It was a beautiful night when we arrived at the place where we will have dinner, a date, at least the first one made official for us, we boarded the ship which was stylized in a fancy restaurant with slow steps, enjoying the view of the city of Orario at night, a collection of different houses and buildings lit by magic lamps or fire, and from the Tower of Babel rising into the starry night sky, hiding in its bowels the Dungeon and its wonders and dangers.
We sailed past the rich and famous people and gods of the city or beyond, who came to this eccentric restaurant attracted by its cuisine or vanity, I wore a black tuxedo with a purple glow with a black shirt and a dark green tie with a brooch engraved with a flaming hammer, the symbol of the Hephaestus family made of bronze with flames of colored crystals on it, attracting some attention from the crowd as I passed along with my partner, Liliruca Arde wore a necklace of silver and emeralds with the symbol of the Soma family, on her head, a dark blue and emerald dress, a long black stocking and heels, with shorts under the short dress I reminded her to wear.
Despite the style, we were both equipped with inner armor and scabbard belts carrying folding daggers and an inner scabbard for a flexible sword that we'd begun to master in the last week, the act proving challenging, and taking our dexterity to a decent level.
From the door we were guided to a decent spot no questions asked, lucky to be the only pallum couple here probably, and with me being easy to tell...
Sitting at a table in one of the windows overlooking the city, I started talking to Lili, just disguising the real conversation taking place between our minds and souls, we talked about the food, the places of origin of the ingredients, their value, and taste, while in our minds we shared our knowledge acquired about them with psychometry, both from the dishes in question and from books about their ingredients, in addition to talking about the gods and famous adventurers around in the same way as the previous one mainly about our pursuers, Tsubaki and Hephaestus who probably came to meet Liliruca.
"So Lili, how did you feel about being a noble lady of class?" I said joking because I already know the answer.
"I'm flattered to you ask it, my handsome knight Sinn, I'm extremely happy to learn that I'd rather be at home being pampered by you after an exhausting training, than in a restaurant full of people forcing themselves not to eat this delicious and expensive food quickly when using mannerisms, and drinking less to stay sober, all while chatting in this weird way of adding unnecessary descriptions and adjectives," she said with an impression of Ojou-sama letting the ridicule escape her eyes.
'At least we've gained the knowledge of a few dozen fancy dishes, so we don't have to spend so much money on something that can barely compare to the taste of your desserts, Sinn. She shares her thoughts / Yes, Lili, although I don't think they're all that good to be compared to the food Lili made me when I get home, but it's always nice to be able to eat while watching you Lili, especially when you've dressed up so well for me'
so they continued flirting... and the night passed.
having finished that part of our meeting, I left without forgetting to pass a table where Hephaestus-chan and Tsubaki were and we exchanged greetings introducing Liliruca and me to Hephaestus and some gods that included Demeter and some familiar goddess that I don't remember the name from the anime..., with a little talk, we left and disappeared into the Night.
I guided Liliruca through the city until we reached one of the empty city walls where we faced each other in our 'silent eden' eyes shining and hearts open as we conveyed emotions that words could not...
"Liliruca Arde, I declare that I am in desperate love with you, and I ask you to be my girlfriend, do you accept?"
"Sinnskrieger, I'm in love with you, be my boyfriend!"
Them they... in the open... very bold no?...
They held hands and sat together admiring Orario, imagine! Holding hands before the wedding... what perverts.
"Sinn, I'm happy, very happy, you made me happy and got me out of my path of darkness and negativity, it's like a dream and even though I know it's not, just the thought that this could all end scares me, I- I really fell in love, didn't I? thanks Sinn, for conquering me, let's love each other for eternity!" she spoke in tears of happiness
"Me too Lili, I'm afraid of just waking up and not feeling Lili anymore within our connection, even though our souls are stuck together, the mere thought of such simple things seems to weigh too much on our minds doesn't it? I can't live without Liliruca Arde, may we be like this forever!" So we kissed and hugged each other for a while...
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Slowly but pleasantly the days passed, it had been half a year since we had lived together and seven months since I started my training... but before I continue I must remember the important things that happened during this time-skip.
Within a month of dating, I gave a necklace with an emerald and an amethyst surrounded by rare wood from the forest from the deep floors, polished to match Lili's eyes and hair and made to remember me, with an image of us on the back and the interior that when placing magic is transformed into a "hologram" for her to see alone or if she wants she can allow the vision to others.
In the second month, I and Lili already had higher stats than most levels one, with her agility, dexterity, and magic in A, the rest in superior B less strength at superior C, for me it was all in superior B, agility in A and magic in superior A, perhaps the only pallum with such balanced status, we gained a skill related to weapons prowess, and Lili gained an amazing growth skill with mental toughness related to love [True Cinderella] although it's not something ridiculous like [liaris freese] might have been just because the target was herself or rather accompany me and become who she wants to be, and not a level six adventurer like...
Obviously, I can't update skills at her Falna soo... Soma-sama did it...
Upon reaching this level of power we mastered all the upper floors (1-12) and checked the potential of the monsters with experiments the best being WS, the two monster butterflies, and the bad bat, in that order, we also at 12th floor killed an infant dragon that we mutated with random magic stones since he is the only "dragon" at the upper floors that, it dropped a dragon's tooth that I plan to use to make a magic weapon in the future.
So we finally decided to hire two mutant War-Shadow, in an epic fight which we had to use a ritual to stop the ridiculously powerful Elemental magic that allowed them to turn into shadows, and walk through walls, before being able to fight them. We subdued without so much difficulty, even after letting them have the power to defeat a powerful level two monster like a minotaur with their acquired shadow skills, relying on our excellent fighting skill and equipment and also cursing the heck of them, after subdued, they were sucked into our bodies and bonded to a part of our spirit.
With that, we gained two new companions, better saying they were more for copies of us, since they didn't have a strong soul like a Xenos or spirit, they were affected by the skill and became our avatars/shadows, in addition to taking a form similar to ours, when summoned, mine gained the green color of my hair in the center of the eyes and changed the red of "energy" for bright purple when Lili's one became feminine with hair like hers in a reddish-brown color for everything, with breasts and butt developed too... we named the new race Shade Phantasm, and their names Bezaleel and Scatach respectively.
They were practically our extensions, only wilder and more combative with dangerous smiles showing their dark insides and energy-colored tongue and teeth.
From them we receive the ability skill to move with shadows and distort our size [Shadow Body] and a spell [Shadow of War] without chanting, which allows us to control and solidify our shadows with Mind, when we equip Phantasm we gain part of the shadow stats and we strengthen these two characteristics...