Malissa could not help but look at Moros funny, how could he lack so much knowledge yet could easily solve something so troublesome?
Moros just casually ate his snacks, not worried about her questioning eyes.
He had learned a lot about the finances by hearing his father discuss them when explaining why exactly he needed to give him so much of his earnings. It would take a special kind of dumb to not learn a thing or two when bombarded with such knowledge almost on a daily basis.
"Favours" his brother asked for, were usually another method to cut taxes, of which there are many. A lot of rich kids with even richer parents wanted a piece of the delicious Balla buff pie.
Another avenue to learn, since they just looooooved to tell him the terms to avoid, when pressed by the financial audit. Yet, no one had ever cared about the peanuts he made slaughtering Ballas.
Maybe it was because the Terra clan had long lived its best days…and no one really cared if they made a quick buck based on withholding money or exchanging favours from this backwater clan/family or whatever they went by nowadays.
Perhaps they even encouraged it to get the other families ahead.
Soon, his father would likely just tell him to return to his family obligations and to kill Ballas till the end of time. Money needed to be made…his brother needed a new pair of shoes.
Everyone would have forgotten about the madness that happened a few days ago…yet Moros could not do that. There was more to that dungeon, something that made his heart pump.
Though one thing that made his heart hurt, the financial expenses associated with exploring that strange space beneath the Terra family dungeon.
Just how much money went down the drain to make one Balla-Balla?
10 rich kids meaning 10 medium monster cores, plus the young master special for 5 small ones and a tip of 3 pieces comes at a total of 1008 small magic stones or 100800 earwigs dropped by Ballas.
That is over 100.000 Ballas that needed to be killed just so one of them could grow big enough to smash the floor.
He would never be able to financially recover from this stunt.
Yet, as he watched Malissa cheerfully copying his answer down word for word, another thought struck his mind.
"Why did the goblins not drop any cores?"
The more he thought about it, the more the situation did not make any sense whatsoever. He might not have studied Goblins or knew much about them.
But he knew, if they died they should have dropped a core. That was common knowledge and yet they did not do that?
Did he do something wrong? Were these goblins so weak that they did not even produce a magical core? That theory seemed rather unlikely, regardless of how weak they were, they were still more useful than Ballas and even those dropped earwigs.
Moros thought about it for a second and then quickly decided not to dwell on the matter any more. He would simply do the mission again and then pay more attention after killing a goblin.
With the problem solved, he now could give all his attention to his childhood friend, who had already finished all her work, much to the regret of Moros.
Choosing food over homework stabbed him in the back.
Yet, he could only be amazed at the awesome speed normal people did their homework in.
All these complicated signs, tasks, calculations done in the time he ate a lot of delicious cookies.
In an attempt to not appear like the biggest, greedy eater on the whole planet, Moros had saved one of the delicious cookies and gave it to Malissa with a pride-filled gaze.
Few men had enough self-discipline to provide so much for their best friend.
This was not just a cookie, it was a sign of utmost respect towards the other. It was a declaration that they would always get the last piece!
Gracefully Malissa accepted the sad remains of what was once snacks meant for 4 people and ate it in a few bites, savouring the sensation like any normal person would.
Once again Moros watched her every move and tried to draw conclusions why she ate the snack the way she was doing.
"Homework is done. Moros, can we have a word?" she asked in a casual manner, while twiddling her thumbs around.
With a deep breath, she pushed the papers aside to get a better view of Moros.
"The last few days did not exactly make me not worry about your health. First, you don't come to school 2 days in a row, second, your place looks like people died there and third why you were in the health pot?"
She looked at him with a concerned look in her eyes.
"What happened?"
Her questions kept on coming and coming…but Moros could not answer. How could he explain any of that?
"I want to explain, but I really can't. Everything is just so weird."
Moros began to wild gesticulate with his hands to support his "story".
"Like at first I fed a Balla tons of monster cores, thing turned so huge that it evolved into a Balla-Balla. Fucker crashed onto me and the whole dungeon floor went kablamm."
He made an explosion sound and his hands drifted apart to show just how big the Balla was.
Had Mallisa not known the guy for ages, she seriously would have thought he was telling her the size of something else on his body. A thought which caused her to grin profusely.
Moros on the other hand felt encouraged and continued to tell the story to the best of his inability.
"I fall to the ground, total blackness, like totally nothing I saw. Then Balla-Balla attacks me. Epic fight ensues, I stab it with my broken finger. Zing, zing, you know? After a long and hard battle, it has died."
The young man continued to mimic everything he had done. Covered his eyes, to show that he couldn't see, used the middle finger to stab into the air. Made sound effects to underline the point and then raised his arms in the end to declare himself the victor.
Malissa lost it. She laughed hard enough to cry tears. This lovely idiot here could not be taken seriously. A Balla-Balla seriously…what kind of weirdo would name a creature that?
With all the stupid sound effects and descriptions that left his mouth, he really managed to turn the story into a spectacle of sheer stupidity.
If he did not know a single thing, he could have just told her.
But, the comedy routine touched her funny bone and all of the pent-up stress relieved in a matter of minutes.
Though she did not dislike Moros coming up with an elaborate story to make her feel better. There was just something about the whole situation being so absurd, which made her forget about the worries and troubles of that day.
Of course, it was not easy to erase that scene from her memory, but a lot of powerful magicians had checked and found nothing wrong. And in the end, there was just this endless amount of blood…it was still very concerning.
Yet, no victim was ever found. So, Malissa simply interpreted it as: "No body, no problem".
Did Moros just play a cruel trick on all of them?
If she ever found out, he would be in a whole lot of trouble for making her sickly worried for his safety.
Moros just saw her laugh and continued to resume his narration of the 'lie'.
"Then there is another, but then woosh something cuts my feet off. Blood everywhere, my magic exploded outside and then bam I was where I came from again."
"Bam, I crawled to the health pot and got healed and that's where you found me two days later."
The truth had been told and Moros looked at Malissa in hopes of her realising he was speaking the truth. She certainly did believe him, in the sense that he was telling a lie, that is what she believed wholeheartedly…
The truth was a lie.
"Keep your secrets Moros Terra!" she declared with a loud and booming voice, while flinging a soft, velvet pillow into his face.
Now, it was Moros' turn to just smile at her weird antics. He did not understand what exactly she was after, nor exactly what her interpretation of these events was. She seemed to have fun and that is all that mattered to Moros at this moment.
Not knowing any better he also stood up and flung the pillow in her face...
"I, the great Moros Terra shall never tell my story," he added with a mischievous smile on his face. The firstborn of the Terra family realised that even the normal can be quite abnormal from time to time.
Although he would not tell the story another time, he was happy to be able to share a secret with someone else without having to worry that it would come back to bite him in the large butt he had.
Cheerful laughter echoed through the room as the two of them came up with more and more absurd stories and committed more soft violence.
They chatted and joked around right up until it was dark outside, losing track of all time and their surroundings. Jeffrey, the butler, brought some more snacks from time to time.
All those were bitterly fought for and quickly eaten so that the other would not get much of the tasty sweets delivered into the room.
Thanks to the power of this endless stomach of his, Moros won the competition!
The magic of early childhood days, for this one night, it existed again.
It followed some roughhousing and some games, stupid questions and all sorts of weird dares and whatnot.
At the end of the day, they slept close to one another. With their faces formed into a deep knowing grin.
The life of normal people truly was great.