Helkep was walking in the resting area of the academy. He was here not to buy anything but because some students wanted to meet him.
As he was walking, some light scratches on his body were healing.
His eyes caught the sight of a small store, it was a pancake store.
Despite the shop being small, the shop owner was a master. Helkep liked the shop owner's pancakes.
The shop had been close for quite some time. Helkep thought for sometime and entered the shop.
Ding! The bells attached to the door rung and Helkep walked inside.
A very fine shop came into his view.
There were already a few people sitting on the tables and enjoying their pancakes.
Helkep walked towards the counter, the shop owner was a man in his 40s. He had a large physique, with a large scare on his right eye.
"The usual?" The shop owner asked. Helkep had left a deep impression on him. A quiet boy, getting bullied. Yet never told anyone, neither had he ever seen the boy cursing his fate. The shop owner was quite intrigued by Helkep.
"Yes!" Helkep replied, this was usual for him as well. The shop owner would always say the same thing when he appeared.
"HELKEP!" A loud voice appeared from behind him.
Helkep looked back and saw...Noil. He was also sitting on one of the seat's and enjoying his pancake.
"You have a friend!?" The shop owner asked, surprised, never expecting it.
"An acquaintance." Helkep corrected him and walked towards Noil.
"When did you get discharged?" Helkep had left Noil in the academy's hospital. When he had came back.
"Today. Just got discharged and happened to see this shop open. So I thought why not. Ha-Ha!" Noil replied joyfully, yet his eyes were shaking, his throat a bit dry. He had thousands of questions in his mind, he just didn't know were to start from.
"I see. I didn't know you also enjoyed pancakes." Helkep said, he had noticed his shaking eyes, and him continuously gulping his saliva. He was nervous, Helkep knew where this talk was going to end at.
"When someone can cooks as good as the owner, anyone would become a pancake lover." Noil replied with a laugh.
The owner came and left a pancake on the table. It was a simple, classic pancake.
Helkep took a knife and cut a piece of it, it broke like butter. It was soft and fluffy, it literally melted in Helkep's mouth before he could savor the brilliant taste, it vanished. Helkep could never get enough of the amazing flavor.
"...So...Helkep, how did we...survive?" Noil asked, while chewing on the pancake. He was trying hard to hide his nervousness.
"...I don't know? I was knocked unconscious, when I woke up, there were piles of monsters bodies everywhere and some distance from me, you were also knocked unconscious. For a moment I had thought you were a goner." There was no way Helkep would tell the truth, now was there?
"...Before I was knocked unconscious, I saw your...your shadow moving. From your shadow...rose a monster. I was conscious and was knocked unconscious by the pressure the monster was able to release." Noil eyes shook, his hands which were holding a knife trembled, his teeth's clicking, fear was still inside him, for the terror he had felt was the embodiment of the word, horror.
'Has the pressure, that the monster released later, engraved in his sub-conscious mind?' Helkep noticed the horror on Noil's face.
"No you are mistaken, the monster didn't rise from my shadow, the monster had risen from the ground." Helkep could have feigned ignorance but he decided to destroy Noil's believe so it didn't spread any further, becoming a nuisance for Helkep, later on.
"Really!? But I am certain that it rose from your shadow and not the ground." Noil wasn't going to be persuaded that easily either.
"...Really!?" A frown appeared on Helkep's face, he rested his chin on the back of his hand. His eyes glanced sideways, peeking on his shadow.
"...Well, maybe you are right. I was already in bad shape so maybe I was...and above that I was thrown on the ground back then, so maybe I was indeed mistaken, the monster didn't rise from your shadow, instead the ground." Noil suddenly said, his frown proved that he was still thinking about it.
"...Really! Well that's good...Sigh!" Helkep sighed in relief and with a calm face started eating his pancake.
'The greatest liar isn't the tongue...it's the body, it tells a lie, that the other himself comes up with.' Helkep should be given a [5-star review] for his lying skills.
'Yea! I was mistaken, how could a monster even rise from a shadow? Ha-Ha! I am so dumb.' Noil thought looking at Helkep's relieved sigh.
The poor boy should be pitied.
"Yea! One more thing, why did you suddenly came and gave the monster a kick?...When it was going for the...kill." Noil asked, the kill he spoke was he himself.
Helkep's eyes flashed and replied with a question instead, "Why were you...thinking of me? When you were making a plan for an escape, you counted me in it. You wanted to...leave with me. Why, why didn't you ignore me? Why was I in your plan?" Helkep had figured out that Noil was going for an escape route with which they both could escape. This was the reason why he had...come for Noil, he wanted to ask him before he died, he wanted to ask this.
"...Well, I did take responsibility for your safety. And leaving you alone there would be...that would have left me with guilt. But to be honest, if things would have co--, well things would have never made it possible for me alone to leave either." He replied with a scornful laughter, the scorn directed towards himself.
"...You could have tried the...leeching-blood method." Helkep asked, his eyes locked with Noil's.
Noil's mouth and eyes were open wide in shock. "...Are you freaking insane!?" Noil asked Helkep as if he had seen a psychopath.
"Why!? Did you not have a healing pill? I am certain you know the method with a healing pill as well." Helkep asked, his eyes still locked with Noil's.
'
"...You're definitely insane." Noil said, with a look of disgust.
The leeching-blood method was an absolutely barbaric, insane and disgusting method. It was released by an anonymous person, the government had hid who the person was, and had executed the person as well.
The government also made the use of leeching-blood method forbidden and anyone who offended this law would be sentenced to death, no matter of status. And this was one true law, uncountable rich people who had been found using the leeching-blood method had been sentenced to death.
Yet, it was extremely sad that people still used it, there were no cameras inside a dungeon after all. Anything that happened inside a dungeon would remain in the dungeon, and what happened in the dungeon...were the words of the survivor.
"...No, no I am not insane. I was just...wondering." Helkep broke the eye contact and continued eating his pancake.
"...Man even wondering about that is creepy." Noil said with his eyes filled with disgust.
"...If you say so." Helkep eyes which were blank were still blank as before. But if one looked into them, they would feel even more eerie and...frightened. Looking in Helkep's eyes currently, one would feel as if they were looking into an...Abyss, containing an infinite numbers of monsters, that were devouring their mind.
A weird atmosphere took over, with both not having anything to start a new conversation with. They finished their pancakes silently and left for their classes.
The classes continued with nothing happening other then a few invitations for Helkep, which he was too polite to reject.
At night, Helkep was walking up on the stairs which would lead him to the third floor of the dormitory.
His mind was quite peaceful currently. He walked to his dorm room. And opened the door.
Barco and Bobco were sitting on the sofa, watching television.
They asked Helkep to accompany them for a while, after having some fun they left for their rooms.
Helkep woke up after 15 minutes, after stretching a bit, he left for his room.
Laying on his bed, Helkep didn't close his eyes to sleep, he had no plan of sleeping anytime soon.
He was waiting for the brothers to sleep. After waiting for about 1 hour, he got up and walked out, quietly.
He placed his ear on braco's room and he heard nothing.
Then he placed his ear next to bobco's room and heard nothing.
Now he was the only one awake, he went to his room and started once again, to try to summon...the hidden boss.
He had been trying for two days already but it wasn't working. It was as if the hidden boss didn't even exist, as if all that he saw was nothing more... than an illusion.