“What, what do you mean something’s there? Flora, don’t scare me~.”
“Step back, Sheryl.”
Perhaps it was the seriousness in Flora’s voice—Sheryl shuddered.
Aidan also pulled out his wand shaped like a sword from his waist.
Maybe because they realized their presence had been noticed.
The things hiding began to reveal themselves.
The rocks that made up the mountain quivered, and from beneath them emerged hard pincers.
“What is that?”
“Looks like some kind of crab.”
Crabs camouflaged as rocks clicked their pincers together and crawled toward them.
Flora’s expression hardened as she saw a large boulder in their path split apart by those pincers.
The cut surface of the severed stone was too smooth.
It wasn’t a dull claw—it had cutting power comparable to an industrial saw.
“Tch!”
Flora wasted no time in assessing and immediately drew up mana.
They had been lying in wait in disguise, and once exposed, they began charging straight at them.
Flora, as usual, wove mana into threads to form a spell.
Normally it would take less than a second to complete.
Now it felt like she was drawing underwater, the process dragging painfully slow.
‘It’s not working properly!’
Flora grit her teeth and forced the spell to completion.
The [Source Code] she had received from Ludger helped, and more than that, the experience of opening her mana path under suppression served her well.
She had already endured squeezing out unmoving mana before, so it did not trouble her much now.
Even within Dreamland’s strange environment, Flora’s magic showed remarkable completion.
Beasts of flame surged forth, rushing at the rock crabs.
The leading crab swung its pincer, but the flaming beast burned it away, pincer and all.
Seeing this, the other rock crabs immediately hunched their bodies down.
Whoosh!
A wave of hot heat swept past, but the crabs with their shells turned up were unharmed.
Those that withstood the attack lunged again.
Their speed was even faster than before, and Flora bit her lip.
“What the hell are these things?!”
She quickly prepared her next spell, but there was no time.
Because she had recognized their camouflage too late, the distance between them was already too close.
‘I need to buy time.’
And in front of Flora’s eyes—Aidan’s back as he rushed the crabs.
“Wait! You...!”
Before Flora could shout, Aidan swung his wand shaped like a sword at the crab.
It wasn’t a real sword, just a wand molded into that shape.
It shouldn’t have been able to cut the crab’s carapace, which hadn’t even flinched from 3rd-circle fire magic.
But—
Slice!
Aidan’s wand sliced through the crab’s shell as if it were nothing.
More than that—it split the crab’s entire body clean in half like firewood.
Flora’s pupils dilated wide at the unbelievable sight.
“Huh?”
Aidan, the one swinging, was just as shocked.
“This actually works?”
Even as he muttered in confusion, Aidan didn’t stop swinging.
The crabs lashed out with their pincers, but Aidan dodged with fluid grace, countering with each move.
With every swing of his wand, crabs were cut apart.
Leo, Taishy, and Iona, who had rushed over to help, stared in disbelief.
‘Even if Aidan has gotten stronger... not like this.’
Leo’s pupils reflected Aidan, raging like a wolf among sheep.
He had gotten stronger over the break.
But what Aidan was showing now—this went beyond mere growth. It was something else.
As though this restrictive environment was, for him alone, granting even greater strength.
Slash!
Aidan swung his wand horizontally, cutting down three crabs at once as they charged.
Every swing burst with condensed mana at the tip, sweeping a wide arc.
It looked as though he had cleaved through space itself.
It was technique he could never normally perform.
‘My body feels light. Strength keeps overflowing. And more than that—I feel like I can do even more here.’
Aidan didn’t understand why he had become so strong.
Nor did he try to.
The only thing filling his mind was the vow to cut down the enemies before him.
Like a single straight line piercing through—his mindset resonated with Dreamland’s strange nature, and his talent blossomed.
Encouraged by his body moving better than ever, Aidan felt—this, he could handle.
Stronger.
Faster.
Aidan didn’t just swing his sword.
He also pictured spells in his mind, channeling desperate will into reality.
The crabs that tried to go around his sword’s arc to target him couldn’t react to the magic that followed.
‘This should almost finish it.’
But just then, one crab camouflaged in the ground suddenly rose and lunged at him.
Dust exploded, and within it gleamed sharp, powerful pincers.
Even Aidan hadn’t expected this, and his reaction was too late.
Just as the pincers were about to strike—
Crackle!
A sharp spear of lightning pierced through and blasted them away.
When Aidan turned back, he saw Flora, arm outstretched toward him.
“......”
“......”
Aidan nodded toward Flora in thanks, then charged the crab again.
For Flora too, having such a capable vanguard made casting her next spell much easier.
Thanks to their combined efforts, they subdued the crabs without casualties.
But no one felt relief.
No one knew when, or from where, the next lifeform might attack.
One could say maybe if they stayed still, nothing would happen—but the atmosphere suggested otherwise.
Because above them, something enormous cast its shadow as it moved.
The survivors’ faces went pale.
They didn’t know what exactly it was, but it was clear it was hundreds of times more dangerous than the crabs.
It drifted above, circling, but could descend at any moment.
“F-Flora, what do we do?”
“Hold on. I’m thinking.”
Flora hesitated.
Truthfully, she had no idea what to do.
And yet she thought anyway—because of the gazes fixed on her.
