Chapter 82: Chapter 82- Dream And Reunion

"Hnnng...." Talon groaned quietly as his eyes started opening slowly. His mind was hazy and sluggish as if he had been sleeping for two days straight.

Rubbing his eyes, he slowly rose from the soft mattress as he looked around him confusedly. He couldn't really recall what happened after beating the monster.

'Acrypha told me that everything was over... and then... I lost consciousness... I think.' He mused as he tried to stand up, only to realize a crucial detail.

"Huh?" Looking around him again, he was shocked by what he saw. He wasn't in the gymnasium as he thought he was. Instead, he found himself in a bedroom, a very fancy and expensive-looking bedroom.

It was by far the most beautiful room Talon had ever seen in his life. The floor beneath him was carved out of marble, the furniture was a beautiful brownish mahogany wood and the walls were made out of gold.

A huge chandelier dangled from the ceiling that shone brightly, illuminating the entire room. Resting his hand on the soft mattress beneath him, he blinked in shock.

"Ok, where the hell am I?" He murmured to himself as he slid toward the edge of the bed and landed on his feet.

"Hm? Where are my injuries?" Looking down at his body, he noticed that he looked completely fine. All the brutal wounds he sustained from the fight had suddenly vanished. Not only that, his clothes weren't the bloodied mess that he recalled. Instead, he wore what seemed to be a very comfortable pyjamas made out of silk.

"Now I'm really confused. What the fuck is this place? Did I go to heaven? Or maybe hell?"

Many questions filled Talon's head with no apparent answer. So, he decided to do the most logical thing he could think of at the moment, to explore the room and see what answers he could find.

"Hmm, sounds like a good plan to me." Shrugging, he turned around and started walking around the place, inspecting everything he found to be interesting.

The first detail he noticed during this exploration was that the room was oddly similar to those rooms found in luxury palaces.

In fact, Talon was almost sure that there was no such place in South Korea, and even if it existed, the fact that it still looked intact and in good shape even though the integration happened was another mystery in itself.

The second detail was the lack of windows inside the room. It was completely closed with no view of the outside world.

Finally, the most important detail out of them all was...

"I can't open my status window..." Talon murmured as he tried to summon it. No matter how many times he thought of the word 'status', the holographic image refused to appear. This further proved to Talon that he was indeed not in the real world but instead somewhere else.

But, even with all those thoughts, he still looked around till he reached the gigantic closet that was easily double the size of his room back in the dormitory.

There, clothes of all kinds were organized in rows on the shelves with tens of pairs of shoes on the ground.

"This is ridiculous..."

Talon was sure that these clothes were extremely expensive without the need to even be knowledgeable about clothes.

"Who needs 10 different pairs of shoes? How are you going to even use them all?" Talon shuddered at that mere thought.

Being a poor student living in the city, he had one pair of shoes that he used for everything. They weren't good in any way, but he liked them. They helped him through thick and thin and he was grateful for that.

When Talon was sure that she left, he uncovered himself as he looked around.

"Ok, that was a little close. But, what was that about me being a Young Master? And what did she mean by love is a double-edged sword? Am I lovesick or something?"

The more Talon tried to think about it, the more his head hurt. So, he sighed and lay on his back as he looked at the ceiling. "What is seriously going on here?"

He silently looked up, trying to organize his thoughts. Seconds passed silently as Talon's eyelids started feeling heavy again without him realizing, and before long, he fell asleep again.

***

When his eyes opened again, Talon's scenery had changed again completely. The moment he regained his senses, sharp pain assaulted him and made him squint. It was an all-too-familiar pain.

"Ugh..." Groaning hoarsely, tried to look around him only to realize that he couldn't move his body at all. So, he could only sluggishly move his neck around. It didn't take him long to realize that he was back in the gymnasium.

He felt as if he was hit by a train as each move he tried to do would result in a painful groan. In the end, Talon gave up and simply laid there.

"Acrypha... Are you there?" He murmured weakly.

However, no answer came back from his companion so he assumed that she left as usual to go roam around. So, all Talon could do was simply lay there and take in the scenery.

"So, it was indeed... a dream..." He exhaled a small breath and a small smile formed on the young man's face. "Glad I didn't die..."

Talon really thought for a second that he was dead and that feeling was really complicated. As someone who lived a very hard life, Talon did consider death as a way for him to escape the brutal life he had to live.

He wasn't suicidal by any means, but he always thought that perhaps if one died, they would go to a better place. However, if he was given the choice to actually go to a better place and leave his loved ones behind, he would immediately refuse.

Talon cherished his family more than anything else, they were everything he wanted in life. As long as they were fine, he didn't need anything else. Today's events were simply a reminder for him that death was never really a solution, actually facing the problem and solving it was the true solution to everything.

As he was like that, Talon suddenly heard the door click as it opened. His eyes slowly moved toward it as he watched someone enter inside.

Hyun-Jae closed the door behind her with a sigh as she rested her forehead on the door. Her face looked extremely exhausted from all the work she had to do the past week. With Talon completely out of it, all the responsibilities laid on her back.

However, by far, the most stressful thing she was going through at that time was Talon not waking up yet. Even when she believed it was simply a matter of time before he opened his eyes, the small chance that it wouldn't happen still messed with her mind.

'Keep yourself together, Hyun-Jae. Nothing bad will happen...' She clenched her fists and finally turned around to stare at Talon. At that moment, her eyes made contact with his before she froze in her place.

The two stared at each other silently for a while before Talon finally opened his mouth.

"Hey, Hy-"

Before he could even finish the sentence, Hyun-Jae had suddenly moved swiftly and before he knew it, her arms were wrapped around his neck in a very tight hug.

(A//N: Thanks to everyone who supports the book with power stones and golden tickets, you guys are the best:) )