"Behind you!" Ella's sweet but rushed voice warned Noil who was occupied with a few enemies in front of him.
"Tch! There are too many of these." Noil took a large stride to his left to dodge the fireball behind him.
"I warned you but you didn't listen." Helkep was also busy dealing with his opponents.
"Tch! Who would have thought they were both ambushing each other?" Noil justified himself as he got back on trying to kill one of the monsters from the countless in front of him, to lessen the burden on himself.
"Me." Helkep's calm voice was like a slap on Noil's face.
Sometime ago, the trio were on a fruitless quest to search for some monsters, yes trio Helkep had managed to sneak the hidden boss out of his shadow and told him to leave him for sometime and the lizard seeing the hidden boss walked away with him like a good boy.
When they finally encountered there first monster or monsters, things didn't look very simple.
There were two different types of them, one looked somewhat like a fox, just the addition of two faces and eight legs, you might have guessed its 8 foot long body, it also had red skin with no fur.
The other type was half the size as compared to the the previous, the monsters had identical features just that this one had six legs and red fur with only one head.
The two type of monsters were in the middle of a battle when the trio happened to see them. There were large magma pools in the surroundings, the perfect place for fire based monsters to shine.
The two tribes seemed to have been fighting for quite sometime as most of them were wounded and exhausted.
The trio were faced with a problem, whether to take advantage of their fight or to ignore the two love birds and move on.
Helkep remained quiet, as he was against even coming to the dungeon. But Noil wasn't quite the same, looking at the tired monsters, he just saw walking experience points.
He as the party leader decided to interrupt the love birds, as he thought that this wasn't the place for showing affection. So he righteously decided to teach the monsters some manners.
Of course Helkep didn't mind their lovers quarrel and thought that leaving them alone would be for the best.
But Noil felt that it was the right thing to teach his juniors some manners and Ella just nodded, truth be told she wanted to see Helkep in action.
Helkep shook his head and followed them in the quarrel of doom. After they begun teaching them some manners, just after 5 minutes, it seemed that... Helkep was right.
Some relatives of the quarreling couples arrived on the scene, from the pool of magma no less. Seeing there relatives in such bad state... they two couples came to a mutual understanding and decided to... beat up the two males and the female.
And hence the current situation... of the trio surrounded by hundreds of monsters. And getting pushed like kids in front of an adult.
"Any ideas?" Noil asked as he saw his mana nearly depleted.
"I think its about time we use the best skill we have." Helkep looked at the monsters continuously swapping positions and letting there mana and stamina recover before taking the front again and couldn't help but shake his head.
"Well then, its all or nothing." Noil had also realized how severe the situation was when he saw that they had managed to successfully kill about 0 monsters.
Ella shook her head speechlessly, she wondered how the two were still alive with Noil being such a dumb leader and not analyzing the situation thoroughly. She might need a gentle reminder that she herself also agreed on taking the monsters on.
Helkep activated his 'Body Forceful Improvement' and Noil activated his 'Minor Strengthening' and Ella activated a martial skill as well.
"Cover me!" Noil shouted as he rushed towards a monster, finally liking the fact that he could get some kills after all his suffering.
"You should wait for us to get behind you before rushing off like that." Helkep shook his head and ran behind Noil.
Noil could careless about Helkep's warning and punched a Two-Headed Eight-Feet on the head, finishing it right there.
As a notification rang in his head, he heard a roar behind him. His hairs stood on end as his eyes met with the Red-Six-Leg behind him.
"HOLY!" Noil shouted with his eyes popping out of his sockets.
Just as his end was near, someone suddenly appeared in front of him and finished the monster off in a single hit.
It was none other then Ella. The monster's head had been cut clean off.
Ella had struck the single spot multiple times in breakneck speed making it look as if she had killed it in one hit.
"Do you know these monsters are lower levelled then us?" It seemed that Noil's sudden exclamation... wasn't due to his precious life but the low experience he got.
"Just do your best for now, I will tell you the reason later." Helkep shook his head and wondered why he wasn't simply happy on still being alive.
