I...Failed!?

A little while ago, the hidden boss was sitting on a rock, sitting besides the rock was a weird creature that looked like a large lizard. Except the fact, it had bright red skin and eight legs. Its long tongue was like a snake's tongue. With the way it was sitting it looked lifeless. It was still, but instead of the blankness like Helkep, the poor creature looked scared.

Suddenly the hidden boss started feeling dizzy, he slipped from the rock and fell next to the lizard, the lizard immediately moved its legs to get away, it stopped atcsome distance and looked at the hidden boss.

The hidden boss grabbed the rock and shattered it in his annoyance, a look of reverence flashed in the lizards eyes.

The lizard walked towards him, even though the hidden boss had almost chocked it, on their way to the second floor.

The hidden boss sat their, not moving, he was feeling extremely sluggish, once again he felt the suffocating feeling he felt on the previous floor.

This time in anger, the hidden boss resisted it even more fiercely than he did on the previous floor.

The weird connection he felt he had was weakening, he felt it flickering, like a candle about to burn away.

Feeling the connection burning away, he felt his own existence flickering. Fear flashed in his eyes, he felt he was about to die.

As he started shivering in the feeling he never felt before, a warm feeling on his hand calmed him down.

He moved his hand, searching for the source of the warmth. He felt as if there was something squishy and warm besides his hand, he grabbed it.

Slowly he got up, he tried to ignore the extremely disgusting feeling of his death and looked at the place where he felt the end of the connection was.

His eyes shook, anger boiling his blood, he licked his lips and bent down, "Dare annoy me!? DEATH!"

(Note: Hope you don't need to be reminded but the monster is still talking in his language.)

Hearing his wrathful voice, the lizard in his hand shook fearfully, the hidden boss didn't realize something was in his hand and started running, the connection his guide.

When he arrived at the end of the connection, he saw a fireball coming towards Helkep, as Helkep jumped away, a monster pushed him towards the fireball again.

He felt the weird feeling tingling again, he felt as if something was about to rip him apart.

The monster had evoked his anger, he vanished from where he stood, appearing besides the monster, he slapped him on the face, leaving no trace of its face.

He glanced sideways saw the same type of monsters, he immediately ran towards them and gave a slap to all of them, killing them all in a matter of seconds.

Than he looked at the fireball which had almost reached Helkep, he ran towards the fireball, he looked at Helkep and sent a backwards punch towards the fireball.

Thankfully he didn't use the hand with which he was holding the lizard like creature, otherwise...who would know what might have happened to it.

He opened his mouth and spoke sarcastically, "You weak, fight strong, you idiot!?"

Helkep opened his mouth and said, "...Sigh! I truly wish you spoke in the human language, then I would have known what you always felt so arrogant about."

Helkep shook his head and looked around, seeing all the monsters killed, he got up and walked towards Noil, suddenly a pungent smell hit his nose, he looked down and saw...his shirt burning, the fire had burned his skin as well, the skin was deformed, black and revealing some of his organs and bones, Helkep calmly opened the buttons of his shirt and threw it away.

He blankly started at his pant which was also burning, he patted it with his hand to extinguish it. After a few pats the fire extinguished, revealing his pants which was burned from the left side and the burned flesh.

He forgot his shirt was on fire due to the heat from the fireball.

"MUHAHA!!" Helkep hearing the laughter behind him and saw the hidden boss rolling on the ground, laughing so hard that tears were coming from his eyes, his hands were on his stomach.

"May I ask, what's so funny!?" Hearing Helkep's eerie voice, the hidden boss felt a weird sensation in his body and immediately stopped laughing and sat up start like a good boy.

Helkep searched his pant's pocket and found nothing, all the pills were inside the pocket which was already burned.

He slowly walked towards Noil, he reached him very difficultly, he had stopped himself many times from losing consciousness.

