And thus, about seventeen years passed.

Seventeen years of the same old — Theora trying her best to make up for her mistakes by taking care of Dema in whatever way she could imagine. The revelation that some of the items in the village might have been reinforced by Skills and magic helped her find more useful things, because she now started peeking into places she’d previously considered lost causes.

She found actual bandages at some point, was able to build a more comfortable place to sleep on for Dema, managed to categorise and learn the properties of many of the herbs growing in the meadows, and completely failed to get used to taking Dema’s temperature with her lips.

In a certain way, seventeen years really weren’t a lot. Theora could have done this for hundreds of years. She had been the one who’d manoeuvred the two of them into this situation, and she’d take responsibility for that. Obviously, she would take care of Dema as long as it took.

On the other hand, for Dema, seventeen years were a lot. At least, that’s what Theora imagined. Dema herself didn’t really complain that much, she mostly just suffered. And throughout all those years, Theora had wished every day that that suffering would finally be over, that it relented, and that the Skills reactivated.

And one day, they finally did.

It was while Theora was changing bandages that she felt it, ever so softly. The faintest pulsing echoing through Dema’s body. And it got stronger every second.

Her heart, destroyed by the Devil of Truth, was finally starting to grow back.

It was the first regeneration Skill to return. A slower one, a low-tier one, but it was enough to severely improve Dema’s disposition within just a few hours.

 

The next morning, Dema stretched out her limbs with a big yawn, as if waking up from one of the most restful nights ever. Her joints cracked wildly.

“Please stop stretching so much,” Theora pleaded, sitting next to her, having her hands reached out as if intending to help Dema up, but then not daring to actually touch her. Taking care of Dema while sick was different; touching her when needed, that she was able to do, but reaching out to her while Dema was completely awake was a whole lot harder.

“Why not!” Dema cheered, her voice even raspier than usual.

“Because your muscles are still healing. There is barely anything left of them. You are stretching them to the point of tearing them apart. Please stop.”

“’S fine! Don’t worry, they’re gonna heal right back up. Only hurts a bit!”

From what the motion looked like through Dema’s skin, it probably hurt a lot.

“Damn, that took so long! Wasn’t expecting that. That guy did some serious damage. Heh, good for me.”

Good for her? How was that good for her?

Maybe Dema wasn’t fully healed yet, and still delirious. It had taken her seventeen years to recover from what Theora had done to her. There was nothing ‘good’ about this at all. Theora was about to protest, but Dema held up her hand to stop her. “Sorry, gotta read for a sec! Catching up on a sea of notifications. Damn, that sure is nice.”

With a frown, Theora put her hands down into her lap and watched as Dema’s eyes flickered over the air in front of her. 

What kind of notifications could she have gotten? The quest to subdue the Devil of Truth hadn’t been hers, and she wasn’t a heroine of the System, so it was extremely unlikely that she’d gotten a share of any experience or rewards from that fight. And ever since then, all Dema had done was lie around on the verge of death.

And yet, that girl started grinning wider and wider as she went through the things. Eventually, she closed her eyes, lost in thought, putting her chin in her hand. Was she scheming something, or just processing information?

And then, she jumped up from her bed. It was a terrifying jump. Theora could hear and see the joints and tendons and muscles ache in duress from Dema’s sudden motion. Could feel her regeneration Skills protesting and scrambling to undo the damage.

But Dema didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned, and started some gymnastic exercises to relearn how to move. She was being rather clumsy, almost falling over a few times.

“Are you alright?” Theora asked, still frowning up at Dema.

“Why, yeah! Big time alright!” She gave a mischievous grin. “Turns out, if you spend seventeen years dying and without a heart, and, you know, only [Immortality] keeps you alive by a thread, that’s a big ton of EXP. It’s over Level 100 now!”

What?

That didn’t really explain anything. In fact, it only confused Theora further. [Immortality] was a binary Skill — either you lived forever, or you didn’t. As far as Theora was aware, there were no regenerative properties attached to it. So, what would improving the Levels of it even do?

More importantly, [Immortality] was a Legendary Skill, and those typically didn’t level up at all. They were a reward for an endless amount of effort. They weren’t meant to be trained further.

“So, what does that do?” Theora asked shortly.

“Heh,” Dema smirked. “Oh, if only you knew, little rabbit! It got an additional perk!”

“I would like to know what it is,” Theora whispered, gulping.

