Now that Roberto was finally on his own, his worries diminished radically. Not having to worry, for the moment, about anyone else but himself was already a big step up from before. " Well, I guess I can go now," he mumbled aloud to avoid thinking more than he had to.

Obviously, now that he was faced with a behemoth capable of launching cannons of fire and flame, he had to use his brain a little, but that didn't mean that reasoning would take him very far. In fact, the moment he settled back into that placid and aseptic little box he had been forced to leap out of at the beginning of the Game, Roberto saw the situation much more clearly.

"First I need to find out if all the training I did with Pen Pen can come in handy here. Then I'll need to know more about how the that gunshot works," he said at that point in an all too relaxed tone of voice. The fear of a few minutes earlier had become a faint possibility that, should it materialize again, the boy would be able to accept. More importantly, he noticed that the Mini Boss had already come a long way and now the time to start dancing seemed to have begun.

The Bolzig Puppy, though still out of reach, seemed to realize his presence. Moved by what could have been a thirst for blood or excitement, the Monster accelerated his pace and roared to be heard, violently pulling out of his throat another gurgling sound that alone could be enough to disgust the ears. In any case, however, he did not open fire, a detail that Roberto diligently noted down.

Stopping where he was, he roughly calculated the distance between them, preparing to snap at the sight of the first suspicious movement. Because of this, the poor heart, already hammered by cigarette smoke, had to endure the stress of seeing that damned monstrosity grow bigger and bigger in front of him. A tremor that even Roberto's damaged psyche struggled to ignore completely.

However, even before it could become so annoying to slow down his movements, the Mini Boss suddenly stopped. The bulge hanging from his face rocked slightly and then lifted up and pointed in the direction Roberto was facing. He didn't let himself be seduced any further and left at maximum speed in the direction he had arrived, thus avoiding the problem of having to think about the safety of Camilla and Alex.

The Monster was not very generous and did not give him more than a few seconds before firing another fireball that, fortunately, hit the ceiling of the second floor. The noise caused by the explosion this time was more bearable for Roberto, which allowed him to keep his cool. The shock wave of the impact was also sudden but not violent enough to make him lose his balance.

"One, two, three, four..." Now that he had witnessed the first shot, however, he needed to know the possible rate of fire so he could figure out how much and what it could do. Fortunately for him, the second flare didn't come until the twentieth second, enough time to make his way back to what he defined as 'a safe zone', as it was outside the creature's attack range.

"Walk, walk... take your time I need to catch my breath." He commented between labored breaths, carefully watching the Monster's movements to know in advance when to resume running. However, after a quick calculation, he decided to look away so he could realize the actual damage those fireballs had caused. Obviously a couple of isolated instances couldn't have been used as reliable samples, but what he saw improved his mood anyway.

"If that stuff blows up near me at the very least I'll lose an arm, but I see that aiming is not one of your strong points. Eh, ugly piece of shit- Ah, damn." He said to himself with a certain excitement running through his veins; at least until he realized that the behemoth had stopped again. Which is why, not wanting to end up like a pig, he immediately went back to his escape.

The boils and decaying fat that covered his face made it extremely difficult to tell if the Bolzig Puppy understood what was happening around him or, even more trivially, had any thoughts about it. However, the fact that he raised his proboscis even faster than before, launching another fiery projectile accompanied by a pained guttural gurgle, seemed to suggest that tag was not one of his favorite games.

From there on several explosions, and subsequent roars, shook the central part of the mall, in a bizarre wheel of fortune in which Roberto could not afford to delay his answer. In the meantime however, returning to a much less explosive situation, Camilla had managed to get far enough away to be able to safely watch the clash, locked in place by conflicting feelings.

Alex still hadn't regained his composure, stuck in a pitiful cycle of crying, screaming in pain, shaking, and drooling. Even she couldn't believe that a simple shock was to blame, since, in her opinion, even what they were going through couldn't justify an emotional response like that. Alex didn't even look like himself anymore, the one who remained there trembling by her side looked more like an empty shell. However, when he set out to search for head injuries that might have explained that steep fall, she could not find a single bump or wound. Alex seemed to have survived almost entirely unscathed, if you didn't count broken fingers. On the one hand, that was certainly good, but on the other....

Camilla, poor thing, could no longer figure out what she really wanted from him. In fact, there were many things she could no longer really understand. Perhaps it was her physique, very well placed for a woman, that had always made her think she had to protect him. Or maybe her less-than-feminine disposition might have had something to do with it as well, if she wanted to be completely honest. But whether it was one or the other changed very little.

"Please... Please..." She found herself repeating insistently as she held her dear moron tightly, no longer knowing what to hold onto to make peace with herself. Underneath it all, she felt a deep weakness; well hidden between the desire to protect him, the guilt derived from the fact that she had asked him to go to the mall together a few days earlier and the motivation behind the date.

Alex had been close to him for as long as she could remember. They had grown up together as children. They had been separated and then reunited thanks to a gentle touch from the goddess of fortune. Yet, she had always been afraid of losing him again. Even now she couldn't help but feel terrified when she imagined him fighting on the front lines against the monstrosity that had arrived in front of them. However... However... However, Alex was also the person she loved.