He sat besides Noil's body and searched his pockets for healing pills, thankfully Noil had lots of them, Helkep took one and sat there for some time. Slowly he fell unconscious.

The hidden boss, looked at Helkep weirdly and sighed, he kicked a monster body on the high ground, he jumped on it and sat comfortably on it. The smell of blood, you ask, he had learned to ignore it very far back.

His sight fell on the lizard like creature in his hand, he remebered this lizard following him from the first floor and than now it had followed him here.

The lizard like creature turned its head to stare at him, their eyes met, the hidden boss after a moment of silence placed the lizard next to him. The lizard moved and sat down besides the dead monster's body. The hidden boss could only stare blankly at this stupid lizard, sitting besides the body and not leaving.

The smell of blood attracted quite a few monsters but they all turned into corpses by the hidden boss, slowly the stench of blood thickened to the point the monsters started fearing and avoiding the place, the lizard like monster's reverence for the hidden boss only deepened.

Seeing all the monsters corpse and the hidden boss not eating any of them, it moved towards a corpse and bit a piece of it and looked at the hidden boss, not swallowing it. The hidden boss looked blankly at the stupid lizard looking at him stupidly.

Seeing the hidden boss not moving or getting un-happy, it swallowed the piece and looked at the hidden boss once again. The hidden boss thought the lizard was enchanted by his handsome face, thinking of this, he nodded approvingly. The lizard seeing the hidden boss nodding, felt as if he had been given the approval to eat the food.

So it started eating it, it's bite was small and slow at first but it started getting faster and faster. The time it took to eat half of the body was 10 minutes but it only took 5 minutes for it to swallow the other half.

After it swallowed the whole body, it walked towards another one and looked at the hidden boss. The hidden boss was intrigued at the sudden increase of eating speed in the lizard. Seeing the hidden boss looking at it calmly, the lizard thought he didn't care how many were eaten, so the lizard once again started feasting.

The lizard proved true in intriguing the hidden boss again, the lizard's eating speed only became more fast.

The lizard ate a total of 14 monsters corpses. The first one it ate took about 15 minutes and the last one it ate only took 7 minutes.

After eating its fill, it came back and laid down besides the corpse, the hidden boss was sitting on.

Helkep remained unconscious for 2 hours before he finally regained consciousness.

He sat up straight and saw his wounds were mostly healed, the burned skin had healed and was now in a dark black colour, which was currently healing.

The pill he had eaten was indeed of high quality but the true magic was done by the artifact inside of him.

He checked Noil's pulse and he was still alive. Though he hadn't healed and was still in his beaten up state.

Helkep thought taking him out in his current state would be stupid. As it might call for another useless interrogation and he would have to waste his energy again.

So instead he looked at the hidden boss, who was staring at him while sitting on a corpse, and waved towards him to come forward.

The hidden boss turned his head away, ignoring him completely.

Helkep looking at this could only sigh. He looked around at the corpses all around the place, having nothing else to do, he started digging out their cores.

To his amazement, not all the corpses had a core. This was something he could never believe if he hadn't seen it himself, as every monster had a core inside of them.

As he could come up with nothing, he just started taking them out from those that had them. There were a lot of corpses which turned out to be empty.

It must be known that the cores weren't only present in the brain, it was Helkep who had memorised the location of the cores found in these monsters.

Even after not getting a core from every corpse, there was still a pile of them.

There were so many that Helkep wondered how he would get all of them out.

Helkep sat on the ground and wondered what to do. His sight fell on the lizard like creature which was sitting near the hidden boss.

Helkep rubbed his eyes before he was certain that it was alive. He remembered what it was.

'That's a Shifter Lizard. It's a useless creature found on the first floor. It has only one skill, 'Form Change' it can turn its skin into fire, becoming a fiery lizard. And in that form it can spew flames from its mouth. Which can only be used to ignite some leaves. That's why it's useless, even I can defeat it.' Helkep wondered what it was doing sitting besides the hidden boss.

