Kio walked towards Miyu as he stared at the spot she pointed towards.
There were a couple of wooden planks that seemed out of place under the table, so he pulled the planks apart, revealing a hidden staircase underneath.
"I wonder how they managed to build a hidden room inside a tree…"
"Stop fussing over the details, Kio. Let's go check it out!"
Seeing how cheerful Miyu was, Kio felt like he made the right decision earlier. Although it wasn't the best confession, he decided to give her a proper proposal once they settle down.
At the bottom of the staircase, they reached a wooden door that wasn't fully closed. The room inside was a mess, as if whoever entered last was in a rush to grab as many things as they could before fleeing.
However, there were still a few things leftover inside. Medicinal herbs, potions, bows, quivers, and arrows could be seen lying in a corner of the room.
"Over here, Kio!"
"Hm? What did you find?"
"I found a few more Class Orbs!"
Inside one of the cabinets, there were 4 Class Orbs. Unfortunately, all 4 of them were for the Archer class, which slightly disappointed him. Kio was hoping to gather a variety of Class Orbs before meeting up with Kaori, but he could do nothing about it since it relied on luck.
"Dam. Looks like these are all for the Archer class. Miyu, store one in your Inventory and I'll hold the rest."
"Kay~"
Although the loot wasn't bad, Kio really hoped to find more food, as it was never a bad idea to gather more food in this kind of situation.
"Let's go check out some of the other houses."
"Sure!"
After leaving the big tree house, they checked each of the other houses while killing all of the zombies that were wandering around outside. The few zombies inside the houses were also taken care of with ease, as Kio killed them too fast with his [Haste].
Even if Kio didn't kill them that quickly, the zombies wouldn't have noticed them due to how silent his steps were.
"I thought this [Stealth Walk] skill was a garbage skill, but it turns out to be pretty useful in killing zombies indoors."
From all of the houses, they managed to gather quite a lot of supplies, such as knives, arrows, and vegetables. Kio specifically took the knives for himself as he wanted to test his [Projectile Mastery] skill later, to see how accurate he is from throwing the knives.
Even though regular kitchen knives aren't designed for throwing, he couldn't find any other alternatives.
He distributed the arrows evenly between Miyu and himself, so both of them would be able to shoot from a distance if required.
They also found a lot of elemental stones in every house, as it was apparent that the elves used these things quite frequently in their daily lives.
At the end of their scavenging, they finally walked towards Fae's home, as they had left it for last.
Miyu had been helping him attack the zombies on the way with a bow and arrow, but her accuracy still needs a lot of work.
As they walked closer and closer to Fae's home, Kio's [Threat Detection] warned him of something dangerous heading their way at a quick speed.
While Miyu was looking to the side and was about to shoot an arrow at a zombie, Kio quickly grabbed her and dived into the shadow.
In less than a second after they disappeared, a few dark figures landed on their previous location. With saliva dripping out of its mouth and a few arrows sticking out of their bodies, there were 4 wolves looking around for their prey who had just disappeared.
As the wolves had some visible scratch marks all over its body, it was obvious that they were infected and had turned into zombies. However, Kio was shocked that the zombie wolves managed to discover him from such a distance, as none of the other zombies could do the same the whole time they were here.
Kio took out his short sword and was ready to resurface away from the wolves. However, the moment his head left the shadow, all 4 of the wolves quickly dashed in his direction, causing him to quickly sink into the same shadow.
"What the fuck. These things detected me the moment I moved out of the shadow."
Miyu was worried when she saw Kio nearly get scratched by a claw. She wanted to help him somehow, so she took out her bow and aimed, shooting an arrow out of the shadows and into a wolf.
"Dam! I missed the head."
"It was a nice try… Wait, that gives me an idea."
The moment he exited the shadows, he immediately dove back inside, leaving him with 4 charges of [Shadow Step] left.
Kio discovered a weakness to his [Shadow Step] skill. If he didn't even have time to put his foot on the ground after leaving the shadows, he won't be able to use his [Haste] skill to move around. These zombie wolves' abnormal sensing abilities caused him to worry.
He prayed that the idea he got from Miyu would work, otherwise he could only use the rest of his charges to move as far as possible.
Kio took out one of the kitchen knives he looted earlier and threw it. It landed perfectly in the head of a wolf, yet there wasn't enough power to completely pierce through its brain.
He then quickly leveled up his [Projectile Mastery] to level 3, saving 1 point for later.
On his second attempt, he threw another knife while he was in the shadows, but this time it managed to pierce far enough into its head to kill it.
Repeating this action a few times, he managed to kill the last zombie wolf during his 6th use of [Shadow Step].
"Sorry Kio. I wish I could've been more helpful…"
"Don't be silly. If it wasn't for your idea to shoot an arrow while we were in the shadows, I wouldn't have thought about doing that."
"Really…?"
"Yea. You were a great help to me. Thanks, Miyu"
Kio gave her a kiss on the forehead as her doubts slowly disappeared.
"Hehe. What should we do now?"
"Hmm… Let's rest at one of the houses we cleared out earlier before checking out Fae's home. I don't feel safe going inside when I can't use my [Shadow Step]."
"Alright!"
After they entered one of the undamaged houses, Kio locked the door and took out some food to eat. The last time they ate was when they were still in the Tree of Life, but that was a few hours ago as it took them a long time to loot every house in this village.
"Miyu, what do you want to eat?"
"Anything, as long as you feed me."
"..."
"Please?"
Kio couldn't reject her request when he saw her pleading expression. Even though he knew she was fine with him saying no, he decided to spoil her as it was just the two of them at the moment.
"Fine. Let's eat some curry."
"Hooray! I love you, Kio!"
As it was almost night, Kio took out a curry package and a pot of rice, then started to cook it. This was going to be his first time making a curry dish using vegetables from this world, but he was looking forward to how it would taste.
He knew Miyu loved to eat curry, as she always had a delightful expression whenever they used to eat it together in the past.
After dinner, Kio blocked the door and window with some furniture he found inside the house, then went towards the bedroom.
There was only one large bed in there, so Kio took out a futon to sleep on the floor, since he felt like it was too early for them to sleep together.
However, Miyu wouldn't let him do that as she kept pestering him to share the bed.
"You even slept with Luna in the same futon, so why can't we sleep together?!"
"That was because we only had 2 beds for 4 of us back then…"
"You can't be so unfair! Let me sleep in the bed with you too!"
"But Miyu-"
"Please? I just want to hug you while I'm sleeping."
"Sigh… Alright then."
"Yay!"
Seeing how eager she looked, Kio didn't want to disappoint her, so he eventually accepted. However, he told himself that he wouldn't cross the line, as this wasn't the right time and place for it. Even though the thought of doing it did cross his mind, he wanted to have a safe place for the girls before crossing the line.
"Hey, Kio. How come big sister leveled up with us a few days ago, yet she didn't level up when we were inside the Tree of Life?"
"Huh?"
Kio hadn't paid any attention to Riko's level, since he just assumed she would level up at the same time as them.
However, when he looked at his party now, aside from Dan who is level 55, Kio and Miyu were level 15. Luna, Kaori, and Mary are level 19, while Riko was still at level 10.
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't figure out the reason why.
After thinking about it for awhile, Kio and Miyu fell asleep in each other's arms.
Miyu currently had a happy expression on her face as she slept. No matter how tough the future ahead of them will be, she knew she would be able to bravely face it with Kio by her side.
Besides, she also obtained his promise to marry her in the future.