A week had passed since Merlin and his teammates returned from the Tower of Xéros, and everyone who had ventured into their respective Towers had arrived back at Prestige Academy.

  The allocation of the points were scheduled to go live in just a few minutes, and that was why Hakyun had a timer beeping down on his phone, while Chima lay unbothered on the couch playing a deck-building game.

  As for Merlin, he had a lot more on his mind when compared to the points that would be allocated. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. Hardly that. He had worked for it. But he was also unsure how the academy would allocate the points to his team, considering they hadn’t been able to watch them in action. That spoiled his mood. And as he lay on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, his expression turned downcasted.

  “You know what happened isn’t your fault, right?” Chima started. “Not that it’s the academy’s fault either, but you couldn’t have controlled the system’s mishap. At least it all went well at the end. So stop being so gloomy.”

  Chima was always the first to notice when one of them had something on their mind, so Merlin wasn’t surprised.

  However, the boy was wrong. The whole Tower of Xéros thing was his fault. And the headmaster knew it. Which took the brunt of his thoughts.

  Since their conversation, Headmaster Im Ilseong hadn’t said anything about the revelation, and he hadn’t done anything to disrupt Merlin’s school life. He just let things go on as usual.

  But Merlin was uneasy.

  He wanted the headmaster to say something. Anything.

  Or maybe that wasn't what was bothering him, but the fact that a walking time bomb like him was left to be roaming around like he wasn’t ticking down to explosion. And, more importantly, his roommates had no idea that they were living with a bomb.

  “Eh; just let him be,” Hakyun chimed in, tossing a slice of orange in his mouth. “Not like this is his first time. He’ll be fine soon enough. Maybe when he sees how many points we get.”

  Merlin highly doubted that. Even knowing that every single person he was acquainted with had managed to clear their Tower didn’t do anything to cheer him up. Perhaps nothing would.

  Nora had tried too. She had first of all snapped that he hadn’t waited to consult her before he had gone ahead to tell the headmaster his secret; but she came to understand how dire the situation had been in an instant. And then she tried to keep him from spiraling into the world of depression he always fell into when his life got even a bit hard. She had failed, because his current state wasn’t any good in comparison to a few days back.

  Usually, training took his mind off things, but he had had zero zeal to keep up with it as he used to. He was afraid that he would do something and tamper with the System somehow, and things would take a turn for the worst.

  Bottling his feelings up was annoying. He couldn’t do it. He really couldn’t. So he picked up his phone and hurried into his room, slamming his door shut in the dazed faces of Chima and Hakyun. That action of his startled Blue from his sleep, eliciting a hiss from the dragon. But Merlin could barely be bothered. He immediately scrolled through his contacts list, and dialed Nora’s number.

  She picked up a few seconds later.

  “Hey, nerd,” said Nora from the other side of the phone. “What’s up? I’m trying to rest, you know?”

  “I can’t do it,” said Merlin, biting his lower lip.

  Nora was silent for a moment.

  “Can’t do what?” she asked, her voice almost as low as a whisper. She for sure knew what it was he was talking about, she just wanted to confirm if her thoughts were credible or not.

  Merlin didn’t intend to disprove them.

  He sat down on the edge of his bed, ignoring Blue continuing hisses, and said, “I can’t continue with the secrets, Nora. I have to tell them.”

  “Merlin,” Nora called softly. “Tell who?”

  “My roommates,” he said. “And…”

  “And?”

  “Sunny and Janeth.”

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  Silence was all that came from the other side of Merlin’s phone. Whatever Nora was thinking about, Merlin couldn’t figure it out. And when he was pressured by his thoughts and emotions, he was anything but patient.

  “Say something already,” he blurted, anxious.

  “I don’t know, Merlin,” Nora started. Merlin was unsure if she had ever been as unsure as she was at the moment before. He couldn’t recall. “Why?” she continued. “Is it because of the Tower?”

  “No,” said Merlin, pressing his lips together. “It’s because of everything. The System itself. I’m afraid of what it might do, and how it would affect those around me.” He paused, taking a moment to catch his breath. Blue, thankfully, had gone back to sleep. “They deserve to know. I don’t want to drop out. I don’t want to have to leave the academy because of what I am. So the least I can do is let them know about what is happening and why.”