But seeing that the hidden boss was doing nothing against it, Helkep was intrigued.

He walked towards it and saw it sit up straight and carefully look at him, he was amused that it didn't run away.

He walked right in front of it and examined it. The monster also examined him, not running away like it should.

Helkep looked at its relatively big body size, then looked at Noil. He had an inspiration.

"You want one of those, or more?" Helkep pointed at the cores and asked the lizard. The stupid lizard understood nothing.

It just tilted its head, 'Sigh! I wish I knew the monster language.' Helkep went and grabbed a core and placed it in front of the lizard.

The lizard curiously eyed the core, before it opened its mouth to swallow it.

Helkep gave it a slap on its head, the lizard looked at him with an angry but cute look.

Helkep pointed towards Noil and than pointed towards the core.

The monster...understood nothing but by this time, Helkep knew he could use this lizard.

He waved towards the lizard to follow him, after taking some time to understand, it followed Helkep.

Helkep grabbed Noil and placed him on the lizard. Noil's body wasn't entirely covered by the lizards body but he would have to bear the rough ride.

Helkep couldn't carry Noil due to two reasons, he would lose his energy mid-way, he was currently not healed entirely so his energy would dry out even quicker.

So he needed someone else to carry Noil. And hence the stupid lizard was a golden opportunity.

Helkep once again asked the lizard to follow him, he went towards a corpse and peeled its skin, not entirely. After cleaning up the skin a bit he placed all the cores in it.

He went towards the hidden boss and placed the knotted skin in front of him.

The hidden boss understood, but he looked away not caring.

Helkep sighed and tied the skin with the hidden boss's leg.

He looked down on his leg, the skin was tied to his leg, he thought the dumb being wanted to tie him here, so that he wouldn't follow him, he got up and started walking behind him, he didn't even feel the weight in his leg.

He grinned mockingly and continued to follow Helkep.

Helkep looked back and saw that the hidden boss was following him and had not untied the skin, he didn't know why he didn't untie it but right now he didn't care either.

What Helkep was looking for wasn't the teleportation circle but something like a cave where he could stay at, until Noil woke up.

After searching for some time, Helkep finally found a suitable cave.

Inside the cave, he laid Noil on the ground. And himself rested his back against the wall.

After some time, he got up and walked towards the hidden boss, and untied the skin from his leg.

"Thank you!" Helkep didn't know his motive but he wasn't an ingrate, he could at least say thanks, even if the voice sounded like a dead persons's.

The hidden boss only blinked his eyes, not knowing why Helkep suddenly untied the skin.

Helkep waved towards the lizard, beckoning it to come forward. When it came in front of him, he gave it all the cores except the cores of the Seven Eyed Deformed Veils.

The lizard looked at Helkep, it didn't expect him to suddenly place so many things in front of him.

The core was a delicacy that it had never eaten, he placed one in his mouth and looked at Helkep, wondering if it could eat it.

Helkep nodded and the lizard swallowed it quickly, after all what would it do if he changed his mind.

He felt a strange energy coursing through his body, he couldn't help but salivate at the sight of so many more cores.

It opened its mouth and grabbed another core, it looked at Helkep as if asking whether it could eat or not.

Helkep pointed at all the cores and than pointed at it.

The lizard swallowed the core and felt wondrous energy coursing through its body, it once again grabbed a core and looked towards Helkep.

Helkep ignored the lizard this time. The lizard slowly ate all the cores, leaving none behind.

The hidden boss just stared at the lizard and Helkep, doing their stuff.

After sometime Noil woke up, after he finally escaped his trance, a notification rang in his head.

«Ding! You have failed the quest 'Help The Fallen One Rise-Up'. You met the condition of being defeated two times during the time you are with the quest person. This quest will not be available again.»

Hearing the sudden notification, his mind went blank. After 7 minutes passed he finally thought, 'Huh!? I...failed!?'