"Why do you look so surprised, Kio?"
"Er…"
"Wait, how come we aren't in our bedroom? Where is this place…"
As Miyu was filled with confusion, her memories started to flood back into her mind, causing her cheeks to flush a deep shade of red.
"Hiyaaah!! Noooo!!"
"What's wrong?"
"Please forget what just happened! I didn't mean to do that…"
Miyu sat down and hugged her head between her knees as she couldn't bear to make eye contact with Kio. She regretted her actions and words, since she knew Kio already had Riko in his heart. Even if Riko wasn't here, Luna was also slowly attracting his attention, based on her observations ever since she arrived in this world.
Kio was trying to think of the best way to resolve this as he didn't want Miyu to do anything drastic due to the embarrassment.
"Umm… Miyu."
"..."
"Aside from my sister, you should already know that I have two great girls in my heart. I promised to take care of them for the rest of my life."
Tears gathered around her eyes as she listened to his response. Miyu didn't utter any sound as she paid close attention to his words, wondering how he's going to reject her.
"However, when you told me your dream earlier, I was really happy."
"..."
"I don't know if we will ever return to our world, but if we stay here, I heard from Dan that we aren't limited to monogamy. In the future, if you don't mind me having multiple wives at the same time, I can still fulfill your dreams."
"Kio… you mean…"
"Well, even though I've always treated you as a little sister, I do like you, you know? There's no way I can hate such a cute, cheerful girl who's always so energetic. I also enjoy those rare occasions where we spend time together because ever since Kaori distanced herself from me a few years ago, I was a little lonely. By being near you, I get affected by your youthful spirit, causing all of my loneliness to disappear.
Anyways, If you're willing to accept me, will you be my girlfriend?"
"Kio!"
Miyu ran into his arms and cried tears of joy, as she never expected her wish to actually come true again. Just now, she had dreamed of a life where Kio confessed to her and they eventually married, but after waking up, she felt embarrassed by what she did to him.
However, this time, she knew everything was real. She couldn't believe it, even though she heard every word he said.
Even if she will have to share him with Riko and Luna, she didn't mind. She already knew that Riko occupied a big spot in his heart, so she was satisfied as long as she had a place in there too.
As she looked at him closely, she noticed he was wounded in several places, including a huge bloody gash on his arm and back.
"Ah! Kio, what happened to you? How did you get hurt?"
"These vines knocked us out the moment we entered the room. The moment I regained a bit of consciousness, they started attacking me, so I had to fight it."
"Does it hurt?"
"I'm fine now."
What Kio didn't know was, when Luna decided to accept Kio as her partner and shared a kiss with him, a bond was slowly formed. That bond was slowly nurtured through physical contact, causing him to have a reaction when he saw Luna in his dream.
After resting for an hour, Kio decided it was time to venture through the passage ahead of them. He carried Miyu on his back while he walked, since this would allow him to use his skill in case they got attacked.
Unlike the first room, they only ran into smaller plants that tried to attack him. Kio sliced everything easily with his sword, causing him to wonder why was there such a big difference in difficulty between the first room and everything else.
At the end of the corridor, there was a chest and a teleportation rune beside it. The rune would bring them to the entrance the moment they step on it.
Inside the chest, there were two Class Orbs, which was a pleasant surprise for both of them. Kio already had a class, but Kaori and Miyu didn't have one yet. When he inspected it, the two Class Orbs were Plant Manipulator and Earth Magician.
"Miyu, you can finally have a class if you want one of these. You also have the option of waiting to see what classes are available at the adventurer's guild later."
"Hmm… What do you think is the best option?"
"When you use [Inspect] on yourself, do you see any available skill points?"
"Yes, it shows I have 14 skill points."
"Then, I think you should wait until we reach the adventurer's guild, as we're not in any danger right now. However, I think you should still hold onto these two Class Orbs. If something happens, I want you to immediately use one of them to protect yourself."
Kio and Miyu both leveled up to 15 after beating all the plants in the first room and the corridor.
Kio had used 2 of his 5 extra skill points on [Shadow Walk], increasing his maximum number of charges to 6, and the distance he can travel per use is now 25 meters.
He also gained a new skill called [Projectile Mastery].
[Projectile Mastery] - Passively increases the accuracy and power of projectiles.
***
With this new skill, Kio knew his S&W M37 handgun would become stronger, even though he only had 12 bullets left. He wanted to get some throwing knives later, so he will be able to have a ranged attack without relying on the gun.
As there was nothing else to do here, Kio grabbed Miyu's hand and asked, "Are you ready to go?"
"I'll always be ready as long as you're with me, hehe."
Miyu embraced his arm as they both stepped on the teleportation rune, disappearing from the dark corridor.
***
As they opened their eyes, Kio and Miyu discovered they were at the base of the Tree of Life, since they couldn't see the top of the gigantic tree.
"I wonder if this Tree of Life is a part of the Dungeon or something? I feel like we went through a trial similar to what Dan described, although there were some differences between them."
"Maybe. But who cares about that, look ahead of us!"
Kio redirected his vision to the elven village. It was completely different from how he remembered when he was still here.
The suspended bridges have all collapsed, some trees were damaged, and many homes have been destroyed.
There were also a large number of elven bodies everywhere, with some laying on the ground, while the rest were just aimlessly moving from place to place.
When some of the elves heard Miyu's shout, they turned towards them and moved in their direction.
"Grr…"
"Oh shit."
Kio quickly carried Miyu with his arms and dived into the shadows, moving to the other side of the Tree of Life so they wouldn't be in the sight of the elves.
"Kio, what happened to them?"
"I'm not sure, but it's not a good sign."
Kio was worried about his girls that he entrusted to Dan. However, when he used [Minimap] to check on their location, he found out that they weren't in the village anymore. He assumed they used the Return Stone that Dan gave them to leave.
"Looks like everyone else left this village already."
"What should we do then?"
"Let's go find some things that we might need. I'm sure nobody would mind since this place has already been abandoned."
"Okay!"
Kio carried Miyu on his back as he proceeded to walk slowly to the tree houses.
The only zombies that occupied his sight were elves and humans. The other zombies that Dan and the others met previously have left already. Compared to the abnormal zombie orc, wolf, and goblin, the ones here weren't able to detect Kio and Miyu.
One of the reasons why he remained undetected was due to his [Stealth Walk], minimizing the noise of his steps.
The first location they went to was the house where Miyu had gotten trapped and teleported away. Even though there were a lot of zombies around it for some reason, Kio knew that it was an important place, so he hoped to find something good there.
Kio used his [Haste] skill and proceeded to swiftly decapitate the zombies standing between him and the door. He aimed for the ones on the edge first, to prevent them from getting surrounded.
Although he could've let Miyu use one of the Class Orbs so that she can fight too, he wanted to give her more options later, since they weren't in any serious danger.
After a couple of minutes, all of the zombies in their way had been killed, so they entered the house and closed the door behind them.
Inside the large tree house, Kio quickly cleaned up the zombies inside as they began to rummage through the place, looking for any loot he could obtain.
However, even after an hour passed by, both of them couldn't find anything too valuable aside from a few elemental stones. Kio stored those inside his Inventory and wanted to check the other houses.
"Kio! I think I found something!"
Miyu called out to him as she pointed at a spot under the meeting room table.