  Nora sighed. “I understand you, Merlin. But, just so you know, you can’t take it back once you expose your secret. You have something any person will be jealous of. You have no idea how you’ll be looked at after that.”

  “But…”

  “And,” Nora cut in. “Exposing that secret would mean sooner than later, every single person will know. With the headmaster, it can still remain under wraps for a while, maybe. I don’t know. But with students? Slip-ups happen. What do you want? Are you ready for the whole school to know?”

  Of course, Nora always made sense with her reasoning. She made good points. It was not that he didn’t trust Chima and Hakyun, but he couldn’t guarantee that in a heated moment, the words wouldn’t slip, like Nora had said.

  However, he had made up his mind right from the moment he had told the headmaster about the System. He couldn’t keep deceiving those closest to him. And with the System’s unpredictability, he would need all the help he can get.

  “It’s fine,” said Merlin after settling into his thoughts. “I’ll do it.”

  “All right,” Nora said. “If you believe that’s the right thing to do, then I trust you. Let me know how it goes.”

  Since he was in the period of revealing his secrets, Merlin also considered, at this moment, about telling Nora of his ability to create Dungeons. But he shook that away swiftly after. The whole reason why he was revealing his possession of the System was because he felt guilty about endangering his friends. He still wanted to train himself, become his best version because of the arrival of the Cataclysm, so Nora learning about that perk of his would mean that she would be endangered even further because she would want to follow him on his raids.

  Now that he had figured out how insensitive the System was to his feelings, he couldn’t risk it. Not yet. That part of himself was best left in the dark for now.

  “All right,” said Merlin. “I’ll end the call now.”

  Nora didn’t say anything and he took that as his cue. He put the call to an end, turning to Blue.

  “Hey,” said Merlin. “I need you.”

  Blue only shifted on the bed, rolling into himself even further.

  “Come on,” said Merlin. “Just for a minute.”

  The dragon still stubbornly resisted.

  Merlin clicked his tongue and stood up.

  “Fine,” he said. “Stop hiding your presence. It’s no longer necessary when we’re in the room.”

  Blue shifted slightly and turned around. His blue eyes peered straight at Merlin, and Merlin could see how much Blue hiding his presence constantly was daunting on the dragon.

  Blue purred. A question. Perhaps, “Really?”

  Merlin nodded. “Yes, really.”

  Blue did as he was told without wasting a single second longer, and Merlin no longer had to sense the dragon’s motions or expressions as he could now see him. Bright blue like his eyes, and wings that were as light as feathers. The dragon was a lot bigger than when Merlin had taken him out of Glace’s Ice Cave, no longer merely the size of a palm, but as big as a ball now.

  Merlin licked his lips and nodded. Then he left his room, and, to his surprise, Hakyun and Chima were not bickering. They were both just minding their business. That was, until he appeared.

  “What happened to you?” Hakyun asked. “Just rushing in like that? You scared us.”

  Merlin sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  Chima waved the back of his hand languidly from where he lay on the couch.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “We’ve all been there.”

  “Huh?” Hakyun’s face wrung up. “No, we’ve not.”

  “Just shut up.” Chima clicked his tongue. “Zero tact when it comes to social interactions. Geez.”

  “Speak to me directly, brute!”

  “That’s what I did.”

  Merlin sighed. “I have something to tell you guys,” he said, cutting into their squabble before it could escalate. They both turned his way, blinking owlishly.

  “What’s that?” Chima asked.

  “Well,” Merlin started, “it’ll be easier to show you.” He gestured at the open door of his room. “Come on.”

  Chima and Hakyun glanced at themselves, then with their brows furrowed, they stood up from their respective positions and crept close to Merlin. Their steps were somewhat stiff; one would think Merlin had some evil plan towards them.

  “You know, when someone says it’ll be easier to show you in thriller stories, that most times means that they were planning on killing who they were calling,” Hakyun noted. “I’m not saying you’re planning on cutting open my skull or the brute’s, but you never can—”

  “Shut up already, four eyes,” Chima voiced.

  “Hey,” Hakyun complained. “I’m just saying, okay. Thriller movies are made to warn us about—”

  The rest of his words caught in his throat as he and Chima appeared before Merlin’s room and their gaze fell on the blue figure lying on his bed. Their postures slumped slightly, their foreheads wrinkled, and their eyes widened.

  “What the fuck is that?!”