After they finished eating, Dante and Alicia decided to take a quick nap as they hadn't slept in a while. It didn't matter how powerful their bodies got after they became Blessed. Their minds still needed rest.
The first one to sleep was Dante. Even though he told Alicia that she could sleep first, she argued that he, who had drained his mana to zero twice, needed to rest more than anyone else in the world. If she could throw him into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit in a hospital), she would. It was a miracle that he was still functioning normally and not having any seizures or going insane.
"Wake me up if anything happens." Dante threw a glance toward Dante, and she gave him a double thumb-up. "Don't worry, I won't use you as bait and run away." After several minutes, Dante was out cold, snoring like a pig.
Looking at him with her glowing green eyes for a few moments, she sighed and reached toward his head and cast a healing spell. She had healed him after the earlier fight with the Tentacle Monster, but still, every time she cast healing magic on him, she felt an extreme amount of innate resistance to it.
His entire body was fine, strangely fine, devoid of all traces of the damage he had taken before. Usually, even with healing magic, one would need days or even weeks to heal from getting their liver punctured.
Five hours passed without any monster showing up, and Dante opened his eyes on his own and found Alicia still sitting in her wheelchair and keeping watch. "How long has it been?"
"A bit more than five hours. You can keep sleeping if you need it?" As she spoke, Dante sat up. "No, I'll get groggy if I go back to sleep." He stood and stretched his arms. "It's your turn. Rest, and I'll keep guard."
Alicia smiled and extended her arms toward him. "Then help me down. I'll sleep where you were sleeping just now, because it's still warm." Seeing her, Dante sighed and took his cloak off, laid it on the ground, and then picked up Alicia and put her on it.
He then wrapped her up in the cloak, and gave her a smile. "Perfect."
She blinked several times, and then smiled. "Well, I'm a burrito now." He waved his hand. "The cloak is hydrophobic and insulating, so you should stay warm and dry unless you roll into the water. Take a good long nap. You'll need it."
She rolled and closed her eyes, slowly drifting into the land of dreams. Dante didn't waste a second and started looking around the cavern, checking the walls with his soul sense to make sure there were no abominations hiding in the walls, and soon managed to see a few, but they were all behind a thick layer of solid stone.
He summoned his sword and gave it a look, quickly taking a deep breath and storing it back into his soul. He threw a second look toward Alicia, and she looked soundly asleep.
Should he do it now? Or wait a bit longer? He doesn't know how much it would take, so... After thinking about it for a while, Dante decided to check first and make sure Alicia was asleep, so he approached her, looked at her face, and gently poked her cheek.
She was out cold. All of that stress and exhaustion must've caught up to her.
But, inside her head, Alicia was still awake and listening to Dante's thoughts. 'What is he doing? Why check if I was asleep?'
Then as she was busy thinking, Dante stored his armor into his soul and fully stripped, causing her mind to start racing. 'What is this fool doing? No way! Is he after me? No, that can't be. Dante isn't like that... but why strip?'
She then heard Dante's thoughts as he was wondering how long it would take his armor to repair in his soul.
This was how her ability was. Being able to communicate telepathically was just a byproduct of her innate ability [Mind Waves]. When she is awake, her lower half is paralyzed because that processing power of her mind is dedicated to keeping her ability active. She can choose to turn her ability off and walk. That was how she survived in the caves before meeting Dante and why he didn't find her already dead of hypothermia.
But that was just the normal state. Her ability is the most powerful when she chooses to fully paralyze her body, like she does when trying to sleep, and at this stage, she can read minds, not just communicate.
Even if she looked as asleep as a coma patient, she was still awake and could hear all of Dante's thoughts. He kept thinking about how long his armor would take to repair itself inside his soul. If it was worth staying with Alicia instead of abandoning her, and he then quickly got distracted by a Cursed Beast that crawled right behind the walls, and this was the point when Alicia confirmed that Dante hid as many secrets as she did.
'Wait... he can also tell Rank and Class? His detection ability is that potent?' She kept thinking about it for a while. 'Is that why Lady Saint Maria is so interested in him?'
But after a while of him just inspecting the walls for any cracks, Alicia drifted into sleep and only woke several hours later, feeling much better. But there was one problem. Dante was still naked and waiting for his armor to repair itself. Should she just wake up and bust him?
As much as she wanted to mess with him, she decided not to do it, or he might really dump her and go alone. He will probably survive on his own by avoiding the abominations, but she will quickly perish against a Scarred Beast.
She undid her paralyzing effect and groaned, "Mmmm... is it morning yet?" The moment Dante heard her move an inch, he summoned his armor immediately.
"It's been like a... I don't know. How did you count time before?" Dante approached her, and she opened her eyes. "Ah... I got this." She pulled one of her hands from inside the cloak and showed him her armor's right gauntlet. They had a tiny mechanical clock embedded into it.
"I was asleep for.... nine hours?!" She gasped, and her eyes opened wide. "I was out for that long?!" She threw a glance at him. "Why didn't you wake me?"
Dante smiled. "Do you what's more deadly than an abomination? A sleepy healer doing a botched job. Rest as much as you want and need." He helped her sit up and carried her to her Wheelchair. "Want to eat something?"
"No, thank you. I can't eat anything right after waking up. I'll just drink a bit of water, and we can move." He gave her the filter bottle that he filled with water, and she drank greedily.
With that, they got to moving. Their next goal is to find any other Blessed, team up with them, and finally defeat the dungeon's boss.