Dan's Regrets

The girls cried their hearts out as they heard about Dan's past, especially at the part where his wife passed away.

Kio could understand why Kaori and Miyu felt sad, since they just lost their parents yesterday, and Riko only died a few hours ago.

However, he was slightly surprised to see Luna being affected by Dan's story.

'I guess she's also a regular girl, being sentimental from tragic tales.'

He assumed that slaves would normally cut off their emotions, to remain sane from the abuse of the slave traders.

However, seeing Luna behave this way gave him a better impression of her, since Luna didn't give up on herself after she became a slave.

In his sight, he could see Ren and Saotome who were absorbed in their flirting. Saotome had been trying her best to seduce Ren all this time, ever since Jay died in front of her.

Fae on the other hand, still had the same emotionless face on her, causing Kio to be unable to understand what was going through her mind.

She seemed to be thinking deeply about something in the middle of his story.

The one who had the biggest reaction to Dan's story was obviously Mary, as this was the first time she heard about the reason behind her mother's death.

She had started crying as soon as Dan reached the part where his party members were killed by the shadow creatures.

When Mary heard that her mother lost her eyes from an attack, she climbed into Dan's arms and wailed loudly.

Mary had grown up with only her father to rely on, and he had been unwilling to tell her about Helen, due to the feelings of guilt.

He had been blaming himself for the last 15 years, for allowing Helen to become injured from the trial. If he didn't let her enter the trial at any point in time, she might've still been alive, taking care of Mary together with him.

He didn't know how he should comfort his daughter, as he was waiting for her to blame him for it.

"Dan, you don't have to hate yourself for your friends and wife's deaths. I'm sure they wouldn't want to see you living the rest of your life in regret."

"..."

"You need to forgive yourself for your mistakes. Even though your wife passed away, I'm sure she must've said something important to you during her last moment."

As Kio mentioned that, Dan began to reminisce about Helen's last words.

"Please don't blame yourself forever. I would love to see you raise Mary into a wonderful girl…"

Tears began to fall out of Dan's eyes as he remembered her words.

He patted Mary's head with one hand, while he used his other hand to gently hug her.

As they were currently crying their hearts out to relieve all of their sadness, Kio felt like he should give them some space.

Kio and the girls stood up and were about to leave, but Dan tossed something towards him without looking at his direction.

He decided to check what it was.

Item: Skill Orb

Owner: Kio

***

"What does this do?"

"..."

Seeing as how Dan wasn't in the mood to reply, he decided to just use it, knowing that Dan shouldn't have any intention to harm him at this moment.

The Skill Orb quickly disintegrated, and Kio immediately used [Inspect] on himself to check what happened.

Name: Kio Nakai

Age: 22

Level: 1

Class: Assassin

Skills: [Inspect Lvl 2], [Universal Language Translation Lvl --], [Minimap Lvl --], [Stealth Walk Lvl 1], [Haste Lvl 1], [Steal Lvl 1], [Shadow Walk Lvl 1]

***

Kio instantly noticed two new skills, and his [Inspect] skill had gained a level as well.

Although he didn't know what the extra level in [Inspect] does, he decided to figure that out later and focused on examining his new skills.

[Steal] - Has a low chance of randomly taking an item from a target. Limited to one use per day, and can only target the same person once per month.

[Shadow Walk] - The user blends in to the shadows, allowing for travel between different shadow locations. Limited to 10 meters per activation, 2 charges max, charges refill every hour.

'Wow, this [Shadow Walk] skill is so much better than [Stealth Walk], even though it does have its restrictions. I wonder why I got [Steal] though, since it doesn't seem like a typical skill for Assassins…'

Although he was pleasantly surprised about his new skills, he wanted to ask Dan why he gave away such a valuable gift for no reason.

Since he didn't want to disturb Dan and Mary right now, he decided to ask him tomorrow, as they needed to sleep to regain some energy.

Kaori and Miyu followed him into the tent as they decided to stick together in this unknown world.

Luna was lost in her own thoughts as she also walked behind Kio.

'I'll tell him about it when an opportunity arises…'

As they entered the tent, Kio could only fit two futons inside, so they were in a dilemma about the sleeping arrangements.

It was already tight to fit two people in a futon, so having all three girls in one of them was out of the question.

They also didn't want to exclude Kio from using the futon, since he had been taking care of them from the start.

As Kaori was about to give in and say she's fine with sharing it with him, Luna spoke up before her.

"Kio, I've made my decision."

"Eh? About who you're going to sleep with?"

"No! Earlier, I said I needed some time to think about what to do about my class being discovered by you."

"Ah, that."

