“She hasn’t replied,” said rlin as he tapped his foot worried. “Should I call her?” He turned his gaze from his phone towards Chima and Hakyun who were scurrying after Blue, and annoying the hell out of him.
rlin would have found it funny, watching the not-so-little dragon hissing and threatening to freeze them while it flapped its wings and avoided them, but his mood was again being dampened because of his thoughts about Janeth. And, honestly, if Blue was really pissed off about Chima and Hakyun trying to catch and cuddle him, he could just hide his presence and sneak into a cupboard or sothing. But rlin had co to realize that the dragon was just a big baby. He liked the attention, but didn’t want to admit it. Basically, what ani referred to as a tsundere.
rlin sighed, looking back at his phone. Janeth hadn’t ignored his ssage before. He wanted to believe that it was because she was perhaps busy or sothing, but he had sent the text just before midday, and it was past six in the evening now. Surely, nothing had happened to her, right? He was worried.
“I think she wants so space, l,” noted Chima as he reached for Blue’s tail, but the dragon pulled it in, coiling it around his body and avoiding Chima’s grip. “Didn’t you say she was acting all distant during the break?”
“Yeah,” replied rlin. “But I’m not trying to talk about the relationship thing anymore. I want to get this secret off my chest.”
“Well, she doesn’t know that now, does she?” Chima huffed, not even the slightest bit frustrated about Blue’s swerves. “Anchor him from that side, four-eyes!”
“Don’t tell what to do!” argued Hakyun, but did as he was told anyway. It didn’t work, obviously. Blue was a smart dragon, and was quite quick. He had fought in a war, and avoided the attacks of a beast five tis the size of the dorm building. He could escape the attacks of two budding Mages no problem.
On the other hand, Chima was right. Janeth was probably avoiding him because of the relationship talk, and that was honestly a problem. His intention was to have Sunny and Janeth on the sa video call and reveal his secret to them, but now that Janeth wasn’t replying, it seed things wouldn’t work in such a manner. And he was against being too pushy. It was one of the things he fought back against the most in situations just like this. Extra ssages, or pulling her into a video call without her consent, that was not sothing he would do.
So, he would have to save her reveal for later—for whenever she was ready to talk to him.
“Ugh… Why is this darn dragon so hard to catch?!” Hakyun groaned as he fell down, planting his face into the floor, and Blue took offense at that.
The dragon stopped midflight, screeched a little bit too loudly, and drew air into its lungs, aiming at Hakyun.
rlin’s Perception pricked the nape of his neck, and he glared at the dragon.
“Stop it, Blue!” he voiced. The dragon froze and turned his way. rlin pointed at him. “Stop it.”
Blue was stubborn, and he showed a bit of his stubbornness at this mont with a hiss directed at rlin. But he was also smart. He knew Hakyun was rlin’s friend and roommate, rlin would not tolerate him freezing soone so close to him. So he did the equivalent of clicking his tongue, and, finally, faded away right where he was hovering in the air, like an invisible cloak had been dropped on him. rlin, however, could still sense him, and he watched Blue head into his room and crawl under his bed.
Hakyun sighed as he sat up on the floor, nudging the bridge of his glasses.
“I should apologize, shouldn’t I?” he said, feeling bad that their little play had taken a quick turn for the worse.
“You should,” said Chima as he walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, tossing one Hakyun’s way as well.
“Give him so ti,” said rlin. “You head in that room now, and I won’t be able to stop him from freezing you right where you stand.”
“You don’t have to tell twice.” Hakyun gulped down his water, and heaved out an exhale of relief. “Wow. That was equivalent to a workout.”
Chima raised a brow at him. “Like hell it was.” He then turned to rlin. “By the way, you didn’t tell us how you found Blue. What’s his origin story?”
rlin flinched at that question.
He had intentionally redirected their previous conversations to avoid talking about it when he had been explaining how he had gotten the System and so on and so forth to them. But things didn’t escape Chima, did they?
Now that he had been asked, though, he wondered if he should lie or tell them the truth. And, honestly, he knew what would happen if he kept a secret from them again.
Hakyun had lost it about the System, and Chima had remained coolheaded. But if he deceived them about his Dungeon Artist Perk and what it could do, Hakyun might not forgive him next ti, and Chima might not be as understanding as he had been today.
rlin decided to tell the truth. Till the end of the day, he would tell only the truth.
“I have a Perk,” he started, “that lets create Dungeons.”
Chima and Hakyun only blinked. rlin frowned. He had been expecting more profound reactions from both of them, but… What was this?
“Well, go on,” said Hakyun. “Out with the rest.”
Oh, goodness, rlin thought. They’ve built a resistance to my revelations.
He chuckled and explained all about how the Perk worked, and how he had used it to venture into a C-Rank Dungeon, cleared it on his own, and rescued Blue.
That got a reaction out of them.
“What the…?!” Hakyun voiced. “You cleared a C-Rank Dungeon alone? How in the world did you do that?”
“The novel, right?” Chima asked. “You said the Dungeons you create are either from your artistic mory, or one from that Singularity Mage novel you ntioned. So you already knew how to clear it, using that, I suppose?”
rlin nodded. “Yup.”
Chima’s brows pulled in. “Was that how you helped us clear the dungeon raid exam?” he asked. rlin pursed his lips and nodded. Chima sighed. “Well, shit. You’re like a walking cheat code for Dungeon and Tower raids, aren’t you?”
