Do not be lured by anything.
That was Julia’s warning.
It had sounded a little out of place, so Ludger had asked.
Why must it be so?
But Julia had given no answer.
The troubled look on her face made it clear to Ludger.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell him—it was that she couldn’t. The moment she spoke, something would be altered.
Yes. That meant it was something one had to experience firsthand.
“We’re going in.”
Ludger jumped down.
“Yahoo!” Seridan immediately leapt after him.
“Eiit!” Sedina squeezed her eyes shut and jumped, as if bracing herself.
Hans alone remained, floundering.
To be honest, he absolutely did not want to go in. Hadn’t he been dragged into this without any resolve of his own?
Dreamland grew more dangerous the deeper one descended.
He had already suffered when his beastly instincts ran rampant the moment they reached the upper middle layer. If they went further down into the central section, what else awaited? His meager imagination could not provide an answer.
But still.
Everyone else was going—could he alone remain behind?
Yes. If he wasn’t there, who would assist his brother?
“Ah, I’ll go with you!”
Hans clenched his teeth and leapt toward the surface.
In an instant the calm water grew near.
‘What if I sink and drown? I can’t even swim that well.’
That fear lasted only a moment.
Ssshh.
When his body touched the surface, it slipped beneath so smoothly.
Not like water, but as though seeping into jelly.
‘Huh?’
Hans, having braced himself, opened his eyes wide at the strange sensation.
It was far too comfortable to be called water. He could breathe, and had no need to flail his limbs.
‘What is this?’
Hans looked around.
From the outside, the surface had seemed like an endless sea.
It was natural to think there would be an unfathomable abyss beneath.
But once inside, the scenery was utterly different.
Beneath the surface stretched whiteness like a blank canvas.
Was this what a whiteout in the Antarctic blizzards felt like?
No life, no structure, no nature—only a world of white.
When he looked up, he saw the surface as a boundary, and above it floated the islands and blue sky.
From the outside it had looked like an endless abyss, yet within was white.
The moment he recognized it—
The world flipped.
“Uwahk!”
From head to toe he felt as though spun half a turn.
The white world below became above.
The blue world above became below.
The scenery changed as if a sandglass had been overturned.
Thunk.
Hans’s feet touched a blue ground.
The surface rippled beneath his soles like water.
Hans checked it over and over.
Now below, he could see the floating islands inverted, the very ones they had descended through.
“My god... it’s like stepping into a mirror.”
Thump, thump.
He tapped the ground with the tips of his shoes.
At the springing sensation underfoot, Hans murmured gloomily.
“This looks like it’ll be hard to get back.”
“It’s not hard—ordinary people can never return.”
At Ludger’s sudden reply, Hans nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Ack! Scared me! Give some warning before you appear! And wait. Never return? Then... are we trapped here?”
“Not trapped. We can keep going down.”
But—Ludger’s eyes narrowed at the snowy white expanse.
“What happens here, we’ll have to see.”
“That’s...”
Hans took a step toward Ludger.
And then—
─The world changed.
Ludger’s figure blurred and faded like watercolor dissolving in water, while the white scenery was painted over with every color.
Hans froze in his tracks.
Before his eyes spread a golden wheat field.
Hans’s mouth fell open. He could not help but stare.
Beyond the field the sun was setting, the sky glowing with evening red.
Ending the picture-like beauty was a small house beside the wheat.
On the front lawn sat a rocking chair, and between two trees a hammock was strung.
“Ah.”
He could barely speak.
How could he not recognize it?
It was the scene he had pictured hundreds, thousands of times.
If only.
When everything with Ludger was finally over.
When every incident had reached its end, and rest and peace had at last arrived.
Hans dreamed of buying a wide tract of land with his saved money, building his own home, and living quietly.
To sit in the rocking chair with a cool beer as the sun set.
To end each peaceful day in satisfaction, then gaze at the starry sky before sleep.
That was Hans’s blueprint for the future.
And that ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ very scene now unfolded before his eyes, exactly as he had imagined.
Even the smallest details that had never been formed in imagination were perfectly realized.
He looked at the rocking chair.
On the small wooden table beside it sat a glass of beer, bubbles rising within.
Gulp.
Without knowing it, Hans stepped toward it.
In that moment he forgot everything—where he was, what he was doing.
Only the fact that his longed-for future lay right there sweetly thrilled his mind.
It was only natural that one’s heart would turn toward the ideal paradise before one’s eyes, rather than the uncertain, hazy future.
He was just about to step toward the house when—
“Kehek!”
A rough grip seized the nape of his neck, making him choke.
“Wh-who?”
“Hans. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Brother? Ah, well, it’s just...”
At the sight of Ludger’s sculpted face, Hans finally came to his senses.
“That’s right. Come to think of it, I was in Dreamland... But then, that scenery just now...”
Hans pointed with a trembling finger toward the wheat field and house.
Ludger narrowed his eyes in that direction.
“What are you talking about?”
“Brother! You don’t see it? The scenery—it changed!”
Hans’s voice shook with excitement.
At his reaction, Ludger’s suspicion deepened.
It was too earnest to be a lie.
But in Ludger’s eyes, nothing of the sort appeared.
Only a blank canvas-like world stretched out.
“You...”
Just as Ludger was about to say more—
He closed his mouth.
For the Hans he was seeing vanished, and instead a new scene spread before him.
Whoooosh.
On a cold ridgeline buried in white snow, a blizzard raged.
From within a makeshift hut there glowed a faint orange light.
It was a sight he remembered.
Ludger stood still, staring at the hut.