Dema raised her eyebrows teasingly. “Oh my, would you, now! Sorry, that’s gonna be a big surprise. Gotta find a chance to use it first. Not gonna tell you a thing before that!”

Theora pouted. She was just so curious.

On the other hand, that was fine. It was Dema’s Skill after all, and she had no obligation to share anything about it. 

When Theora didn’t answer, Dema’s gaze softened a little and she stopped doing her exercises. “Thank you, by the way,” she spoke softly. “For taking care of me. Wasn’t necessary, and you still did it. Made those years one of the kindest fever dreams I’ve had!”

“I do think it was necessary,” Theora replied.

“I don’t think it was!”

“I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.” Theora hesitated for a moment, and then gulped. Now was probably the best possible time to talk about it, right? “I, uhm,” she started, but her throat immediately clogged up. She needed to get the words out. “I got an upgrade of sorts, too, I suppose. But I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to take it.”

“Oh?” Dema’s eyes perked up and lit up in an amber glow. “What is it! I gotta know! Out with it, no restraints! You should tell your travelling companions everything, alright? No holding back.”

“I am not holding back. I am just about to tell you. Also, rich of you to say that, after what you just pulled.”

“That’s that and this is this!” Dema proclaimed, as if it explained anything at all.

“I got a new Class.”

Dema’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise. “Oh damn!” Her expression fell apart after a moment, and then she said, “Wait, that sucks! You seriously considering to start all over?”

Starting all over? Theora’s brain stopped working for a second as she tried to parse that sentence. And then, she remembered.

That’s right, normal people had Class Levels. Once they took a new Class, it would reset their Level to 1, which would also reduce the stats by the amount they’d gained from the previous Class. In some cases, Class-specific Skills would also be removed.

Not like any of that mattered. Theora’s stats and Level weren’t numbers that anything could be subtracted from, and she didn’t have any Class-specific Skills. [Obliterate] was a Theora-specific Skill, and the others were general ones.

The only fear she had was that if [Stargazer] was a combat Class, that would mean all its Skills would feed back into [Obliterate] long-term, making that unnecessarily stronger. And it was already way too strong.

“I would like to start all over, if possible,” Theora said. “But that’s not really what this is about. I unlocked this Class after letting you get hurt, and those two events are rather connected. I wanted to know how you felt about this before making any decisions.”

Dema frowned in curiosity. “Well, I don’t mind either way! Tell me what the Class is and I’ll decide for you.”

Theora bit her lip before replying. In a soft voice, like a child admitting to cutting a piece of clothing in two, she said, “[Stargazer].”

Dema stopped in her motion. She’d still been trying to regain control over her limbs and muscles, but now she just looked at Theora, wide-eyed. “That sounds so pretty,” Dema rasped in awe.

“Yeah…” Theora replied in a sullen tone, as if that was the worst part about it. “Look, I completely understand if you think I don’t deserve such a—”

Theora couldn’t finish her sentence before being slapped on the shoulder. It was probably the gentlest slap she had ever received, if it was even possible to call it one. There had been no force behind it, but she could see on Dema’s face that she was actually mad.

“Dunno how to tell you this,” Dema said after catching herself a little, “But that’s totally not allowed! Can’t take care of me for so long and with so much, like, kindness, and then act like I think you don’t deserve the whole world!”

Theora’s legs started to tremble, and she was glad she was already sitting down, or she’d have slumped to the ground.

Dema had never even directly touched her without permission before. And now, Theora’d gone so far to make Dema angry enough to tap her shoulder.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, better be! Now cheer up and take that Class! If you wanna, that is. Also, sorry for touching you. Got a bit overzealous there.”

“I—” Theora spluttered, and shook her head in very small motions, but still rather energetically. “I… You can touch me.”

Dema bit her lip. “Damn, you look like a scolded puppy. I feel kinda bad. Give me that permission again tomorrow and we’ll see about it!” Then, after musing for a second, she said, “Actually, speaking of tomorrow. Any clue what we do next?”

“Ah, yes,” Theora answered, trying to calm herself down. “I received a new side quest a while ago, but I wanted to wait with pursuing it until you got better. We can do that, if you want to.”

“Oh my! Yes! What’s it about?”

Theora pulled up the menu, opened the prompt, and proceeded to read out the quest description.

 

[Fetch Quest: Find the Thirteen Fragments of Time.]

Time remaining: 247 years.