Vampire Princess Guide in Progress - Volume 1 Chapter 66

Chapter 66: From Now On, My Life Is Yours

***

A few minutes later, after finishing applying medication to the wound.

Tilia retracted her hand, putting the wooden cork back into the bottle’s mouth, feeling the burning heat on her own cheeks at that moment.

She didn’t know how she had managed to complete this task with such difficulty. Although it’s embarrassing to admit, throughout her life so far, apart from her family, she had not only never dated, but had never even held a girl’s hand.

Yet now she had suddenly gone so far as to touch another girl’s chest.

This leap and shock temporarily made it impossible for her to calm down.

As a result, she failed to maintain a composed expression, but instead blushed innocently all the way to her ears. This was also true for Cross, who had shrunk under the covers with only half her little head showing, secretly glancing at Tilia with shy eyes.

Both young women in the room couldn’t help but blush, as if they had just done something unspeakably embarrassing to each other.

The atmosphere suddenly became quiet and awkward.

“I-I’m actually quite well-endowed, r-right?”

Cross murmured in a sweet voice, taking the initiative to break the awkward atmosphere, though her voice was already trembling slightly with embarrassment.

“Mm, mm. Compared to how you look normally…” Tilia started saying, but immediately stopped. What was this situation where she was expected to offer some kind of comment? But as a girl, she couldn’t act too unnaturally either.

She understood that Cross was completely treating her as a girl, which was why they were having this kind of conversation.

And now Tilia had another necessary reason to keep her secret. If Cross were to learn about her previous identity, this would definitely not remain the gentle conversation between girls that it was now, but might involve her being torn to pieces.

I’m sorry, I’ll go to a church-like building in the game later to seek confession and forgiveness from a nun.

“By the way, Cross, are you hungry? I bought some food,” Tilia quickly changed the subject.

“Mm, a little bit,”

Cross nodded slightly, lowering the blanket from her face a little.

Tilia had bought some food from shops in the nearby town, including berry pie, a specialty from the third floor’s Ice Snow City. With its smooth texture and fragrant sweet fruit flavor, it provided a great feeling of satisfaction and warmth.

Food items could be stored in the inventory, but they had a very short shelf life. After the expiration time, they generally didn’t taste as good as when freshly baked.

Having picked one up on her way back, Tilia quickly took out the 【Sweet Berry Pie】 and placed it on a small round table. She cut it into pieces with a knife and fork, and set it before Cross.

Because Cross still didn’t have much strength in her body, Tilia picked up a piece with a fork and carefully fed it to her.

“Aah…” Tilia made a gesture indicating opening her mouth.

“Pfft. Why is Tilia treating me like a child?”

Huh? Isn’t this how it’s done?

She had always coaxed her sister like this, and her sister had never said anything about feeling uncomfortable.

The habit from childhood seemed to have been preserved…

“But I don’t mind.” Cross smiled gently at her, and still obediently opened her little mouth with an “aah,” biting onto the fork Tilia offered. Her small pink tongue curled, her cheeks slightly puffed as she began to chew.

Oh, what a unique taste, somewhat like a fruit cake, but with more of a baked aroma.

“It’s pretty good, right?” Tilia said.

“Mm! I was actually thinking earlier, this game being so realistic isn’t a bad thing. Because you can eat so many things you’ve never had before, and you’re spending game currency, it’s so amazing, feels like we’re getting a bargain.”

“Haha, is that one of your few positive points about this game so far?”

“Maybe? Um, I don’t know. I don’t have any prejudice against the game itself, but I have endless curses for the people who made this game dangerous.”

“Such a dreamlike world, turned into this state… how nice it would be if it were still just a game.” She looked up at the ceiling as she spoke.

But because of this, the promise to meet again with Tilia in reality had become an extremely romantic pledge.

Cross, after waking up, clearly showed a much calmer and more composed tone in her speech.

Compared to her fear on the first day of being trapped in this game world, she seemed to have gradually accepted the fact of living in another world, and like Tilia, had already experienced walking along the edge of life and death as a player.

Well, it’s not that big a deal after all.

One can’t help but think this way.

Fear is sometimes harder to overcome than difficulty, but after overcoming it, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

At this moment, Cross’s ears also caught sounds coming from outside the window below, as if batch after batch of players were passing through the street. She couldn’t clearly hear what they were saying, but they seemed to be gathering for something.

“Have many people safely reached the main city today?”