Then the door opened, and a man wrapped in a fur cloak stepped outside.
—It’s snowing heavily.
-Going, are you?
The one seeing the man off was Ludger.
More precisely, it was Machiavelli, as he had been called back during the Yuta Kingdom’s civil war.
With a rifle slung over his back, Ludger spoke to the man.
-“Because of the blizzard, we can’t see the enemy’s movements. If you head out recklessly now, you’ll only get surrounded.”
-“No need to see it. It’s obvious. They’ll be raiding the nearby village. In this weather, they’ll need supplies. Even while we’re talking like this, they’re slowly making their way toward the village.”
-“Tomorrow we’re carrying out a large-scale raid on their forward base. Striking while they’re away makes this the perfect chance. You’re telling me you’d throw away such an important opportunity?”
-“Even if I step out, that doesn’t mean this operation will fail, does it?”
-“That’s an awfully modest thing to say, coming from the best marksman in the northern mountains.”
At Ludger’s words, the man in his mid-forties gave a bitter smile.
The steam from his mouth was instantly shredded and devoured by the blizzard.
As if foreshadowing what would become of him.
-“What exactly do you think a sniper alone can do? If you go, you’ll die.”
-“If I don’t go, the villagers will die.”
-“We already issued the evacuation notice. We warned them over and over. Most have fled, and those who stayed have accepted death.”
-“No one in the world truly accepts their own death. Do you think they stayed because they wanted to die? They simply couldn’t leave.”
-“I cannot help you.”
At Ludger’s words, the man shrugged as though it were the most natural thing.
-“At dawn, when the battle begins, you’ll be the core of our power. There’s no way they’d let Machiavelli sit out of such an important fight.”
-“I can at least assign some men to you.”
-“No need. They’d only slow me down. Don’t worry so much. I only plan to stall them with sniping.”
-“......”
-“Hah! So different from how you treat the princess. I never knew you were such a sentimental man.”
-“......We’ve said enough. Anything more is just wasting time for both of us.”
-“So it is.”
The man turned to leave, pushing through the snowstorm.
Ludger, watching his retreating back, quietly called out his name.
-“Hey. Leonis.”
Leonis’s steps halted.
He turned back, asking what was the matter.
And in that moment, Ludger knew deep down that he would never see him again.
Leonis had said he’d just stall for time, but in truth, he was walking to his death to protect his country’s people.
He shouldn’t have let him go.
That one man’s life was worth more than a thousand soldiers in this war.
Even if it meant straining their bond, he should have stopped him, forced him to live.
Yet what came out of Ludger’s mouth was the exact opposite.
-“See you tomorrow.”
To someone leaving, the only words he could offer were a small encouragement.
Leonis widened his eyes at that, then burst into loud laughter and nodded.
-“Ahh. Yes. See you tomorrow.”
And with that, Leonis walked down the snow-swept ridge.
And he never came back.
Later, when the civil war ended in victory for the princess’s faction, the name of Leonis, the hunter-turned-sniper, was enshrined in the Yuta Kingdom’s Hall of Heroes.
But honor given to the dead was an empty, fleeting thing.
It would have been better not to have let him go.
That was Ludger’s thought as Gerald, standing before his grave before leaving the Yuta Kingdom for good.
“So that’s what it was.”
Watching that scene, Ludger understood why Julia Plumehart had warned him so.
“Not to be swayed by anything—that was what she meant.”
This snow-white place realizes the deepest desires of those who step into it.
The regretful past one wishes to undo.
The peace and abundance one longs for in the present.
The ideal future one dreams of most.
Who among humans does not regret the past, wish for the present, or look forward to the future?
It is the frailty innate to all.
And this world digs into that weakness mercilessly, luring endlessly.
Just like the sight Ludger was facing now.
If he had invoked military law to stop him that day, Leonis would have lived.
Perhaps those villagers who had not left would have died instead, but they had been warned many times, and had accepted the risk.
In the fierce civil war against the prince’s faction, Leonis’s support fire had always been Ludger’s strongest shield.
That made their bond especially close.
To be honest, he regretted it.
Compared to nameless strangers who ignored warnings, wasn’t it only natural as a man to want to save a comrade who had crossed death’s ridges alongside him?
Here—he could undo that regret.
In this world, he could erase his past, begin the life he wanted.
It was poison.
A poison that seeped into the very bones.
And precisely because of that, it was sweet.
“Utterly insulting.”
Ludger gave a cold smile.
“Yes, I regret what happened that day. But even if I had stopped him, would I not still regret it?”
Leonis had left proudly, ready to die to save his people.
If Ludger had trampled that resolve and forced him to live, would Leonis have rejoiced?
Their bond would have cracked, birthing another regret.
Perhaps one even greater.
“Yes, I regret. But the choice I made that day was mine alone.”
The moment he saw Leonis’s face, Ludger had known he could not stop him.
That was why he let him go.
And Leonis, departing, had voiced no hesitation.
He went boldly, diving into death to save others.
To erase that day’s regret here—
It would be to betray even their final promise.
“And if I wanted to set right my regrets, I should never do it in a place like this.”
Changing the past in a dream was still false.
No different from comforting oneself with delusion.
Gooooo.
Ludger raised his mana in fury.
Blue light spread like constellations around him, forming spell structures.
The mighty roar of mana resonated, erupting like a volcano.
The torrents of mana spread outward, obliterating the snowstorm and the mountain itself.
As the glass-like scenery shattered into fragments, Ludger’s blue eyes blazed.
“You think something like this could stop me?”