Days bled into one another, a monotonous cycle of healing punctuated by moments of intimacy. Leo was getting a lot better. Lying on his bed, he could hear the sounds of life beyond these four walls, and he was desperate to be a part of it.

  The routine of Sera taking care of him, however, was the one thing he didn't want to end.

  The washing remained, but it was no longer innocent. Her hands started to wander more. And the aftermath, when she would dry him, her fingers lingering on the inside of his thigh before moving to her self-appointed task. Her eyes would trace the lines of his stomach, before settling on the subject of her curiosity.

  Leo's own hand would reach up, cupping her round, soft ass under her dress and giving it a squeeze. Sera would flinch, but didn't protest.

  It had become a ritual they both anticipated, even if Sera would never admit it.

  Each time, it would end with his messy, hot cum spilling over her fingers. She would stare at it with a wide-eyed wonder before dutifully cleaning up.

  When she was done, the spell would break. Sera returned to her normal self. Her cheeks would bloom red, and she'd all but flee the cottage.

  The day Leo finally felt strong enough to stand on his own two feet, he tried to push the boundary further.

  "Sera."

  "Hmm?"

  "Next time... can you try using your mouth? You know, instead of your hand."

  She froze as if he'd doused her in ice water.

  "My...No! I...I've never heard of..."

  She shook her head, and before Leo could say anything else, she was up and out the door, leaving him alone with the scent of her hair and the lingering warmth of her hand.

  Not ready for that yet, he thought with a small smile. No rush.

  "I'm leaving," Sera announced as she opened the door. "You can walk around if you feel better, but don't push yourself, okay?"

  "I won't. Just sit on the porch maybe. Sunlight is good for healing."

  Sera just gave him a sharp nod. And then, she was gone. Since Leo was getting better and could take care of himself, she needed to get back to her work on their family's field.

  Leo didn't move for a full minute. He listened to her footsteps fade away, waiting until he was one hundred percent sure she was gone.

  "Hah! Time for my crossbow upgrade!"

  He threw the thin bnket aside.

  His feet met the packed-earth floor, cold and solid, as he ran toward the crossbow hanging on the post and took it down.

  [Do you wish to begin upgrade?]

  Yes.

  [Total Cost: 465 Energy.]

  [Confirm?]

  Confirm.

  [Upgrading. Timer: 1 hour, 0 minutes, 0 seconds...]

  "Son of a..." Leo's eyes widened as the crossbow vanished from his grip. "I didn't think there would be a timer!"

  There was nothing he could do but to wait for it to finish.

  Still, the ticking clock was a minor inconvenience. There were still things that he could do. For example, searching for ammunition. There had to be some around here.

  Leo knelt, wincing slightly at the residual ache in his knees, and peered under the rough-hewn table. There, he saw a few stray boot ces, and a wad of dried mud from Sera's shoes. No bolts.

  Next, he moved to the small, sturdy chest pushed against the far wall. It wasn't locked. The lid groaned in protest as he lifted it, revealing a jumble of old tools.

  And there, tucked into a greasy oilskin wrap in the corner, were a handful of bolts.

  Leo pulled them out. There were seven. Their condition was...serviceable.

  That was the best he could say. The shafts were mismatched, some made of darker wood, others of a lighter pine, all fletched with a simple two-feather design from some kind of feather that Leo couldn't recognize. The points were hammered iron, crudely shaped.

  "Better than nothing," he sighed, weighing the small bundle in his palm. Even though the old Leo usually used this crossbow for hunting, he didn't earn enough money from it to maintain such a weapon.

  The timer was still counting down - 40 minutes.

  "Still enough time for a tour around the house. Come to think of it, I have been here for a week, and still haven't stepped out of this room even once."

  The house sat at the edge of a yard, bordered by a low fence of stacked stones and weathered wood. The fence was more suggestion than barrier, gaps wide enough for a dog to slip through, but it marked their boundary.

  The ground was packed dirt and sparse grass. A path led from the door to a gate in the fence, the earth there beaten almost to stone.

  To his left was a small vegetable garden bordered by rger rocks. Green shoots pushed up from dark soil. A bucket sat at the garden's edge, half-full of water.

  To his right was a chicken coop. Rough-hewn wood, barely four feet tall. Three chickens scratched at the dirt inside, their feathers brown and rust-red. One of them fixed Leo with a beady orange eye, clucked disapprovingly, and returned to its scratching.

  "It isn't much but..."

  It was neither the cramped apartment that he rented for a short time before he got hospitalized, nor the stuffy, sterile hospital room that was his home during the recent years.

  From now on, this was his home.

  "Leo?"

  A feminine voice came from the gate when Leo was busy appreciating his new life.

  He turned around and saw a woman approaching, carrying a covered cy pot with both hands. She walked with the slightly hurried gait of someone with too much to do and not enough hours, hips swaying with each step.

  She looked a few years older than Sera. Soft and plump, with a round face and a body built for comfort rather than elegance. Her wheat-colored hair had been pulled back in a messy bun.

  Her face was pleasant without being pretty. Wide-set hazel eyes, a snub nose with a scatter of freckles across the bridge, full cheeks that dimpled when she smiled. She had the look of a woman who'd been cute as a girl and had softened into something homelier with age.

  Old Leo's memories told him who this woman was.

  Polly. Married to Willem, the farmer with the plot two houses down. Sera's closest thing to a friend in the vilge.

  Polly's eyes found him across the yard. The usual bright smile on her face faltered for just a moment, repced by a look of surprise.

