Confession

With Blair secured on his back and his hands under her thighs to act as support, John had to use his foot to open the door. A part of him was thankful they had left it slightly ajar when they left, rather than fully closed. He carried her into her home and carefully laid her body onto the couch. When he sat down next to her, Blair mumbled something incoherent and snuggled closer to John’s body. He was relieved; Observe hadn’t shown any status effects or anything wrong with her, but it now definitely seemed like she had just tired herself out and only needed some rest.

Without anything else to do, he opened his character to spend his newly acquired set of Ability Points. Only a few minutes ago, he had split his last set of points between Endurance, Wisdom, and Strength. With two points invested into each of the first pair of stats and only one point in the last stat.

Alright, in that case, I may want to invest them in a different way this time. Perhaps… three points into Strength, one into Charisma, and one into Agility. Yeah, so that way my damage with my scythe increases a bit, I can wield it a bit less clumsily, and of course the extra help with dealing with people never hurts, John thought as he invested each point. With that done, he took a good look over his character sheet. Once again he couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride for how much he had already improved.

I should be careful though, I’m still just a tiny fish in a very large pond. After all, even with my now improved stats, the Shogun would have been a really tough boss for me if I was on my own, to say the least, John reminded himself. He felt Blair stir some more next to him; she mumbled something, but he couldn’t make it out. He leaned down until his ear was closer to her mouth.

“In the cabinet above the fridge… there's a bottle of the good stuff. Could you bring it here for me?” she asked him. With a sneaking suspicion for what the good stuff could be based on her relationship with wine, John got up and decided to oblige her.

In the kitchen, he reached up to the cabinet and opened it. He saw and grabbed the lone glass bottle inside; he pulled it out and looked at it. It was a clear bottle with a dark red liquid inside. A grey label was on the outside, with the words Dragon’s Blood on it.

He uncorked the bottle and took a whiff. He instantly felt his throat and entire body begin to burn as he stumbled back a step. John was certainly no expert on ****, but he was sure this was probably the strongest thing he had ever seen. He took it over to Blair, and held it to her lips as she took a small sip from it. Her eyes lit up and she grabbed the bottle from his hand. She then began to chug the whole bottle down until she had drained over half of it. She put the bottle down on the table and stretched her arms.

“How could you possibly drink that stuff so easily? I took one whiff from it and was almost knocked out from how strong it was,” John asked, amazed at how her liver had not exploded yet.

“Pssh, not even this is enough to get me drunk. My super high metabolism can be thanked for that. After all, I did beat a dwarf in a drinking contest, several times in fact. I wonder how Old Fred is doing, been a while since I last talked to him,” she said. “Anyways, I’m back to my senses now, just over exerted myself a bit when I tried to show off,” she said with a small grin. Now the gears began to turn inside John’s head.

Okay… so, Ganzac said before that she made some sort of deal involving blood magic and a demon. Something she didn’t deny and actually defended, meaning it’s most likely true. Her natural powers are focused and specialized around shadow flame. And, during the boss fight, she said some sort of incantation in Latin, got some marks that looked like a tattoo, and her damage skyrocketed. The obvious guess is that the blood magic is something that enhances her abilities. However, the cost seems to be a tremendous drain on her mana and some of her health as well. That’s just my theory though… there’s only one way to have it either confirmed or denied, he speculated.

“Hey… speaking of over exerting yourself, would you mind explaining to me what that power you showed off earlier was about?” he asked her. She looked at him for a moment, then grabbed the bottle of Dragon’s Blood and took another swig from it.

“You know, in the Abyss, a fairly common practice is to exchange a secret for a secret. So, yesterday when you were explaining your powers to me, you said “de-” before cutting yourself off, what was that about?” she asked him, eyebrow raised.

Ah, crap.

“So… you heard that then? It seemed like you were too distracted at the time to notice,” he said.

“John, I was drinking, but that still didn’t make me deaf.” With that, John realized that if he wanted to stay in the first real relationship of his life, he had to now spill the beans and reveal the entire truth.

“Alright, but if you really want to know, then I kinda have to explain what exactly happened soon after I woke up with my powers,” he said. Like Wentworth before, he explained to Blair how during the bus ride to school, the bus was stopped and he was attacked by a demon. And after he defeated it, it exploded, and he absorbed its power rather than being killed by it. He then went on about the rest of his day, while the parts that involved Wentworth were of course omitted.

“Well, that’s basically everything related to that I can say. Because, in all honesty… I can’t tell you everything,” he admitted to her.

"You can't tell me the rest or you won't tell me?" she asked him.

"Can't, I'm not sure how much is considered too much, but the less I say about that the better." John was truthful when he said that. He then summoned his scythe into his hands as extra proof. Blair's eyes went wide when she saw it, and she instinctively moved away from him.

"Alright, I can definitely sense demonic energy from that thing, John. If what you're saying is true, I need to run some tests immediately," she urgently told him.

"Tests? Why do you need to do that?" he asked her, her reaction and worry getting to him.

"Because, John, absorbing pure demonic energy is extremely dangerous. Like, if you're not at least a half demon, you will suffer permanent damage if not ****. Trust me, the amount of fully human Abyssals throughout history that are able to can be counted on one hand. I know your Gamer powers are already weird, so I need to run some tests to make sure that you're safe," she explained to him.

Wait, if it's so dangerous to have, then how come Wentworth didn't say anything? She even looked into my soul, so that must mean I'm safe, right? he asked himself.

After that, Blair and John both entered the barrier of Blair's home. Where she pulled him to a set of laboratory equipment and they could start to run her tests.