Helkep doubtfully asked, "Are you sure you haven't gone blind?"
"…I am not blind! The tail struck me on the arm not my eyes. Idiot. Don't sour my good mood." Noil replied in an irritated voice.
"Show me!" Helkep asked as he tiredly got up.
His legs were shaking as if his stamina was empty.
Noil threw the the core towards Helkep. Seeing him barely able to stand, he asked, "You alright!?"
"Yes! Just stamina is empty." Helkep said as he examined the core.
"Why is your stamina empty? When you were lazing around the whole time?" Noil asked, his mood worsened when he remembered he had to fight the two monsters on his own.
Helkep stared at Noil for sometime before replying, "You think with my strength I would have been able to damage the monster, even if it was the eye?"
"Oh! That's true. Then how did you make to damage the eye?" Noil asked with a weary smile.
"I used a…martial skill. Sigh! …an old one." Helkep doze off for a second before suddenly exclaiming out loud, "It really is a skill book!"
"Martial skill. Oh! That makes sense and you shouldn't doubt me" Noil said with a cocky grin.
Helkep threw the core back towards Noil. Noil grabbed it carefully, skill cores were rare after all.
The skills Noil had were all bought from the market. He had never managed to get a skill core of his own, he was feeling pretty happy.
"Hey! What if the other one has a skill core as well!? Noil suddenly exclaimed and started staring at the other corpse with greed.
"Keep dreaming." Helkep shoot his head at Noil's wild fantasies.
"Hey! It doesn't cost you to be optimistic." Noil grinned and ran towards the other corpse.
He dug inside the head and pulled out the core. "…Sigh! It's a regular core."
Helkep shook his head and put a blue pill inside his mouth and laid down again.
Noil just remembered that there were some system notifications that he had missed, 'System show notification history.'
«Ding! Your request has been authorized, recalling previously missed notifications.»
«Ding! You have killed a monster above your level, due to your contribution being the highest in your party, you have received 160 experience.»
«Ding! You have killed a monster above your level, due to your contributions being the highest in your party, you have received 200 experience.»
«Ding! Due to your efforts you have been able to perform the skill 'Precise Shot'. This skill will be acquired after 9 more perfect executions.»
"The heck!? They were below 20!?" Noil was shocked beyond belief, he thought they would at least be above level 23 or something.
Hearing Noil's shout, Helkep had a frown on his face as he thought, 'We still underestimate monsters too much, they are not something that humans can compete with and hope to get out unscathed.'
Noil looked at the two corpses and felt anger bubbling inside him, 'I had so much trouble with only one or two level higher than me? Sigh! I truly am nothing special.'
Noil laid down on the monsters body, feeling very sad.
"How much experience did you gain?" Noil asked Helkep.
"A combined total of 240." Helkep answered, he didn't care about the experience to be honest.
"Hey! Why did you gain so much experience when the only thing you did was shout at me?" Noil felt wronged and got up and sat next to Helkep ready to pester him if he didn't present a satisfactory answer.
Helkep had no intention to answer until Noil sat next to him, sighing he said, "You would be dead if I wasn't here save you. You would be dead if I didn't remind you to take advantage of their weaknesses."
Hearing Helkep's answer, Noil felt as if he was an ungrateful clown. He felt weird having questioned Helkep and was once again reminded of how terrifying he was.
He laid down next to him and stared at the pretty afternoon sky, his mind went blank as he started enjoying the scenery.
After sometime passed he had a thought, 'He is so strong. So why is he bullied? Why is he still level 7? …Maybe he is from a poor family, if he has this skill book… Hehe! He will owe me big time. And besides, he has saved my life, I gotta repay him.'
It seems as Noil isn't aware of Helkep's history.
Noil grinned and sat up straight, he looked towards Helkep and said, "Helkep!"
"…Yes!?" Helkep opened his eyes and saw Noil staring at him weirdly.
"After a long time of consideration, I have decided to give you this skill book." Noil raised his chin high, as if he was doing a very good deed.
Helkep's mind went blank, 'Is he…mocking me!?'
"Here!" Noil stretched out his hand, handing over the core to Helkep.
'Huh! He is mocking me. After all, how can I, a useless piece of garbage, someone who is flawed, be able to absorb a skill core?' Helkep's eyes became blank, his golden pupils seemed to turn into red, he was calm, or maybe… sad.
While thinking this, for some reason, his hand stretched out and grabbed the core.
'Huh! Why… did I do this?' Helkep stared at the core in his hand, he went into a daze and started to ignore everything else and just stare at the mystical creature dancing inside the core.
He started getting absorbed in the mystical dance, the creature was performing suddenly a notification rang in his mind.
«Ding! Would you like to absorb the skill from the core of the Seven Eyed Deformed Veil?»
Helkep who was staring at the core, felt his mind go into a daze. His vision stared getting blurry. His hand started shaking, the core dropped from his hand. A loud buzzing noise started to ring in his ears. A sharp pain hit his head, he wasn't able to endure it.
