Chapter 15 - Second Day with Alicia

Alicia and I sat together, enjoying the warmth of each others bodies as we basked in the afterglow of coming so much closer to each other.

It was such a minor thing, but for us to exchange names, even though mine was literally received from her just now, would normally be such a minor thing and the first thing done when two people met, it was a big step for us to come closer since we would be living together from then on.

But that same act took a toll on Alicia's small body.

Rather, the excitement had finally dissipated and now she was openly yawning.

"I guess it's getting late. Let's go to sleep"

"Mmmm"

The little girl rubbed her cloudy eyes as she drowsily nodded.

I got up to make room on the couch so that she could lay down.

But I felt a tug on my sleeve as I tried to go and clean up after dinner.

"...can...can we sleep...together...?"

Alicia's cloudy eyes were filled with unease and worry. I didn't even consider it before, but it was a given that being abandoned by her family, even if it was so that they wouldn't starve, would've been a traumatizing experience for such a little child.

"Sure. That's not a problem. Just give me a sec"

When her little fingers let go of my sleeve, I walked to the edge of the room and made a rudimentary coat hanger from the leftovers of the iron ingot I'd been using, and hung my clothes on it as I stripped down.

(My clothes aren't suitable for sleeping in. They'd just get in the way of Alicia having a restful sleep.)

The couch wasn't big enough for two people to sleep on normally, so the only way was for Alicia to lie on top of my body like before. The leather of my chest wrap and pants would be uncomfortable for her, and my robes could get tangled with her body as she slept.

I could technically wear my tank top, but if Alicia drooled in her sleep, it would be another thing I had to wash, so I opted to go without it.

Now that I was only in my panties, I went back to the couch, lifted Alicia's frail body against mine, and lay down on the couch and draped the pelt she had wrapped around her body on top to keep warm.

We lay both facing up, with Alicia's head on my inflated chest like a pillow, but she immediately turned around and hugged me, burying her face in my chest.

Her thin arms pulled her body as tightly against mine as they could, even though they trembled slightly. In return, I wrapped my arms around her body and slowly stroked her bare back.

Alicia's breathing slowed and shallowed, and eventually the strength left her tired body as she drifted to sleep.

I on the other hand was stuck there, unable to move, only able to curse my biology for being unable to sleep.

I absently wondered how many hours I'd have to keep up this position until Alicia woke up.

(...I need to make her some clothes)

The rags that she wore weren't suitable for anyone outside of the most desperate of times. It only barely offered modesty, and did basically nothing to protect her body from the elements. She'd probably be cold even here in the fountain room where there's no wind to chill her.

I could make something pretty quick with the spare fur I had laying around, but a proper outfit suited her better. That meant working on the loom again. I thought back to that machine that I left on the 80th floor. I had barely touched it since making my robes, being so time consuming to make even the most basic thing.

But there wasn't any way around it. All the cloth drops in the dungeon were magical, and I still didn't know what sort of properties they had. It was too much of a risk to use any of them, so I was stuck making them from the threads that I can loot from various monsters.

So in the end, food and clothes were at the top of my priority list. I still had leftover ingredients so breakfast wasn't a problem, but I'd have to go out to get lunch. The time and effort for me wasn't a big deal, but I felt uneasy about leaving such a young child all alone while I went out to get ingredients.

But a child didn't belong in a dungeon, especially a blind one that wouldn't have the means to know how and when to hide.

The only way to deal with that would be to just be as quick as I could and come back, leaving Alicia alone for as little time as possible.

On the other side, clothes wasn't too much of a problem. I already had all the materials to make her several outfits.

Anything after that can be left for later. There wasn't much point in planning until we had some time to talk properly after Alicia wakes up.

Shoving those thoughts to the back of my mind, I opened up my status window to examine the source code once again.

Last time, I was working on making a skill to resist sunlight, but that completely fell apart. Instead, it was probably better to concentrate on understanding how the system worked first. There didn't seem to be any sort of manual or help files, so I've have to decipher the syntax manually.

One by one, I read through the source code on the skills I owned. Not only did doing so allowed me to learn how the coding language worked, but it also helped me to understand my skills to a deeper level.

For example, [Arcane Magic] was the most ambiguous magic skill I had. Arcane was a type of magic typically, usually beside divine and maybe a few others. Normally arcane would indicate the source of magic along with the types of magic that could be cast using it, but in this world, [Arcane Magic] was actually just a synonym for 'unaspected'. Basically it covered all the magic that the other magic skills didn't cover, which would be the six major elements of this world.

But by reading the source code, I got a better understanding than simply 'miscellaneous'.

