Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Recollections end.

Something was off about El's expression.

Gil had finally realized that his friend had been acting a bit strangely ever since he had arrived.

Being as straightforward as he was, Gil decided to ask him directly. After all, between brothers, there was no need to beat around the bush.

"Hey, El... if something's on your mind, you can tell me, you know."

Snapped out of his thoughts, El looked momentarily taken aback, though not truly surprised.

After all, he knew his friend was particularly sensitive to those kinds of heavy emotional shifts. Pulling himself together, he relaxed back into his chair and offered a reassuring smile.

"No, don't worry, I'm fine," El said smoothly. "I was just thinking about everything you were telling me."

Sensing that El was telling the truth but not everything, Gil chose not to press him any further.

If El didn't want to talk, he wouldn't force it, and Gil wasn't going to push.

That was just how things had always been between them.

El picked the conversation right back up with a grin. "So, after your heroic, epic, blazing victory—"

"Yeah, yeah, alright, drop it," Gil cut him off, slightly embarrassed.

"Alright, alright. So what happened after that? I don't imagine those masked bastards really appreciated you killing one of their little pets, did they?"

Getting back into his narrative, Gil sighed softly. "As a matter of fact, no."

His tone darkened as, bit by bit, the suffocating details of the nightmare flooded back into his memory—waking up in that makeshift infirmary after his fight against the specters inside his sanctuary,

Hector sitting there waiting for him,

and his missing arm...

Unconsciously, Gil couldn't help but reach his right hand across to touch his left shoulder. But it was fine. His arm was still intact, allowing him to exhale a quiet, subtle sigh of relief.

El had been watching him the whole time. He caught every detail—during that brief, instinctive gesture, Gil's expression had darkened before returning to normal, though his right fist tightened for a fraction of a second.

Gil stayed silent for a moment before speaking up again with forced enthusiasm. "Oh, and like I was saying, I met some pretty peculiar guys in there. First, I met this guy named Greg. Not too tall, brown hair, brown eyes, and a bit of a naive face. At first, he seemed shady as hell—as suspicious as they come. I mean, in a place like that, where nobody knows anyone, right after we're told there's a brutal test coming up the next day, who just walks up to a total stranger—someone who intentionally stayed away from everyone else—to chat and propose an alliance, huh?"

As he kept talking, however, a genuine smile crept onto Gil's face. "I've gotta admit, though... he turned out to be a huge help later on. You won't believe it, El, but it's true: even though he panicked at first, as soon as things got heated, he was ridiculously fast and agile. Didn't look like something a normal person could do out of nowhere. But at least he stuck by my side the whole time after that, and it was really good having him around."

After a short pause, Gil couldn't help but add with a deadpan expression, "Even if he acts like a bit of an idiot most of the time."

"Oh?" Wearing a gossipy expression, El leaned in closer, eager to hear more. "And besides this famous Greg, is there by any chance a future sister-in-law you happened to meet in your dream?"

Gil's face cringed into a look of sheer helplessness. "Man! Are you ever gonna stop with that?"

El pondered for a solid minute before answering with absolute solemnity, "Never! This is my sacred duty as your big brother."

"Hey, I already told you I'm in no rush for that kind of stuff," Gil shot back. "It's not like you, stringing along one conquest after another."

"Hmph! How dare you?" El gasped dramatically. "I am outraged, heartbroken, and scandalized. It's not my fault the female population can't get enough of such a masterwork of humankind."

"Yeah, and so modest with it too," Gil added drily.

"And yes, blessed with such profound humility! Thank you for reminding me, I didn't want to brag."

Speechless, realizing he couldn't possibly match his friend's shameless confidence, Gil continued—though hesitating slightly, figuring he might regret feeding the fire. "There actually was a girl in the group."

El had only said that to tease him, but the moment he heard those words, he sat up straight in his chair. "No way! What does she look like? Is she pretty? What are her proportions like? How is she? Have you already met her parents?"

Gil was seriously starting to question whether it was worth continuing the conversation at all, but couldn't help snapping back at the last question.

"How the hell am I supposed to meet her parents in a dream, in a place like that?!"

"Oh, right, fair enough," El deflated slightly. "Alright fine, tell me what my future sister-in-law is like."

"She's not your sister-in-law," Gil facepalmed and corrected him on the spot before going on. "First of all, her name is Kuro, and..." He hesitated for a second. "I think she already had her fair share of issues before ending up in that place."

