Rados and Anne grabbed each one of the two unconscious brothers before carrying them back into the cave earlier. Of course, Rados took Luke, who weighed way more than the young lad.

"As for the person waiting for us, you can trust him for the time being as he seems like a nice guy," Rados briefed Anne, who nodded to his remarks.

In the end, she was kind of thankful that Rados, who seemed to be more experienced than her, immediately took the lead.

"One thing we need to do is to close the wound as fast as possible. I've got something to disinfect the wound. But that alone isn't enough. We need to close the wound, and for that, we gonna need fire as none of us know how to stitch wounds," commented Rados with a serious face.

After the comment, the two immediately entered the cave, where a brown man was waiting for them nonchalantly.

Seeing how Rados carried a seriously wounded person, the man immediately jumped up.

"Leo, I need your help," commented Rados as he placed the sleeping Luke gently on the ground.

The man merely nodded before taking a stick out of the fire pit. "That wound definitely needs to be closed. Or else the man will die in a few hours," he replied.

"That's what I wanted to say," replied Rados as he grabbed Luke's

mutilated leg and held it up. Pieces of flesh dangled loosely from his ankle, and Rados grabbed one of his daggers without even blinking before shifting his gaze towards the anxious Anne.

"Anne, are you sure you can stomach watching what the two of us will be doing now?" he asked as he cut up the hanging pieces of flesh since they were in the way.

"Yes, I should be fine," replied Anne, whose eyes seemed to be fixed at Luke's leg.

"Then it's good," replied Rados before adding: "This is just a temporary solution to stop him from dying within the next 24 hours. I can't guarantee if he will still be alive after another week."

Anne merely commented: "I'm already grateful that you can help us prolong his life as much as possible."

"I'm ready to cauterize the wound, Rados. When will we do it?" commented Leo, who stood a meter away from Rados while tightly holding a burning stick.

"Let me just clean the wound before we try it," Rados hastily commented before pouring the rest of his disinfection alcohol bottle on the wound.

This action immediately woke the tired Luke up as he felt a burning sensation on his leg.

Luke groaned loudly, only to hear the reassurance of all three.

"Luke, you will feel burning pain, but that should be ok for you as it isn't the first amputation you faced," commented Rados, and Luke nodded with a grim look.

"I'm ready," Luke commented as his eyes were fixed on the burning rod before shifting to Rados. Luke didn't look healthy, and his skin was pale and cold.

"Perfect. Leo, you can press it against the wound now," commented Rados, and with a nod, Leo immediately pressed the burning rod against Luke's leg.

The hissing sound of evaporating blood could be heard as the alcohol got set ablaze. But that hissing sound was merely heard for a few seconds as Luke screamed in agony loudly. Without a second thought, he instinctively clutched at the amputated part of his leg, which was burning. A sharp and searing pain was invading his brain as the nerve endings of his legs got burned. His agonizing screams filled the cave, and his eyes were red while he had an expression of furry.

"Luke, NO!" shouted Anne as she pressed Luke's upper body onto the ground.

The latter resisted it. But since Luke was in a weakened condition, it didn't take long for Anne to subdue her older brother, who was crying in pain. She ended up sitting on his stomach.

It took a minute for Luke's crying to stop, and he could only muster to say in great pain: "It-it hurts."

Luke was gritting his teeth tightly, and by now, Anne feared that these teeth would be the next thing to break.

"It's done," replied the dark-skinned man called Leo, who threw the rod back into the fire.

By now, the smell of burning flesh filled the air, making everyone awake hungry as it reminded them of meat. The hunger in everyone's eyes was clearly visible, and after Rados heard the grumbling stomach of Luke, he laughed. "I'm going to prepare something to eat for our visitors," he laughed as he lowered Luke's leg onto a thick piece of wood with something soft on it.

Leo nodded before commenting: "You better not touch the wound anytime soon. Unfortunally we don't have any cream for such situations with us rn as we used up these reserves a long time ago.

"I thank you two from the bottom of my heart for saving me. You've done more than enough for me," Luke commented before shifting his gaze towards his younger sister, who was still pressing his shoulders down.

Her long blond hair was grazing his face as she stared holes into him.

"You've done well," whispered Anne to his ear, as her hands were still pressing against Luke's shoulder.

"You're acting like my mother," Luke chuckled as he forced a smile onto his face that was screaming: "I'M IN PAIN; PLEASE HELP ME."

Anne giggled at his words before commenting: "Well, someone gonna take care of such a moronic older brother such as you," and her laughter stopped immediately.

Her silence got replaced as tears dripped down from her cheek onto Luke's face as she started crying.

"I'm sorry," whispered Luke with a bitter taste in his mouth as he tried to hug her. But the latter didn't let him and coldly whispered: "Do you know how scared I was for you?"

She cried out as her nails dug into his shoulders.

With an awkward smile, Luke whispered: "I know how…"

But before he could continue, Anne cut him short in anger: "You know nothing!" As further tears fell onto Luke's face.

unknownking

Well, I'm not really that content with the chapter as I wanted to go further into the cauterization process, since it feels like as if it was a quick process while I didn't describe how the leg looked after the cauterization process. As to why I chose the cauterization method, it's quit easy. Luke lost a lot of blood earlier and was continuously loosing blood. But even though he allied a tourniquet, it merely lowered his blood loss. If nothing would have been done, he would have sooner or later died due to blood loss or due to the infections following after that. Since they had no other way to close the wound or sew it, the group member were forced to cut the hanging pieces before cauterizing the leg. Well normally cauterization should happen via heating metal and pressing the heated metal onto the wound, but well nobody should use my book for medical advice so there is that too. Anyway I seem to be rambling way too much. I hope you liked my chapter and I'm taking my leave now.^^