Ryoto, fortunately, retained his consciousness for a few more seconds, long enough for him to salvage their situation. He slowly inched his hand closer to his boot, focusing all of his being into that one activity, as if his life depended on it.

Well, to be honest it did. When he finally reached it, he wasted no time and scratched at the mechanism which had stored his knife. By a stroke of luck, he managed to hit the right area and a part of the device flipped open, a needle attached to it.

Teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, he stabbed his wrist with the needle in a last ditch effort and promptly passed out.

Meanwhile back at the camp, half of the group had awoken from the commotion. Some had connected the dots, while others were panicking. Where were Ryoto and Regulus?

Once they calmed down, Zach got the chance to share his hypothesis, “I think that was them; Ryan is the kind of person to do this. But it would be uncharacteristic of Zaiden…”

Hazel nodded, “I agree, Ryan likely convinced Zaiden to follow him. And judging from the roar we heard, they probably succeeded in injuring the beast.” She sighed, “We should check on them.”

“We’re going to have a talk once we find them…” Ryla muttered ominously. 

Zach sweatdropped, praying for them. 

“Wait, wait, wait, you’re telling me they went to fight that thing, alone?” Azemption blurted out, entering their conversation., “Are they insane?!”

“From what I know those two are incredibly strong, I am sure they are fine.” Hazel deduced, she would have to admit that they were stronger than her. 

Azemption stared at her as if she grew a second head, “They’re that strong?”

Ryla nodded in affirmation, “It wouldn’t go far to say they’re the strongest among us. But this was still reckless of them.”

“We’ll talk about who's stronger later, for now we need to find them,.” Zach interrupted, mentally sighing at them.

With no time to waste, they immediately headed towards the source of the sound. It wasn’t hard, they were able to catch on to Regulus’ footsteps. Ryoto's, on the other hand, were all but invisible.

Ryla signaled them to stop when she caught a peculiar smell in the air. It smelled like iron and had a metallic taste to it. Blood!

“I smell blood, someone is injured.”

‘Let’s hope it’s not them.’ 

Zach’s eyes went wide. This was bad. 

Soon they stumbled upon their battlefield, and noticed the abnormal minotaur slumped down in front of a tree, and the prone and bleeding form of Regulus.

“Zaiden!” Alaya cried out, rushing over to him, cupping his face. She, however, recoiled back when she felt how swollen it was.

Zach followed soon after, racking his head for any medical advice he could give, “How bad are his injuries?”

“He has a broken jaw, I think.” Alaya replied. She wanted to check his body for other wounds on his body, but for that she would need to take off his shirt.

Alaya blushed at the thought, but shook her head, this was not the time for that. Her hands reached for her pockets, but she soon realized that she didn’t have anything sharp. So she resorted to the only other method she had available, tearing it off with her hands alone.

“Broken jaw…” Zach muttered, what would be helpful against that. They only had one of the herbs, it wouldn’t be enough. Their search for the remaining six had just gotten a lot more serious.

Hazel and Ryla glanced around the clearing. If Regulus was here, where was Ryoto?

Alaya stared at Regulus’ torso, ignoring the scars and focusing on his muscles. After a good minute, she was finally able to regain her composure and wipe the drool away. There seemed to be no wounds on his upper body.

The others, bar Zach, had their jaws dropped when they saw his scars. His scars criss-crossed each other to form multiple patches over his body, each one at least half an inch deep. The most painful looking one was on the right side of his chest where it looked like someone ripped the flesh out of his body and left an indentation. His back barely had any skin left, implying he was injured there way too often. A long scar ran across his arm, from his bicep to his forearm. 

 They had thousands of questions, how he got them being the most prominent. 

Zach grew frustrated, “What are you guys doing?! This isn’t the time to get distracted like this!”

That brought them out of their thought process, and Ryla immediately zipped open her bag, handing Zach the herb, ‘Dianthus.’

“We need a mortar and pestle.” Zach mentioned, holding the plant gently.

“Leave that to me.” Frank got to work. Pieces of the earth tore off the ground, shaping themselves as they ascended. A mortar and a pestle.

Zach grabbed them without a moment to waste, and began crushing the plant under the pestle, working furiously.

The squelching of leaves filled the air, and Regulus stirred. His vision was hazy and doubled, and his headache was killing him. He, however, could make out that he was surrounded by people, familiar people. He relaxed, knowing he was in trustworthy hands.

Ryoto had been awake for a while now, but chose to remain silent. Let them fix him up first, he thought. The corpse of the minotaur was acting as good cover for him. He absentmindedly veiled himself in the looks of ‘Ryan.’ He flinched, the slightest movement caused acute pain across his back. 

“Hazel, I need some water.” Zach ordered, he was almost done.

Hazel nodded, “Yeah, how much?”

“Just a little bit.”

Hazel's hand hovered over the bowl, atmospheric moisture was visibly coalescing around her hand. She let the sphere of coagulated water drop in the mortar, soaking the finely crushed leaves.

Zach grinded what remained into a viscous green paste, putting the pestle down once he was done. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he dipped two fingers in the paste. 

Carefully he applied it around Regulus’ jaw, mindful not to press too hard. By the time he was done, Regulus looked like he had grown a green beard…well, a very sticky beard.

He sighed, getting up. That would have to do for now. They needed to take Regulus back to camp. 

