One Last System

"Arty…" Mia moaned, taken aback by my statement.

The pout from before has now disappeared from her face, replaced by a hard-to-describe expression.

"You know you didn't have to!" Mia then protested, unsure of how to react to my statement.

"I'm sorry for putting you on the spot like that," I apologized right as I made sure all the earth from the second excavation fell outside of the formation and formed the upper part of what would be our shelter for the night. "I just couldn't bear with the idea of making you work such a menial job."

Those were my honest feelings. Be it a moral imprint of how I grew up on earth or maybe my own sense of chivalry, I couldn't help but wish to treasure Mia with all my life.

That's how I always imagined a man should dote on his wife, minding her in the smallest of things rather than only ever proclaiming his great love for her without actually doing shit to prove it.

"Why are you like that, when I can't even thank you properly?" Mia moaned yet again, helplessly watching how I stepped on a single part of the mound to press it into the ground. Then, I finally brought the entire formation up and turned it around.

What I used as a sort of a scoop to dig out all the earth now turned into a small, little roof with a pillar of light in the middle just long enough to rest on the very bottom of the hole.

"Mia…" I threw the girl a slightly displeased look. "I think I already said that I don't expect you to repay me in any way or form for whatever I do," I mentioned, grabbing some of the residual earth before scattering it over the top of the barrier.

This entire hideout was made with the intention of giving us some privacy over the night. As such, leaving the roof in form of a perfectly see-through mana barrier… would be pretty counterproductive.

"I know…!" Mia whined. She then closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Mia stepped forward, right as I fished the job of covering our shelter's roof with a thick layer of earth. She then shot her hand around my waist before pulling herself deeply into my chest.

"Thank you for thinking about me, even in such small things," she whispered while rubbing her face against my solar plexus. "I know you are aware…" she raised her chin and looked at me with upturned eyes, "but I really do appreciate those seemingly small things."

"And that alone is enough for me to happily keep doing them," I replied, wrapping my hands around the girl's back while making sure not to exert too much force.

This was the one downside of leveling up while Mia was already lagging behind me with her cultivation. Before, the gap was manageable to the point where we could be somewhat relaxed around each other. Right now, though, her body felt like a delicate flower that I would squash if not careful enough.

"How about we get down there?" Mia suggested after cuddling me for a while. "It would be a pity if all that work of yours ended up unused," she added with a passionate smile.

"It's certainly a good idea," I admitted, only to turn my head around and look towards the setting sun. "But how about we just lay down here for a while?" I suggested otherwise. "I don't think we've ever watched a sunset together."

"Hmmhmh…" Mia held back her giggle, but she was unable to stop her face from blushing a little. And so, she simply pressed her face against my chest, using our closeness to hide her embarrassment. "Fine," she then muttered, giving herself to the guidance of my arms as I laid down directly on top of the hole I made before carefully pulling her down on me.

"This was one hell of a day," Mia whispered after we calmed down a little, allowing the gentle cold hue of the early night to chill our skin.

"To be fair, I'm already used to it," I admitted. "Every day is either extremely boring or equally as extremely packed with events for me."

There was only truth in my words. Just like I discussed before, this entire life of mine in this world felt strange. As if some sort of will was behind all of this, only ever describing interesting stuff while glossing over huge chunks of time that had no events of importance in them.

As such, I could only ever recognize two states of my life.

One,  where things happened one after the other, not letting me catch a single breath between the mounting struggles.

And then there was the second type of my life's phase, where I could sit down cross-legged and cultivate for days to come and not even a fly would dare to interrupt my meditation, making the day slightly more interesting.

'Well, now that I have Mia by my side…' I involuntarily pulled the girl even closer to my chest, while gloating in my mind over how soft her skin was to the touch.

If there was anything that I was missing in my life right now, it was the opportunity to flex before a group of friends about how much of a god-like girlfriend… no, wife I had.

"What do you mean, boring?" Mia inquired, paying no mind to how greedily my hand moved all over the side of her body. Instead, she brought her own hand on top of mine, as if worried that its upper side would end up cold!

"There are those long stretches of time during which nothing happens at all," I explained. "Just like when I traveled back from my camp to the outerpost to reunite with you," I said.

"Oh?" Mia muttered, climbing up my chest a little only to end up resting her cheek on my shoulder.

"Yeah," I slightly nodded my head. "Save for a few encounters, absolutely nothing happened in my life for nearly a month."

Mia tensed up. Given how close we stuck together, I would have to be an idiot not to notice it.

"Encounters… you say…" she muttered, averting her eyes as her face tensed up a little.

"Not that kind of encounter!" I laughed out, unable to stop myself from moving my hand up the girl's waist, sneaking it between her side and her arm and then tickling her a little.

"Stop it!" Mia quickly protested through tears as she wiggled on top of me while struggling to hold her giggles back.

Soon, we calmed down again. And with the sunset soon coming to an end, we silently agreed to simply enjoy the view while it lasted.

"Tomorrow we will reach our new home," Mia whispered once the last rays of sun vanished, covering the entire plain in complete darkness.

"Let's hope so," I admitted, only for my soul to twitch.

It felt…

It felt like someone, either far away in the past or far away in the future, in the exact same place we were in right now, would say exactly the same words.

'Tomorrow we will reach our new home…' I repeated Mia's words in my mind.

Yet, before long, the pleasure of Mia's warmth and the steadiness of her breath kicked this useless thought off my head.

'Well, whatever,' I thought. 'It's just a feeling, so there is no point over-thinking it.'

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