“Good evening, John. Your table for two has been prepared.”

“Thank you.”

I nodded as we were led in. Once inside, we heard the music of the small orchestra that was playing some upbeat, jazzy music.

We were taken to an elevator on the wall, ascending to the 11th floor just below the private floors.

There, we found a dozen or so booths with many guests occupying them. It was private enough to not worry about eavesdropping or wandering eyes, but still a public space where many people could enjoy yet another orchestra.

Here though, there was a pretty singer up on stage. Her voice was soothing as she sang to the rhythm of a piano and violin.

“Here you are. I will be back with refreshments soon.”

“Thank you.”

We took our seats. The booth wrapped around three sides of our table, partially exposing us to the stage up front. Umara sat across from me.

“So, do you know everyone or something?”

“I think that host just assumed. I did make a reservation for this time.”

“Still. We’ve come across a dozen people who know you like old friends.”

“Huhu, you should see the hospital. Everyone there knows me too.”

I chuckled a bit before explaining.

“I’m quite notorious in the Founder’s Market. But I’ve made just as many enemies as friends. After all, with my weapons, it’s even easier to kill people than Scourge Beasts.”

“Kill people? I thought you made deliveries?”

Umara looked rather shocked, making me sigh.

“I do, but you saw what the market was like. If I grab a box of Moonshine from some drug dealer and take it to another person’s house, it’s not alway guaranteed that they’ll give me the money I’m owed. That’s when I need to persuade them, and most of the time, it gets violent. Not only that, but in the Trenches where everyone is drugged out of their mind, someone might just see me walking by on the street and attack me. I risk my life every time I so much as step foot into that place.”

“Oh…”

She frowned at the revelation.

And I watched her carefully. I was curious to see what she would think because I didn’t regret anything I did for a second. I was just doing my job. It wasn’t my fault that it was made dangerous by the people around me. I sure as hell wasn’t the one going out and robbing people.

If she really had a problem with it, then I could only regret that she wasn’t mature enough to see the truth.

But my judgment of her wasn’t off the mark.

“I kind of wish I could join you on a job. Imagine how easy it would be to get rid of annoyances with me there to support you.”

“Haha, that’s true. But I wouldn’t want to put you in that kind of danger.”

“Hey now, that’s not what you should be thinking. I trust that you’ll keep me safe, just like you should trust that I can do the same for you. If you wouldn’t bring me there, then you shouldn’t be there either. And if you would go there, then you should want to keep me by your side. I’m supposed to be your partner, and not just when it's convenient.”

“...”

I was silent as she solemnly finished with dead seriousness.

She brushed her hair back as she continued.

“That’s actually something I wanted to talk with you about. That day during our patrol, I failed to protect you. I almost let you get killed just because I got distracted.”

“That wasn’t your faul-”

“It was, and I’m not making excuses, so don’t make them for me. You were two seconds away from leaving this world forever. What should I have done then? Should I have blamed Vetsmon? Tana? You? Nothing would’ve mattered because no excuse would have been good enough. Regret doesn’t bring back the dead. You’re here because Feiden was fast, and we were all lucky. That’s it. The fact I ever said that I would support you before makes me look like a complete joke.”

“...”

My mouth closed shut as I listened. And her words made me realize something.

On Earth, soldiers were all brothers up until the modern era. There were few women, simply by virtue of physical differences and how that translated to battlefield performance.

But here, there were just as many women who became Magi as men. And they were very much capable of rising to attain god-like strength. The magical weapons given to them as Magi leveled the playing field.

And Umara would become a soldier, just like I would. After this year at the Magisterium, we would enter the Kingdom’s military and fight the Scourge every day. We would be exposed to the same threats.

I wasn’t giving her due respect by protecting her, even though that was my instinct. As weird as it was, if she was going to be fighting by my side, I needed to treat her as a fellow soldier, my equal.

Of course, she would be my girlfriend first. But certain situations called for certain perspectives.

She spoke to me with conviction.

“Thankfully, I’m lucky enough that I don’t have to regret. Nothing like that will ever happen again. I want you to be able to trust me, trust that even when the enemies get close, I’ll be able to stop them from harming you.”

“...Alright.”

I nodded, the two of us looking into each other’s eyes.

“We’ll work on that. I think we’ll all be working on our squad’s cooperation this month. And the Puppet Master knows exactly what we need, so we’ll get our time. I just don’t want you to worry so much about it. It’ll work out.”

“I'll worry as much as I need to before I can trust myself as well. But... thanks.”

We smiled at each other, and then, our waiter came around.

“What drinks can I start you with tonight?”

