If only mom could see me now, Ray thought with a sarcastic smile on his face. I’m a hero, saving the damsel in distress.

He was looking at Laura, waiting to see if she would come to on her own. Ray was hesitant to touch her. She looked like she was knocking on death’s door. His indecisiveness was crippling.

“Laura,” Ray finally said. He was more nervous talking to her than he was fighting the goblins. It was an awkward situation, the feelings he had hidden deep in the past threatening to spill out. He thought back to how stupid he was back then, how he thought he had the answers and how he had treated her.

It was all so juvenile. He wanted to move past it all.

“Laura!” Ray repeated, almost shouting. His voice cracked with emotion. “You need to wake up!”

There was no response. He could barely tell if she was moving. Her breaths seemed shallow, her slender shoulder barely elevating. Then, he heard her.

“Stop, Ray,” Her voice sounded parched and annoyed.“You’ll just attract more of them.”

Ah, she’s still angry about that, Ray confirmed his fears in his mind.

“You’re okay, right? Like that guy downstairs. I’m so glad you’re okay, okay?” Ray fumbled his words. He blushed, quickly moving on. “Can I do anything for you right now? Maybe get you some water, or help you turn over, or anything.”

“Shhh,” was all Ray heard. He then saw Laura struggle to turn over her body, using just one arm to prop herself onto her back. “They’re too strong for you.”

“Wait, I just handled two of them at once,” Ray corrected her. He still had his pride, even if he felt regret about that time.

Laura faced him. She was still the same petite Asian girl he once knew, just grown up with more curves. She filled out more around the edges, turning a skinny tomboy look into an inviting seductive womanly feel.

“They were injured,” Laura stated flatly. She moved one hand to her shoulder, covering her torn clothing from his prying eyes. “Can you like, not look. I’m fine.”

Yeah, you’re fine.

Ray ended up peeling his eyes away from her bare stomach, albeit reluctantly. The craziness of the night had gotten to him. He realized that he wouldn’t be staring had it not been for all that had happened earlier.

“Yeah, sorry,” Ray apologized. He turned away in embarrassment. The memories of that night had flustered his thoughts even more than this night had. It was a very confusing situation for him.

On one hand, he wanted to catch up with her and see how she was doing. He was pretty sure that she was from an ancient Chinese family with roots in Shanghai, but then again, he didn’t know.

On the other hand, he wanted to talk about current events. This boiled down to what was happening at the moment, the new level system, the goblins that had been appearing about an hour ago. There were so many questions and he thought that Laura could help him answer, given that she had been able to injure the goblins previously.

In the end, reason won out.

“Do you know what’s happening right now? What were those things?” Ray asked hopefully. He looked back at her, trying to focus only on her face and not her torn clothes.

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“I don’t know,” Laura replied. She winced as she tried to get up. “They were our mission.”

Mission? What mission? Ray instantly thought. He immediately felt suspicious. Was this all a setup? If so, this was a low blow.

“Wait, what?”

“You don’t need to know about it,” she casually continued. Ray saw that she couldn’t get up by herself. “Help me up here.”

That was it. He needed some answers, and he needed them now.

“Laura, I’m going to need some answers. You’re going to have to help me out, otherwise, I can’t help you out,” Ray crossed his arms. There was no way he was going to operate in the dark, not after what happened earlier. This was his opportunity to learn more about the situation at hand. “Somebody downstairs asked me to come up here to help you out. So I did.”

Ray finished his mini-tirade. He was tired, and Laura wasn’t being straight with him. There was so much to do and he didn’t have any time to waste. While she was processing what he said, he tried to pull up his status mentally to check if worked. He didn’t like being so confrontational, but this was an urgent situation. There was no time for mind games.

Status, Ray thought intensely. It worked.

Name: Ray Delano

Stats

Value

Level: 7

STR

20

HP: 215/470

AGI  

25

Total EXP/Percentage to Next Level: 1620 / [68%]

INT

10

Stat Point Available: 5

Ray saw that he’d received five more stat points. It seemed to him that he would receive five stat points with each level from here on out. The total EXP and percentage to the next level were clear to him as well, as shown.

He noticed that Laura hadn’t answered yet. Ray looked over at her again to make sure she was still fine. He did a double-take.

Was she crying?

His mind went into overdrive. Why was she crying? Was it something he said? Ray quickly went over everything that had happened. She was probably just overwhelmed. He had been too harsh earlier.

Ray uncrossed his arms and went over to pick her up. He scooped her up in his arms, not caring about the blood and grime. Besides, he was dirtier than she was.

“Tell me if it hurts,” Ray said softly. He felt that he shouldn’t have been that harsh on her. She was averting her eyes, subtly crying.

There was no answer from Laura. It seemed like he was doing just fine, giving her a princess carry.

Ray let out a mental sigh. This was going to be a long night. He wondered if the man downstairs would have any answers for him, now that he had Laura safe and sound.

Ray ended up carrying her downstairs. He turned on the lights as he went. The house seemed quieter, smaller than before. He saw more decoration as he went by. There were paintings of scenery with Chinese characters on them and even a bookshelf that he’d missed on the way in. Overall, the house looked wrecked. He had been too focused on the monsters to notice all the small signs of struggle.

There was an awkward moment when his hand accidentally brushed up against her bare thigh while he was going down the stairs. Ray could feel her tense for a second, even through her light sobbing. The two continued down in silence, though as Laura didn’t say anything about it.

“Hey, Mr. Xue?” Ray called out when they reached the bottom of the stairwell, still holding onto Laura. The man wasn’t bleeding on the floor anymore. He was nowhere to be seen.

Laura seemed to suddenly recover her wits quickly when he said that, easily escaping his grip. Ray was surprised as she looked him in the eye. For a split second, he saw that mischievous young tomboy that he had known. Then, she silently ran towards another room in the house.

A few moments later, Mr. Xue appeared. The man looked like he had recovered quite a bit since Ray had last seen him. Ray found it strange but didn’t ask any questions about things he couldn’t care less about.

He just wanted to know what was going on.

“Hey, young man,” Mr. Xue began. “Thank you for helping my niece. My family will compensate you greatly for your service.”

“Now, how about we, how do I put this . . . Get out of here?” Mr. Xue spread his hands in explanation.

“I believe the others are coming.”