Girlfriend

Alex still happily climbed up the stairs. But when he passed on the 31st floor, he was shocked to see the scene in front of him. Alicia's body was lying in a pond of blood and Firia was seen crying weakly near her.

Suddenly, tons of memories about Alicia flashed on his mind. During the time with Alicia, Alex kept his distance from her because he wanted to protect her image. He didn't want others to look down on her because she kept hanging out with him. But, when he saw this scene, he realized that Alicia meant more than that. She was always there and he could build a good relationship with her slowly. It was so normal to have her around him like that and it never occurred to him how life would be if she was no longer around, 'What if she is gone forever?' he thought to himself the moment he realized what was going on.

"ALICIA!" Alex roared, he used his fastest speed to approach them. He quickly killed six rank 3 minotaurs in the span of three seconds.

"ALICIA!" Alex went to her side and held her head gently.

"Alex...You finally call me by my name again," Alicia said weakly. Her face was getting so pale that it made Alex slightly worried about her.

"Don't...Don't say anything else. I will heal you right now," Alex took out one rank 2 restoration pill and one blood replenishing pill. He immediately put them inside her mouth.

She quickly took a bit of it. Soon, her face regained some color and the wound started to close but it was still not enough. The bleeding still didn't stop.

"Alex...Please call me by my name for the last time," Alicia said weakly.

"I won't give up! I won't let anything bad happen to you," Alex said while crying.

Suddenly, the ray of hope came.

[System Update Finished. Good Luck Gacha System V2 Commenced]

'That's right, the only way to heal her was rank 3 healing pill.'

'System! I want to use gacha. Do you have any cauldron and rank 3 healing pill material?!' he said to his System.

[The new System has it, Host. But It's rare]

'I don't care. Hurry, use tool gacha one by one until I get the cauldron,' he forced the System to save Alicia. 

[PROCESSING]

[NAILS X1]

[BLADE X1]

.....

.....

[LOW-LEVEL CAULDRON X1]

After around two hundred tickets he managed to get a cauldron. All of this gacha was processed in a span of five seconds.

'Now, use the rest of the tickets in Material Gacha! Hurry!'

[PROCESSING]

[WATER BOTTLE X74]

[STICK X3]

...

He didn't care about this much water bottle now and he didn't use the gacha one by one. He only cared for a few items that he got.

[ENTI GRASS X1]

[MAGIC POWDER X1]

[ALOE LEAF X1]

[REJUVENATING FRUIT X1]

[LIKA BERRY X1]

These all are rank 3 healing pill ingredients. But, something was not right.

'Still missing one ingredient. Recycle all my items except healing pill ingredients! And put them for gacha,' he ordered the System again.

[RECYCLING]

[Gacha Ticket 79x Acquired]

[PROCESSING]

[WATER BOTTLE 23X]

[CHICKEN FEATHER 1X]

...

...

[TULIA SEED X1]

[RIVER GRASS X1]

...

...

'That's it' 

After getting Tulia seed as the last ingredient, Alex ignored the rest of them and immediately took all the ingredients out with the cauldron. He also fed Alicia with a few blood replenishing pills and rank 2 restoration pills to slow down the wound.

Alex refined all of them simultaneously, he used his fire to refine each of the ingredients skillfully. Sadly, he hadn't practiced refining a rank 3 pill yet and he had no experience on this. After a few minutes of refining, he almost succeeded. But, he saw that the cauldron had a sign of exploding.

"Wait, it shouldn't explode! Haaahh!" Alex used all of his power and mind to prevent it from exploding and he continued to refine the pill.

During this process, he even vomited blood. Doing all of this had forced his body to its limit. Not only that, but it also drained his mental, especially when he didn't have much time to save Alicia who seemed to get worse each second. Alex was so determined to complete his pills and save Alicia.

Firia and the others could just stay by Alicia's side while looking at Alex. They had no idea that Alex was an Alchemist. They were both amazed and terrified, they couldn't imagine what would happen to Alicia if he couldn't save her.

The pill aroma started to fill the space.

"Forming!" Alex started to form the pill. Not long after, the pill was formed.

BOOM!

The cauldron exploded and a few pieces of debris from the cauldron got on his body and injured him.

Alex didn't care about the pain he was experiencing the moment it hit him. He immediately grabbed the pill and went to Alicia weakly. He put the pill inside her mouth. His hand was shaking because he was so afraid it was too late to save her. The wound from the explosion had injured him greatly as well. He was running out of energy at this point.

"Alex..." Alicia said in a barely audible voice, her tears started streaming down.

Alex put the pill inside her mouth and her wound was closed up with speed visible at naked eyes. After almost a minute, her wound was perfectly closed. Though her wound was already closed, she was still weak. 

"Alex..." she tried to call him again.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me," Alex smiled weakly. He turned to Firia, "Please take care of her."

Firia nodded anxiously. After confirming Alicia was gaining consciousness and getting healed faster, Alex ate a restoration pill while pulling out the splinters on his body. Enduring the pain, he pulled out the debris one by one. After a few minutes, all his wounds closed up. His body was still weak and he recovered his Mana a bit and went to Alicia.

"Please keep my identity as an Alchemist a secret," Alex said solemnly.

All of them nodded repeatedly.

"Let's go back," Alex said.

"Alex..." Alicia still wanted to say something.

Alex shook his head and carried her on his back. Though he was injured badly and didn't have any energy left, he was still strong enough to carry her to the surface. "We will talk on the surface now," he whispered to Alicia.

