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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
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The base camp I reached while following the nameless man was a small, futuristic-looking outpost.
It resembled a single-person space station more than a tent.
“You can sit anywhere. Make yourself at home.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
I sat down on the floor as he suggested. He offered me a glass of purified water.
Naturally, I didn’t drink it. I wasn’t dying of thirst right now, and I couldn’t just drink something offered to me by a stranger.
“Hmm… Let’s see.”
Seemingly satisfied that he had done his part, whether I drank the water or not, the man rummaged through a drawer inside the outpost and took out a handful of round canisters.
Curiosity piqued, I asked him about them. They looked like futuristic grenades.
Having tasted the thrill of the suicide bombing with the firecrackers, I was naturally drawn to anything that resembled an explosive.
“What are those?”
“Hmm? Oh, these. The Dirty Waters roam around at night.”
Dirty Waters? What were those?
I had asked about the canisters he was holding, but now I had another question.
He must have forgotten how to converse with people after being trapped here for so long.
Noticing my lukewarm reaction, he realized his mistake and explained the Dirty Waters in detail.
“Ah, the Dirty Waters are dark, murky monsters that inhabit this place. If you’re caught, you’ll turn into a Dirty Water like them. So never get close to them. And Dirty Water is just a name I gave them because they’re so slimy and creepy. I’ve been alone for so long that I assumed you knew what I knew.”
“Ahh…”
“Anyway, if you throw these around the base camp, they won’t come near it.”
“Um, but what are those things for?”
“These are… hmm… sonic detectors. A kind of planetary sonar. They’re originally used to scatter across a planet to detect life forms, but the Dirty Waters here really hate the sonic waves they emit.”
This man seemed like he belonged in some space opera universe.
But I couldn’t keep calling him “this man,” so I asked for his name.
“Um, could I ask for your name?”
“Hmm? Ah, my name… My name is… uh…”
I nudged the man’s shoulder as he glitched out again.
He snapped out of it with a start.
They said that you have to hit machines to make them work again, and it seemed to apply to androids and artificial humans as well.
“My name is Mark Connor. I finally remember. Someone has to call my name for me to remember. Just call me Connor. Mark Connor. Yes. I’m Connor. Hahaha.”
He muttered to himself and went outside the small outpost with the sonic detectors.
I took the opportunity to look around inside, hoping to find some clues.
Connor’s desk was cluttered with photos of the surrounding landscape and reports written in strange characters.
Potato-like plants were being hydroponically cultivated inside the outpost, and there was even a bathroom with a shower. But strangely, it had no signs of use.
Was it because Connor was a machine? It felt like he had just included them for the sake of appearances, as if a human might need them.
‘But where does the water and electricity come from…?’
Did he have some advanced scientific method? I could assume that there was a generator inside for electricity, but where did the water come from?
As I looked around while pondering these questions, he returned. He brushed off the black dust from his body and poured himself a glass of water.
“I thought about what you said earlier. The Shared Dream Tragedy seems to refer to this world itself.”
“This world itself?”
“Yes, I’ve discovered a few things while exploring this place. Would you like to hear them?”
“Uh… Yes.”
Connor told me his story since arriving in this place.
This dream world wasn’t this twisted and distorted at first.
Apparently, there were many more people besides him in the beginning.
“They all called this place a paradise, or a utopia.”
Anything you imagined would appear in this world.
Just by imagining it, gold and jewels would appear, your ideal woman would be created, and buildings would rise from the ground… It was quite a spectacle.
“Then, at some point, the things we imagined stopped appearing.”
But at some point, this world stopped granting their wishes.
The people, having already received more than they could ever ask for, still desired more, and it seemed that their constant imagining overloaded this dream world, Connor explained.
“Anyway, that’s when the world started to distort. I never wanted to come here in the first place, so I didn’t wish for anything and just searched for a way out… But those who obtained things through imagination started going crazy one by one.”
Those who had summoned and consumed everything they desired without any effort gradually went insane and became Dirty Waters.
Moreover, the objects, things, and buildings they had summoned melted and rotted, forming a putrid sea, and the blue sky gradually turned red, with something emerging in its center.
“An eye. It was an eye.”
Connor said that what I had been mesmerized by earlier was incredibly dangerous. I must never focus on it.
Now that I tried to recall what had been floating in the sky, I couldn’t remember it clearly. Just a feeling of being entranced.
“Anyway, to summarize, this world is a dream, a shared dream. It was a limited resource given to those who entered. And because those ignorant humans used it recklessly, the dream became distorted like this…”
The key phrase ‘Shared Dream Tragedy’ seemed to be explained by this.
Now the question was how to get out of here. I asked Connor if he had any ideas.
“I thought it was strange that I wasn’t waking up even though the dream was this distorted… It’s because there was no dream owner. I’ve been searching for the dream owner to wake up from this dream, but… that wasn’t the answer.”
In response to my question, Connor muttered to himself while sharing his thoughts, then showed me a simplified map of this world.
“This is the safest place. If you go further out from here, you’ll encounter two unique terrains and structures.”