"Yes. I've decided to accept you as my partner."

"Ok? Is there anything I need to do?"

"Not rea- I mean, yes. We should develop our bond with each other gradually..."

"How do we do that?"

"Well… we could start by having a bit of physical contact."

"Oh. If you wanted to sleep together, all you needed to do was ask."

"N-no! I-I just wanted to hold your hands while sleeping…"

Luna enjoyed his warmth when Kio carried her throughout their escape, ever since he released her from the cage.

She wanted to experience the same feeling as she slept, since she felt safe under his care.

"Is that all? I'm okay with that, so let's quickly get some rest."

As Kaori and Miyu stood beside them, they didn't know how to interrupt, which led to Kio accepting Luna's offer to sleep together.

Even though Kio is Riko's boyfriend now, it's not like they could just deny Luna's request since she only wanted to hold his hands.

Besides, they will be right beside them, so it's not like those two could do anything.

Although Luna looked pretty cute in the clothes he gave her earlier, he wasn't about to be tempted into doing something wrong with Kaori and Miyu beside him.

Besides, Luna still didn't have a proper shower yet.

'I hope we have time tomorrow to give her a chance to clean herself, otherwise, who knows how uncomfortable she must feel.'

As he gently held her hand, he fell asleep pretty quickly due to his exhaustion from running all day.

…

"Kio… Kio…"

A voice could be heard around him, from the person who he failed to protect.

"Riko?! Where are you?"

"Kio… I love you…"

As he felt something on his lips, he responded by strongly embracing her in a hug and giving her a kiss as well.

"Kio.."

"..."

"...Brother, wake up!"

"!!!"

Feeling pain from his foot, Kio slowly opened his drowsy eyes.

The first thing he saw was Luna's face, a centimeter away from him, while their lips were locked in a kiss.

Although her eyes were closed, she was also responding by kissing him back.

Thinking that he was in a dream, he embraced her tighter and continued their kiss.

*Stomp*

"Ah!"

This time, Kio woke up completely from the pain in his leg.

He then moved away from Luna, which allowed him to see who stepped on him.

"Why are you stepping on me so early in the morning, Kaori?"

"Kio… you… do you even know what you were doing just now!"

"Yawn… I was having a nice dream."

"..."

Seeing his carefree expression, Kaori became speechless.

*Rustle*

"Mmm… what's wrong?"

Slowly rubbing her sleepy eyes, Luna woke up from all the commotion.

"Good morning, Luna. I don't know, Kaori over here is raising a fuss for some reason."

"Oh? For some reason, eh? I guess you don't see anything wrong with your actions then?"

"???"

Although Kio was slightly confused, he turned around to look at Luna's direction.

Realization soon dawned upon him as he figured out why Kaori was upset.

"Luna, your clothes…"

"???"

Luna slowly looked towards her body, as she noticed her pink sports bra had rolled up above her chest, exposing her breasts.

She had taken off her jacket in the middle of the night since she felt hot, which caused her to sleep half-naked beside Kio.

When Kaori woke up this morning, the first thing she noticed was Kio embracing a naked Luna while they were engaged in a passionate kiss.

She was stumped at the sudden development, causing her brain to momentarily freeze.

After taking a deep breath, she proceeded to stomp on his foot, which caused the scene just now.

"Kio, how could you-"

"Wait, wait. Kaori, I don't even know how this happened. I literally just woke up when you stepped on me."

As Kaori glared at him, he released a deep sigh.

He then pulled down Luna's sports bra and helped her wear her jacket again, finally covering her chest.

Afterwards, he gave each of them a bottle of water, toothbrush, and toothpaste, allowing them to rinse their mouths after waking up.

Since Luna wasn't familiar with the toothpaste, he had to explain what it was used for, otherwise she might think it's a morning snack.

Miyu woke up at the same time as Kaori, and she had been sitting on the futon, dazedly watching the scene.

Although Kio and Riko confessed their feelings for each other yesterday, she was in no position to chide him, since it was a fact that Riko died.

'If we aren't able to revive big sister…'

Miyu's mood plummeted and her emotions became a little unstable as negative thoughts filled her mind.

Even though Kaori had been comforting her since yesterday, Miyu still felt empty in her heart, as everyone in her family is gone.

Shortly after, something broke her train of thought, as screams could be heard quite some distance outside of their tent.

"Ahhhh!"

As they walked outside, they could barely see any sunlight around them, indicating that there was still some time before sunrise.

"Sigh. Not this again, we really need to get away from this city as soon as possible."

Kio sighed for the second time since he woke up, as he quickly braced himself for their second day in this world.