I had already been using it to levitate and move objects around, but in reality it was the basis of all magic skills. It effectively functioned as a manipulation of force and energy. On Earth, energy was the currency of the universe, and that meant that if you could control energy, you could control everything. Obviously that wasn't actually possible and was only a theory. Over here though, [Arcane Magic] was exactly that, control over energy. But the difference was that energy seemed to be more strictly defined here than on Earth.

Energy seemed to include kinetic and thermal energy, as well as gravitational and electromagnetic force. But in addition to those, it included mana. From a fundamental level, it was incredibly powerful and versatile.

But it wasn't all powerful. The six elemental magic systems were much more limited in scope, but were proportionately stronger and more efficient.

Just this knowledge was an incredible find. I didn't know how much the people of this world understood how [Arcane Magic] worked, but it was hard to imagine that they knew exactly where the limits of the skill was.

It was a surprising benefit to my administrator privileges.

"Mmmmm"

As I continued to read and analyze through my skills' source codes, Alicia shifted in her sleep, bringing my attention to her for a second.

A quick glance suggested that there wasn't anything wrong, but I lightly rubbed her back just in case and went back to reading my skills' code.

"Mmmm...chu"

"Uah!"

Suddenly there was a strange feeling on my chest. It was like a pulling or sucking sensation, but the way it felt was alien as a shiver ran down my spine in time with sensation growing stronger and weaker.

I lifted up the fur blanket again. Alicia had shifted a little again, but that wasn't what was important. She was suckling in her sleep, and the feeling of it was making my body burn up.

Unable to stand the feeling on my chest, I desperately tried to suppress the need to squirm, yet my knees rubbed against each other against my will.

I couldn't let her keep doing this at all, so I moved my hands to try to force her off, or at least wake her up, but instead I froze.

"Ma...ma....mama...."

There were tears running down Alicia's face as she whispered that word in between sucks.

In an instant, she put me between a rock and a hard place.

As I was stuck there trying to debate what I should do, in the end the need to comfort this little girl won over. I squeezed her small body between my arms as I stroked her head.

I needed to prevent this from occurring ever again, but for now I lost to her anxiety.

My mind moved away from trying to learn about the system to trying to get Alicia to not suckle on me tomorrow night.

"MMmmmmm....mmmm...?"

"...morning Alicia..."

"...! Ah! Ahh...good morning Scarlet...!"

Finally, after suckling on and off in her sleep for who knows how many time, Alicia woke up and pushed herself upright, propping herself up with her hands pressing on my belly. She jerked up when I called her name, but calmed down after her mind cleared.

I, on the other hand, was wiped out. To think that I'd be feeling so tired while doing practically nothing. I felt like being unable to sleep an entire night and being forced to go to work anyways. Well, I can't sleep in general, but the conjured memories of that actually happening in my last life made me sigh.

But my personal condition aside, for some reason Alicia stiffed up again right after she relaxed.

"...Did...I do something wrong....?"

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"Maybe I did something while sleeping...?"

(Was that a habit she had from before?!)

The prospect that this would continue no matter what I tried filled me with dread, but I did my best to play it smooth for now.

"What makes you think that?"

"Your body is really stiff, a lot more than when we went to sleep"

Alicia bit her thumb as she nervously said.

(Ah, that's why)

"Don't worry too much about it. It's my first time sleeping with someone"

(Technically I didn't sleep though)

"*cough*...okay...?"

Alicia tilted her head cutely after a second's delay.

"But first thing's first. I need you to get off of me so I can make breakfast"

"Ah! Right!"

The little girl quickly shifted over to sit on the couch cushion so I could move.

I got up and walked over to get dressed, but noticed how uncomfortable my underwear had become. My eyes flickered to Alicia for a second. She was staring right at me while pulling the furs we used as a blanket around her naked body to keep warm.

Despite being well aware that she was completely blind, my face grew hot at being stared while virtually naked, also despite having both bathed together and slept mostly nude together.

I removed my underwear and tossed it into the now cold water in the bathtub before reaching for my clothes. But as I grabbed for my chest wrap, the feeling of something wet sliding down my belly made me reconsider. There was saliva dripping down my body.

Before letting it get onto my clothes, I levitated a pelt over and wiped myself down before getting clothed. The chest wrap and tank top went on, then I went over to wash my panties before using [Arcane Magic] to evaporate all the water off of it in a new application I just came up with. The benefits of learning the background details of my skills had already shown itself, even if it was pretty mundane.

I left my hat, robes, gloves, pants, and boots for later. There wasn't much need in putting it on until I headed out to hunt.

"Okay then...breakfast..."

In the corner of my eye, Alicia jerked up to my words and a faint grumble came. It looked like I'd spent more time than I should've. I had to get used to the fact that whenever I did anything, there was someone who would be waiting until I finished.

There was a serious lack of ingredients, especially in variety, but I had to make do.

