Dana was in her mother arms crying, Isabella's eyes were glued to her daughter filled with emotions.
At my side, Hope was sobbing a little too. I thought about teasing her but the scene in front of my eyes was really moving.
With everything that had happened in the last few days, seeing this had a healing effect on my soul and made all that I had to do yesterday worth it. I waited there for a few moments until I heard footsteps running downstairs.
Rose appeared and jumped in my arms and gave me a peck on my cheek. The noise interrupted Isabella's and Dana's reunions and both looked at her with curiosity.
"I missed you!". I hugged her tight and caressed her back.
"You were with me all the time". I said in her ear.
"It's not the same! We can't be lovey-dovey while I'm in astral form!". She blushed but I was already used to her being so straightforward with her thoughts, to be honest, I found it cute.
"I thought you were going to say while hunting". I gave her a kiss on the forehead.
Isabella and Dana got near us with their eyes red from crying. Dana was the one more surprised when she saw Rose.
"Oh, The sleepy girl". Isabella looked at Dana with curiosity and she explained. "she was sleeping all the time I was here, I wanted to wake her up, but Dante told that she was in a special mission in the dream world, so I couldn't wake her".
Behind me, I could hear Hope's laugh, and Rose getting even redder than before. Since we were together and the mother-daughter reunion was interrupted by Rose's arrival, I decided to introduce them properly.
"The sleepy girl is my girlfriend Rose I already told you about her earlier, the girl over there is my Sister Hope, she has been taking care of Dana. There is also my friends Gerhard who is probably at the workshop, and Hayley who probably is training. And you already heard about Dante…our cat".
"Your cat…". Isabella wasn't sure if I was joking or not so she tried to confirm what I said.
"Telepathic cat, he can communicate with us since the meteor shower".
"Meteor Shower??". I had a lot more to talk about than I thought.
"Let's go to the apartment we can talk while having a meal". Rose took the ownership of my hand and we went upstairs.
Once in the apartment, since she already knew we were coming here without eating anything, Hope had food ready for us.
We ate all together, Hope already ate with Dana earlier. From Dana's story, she wanted to wait and eat with her mother, but Dante was able to convince her to eat since it was going to take a while for her to be here.
"Hope did you gave Dante the task of taking care of Dana?" I was teasing her but she seemed to take it seriously.
"No!! but he can be more convincing than me, also Dana played with him most of the time".
Isabella seemed in deep thought about something.
"Does everyone here have a weird ability?". Isabella already knew that there were weird abilities, the pyromancer probably wasn't the first one she saw either, and Dante, Rose and I had abilities too. She couldn't be sure about me but since I defeated the two that kidnaped her it was obvious.
"We were lucky, and got an ability that day". I told her about the meteor shower, I didn't give her details about our abilities besides Dante's, I also explained a little about Hayley's intimidation aura, for her and Dana to not get terrified by mistake.
When we finished eating, Rose talked.
"Isabella you are probably tired, you can use my room to sleep if you want".
"We can take another place, don't worry"
"Most of the other apartments are being used. One is Hayley's practice place so it's not good to sleep, or get near there, other is a workshop, we made a kind of storehouse in another one and the last one is not in a good state".
"And what about you?"
"I want to spend some time with Spence". She took my arm with a tired but happy face and I liked the idea. I have been fighting and moving for about a day non-stop, so I was too tired to complete the hunting mission today, thus I decided to spoil Rose for the rest of the day. Since we were so tired we would probably end up just taking a nap together.
"I got to clean myself first, I'll be back soon if you need anything ask Hope, and if you don't find her ask in your mind and Dante will help you". I left them in the apartment and Rose went to show her room to Isabella.
After washing myself I changed into a clean set of clothes and went back to the apartment, Rose was drowsy on the couch. I was really tired too and wanted to be with her for a while.
"Want to take a nap?". she nodded happily and we both went to bed.
There were no hidden intentions, she snuggled into me and fell asleep almost right away. My arm was around her and I caressed her head for a while until I fell asleep too.
