Chapter 21: Chapter 16: Regret:Guilt

The fight against the trolls taught me quite a few things.

The first was that I'm a fucking idiot. Not only did I let myself get ambushed, but I also snapped at Elise just because I was under a bit of pressure. However I already had solutions to those problems.

I had learned of the skill, Calm Mind thanks to my inability to create it. As for preventing ambushes Pyra informed me of a skill called Sense Presence. Both of these skill most likely did exactly as their names suggested, however I had no way of confirming that until I unlocked them both.

The way I could unlock Calm Mind was by, well, having a calm mind under pressure. Sounds simple enough. As for Sense Presence I would have to, well, sense presences... Which was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but we'll get to that in a moment.

The second thing I learned was that my girls needed to become stronger, and quickly. If Elise had been the one hit and not me or Alex, then she would have been reduced to nothing more than a bloody pulp. Luckily Alex, Elise, and I all leveled up from the fight. Well mostly Elise since we was still in the lower 20's. Problem was, as shown by the trolls, monsters have stats way exceeding thier levels, and killing people was a one time thing.

I checked all of our status's.

[Name: Damian Solace]

[Soul Strength: Mortal (Damaged)]

[Race: Human, (Sealed 1%)]

[Title: Prodigy of Flame]

[Level: 47 (4%)]

[HP: 165/230]

[MP: 4500]

[Strength: 59]

[Constitution: 106]

[Magic: 150]

[Resistance: 103]

[Agility: 85]

[Remaining Stat Points: 10]

[Name: Alexandra Hart]

[Race: Human]

[Title: Righteous Knight]

[Level: 45]

[Strength 81]

[Constitution: 58]

[Magic: 34]

[Resistance: 27]

[Agility: 61]

[Name: Elise Rosewell]

[Race: Human]

[Title: Apprentice Cleric]

[Level: 31]

[Strength: 22]

[Constitution: 28]

[Magic: 74]

[Resistance: 75]

[Agility: 25]

There was a lot to take in here. The first thing to know was how normal people leveled up. They did so by increasing their stats points through training and Mana Shards. Whenever a person raised any of their stats by 2-5 they would level up. 

Keeping that in mind, the system allows for every stat to increase by at least one every level. Only thing is, when a person can increase their stat by two per level, the system makes it to where that stat always increases by two. This is why Alex's strength and constitution had increased by 4, even though she only leveled up twice.

As for Elise, well... Even if only once, her magic and resistance had increased by three in a single level. This meant they would always increase by three from here on. Seriously how op can a person be? Well like I'm one to talk.

Anyways, Alex was resting her head on my thighs, trying to regain her strength a bit. We were sitting in the wagon, where Elise was taking care of Gareth, and the traitor was hogtied and being watched.

Luckily there was no roof nor walls to the wagon so I would be able to see and react to any sudden attacks.

You are reading story To Live Again (For a Harem) at novel35.com

Elise had barely even looked in our direction which sucked for two reasons. The first of which was obvious, it pained me to see her avoiding me because of what I had done. 

The second being because my ribs still felt broken. I'm sure the idea of healing me slipped her mind, especially after I had her work for nearly ten minutes, exhausting her core again and again to heal Alex, and Gareth was in terrible condition.

I could only sigh within my mind for now. I would make it up to her later. For now I was practicing the Sense Presence skill with my eye firmly shut. It was quite easy to sense Alex, who was quite literally laying her head on my thigh, and it was also easy to sense where Elise was as well, despite her silence. I almost felt like I could see her even though I had my eye closed.

I then tried to sense some of the guards outside of the carriage and it was quite easy. I then realized it was because of Mana Sense. I could feel every single disturbance of the Mana around me. Sure it might've been cheating but...

[Skill: Sense Presence (B) has been unlocked]

[Host, confirming merge of skills: Mana Sense (A) and Sense Presence (B) to become a more powerful skill]

I was quite surprised by the new 'merge' thing. Typically I would have assumed such a function was locked. But Pyra informed me it was one of few functions that remained unlocked.

'Will I still be able to sense Mana and people?' I asked the system within my head.

[Probability: 95%]

'Then go for it.'

