"Alright, I think that's everything. Thanks for the help, Kai, I really appreciate it," Smiled Aria gratefully.

"Don't mention it, I was happy to help," I replied, as I stretched my arms up.

Today's the 15th of October, 2169, about two and a half months have passed since the press conference.

And things have been pretty uneventful lately.

A few days after the press conference, Aria and I got back to going on raids, we've gotten through fifteen raids since the battle against the Archdemon Zeifas, as well as five other Quests, so twenty in total.

There have been a number of Stampedes lately, so raids aren't the only Quests available anymore, there have been Quests to hunt down and eliminate Monsters that are roaming about the outside after emerging from the Dungeons.

On the bright side, there haven't been any reports of Calamity Level Monsters since then.

There have been a number of Dungeons that have deviated from the standard patterns, and quite a few lower-ranked Hunters have died as a result.

But the rate of Hunter deaths is starting to decrease thanks to the new standard practices with retreating from a Dungeon, most Hunters are exercising a lot more caution than before.

There have been a lot of dropouts from the Academies though, the incident with Zeifas ended up scaring off a lot of aspiring Hunters, so that poses a long-term concern going forward.

As for me, even though I've cleared a whole lot of raids, my stats have barely increased since I consumed Zeifas and got boosted by his Demonic Art: Demonization.

With my new rate of growth through Devour, I have to consume about a hundred High Level Monsters just to gain one point.

Critical Levels each get me about one point, and I'd need to consume somewhere between three to four hundred Mid Levels for a single stat point.

I haven't seen Low Level Monsters in quite a while, but according to Ai's estimate, I'd need to consume upwards of a thousand of them to gain just one point.

So, yeah, progress has been at a snail's pace lately, but thanks to the drastic boost I got from Zeifas, I've been breezing through all my Quests since then.

Same with Aria, she adapted to her increased strength and power pretty quickly, the two of us haven't needed much assistance from our parties lately.

As a result, we haven't been on a raid with each other in some time now.

Isla has been assigning us to different raids, since it's more prudent and logical that putting us both on the same assignment when we're both strong enough to practically solo most raids at this point.

Neither of us have used the third ability we got from Demonization, that we ultimately settled on naming Descent, in battle yet.

We've tested it out in training and stuff, but Aria suggested we hold off on using it until we get to fight together again, and I agreed.

We both last went on raids a couple of days ago, completing them without issue. So we were taking a few days off, and Aria took the opportunity to finalize something she's been having in the works for a while.

She just bought the apartment next to mine, so she's my neighbor now. She'd already put a down-payment on it a few weeks ago, but put the process on hold after a large number of Dungeons appeared and we had to tackle more raids.

She completed her payments a few days ago, and as of right now, she just got done moving in, having set up all her furniture and stuff.

"This is so exciting, I can't believe I own my own place now! And now that we live right next to each other, I can see you anytime!" She grinned excitedly.

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you more often," I smiled, as she walked around the space.

The layout was identical to my place, but it looks a lot different after she moved all her stuff in.

She'd set up her furniture differently to how I'd set mine up, and she'd made her extra room into a guest room, where I'd turned mine into a rec room.

"Hey, think we could connect our places with a door? It'll make it easier to visit each other," She suggested thoughtfully.

Wouldn't that kinda make it like we're living with each other? I don't particularly mind, but...

"Not sure that's the best idea. Based on how our places are laid out next to each other, the spot we'd have to set up a connecting door would connect my training room to either your bedroom or guest room," I pointed out.

"Oh, right...I didn't really think it through, but you've got a point. Well, considering that our front doors are right next to each other, I guess we don't really need a connecting door, do we?" She smiled sheepishly, as I patted her head.

"Yeah, not really. So, what do you wanna do now? Got any plans for the day?" I asked her.

"No, not really. Hm, let me think...oh, I know! Let's hang out here, I'm glad you're the first person I having over at my new place, and it'd be shame if you left now.

You've hosted me at your place a ton of times by now, so it's time I start repaying the favor," She responded with an excited gleam in her eyes.

"In that case, I'll take you up on the invitation," I replied, before she took hold of my hand and led me to her bedroom.

She's steadily starting to get a bit more touchy with me lately.

Before, it was mainly from my side with the headpats, but recently, she's been holding my hand and leaning against me whenever we hang out.

It's getting to be a bit of a challenge to hold myself back from making a move on her.

I think I've come to terms a lot more with the feelings and affection I feel towards her, but I...I don't know, it feels like there's something holding me back.

It's hard to put into words, I feel...scared, I think?

It isn't a feeling I've experienced with anyone else before, but I do know that I can't ignore it for much longer.

With each passing day, that feeling gets a bit stronger, so I need to face it head on, sooner rather than later...

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