“Yes, there should already be over 200 people who have reached the main city, but according to the announcement, there are a total of over 800 players on the third floor, which means there are still more than 600 people adventuring out there in that harsh cold weather.

Let me think… The ones that just passed by should be the 【Iris Knights】 and 【Sacred Realm Expedition Corps】. They’re gathering their guild members and pioneer players to discuss how to aid other players and how to proceed with mapping the third floor.”

By the way, the Sacred Realm Expedition Corps was the second-ranked guild during the closed beta period, and a powerful rival competing with the Iris Knights for first place.

The third guild now is called the 【Freedom Wings Alliance】, a player guild formed during the public test period, probably borrowing a term from some anime as a symbolic representation of their desire to break through this game as soon as possible.

One can’t help but wonder if their slogan might be something like “Tatakae” (“Fight” in Japanese).

In any case, these three major guilds have now become the main force of the frontline exploration, currently comprising about 180 people in total.

“That sounds amazing… Isn’t Tilia going?”

“Because I…” Tilia lowered her head, pondering, then said: “I’ve decided to temporarily withdraw from the frontlines.”

Although she would still continue to be active on the third floor, since they were trapped here, but for the upcoming BOSS information exploration, she planned to leave it to the player guilds to complete. In the future, she might also be more cautious about frontline exploration.

“Why…” Cross blinked in surprise, momentarily stunned.

Then, she seemed to suddenly understand something. After all, this decision was made while she was unconscious, so she said softly:

“I’m holding you back, what an incompetent team leader I am… But Miss Tilia doesn’t need to worry about me, I can take care of myself. You should act according to your own ideas, don’t let me delay your plans.”

“That’s not it, it’s not because of Cross.”

“I just simply feel that… approaching this game with my original mindset might not be the appropriate way. I also have more things that I want to protect… mm, that’s my current thinking.”

Is that so… Cross’s azure eyes looked at Tilia, concerned that she might be lying.

After all, she thought that Tilia might feel it would be inconsiderate to leave her behind and join other exploration teams, which was why she wanted to stay by her side.

Ah… Miss Tilia is really like Nolan.

Nolan also always took on many responsibilities himself, just because she was the first friend he made in the game. Wanting her to survive, he seemed to believe that protecting her was his duty as a closed beta player.

Just for such a simple reason.

When he could have completely chosen to abandon a newbie player and team up with stronger people.

Miss Tilia is the same way, letting her know how truly cherished she was. Although it was a game, the emotions were real. The social aspect that was once a selling point of MMORPGs had now become genuine friendship between players because of this death game.

Last time she couldn’t help Nolan much, but this time, even if she stumbled, she would absolutely keep up with Miss Tilia’s pace.

“Miss Tilia,” she said.

“Hmm? I’m listening, what is it?”

In the quiet night, the dim yellow light in the room overlapped with the dancing firelight from the fireplace, casting the shadows of the young women on the wall.

Tilia sat in her chair, quietly looking at Cross.

The blue-haired girl lying in bed was now looking at her with eyes full of emotion, the highlights in her pupils slightly trembling as she parted her pale lips and said: “Tilia saved my life.”

“If it weren’t for you, I would probably no longer be in this world.”

“So… from now on, my life is yours, please use me as you wish. No matter what it is, as long as it’s within the magical girl Cross’s abilities, I will definitely do it for you.”

“…” Tilia’s night-colored eyes widened slightly in surprise.

Even though she was still a bedridden patient unable to get up, with such a cute face, saying such earnest words. And she had only done what was expected of her, which didn’t deserve such gratitude.

But… she would remember these words.

“Well, anyway, your immediate task is to rest well and recover your body as soon as possible.”

“Mm, understood! Lady Tilia.”

Tilia held Cross’s hand, smiling as she gave it a little squeeze.

After a while, once she had fed Cross enough berry pie, she looked at the time.

It was now almost 1:00 AM, although night owl players had become the norm since the game began. After cleaning up the dishes, she stood up and said, “Then I’ll let Cross rest now, sleep well.”

“I’ve rested for a long time already, I can’t sleep.”

“You still need to lie down properly. If I find out you’re secretly trying to put on equipment and go outside before your body recovers, I’ll confiscate your magic staff, I really will!” Tilia stopped at the doorway, turned around and made this threat.

Since Cross said her life belonged to her now, following orders was inevitable, right?

Cross could only laugh helplessly at this, responding with “I know, I know” to appease her.