“Oh, I’ll take some Vesania Wine and water. As for her…”

“Indigo Caspa, and some water.”

“Coming right up.”

We gave our orders. At the bar during our trips to and from Calatrop base, we had tried many drinks and found some good ones.

Vesania Wine was a rich berry wine, very tasty. And Indigo Caspa was a vodka drink that glowed blue and tasted oddly like pomegranate.

Before long, we received a bottle for each, the waiter setting and filling the glasses.

I took a sip, smiling at how good it was. I also watched Umara take two entire gulps of her drink, making me chuckle as she shook her head a bit.

“The drink’s not going anywhere.”

“I’m just warming myself up.”

She refuted before calming down and taking a regular sip.

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After that, the waiter came by and took our food orders.

I got myself a large platter filled with 8 different types of meats. And Umara got herself a large slab of steak as well as a salad filled with a dozen different exotic vegetables I’d never heard of.

And while we waited, we both talked endlessly.

She asked me more about the black markets, along with some of my experiences. So I indulged her with stories while asking some of my own questions about her life as nobility.

I learned some interesting things as a result.

Nobles were people with several responsibilities. They had to manage their territories and people while lots of them were executives in the military which required constant attention.

Duchess Talerria was one of those people, in fact.

Apparently she used to be a Brigadier, which was an Authority 10 Infantryman. But there didn’t exist any ranks for Authority 11 Infantry since those people were expected to take on greater responsibilities.

Well, the Duchess wasn’t interested in getting educated to become a Marshal. So to make use of her after she became an Authority 11, she was put in charge of a Warlock Corps.

Other than the Kingdom’s Authority 12 Warlocks, she was the leading expert, especially when it came to military applications.

But it wasn’t like she was constantly busy. She had a certain amount of freedom, mainly because nobody could seem to tie her down to anything boring or mundane.

Instead, it was her husband who had to deal with a lot of the paperwork. He had been a full fledged rank 10 General and an Authority 10 Knight.

It seemed he ended up using his knightly stamina working late nights taking care of correspondence on his wife’s behalf.

Getting to this point, I also learned that Umara wasn’t an only child.

She had a little sister, and not one that was only a couple years younger than her. Apparently this sister was 14 years old.

Umara was 20 years old, 6 years older than her sister.

I remembered that the more powerful someone was, the more difficult it became to have children. But it didn’t become impossible even if siblings may be far apart in age, so given enough time, two strong parents would be able to have multiple children, though their talent wasn’t guaranteed.

From what Umara said, only the first three children had a strong chance to inherit the strong talent of their parents. It was proven that any more after that, and the chances of a child having any talent to even become a Magus was random.

So families were very important. Steps were taken in order to breed strong warriors regularly. Noble households always had strong parents and families so being able to step into one was extremely difficult.

Unless you had a relatively open minded mother who let her daughter pursue her own chosen mate. I quickly realized that I had done something pretty rare, as the noble class would almost always pick their spouses from well known circles. Even Umara had a whole list of suitors.

Hearing that, I couldn’t help the chuckle. As if there was even competition in the first place. This was a monopoly, and I was dominating the market.

Umara and I continued talking even as the food was served. Although the food was amazing enough to warrant salivating silence, we also seemed to have too many things to talk about.

We had already talked every day for a month now, spending hours in each other’s company, texting, or calling. But we never had a dull moment. Even in times of silence, we comfortably enjoyed each other.

I had never been so in tune with someone before, even Rayla it felt like. It seemed that with every day that passed, I only continued to like her more, especially since I knew that she liked me just as much.

At some point, we finished our dinner. That’s when Umara looked over.

In front of the stage where the musicians played was a dance floor, and there were a few couples out there. The music had turned slow to accommodate them. It seemed to be that time of the night.

So after a few minutes to make sure we were both finished, I stood from our booth and put out a hand.

“Care to dance?”

“I would love to.”

She smiled radiantly as she took my hand, the two of us moving to the dance floor.

Since coming to this world I had learned to dance a little. At the very least I knew how to keep pace with my partner. Besides, we were slow dancing. The most important thing was that we were in each other’s arms.

My left hand held her right, and my right hand went to her waist while her left hand moved around my shoulder.

We didn’t speak a word as our bodies came close, practically hugging each other. Her bust pressed slightly against the upper part of my abs, giving me an intimate idea of how full it was.

We rocked back and forth with the music. While she seemed a bit embarrassed at first, she was eventually able to look into my eyes with rosy cheeks. The only thing we could see was each other.

After that, I simply did as I felt.

When a kiss happened, someone had to make the first move. It didn’t just happen, especially the first time. One of the people involved had to take the first step in.

