“She hasn’t replied,” said Merlin 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.

  Merlin 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 something. But Merlin had come to realize that the dragon was just a big baby. He liked the attention, but didn’t want to admit it. Basically, what anime referred to as a tsundere.

  Merlin sighed, looking back at his phone. Janeth hadn’t ignored his message before. He wanted to believe that it was because she was perhaps busy or something, 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 some space, Mel,” 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 Merlin. “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 me 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 times 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 same video call and reveal his secret to them, but now that Janeth wasn’t replying, it seemed 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 messages, or pulling her into a video call without her consent, that was not something 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.

  Merlin’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. Merlin pointed at him. “Stop it.”

  Blue was stubborn, and he showed a bit of his stubbornness at this moment with a hiss directed at Merlin. But he was also smart. He knew Hakyun was Merlin’s friend and roommate, Merlin would not tolerate him freezing someone 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. Merlin, 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 some time,” said Merlin. “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 me 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 Merlin. “By the way, you didn’t tell us how you found Blue. What’s his origin story?”

  Merlin 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 time, and Chima might not be as understanding as he had been today.

  Merlin 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 me create Dungeons.”

  Chima and Hakyun only blinked. Merlin 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.”

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Oh, goodness, Merlin 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 memory, or one from that Singularity Mage novel you mentioned. So you already knew how to clear it, using that, I suppose?”

  Merlin nodded. “Yup.”

  Chima’s brows pulled in. “Was that how you helped us clear the dungeon raid exam?” he asked. Merlin 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,” Merlin disagreed. “Towers were not present in Singularity Mage, so I have no cheat on that front. And not all times are the Dungeons one that were present in Singularity Mage. For example, the one during the physical assessment wasn’t in Singularity Mage.”

  “That doesn’t count as a Dungeon raid, though, for me personally,” argued Chima. “And, now that I think about it, it was the System that affected those knights too, wasn’t it?” Merlin nodded. “Okay. I think you’re right about this thing not being your friend.”

  “Of course,” said Merlin. “I knew that right from the time it made me do track.”

  “You said you cleared this C-Rank Dungeon,” started Chima. “Nora let you go alone?”

  Merlin flinched at that question. He pressed his lips together and said, “No.”

  “Oh my goodness, Mel,” Chima voiced. “You didn’t tell Nora about it, did you?”

  Merlin sighed. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  “Well, physically,” said Chima. “But she’s your twin, Mel. How do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out that you kept something so important from her?”

  Merlin 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, Mel. Real nasty.”

  “You’re asking the wrong questions, brute,” Hakyun chimed in abruptly. “I’m in support of Merlin 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 Merlin 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 times he had wondered who exactly the author was, and how he had made the System come to life.

  “Well,” Chima started, “do you know the answers to them, Mel?”

  Merlin 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 Merlin knew what was coming next.

  Thankfully, his phone rang at that moment. 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.

  Merlin, not having the time or energy, didn’t want to come 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 Merlin as he picked the call and put on his ear buds. “How’s it going?”

  “Hmm… That depends,” said Sunny. “But never mind me. What did you want to talk about?”

  Merlin 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 come 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 momentary 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 Merlin had never been good with silence. But he let Sunny take his time. What he had come 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 Merlin off guard with his question.

  “Huh?” Merlin 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?”

  Merlin swallowed. “True. But… Uhm… How do I explain this now? Yeah. You know all those things in games, role playing games, uhm, screens that detail a character’s stats and all that?”

  Sunny paused. “I’m sorry, Merlin, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Merlin blinked, shocked.

  “How come?” he asked.

  “Because I’ve never played a game in my life.”

  A heavy sensation fell into Merlin’s stomach as his brows pulled together and a dazed look stormed his face.

  Sunny had never played a game in his life? Was that something that should be possible? Every child should have at least once played a game. Be it mobile or, well, computer. But Sunny hadn’t? Merlin couldn’t get himself to believe it so easily. It was the first time 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 Anime, maybe? There are these blue—”

  “Nope,” Sunny cut him off. “I’m afraid I’ve not.”

  Merlin jerked back slightly.

  Then what had he done for fun in his childhood? No games, no novels, no anime? That was absurd to even think about.

  But the truth was, Merlin 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 resumed. “What does it do, and why exactly did you have to keep it a secret?”