“No,” rlin disagreed. “Towers were not present in Singularity Mage, so I have no cheat on that front. And not all tis are the Dungeons one that were present in Singularity Mage. For example, the one during the physical assessnt wasn’t in Singularity Mage.”
“That doesn’t count as a Dungeon raid, though, for personally,” argued Chima. “And, now that I think about it, it was the System that affected those knights too, wasn’t it?” rlin nodded. “Okay. I think you’re right about this thing not being your friend.”
“Of course,” said rlin. “I knew that right from the ti it made do track.”
“You said you cleared this C-Rank Dungeon,” started Chima. “Nora let you go alone?”
rlin flinched at that question. He pressed his lips together and said, “No.”
“Oh my goodness, l,” Chima voiced. “You didn’t tell Nora about it, did you?”
rlin sighed. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“Well, physically,” said Chima. “But she’s your twin, l. How do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out that you kept sothing so important from her?”
rlin had no replies. Chima was right, and, as a result, he didn’t know what to say.
“So what then did you tell her about Blue?” Chima continued.
“That he was a reward from the System.”
Chima sighed and shook his head. “That’s nasty, l. Real nasty.”
“You’re asking the wrong questions, brute,” Hakyun chid in abruptly. “I’m in support of rlin being a total nutcase keeping such a thing from his twin, but there are more important things to ask about. Why exactly are the Dungeons in this Singularity Mage novel real ones in our world, and how could this author have given you a System and it’s directly affecting our world? Those are the questions you should be asking.”
There was a reason why rlin hadn’t included those during his explanation about the System to them, it was because he didn’t have the answers. The System was as much of a mystery to him as it was to any other person in the world, and so was The Sleeping Jacket. He couldn’t count how many tis he had wondered who exactly the author was, and how he had made the System co to life.
“Well,” Chima started, “do you know the answers to them, l?”
rlin glanced between him and Hakyun and shook his head. “No.”
Chima turned to Hakyun and shrugged. “There you have it.”
“Why are you so casual about this?” Hakyun asked, brows furrowed.
“Because if he had had the answers, he would have told us from the start,” argued Chima, and rlin knew what was coming next.
Thankfully, his phone rang at that mont. Sunny was calling. He stood up, hurried out of the room, heading to the entryway of the dorm, where he found a secluded spot bearing a bench placed in front of a row of flowers to converse with Sunny.
rlin, not having the ti or energy, didn’t want to co between Chima’s and Hakyun’s quarreling, and he also didn’t want to bother Blue, who was obviously still pissed. Which was why he had chosen to distance himself instead. And he had made the right choice. The weather was quite cool this evening, and everyone was either in their dorm rooms or the lounge, as a result of them all still being stressed out and recovering from their Tower raids, so he had the whole scenery to himself, and it helped him relax quite a bit.
“Hi, Sunny,” said rlin as he picked the call and put on his ear buds. “How’s it going?”
“Hmm… That depends,” said Sunny. “But never mind . What did you want to talk about?”
rlin paused at that question. He considered pushing Sunny again about how things were proceeding on the Club Spiral front, but he realized that doing such would only make him co off as a bit of a jerk, considering Sunny was doing him a favor. So he decided to just focus on what he had called the guy for. He could just ask Sunny later on.
“There’s a secret I have to reveal to you,” he started, and he could feel Sunny’s gaze harden on the other side of the phone. There was another montary pause as he glanced around and widened his senses to feel if there was anyone present around his vicinity, but his Perception gave him nothing on that front. He then sighed and went on, “I have a System.”
Sunny was silent for a few seconds, and rlin had never been good with silence. But he let Sunny take his ti. What he had co to understand from telling people his secret in these past hours was that everyone reacted differently. Sunny was probably digesting the reveal.
“What’s a System?” Sunny asked, catching rlin off guard with his question.
“Huh?” rlin frowned. “What are you talking about? You’ve never heard of a System?”
“Well, I wouldn’t be asking now if I have, would I?”
rlin swallowed. “True. But… Uhm… How do I explain this now? Yeah. You know all those things in gas, role playing gas, uhm, screens that detail a character’s stats and all that?”
Sunny paused. “I’m sorry, rlin, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
rlin blinked, shocked.
“How co?” he asked.
“Because I’ve never played a ga in my life.”
A heavy sensation fell into rlin’s stomach as his brows pulled together and a dazed look stord his face.
Sunny had never played a ga in his life? Was that sothing that should be possible? Every child should have at least once played a ga. Be it mobile or, well, computer. But Sunny hadn’t? rlin couldn’t get himself to believe it so easily. It was the first ti he had ever been told that, and it hit him with a shock that scrambled his brain.
“T-Then,” he continued, “have you read litrpg novels? Or watched Ani, maybe? There are these blue—”
“Nope,” Sunny cut him off. “I’m afraid I’ve not.”
rlin jerked back slightly.
Then what had he done for fun in his childhood? No gas, no novels, no ani? That was absurd to even think about.
But the truth was, rlin knew nothing about Sunny’s childhood, how it had played out, or what his experiences were. Now that he thought about it, he had never considered asking before. Just like with Janeth.
Really? How could he just be considering this now? What did that make him? Was he even a friend to both of them at all?
“So this System that you have,” Sunny resud. “What does it do, and why exactly did you have to keep it a secret?”
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