Chapter 18: Chapter 18 — Not Yet
The silence that settled in the inn room was so dense it nearly suffocated me.
Samira’s last words still floated in the air, cold and heavy as gravestones. The altar of the void. The black mud. The red eye in the sky tearing reality apart. My mind—former office worker and gacha player—spun at a dizzying speed, trying to process the magnitude of what she had just described.
Unconsciously, my brain began to tie together the threads that horror had left loose. The twisted Valetri family, that ambitious bloodline, had used Hestia herself as the ultimate human sacrifice. They had offered her up in a dark magic ritual to tear open a dimensional rift in the skies of Fortunna four thousand years ago, allowing an Outer God to corrupt her being and transform her into the living abomination that lurked beyond.
A cold sweat slid down the back of my neck. That description... the sky splitting open, monstrosities falling upon humanity, the threat of absolute destruction. As someone who had spent years of his life consuming light novels, manga, and role-playing games back on Earth, I knew perfectly well what kind of entity we were dealing with. We weren’t up against simple medieval fantasy monsters or some resentful local necromancer; our final enemy was a genuine cosmic horror deity, a damn plague intent on devouring everything.
I swallowed hard, pulling my attention back to the present. I looked at the woman resting her head against my chest. Samira—the imposing 5-star spiritualist, the legendary warrior who could slice through armies with a flick of her hand—was trembling imperceptibly against my bare skin.
She had left out the ending.
My common sense screamed that the story was incomplete. She had narrated the cruelty of the Valetri family, the tragedy of her parents, and the monstrosity Hestia had become after the ritual. But the tale had cut off abruptly when she was left alone in that dark basement. The Infinite Gacha System was very clear about its mechanics: it summoned warriors whose souls had transcended death. If Samira was here, bound to me through this system, it meant she hadn’t survived that era. That darkness—or perhaps the very magical council that had imprisoned her—had ultimately claimed her life.
Curiosity burned in my throat. I wanted to ask her how she died. Had she ever discovered the true reason behind her parents’ murder? I wanted to know who had killed her so I could hunt them down myself. But seeing the crystalline moisture gathering at the edges of her beautiful violet eyes, I stopped myself cold.
"Not yet," I told myself, clenching my jaw. "Don’t be an insensitive idiot, Harold."
She had opened her heart wide to me. She had shattered the barriers of her own traumas to share a small part of her history, reliving a pain four millennia old just so I could understand her. If she wasn’t ready yet to speak her own ending aloud, I wouldn’t force her. I would swallow my questions for as long as it took. My only duty now wasn’t to be the Summoner interrogating his system; it was to be the man who would help her overcome this pain.
I moved my left hand with extreme slowness and took her right hand in mine. Her fingers were covered with slight calluses, marks of a lifetime spent gripping lances and magic to protect others.
I stroked the back of her palm with my thumb.
Samira looked up, surprised by the subtle shift in my breathing.
Without breaking eye contact, I brought her hand to my face and pressed a soft, warm, lingering kiss to her knuckles.
She blinked, and a single tear she had been holding back slid down her pale cheek.
"Harold..." she murmured, her voice fracturing the fragile silence of the bedchamber.
"In my world... on Earth... my father was a man who lost everything in a matter of seconds," I began, my tone low and rough. "When my mother died, I watched his soul drain away completely. But despite being shattered inside, he never let go of my hand. He stayed strong to raise me."
I brushed the tear from her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin beneath my fingertips.
"One night, when I was a stupid teenager angry at the world, my old man sat me down and gave me a piece of advice I’ve never forgotten. He said: ’Son, when a lady’s heart is too heavy, or when it hurts her soul to tell you about the dark things that torment her, don’t push her to talk. A real man’s duty isn’t to demand answers; it’s to be the shelter that makes her feel safe until the storm passes.’"
Samira’s violet eyes widened with a vulnerability that squeezed my chest. Remembering the details she had just told me about High Mage Almira Florens, I understood the depth of her suffering; that strict barrier of coldness and military perfection her mentor had instilled in her, combined with the mask of the prisoner who had endured ten years in a dungeon... all of it crumbled before those simple words.
A trembling smile—fragile but incredibly beautiful—curved her lips.
"Your father... was a very wise man, Hal," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.
"He was," I nodded, returning the smile. "And I intend to listen to him. You don’t need to tell me the rest if it hurts too much. I’m already here. And I swear on my own soul, Samira, that as long as I breathe, you will never be left alone in the darkness again."
Ding!
[System Notice!]
[Critical Emotional Resonance detected. Affinity with Summon ’Samira Von Skillar Salazar’ has surpassed measurable limits. Absolute-Grade Soul Link: Unlocked.]
[Both users’ passive ether regeneration has been permanently synchronized.]
I completely ignored the bluish screen flickering in my periphery. Stats and levels meant nothing to me in this exact moment.
Samira let out a choked sob, closed her eyes, and clung to my neck with desperate strength, burying her face in the hollow of my shoulder. I felt the warm dampness of her tears soaking my skin, washing away the venom of four thousand years of nightmares.
I wrapped both arms around her, pulling her against me until not a single millimeter of space remained between our bodies. There was no lust, no carnal intent, no forced dual cultivation; only the pure, primal need to give her every ounce of human warmth my body could generate.
I held her there in the stillness of the inn. I listened as her ragged breathing gradually calmed, synchronizing with the beat of my own heart. We spent entire hours curled up beneath the thick wool sheets, fused into a single being while the cold Prusna night advanced beyond the window.
I watched over her sleep, stroking her purple hair until mental and physical exhaustion finally claimed me as well.
---
When I opened my eyes again, the first rays of the morning sun were filtering aggressively through the wooden slats of the window.
Samira’s warm weight still rested on my chest. She slept peacefully, an expression of absolute serenity on her face that made her look years younger. I smiled at the sight of her, feeling a renewed energy circulating through my ether core. The system’s Soul Link was no joke; I felt stronger, more centered, more connected to this world than ever.
With extreme care not to wake her, I slid my arm out from beneath her and sat on the edge of the mattress. I stretched my neck, cracking my vertebrae, ready to plan our next move. We were now Silver-Rank adventurers, we had Domack and Dorko in our arsenal, and a small fortune in Kalikas. We could buy better equipment, research more about this world’s magic, and prepare to hunt down those dark entities.
I bent down to pick up my clothes from the floor when a sudden, jarring sound shattered the morning’s tranquility.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Someone was pounding on the heavy oak door of our inn room with violent urgency, almost hammering it with a metal gauntlet.
Samira snapped awake, her violet eyes flashing open with a predator’s killing instinct as she summoned her mystical ring into the palm of her hand in a fraction of a second.
"Who the hell is it at this hour?" I growled, yanking on my trousers in one pull.
"Adventurers Harold and Samira!" a deep, authoritative voice shouted from the other side of the hallway. "Open the door by order of the Gray Wolf Guild!"
I exchanged a sharp glance with Samira. That was not the friendly tone of Karla the receptionist.
"Master Ronald Pain demands your immediate presence in his office!" the voice on the other side continued, impatient. "The Holy Church of the Eternal Goddess arrived in Prusna at dawn... and the High Purifiers demand to interrogate you about what you found in the Goldfish Dungeon!"
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