And it wasn’t going to be her. She was nervous. As far as I knew, she didn’t have any experience.

So when I took the first step, I started by intertwining the fingers of our clasped hands.

My hand on her waist then moved up, getting a hold of her back.

And then, it was as simple as getting closer.

Through her back, I could feel her heart beating erratically. And I didn’t go all the way. I wanted her to meet me, cross the little bit of distance I left between us to seal the deal.

I barely held back a smile as she boosted herself up on her toes a bit, my hand supporting her back, helping her towards me.

And our lips locked.

It was shallow, but sweet. I could immediately tell that she had zero experience with this.

So I helped her, taking it slow and letting her feel around.

We separated a few times as well, adjusting before going right back. Over time, she got more eager, pushing herself against me, her tongue going deeper and deeper.

I was the one who had to stop after almost two minutes, pulling away reluctantly.

For a moment her eyes begged me for more, but when she regained herself, she once again realized that we weren’t the only ones here.

But she also didn’t seem to care much. Still, I wasn’t interested in making out on the dance floor, so I walked her back to our table.

Seeing the table full of empty plates and half drank bottles, I looked at her.

“Are we done here?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go then.”

I grabbed her hand and my bottle of wine. She also grabbed her bottle of Caspa.

Like that, we went back down to the entrance of the restaurant where I quickly paid for everything with a tap of the Card.

And so we left, making straight for the Hotel while taking sips from our bottles on the way.

Soon, we reached the elevator where I punched in the number for my room.

We ascended, standing side by side in tense silence.

When I glanced at her though, I found her stealing looks. And as if we could read each others minds, we went straight back to kissing, unable to even wait for the room.

When the elevator arrived and opened, we pulled away and walked out. I led her to my fancy room, pushing the door open and welcoming her in.

She didn’t say anything about how nice the room was or even the fact that I had it. Instead, she jumped on me, wrapping her legs around my waist and taking us both down to the bed after I threw the door shut behind me.

I was surprised by how bold she was. It seemed she had flipped a switch, because I couldn’t sense a hint of shyness, embarrassment, or shame.

Not that I minded. We had been saving our first kiss for this date because it sure as hell wasn't going to happen on the military base. It was an unspoken, but definitely real agreement.

So when else would we do it? The third date? The tenth? If not now, while we were hotter than ever for each other, then when?

I would’ve done it earlier if the circumstances had been better than crappy, but a military base didn’t allow that. I knew that both of us had wanted to for quite a while, but only now were we finally in the position to let loose.

So we tumbled across the bed, Umara constantly learning and exploring new ways to use her tongue.

It was exhilarating and passionate, filling my head with so much dopamine that I felt I was going to explode.

And Umara couldn’t seem to control herself as she hounded me for more. For a moment I started to doubt if she had really done this before or not.

But she was definitely new at this. With Rayla, there was no mistaking her experience. But with Umara, there was zero familiarity to speak of.

‘Ah, fuck it.’

I stopped questioning things, simply indulging in the moment.

And we never stopped. Even if we weren’t rolling over each other, we were laid down beside each other, constantly kissing, sometimes momentarily, sometimes deeply.

But we didn’t go beyond that. It wasn’t time yet. Not even I wanted to sleep with her right now. We would simply need time before reaching that step.

Yet I couldn’t help but feel that this was damn close to it. It was basically sex with our mouths, our tongues dancing around, pulling, pushing, intertwining. We communicated without words, feeling the other with unseen clarity.

And it went on for so long. Glances at the clock on the wall told me that two hours passed before I knew it, but I simply never felt like I wanted to stop. Not to mention the boost in stamina from my recent advancement that kept me energetic.

But I could tell that after a while, she started to get tired, even if she didn’t want to. So I slowed it down, the two of us cuddling more. Besides, I was tired as well. I didn’t forget that I hadn’t actually slept the night before.

Both of us started to cool down after that, no longer so ravenous. It was only at that point that she was able to talk again, her voice soft as a whisper.

“We don’t have to go back, do we?”

“No. We can sleep here.”

“Mm. That’s good. I had fun today.”

She let out a light breath that graced my nose and shifted her body, pressing closer while resting her head on my chest.

I combed back some of her hair as I responded.

“I’m glad. Now I can properly call you my girlfriend.”

“Hm, and I get to call you my boyfriend.”

She leaned forward after saying that, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

I returned with a kiss on her forehead.

After that, her heavy eyes closed as she fell asleep in my arms. I joined her not long after, falling into a deep slumber supported by the rich comfort of my hotel bed.