Duke Yuma opened his eyes.
“….”
His clothed body appeared translucent.
‘Success.’
He had successfully entered Cloney’s dream.
Duke Yuma attentively observed the scenery within Cloney’s dream.
It was an exquisitely crafted landscape that hardly resembled a dream.
Yuma slowly walked through Bell’s nightmare world.
It was nearly indistinguishable from reality. To find Cloney, Yuma strode into the palace.
*
Cloney entered the first floor of the palace.
There was one person already seated at the table.
Cloney gazed at Bell, who was sitting on a chair.
Clang.
Bell set her fork down.
She slowly opened her eyes.
“You’re here, Cloney.”
Cloney stared intently at Bell.
Unlike her, Bell was a solid person with no significant changes in her face. Cloney envied her mental strength.
Bell walked towards the training hall.
She swung her sword, endlessly.
Cloney watched with keen interest. As Bell sweated, she grabbed her sword again.
“Haa…haa.”
Bell wiped the sweat with a towel. Then she stood up again and swung her sword.
Cloney, approaching Bell, slowly opened her mouth.
“Sister.”
Bell looked up at Cloney’s words.
“Uh, Cloney.”
“Are you okay now?”
Bell tilted her head.
“What about?”
Cloney hesitated before speaking again.
“…About Yuma.”
Bell’s brow furrowed.
“Yuma.”
She continued quietly.
“How could I be okay? I can’t forget that.”
Bell’s eyes filled with venom.
“I have to kill that bastard who killed Yuma. That’s the only reason I’m holding on right now.”
Grind…
Bell gritted her teeth.
“I will kill him. That god.”
Her resolve was fueled by rage.
While suppressing her anger to the top of her head, she simply kept swinging her sword.
“I hate myself.”
Cloney began to be engulfed in various emotions as Bell honestly bared her soul before her.
Bell continued.
“I hate myself for not being able to protect Yuma… and I hate Empress Brigitte too, for ultimately doing nothing.”
Bell’s pink eyes clearly focused on Cloney’s golden eyes.
“And… no.”
Cloney could easily predict what would come next from Bell, who had momentarily paused.
I could predict the words that would stop in her mouth.
“Cloney, you hate it too.”
Cloney silently conjured words that Bell hadn’t even mentioned in her head, imprinting them.
Cloney left the training ground and headed back to the royal mage tower, towards the third floor where her laboratory was located.
Cloney sat down in her lab chair and quickly skimmed through the materials before her. No matter how many times she read the documents on [Time Rewind], it was never enough.
Sipping her coffee, Cloney repeatedly went over the documents countless times because there were always more scenarios to consider.
Someone stood behind Cloney, watching her intently. Duke Yuma had successfully entered Cloney’s dream and was staring right at her.
The number of coffee cups piling up beside Cloney grew larger. Yuma could only watch as Cloney began to tire.
Even if he opened his mouth to speak, his words couldn’t reach this dream world.
‘In the end, Cloney will have to wake up from this dream by herself.’
Yuma clicked his tongue in frustration.
He even tried to speak. He attempted to send some sort of signal. The conclusion was always the same—impossible.
Ultimately, the conclusion was that Cloney had to notice herself that this nightmare wasn’t reality, but a dream.
“I absolutely must… succeed.”
However, it seemed unlikely that Cloney could easily escape this nightmare. She appeared too immersed in it.
Cloney continued to read the documents with a stiff face.
Yuma sat across from the chair Cloney was in, staring intently at her as she focused on her work.
“Even if my physical body warps due to [Rewind] itself, I must try.”
Dangerously reckless words continued to spill from Cloney’s mouth.
Yuma recalled his conversation with Legores, who seemed to know quite a bit about [Curses].
– While mages have excellent resistance to various curses, oddly, they are surprisingly vulnerable when it comes to magic in the form of dreams.
– When mages enter [Nightmares], they often fall into the swamp of [Rewind Magic]. It’s better for 3rd and 4th Circle mages, as they have almost no knowledge of time magic, so even if they enter a nightmare, they don’t show strong fixation on rewind. However, mages above the 5th Circle oddly remember a spell when they dream of nightmares, and that spell is [Time Reversal].