I started by heating the stone pan on a magical flame and greased the surface. As that was going on, I skinned then diced up the remaining potatoes then soaked them in a bowl of water drawn from the fountain. Next, I ground up the last of the wheat in a mortar, then mixed it with some water to make a paste.

On another plate, I diced up half an onion and shredded a quarter of a carrot with my claws, then after draining the potatoes, I mixed them all together in a bowl with some salt and pepper. Once the stone pan was hot enough, I poured the mixture onto it, making four small patties.

While that cooked, I cut up an apple into slices and removed the seeds and put them onto a small wooden plate. Next, I shaped some stone into a cup and squeezed some oranges to fill it.

As the patties cooked, I examined my work so far. It looked pretty good, but a bit unsatisfying. Thinking about it for a second, I realized I didn't have a sauce for the potato patties. In theory I could just use the sweet sap as is on it, but I heard that was a controversial idea on Earth. Ketchup would be much more ideal.

I remembered I once looked up what ketchup was made from. I did some weird things to sate my curiosity.

The principal ingredients of ketchup were tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar. Then there were a bunch of things to balance out the flavours, but the details slipped my mind. Fortunately I had tomatoes from yesterday, and I could substitute sugar with the thick sap I got from treant-like monsters. Strangely, cloudy, brown vinegar came from some of the cook-like monsters in the fortress floors, along with many of my herbs and spices. At least I was pretty sure it was. The sour taste was pretty overpowering, but anything aside from blood was unpleasant tasting to the current me.

In a bowl, I crushed a tomato into a watery paste, then removed the skin. Some sap and vinegar went into the bowl, about a tenth as much of both. I mixed the concoction while adding a sprinkle of salt.

Once I was confident the patties were done, I transferred them to a plate and evenly spread the homemade ketchup on top, then placed everything onto a small table and brought it in front of Alicia and placed a clean fork in her hand.

"Breakfast is served"

The little girl leaned forward, her nose twitching like that of a little animal as she gulped repeatedly. It took me a second, but I realized something I forgot to do.

With as gentle a motion as I could, I grabbed her tiny hands and touched them on each plate and cup one by one.

"This is potato patties and it's hot, so use the fork. This one is sliced fruit and is cold, so you can use your hands. This one is juice, so be careful not to spill it"

Alicia nodded each time, then took a second to confirm the shape and size of each container.

Using her fork, she prodded the plate of patties to confirm their shape, then speared one and unsteadily brought it up to her mouth. I made them small to portion them, but I realized while watching that I didn't consider that she wouldn't cut them up with her fork. I needed to make them even smaller next time to make it easier to eat.

Oblivious to my thoughts, Alicia took a bite out a patty. As she chewed, her eyes lit up like Christmas lights.

"It's so good! Everything you make is so yummy!"

"Haha, thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying it"

With a grin big enough to make my cheeks hurt a little, I moved on to my next project as Alicia enjoyed her meal.

The little girl needed clothes, badly. There was no way I'd let her wear those course rags, so I needed to make something new. But my options were limited, since I wasn't going to make her only wear that one fur until I made something with the loom.

I collected the last of the rabbit pelts I had and cut them down into rectangles. From there, with one eye on Alicia as she ate with the force of an industrial vacuum cleaner, I estimated her size and stitched the furs together into a basic dress. It was deliberately made loose so that her movements would be impeded as little as possible, and the fur on the inside to keep her warm and prevent the tougher leather from directly touching her skin.

When I lifted up the final product to admire, from the corner of my eye I saw Alicia staring at me...looking at me...facing toward me. It looked like I took longer than I expected and she was already finished with her meal.

"Finished?"

"Yes! It was really tasty!"

For some reason Alicia was stiff as a board. This lack of trust gave me a pang in my chest, but I guess expecting us to be much closer in only a day was pretty unrealistic.

"Here, let's go clean you up"

There was traces of sauce all over the little girl's face and hands. It looked like she really enjoyed the meal, but I kinda wished she'd enjoy it without making a mess of herself. Was hoping for it too much from a girl as young as her?

"Wait a sec! I'll carry you"

As I walked over to pick her up, Alicia uneasily tried to reach a foot down to reach the floor. Half worried that she'd slip and fall, half annoyed that she was doing it while putting her sauce covered hands all over the couch and furs, I rushed over and lifted her into my arms.

But it was then I realized how much of an exercise of futility that was.

To stabilize herself, she was forced to grab onto me, spreading the sauce onto my shirt and body.

(Next time, I'll bring a bowl of water and something to wipe with)

With a quick glance, I saw that the plates and cup were completely empty. It even looked like the sauce was licked clean.

(I also need to pay more attention so that she doesn't do that)

It was no wonder why her hands and mouth were covered with saliva and traces of ketchup.