‘Aside from me and Sheryl, they’re all first-years. Here, I’m the oldest, even if barely.’
It was only a one-year difference, but to the drowning, even a straw feels like salvation.
‘I hate this.’
To be admired is one thing; to actually shoulder responsibility and live up to it—quite another.
Barely surviving herself, she now had to protect underclassmen who couldn’t even help?
If it were up to her, she’d just take Sheryl and move separately. Survival odds would be much higher.
But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Because Ludger’s face kept surfacing before her eyes.
‘What would teacher have done?’
The question was to herself, but the answer came easily.
He would speak coldly, glare sharply, intimidate the students.
But he wouldn’t abandon anyone.
He would save everyone.
Realizing that, Flora’s shoulders relaxed.
“There’s no helping it.”
She looked at the younger students.
Their eyes, desperate like baby birds waiting for a mother bird’s feed.
She wouldn’t achieve the best outcome, but she could at least give her best.
“We’re going down.”
Words spoken dictatorially, allowing no objections.
Yet that boldness, that fierce charisma, lent conviction even to this absurd order.
“If you don’t want to die, follow me.”
Sheryl’s eyes went wide at Flora’s commanding stance.
In that moment—she resembled Ludger.
* * *
“Ughhh. Damn, my whole body aches.”
Hans groaned in pain.
Not a single part of his body was without ache.
What the hell had happened?
Hans slowly raised his upper body.
“You’re awake.”
“...Boss? This isn’t a dream, right?”
“It is a dream.”
Then Hans remembered belatedly—this was Dreamland.
Right. He had opened his eyes and found himself in a forest he’d never seen before, wandered, then the ground had collapsed beneath him.
And then...
What had happened?
“Ugh. My head...”
“You should rest a bit. It’s still hard to keep your mind steady.”
“What exactly happened?”
Ludger explained ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) everything to Hans.
The sudden outbreak of the sleeping sickness. The demon Nirvara who had caused it.
And how this was the middle layer of the dream world, where the unconscious revealed itself.
“...I see. No wonder I remembered nothing—so my beastly nature rampaged again. No one was hurt?”
“Fortunately, I stopped it beforehand.”
Hans let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you. I almost harmed innocent people again.”
To Hans, situations like this were little more than trauma.
If it had happened again, he would never have forgiven himself.
“Sorry. I made things dangerous because of me.”
He apologized to Sedina and Seridan too.
It hadn’t been intentional, but he knew it was a burden, a kind of karma he had to carry.
That was why Hans had a sense of responsibility.
“You idiot! What’s there for you to apologize for!”
“She’s right. Senior, it’s your constitution, you couldn’t help it.”
“No, even so...”
“Instead of whining, think about what to do next!”
Seridan pressed him hard, and Hans blinked.
“I agree with Seridan.”
“Boss...”
“You’ve regained clarity for now, but we can’t know when your wildness will surge again, so we need to stay cautious.”
“No need to worry about that, I think. Since Boss beat me senseless, my mind’s clear now.”
“Is that so.”
“It was just earlier—I was thrown into this strange place, caught off guard, and it happened. If I stay careful, it’ll be different.”
Hans brushed off the dust and stood.
Though his body ached like muscle pain, it was already healing quickly.
He realized anew—his body was beginning to break free of human limits.
“So, we have to defeat that Nirvara, right?”
“Correct.”
“And it’s waiting below, in Dreamland’s deepest layer?”
“It’ll be waiting in the very depths.”
“...Do we really have to go there?”
Hans’s cowardly streak surfaced again.
Seridan arched a brow, and Hans scrambled to justify himself.
“N-no, I mean, even here in the middle layer it’s like this, so the depths... can we just rush into a place that dangerous? I heard it’s deadly down there.”
“Even if we don’t, we can’t avoid death. Whether we want to or not, we’ll eventually fall into the depths. It’s just a matter of time.”
“...Damn it. So our only choice is to fight head-on.”
Hans checked his body.
Because this was a world influenced by the unconscious, the sensation in his hands as he clenched and unclenched them felt wrong.
Like he wasn’t moving a man’s hands, but a beast’s arms.
Probably the beast factors within him, together with animal instincts, were overflowing now.
“Don’t worry too much.”
Ludger’s words pierced him, and Hans flinched.
“W-what do you mean.”
“As I’ve said before—it depends on how you choose to use it. You can’t let yourself be swung around forever by the sword you hold.”
“That’s...”
“Remember the sense when you transformed into a spirit beast. The Beast of Jévaudan isn’t the same, but the essence isn’t so different.”
Hans decided to carve Ludger’s advice into his bones.
Truth be told, he had already faintly thought, ‘maybe I could?’
What he lacked was confidence in doing it alone.
But with Ludger saying it so firmly, he felt it might actually be possible. His mind grew lighter.
“More importantly, what about the others?”
“The other Owens members—I told them to retreat if in danger, but judging by the situation, that doesn’t seem likely.”
The entire city of Rederbelk had been hit.
Even if emergency escape routes had been set, the others must have been swept in too.
“Then they’re in the upper layer. Should we wait here to join up?”
“How could they possibly find us among so many islands?”
“That’s true. So for now we go down with just this group.”
Then Seridan, who had been quietly listening, spoke.
“My lord, I think I’ll have to drop out here.”