Lami was very fast to fall asleep.
I was still in her embrace thinking about my old world.
Sleeping like this reminds me of the time I was dating this really sweet girl.
She was a good-looking person and was too good for me to be honest.
I still don’t know why she asked me out or why I said yes to her, but it was a good and eye-opening experience.
We dated for some time but It didn’t work out so well in the end because of me.
Since this was my first time dating someone, I had no idea what to do and there was no close friend of mine who could give me advice on how all this worked. So I went to the internet and read a bunch of stuff on forums that other people do and went with that.
It was going well at the start and she seemed happy but that did not last long.
One day she just comes to my apartment and says she wants to break up. I was a little surprised but was somewhat expecting this.
‘Who would want to date a boring person like me anyway. I am glad it lasted till now’ were my thoughts at that time.
So I just said “OK” to her and she left after saying “I knew you would say that”.
After 2 days she sends me a text message saying,
‘You bastard at least ask me the reason why I broke up with you.
Did you not care about our relationship at all?
Did you even love me?
You know what don’t even bother anymore
bye’
I was a little confused by this text but just ignored it since she did not want to talk anymore.
After some time, while I was reading a romance novel, I realized what I did wrong.
Funny enough, the girl in the novel broke up with the protagonist with the same line my girlfriend used.
“Did you even love me?”
Then the author proceeded to describe what the protagonist did wrong in their relationship.
He was never interested in her so he never tried to make the relationship work. He never shared anything about himself and never really bothered to know the other person.
Then I realized that I was the same.
I gave her gifts and took her on dates but was never interested in her and never asked what she wanted to do.
I was kind of an introverted guy and wanted to stay inside the house but thinking that she will not like that, I took her out all the time which made me feel like I was doing a job rather than dating.
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I did not try to understand her and tell her about myself because I did not have enough confidence.
After that incident, I started reading a lot of romance genre and got to know a lot about what you do in a relationship. It was not like I was not interested in romance before but after my dating experience, I wanted to do better next time.
Most of the stuff I read was bullshit but there were some good lines that made sense too.
Sadly enough, I never got a chance to apply and check if those things actually worked or not.
But now that I got another chance, I planned to be more confident and live more freely.
Anyway, first thing was first, I needed to go to the lamia village and talk to Lami's mother about the books and figure out how to get out of this forest. As I was thinking about these things, my eyes started to get heavy and I went to sleep.
I woke up to notice that it was morning already.
When I tried to get out of bed, my arm was pulled back by Lami.
I look at her and smile a little looking at her cute sleeping face.
I remove my hand as gently as possible so she won't wake up.
‘she really is a heavy sleeper’ I think to myself as I am poking her cheeks.
When I was done admiring Lami's sleeping appearance, I go out and was about to start stretching when I feel something dangerous approaching me from my right side.
I turn towards it and was about to block it but was too slow in doing so.
It was a clean hit to my chest and I was sent flying towards the obsidian tree.
My ribs were broken and I spew a mouth full of blood.
I was lucky enough to have my armor on because If I did not, that attack would have gone through me.
I quickly put my hand on the tree and start using [Metal Healing] and try to heal the damage as quickly as possible.
I was about to look in the direction from where the attack came but a hand grabbed me by the neck and lifted me. I look at my assailant and was surprised to see who it was.
It was a lamia that looked like Lami but was more like a mature version. She was holding me by the neck and looking me up and down.
“What beast are you?” says the mature lamia.
I was surprised that she could speak but figured out who this was. Still, I use the appraisal to confirm my suspicion.
[Lamia]
Name: Lamina
Title: Queen, Scholar, Doting Parent, Ruthless, Pervert, Battle Manic, Fantasist
Class: Warrior, Magician, Researcher, Stalker
Mana:10,236
Level: 987
[Stats]
Vitality: 958 Agility: 972
Stamina: 977 Strength: 998
Intelligence: 838 Dexterity: 934
Charm: 824
Skills :
[Charm (Divine)]
[Absolute Tail Bind]
[Magic Arts]
[Weapon Arts]
-----------------------------------------------------
I thought I had gotten strong and was confident that could fight most of the things in this forest but when I saw her stats I was humbled.
Just by reading the names of the skills I could tell that they were strong.
Still, I had no time to check everything in detail.
I was about to speak and tell her everything but before I could even get a word out of my mouth, she says,
“Why do you have Lami’s smell on you?”
‘Well shit’ I thought in my mind.
There was a proper explanation I could give her but one look in her eyes and any person could tell that she was not going to listen to anything.
She makes her grip around my neck stronger and pins me to the tree. Then mana starts to gather in her right hand.
I did not understand what that was but I was sure if that hit me, I was gonna die.
I was about to use my [Dragon Transformation] when I shout came from behind Lamina.
“STOP!!!” shouts Lami in panic.
Lami was up and was coming towards us in a hurry.
“Lami!!” says Lamina with an excited voice.
“Mom he human,” says Lami while pointing toward me.
Lamina turns her head towards me and starts to look me up and down again with her eyes wide open.
“Yo..you are hu..human,” says Lamina with shock on her face.
I point towards her hand telling her to loosen the grip.
She lets go quickly and moves back a little.
“cough…cough...yeah, I am human” I say trying to catch my breath.
The next thing I knew, I was being hugged by Lamina.
“Finally you’re here,” she says with tears in her eyes.