And was there something wrong with the small, selfish desire to want to feel protected and cared for by him? Despite being stronger physically and mentally, was there still something wrong?

Personally, I don't feel like making a judgment. Relationships are different from each other, within certain terms, and the people who form them follow the same pre-determined rules at the table. Searching for the right and the wrong in this lonely starry sky I don't think is anyone's job. As much as we can get into the irrational, people's feelings are also made of opposing hopes.

However, paradoxically, there was only one other person in that small world who reacted to that call for help.

An imbecile, that's for sure, but one that could have really been that kind of man towards her. At the moment, he found himself stuck in a small and dark room. He had no recollection at all of how he had gotten into it, nor did he have any idea how to get out. There was a lot of confusion in his head and some pain scattered throughout his body. His heart was beating fast, to the point where he could almost feel his chest leap. He couldn't see anything now that the lights were off, but after some time he began to hear the girl's voice over the dark belt.

What... what's going on? He began to wonder silently, unable to remember anything beyond the moment he had gone to lie down the night before. He looked around, asphyxiated by that claustrophobic space whose limits he was struggling to understand. He managed to get on his feet with some effort, finding himself brushing the ceiling with his head.

"Where am I?" He returned to saying, asking another question on the wind. Every now and then, a distant echo from the familiar tone made his ears perk up, but it was too faint for him to discern what exactly he was saying. Despite this, however, he also felt a sense of calm. He for one was surprised by it, but perhaps what put him at ease was the fact that nothing there could hurt him.

"Do you really want to be seen like this?" A much clearer, more forceful voice called to him from afar, causing him to turn in that direction and stare into the darkness. "Really? Ah... I don't put my finger on other people's preferences, but are you for real?" The voice taunted him again, this time much closer than before. Alex didn't understand what it meant but he thought he recognized that way of speaking.

Driven by curiosity, one step at a time, he began to venture out. He could not lean against any wall except the ceiling and, in that total lack of light, put his balance into trouble. Nevertheless, he continued to push forward in search of the origin of the voice, but the more he walked, the more his body seemed to struggle to respond to his commands.

There was some sort of smell in the air, something burnt perhaps. It was a scent that came and went depending on the wind. A fragrance that was not at all pleasant, but that drew the direction of his journey. It was impossible for him to define it with certainty, but he had the disturbing sensation that he had already smelled those fragrances some time before.

As he continued on, the occasional echo still grazed his ears, but the words he carried were still too faint for him to pick up. On the contrary, the voice that had been teasing him came back even more loudly and clearly than before, saying, "I'm asking you again," and then mysteriously resumed saying from behind his back, "Do you really want to be seen like this? Wasn't once enough for you? What, does it turn you on to see her in danger? Or maybe you think keeping her safe is other people's job? You really haven't changed much in the last ten years, have you, my lovely fellow?"

Alex felt a tremor run down his spine. A few images and memories came back to him, but it was all still too confusing to make any sense out of them. Still, his thoughts instinctively went in a specific direction. Without even realizing it, the imbecile ended up recalling a scene from many years ago that he had already tried to forget who knows how many times.

Then, an enlightenment came to him. In the strange game in which they had ended up, there were magical abilities and monsters beyond human understanding, so couldn't he have ended up inside a strange spell? Could there be any other explanation perhaps? Otherwise, how else could he have ended up in such a place?

"Yes... It can't be otherwise. It has to be like this. I'm stuck somewhere. I must have activated a trap. A trap... Yes, a trap that teleported me somewhere. The voice must be part of the trap. I must remain calm... I must remain calm... In fact, it must be a nightmare. I must still be in bed sleeping. Maybe it was all a nightmare. Yes, it has to be. I have to get back to sleep quickly. Tomorrow I have to go with Camilla to the mall. Yes, to the mall... I must... I must..."

Unfortunately for him, both assumptions were completely wrong and as scenes from the morning came back to his mind even he recognized that fact. However, he remained clinging to those ramblings of his during his march done with his head down while ignoring the strange effect that place was giving him. It wasn't just the recent memories that were confusing him, but even those from long before didn't instill any particular confidence in him.

In any case though, his wandering came to an end when he banged his head against someone's chest. The darkness had hidden him and looking at the floor didn't help, but Alex was pretty sure it was a person since a wall would have been much harder and painful to hit. When he then raised his forehead to look at who was in front of him, the same voice that had made him start exploring greeted him by saying, "When it comes to you, well, I have to say that I can't help but feel embarrassed. When I saw you being bullied by my daughter I felt a certain pity for you. But I was also grateful to you for being her friend. At the time it was even worse than now, wasn't it?"

Alex couldn't clearly see who was speaking to him. Narrowing his eyes, he could only glimpse the edges of a shaky shadow, yet he felt that person's name was on the tip of his tongue. It was someone he had spoken to before. He had seen him before. He had certainly met him...

"Well," he then resumed his voice, as Alex felt a hand with a powerful grip rest on his shoulder. "For the moment, how about you stop stepping on my corpse? You've been around it all this time and I understand that you can't see anything, but even dead people have feelings, don't you think?" He then went to continue as if nothing was wrong, as a very strong light expanded around them allowing both of them to regain their vision.