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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Ruby
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Yuma opened his eyes.
“….”
His clothed body appeared translucent.
‘I succeeded.’
He had succeeded in entering Cloney’s dream.
Yuma carefully observed the scenery within Cloney’s dream.
The landscape was drawn so intricately that it was hard to believe it was a dream.
Yuma slowly walked through Bell’s nightmare world.
It was so similar to the current reality that there was hardly any difference.
Yuma walked into the imperial palace to find Cloney.
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Cloney walked into the first floor of the imperial palace.
On the first floor of the imperial palace, there was one person who had already taken a seat.
Cloney looked at Bell, who was sitting in a dining chair.
Thunk.
Bell put down the fork she had lifted with her right hand.
Bell slowly opened her eyes.
“You came, Cloney.”
Cloney stared piercingly at Bell.
Unlike herself, Bell was a very solid person with no major changes in her expression.
Bell envied Cloney’s mental strength.
Bell walked toward the training ground.
Bell was swinging her sword.
She swung it endlessly.
Cloney watched the scene intently.
Bell was sweating and re-gripped the sword she had let go.
“Haa… haa.”
Bell wiped away her sweat with a towel.
Then she got up again and swung her sword.
Cloney, who had approached Bell, slowly opened her mouth.
“Sister.”
Bell lifted her head at Cloney’s words.
“Oh, Cloney.”
“Are you okay now, sister?”
Bell tilted her head.
“What?”
Cloney hesitated, then opened her mouth again.
“…About Lord Yuma.”
Bell furrowed her brow.
“Yuma.”
Bell continued in a low voice.
“How could I be okay? How could I forget that?”
Bell filled her eyes with venom.
“I have to kill him, the one who killed Yuma. That’s the only thing I’m enduring for right now.”
Grind…
Bell ground her teeth.
“I will kill that bastard. That god.”
Bell’s support was rage.
Bell was just swinging her sword while suppressing the anger that had risen to the top of her head.
“I hate myself.”
Cloney began to be swept by various emotions as she faced Bell, who was beginning to bare her soul very honestly.
Bell’s words continued.
“I hate myself for not being able to protect Yuma… and I also hate Emperor Brigitte, who ultimately couldn’t do anything.”
Bell’s pink eyes were clearly gazing at Cloney’s golden eyes.
“And… no.”
Cloney could easily anticipate the next words that Bell had stopped short of saying.
Cloney, I hate you too.
Cloney conjured up in her mind alone the words that Bell hadn’t even spoken.
Words that she might not have even thought of.
And she imprinted them.
Cloney left the training ground and headed back to the imperial magic tower.
Toward the third floor where her research lab was located.
Cloney sat in her research lab chair and quickly skimmed through the materials in front of her.
No matter how many times she looked at the documents about [Time Regression], it wasn’t enough.
Cloney sipped coffee and repeatedly looked at the documents countless times.
The materials about [Time Regression] were insufficient no matter how much she studied them.
There were far too many variables that had to be considered.
Someone was standing behind Cloney, staring piercingly at her.
It was Yuma, who had successfully entered Cloney’s dream, looking at Cloney.
The number of coffee cups piling up next to Cloney gradually increased.
Yuma could only silently watch Cloney’s exhausted appearance from the side.
Even when he opened his mouth and spoke, it didn’t reach this dream world.
‘In the end, Cloney has no choice but to wake up from this dream by herself.’
Yuma clicked his tongue inwardly.
He had tried to speak.
He had also tried to send some kind of signal.
The conclusion was that everything was impossible.
The final conclusion was that Cloney had no choice but to realize on her own that this nightmare was not reality but a dream.
“I must… absolutely succeed.”
However, it didn’t seem like Cloney would easily escape from this nightmare.
Cloney seemed too immersed in this nightmare.
Cloney continued reading the documents with a hardened face.
Yuma sat facing the chair where Cloney was sitting and stared piercingly at Cloney, who was absorbed in her research.
“Even if my body becomes distorted due to regression itself… I must try.”
Extremely dangerous remarks continued to flow from Cloney’s mouth.
Yuma recalled the conversations he had with Legores, who seemed to know quite well about Curses.
“While magicians have excellent resistance to other curses, they show surprisingly excessive vulnerability to dream-type magic.”
“When magicians enter Nightmares, they mainly fall into the swamp of [Regression Magic]. Rather, 3rd or 4th circle magicians have almost no knowledge related to time magic, so even if they enter nightmares, they don’t show such strong obsession with regression. However, magicians of 5th circle and above strangely, when they have nightmares, think of one magic to escape from the stain in that nightmare. And that magic is [Time Reversal] magic.”