__________________________________________________
I wake up a couple hours later. Rose was still in my arms and I didn't want to wake her up, so I just watch her sleep and checked what could I do with the reward.
This time I received 2 skill points.
'System how do I use skill points?'
[The skill points are used to level up a skill that the user already has, the cost is related to the current level of the skill]
[Lv.0->Lv.1 1 Skill points]
[Lv.1->Lv.2 2 Skill points]
[Lv.2->Lv.3 4 Skill points]
[Lv.3->Lv.4 8 Skill points]
[Lv.4->Lv.5 16 Skill points]
[Esper Related abilities cost double]
[Not all the skills are eligible for this]
'Why not?'
[The skill leveling has hidden parameters for level up. Skill experience, and requirements. The skill points can bypass the skill experience but not the requirement].
'What Skills can I level up right now?'
[Stealth Lv.1, Dodge Lv.0, Firearms Lv.1, Damage Resistance Lv.1, Driving Lv.1, Cooking Lv.1]
I discarded driving and cooking right away, they may be good in the future but right now neither would boost my survival chances. After thinking carefully, I decided to discard also Firearms and damage resistance. I won't focus in a tank fighting style so using them in damage resistance would be a waste, and I have the feeling that firearms could lv up on its own soon.
This left dodge and Stealth as the only options. If I choose Dodge I would have a skill point left in case I got another Lv.0 Skill, But Stealth can be more useful to sneak around in my current situation.
'System Show me my stats'.
[Name: Spencer Davies
Age: 20 yrs.
Stats:
Str: 15 End:20 Agi: 25 Dex: 17 Int:20 Wis: 16 Cha: 25 Luk:10
Perks: Cold mind (+), Good Leader (+), Acrobat (+), Vital points view (+), Superior vision color range view(+), Astral Anchor(0)(Bound to Rose Hunter).
Skills:
Battle skills: Firearms Lv. 1, Damage Resistance Lv. 1, Dodge Lv.0.
Knowledge: Medicine Lv. 1, Physics Lv2, Math Lv.2, Basic sciences Lv. 5.
(A/N: as I mentioned before I made a change in the Science knowledge due to it being too general).
Utility Skills: Driving Lv.1, Stealth Lv. 1, Swimming Lv. 2, Tracking LV.1.
Production Skills: Cooking Lv.1, Mechanics Lv.1.
Esper-Related: Link Affinity Lv.1.
Esper abilities:
E-Rank: Astral Link (Bound to Rose Hunter).
F-Rank: Enhanced Senses (Sight, Taste, Touch), Enhanced Reflexes.
System Points: 100]
The skills that had a hidden requirement and I can't level up yet are tracking, mechanics and medicine. I remember that Tracking needed 15 wisdom, so probably a higher wisdom was needed for it to level up. For the other two it could be also stats or a knowledge requirement that I haven't fulfilled yet.
Link affinity was something I didn't notice before. I didn't remember when I got that skill, but I knew that the Astral link advantages where related to my affinity with Rose, and our Ranks. This skill should be related to this.
Even if this was the first time I got Skill points they were bounded to appear again as an eventual reward, so I decided to save them for now.
I wanted to see if I could use them to level up Link affinity in the future, and I could use them if I need it in an emergency.
While I was thinking of this, two brown eyes opened and looked back at me.
I smiled at her gave her a peck on the nose. Rose responded with a kiss on my chin, and kissing war started, we understood each other well and kissed each other in different parts, avoiding the lips. The kisses that started as an innocent sign of affection, became longer and grew in passion, in the end, I couldn't resist anymore and went for her lips.
After our little kissing game, we were breathless. I'm not sure how much time we were kissing but I could see that her lips were redder than usual.
"You lost". Rose was all smiles while in my arms.
"I should have lost sooner, do you want a reward?". Rose smiled but seemed to notice something and fell silent.
"Yeah, you should have lost sooner… I wouldn't have left you a hickey in the neck if you did".
"I have a hickey?" I looked around for a mirror and noticed a little mark on my neck.
I remembered the moment it happened, it was right before I kissed her lips.
"I hope G doesn't notice this…".