Gacha Harem System-Chapter 38: One Week?!

Consciousness came back slowly to Lukas, the same way light filtered through water.

He blinked his eyes open, finding himself lying down and staring at the ceiling. His own ceiling.

He lay there for a moment just confirming that he was where he thought he was, then he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

The groan came out before he could stop it, the involuntary sound emerging from his mouth as the bandages pulled against the injuries underneath and reminded him, in considerable detail, exactly what his last memories had involved.

He sat on the edge of the bed and breathed through it until the stinging settled back to something manageable.

He looked down at himself to see that he was shirtless. He had on black trousers, with white bandages wrapped across his ribs, his shoulder, his forearms, and his left leg. And of course, clean skin everywhere the bandages weren’t.

Someone had washed the blood off him while he slept, and the injuries beneath the wrappings had the particular ache of wounds that had already begun to close.

Unlike what he’d expected, he wasn’t feeling the same fresh pain, but the kind of soreness that said he’d been healing for a while.

It felt like he had been asleep for a week.

He looked up as the door to the room opened.

Melody stepped in, saw him sitting upright, and crossed the room in three steps.

Her arms went around him before he could say anything, pulling him into a hug that she clearly had been waiting to give for some time.

His wounds stung as she held him tightly but he said nothing. He simply brought his arms up and held her tightly against himself, and neither of them said anything for a moment.

This time, the hug was different. There was no awkwardness in it. Neither were there any hesitancy, nor navigation of how close was appropriate.

That had all been burned away somewhere between the Nemean Lion, the anaconda, and the long dark walk through the Green Forest with his weight on her shoulder. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Surviving things together had a way of skipping past the parts of growing closer that usually took longer.

He felt her exhale against his shoulder, then he heard her breath catch.

"You scared me." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I thought... I genuinely thought I was going to lose you out there."

He brought one hand up and patted her back slowly. "You didn’t."

She didn’t respond.

"You’re never going to get rid of me," he said. "Ever. I want you to know that. Even if you become a ghost, I’ll haunt you."

A short, wet laugh came out of her. "Shouldn’t it be the other way around?"

She pulled back and looked at him, her eyes red at the edges, and shook her head like she was annoyed at herself for crying.

Then she shifted immediately into checking him over, eyes moving across the bandages, and one hand coming up to press carefully around the shoulder wrapping, her voice switching into something more practical.

"How do you feel? Does the shoulder still hurt? What about your ribs?"

"Like I spent a week asleep," he said. "Which is what it feels like. How long was I actually out?"

"One night." She sat back. "Just one."

He blinked. "How is that possible?"

"I carried you home." She said it plainly, without making it into anything larger than it was. "Then I called for a [Medic]. They used their skill on you before they left. That’s why everything is closing as fast as it is."

He looked at the bandages for a moment. A [Medic] called to a private residence, in the middle of the night, for an unaffiliated Awakener with no guild backing. He knew what that cost.

The [Healers], who could heal or reverse injury outright, had been absorbed entirely by the major guilds and the City Lord’s household the moment they awakened. The unaffiliated ones worked privately, and they charged accordingly because they could.

"Thank you," he said. He meant it without reservation.

She waved it off and stood. "I made food. Don’t move."

She was out the door before he could respond.

He leaned back against the headboard and exhaled, then pulled up his status.

[Lukas]

[Race: Human]

[Rank: C-Rank Awakener]

[Class: Thief, Hexblade]

[Exp: 0.91%]

[Stats:]

[Strength: 1166]

[Agility: 1307]

[Constitution: 1696]

[Mana: 2164]

[Skills: Pickpocket, Lockpick, Cursed Blade, Hex Shield, Blood Armor]

He really was now C-Rank. He stared at it for a moment, then moved to the system interface.

[Gacha Harem System]

[Gacha Points: 1,450]

[Banners:]

[Wife (2,000 Points)]

[Skill (500 Points)]

[Items (500 Points)]

[Mystery Box (1,000 Points)]

He checked his points. One thousand, four hundred and fifty.

Skills and Items were both within reach right now, but he paused. To him, it felt like the quests were getting increasingly harder, so this might be one of the few chances he’d get for a while.

He needed just five hundred and fifty more points and he could pull from the Wife banner.

And it would be worth it, because he would be getting two new skills, which would be worth one thousand points, along with a new class and another set of stats on top of what he already had, which were priceless to him.

And the next time a Nemean Lion decided to stand over him and roar in his face, he would have a different answer for it.

He closed the interface as Melody’s footsteps came back down the hall. She entered the room with a tray, setting it down on the bed beside him with careful hands.

Steam rose from the bowl and he saw that it was soup, sitting thick and well-seasoned, with bread on the side. It smelled better than anything had a right to smell at that moment.

He stared at it in confusion, a frown on his face. "I thought you couldn’t cook."

"I can’t." She nodded.

"Then where did you get this... soup?"

She didn’t seem offended by his question. "I learned."

He blinked at her, the room silent for a few seconds. Then a small smile appeared on his face. She’d learnt to cook, just for him.

He reached for the spoon.

She slapped his hand away lightly.

He looked at her, raising a brow in question.

She looked back, picked up the spoon, and loaded it with soup.

"I can feed myself," he said.

"The motion will tear your wounds open."

"I’m eating, Melody," he smiled. "Not fighting."

"You’re reaching and lifting and turning your wrist." She held the spoon out towards him. "Just accept it."

"This is unnecessary."

"Accept it, you idiot."

He laughed, a short, genuine laugh that pulled at his ribs and was entirely worth it. Then he closed his mouth around the spoon.

His eyes widened. "This is good!"

She smiled at his words. "Took me a few tries, but I’m glad I got it right."

She fed him without ceremony, loading each spoonful with the same seriousness she brought to everything that mattered to her.

The first few bites were slightly strange, sitting there being fed like he was incapable of managing a spoon.

Then he stopped thinking about it and just ate, and it slowly became comfortable, both of them trading smiles.

He was halfway through the bowl when the knock sounded on the front door, clear enough to reach them from the bedroom.

They looked at each other.

Melody set the spoon down and stood. "I’ll get it."

***

A/N: The character images are up! You can now support your favorite characters with points and boost their popularity.

Some will notice there’s a new character that hasn’t been introduced yet. Look forward to it!