I can pretty much fall asleep instantly and thanks to [Quick Sleeper] I only need 4-5 hours of sleep instead of 6-8, normally I use the extra time productively by raising the proficiency of my skills or leveling up by hunting. But my current position doesn't allow me to do that.

"Huu... huu..."

I am currently being hugged by a sleeping Silvia. She is hugging me not only with her arms but also with her legs, so my range of movement is quite limited. More importantly, I wouldn't want to move away even if I could, somehow, she has a nice smell even in the morning and her, albeit slightly forceful, hug feels nice, especially with her soft breasts pressing against my chest. I'm not some degenerate pervert by the way.

Originally people meditated to empty their minds and process the massive amount of information input they get every day. So, let's do just that for now, I can think about what to do about this later.

Hmmm... I already knew about it beforehand but when I came here first, I was still surprised, or rather delighted, to see demi-humans, longer ears, all kinds of hair colors, animal ears and tails or even horns, smaller and larger people, everyone walking around normally doing everyday things. It was quite the sight to behold. From what I could see everyone was treated pretty much the same, so at least in the royal capital of the Taluria Kingdom there doesn't seem to be racial segregation among the common folk, I can't be sure about royalty and nobility though.

Other than that, ... I noticed that some of my skills are influenced by how well I can perform those tasks in the normal world. [Cooking] for example was not only extremely easy to learn, but its proficiency is already at 40, compared to that, most other skills are around 10 to 50 even though I use some of them way more. Maybe it's also just a skill that needs less time to get better at. But that theory would explain why someone as geographically challenged as me has such struggles in getting the [Map] skill. Ah, [Meditation] is my highest skill with a proficiency of over 70. My gut is telling me something nice is going to happen once it reaches 100!

My current status is looking like this now.

[Nature Mastery]: A combination skill created from fusing [Gardening], [Farming], and [Herbalism].

The proficiency of combination skills seems a bit more complicated than that of normal skills. The skills that 'fused' into the combination skill still seem to have their own proficiency to a certain degree, but the proficiency is somewhat shared among all skills that fused. But they are not only a container but also a kind of booster for the fused skills, for example, if I suddenly learned a new movement skill I could also climb more easily, it's as if there is some invisible multiplier on the combination skills that rises with each skill that fuses into them.

I haven't used my recent BP since I wanted to wait and see what stats I would want to focus on more from now on, I already have quite nice stats overall so I think I have some leisure to wait and choose at a later time.

"uuhhh"

I open my eyes at the noise of Silvia. She drowsily opens her eyes and

"ehehehe... Hiwo-schama~"

has a happy(?) grin on her face. Her hug also is no longer as forceful as before.

"Good morning, Silvia"

I whisper to her. But instead of answering me, she starts a questionable movement of her hips. Eh? Isn't this bad? I'm pretty sure she is still sleeping so I can't really take this as consent to touch her, this also is too forced to be called as one of those 'Lucky Pervert' moments.

"Hnnnng... Mmmmm..."

She kissed me, no actually she is still kissing me. I am not a monk or saint or whatever so this should be fine if I answer?

"Mmhh"

But when I extend answer her kiss with my tongue she quickly wakes up. Pushing me away she quickly retreats as if struck by lightning. I fall down from the bed and she is sitting on her knees on the other edge of the bed with a beet-red face.

"Thi- I- Wha-"

"Calm down, Silvia."

I say as I stand up.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Hiro-sama!"

OH! The famous Dogeza pose!

"Ah, no I also-"

"I thought I was dreaming and I, then- No I mean- I, umm, and- then I- and why- I mean, I- Wha- Wha---"

I've never seen someone gesture with their hands and speak this fast! But it seems she completely broke at the end. This isn't my fault, right?

I walk over to the frozen Silvia, sit next to her, and hug her gently.

"It's all good Silvia, please calm down first."

"hnng, huuuu"

I gently stroke her back.

"We were both just a bit drowsy from waking up, it's all good, yeah?"

Somehow, I'm saved? I feel like that's a really bad excuse, and I also wasn't drowsy at all. Most likely thanks to my [Social Mastery] skill she doesn't seem too opposed to my actions so I should be fine. I should hold back more, at least in the beginning, we've barely known each other. Even if I aim for her and even if she has a positive impression of me, if I advance too quickly, she might come to hate me. No, actually that might, not happen, but she might turn into some kind of tsundere that shows fake hatred and won't admit her love? I'm not sure which case would be worse for me...

"Mmm, yes... I'm sorry, Hiro-sama..."

Silvia hugs me back and we stay like that for a bit before finally standing up. Her face is still red and she avoids looking at me but despite the eventful wake-up, we can now finally start our day.

GodlessEmperor

I'm sorry about making this an infodump chapter. Hopefully, the Silvia quality time can offset that.

 I want to keep all chapters between 1k to 2k words and if I continued here, I felt like I would either have to end the chapter during some event or go over the word count I aim at.

I also plan on renaming all combined skills to "xxx Mastery" so Green Thumb would turn into "Nature Mastery" and True martial arts would turn into "Martial Arts Mastery". Please tell me if you have any thoughts about that!