Once my little tantrum was over, the trip went pretty smoothly. Ava seemed more worried now as she tried to keep pace with me instead of walking in front of me. She even tried to catch me when she thought I was falling again, but I didn’t, so it was quite a bit unnerving.

She even offered to carry me again, but I turned her down immediately. My body can’t be too heavy though just looking at myself. I can tell I’m damn near skin and bones right now. 

Heck, on a different note, I feel like the bottoms of my feet are never going to be the same after walking all this way in basically socks. Each small pebble and stick feels like daggers when I step on them. It’s not a particularly terrible pain, it just adds up after a while. 

My train of thoughts is interrupted once Cable is finally in sight. I get a little excited at this point, but it’ll still be a bit of time since it’s in the middle of a vast valley. I guess I was tricked when Ava talked about Cable. She called it a town, but now I can see it from a distance. It clearly looks closer to a city with a giant wall around it.

Not that it makes much of a difference, it just means there’s more stuff to do and more people to work for. The closer we got, the more relieved I felt that I didn’t have to sleep in the woods again. Ava even mentioned earlier that it was weird that we didn’t run into any monsters. The most I saw were some weird bugs here and there.

As the front gate comes closer and closer, Ava stops walking at my pace to walk in front of me again. While my eyes don’t leave the gate, I find it’s kinda strange. I thought the main road into this place would be a lot busier. I see people going in and out wearing armor and with weapons, but no one is just in normal clothes without a weapon.

This makes me nervous… Is this place dangerous? My mind wanders back to what Ava said about how it was strange that there was a lack of monsters. 

After a while of the paranoid thoughts swarming throughout my mind, we make it to a check in station that is built right into the wall at the gate. The rabbit lady running it simply asks Ava, “Place your hand here.”

Ava complies, and suddenly a projection appears similar to the one I saw when I got this card.

『Name: Ava Beckett

   Inflictions: None』

The lady looks at it and just nods saying “All clear. Your friend is next.” So I place my hand on the same crystal and the same window popped up.

『Name: Eric Davidson

   Inflictions: Malnutrition 』

She seems to just stare at it without a word for a while. The silence was loud. Then she gets a weird smile on her face and says, “If you need anything, and I mean anything, come find me.”

I just shrug it off and step back to Ava and the person behind the desk pulls a lever, which causes a giant magic circle to appear on the door, which makes it become transparent.

As soon as Ava walks through it and I follow her quickly while looking around the transparent gate, it’s pretty strange to be able to walk through what used to be a solid object. You can still somewhat see it in the air.

 I’ve got a feeling this world will continue to surprise me like this. Once we walk up the main road slightly, we find ourselves in an extremely busy main street filled with stores and food stalls.

While being mesmerized, Ava grabs my hand and says, “We need to meet up with my sister before dark. That and what we are wearing and carrying are pretty out of place.”

Remembering she said it was a friend before I respond “Oh, your sister?” Then I look down at my clothes, which are basically rags, and the sharpened stick on my back, which is tied to my back with a vine. Then I quickly add, “Yeah, we should get new clothes quickly.”

Ava quickly makes her way through the clumsily made brick road and the further we walked the more rundown the area gets. Eventually I find myself standing next to Ava in the slums in front of a decent-looking place compared to the ones in the area.

Heck, even our slave rags look pretty normal here compared to main street. Ava knocks a couple times and eventually someone who is definitely Ava’s sister opens the door.

She is like a mirrored version of Ava. She has white hair and red eyes, not that I have much time to process that because she says “Ava, you’re back!” 

Author's note - Enjoy!