"Oh?" El raised his eyebrows, leaning in with genuine interest. "What makes you say that?"

"Uh, I don't know for sure. Even though her face was always a mask of coldness and composure, you know me—I can pick up on the mood around people. And her? She gave off the feeling of a burning flame. And I don't think it's the kind of fire that just started recently, or because of where we were. I think she lives every single day with something raging inside her, but she's learned to keep a lid on it at all times. Otherwise... she's of Asian descent, fairly tall, with tanned skin, dark hair, and deep black eyes. And I noticed that even though she's a woman of few words, she's completely dependable. Whether it was in the arena or after, you could trust her to have your back. Though when it comes to certain subjects, she can be a bit too eager..."

El couldn't help but smile, processing the description. "Oh, I see the type. Mm-hmm."

"I changed my mind," El declared suddenly.

Gil looked at him, puzzled. "About what?"

"Hmm, she couldn't be my sister-in-law..."

Oof, he finally stopped with that, Gil thought in temporary relief.

"...She's gonna be your sister-in-law!" El finished with a grin.

"Huh?"

"Yeah! From the way you described her, I really think she and I would get along great!"

Unable to take it anymore, Gil picked up a loose shoe lying on the floor and launched it straight at El's face.

El dodged it deftly with a laugh, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "Hey, hey, hey! Easy there! Why resort to violence? You know what they say—violence doesn't solve anything."

"You have the gall to say that?!" Gil shot back fiercely. "That's only because you haven't used enough violence! And with certain people," he added, glaring pointedly at El, "violence is the only language they understand."

"Hmm. I really don't know what you're talking about," El said with a innocent posture. "Anyway, moving on, moving on... Besides Greg and Kuro, did you make any other friends in that dream of yours?"

Taking a moment to cool down, Gil continued. "Mm, yeah. Two other people joined us: Hugo and Orphée."

Gil rubbed his chin as he described them. "Orphée is probably the hardest one to read in our group. He's always humming. Medium height, black hair, with bangs covering his eyes—though his eyes seem to be black too. Always humming, looking relaxed despite the nightmare we were stuck in. He acts like he doesn't fully get what's going on either... I don't know if he just takes life as it comes, or if he's hiding things. Well, practically no one in my group is normal. That's the conclusion I came to after a while."

Gil leaned back slightly against the seat. "And speaking of which, Orphée has strange abilities too. In fact, I suspected that was one of the criteria those captors used to target us. But aside from me, Orphée, Hugo, and Greg, I didn't see anyone else like that in our cell. I don't know how he does it, but Orphée can make himself invisible—no, more like unnoticeable, I'd say. He demonstrated it to us, and it really helped us out at one point."

"And Hugo?" Gil chuckled softly. "Man, if you thought I was aggressive and warlike, you haven't seen anything yet. Just in terms of stature, he towers over me. He has red hair and a physique that would make even that gym freak at your club turn green with envy. And he's strong—crazy strong. At first, no one could understand him except Orphée. He speaks some weird ancient language none of us could make sense of. I honestly wonder where Orphée even learned that. But anyway, recently we found a way to communicate through the link thanks to my abilities. I was pretty proud of that moment. And it turns out that behind the giant warrior, Hugo is just a total chatterbox! Then again, I can understand after he spent so much time unable to talk to anyone. For someone like me who likes being on his own, it's no big deal, but maybe he was used to being around people."

All the while, sitting beside him, El listened without interrupting, his eyes flashing every now and then as he absorbed everything Gil was saying. He sat there listening, smiling, nodding, and dropping a casual comment now and then.

Until Gil mentioned, "Hey, you won't believe it, but I finally managed to find a way for us to communicate without getting noticed, but unfortunately those shades overseers in that bloody arena found a way to come mess with me all the way down there."

"Ah! Damn it, talk about a pain," he cursed at the end.

"Hmm. Oh!" El asked, leaning forward with sudden curiosity. "You've been talking about these abilities for a while now... but what could you actually do with them?"

"Oh! For example, I could manifest a sort of shield around myself," Gil explained naturally.

Unconsciously, Gil tried to tap into that exact internal feeling again—attempting to reproduce what he had done inside his dream—before slowly remembering right after that, after all, this was all just a mundane memory, a dream.

But the process was already underway.

Suddenly, an ethereal, translucent golden sphere materialized out of thin air, encapsulating Gil in a radiant burst of light right before El's eyes.