“Should I call it the curse of knowledge? The possibility of failure is high, but since they know there’s even a speck of possibility for success, they keep obsessing over only that and become buried in it.”
“A very small sense of incongruity that comes from being different from the actual world… they ignore all that clearly existing sense of incongruity and only think about regression magic.”
Yuma couldn’t help but ask Legores, who was speaking endlessly, one question.
Is there no probability of succeeding in regression within a dream?
The answer came immediately.
“It’s possible. Because it’s a dream, it’s quite possible. However, even if you succeed in regression within a Nightmare, that creates its own problems.”
When asked why, the answer seemed to hit the back of his head quite hard.
“You end up regressing continuously. Of course, within the Nightmare. It’s implementing the regression futility theory, which is one of the contradictions of regression, within the nightmare.”
Regression futility theory?
“It’s a term that came from the point of whether difficulties that couldn’t be solved at the time of encounter can be solved just by regressing. Endless repetitive regression is said to frequently occur in magicians’ dreams.”
Yuma refocused on Cloney, who was visible before his eyes, after recalling the conversation he had with the Zoin tribe member Legores.
All he could do now was trust Cloney.
Yuma felt a sense of powerlessness that he had rarely faced since coming to this world pressing down on his shoulders.
It was a curse deployed by a mental realm god solely for the purpose of hoping that the target would be trapped in a dream.
There was no way that Cloney, a human, could easily notice it.
Cloney continued reading the documents as if bewitched by something.
Another half day passed.
The sun was setting.
Creak
Yuma turned his head toward where the door was.
Standing there was none other than Emperor Brigitte.
She walked briskly toward Cloney without even looking toward where Yuma was.
It was natural that Brigitte couldn’t see Yuma.
Yuma was an existence that didn’t belong to this nightmare.
Brigitte had an appearance that Yuma had never seen before.
Disheveled pure white hair.
Bloodshot red eyes.
It was Brigitte’s appearance that he had never seen even once.
“…Cloney.”
Brigitte approached Cloney quickly as if bewitched by something.
“How is the research on time regression going?”
Brigitte, like someone twisted somewhere, pushed her face close to Cloney’s face with a menacing frown.
“…You said that through time regression, we could return to just before Yuma died. You said that if we just figure out the principle, we could definitely succeed. You said it with certainty. Everything… everything is the sin of you, Bell, and me.”
Brigitte showed a broken appearance that she had never shown even once in actual reality.
Yuma could only watch this situation with a hardened face.
Brigitte clenched both hands into fists.
Her arms trembling, she opened her mouth and began to recite in a low voice.
“If only we could have given Yuma even a little bit of our strength, such a miserable result wouldn’t have happened.”
Grind.
Brigitte ground her teeth.
So strongly that the sound leaked outside her mouth.
Brigitte raised her right hand high.
Cloney just quietly watched Brigitte, who had raised her hand up, with a somehow blank expression.
Smack.
The sound of Brigitte’s right palm slapping Cloney’s left cheek echoed throughout the research lab.
“…Quickly, complete the time regression magic as quickly as possible. Because we have to save Yuma.”
Step step
Brigitte poured out her words unilaterally as if vomiting, then turned her back and walked toward the door.
─Thud.
The door closed strongly.
The research lab was as quiet as if a storm had passed.
“…I…”
Cloney’s faint voice reached Yuma’s ears.
“Said that I could succeed if I just knew the principle of time regression magic…? That if I cast it, I could definitely meet Lord Yuma?”
Certainty.
That was the word a magician should stay farthest away from.
Although Cloney’s left cheek had turned bright red, she didn’t even care about being slapped by Brigitte.
She was just contemplating the words that Brigitte had spat out.
Cloney’s gaze went to the ceiling, floor, and walls on all sides.
“Strange. Something is strange…”
Cloney began to have doubts.
A very tiny doubt.
But to Yuma, that doubt was more than welcome.
Yuma recalled what Zoin tribe member Legores had said.
“The process of recognizing and breaking through Nightmares? There’s no grand process like that. Rather, it’s the usual process of discovering the contradictions of the nightmare one is trapped in, one by one, starting from very small doubts.”
Cloney opened her eyes wide and said.
“I… magicians… don’t make that kind of certainty.”
Looking at the ceiling and saying so, Cloney suddenly got up from her seat and cleared away all the books and papers spread on the research lab floor.
And she began drawing a circular magic circle.
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