The Gentle Hero

Yuril wasted no time, he did not bother cutting up the monster's corpses to harvest their crystals that were still lodged in their lifeless corpses. He had more pressing concerns than a small handful of crystals that he could be collecting, so he quickly started to make his way through the tunnels towards the staircase that would bring him back up to the surface. He leaned against the walls when they were not too sharp and jagged and the rest of the time he used just his hand to balance on the rougher surfaces. The rocks cut his palm and fingers but compared to the rest of his injuries it was nothing more than a slight paper cut. Once he reached the staircase he sat down on the first step, the stairs seemed to go up to the heavens itself and with his leg he knew that it would be a literal pain to climb.

Yuril removed his cloak first, it had a large blood stain around the chest and was torn in several places. With his cloak close to ruined he went about ripping the cloak into strips to use as bandages on his wounds. Once he had a small pile of strips he swallowed the lump in his throat as he slowly rolled up the left jacket's sleeve, seeing the deep cuts and gashes her the skin and flesh had been sliced and ripped Yuril's heart sank. He took numerous strips and wrapped them around his arm tightly the best he could using his right arm and his teeth to tie the knot. He repeated the process on his right arm and found that it was no worse for wear from the Kobolds slashes, once he had finished bandaging his arms he rolled down his jacket sleeves, though he could barely call them sleeves anymore. The arms of his jacket were ripped and torn in several places from the Kobolds assault and he could see the bandages around his arms underneath the loosely connected fabric.

Yuril undid the belt from around his right thigh and placed the knife and its sheath beside him, he took the belt and placed it just above the wound on his left leg and tightened the strip of leather tightly and did the buckle together to keep it in place. He hoped that the belt would help to numb the pain and slow down the bleeding from the wound that anyone with a set of eyes could clearly tell was from the jaws of some monster.

Lastly he went to treat the wound that had started his downward spiral, he opened his jacket to fully get a look at the wound and it was worse than he had thought it was going to be based on the pain. The vertical slashed has carved through his arm like a heated knife through butter, Yuril raised his shaking right hand and felt the armour. He dug his index finger into the leather and searched around for a few moments and upon finding nothing it confirmed his suspicions he had the moment the wound was inflicted on his body.

No metal plates.

Yuril had bought the armour thinking that it would protect his life in the dungeon but that trust had nearly cost him his life, while he was upset that he had spent so much money on the armour only to have it ruined days after purchasing it he was more upset by the fact that he had been lied to. Yuril could understand small mistakes or lapses in judgement, he himself had those all the time. But to blatantly lie and say that the armour had metal plates for added protection just to jack up the price angered Yuril, for all he knew he was not the only victim of the Dwarf's fraud. There was the possibility that others were not as lucky as he was and had suffered the ultimate consequence for trusting the shop owner, if there were any people like that out there Yuril had nearly joined them.

He used the remaining strips of his cloak to bandage around his legs the best that he could before he slowly pushed himself off of the step and wobbled on his legs for a second, he bent down and picked up his knife and the sheath. He tried to place the blade back into its sheath but found it difficult to do so with the bent tip, so he simply opened his jacket and slipped the blade and sheath into the inner pocket of his coat along with his journal.

He slowly started to climb his way up the spiral staircase towards the surface. Every now and then he would stumble on the steps and have to prevent his fall with his hands. If he really messed up and went tumbling all the way back down the stairs he would either die from the roll down or he would reach the bottom and be unable to get back up and climb the stairs for a second time.

When he had first walked down the stairs it had felt like it took only a matter of minutes but climbing back up the stairs felt like it was taking forever, whether it was because of his injuries or just the massive spiral staircases length in general he was not certain. When he had finally reached the top he felt as if he had just finished running three laps around the wall of Orario. He stumbled out of the dungeon's entrance right as the sun was starting to rise, if there were any guards around they would likely be more concerned about his well being than if he belonged in any Familia. But he saw no guards in sight, the sun was just starting to rise and while not being able to see it from where he stood currently Yuril could tell that in a short time the sun would start to peak over the wall of Orario.

He continued on his way undisturbed, he passed several people in the streets along the way and most either turned their heads and looked away from him or simply chose to ignore him, as he passed. His vision started to go hazy when he was just over halfway to the Hostess, behind him he left a small trail of blood that anyone skilled enough in hunting or tracking could easily follow if they wanted to. As he was getting closer to the pub his vision in the corners of his eyes were starting to go black and he knew that he had to pick up the pace if he wanted to reach the Hostess before it was too late for him. He liked to imagine that if he passed out in the street that someone would help him, but with how he had been treated since arriving in the city he doubted if anyone would even bother to dig him a proper grave.

He grabbed his head as the pounding headache that he had been fighting got worse, his body was starting to shut down and his brain was screaming at him to sit down and rest for a moment but he knew that if he sat down and stopped moving the chances of him getting back up were low.

So he fought through the agonizing pain, the shaking of his legs and the soft chattering of his teeth as he started to feel cold. The cool air of the morning was not helping with his combination of loss of blood and torn clothes.

Eventually he managed to reach the Hostess just as he was finding it difficult to take even a single step, the small staircase to the pub had proved to be even worse than the spiral staircase. He stepped onto the first step with his right leg and his left leg buckled heavily and nearly gave out as he shifted his weight. He placed both hands on his left thigh and had to pull his limp leg up onto the step with his right foot and repeat the process several times to reach the top.

Once he was on the same level as the doors he reached out and grasped the handle with his trembling hand "Thank Gods… I-I am saved…" Yuril muttered under his ragged breath, pulled lightly on the door and nothing happened.

"Oh, right… it's ... locked….." Yuril whispered to himself as the world of darkness surrounded as he collapsed to the ground with a hard thud and blood from his wounds created a small puddle under him.