“She’s still alive. And thankfully not much water entered her lungs” said Natalia.

“We need to find a place to heal her. And darn quickly too!” said Thompson.

“Sorry, you guys go on ahead. Natalia and I. We have a business to attend to” said Vlad coldly.

He got up to his feet, brought out the map from his bag and quickly started to walk towards the forest nearby. Natalia followed her immediately.

“Hey, that’s an awfully anticlimactic departing” yelled Thompson after them.

“Sorry, but time is of great importance to us” yelled Vlad at them and continued his stroll.

Soon their figure became smaller and smaller as they vanished into the woods. Kenji raised Emma off the ground and put her gently on his back.

“Then we mustn’t waste time either. We have to stop the heat. Her body is still blazing up despite the refreshing lake fall” he said and steadily walked towards the city. The others all followed him.  

“Hey, This is the city of Naimane, right?” asked Mikhail.

“Yeah. The place where Gabi's kidnappers decided to meet me is on the outskirt of this city.  Now only if those bastards actually keep their words” said Diego.     

Upon getting close it became clear why this was called a city. People were bustling everywhere. Dozens of the different shops and services were being run in the streets.    

And ignoring all that they headed for the healing center. But strangely enough, after they got there and explained the condition Emma was in, the nurses there could not heal her with any potions. When they were all timid and troubled, the doctor came into the room and diagnosed her.

“Fahrenheit disease?” repeated Amanda.

“Yes, I’m afraid she can’t be saved. Or at the very least the doctors in the city won’t be able to. But I assure you that the doctors in the towns are probably of no use too” said the doctor with a grey face.

“You got to be kidding me. A-are you sure there is no other way?” yelled Thompson.

The doctor looked sharply at him.   

“Ever since I was kidnapped into this game I’ve been trying to find all sorts of ways to save people’s lives. I know about this disease. I’ve seen it before. Unfortunately, it’s the one disease that I’ve never been able to find a cure for. The patient’s body exerts immense heat using the mana as a source of energy. Slowly she will run out of mana. When her mana reaches zero then her real-life body will be affected. It’ll suck away all her strength. And she will die”.

“I-It can’t be” gasped Bold.

“But don’t just take my word for it. I don’t know the cure but I’m sure the creators of this world left a key for every puzzle. That was my observation up till now” said the doctor showing a small smile on his face.

“You’re right. We’ll see what we can do. Come on guys” said Mikhail.

They left the healing center and roamed around the city until Mikhail saw a comfortable two-story house with large enough land for a number of people to play and prance around. Outside the gates of the house, there was a sign that said ‘for sale’. And luckily enough an old man who seemed to be the householder was also there, sitting on the bench outside.

“Hey, old man”.

The man walked towards Mikhail and smiled politely.

“What is the matter, young boy?”

“The house. Is it for sale?”

“Yes”.

“For how much?”

“1500 gold”.

The group heard the man’s words and immediately started to dig into their bag. After giving the necessary funds to buy the house. They quickly entered the yard. Upon entering the house, Emma was placed on the living room sofa. Mikhail walked towards the swinging bed that was placed above the sofa, next to the window and jumped onto it.

“Oh god, my back”

He stretched fully and yawned. While the tenseness in his face had withered away, the rest of the gang had a gloomy gargoyle-like feature. Seeing how casual Mikhail was, something lit up in Bold.

“Shouldn’t we do something?” Bold yelled at him.

“Well, as far as I can tell, running around aimlessly is useless. So first relax and then decide”.

“Oh really? From the looks of it, you just might end up sleeping” hissed Amanda.

“Maybe. Wake me up in case I do”.

“Hey, this is serious, you twat! We have to do something!” roared Thompson.

Mikhail sighed and looked at them firmly.

“First, decide on what you’re going to do. Jog your memories a little. I’ll wait”

Bold’s whole body was tense and his stomach stung when he saw the half-conscious Emma.

“The doc said that the people of this town ain’t gonna help. If that is the case searching around here is gonna be useless anyway” said Bold.

“Darn it” cursed Thompson as he sat on the chair at the corner of the room.

“I would personally recommend getting out and searching regardless of the man’s comments. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky” said Kenji.

“First, I think it’s better to search around small medical huts of the city instead of going to official clinics” said Amanda.

“What do you think, Mikhail?” asked Diego.

He opened his eyes, scanned them and sighed.

“I guess, there is no other choice. At the very least gathering rumors about the Fahrenheit disease may be useful”

He got out of his bed, looked around and yawned.

“Alright, let’s head out then”             

Mikhail headed towards the door along with everyone else. Bold stumbled and followed them but Mikhail turned around to greet him.

“You stay. Not a very great idea to run around with your burned legs. And someone is ought to watch after her”

After a brief of moment of hesitation, Bold nodded and the rest of them headed outside. Left alone, Bold walked around the room aimlessly for a while. He drank a few bottles of water in the dining room and pranced back into the living room. While he hopelessly rested his face on his arm, he heard movement. Awoken and alerted, Bold looked towards Emma. Her eyes were open.

“Emma!”

He ran around the table and walked up to her. Her dazed eyes stared back at him.

“A-Are you okay? How do you feel?”        

She only looked at him silently with her brown eyes.

“Bold...you are here?”

“Yeah, I’m here. There is no need to worry”

“Are we…dead?” asked Emma softly.  

“N-no we are not. We escaped the dungeon. All of us” said Bold with a reuful smile.

“Thank god”

A light smile formed on her little face. Seeing that she was well, Bold smiled back.  But she was worn out and tired. After deeply sighing, she closed her eyes. Bold put his hand on her forehead.

“Gosh, what to do with that heat of yours”

“Bold?”

“W-what?”

She now looked at him with childishly curious eyes.

“My sister, she is still…”

Seeing how his face shifted to grimness her eyelids dropped.

“I’m sorry” said Bold with bitterness. 

“It’s okay. I asked something stupid”

She formed a fettered smile. But it was clear that she was acting tough as usual. Her body was still burning hot. Bold took her hand in his and bit his lips. With wandering eyes, she looked at him with puzzlement.

“You’re sure we’re alive, right?”

“Yeah”

“If that’s so. Then it’s good to be alive” said Emma with a kind smile.

“Yeah”.