what type of plant or fruit he better not touched.

Just wandering around the forest he glanced at a tree and found something so obvious he forgot they existed. Apples! Food that most definetely wasn't poisened!

He took a few of them and went to the river where he washed them. Heading back he gave some to Verzo and he started to eat. His friend on the other hand struggled to even get up but got the hang of it soon enough.

Hours later Lia finally texted Eguru.