When you have a nightmare, you conjure a spell to escape from the darkness of that nightmare. That spell is [Time Reversal].
– Should we call this a curse of knowledge? The possibility of failure is high, but there’s always a tiny chance of success, causing you to obsess over it and get trapped in that thought.
– There’s a tiny sense of incongruity coming from a reality different from your own… You end up only focusing on the thought of the time reversal magic, ignoring that very real feeling of unease.
Yuma couldn’t help but toss a question to the endlessly talking Legolas.
Is there any chance of succeeding in time reversal in a dream?
The answer came immediately.
– It’s possible. Since it’s a dream, it’s quite feasible. However, even if you succeed in time reversal in a
When asked why, the response felt like a strong blow to the back of the head.
– You end up having to keep going through the time reversal. Of course, in a
Time reversal theory?
– It refers to whether you can resolve a hurdle that you couldn’t overcome at the moment by going through time reversal. Endless repetitive reversals often occur in the dreams of mages.
Yuma shifted his focus back to Cloney, who was right in front of him after the conversation with the Join Tribe’s Legolas.
There was nothing he could do but trust Cloney.
Since coming to this world, he felt an unfamiliar sense of powerlessness weighing on his shoulders.
This was a curse cast by a god of the mental realm, wishing only for the subject to be trapped in their dreams.
There was no way Cloney, being human, could easily figure that out.
Cloney appeared to be enthralled, continuously poring over documents.
Half a day passed once again. The sun was setting.
Creak—
Yuma turned his head towards the door. There stood none other than Empress Brigitte.
Without even glancing at Yuma, she strode directly towards Cloney.
It was only natural that Brigitte didn’t see Yuma.
After all, he did not belong in this nightmare.
Brigitte had an appearance Yuma had never seen before.
Her disheveled white hair.
Her bloodshot eyes.
This was a Brigitte he had never encountered before.
“…Cloney.”
Brigitte swiftly approached Cloney as if entranced.
“How is the research on time reversal going?”
Brigitte leaned in close to Cloney, her expression twisted into a fierce scowl.
“…If only we could have given Yuma a little bit of our power, this miserable outcome wouldn’t have happened.”
Crunch.
Brigitte ground her teeth.
The sound was loud enough to spill out of her mouth.
Brigitte raised her right hand dramatically.
Cloney, for some reason, just stared blankly at Brigitte who had her hand up.
Smack.
The sound of Brigitte’s palm slapping Cloney’s left cheek echoed through the lab.
“…Hurry, complete the time-reversal spell as soon as possible. We need to save Yuma.”
Step, step.
Brigitte spat out her words unilaterally and turned her back, walking towards the door.
─Bang.
The door slammed shut with a bang.
The lab felt eerily calm, like a storm had just passed.
“…I…”
Cloney’s soft voice reached Yuma’s ears.
“Did you say that just knowing the principle of the time-reversal spell would ensure success? That we would definitely meet Yuma if we cast it?”
Assertion.
That was a statement a mage should steer clear of.
Cloney’s left cheek was blushing bright red, but she didn’t even care about being slapped by Brigitte.
She was lost in thought about Brigitte’s words.
Cloney’s gaze shifted to the ceiling, the floor, and the walls around her.
“Something’s off. Something, definitely off…”
Cloney began to harbor doubts.
A tiny, minuscule doubt.
But for Yuma, that doubt was more than welcome.
Yuma recalled what the Join Tribe Legores had said.
—“Are you talking about recognizing the [Nightmare] and breaking it? There’s nothing grand about it. It’s more about discovering the contradictions within the nightmare you’re trapped in, one tiny doubt at a time…that’s the usual process.”
Cloney widened her eyes and said.
“I…a mage…would never make such an assertion.”
As she looked up at the ceiling and said that, Cloney suddenly jumped to her feet, clearing away the books and papers scattered on the lab floor.
Then she began to draw a circular magic circle.
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