The Next Step

Soft…

The light from the morning sun wasn't enough for me to react, but Rose's sweet smell and the touch of her smooth skin against mine made me slowly began to respond. I tightened the hug as I pressed myself against her and kissed her naked shoulder.

"mmmm."

My movement also started to wake her up, she slowly opened her eyes and noticed my lips against her skin. It took her a few seconds to remember that she was naked and blushed while turning her head to look at my eyes.

"Good morning honey."

"Hello…"

Her cheeks were shining in a deep shade of red as she recalled the events from last night.

"How do you feel?"

"It hurts a little, but I feel good. It was amazing…"

She was still shy about the situation, but she couldn't lie… after telling that, she felt embarrassed and snuggled onto me to hide her face. I kissed her forehead and caressed her back as she tried to hide…

"Do we have to go back?"

She asked in a barely audible voice.

…

It's been almost two weeks since the fight at the east ended, and obviously, we aren't at the apartment right now.

There were reasons for us to be here right now. After the collapse in the east, there were a lot of significant changes compared to how things were before.

The first and most important for me was that Rose and I decided to take the next step in our relationship, we already talked about it before, but at that time too many things were going on, and the anxiety and looming danger might have pushed us to make a rushed decision. With our minds and the situation calmer, we had a serious discussion focusing only on what we wanted and our feelings.

We decided to wait a couple of days. With all that had happened in the last time, it might not seem like it, but Rose and I had been together as a couple for just a couple of weeks at the time. Those weeks were filled with danger, our emotions were hard to control so with the little rest we had, we decided to wait for a just a little more until our first month anniversary which was yesterday, September 23.

For some people, it might not seem like a long time to wait for something like that, but we know that the situation still could change in any moment, after all that happened in the last time we don't dare to bet on a longer time.

In my conversation with Rose, we also decided to start a contraceptive treatment to prevent her from getting pregnant. I'm planning to wear a condom as well, but none of us want to have a kid yet, so it's better to prevent an accident from happening.

The last problem was that even if he sleeps like a log, neither of us are doing anything with G in the room next to us. Also, it would be awkward since my ex-girlfriend and sister are in the apartment too, it would be impossible for Rose to be relaxed in that condition, we need a place just for ourselves.

After thinking about it, I discarded the idea of moving out alone with her. Taking her to an empty hotel was also out of question, it's not like we can call for room service anyway, so it's meaningless, I wanted to give her an experience the closest possible at how it might have been before the Meteor Shower, and for that it had to be something more personal.

Since there was time until then, I took this time to do a couple of other things, besides helping in Green Shelter in multiple areas I already had enough to upgrade the system. Rose told me of a game that deleted everything when your trial period ended (I almost cr*p my pants when I heard that, and the system refused to give me details about the upgrade… jerk system).

Instead of going and upgrading the system right away I waited and healed my burn scars. They wouldn't be a problem if they look cool but they are just weird so I prefer to take care of them in the case that I lose my healing ability during the upgrade, I also used the time to take care of my friend's wounds.

After upgrading the system, most of my abilities stayed the same… The upgrade of the system took a whole day, but I still could use all my abilities, so there was no problem.

With Rose, we went out on a couple of dates, and in between, I took a day to clean the house in the suburbs.

…

"We can stay a little longer, but we have to go back eventually… or your brother is going to kill me."

By the way, just Hope knows that we are here, G would have never allowed this to happen, so we had to kinda… sneak out.

That added another layer of reality to the situation. We stayed there for a while when I noticed that there were new notifications, I remember hearing them last night, but I was busy when it happened.

[Astral Link Upgraded from E-Rank to D-Rank]

[Link Affinity Level up Lv. 2->Lv. 3]

[New Sub-skill unlocked: There For You]

[New Sub-skill unlocked: Shared Sight]

[Aura view, Astral View Unlocked]

I shared my surprise with her right away. Thanks to the Astral Link evolution and the Link Affinity upgrade our link improved, we could feel each other more than before, Rose's growth speed was likely being enhanced too, and I got the ability to see the astral realm. And as if it wasn't enough, we got two new amazing abilities.

The abilities were self-explanatory Shared Sight allowed us to see what the other could see If we wanted, that coupled with Rose amazing scouting abilities was a fantastic upgrade. There For You, was a teleport ability that used each other as a target location, Rose already could do that with Astral Portal, but now I could also appear next to her if she ever needs me.

"So if I'm in troubles you will come to my rescue?"

"Well it would be nice to change roles for once don't you think?"

Even if I wasn't going to admit it, I still regret the fact that she was the one that had to take down Pollard and the Alpha Snake.

"You are already a Hero in my heart."

She said tightening the hug which made me feel her skin against mine. Don't react… don't react…

"Even if I got to do those stuff it was thanks to you. You drew aggro, tanked the bosses, and I just KSed them at the end of the dungeon."

I found the analogy funny because it was something that she always did when we used to play games, I wouldn't say she KSed the Alpha Snake tho. As I was debating with myself if I should make a move on my girlfriend another voice came to my head.

'Spence? G is going to ask where you and Rose went, and Dr. Rehn also is looking for you, Ines woke up.'

'Tell G that we went to take a walk. And to Dr. Rehn that I'll be at the hospital by noon.'

'Ok~.'

I gave Rose a helpless smile as the time for us to be in this place was over.

"We have to go… Gerhard is about to ask Dante about us."

I saw her sad look and added whispering in her ear.

"We can sneak out any time you want."

I said as I kissed her cheek, she recovered her smile and happily nodded. For us, It was pretty easy to sneak out now.

"Let's sneak out every day then!!"

"You said it yourself, so I don't want to hear complains when I kidnap you tonight…"

I threw myself and kissed her.

"If you don't, I will kidnap you."

She said while kissing me back. This is going to get out of hands if we continue… with all the will power that I could gather, I separated my lips from hers and smiled.

"It's a deal then."

"Ok… can you leave me alone so I can dress?"

"No…?"

"Get out!!"

She hit me with a pillow and kicked me out of my room half-naked. It's good that we didn't do this at the apartment… if someone found me like this in the corridor, it would have been extremely awkward…

…

…

After we both dressed, we left the house.

We were outside the house looking back one more time before leaving. I turned my head and looked at Rose as I extended my hand for her to take it.

"Ready for a little walk?"

Rose was in high spirits knowing that now we kinda had a place just for us, she smiled, and after grabbing my hand, she tiptoed to give me a soft peck on the lips.

"Let's go back."

She tightened the hold on my hand and stepped right at my side, as I counted down.

"ready? 3…2…1!"

We were facing in the same direction and raised our feet at the end of the countdown…

Around us, a weird phenomenon occurred.

Reality itself tried to reject my new power to no avail.

It was just one footstep, but as my foot moved forward space around us distorted… it shrinks… or maybe it expanded, and the other part stayed the same? It could have been both for all I know.

After that single footstep, we appeared in front of G and Rose's House at the end of the street.