Seeing that they were done, Ryoto wheezed out, “Take your time, don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here getting crushed by this corpse.”

His voice startled the others -- they had not noticed him. Zach was hit with a feeling of guilt when he realized he had never once thought about Ryoto being injured too.

As such, in order to make up for it, he was the fastest to get there. Though he soon realized that he alone wouldn’t be enough to move the minotaur. Just when he was about to call for help, multiple pairs of hands appeared beside him. Glancing up, he saw his companions with their eyebrows furrowed in concentration as they tried to pry off the beast.

Ryoto yelped when they succeeded in lifting the corpse away; Something was sticking out of it’s back. Curious, Zach touched one of them and immediately pulled back his arm when his finger started bleeding. By the texture, he assumed it was something like marble or any other smooth rock covered in someone's blood.

“Yeowch!” His eyes darted back to the now auburn haired boy who was applying pressure on his chest, “Yeah, I’m gonna need a little help here.” 

Ryotos vision blurred and his body began falling to the ground. Thankfully, Ryla caught him before he hit the ground. Her eyes narrowed when she felt how warm and wet his shirt was. 

A cold hand gripped Zach’s heart as he glanced between the blood covered rocks and Ryoto’s chest. He now knew whose blood it was, and he wished he didn’t.

She began unbuttoning his shirt, ignoring Ryoto’s vain attempts to stop her. His torso had a much lesser amount of scars, and much lighter than Regulus’ too, but that wasn’t her concern. She was more worried about the stab wounds over his chest. 

They weren’t that deep, maybe half a centimeter? But the sheer amount of them, and the fact that one of them hit an artery meant that he would be bleeding a lot. They needed to close the wound, fast.

“Crap, we used all of the Dianthus on Zaiden!” Zach began panicking, he would never forgive himself if something happened to his friends because of a lapse in his judgment.

“Good…he needed it more than me,” Ryoto managed to whisper.

“I didn’t take you to be the selfless kind,” Ryla spoke with a frown.

Ryoto smiled weakly, “You…don’t know…a lot of things about me.”

“That aside, we need something to help with Ryan’s wounds.” Zach butted in.

“Will sugar help…?” Hazel weakly held up a pouch.

“Pretty sure sugar isn't a medicinal ingredient,” Ashy pointed out, before pqusing  “Why in Bahamut's name do you have a pouch of sugar with you?!”

“Hehe?” Hazel laughed nervously.

“...” Ashy deadpanned at her.

“Alaya, I need your help.” Ryla suddenly spoke up, having come to a conclusion.

Alaya, who was still with Regulus, perked up, “Huh?”

“I need to cauterize his wounds,” Ryla elaborated, “Or else he will bleed out.”

Alaya instantly got to her feet, rushing over to them and holding up her brightly lit hand.

Ryla fished out a dagger from her belt, the same one Ryoto had gifted her a few weeks back. She never thought she would be using it for this. She held the blade over Alaya’s hand until it was glowing red.

She carefully pressed the flat of the blade over the stab wounds, holding it for a few seconds over each wound. Normally it would take much longer than that, but fire fueled by mana was far from normal.

“How are you not affected by that?” Zach wondered out loud.

“I have…a high pain thresh…hold.”

“You shouldn’t speak much,” Ryla reprimanded him.

Ryoto would have rolled his eyes if he could, “Please…has anyone in history…ever listened to such advice?”

Ryla didn’t respond.

Once each wound was fused shut, she breathed out a sigh of relief. At least he was stable for now. A ripping sound caught her attention, and she glanced towards the source. Zach was shredding his shirt to ribbons…literally.

He handed her the strips, “Here, use those as bandages.”

Ryla wordlessly accepted it, and while Zach held Ryotos torso up, she got to work tying the ripped shirt around his chest. With that out of the way, they could finally relax. Zachs eyes flickered over to their scars, Ryoto’s scars were light and stretched out, and maybe a dozen in number? Compared to Regulus’, that was mild but it didn’t mean he suffered any less.. The slightest amount of pity welled up inside him, but he quickly suppressed that. He had a feeling they wouldn’t appreciate that.

“Yeah, we have scars…that’s to be expected, no?”

“What do you mean?” Brena asked.

Ryoto cursed himself mentally, he forgot they were here too, “Nothing of consequence…don’t worry about it.”

Now all they needed was to bring them back to camp. But the issue was, who would carry Regulus? He wasn’t exactly light.

In the end, Azemption’s group volunteered to carry him. Alaya seemed jealous for some reason…

Ryla agreed to carry Ryoto, throwing his arm around her shoulder as she dragged him back. Zach and Alaya were guarding their front and rear respectively. Hopefully their trip back would be eventless. Hazel followed them from behind, acting as a sniper for the group.

Thankfully nothing interrupted them, maybe because of the fight with the minotaur they had run away?

Once they were back, the first thing they did was to prepare the base for another campfire, this one designed to give off as much smoke as possible.  The procedure was similar to making a normal fire, the only difference being that they needed to add green leaves and branches after the flame was lit, resulting in white smoke rising high up.

To make sure the instructors saw it, Frank raised the earth around it, making a pillar with the signal fire on top.

Meanwhile some miles away, outside a foliage covered cave opening Daniel’s eyes flickered to the white smoke. 

“Professor Jonah, Master Jei, we have an emergency.”