"You okay!?" Noil looking at the dropped core and asked Helkep.
Getting no reply he asked again, "Yo! Seems you are having a heart attack."
Now Noil really started to get worried.
"Hey! Reply before I call an ambulance and get your every inch checked."
"Hey! Reply." Noil shook Helkep to get his attention, but it didn't work.
"Hey! I am going to kick your ass, if you keep playing mute."
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Reply…REPLY I SAID!!"
Thwak! Noil gave a crisp slap on Helkep's face. He was really worried, thinking something serious had happened.
"Huh!?" Helkep opened his eyes wide, his mind which was buzzing before had turned into a calm sea. He only felt a stinging pain on his face, everything else was normal.
Helkep blinked his eyes and weakly stared at the ground.
"Are you okay!?" Noil asked, he was sweating buckets.
"Huh!?" Helkep looked at him with his pretty eyes, whose beauty had been lost due to looking like a corpse's eyes.
"Are you okay?" Noil asked again.
"Yes." Helkep replied in his blank voice.
Noil sat down on the ground again, silently staring at Helkep.
After sometime passed Helkep sat up straight. His eyes fell on the core, he felt as if his throat was going dry.
He grabbed the core, and the same notification rung in his ear.
His eyes started shaking, gulping a mouthful of saliva, with eyes and lips shaking and with abnormal increase in his speed of breathing, he uttered the words in his mind, 'Ac-Ace- -Accept!'
After a moment passed, he started talking in his mind, 'Huh! This is just a dream, a dream, a stupid dream, a pathetic dream…its a freaking nightmare. The worst nightmare. I…I want to wake up. Wa- -'
Helkep stood in a place, or maybe he was flying. He couldn't tell exactly. In front of him was a Seven Eyed Deformed Veil. It was doing some weird kind of actions.
'Wh...What is this place? ...Where am I? ...Is this a dream? ...It must be, I will just wait until I wake up.' After sometime passed, he couldn't help but feel weird, he started looking for his body but he couldn't even see his feet.
Finding out that he could move but not sense his body he felt extremely weird. He looked around at the grassland that seemed to stretch infinitively. In the grassland the monster continued to do the strange moves, not stopping as if it had infinite stamina.
Slowly as time continued to pass, Helkep found himself not leaving the dream anytime soon, so he started looking at the monster.
Slowly he started to get enchanted by the mystical dance the monster was performing.
He even forgot about the weird feeling he was feeling. It seemed that the weird place had calmed Helkep down, he had not entered the same state that he had fallen in when he was with Noil. This was good, there was no one here to knock consciousness into him after all.
Speaking of Noil, he was blankly staring at Helkep and the core that was shining right now. He couldn't help but exclaim, "This ungrateful little piece of! ...After making me so worried, just goes and start learning the skill, not even saying a simple thank you." Noil's lips were twitching as he stared at Helkep who was learning the skill.
"Huh! Who the heck does he think he is? Well he can defend himself if some monster appears on his own." Noil sneered and left walking with large strides.
After 10 seconds, Noil came and sat, crossed legs in front of him and said angrily, "Huh! I will forgive you this once. Next time I will truly leave. Huh!" Saying what he had to do, he ate a stamina pill and sat on the monster's corpse.
Helkep was lost in the strange dance, the monster didn't stop and continued to do the dance, Helkep lost himself in it.
Slowly he started feeling something deeper in the dance. He ignored everything else and tried to comprehend the dance.
The monster performed the dance once, and after finishing it, once again starting performing it like a machine.
1, 2, 3...100, 101, 101...10,000, 10,001. 10,002. The monster performed it countless times and without even realizing it Helkep had mastered the strange dance, he was able to perform it exactly, without even feeling his body, he could feel himself being able to perform the dance.
Finally as if a condition had been met the world started cracking but Helkep was already outside the weird place. He opened his eyes and felt a weird feeling, he looked around and the red ground appeared in his view.
Noil saw Helkep shaking his head and felt beyond surprised, 'How long has it been since he started learning the skill? 7 minutes, 8 minutes?'
Helkep felt blank and empty like a hollow puppet. But this hollowness was engulfed by ear-piercing darkness as a notification rang in his ear,
«Ding! You have mastered the skill 'Ground Shaker', congratulations!» Followed by this notification two more notification rang in his ear.
"Ding! You have successfully mastered a mana skill before level 10, congratulations you have proven yourself worthy and mana stat as been unlocked."
"Ding! You have proven yourself exceptional, you have been awarded free 10 mana stats."
Helkep felt something burning inside him, he felt some type of heat travel from his hands to his feet and to his heart and head and slowly circled his whole body.
But Helkep was lost, he didn't even feel hot or sweat, instead his body was turning cold. Of course the heat wasn't causing his body to become cold.
Not only his body temperature but even his breathing was getting faster.
The flowing blood inside him started slowing down, his whole body started shaking, his eyes stared straight ahead but he was unable to see anything. He was taking in oxygen but it hardly managed to reached his lungs.