The group went back to the surface. During the journey to the surface, they faced some monsters. Alex could kill them easily while carrying Alicia since the monsters were only rank 2 or below. Alicia only cried in his embrace, lamenting her uselessness.

After the group reached the surface, Alex went to the inn along with Firia. They then separated away and promised to meet again tomorrow.

In the room, Alex put Alicia's body on the bed.

"Alex...I'm sorry," Alicia muttered in a low voice.

"Why did your group come down to rank 3 monster floor?"

"I..." Alicia cried, "It was my fault. I was the one who wanted to go there. I'm scared that if I am not strong enough, you will leave me for someone else. I know I am greedy, even though a man can have many wives, yet I want you for myself."

"You..! How could you?" Alex wanted to scold her so badly but there were no words coming out of his mouth.

He sighed and could only say, "You are capable enough, you are also a genius among your peers. You are lucky that I came at the right moment. You can get stronger, but don't get obsessed with gaining power, it will get you into much deeper problems. Look what just happened? You are not only endangering yourself but others too. Please be careful in making decisions next time."

"I'm sorry," she hugged Alex while crying.

Alex patted her back, "Promise me, don't get obsessed with gaining power. I was so scared to lose you earlier,"

"I...promise I won't make such a decision again," Alicia said in a low voice.

"I will still tell the grand duke the whole story though," he said again.

"Nooo! Don't tell father!" Alicia begged him, she was scared that her father would be so angry at her if Alex told the grand duke.

Alex was determined to tell the entire story to grand duke while Alicia kept begging him to not tell him.

"At least, I will also accompany you later as your boyfriend. Do you...Do you want to be my girlfriend, Alicia?" Alex said embarrassedly.

"Alex! You..." Alicia was shocked about what she heard just now. "We...We..."

"If you are okay with that?" for the first time, Alex's face was slightly blushing to say such a thing.

Alicia hugged him tighter. Tears streamed down her face, but this time they were happy tears, "Yes, let's just do that! I want you to accompany me. I want to be your girlfriend."

Alex just gently smiled, he stroked her hair slowly. Today, he finally got a girlfriend once again, this time he won't let it end like in the past.

After a while, he realized that Alicia seemed to fall asleep. He then put her down on the bed carefully because he didn't want to wake her up. He wanted to get up out of the bed, but somehow he couldn't get away from her. She embraced him even tighter as if she didn't want to let him away even in sleep.

Originally, Alex wanted to go back to his room and cultivate again after scolding her for a while. He sighed and looked at Alicia who was asleep. She was really beautiful, he wanted to wipe her tears on her face. Slowly, his fingers run into her smooth skin to wipe the tears. He just laid down on the bed and he was admiring her beauty. He stayed like that for a while.

Somehow, this kind of change of pace made him feel so happy and peaceful. He felt like he found something else that he never knew he wanted. The feeling of longing for someone and wanting to protect her. He didn't know that embracing the woman you love would make him feel happy and warm. He kept enjoying this feeling while he was with Alicia and he fell asleep right beside her.

...

The next morning, Alicia woke up and she was shocked because as soon as she opened her eyes, she saw Alex's sleeping face in front of her. She wanted to push him away instinctively, but her hand was actually hugging Alex strongly. Even when Alex was hugging her, it wasn't that hard to get away from him. If she wanted to get out of his embrace, she could do it right now. But, instead, she stayed there.

She was actually the one who didn't want to let him go. Upon thinking this, her face became red like a tomato. But she still enjoyed this warm feeling that filled inside her heart. It was such a comfortable feeling that she rarely had. She didn't want to let this feeling go.

"What will Alex think about this later? Will he think I am just a cheap woman?" she muttered in a low voice, but she still enjoyed his embrace.

"Mmm.." since Alex's sense of hearing was great, he heard a bit of noise but couldn't really hear what she said. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Alicia's face only a few centimeters away from him. He now realized they were hugging each other while sleeping.

He was surprised and he jumped away instinctively, but Alicia's grip was still strong. Because he didn't control his strength, Alicia was also pulled.

Bang

The two of them fell down from the bed. Alicia was on top of him and their position was very awkward. If anyone saw it, they would think so many weird thoughts. Luckily, there was no one else in the room that would accuse Alex of taking advantage of Alicia.

"A...Alex, are you alright?" Alicia asked worriedly. She didn't realize her own position, which was now under Alex's body.

"I...I'm fine," he said embarrassedly.

"That's good, then," she said again, feeling more relieved. 

But now, she also realized what kind of position they were in. She released her hand and got away from Alex embarrassedly. The atmosphere became so awkward between them once they pulled away from each other.

"What are you going to do after this? Are you still going to the dungeon?" Alicia asked shyly, she was trying to break the ice between them.

Alex pondered a bit before answering the question. He didn't care about level since it won't help him increase his strength. The only purpose he dived to the dungeon was to update his system.

"I don't know. At least I don't plan to go inside for three days after this," he wanted to relax for a bit to regain all of his energy that he used both to kill monsters and to make pills. He realized that this urgency to get stronger was a bit tiring for him, so he wanted to relax a bit.

"That's so great!" Alicia said happily.

"Great? What do you mean?" Alex was confused.

"Ah..." she said that out of reflex, she embarrassedly said, "I was just thinking if you want to take a break, can we enjoy a few days together like back then?"

"How about we asked your teammates first? Are they going to the dungeon again after this?" Alex asked.

"Ah!" she forgot about that, "We will meet them in the afternoon. I will ask them once we meet."

Alex nodded, "How about your injury then? Are you feeling much better now?"