Thirteenth Fragrance stared at Husky, “Do you understand?”
Husky shook his head honestly.
“What do you think?”
“I think you seem to understand.”
Husky replied confidently, “I have an idea of the overall gist, especially the critical part.”
“Oh?”
Thirteenth Fragrance asked curiously, “Which part did you understand?”
“—Anyway, it’s the old man in the gray clothes who is causing trouble, and the other brothers with names are all miserable, right?”
Husky said with confidence. There was no hesitation on his face.
Thirteenth Fragrance’s expression froze for a moment.
“Hey, did I get it wrong?”
Thirteenth Fragrance exclaimed, “…No, you’re quite right.”
Should I say he is worthy of being called Husky?
Even if he skipped everything he did not understand, he captured something by relying on his keen intuition…
“What is your main mission?”
“I have no idea.”
Husky replied honestly, “There’s only one line. [You decide]… and then the prompt is gone.”
“I see. It seems my guess is correct.” Thirteenth Fragrance pondered momentarily and explained to Husky’s puzzled eyes, “I haven’t received any main mission here.”
“It could be that only you have the main mission for the nightmare on this level.”
There were three levels to this nightmare.
In fact, they had been looping in the first and second levels of the nightmare.
The first level of the nightmare, which was the first “Freder’s nightmare” that Justice saw, was the world where Ingrid did not die and killed Frederick more than ten years later.
At the end of that world, a checkpoint flag was planted. In game terms, it was the first checkpoint or possibly the first spot to make a save file.
However, it was a dead end.
After that, Justice “returned to the past” and entered the second level of the nightmare.
They went back to youth. This time, Ingrid died, and they lived to adulthood. Then, they entered the Cinder Barren, where “Justice, the Enlightened One”, killed them.
After death, due to the “reenactment feature” of the nightmare, Justice lost his memory and returned to checkpoint 1. He had returned to the first level of the nightmare, entering the beginning of the second level of the nightmare… In other words, the time when Ingrid died in the youth period.
Justice repeated the “second-level” nightmare countless times.
Every time another self killed him, it would restart from the youth period. Then, he would go through a nightmare that lasted more than ten years until he reached the Cinder Barren. By then, he was killed by another self.
In the end, he would fully realize that he was dreaming. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the infinitely repeating story.
Justice could only realize that he was being used when he was a nightmare purifier. Only then did he know that the house he stayed for a long time had been transformed into a ritual area.
The way to crack the ritual was to enter Room 206 with Frederick.
After that, Justice would keep the “memory of clearing the nightmare level”, return to the youth period, and return to the present place ten years later. That would be the current location where Thirteenth Fragrance and Husky were.
It was a “populated” Cinder Barren.
The prerequisites for a seemingly true ending had already been met.
Why were there people here?
Was it because the “Enlightened One” Justice has not yet invaded this world?
Was it because he would become the Enlightened One in the future?
“It’s like how you have trusted me.”
Thirteenth Fragrance said to Husky, “If Justice realizes that this is a nightmare and clears the nightmare with Frederick from the exit of Room 206 and comes back here again, then Justice will tell Frederick everything he knows.”
What Husky had experienced had happened once in history.
Frederick trusted his friend.
Frederick’s wisdom enabled him to realize that his friend had been trapped in his own nightmare.
Then, Frederick, as the master of the nightmare, would tell Justice how to clear the nightmare.
“…Kill Frederick. Kill all Fredericks.”
With the face of “Frederick”, Thirteenth Fragrance replied to Husky with the face of “Justice”.
Just like the countless reenactments in history, the situation when the tragedy just happened here was the same.
It was the essence of [reenactment].
Thirteenth Fragrance vaguely understood the weight of this word.
However, this time was different.
That was because Thirteenth Fragrance was not Frederick.
Husky was no longer Justice.
“This is a dream within a dream, so you’re going to kill me twice.”
Thirteenth Fragrance looked at Husky and said to him calmly, “Kill me for the first time [in this world], so there will be no Justice. You can return to Gray Professor at the end of the first life with your memory.”
“This is your second checkpoint or the second save point.”
“The ‘enlightened One’ Justice at that time probably killed Gray Professor angrily. He has realized that this is his nightmare. The most important thing is that Gray Professor will not resist.”
“Afterward, you shall use the ritualist knowledge that Gray Professor taught him to take over Gray Professor’s ritual. Then, you will return to the second life and try to kill all the ‘Frederick’ in the dream. When all the ‘Frederick’ in this nightmare are dead, Justice can escape from this nightmare.”
It was like withdrawing all text messages sent to the past in Steins; Gate [1].
The only piece of information missing from the awakened Justice was in the deserted Cinder Barren, where a mysterious man killed both Justice and Frederick.
This mysterious person was the “Justice the Enlightened One” who would do whatever it took to clear the nightmare.
If Justice knew about this, he would have been revived from the first save point. However, since he was the Enlightened One, he and Frederick didn’t go outside. Instead, they went directly to Room 206.
He just didn’t know about this matter.
“In other words, the first and third levels of nightmares only appeared once. The content of the first level of the nightmare was fabricated by Gray Professor, and it was a trigger. On the other hand, the Enlightened Justice created the third level of the nightmare.
“The moment the enlightened Justice entered the second level of the nightmare and killed Frederick, he was already stuck. Yes, the enlightened person only made a move once, and that would suffice to make this nightmare stuck.”
Infinite paradoxical loops were generated.
Why does dying in this nightmare not increase the erosion rate?
Because that was by design.
Without this feature, Justice would have died in a nightmare during the second level of the infinite loop.
When a transcender dies in a nightmare, it becomes part of it.
In fact, as long as Justice was murdered in the nightmare, Gray Professor had achieved his fundamental goal: resurrect the body of “Frederick” and use it to split his identity.
However, as a sacrifice dedicated to Tragedy Writer, he made a deliberate detour, leaving Justice in a state of death and life.
That was the paradoxical cycle of being “killed by the future self” constantly.
The cycle was like an ouroboros [2].
The first and third nightmare levels were limited to one count, but the “dungeon instance” of the second level looped increasingly. It multiplied like a virus.
Since Justice could not eliminate all of Fredericks, Justice could never escape the nightmare.
Although Justice’s erosion rate didn’t increase at all, he had repeated hundreds, thousands, and countless times of reincarnation in just one night of the nightmare. Unfortunately, his spirit had been completely lost.
[A fleeting moment of anger. A neverending remorse.]
It was never-ending torture.
After Justice died, his soul was also deeply trapped in this nightmare. Since he wasn’t completely dead, his soul didn’t feed this nightmare. However, he wasn’t alive either, so he gave birth to a new nightmare.
Frederick’s soul and nightmare were stuffed into Justice’s body.
Gray Professor stole Frederick’s body.
“This time, I understand now,” Husky said in a low voice.
“So, what should I do?”
Thirteenth Fragrance fell silent.
He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t dare to make this bet.
He was also afraid that he would also be stuck in this nightmare.
At this moment, Annan’s steady voice suddenly rang in his ears.
“—After letting Husky kill you, commit suicide from the first level of the nightmare and prevent the Awakened Justice from being born. According to the rule of this nightmare, ‘Justice is all dead’ in the first level of the nightmare so that you can be resurrected.”
Is this foreign aid?
Thirteenth Fragrance froze momentarily and quickly shared Annan’s words with Husky.
They had no other choice.
So they quickly made up their minds.
“I actually want to kill you once…”
When things came to an end, Husky hesitated a little.
Finally, looking at Thirteenth Fragrance with his eyes closed, he slowly clenched his fists.
Husky was full of determination.
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