"Sigh! Roger that." Noil went back to smashing heads with Ella saving him from deaths door countless time.
Helkep being Helkep was trying to get the monsters attention away from them.
He was sneaking inside their ranks and infuriating monsters to attack him and then simply ran away, causing the monster's attack to hit other monsters.
The nuisance he was being was the reason they had not gotten over-whelmed by the monsters shear numbers.
But he knew too well that this wasn't going to last long. There was a limit to their stamina after all.
"We need to ran away. We won't last long." Helkep shouted as he came out from the dragon's den.
"Huh!? We will win. These monsters are toast. You just sit back and let this big bro do his thing." Noil grinned evilly as he stared at the monsters with a burning thirst for revenge.
But someone had finally regained her cool, "We need to do as Hep says. We already paid the price for ignoring his warning once. Let's not regret our decision once again, shall we?" Ella started retreating towards Helkep and ignored Noil.
Noil wouldn't have listened to Helkep or anyone else but when it came to a beauty like Ella, he became an obedient kid and followed after her.
"Make a path, we need to ran far away before things really get serious." Helkep pointed in a certain direction and started examining the monsters, not caring if either Ella or Noil had paid attention to his words or not.
But Ella couldn't ignore Helkep's words, that's the last thing she could do. She immediately got Noil moving and started clearing a path with him.
After conforming his suspicion, Helkep also joined in sweeping the path.
After about seven minutes of hard effort, they finally managed to escape from the monsters encirclement.
Hence their cowardly retreat finally begun. With them getting slapped sometime and sometime them slapping the monsters.
After about 10 minutes, they were finally successful.
"Tch! Those lucky monsters, if it wasn't for Helkep's uselessly scaring you beauty, we would have made french fries out of them." Noil annoyedly complained to Ella.
"If we were still there we would be dead." Helkep shook his head on Noil's ranting.
"Sigh! There is no use trying to lie Helkep. We know you are a scaredy cat. But it's okay, as the leader it's my duty to deal with my underlings uselessness." Noil grinned coolly, thinking he was the greatest leader in history or something.
Ella distastefully looked at Noil from the corner of her eyes before asking Helkep, "Why would we be dead Hep?"
"Sigh! Pretty lady--" Helkep didn't let Noil finish and replied to Ella.
"That was a fight between two tribes over territory. As this was a war between them, there would definitely be a leader. And as a leader… with its special skill it could summon all of its tribesmen which were around the area. And with the way things were going… both of them would have summoned their whole tribe for a full scale war. And you don't need me to tell you how many tribesmen were nearby when you already saw the ambush they had prepared for each other." Helkep's explanation shut Noil down like a kid facing the greatest math problem.
"I see." Ella didn't expect anything less from Helkep. If not for her selfishness, she would have listened to him before as well, when he cautioned them about not confronting the monsters.
"Ahem, Ahem! What should we do next?" Noil felt shame taking over him, as he tried to come up with some stupid reason to make himself feel better in his mind.
"Is that something to ask about?" Ella asked with a frown.
"We are both currently nothing but useless burdens right now. We head back, this ends over today's hunt." Helkep felt a bit happy, thinking he would definitely not come tomorrow.
"Sigh! Alright." Noil felt a bit dejected hearing that.
"But hey! We still manage to get 34 kills, didn't we?" Noil's mood finally lifted when he heard the notification history repeating in his head.
Helkep chose to stay quiet.
After regaining some of their stamina, the trio left for the dungeon's exit.
The didn't encounter any monsters on the way and managed to peacefully leave the dungeon.
After leaving, the first thing Noil did was to take his leave, he was pretty exhausted from the fight, even though his martial skill didn't cost stamina but instead jammed his mana flow for 10 hours.
"So which class should we attend?" Ella asked excitedly. She was feeling happy on finally getting her alone time with Helkep once again.
"I am tired." Helkep's reply awakened Ella from her dream. His calm attitude made her forget that his stamina was the most lowest among the three of them.