  "Polly," he nodded in greeting. "Good morning."

  "You're already up," she said, eyeing him from head to toe. "But the healer said...She told half the vilge your injuries were..."

  She trailed off, but Leo could fill in the bnk.

  "I got lucky," he didn't know what else to say. What? Leo really died, and I wasn't him, just someone from another world who took over his body?

  That would summon the healer back faster than he could finish the story, and maybe some guards too for good measure.

  "Lucky," Polly ughed. "That's one word for it. The gods must have been watching out for you, Leo."

  "And Sera. It's thanks to her care that I can focus on recovery," Leo answered with a polite smile. It was his honest thought, but he was surprised when he saw Polly's eyebrow rose.

  "What is this? So you can say things like that too, huh?" She grinned and nudged his arm with her shoulder. "Did Sera's care awaken your love for her, or did she do...something more?"

  She winked at him with the expression of someone just sniffled out some juicy gossip.

  "That...I..."

  That caught Leo by surprise. He knew that was just how Polly normally was, but having a memory and being her target were two different things.

  Apparently, his silence was enough.

  "Oh...She must be really good then. Can't bme you, really," Polly nodded, already conjuring up the answer in her mind. Her expression then turned serious. "I'm happy for you two. Sera is a good girl. She deserves better than how you treated her before."

  "I know. I was stupid."

  "You were," Polly agreed immediately. "Anyway, where's Sera?"

  "She just left for the field."

  "Oh. Well, I'll leave this with you then. It's not much, just some root vegetable stew from st night. Sera came to me and borrowed some food, since you couldn't leave your bed..."

  Leo understood. A week of him bedridden meant a week of Sera working alone. A week of no hunting meant their meager food stores dwindling while no coin came in to replenish them.

  We really are poor, huh? Leo thought. He had never experienced poverty during his previous life, and he didn't pn on doing so for long now.

  "Thank you," he said. "Really. That's really good of you."

  Leo was grateful. From old Leo's memory, he knew that Polly's family wasn't faring any better than his own, but she still helped.

  "Don't mention it. Here, take this," Polly passed the pot over to Leo. "See you ter."

  Leo said goodbye to her as she turned to leave. Before she passed the gate though, he could hear some mumbling that sounded suspiciously like 'If that damn Willem suddenly wised up too...'

  He shook his head with a wry smile and carried the pot back inside the house.

  Leo was standing by the fence when he heard the soft thud of footsteps on the dirt path leading from the vilge. He didn't need to turn to know it was Sera.

  He drew a bolt from the quiver at his hip, nocking it with a smooth, practiced motion that felt both foreign and familiar. His arm came up, the new stock of the crossbow settling perfectly against his shoulder.

  The click of the trigger mechanism falling into pce was satisfyingly solid.

  His eyes squinted along the rudimentary iron sight, pointing towards the scarred knot on a willow tree twenty paces away.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The tension of the string released with a deep thwack that vibrated through the stock and into his shoulder. The bolt flew true for a moment, then wobbled, veering a little left and burying itself in the trunk a hands-breadth from his target.

  A frown flickered across Leo's face before he smoothed it away.

  "Leo? Are you sure you're good enough to be doing this?"

  Sera's voice was tinged with worry. She stopped by the gate, a basket of wild greens hooked over one arm, her gaze fixed on the crossbow in his hands.

  He turned, letting the crossbow hang loose in one hand.

  "I'm fine, Sera. Healed up and ready to get back to life."

  He showed her a smile, one that he hoped to be reassuring, before continuing.

  "Just a bit rusty is all. And these old bolts..." He gave a small shake of his head. "I'll need to repce them."

  "And where do you pn to get the money for that?"

  Leo knew that her question wasn't meant to be unkind. He let out a short ugh, and reached up, wiping away a dirty spot on her cheek.

  Sera's face turned beet red in a second.

  "What are you doing? We're still outside!"

  But she didn't push him away.

  "I'll get the money," he ughed, slinging the crossbow over his shoulder. "Don't you worry about that."

  His confidence wasn't baseless. With his cheat skill, Leo believed that he could, at the very least, get out of poverty and give Sera a comfortable life.

  Sera's expression remained unconvinced, a small furrow in her brow.

  To defuse the tension, Leo changed the subject, gesturing toward the cottage door with his head.

  "Polly came by while you were gone. She brought some food."

  The defensiveness in Sera's shoulders melted away, repced by a weary slump. She sighed, the sound soft but heavy.

  "I appreciate Polly's kindness," she said, her gaze dropping from Leo's face to the basket in her arm. "The neighbors have been helping us out a lot tely."

  "Sorry..."

  "Don't. It's not your fault that you got beaten up. I swear if I ever find out whoever did that..."

  Her free hand clenched into a tight fist, knuckles white. Her beautiful eyes showed a dangerous gleam when Leo looked at it.

  "Sera," he reached out and gently took the basket from her arm, his fingers brushing over hers. "It's okay. I'm fine now, right?"

  "Don't 'right' me, Leo!" The anger fred hot and bright in her hazel eyes. "They left you on the cobbles like a sack of grain! You could have died!"

  "I'm not saying that we let it go, but this isn't the right time. Come on, don't be angry. It's time for dinner."

  He then led a still fuming Sera into the house. She didn't even notice that he casually grabbed her hand on the way.

  Or did she? Her face was too red that Leo couldn't tell if it was from anger or embarrassment.