"Okay, sit here"

I placed Alicia onto the lip of the fountain, wherein she obediently sat down as I lowered her body.

"Okay, I'm going to wash your hands and face now"

With my intent declared, I levitated a ball of water and directed Alicia's sands into it, scrubbing them clean before dropping the orb. Next, I wiped her face with my wet hands until I was sure I got everything off, before finally bringing over a clean fur to dry her off.

"Alright! Now you look all pretty again!"

"R, really?"

Alicia responded much more energetically to my offhand compliment than I expected.

"Yup! And a pretty girl needs a pretty…dress…"

I tried to follow through with my words, but calling the fur dress I made pretty was less disingenuous and more of a flat out lie.

"Ummm…unfortunately I don't have a pretty dress right now. So until I can make one, I have another one…at least it's warm…"

My words petered out as I ran out of steam. Alicia on the other hand was staring towards me with sparkling eyes.

"Here. Stand up and raise your arms so I can put it on you"

Those eyes full of expectation hurt badly, but it was way too late to turn back now.

I levitated over the fur dress while careful to make sure Alicia didn't slip on the fountain lip. I pulled the one-piece over her head and her arms through the arm holes before gently tugging the skirt down just above her knees.

The dress seemed to fit her better than I expected. It was a bit loose overall, but not to the degree that it would unnecessarily shift on her body.

The skill correction was scary.

I lifted Alicia and put her down onto the ground.

"How is it?"

The little girl in front of me patted the front of the crude dress a bit before turning her cloudy eyes my way.

"It's amazing! It's so soft and warm! I love it! Thank you Scarlet!"

The intense sparkling I her eyes felt like the sun's burning rays being beamed directly into my soul. The guilt riddled through my chest at this little girl being so happy about such a cheap gift.

I didn't even spend that much time on it since it was supposed to be temporary. But at this rate she might chose this crude thing over any decent dress I spend real time and effort on.

Calling it too late to take it back was the understatement of the century.

I had no choice but to suck it up and just deal with it.

(Maybe I can make improvements to it in the future instead?)

That aside though...

"Alicia, let's get you back on the couch for a minute"

I grabbed her hand and guided her back to the couch. Carrying her around was easy, since she was both so light and I was so strong, but she needed to learn the lay of the room by physically moving around, since she couldn't just look.

When we got there, I helped her sit down.

"Alright. Just wait a minute while I clean the place up"

That said, if the place she lived in was a mess, a little blind girl like her was prone to getting hurt constantly when I wasn't looking. A cleanup was the first thing that needed to happen here.

I moved around all the things around the room, putting the cooking things on one side of the fountain, the bath on the other, and stored items that were likely to come in hand in it's own spot against the far wall. Anything that wasn't likely to be used anytime soon was taken to the 80th floor, which was now my designated store room. The couch was right in the middle like a centrepiece, since it was our most used item.

I also took this opportunity to quickly clean everything. With everything suddenly getting busy all at once with Alicia's arrival, I forgot to clean up the used equipment.

"Alright. That's everything"

With my hands on my hips, I proudly stood while moving my eyes across the now clean room. While it couldn't be called organized, everything was at least put together in their place, and anything potentially dangerous was made secure or out of reach of Alicia. For the most part, the room was childproof.

Alicia on the other hand was sitting on the couch, kicking her legs. It wasn't a surprise she'd be bored, but I was a bit amazed that she didn't complain at all.

I moved to her side and pat her head.

"I've finished cleaning. It should be fine for you to move around in the room, but don't go through either of the tunnels. There's monsters in each direction, so it'll be dangerous alone. I'm gonna go get dinner"

As I turned to leave, a small hand pulled on my pinkie, making me freeze mid-stride.

"You're going to go away?"

"..."

I looked into Alicia's grey eyes. It looked like she was trying to hold back tears.

"Just for a bit. There's not enough food for dinner, so I need to go get some"

"But...*cough*cough*"

Strength left her hand as she let go of my finger, but she trembled as she faced the floor.

"You wanna come with me?"

"Can I?"

The sorrow just now disappeared like it was a lie. If she wasn't a kid, I'd have thought that she was doing this on purpose.

(Or at least if she didn't seem so earnest I would)

I was reminded that I was a bit manipulative at times when I was a kid. But I wasn't that subtle about it. This girl seemed a lot more honest than I was.

"Yea, fine. But it's going to be dangerous, so you have to do what I say no matter what. If you can't do that, then you'll have to stay"

"I will! I'll do everything you say!"

Her eyes were sparkling again. But now, it was responsibility that weighed me down.

"Well, first of all, we need to get you ready to for the dungeon"

"Dungeon?"

"Right. I never said it did I? We're inside a dungeon right now"

"!!!"

(Ah, I need to clean the couch)