After what feels like a wasted day, I get home. Except for the fifth level in Lore Seeker and its new skill, I have nothing to show for my efforts.

"Anyone home?"

Justo makes itself known, "Welcome home. Your family is upstairs. Last I saw them they were in Carl's room."

"I see. Is Anna with them as well or has she not returned yet?"

"The little cat is still out."

"Alright, thank you, Justo."

Family? Not just wife? Did I miss another event?

I go to Carl's room. I'm not sure what to expect, Lucia didn't seem to be on board with the adoption yet or was at least thinking about it.

But then, I didn't receive a message that I had lost a slave, so I guess he's fine?

Knock knock

I'm greeted by a Lucia who has changed her clothing's color scheme.

"Hi, Lucia. Do I... want to ask what is with those colors?"

"What? Do you not like it?"

"Maybe it is a bit too 'evil' for what we should be."

"You think so? Carl liked it."

Little Carl happily chimes in, "Uh-huh. It was super fitting for playing 'hero and demon lord'. I am of course the hero!"

"Wha? Why you!!"

"Hahaha."

Lucia shoves me out of the room.

"What? Have you two already grown that close, Lucia?"

"Ye- N-no! Maybe? I don't... know. I just... don't know."

"So no sudden awakening to motherly feelings?"

She shakes her head, "No. Truth be told, I've no idea what those would be. What is a 'mother'? What is a 'son'? You know our people's suffering under nobles. None of us have a clue what a 'family' is."

I hug her, "Yeah, right. Did you ever have a pet? Or at least know what that feeling is?"

"Yeah, I... guess so."

"Take that feeling as a start. Someone or something you dearly want to keep around. Important is that the feeling is mutual. The rest will follow with time."

"Huh. I guess I can try to see it like that."

"Do you have time now, Lucia? There's something I want to get off my chest."

"Yeah, sure. Elly should be enough to play with Carl."

"Where'd you get enough MP to have both Maria and Elly summoned at the same time? Didn't you want to wait for me before making a final decision on your classes?"

"No, I said I wanted to surprise you."

"You certainly already have."

We enter our private room.

"First off, I organized this robe for you, I think it should be more appropriate for you."

"Ah, thank you. Let me quickly change into it."

And just like that, her previous suit is replaced with the robe. No act of changing clothes. Another fun thing ruined by the system. Thanks for nothing.

"Hmm... not too shabby. Maybe a different color...", Lucia says to herself.

And just like that, the robe starts changing its colors and shape.

Soon she settles on something that is more a mid-long dress showing some skin than a caster robe.

"Yeah, that should do for now."

"Well, a robe doesn't offer much protection to begin with, so I'll let it slide."

"What, are you worried about my safety?"

"Of course. What kind of husband would I be if I didn't?"

"I think you'll be a good husband. We just need to give it some time."

"Right, so back to what I wanted actually to give you..."

I take out the Sun Guard Ring I got earlier.

"Well, it is not the intended order. In my culture, you normally propose before getting married and not after but with our circumstances..."

"What do you mean?"

"Give me your left hand."

"Uh, sure. What now?"

"Lucia, my love, will you marry me?"

"But we already are married?"

"I mean really marry. Make it official, and not just listen to what the system says. Like with a big wedding ceremony and everything. Not right now, but sometime in the future when at least the flood is over."

"Uh, yes.", her eyes get teary, "Yes, let's. I'd be happy to."

I slide the ring on her finger.

"So, uh", she's confused, "what now?"

"Honestly, I never got this far. I think this is where we should hug and kiss to seal the deal?"

"Fine with me."

18+ noises

You know it isn't a shoddy rom-com when the couple is allowed to have an uninterrupted couple moment. I guess that's an upside to not being the protagonist in an anime.

A while later, Lucia begins her assertion, "I had already made up my mind yesterday. Elly just helped me fill in the details. You know... I don't want to just be a plus one that barely exists in the background. I want to fight together with you, be there at your side. I want to be your equal and not just a damsel that waits to get kidnapped. As such Elly and I have come up with this."

"I've chosen Blood Witch, Lead Singer and Forge Wizard."

"How exactly does that make you my 'equal'?"

"Well, I may not have exactly your magic power but I'm quite close and I have some skills that work well in combination with yours. Like this one."

"[Corrosive Rain] lets me create the bleeding effect you need to use your... whatever name the second Blood Mage skill has - at full power."

"I'm not too fond of the idea of you sacrificing most of your health to enable that mediocre skill to work at triple power but I appreciate the gesture."

"Well, it should help us a lot with the flood monsters."

"I doubt that. As we're now, we can't be out for long in the sun. Just with the Sun Guard Ring, it would be cutting it way too close. I need about thirty minutes for one trip, so an hour plus the actual spell casts. This is about the same duration the ring would give you. We couldn't even trade my cloak back and forth as we both need to be present at the same time for that combo."

"...yeah, that makes sense. Maybe once we solve the sun trouble..."

She pouts a bit.

"As for the second skill, [Profane Bolt] should be helpful for when we have multiple status effects on a boss or something. If you recall back to the flood boss a while back, the one you stunned a few times, this should allow us to keep that stun chain while also amplifying other effects like stat reductions through earth elemental fracture."

"Yeah, that should be helpful. But where do you get the MP for it? Currently, you have most of your MP reserved for Elly and Maria."

"Oh, right... uhh... damn, I knew I forgot something... uh, I guess this would be solved with time when we gain more levels and thereby MP."