"Okay. Take care... Wait! Want me to help you get back to full health?" Ella suddenly asked with glowing eyes.
"…No thanks!" Helkep didn't wait for her to pester him and started walking towards his dorm room.
"What a bummer." Ella had a cute but dangerous smile as she looked at Helkep's back.
Helkep was hoping that Ella didn't do anything stupid like following him, he knew the chances were high though.
The reason he wanted her to not accompany him was because she was after his dormitory number and his room number.
If she succeeded… she would pester him everyday no every second.
Shaking his head as he knew he couldn't do anything if she was following him and decided to not waste time and head to his dormitory.
As Helkep was walking in front of a clothing shop… he met some friends.
Without a doubt the friends were happy beyond believe seeing Helkep, in their happiness they even invited him to accompany them for sometime.
Helkep being the good friend… remained quiet. So the friends thought that he agreed.
They led him inside an alley, a very long alley.
"Where have you been for so long Helkep?" One of the two boys walked forward and started to unbutton Helkep's shirt.
Helkep remained quiet and looked at the hand on his neck as he felt himself losing consciousness.
He felt a stinging pain on his belly, making his consciousness flicker like a weak glass about to shatter.
A hand gently moved on his belly before it dug inside the flesh.
"Marvellous!" The boy exclaimed as he saw the wound healing and enclose around his arm.
The other boy had a sadistic look as he approached Helkep and hugged him from behind.
At this moment, Ella was currently standing on top of a building and staring at the boy who had dug his hand inside Helkep's belly.
'Ha-Ha! I knew it! I mean how else could it happen? How could he have so many… friends, if not for this.' Ella face was twisted with madness.
Her pretty face was no where to be seen, replaced by it was something that was no less then a demon's face.
Her eyes were red and her pupils were enlarged to an extreme extent. With a smile as twisted as the word Devil itself, she took a step forward.
But she didn't move forward, 'NO! I mustn't go otherwise… I will kill them. I… I … an investigation will begin and this will lead to this… being revealed to everyone. I must… hold on and then I… I WILL GIVE THEM A LIFE FAR PRETTIER THAN DEATH.' A tear fell down from Ella's eye and she bit her lower lips to the point that her teeth dug through to the other side and turned back and ran away.
The two boys continued to sully Helkep. All while he was unconscious.
It was good that Ella had left, otherwise seeing what they were currently doing to Helkep, she would have ripped them apart and killed herself afterwards, to kill them in their death as well.
---
"W-o a-- --u" Helkep looked around to see where the weak sound came from but all he could see was darkness.
In the darkness, he could see a very tiny silhouette of someone walking towards him from very far away.
"Who are you?" Helkep shouted at the silhouette.
"Th--- w--t - -sk-d" Helkep couldn't hear the silhouette's voice clearly, as it was very far away.
"…I can't hear you!" Helkep shouted towards the silhouette.
"Wh- can- y-o" Helkep was able to make out the words somewhat.
"Should I be able to?" Helkep asked with a frown.
"You can't even hear yourself?" The silhouette stood at some distance from him. But he was unable to see its appearance as it was surrounded by thick darkness.
"Myself?" Helkep asked very confused.
"Who are you?" The silhouette's voice seemed to be echoing in the darkness.
"…I am Helkep. Who are you?" Helkep looked at the silhouette, which stood right in front of him.
"You should know. Who am I?" The silhouette asked Helkep instead.
"How should I kn--" Helkep felt his vision shaking.
It was as if he had two visions and the visions kept shifting between each other at high speed.
He couldn't comprehend what he was seeing and an extreme headache along with a loud piercing sound suddenly appeared in his head.
Just the way it came, it vanished as well.
Helkep's eyes widened, as his mouth opened wide, enough to fit a watermelon.
What stood in front of him was a boy with pitch black hair and golden eyes, with jade like white skin. It was him or his body.
The body in front of him smiled and opened its mouth as it spoke in its mesmerising voice, "I am… Ulfreed."