As Helkep was going through shock that seemingly wanted to devour his life, Noil was shouting loudly, trying to shake Helkep to his consciousness. But Helkep could hear anything, he felt darkness taking over his being.
'Hmm! What happened? Why did the system say I was able to use mana? Why did the system say I had learned a mana skill? WHY!!!??? ...ANSWER ME!!!! WHY!!!?? …WHO DARES SAY --'
"HELKEP!!!!"
THWACK!!!
Everything became blurry. Slowly as everything started becoming clear, a blurry figure started to take shape in front of him. As everything cleared, the perturbed and shocked face of Noil appeared.
"Hel--kep!" Noil said in a weak and quavering voice.
Helkep slowly tilted his head and said, "Yes!?"
A severe stinging pain on his cheek ignited causing him to frown. Slowly his jammed mind started functioning. His eyes opened wide and he commanded in a low voice, "Status!"
Title: Genius, The One Born For Greatness, Divine Child, Trash, Absolute Garbage
Name: Ulfreed, Helkep
Type: Human
Level: 7
Experience: 400/288
Innate skill: (Seven Seals)[Only six remaining]{???}
Martial Skills: Six faultless forms[Mastery: Basic], Body Forceful improvement[Mastery: Basic]
Mana skill: Ground Shaker[Mastery: G]
Health point: 300/300
Mana: 10/10
Stamina: 23/23
Strength: 28
Constitution: 34
Agility: 28
Charisma: 67
Intelligence: 89
Description: Trash of the world. You might just get to live your whole life, if you sell yourself.
Seeing the mana skill tab which he expected to forever be empty and the cause of his misery showing something, he felt something inside him set on fire.
"Helk--" Noil was stopped by Helkep's unbelievably eerie voice.
"Let's continue this some other time." Helkep stared at Noil in the eyes.
Noil felt his soul shake in fear as he stared at Helekp's eyes, just as he opened his mouth to say something, Helkep repeated the same line in the sam--in an even eerier voice.
Noil couldn't do anything except succumb to Helkep and nod.
Helkep got up and walked towards the teleportation circle. Noil followed behind him.
The teleportation circle lit up and the two started walking towards their dorms. It was already afternoon and all the classes had already ended.
When the path that led to Noil's dorm appeared, Noil waved his hand and left saying, "Take care!"
After Noil had walked quite far ahead, he looked back and saw Helkep where he had separated from him, he was still staring in his direction.
Even with the large gap he felt as if he could clearly see Helkep's weird and cold eyes right in front of him.
He looked ahead and resumed walking towards his dorm.
When Helkep saw Noil escape from his eyes, his eyes started shaking and he started walking towards the Volcanic Land.
Disbelief, shock, rage and madness were all contained in the eyes which had hardly ever even shown a glimpse of excitement.
The teleportation circle lit up and Helkep appeared on the first floor of the Volcanic Land.
He started running in search of monsters. In his mind he was still trying to convince himself that it was all a lie.
'A dream. This is all a dream. The system is a liar. Everyone is a liar. I can't use skills. Who is the system to dare try to deceive me? I will rip it apart. Who th- -' The track of thoughts abruptly came to a halt as Helkep saw a Shifter Lizard in front of him.
Without blinking an eye, Helkep started running towards it.
The lizard saw Helkep rushing towards it, for a moment it got frightened and curled up its body.
But when it saw Helkep's pitifully slow speed, it growled in disgust.
Helkep not caring for the consequences, commanded in his mind, 'Act-Activate skill 'Ground Shaker'.'
The lizard's skin started turning into fire, and it started spewing flames from its mouth.
Helkep remembered the dance that the weird creature had performed and by instincts, he felt his body moving and replicating the dance.
He felt some type of energy escaping from inside him' through his feet.
As the energy flowed from the feet to the ground, the ground shook.
It was like hundreds of bulls were charging towards the lizard.
Feeling the terrifying energy coming towards it, the lizard shook and spewed flame like crazy.
The energy travelled from the ground to the lizard's body, shaking it from its inside and turning its inside into mush.
«Ding! Mana depleted. 7 minutes before refilled.»
The frozen mind of Helkep functioned again to hear the notification that rang out some time later.
«Ding! You have killed a monster above your level, you have received 150 experience.»
«Ding! You have levelled up! Congratulations! You have 10 stat points available.»
Helkep was shaken from his insides.
He felt his mind shaking, he laid down with his back against the lizard's corpse as he felt himself losing consciousness.
"Why? …Why did this happen to me? …What did I do wrong? …What did I do to deserve this? …WHAT!?? …ANSWER ME!! …WHY!?? …WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME!?? …ANSWER MEE!!! …Why? …Sniff! Why?" Helkep choked on his words. The area was dead silent, the only thing that was audible…was the sobbing noise of a boy… Who had been broken by the world.
The world is a cruel and unpredictable place. It can give you the right to trample over everything on it' So can it deprive you of everything that you hold dear.
Fear it! Fear this world! Don't doubt it, because it's created by God! That God who created every inch, …even that pride of yours.