[Merge of skills: Mana Sense and Sense Presence has been confirmed. Skills have been merged]

[Skill: Absolute Perception: Incomplete (S) has been unlocked]

-Absolute Perception: Incomplete (S)

Those who can see all know all, or so they say. Perhaps knowing everything is more of a curse then it is let on to be?

Allows user to perceive everything around them (Incomplete)

Radius: 50 feet

Suddenly I felt... Everything. Every heartbeat, every footstep, every breath. I could feel it all. I could see every movement everyone around us made. I could hear every word they spoke. I could smell all of their scents all at once, and every one of my thoughts were too loud.

It was nauseating. It was too much. I needed it off.

Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off turn it off! 

"Turn it off!"

[Skill: Processing (B) has been unlocked.]

-Processing (B)

Sometimes things are simply too much for you. That's why it's always good to have a separate mind to process everything that you can't.

Gives user a second line of thought to process all excess information. Any information deemed important will be sent to the main processer

Suddenly everything stopped, or at least it felt like it. If I focused hard enough I could still feel it. The everything all around me.

It didn't take me long to realize I had fallen to my knees. I brought my shaking hands up so I could see them. My breathing had become incredibly rough, so I focused on calming that down.

"Damian!" I heard someone- no Elise, call me. I looked up and she was staring straight into my eyes, I could see the concern in hers as well.

"Y-you're eye! It's bleeding again!" Elise said and brought her hand up to my face. It was only then I had felt the tears streaming down my face. I grabbed Elise's hands, that had started healing me, with my own excessively shaking ones and pushed them against my head. Her hands were warm, and comforting. Similar to the feeling Pyra gave me.

Elise didn't make any effort to stop her healing, until about ten seconds later. "I.. I still can't heal it..." She said. I just looked into her eyes with a smile. 

"That's okay Elise. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." I said

"Explain what happened. What did you mean by 'turn it off'." Alex spoke from behind me. 

I suddenly felt a bit bad, since she was resting on me and I had suddenly jumped out of the seat and onto my knees.

I slowly took my place back on the bench and sat down, leaning forwards a bit. I couldn't stop my knee from jumping up and down.

"I.. uh, well I was trying to make sure we never got ambushed again. I uh, I wanted to be able to sense the presence of all of the living things around me, and I succeed in doing that, but it was far more than just feeling other people." I paused for a moment to calm my breathing.

"I could feel... Everything. Every little thing all around me all at once." Tears had started falling from my eyes at this point. "It was... It was t-too much... It hurt..." By now I was just a few steps away from full blown sobbing.

"Why would you do that?" Alex said. Her words were... Soft. Gentle even.

"I... I-I don't want any of what happened today... To happen ever again." I was barely in control of my breathing now. "I don't want... to lose someone I care about... without ever knowing how it happened! I don't want to shout at the people I love just because I'm under under some pressure! I-I don't want to be the guy who pushes everyone away when things go wrong anymore!"

I fell to my knees, and the weeping started.

Despite all of my strength, I was still just a kid. I seemed to have forgotten that. Sure pain and death had little to no effect on me, but the mere thought of losing Elise, even though we hadn't known each other long, was enough for me to cry. Maybe this was true love or something... Pretty scary stuff.

I knew it wasn't fair. Elise was much younger than me, yet she held me as I cried into her chest. I knew she had felt pain I could only imagine, yet I let her comfort me. I had been the one to wrong her, yet she was telling me everything would be okay. It wasn't fair to her, but didn't I deserve this?

And so I cried into her arms. I cried until I had no tears, nor blood, left to cry anymore, staining Elise's, and even Alex's clothes in tears and blood, and even then I still wept.

Perhaps the overload of information had some adverse effect on my mind, or perhaps I never was any good at holding my sorrow back. Whatever the reason, this would be the moment mine, Alex's and Elise's bond truly formed, and the moment we all knew we would be there for each other. Until the end of time itself.

Or until I did something stupid again. Who knows?

You can find story with these keywords: To Live Again (For a Harem), Read To Live Again (For a Harem), To Live Again (For a Harem) novel, To Live Again (For a Harem) book, To Live Again (For a Harem) story, To Live Again (For a Harem) full, To Live Again (For a Harem) Latest Chapter