"Well, we can always put the two into timeout depending on the situation."

"Yeah, that is an option, too. Okay, next class..."

"If you didn't know, the class is named after the legendary metal 'lead'. Have you ever heard of it?"

"Uh, I think lead was quite common in my world. I wouldn't really call it legendary, it wasn't really anything special as far as I recall."

"What!? Lead is real!?"

"Yeah, but you're not really missing out on much. For weapon smithing purposes even iron is better."

"Aww..."

And here I thought it was called lead singer because it is... well, the lead singer, the front guy or gal. And not a... musician smith hybrid referencing an alleged mythical metal.

"Anyway... I just took it because it lets me use axes to the fullest and the song is nice. As I said, I like singing."

"Not to be a buzzkill but your claws are already stronger than the axe... or hammer you have."

"Maybe, but I feel more comfortable with handling a hammer."

"No objection to that. But you should still get at least some basic practice with your claws. There may be situations where you just have no weapon available."

"Hmm... yeah, that makes sense. But I'll keep the hammer as my main weapon, claws don't count as a weapon for certain skills."

"And you got one of those?"

"Actually yes, here."

"Look at [Enchant Weapon]. It is a bit difficult to understand but-"

"Ah, like dual techs."

"Uh, what?"

"Two people unite a magic attack with a weapon attack to perform a super-strong special attack."

"That's basically it, yes. Elly needed quite a while to explain that one to me..."

"Yeah, she knows the weirdest things, doesn't she."

Does the dual tech even help us? Basically, she would use 100 MP to increase my magic's damage by 25% and maybe double the underlying physical attack if I have the element to hit the target's weakness.

Doesn't sound too worthwhile yet but if it makes her happy, I'll play along with that fantasy.

But then... depending on how it works exactly, it would allow me to cast damage spells without worrying about accidentally hurting my allies.

"What are you thinking about, Jared?"

"Ah, sorry. I was just calculating if [Enchant Weapon] is even worth it for us."

"And is it?"

"By my estimation, only if I have the element to exploit an elemental weakness. But in my short-lived experience, the most widespread weakness is fire, an element I don't have yet."

"Are you sure about that? I heard fire is only good against undead... well, like us... and a rare few monsters, mostly ice variants."

"So just a lot of bad luck then?"

"I think so."

"Out of curiosity, Lucia, which other classes do you intend to take in the future?"

"I don't have any specific ones in mind yet. I first want to see how well what I have works and what is missing. Not only on my side but in the party as a whole. Well, minus healing since we both can't do that, obviously."

"Yeah, that makes sense. And it isn't like we've enough Class Cores just lying around."

"And you?"

"In no particular order, I want to gain access to fire and light affinity so I can hit those weaknesses and eventually negate my own weakness to them with the 'Enduring Soul' title I plan to get. Then I want flight and if possible teleportation capabilities. I guess some skills to control or restrict enemies would be nice. Aside from that, I just need a lot more stats, so more levels. Maybe I should take the Scholar class for another twenty percent exp gain?"

"Those are a lot of things."

"Yeah, and that doesn't even leave much room in case something comes up that I need to address. But as a first step, I want to go directly for Summoner level ten, which is linked to your Lead Singer level. At level ten, I can create another summoned spirit. If we have all three out at the same time we should be able to gain the 'Summon Master' title. With that title the race classes of summoned spirits no longer cost upkeep. So we either have more MP for other things or we can make them a bit stronger. That is something we can decide then."

"So no raising the lowest class first but just going straight for the fourth class?"

"Exactly."

"Hmm... fine by me. Maybe afterwards just keep going until we hit level fifteen for the next skills?"

"Yeah, we can do that. Though I'd like to keep my Survivor and your Fallen Saint for last, I already know that Survivor's last skill is useless for us."

"Sure, no problem. I don't have high hopes for Fallen Saint anyway."

"But then we also need to rise the title level at least to ten soonish or we can't make much progress with the slums. Ah, why does everything have to happen at the same time!?"

"That level was needed to unlock pardons, right? How soon would we need that feature?"

"No idea. It'll be a while before it is strictly necessary to proceed. I just want it out of the way so I can focus on other things."

"And we need those title levels anyway to lessen the burden caused by the sun."

"Exactly."

"Then let's go for the Summoner and Lead Singer skills first and worry about the pardons afterwards."

"And get the 'Summon Master' title on the way, sounds like a plan."

We have now talked a long while and it is already quite late now, in fact it has become the next day.

"Since Friday is already in the past now, what are Saturday's class choices from the Joker Core?"

"Looks useful, what have you got, Lucia?"

"Just the Summoner you already have."

"Good, then I take it you have no objection to me taking that class?"

"No, go for it. I can always choose a partner class for it on my own."

"Aw, come on! Why is there always something wrong with everything!?"

"What is wrong?"

"Apparently, us undead are not allowed to take classes with light affinity. So much for eventually getting rid of the light weakness. Shit!"

"I wouldn't worry about the light element too much. Fire is very widespread, light is rare."

"That's easy for you to say, you already have necessary affinities through your Dark and Fire Magic skill and only need the 'Enduring Soul' title to be rid of the non-light weaknesses."

"Well, you only need a single class to learn Fire Magic and then you're set. There are probably dozens of pyromancer variants out there. Eventually one will come up. Or I find a good class option with the Joker Core and then you can take a fire using class of your choice."

"Yeah, that's also a decent option."

Aside from two trips for flood nuking, we just take the rest of the day off and play a bit with the kids.