### Chapter 386 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2)
—
– Yu Songee
The chaotic multiverse! No, the hotel!
As I stumbled out of the sanctuary of blessings, feeling dazed, I finally noticed that there were two other people who seemed to be in their right minds.
“So, Kain really jumped out of the hotel?”
“Yup!”
“Did Miro and Elena— that was a confession?”
“Yup.”
“Kids these days! Well, Miro isn’t exactly a kid anymore, is she?”
“Grandpa, why does that matter?”
Maybe because the absurdity had reached its peak? Grandpa’s expression seemed surprisingly calm.
“Hmmm….”
“Grandpa—”
“Seungyub, tell me what happened yesterday again.”
“Okay.”
Another sensible person, Seungyub, filled us in on the events of last night.
Grandpa nodded and said, “I think I got one thing straight. The root cause of all this trouble seems to be that drinking party. The only one who’s fine is someone who didn’t participate, right?”
Seungyub tilted his head. “But I did participate.”
“You fool, you just had a soft drink! That doesn’t count as participation!”
“Is that how it works?”
“It seems like some bizarre event has occurred because the majority got blackout drunk.”
There was a point where understanding didn’t quite change anything.
Grandpa muttered comfortingly. “It’s probably not a big deal. It’s party time, so no dangerous events should take place. Besides, my sponsor said to have a ‘fun time.’”
“My sponsor said it’s dangerous out there right now!”
“…”
Seungyub casually summed up the contradictory remarks from sponsors. “Seems it’s risky for us, but a fun time for them.”
“…”
“What do we do now?”
“How are the others doing?”
According to our investigations around the place, here’s what we found:
Kim Sanghyun, Han Kain: left the hotel.
Miro, Ari, Elena: dazed and sprawled near the front desk.
Cha Jinchul: deep in thought at a second-floor table.
Lee Eunsol: ?
“Where did Eunsol go? It’s time to use the flute to wake everyone up!”
“I haven’t seen her, and I doubt the flute will work. The bracelet didn’t wake anyone up, and all the blessings against mental contamination are kind of useless right now.”
“… I think I’m starting to get it.”
Grandpa seemed to have realized something with the mention of the useless blessings.
“This is a dream.”
“Pardon?”
“Yeah?”
While Seungyub and I were taken aback, Grandpa continued to explain.
“I’ve caught various monsters that plunge humans into nightmares while doing my job as a field agent. Seungyub, didn’t you also get caught by a ‘nightmare butterfly’ once?”
“Yeah. It was pretty tough.”
“The state of our teammates resembles dreaming. Are they immersed in their own worlds? Of course! The essence of dreams is about creating and diving into one’s own world.”
“Why have the blessings and heritage gone haywire—”
“Because this place is partially detached from reality. Or perhaps, dreams are not a mental illness.”
“The hotel itself is a space where ‘everyone’s dreams’ overlap, not part of reality?”
“Exactly!”
“So what about us?”
“We’re like outsiders invited into everyone’s dream.”
Seungyub asked urgently, “So what do we do now?”
“We have to wake these sleepwalkers up!”
“Uh, how? We’re not trained for supernatural dream waking like you are.”
“First, I know how to wake Miro up.”
*
Grandpa led us to the ‘Costume Room’ in the basement.
As expected from a hotel, it wasn’t an ordinary place; this was where the outfits we desired would magically appear.
After a bit, Grandpa emerged, dressed in a black suit and a checkered tie.
But that wasn’t the end of the transformation.
“Grandpa?”
“Songee, I need your help. It would be easier with your bracelet, but since that’s useless, I’ll need some disguise.”
“Okay.”
While Seungyub and I helped, Grandpa explained his plan.
“Agents often deal with monsters, like the dream monsters or nightmare butterflies, that wield dreams as weapons. The core of the response is realizing ‘this is a dream, not reality.’”
“Kind of like how to wake up from a lucid dream? Reality Check?”
I’ve heard something similar in movies, though it probably differs from the agents’ experiences.
“Pretty much. In reality, you often do things you can’t normally do.”
“Like bending your fingers backward?”
“However, this method can be hard for some.”
“Are you talking about Ari?”
“Ari can do practically any movement.”
“Huh?”
“Ari can bend her fingers backward any time, and even hold her head in her hands for a bit—”
Seungyub jumped in shock. “Wait! My sister doesn’t do things like that normally!”
“Just figured you’d be surprised.”
Normally, people realize they’re dreaming by attempting impossible movements and can wake up that way. But Ari has so few impossible movements that this method doesn’t work for her.
“Thus, Ari wakes up using this method.”
And with that, Grandpa’s disguise was complete.
In front of the mirror, Grandpa’s usual muscular physique was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, he had a chubby belly, a relaxed expression, and some features that had changed.
He looked like a retired wealthy grandpa.
“Is this the method?”
“Ari had deep trust in this person. However, that person no longer exists in reality.”
“Who is it?”
“Ari’s first encounter with the head of the Korean branch of the Administration Bureau.”
*
When the disguised Grandpa appeared in front of Ari, something miraculous happened.
Ari, leaning against the wall with a vague expression, suddenly brightened up and began to look around in shock.
“Ari agent, wake up.”
