Just as Renji had explained to Eileen earlier, regarding dreams, if you’re not aware that you’re “dreaming,” then even if you’re the master of the dream, it’s useless. But once you become “aware” that you’re dreaming, things change drastically. Renji needed only a thought for the maid, whose body had been pierced by Suthia’s scythe, to rapidly heal. The missing arm regrew, and within a few breaths, the maid stood up as if nothing had happened, leaving Eileen beside her utterly astonished.
[Master? But I was… I mean, run, Master, run! Wait, huh?]
The maid, revived by Renji, initially appeared confused. She seemed still caught in the threat posed by Suthia. However, when she finally looked around and saw no sign of the corrupted nun, her confusion deepened.
This series of mental activities was perfectly expressed by the maid’s tone and facial expressions, making her seem as perplexed as Eileen.
However,
“Alright, let’s cut the act. Tell me, who are you ?”
The maid, still not fully grasping the situation, looked around and found no one else. When she realized Renji was addressing her, she tilted her head and asked with a puzzled tone:
[I’m sorry, Master, but 86 doesn’t quite understand what you mean?]
“86, never mind. Since you won’t say, I’ll call you 85 for now. 85, do you know what first made me feel something was off?”
Renji pointed at the maid and said, “Actually, it was you.”
[Me?] The maid’s face showed even more confusion.
“Yes, because the real 86, for example, taking the sentence you just said, would have spoken like this:”
“86, while showing a confused expression, reflected on what could have possibly made the Master uneasy and said so.”
Renji briefly imitated 86. 𝑖𝘦𝑎.𝗇t
Observing the silent maid across him, he didn’t mind and continued: “You see the difference, don’t you? The real 86 doesn’t have such a rich system of tones and expressions. That’s why she developed a special way of speaking, where she verbalizes her internal thought processes.”
“This is the first inconsistency I noticed. The second one was when I deliberately started a topic to make Eileen talk to you. I could understand if others couldn’t notice the anomaly in you like I did, but Eileen, having been with you for so long and with her straightforward nature, would never hide her thoughts. She would definitely have blurted out, asking why your way of speaking had changed. But the reality was different.”
Renji glanced at the girl next to him, who wore a puzzled expression, clearly believing that the original maid spoke that way in this dream.
Up to this point, the contradictions were fully exposed, and Renji’s thoughts became clearer and faster.
“Eileen didn’t find you strange, which is already inconsistent with the Eileen in my dream. Unless this isn’t just my dream, and someone else has also entered it. In her dream, she believes she’s disguised herself well, so other characters in the dream, apart from me, don’t find anything odd about you.”
“Moving forward, I must say your plan was indeed good, focusing on Suthia and the ‘corruption’ aspects, making even my subconscious accept this dream. Was your intention to kill me in the dream?”
“But unfortunately, you were too hasty. From the moment Suthia broke free from my contract, I became more suspicious. And later, when I showed my ashen-like true self to Suthia, but she still attacked me, I was completely sure that she, like you, was fake. I’m still in a dream, and it’s a shared dream between you and me.”
After laying out this long chain of deductions, Renji took a deep breath. He needed to verbalize these thoughts because the more he proved it was a dream, the greater his power in the dream would be.
Realizing this, Renji had already figured out how to leave. Relaxed and even having the leisure to mildly complain to the silent maid opposite him, he said, “Not to be rude, but do you have some grudge against Suthia? Or did Thia do something to make you resent her so much? Why did you have to paint Thia in such a dark and ugly light? If you hadn’t made Suthia so crazy and hideous, I probably wouldn’t have realized this so quickly.”
85: “…”
“Nevermind, I guess I’ve figured out a bit about who you are. If you keep silent like this, I won’t play along. Dreaming is nice, but I actually prefer a bit more reality.”
After leaving these words with the maid, Renji returned to Eileen’s side.
That’s right.
The key to leaving this dream realm still lay with Eileen.
Based on the dream rules he had deduced earlier, the reason he couldn’t leave the dream was that his power wasn’t sufficient. In other words, he “wasn’t quite” aware that this was a dream.
He needed decisive evidence, a stronger proof to “convince” himself.
And Eileen was this evidence.
“Lucky you haven’t been much help before,” Renji muttered under his breath.
“What!?”
“What I mean is, I’m glad I never used the Tainted Miasma Touch on you!”
Yes.
Dreams are derived from reality, but if something never happened in reality, then dreams are powerless.
For Renji, the thing materialized by the Tainted Miasma Touch on Eileen represented this unknown.
It was the key to leaving the dream realm, the anchor.
With a flicker of skill, the red mist of the Tainted Miasma enveloped them. Renji placed his hand on the girl and activated the Tainted Miasma Touch, but this time, what he extracted from Eileen…
was a blank.
Obviously, this was not reality.
And this was the decisive evidence of the “dream” that Renji was looking for.
In that moment, time seemed to stop, everything around turned still, and all the “real” images in his vision turned into glass, then began to crack, and finally…
*Crack. Crack!*
The dream shattered, and that feeling of “surfacing” after deep diving reemerged. But in the collapsing ‘phantasm’, the only constant was the unchanged form of the maid.
As Renji left the ‘phantasm’, the last thing he saw was the maid’s eyes meeting his own. Those eyes, calm and indifferent, instantly conveyed the impression of an object, exactly as a tool should appear.
Soon after, as Renji regained consciousness and his vision cleared, he found himself in a somewhat familiar setting.
Ideally, he would have returned directly to reality, but that was not so simple.
Clearly, the pitch-black space surrounding him was not the city hall of the Sealed City.
The reason he found it “somewhat familiar” was due to the thick Miasma in the space. This was no longer a dream; this was more like a semi-reality.
Renji had been to this “Miasma Space” before. The last time, he was in the altar pool when an elf took the opportunity to pull his soul consciousness into it.
And this time…
Was it taking advantage of this opportunity to use the ‘Dream Entry’ method to find him again?
Well, at least now he knew. The mastermind behind the scenes?
He saw a dark-skinned elf sitting on a… cross? at the top of the Miasma Space. Upon seeing Renji, the tentacles entwined around the cross, like tails wagging in excitement, seemed to cheer.
The elf woman licked its lips, gazing down at Renji from its high seat on the cross, its eyes like those watching a prey that had fallen into a trap.
Then, with a frivolous and smug tone, the elf said to the young man, word by word:
“I told you, we would meet again soon.”
“Ashen!”
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