Absconditus jumped onto his bed, grabbing the pillow and ripping it to shreds. Feathers flew everywhere, and the kid stabbed each and every one out of the air with his extra limbs. As a child his glare was not as scary and abyssal as his father's, but it was still close. It was as if his pupils sunk into a dark swamp, partially submerged in their anger.

He punched the wall; its impact being felt throughout the entire building. His parents and sibling felt the impact, staying silent as he continued to scream and stomp above them.

"Um, Apsconditum," his mother said, turning to his father. "Don't you think you're being a bit hard on him?"

"I hope you meant to say I'm not being hard enough." His father, whose name was revealed to be Apsconditum, turned to his wife with a low growl. "He's done this sort of shit before, and we can't let him keep getting away with it."

"It's exactly because he's done this before that I think this is too much!"

"Do you hear what you're saying Mirum? This is like letting a criminal go because they've committed the same crime that they've committed before!"

"That's not what I'm saying!"

"How else is it supposed to be interpreted!?"

"He's a child! If he's this unwilling to go to class, there has to be something wrong! Maybe we should check the school, or try homeschooling him, or-"

"You know something like that won't work. The kid's just lazy, and he needs to just get over it. The kid wouldn't eat if it wasn't going to kill him."

"But something of this degree can't be normal! We have to help him somehow!"

"It isn't normal, it's just laziness!" Apsconditum got up, walking away despite still having food on his plate. "Maybe we've spoiled him too much, he only does this because he doesn't have anything to lose. We should start giving him more discipline before it's too late."

And once again the room was silent. Absconditus's mother Mirum and his little sister sat in silence, before they continued to eat their food.

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"That's so sad!" Daemonium cried as he heard the story, his tears making rivers along the ground. "I can't believe you'll never see your parents again!"

The team had made it to the 34th floor, which was like a vast and sandy desert. The challenge of this floor was to fight off three powerful mimics, who were disguised as very attractive succubi because of course they were on floor 34, and steal the key from within one's stomach. The assassin, like always, managed to beat them up in seconds and they were already on their way to the next floor.

"It can't be that bad," Sanguisa said, continuing the conversation. "I mean, don't you also have no parents Daemonium?"

"Yeah, but my parents sucked, so they don't count. Besides, seeing them get shot in a dark alleyway is quite traumatizing in my opinion."

Of course, our assassin by the name of Absconditus here didn't tell them his actual story. He told them that he was a rich kid with two loving parents that got shot down in an alleyway, a story that's sounds oddly familiar for some reason. Whatever the case, he wasn't going to risk divulging any information about his actual identity.

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"Do you ever miss them?" As the group walked up the stairs to the 35th floor Daemonium jumped up and down beside the assassin with eyes sparkling with curiosity. "Are you ever sad about the fact that you can't see them again?"

"Um... well..." Stuttering and pausing sometimes helped to make the story seem authentic, like he was actually taking time to recall. Doing it too much would make it seem as if he's using the chance to make it up or simply didn't know, so it was a delicate balancing act. "To be honest, yes. Sometimes I do miss them. I wonder if I could've stopped the attacker, or if I got there earlier, or if I didn't run that day, I wonder if anything I did could've changed anything."

The assassin smacked the surface of his helmet, leaving himself in a bit of a daze and causing Sanguisa to chuckle a bit. He seemed a bit off of his element today, since he somehow forgot he was wearing a helmet in the first place.

"Are you okay?" Daemonium was the only one that seemed concerned at the moment, which surprised the assassin. After all, Daemonium was the one to laugh the most upon hearing his voice, or at least it always seemed that way.

"Yeah." He turned his head away, sneaking the helmet slightly off of his head and putting his arm right inside. He scratched his right eye, itchy from his constant vigilance, but instead finding it to be wet instead. But why? Were these, tears? He could feel them drip down his face, roll down his chin, and hit the obsidian ground of the 35th floor, one tear quickly multiplying to an entire ocean washing down his face. He was genuinely speechless, having last cried over twenty years ago, and back then it was just a single tear. To bring someone like him to tears should be like knocking out a dragon with a single stick.

"Oh? Are you crying?" Sanguisa bent down and looked at Absconditus with a somewhat solemn expression. "If you need someone to talk to, I'm here."

Absconditus looked up, a bit hopeful, before his face flushed with a complete beet red. "I'm not crying," he said, wiping away his tears like a little kid. "You're mistaken!"

"Is that so?" Sanguisa suddenly laughed, hackling like a hyena. "Never mind that, your voice when you're angry is completely hilarious!"

Absconditus was annoyed, but now understood why he had such tears. Even if he was speaking about a lie, he was still speaking about people that were close to him. He may have sometimes been annoyed by his little sister's antics, he may have sometimes hated some of the food his mom would force him to eat, and he may have disliked how his dad treated him or how his dad was overly critical of him or how his dad would get suspicious of every move he made or how his dad's favorite color was yellow, but he still loved them. And even if the story he said was made up, there was still some truth to what he said: they were still dead, and he could never see them again.

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It's been a few hours now. Normally, right after dinner, Absconditus would hang around the living room and either play with his toy cars or his sister until it was bedtime. But today Absconditus didn't finish his dinner, instead having holed himself up in his room for hours.

His mother and little sister were left alone on the broken table, still eating in complete silence. The quietest mouse in the world could take a single step, and everyone would be able to tell exactly where it was off sound alone.

"Mommy," his little sister said, finally breaking the silence. "Is Abscki never going to come out of his room?"

"Don't worry Miraculum," Mirum said to her daughter. "I'll go get him."

She walked up the stairs and went to his door, knocking her hand on it three times. She got no response however, so she simply knocked again, and yet again there was nothing.

"Absconditus," she said. "Come downstairs."

She wasn't surprised to hear absolutely nothing.

"I know you're upset; I could hear it in your voice. Your dad means well, he's just worried about you. Back when we were kids, going to school was basically the only way to get anywhere in life. If you didn't succeed, it was worse than being dead. I know things are easier now, that we don't need to be as concerned for you as we were for ourselves back then, but I don't think the thought has fully registered in your father's mind. That being said, school is still incredibly important. I'd just rather we talked about this civilly instead of continuing to grow angry at each other."

Still not hearing a response Mirum let herself in, sitting herself on Absconditus's bed. She lifted the sheets, expecting the young creeper to be there, but finding nothing but pillows and stuffed toys.

She looked in the closet, and under the bed, finding nothing that seemed to point to the location of her son. The only place she hadn't checked was the window, and as she feared it was wide open. That window was big enough for a young creeper to jump through, and Absconditus was definitely that young creeper.