“…”
“Seriously, you’re dreaming in such an important place?”
“Muksung.”
“Pathetic. I knew you were hopeless since you cried every day saying you missed your mom—”
“Muksung, I’m awake now.”
“…”
“I never cried just because I missed my mom.”
Having awakened from the dream, Ari began to piece together the situation from a different perspective.
“It seems there’s a misunderstanding; it’s not that we can’t communicate, or that blessings and heritage are completely useless.”
“Then how come it didn’t work with the bracelet?”
Ari lightly laughed and grabbed my arm, making it impossible for me to move.
“Now that you mention it, Ari, you were pretty strong earlier. You were using your heritage?”
“During dreams, I become quite ‘self-centered.’”
“Self-centered?”
“I only react to what I want and ignore the rest.”
“Hmm….”
“The way we talk is like, if you prattle on about something that doesn’t interest me, I’ll just ignore or steer the conversation back to me.”
I recalled how Kain had tossed the keyword ‘love’ around as if it were about ‘jumping off the hotel.’
“Heritage or blessings behave similarly; they function according to what one desires. The reason you can’t wake up is that you don’t even think the current situation is a dream.”
“Okay, got it about the situation, but how do we wake others? They’re not trained in awakening from supernatural dreams like you.”
“For now, I know how to wake Miro.”
As we moved to wake Miro, Ari looked at me with a complicated expression.
“When you wake from a dream, everything that happens in the dream disappears. Kain and Sanghyun’s escape will be like it never happened. So…”
I understood what Ari was trying to say.
“You already forgot everything.”
“… Thank you.”
The events in the dream need to be left as dreams.
I decided to forget what I had just seen.
*
“Miro.”
“…”
“Miro, do you want to see Kain?”
No matter how seriously Ari spoke, Miro didn’t respond until I mentioned ‘Kain.’
“Kain? Where did he go?”
“Where could he have gone?”
“I think I like Kain! I want to ask him out!”
“… That’s a tiresome matter.”
“But, but!”
“But, but what?”
“If I confess and he says no, what do I do? He vanished while mumbling weird stuff!”
“…”
In that short conversation, an epiphany struck me.
Isn’t this a universal experience everyone goes through?
You develop feelings for someone, but confessing is terrifying.
At least for now, being able to laugh and joke together is manageable, but getting rejected would ruin that.
Miro must’ve had that thought too, which is why she never confessed.
But once she slipped into a dream, her restraint vanished, leading her to act like before.
Others are the same way.
They’ve wanted to act for so long, held back by reality.
In dreams, they don’t hold back.
“Miro, then let’s try and find out!”
“Huh?”
“Miro has a time travel clock, right?”
“Oh? Oh?”
“Use the time travel clock to summon Kain and ask him.”
“He’ll just say something weird again—”
“No way. This time, it won’t be like that.”
That’s right.
The genuine Kain from earlier has slipped into his own dream, ignoring Miro’s confession.
But the Kain we’ll summon through time travel hasn’t been affected by the dream.
As Miro trembled slightly, she pulled out her clock.
The moment Kain appeared, I quickly grabbed his hand and tugged him back.
Ari also jumped in to assist.
“Huh? Huh? Why summon Kain—”
“Miro, you can’t just make important decisions on a whim. Have you thought about what to say?”
“W-What?”
“I’ll help you.”
As Ari held Kain up, I swiftly explained the situation to him.
“The hotel is pulling one of its usual lame tricks again.”
“Did you get that, Kain?”
“Vaguely. But a sudden confession….”
Kain’s expression looked more flustered than happy.
“Ari mentioned that if wishes come true, we’d wake up from the dream.”
“Is that so?”
“So if you accept her confession, she’ll likely be so happy that she’ll wake up. And don’t worry too much about what happens afterward. Once everyone wakes up from the dream, this whole event ends—”
“They’ll forget today’s memory?”
“Exactly!”
Kain wore a slightly puzzled expression.
“I think I see things differently though.”
“Huh?”
“What’s the purpose of this event, and why was it thrown?”
“An annoying hotel prank?”
“The hotel is certainly a frustrating place, but these events are hardly pranks.”
“…”
“As usual, there might be risks and rewards here.”
Risks and rewards.
“I can guess the risk. Someone won’t absolutely be in their right mind until the party time is over. That means we need to take the sleepwalkers into the cursed room.”
“What’s the reward?”
“Information.”
“Information?”
“Whatever happens in the dream disappears when the dream is broken. Which means we can act without thinking about the consequences right now. What would happen if we escape through the elevator or front door?”
“…”
“Is there really a reality out there waiting for us? Are our families there? Is reality all okay?”
“…”
“If information is the reward, then memories won’t disappear fully. They’ll linger faintly like a dream.”
“R-Really….”
Just then, Miro approached, visibly trembling.
She was in a much tenser state than when she had charged ahead with her confession earlier.
Perhaps she sensed something intuitively.
Confessing to Kain while he was out of it and confessing while he’s sane are entirely different matters.
“K-Kain.”
“…”
“I am—”
The moment a girl in love gathers all her courage to speak, every one of us—Seungyub, Grandpa, and even Ari—held our breath in extreme tension.
Kain’s lips were about to open.
—
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