“I don’t know about the others, but with your illusion, Mister Padt, I’m sure you can make the perfect dream world unlike any. As I mentioned before, doing free alchemy practices is only the beginning of it. You can achieve anything.” Freud excitedly described the amazing dream world he had in mind.
Angor, however, didn’t believe Freud’s “Utopia” was possible. No matter how good it turned out, it was still a dream. However, it would be a worthy attempt.
Freud suggested that they could keep Jon’s memories and personality intact after his body died. But without any solid proof, Angor remained skeptical.
When Freud was done with his questions, he went into his “old room” in Angor’s Church of the Deceased and began leaving notes on Dream Reading.
Meanwhile, Angor checked the “safe playground” where the new recruits were resting. As he specified before, the safe zone was available from 0:00 to 6:00 on each day.
Without minding the participants, Alda was taking it easy on a rocking horse while humming a child’s lullaby.
While listening to his adorable voice, the worn-out recruits slowly fell asleep.
Sunny moved to the edge of the playground and spoke to Alda, “Don’t be so nice to them. I want to listen to their screams. This is boring.”
“Come on, they need some rest to yell louder during the day, right?” Alda replied innocuously. “You don’t want them to break down and surrender. That’s no fun.”
“Aw, you have a point! Well, I can’t do anything now anyway.” Sunny stared at one of the participants dressed in an expensive-looking skirt. “I’ll focus on that woman next time. Even if I can’t kill her, I’ll make sure to scare her to death.”
With a satisfied smile, Sunny went back into the orphanage so that she could earn Freud’s reward.
On top of the building, Angor saw the door behind him opened by someone, and Sunny, Neya, and Brulee showed up.
“Where’s Mister Dison?” Sunny looked a bit fearful in front of Angor but still kept her impolite attitude.
“Mister Padt, the girl insisted on talking to you, I can’t say no to her,” Neya apologized.
As the creator of the illusion, Angor knew everything that happened just now, such as how Neya did try to stop Sunny from bothering him. Although Neya didn’t do a very good job because she still told Sunny where Freud was.
Brulee was together with Neya because the bird had been trying to pry information out of her so that it could learn more about Angor’s secrets. Of course, Neya didn’t reveal anything useful.
“Freud is helping me with a favor,” said Angor.
Sunny was clearly not satisfied with the answer, although she did nothing more than walking away since she couldn’t force Angor to talk.
Neya looked a bit disappointed. She was hoping to find out what Angor wanted from Freud.
She then thought to leave Angor alone, but Angor suddenly stopped her.
“One moment,” Angor said while pointing to the training ground below, “Freud told me that these people were new talents from the Tower of Hurricane?”
“Correct.” Neya nodded. “It was me who asked for permission, that I’m to test them here before sending them back to the Fey Continent. Do you need something from them?”
“There’s a certain... troublemaker, among the group.” Angor pointed at the woman in luxurious clothes, who was supposed to be Sunny’s “next target”. “She knows about this illusion, doesn’t she?”
While talking to Freud, Angor also kept some attention on what was going on around the illusion, including why Sunny was so furious about this particular woman.
In fact, this woman was having fun in the game instead of feeling afraid, and she never stopped taunting Sunny.
“You can’t kill me anyway! This is all fake. What’s the big deal?”
She was basically asking for a ticket to death if Sunny were still the violent wraith from a few months ago, which was no longer the case.
“I’ve asked Freud to take charge of the illusion, so I shouldn’t interfere too much. But as a recruiter, you really shouldn’t tell her the secret of the illusion beforehand. You’re disrespecting Sunny’s effort, and mine.”
Neya glanced at the said woman and grew awkward. “It’s my fault. She’s Princess Metz from the Silverheron Clan. She used to be a good child back home. When I saw how terrified she was in here, I kind of told her that this is an illusion. I never thought she’d behave like this.”
“Talking about people born in the same family. You’re all the same, cocky and arrogant, just like Dove Silverheron.”
Four years ago, Angor met with Dove as a fresh recruit on the Redbud, where Dove was killed by his own servant.
Neya thought Dove used to offend Angor and quickly looked down.
After telling Neya about this matter, Angor sent her away without doing anything. The training was not his job anyway.
Still, he felt just a little annoyed when he saw a rich snob treating his illusion as a joke. Since he had nothing to do while waiting for Freud’s work, he planned to adjust the illusion for a bit.
Without changing any of the main elements, he was going to add something extra, which was a small trick to better control people’s emotions and memories.
Soon, the “Dead by Daylight” illusion entered a brand new chapter under his control.
Firstly, anyone who entered the illusion would have their recent memory blocked from their minds. This was to prevent people from knowing the nature of the illusion in advance.
Secondly, he added something that amplified people’s emotions. Now, even the tiniest fear could turn into uncontrollable horror.
Lastly, he fully hid the “Easter eggs”, which were intended to assist the participants, behind mechanisms that could only be activated when the recruits passed certain moral tests.
With everything done, Angor looked at the sleeping people and grinned in satisfaction.
“Have fun.”
Freud left the Church of the Deceased and instantly noticed the illusion being different.
“My goodness. If you keep improving the illusion in this way, Mister Padt, I can imagine more organizations nearby will send their recruits here as the first entrance test. And I’ll get awfully busier.”
He was more than glad about this since more recruits meant more income.
“I’ve left the notes in that room. Check them out when you have time.”
Angor reached a spirit feeler inside the small church and noticed another pile of papers beside the said note.
Does Illusions Work Well With Dream Whelk? (4th revision)
It seemed Freud never forgot his ambition.
“All good.” Angor nodded with a smile. “As for your research subject, I’ll be sure to give it a try. No matter what the outcome is, I’m grateful for your suggestion.”
“Heh heh... Should you succeed, Mister Padt, don’t forget to give me a spot in that dream world. Also, my previous promise still stands. I’ll swear under Follower’s Oath and become your follower.”
Without tarrying, Angor said his goodbye and prepared to return to the Old Earth with Brulee.
Even though he was forced to travel away at first, he was quite happy with what he gained along the trip, such as the Demeter and clues about Eureka’s injured spirit. Not to mention another possible solution to treat Jon.
What Freud suggested might sound like an odd thing to do, but it was still doable, if there was no other workaround.
“Wait a second... I think I forgot something?”