"Good morning, Alice, glad to hear you’re feeling better," Mark said with a smile.
Hearing him, she simply nodded with her eyes still closed and said nothing more.
’Seems like saying good morning isn’t really a thing people do in this world...’
Mark watched Alice in silence for a few seconds, waiting for so other response, but she remained lying on the ground with Vorax on her chest and her eyes closed.
"Are you feeling better?" Mark asked, seeing that he wasn’t getting any other reaction.
"Yes... I feel much better," Alice replied in a calm voice.
Suddenly Rose’s voice cut into the conversation between them.
"You were awake?!" she asked, noticeably annoyed. "If you were already awake you could have said sothing."
Rose said, looking directly at Alice with a furrowed brow.
"You have no idea how boring it was having to watch over you all night. Do you know what it’s like to sit doing nothing for hours watching soone sleep? Because I do now, and it’s not an experience I want to repeat."
Alice looked at Rose for an instant, her eyes settled on the vampire for a couple of seconds, and then she simply turned her head back toward Mark, as if Rose hadn’t said a single word.
"Thanks to the constant flow of mana throughout the night, my body has almost fully recovered," Alice said, addressing Mark exclusively in her usual serious tone.
Rose stood there with her mouth slightly open, her face practically spelling out the words ’Is this woman seriously ignoring ?’
"Glad to hear that," Mark replied quickly, deciding the smartest move was to continue the conversation and avoid a fight.
So battles simply weren’t worth it, and this was definitely one of them.
Mark lowered his gaze to the small sli still resting on Alice’s chest, Vorax hadn’t moved from there all night.
"Vorax, how are you doing?" Mark asked.
The sli trembled slightly before responding, his body contracting and expanding a couple of tis as if gathering strength to speak.
"B-better... but still sowhat saturated," Vorax replied.
His voice wasn’t cutting out as much as the night before, which was a good sign, but it still sounded heavy, as if each word cost him extra effort.
"That demoness’s mana... it’s still too dense... I can’t finish processing it."
"Don’t worry," Mark told him, trying to sound confident. "I’ll find a way to fix that."
’Though being honest, my track record with "I’ll think of sothing" has a pretty questionable success rate,’ Mark thought.
Rose, who had been silent after being completely ignored by Alice, seed to set her annoyance aside for the mont, or at least store it for later, and joined the conversation.
"Master," she called. "If channeling mana into Alice overnight made her recover, don’t you think the sa could work for her companions?"
Mark looked up at Rose when he heard that.
"Think about it," Rose continued. "They’re also undead, just like Alice, so their bodies should react to mana the sa way."
"That´s make sense..." Mark replied, more to himself than to Rose.
The idea made sense, while it wasn’t a guarantee, after seeing the results with Alice, Mark was willing to try it.
Though first they’d have to wait for Yuki and Alice’s companions to return from scouting the area, since they had left the previous afternoon and still hadn’t co back.
’I hope they’re alright,’ Mark thought. ’Rose said the fact that they’re taking so long is probably a good sign, but I still can’t help worrying...’
Mark set that thought aside for the mont.
There was nothing he could do about it until they returned, so he decided to focus on what he could do right now.
But then Mark realized sothing he should have asked much earlier.
"Hey, Alice," Mark said in a casual tone. "What are your companions’ nas? Co to think of it, I don’t know them."
It was a simple question that Alice should have answered imdiately, but she didn’t, instead she stayed quiet.
Getting no response, Mark looked back at Alice and noticed her expression had shifted to one of... embarrassnt.
"...I don’t know their nas either," Alice said quietly, looking away to one side.
"Huh?"
"I said I don’t know their nas," Alice repeated, this ti in an even lower voice, as if saying it more slowly would sohow make the situation less embarrassing.
It didn’t.
"Wait," Mark said, raising a hand. "Did you lose part of your mories when I revived you?"
"No," Alice replied quickly, as if wanting to clear that up imdiately. "My mories are completely intact."
"Then... why don’t you know their nas?"
Alice pressed her lips together and Mark could see her face taking on a faint pinkish tone that contrasted noticeably with her pale skin.
"...Because I never asked," Alice finally admitted.
Mark stared at her with a confused expression at what he’d just heard.
"You never asked?" Mark repeated, just to make sure he’d understood correctly.
Alice closed her eyes for a mont, as if gathering the strength to explain herself.
"After forcing them to co with us... I didn’t know how to approach them, and I felt a bit embarrassed talking to them because they all looked at badly."
When Alice finally confessed her reasons, Mark noticed she was doing her best to avoid eye contact.
’...She’s actually kind of adorable,’ Mark thought.
Not in a romantic sense, but in the sense that the situation was endearing in a way it probably shouldn’t be.
The image of Alice as that relentless warrior who had fought head-on against both them and the demoness... didn’t match at all with the flustered girl sitting before him.
Mark let out a small sigh and couldn’t help a slight smile forming on his face.
"Well... I suppose we’ll have to ask them directly when they get back," Mark said, looking in the direction Yuki and the others had gone the day before.
Rose, who had watched the entire exchange without saying a word, let out a mocking laugh.
"Pfft hahaha, quite the party leader you turned out to be."
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