One was the Rotten Sea and the corpse of a dead giant.
The other was a field where the sun was setting and a crumbling tower.
“I think the answer lies in one of these two places.”
They sounded like symbolic locations.
The problem was that, according to Connor, both places were incredibly dangerous. The Rotten Sea was filled with Dirty Waters, and lightning periodically struck the field, so you could be burned to death if you weren’t careful.
I had no idea where to go. Honestly, I didn’t like the idea of going to dangerous places, especially when I couldn’t even use my skills properly, but I had to get out of here, so I had no choice.
I couldn’t afford to waste time while not knowing the time difference between this dream world and reality.
It would be disastrous if I woke up to find that a month had passed. I would want to kill the Drug Dealer who sold me that strange Escapist’s Blue Pill then.
“Where do you want to go first?”
Bothamili had told me to ask this man for help, so I would follow his choice.
“I want to go to the Rotten Sea first. It seems more suspicious. We’ll go tomorrow at sunrise.”
“Alright. Is there anything I need to prepare?”
“You’ll probably need a gas mask and an oxygen tank. And also…”
He thought for a moment, then started taking out useful items from the drawer again.
‘Hmm… Did all those things come out of that small drawer…?’
Hadn’t he taken out a bunch of sonic detectors from that same drawer earlier?
“Hmm…”
Strange. The moment I thought it was strange, a sense of unease washed over me.
Just like the unease I felt in the Everyday Nightmare before I entered this place.
I was feeling uneasy about this man.
“Um, excuse me… Could I take a look at that drawer?”
“Hmm? This? Uh… Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why… do you want to… look at my drawer?”
His reaction was sharp.
Suspicion and hostility flashed in the robot’s eyes.
“How rude. I’d appreciate it if you left.”
“W-wait, what are you…”
“Get out!!!”
This was crazy.
The unease reached its peak.
This man, Mark Connor, was my enemy.
The moment I realized this, I heard Bothamili’s urgent cry.
[Cultist!!! Get out of there now!!! The one beside you I mentioned isn’t that machine!!!]
As soon as I heard her voice, Mark Connor’s body began to distort and break down.
“Static. Static… Ah… Ah… E-error. External interference. Error. Error. Eliminate the error.”
His body twisted, and mechanical parts spewed out.
I immediately ran out of the outpost.
Outside, beyond the range of the sonic detectors Connor had placed, were the beings he called Dirty Waters.
They weren’t literal dirty water.
They were people.
Humans covered in black, oil-like substance, writhing in agony.
[The one beside you that I mentioned isn’t that false god in that machine!!!]
[I meant them!!!]
The ones Bothamili had referred to weren’t Mark Connor.
It was the Dirty Waters looking at me right now and the eye floating in the sky.
She had meant for me to seek help from that thing staring at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me clearly?!”
[The connection was cut off while I was speaking!]
[You almost got us killed the moment you considered that machine an ally!!]
And that eye that strangely drew my attention… Looking closely, it wasn’t even an eye.
It was a power button.
“St… st… st… st…op… St… St…op… ri…ght… the…re…!!!!!”
The monster in the form of Mark Connor reached out to me.
The Dirty Waters blocked Connor’s hand and grabbed me while running.
“Ou… Ou… Outsider.”
The Dirty Water carrying me spoke.
He shed black tears and pleaded with me.
“Pl… Pl… Please… turn… off… the… power… of… that… crazy… machine…”
Crazy machine.
Power.
A hypothesis suddenly formed in my mind.
This was a dream… A virtual world. A shared dream, in the truest sense of the word.
The Dirty Waters here… were humans connected to this virtual world.
And that Mark Connor… Was he the administrator of this world, or a high-performance android like Skynet…?
It was the one who granted people’s wishes here, but it had gone mad for some reason, turned all the humans trapped here into Dirty Waters, created his own world, and was now trapped in an endless loop…
Then the owner of this shared dream was none other than that monster, Mark Connor himself. If I turned him off…
I could wake up from this dream.
“Aaah!!! Pu… Put… everyone… to… sleep! Humans! The source of increasing entropy, fall asleep. Don’t wake up!”
We ran while hearing Mark Connor chasing us from behind.
We ran madly, desperately.
The faster we ran, the more rapidly the scenery changed.
“Rotten… Sea… There… The place… that… made… us… like… this.”
“He… tried… to… do… the… same… to… you.”
“He’s… unreadable… because… he… deceives… himself.”
The Dirty Waters told me about Connor as we ran.
‘That damn machine bastard, he planned to drag me in and turn me into a Dirty Water from the start.’
Moreover, he was constantly deceiving himself that he was Mark Connor, so even someone with good intuition like Ha-rin wouldn’t be able to see through him.
“Power… There… An AI… that… will… save… us.”
“Go… to… him… and… tell… him… you… came… on… behalf… of… us… We… can’t… approach… the… tower… anymore.”
“He… will… shut… down… this… world… Please… Outsider.”
It seemed that those who had become Dirty Waters were considered errors and couldn’t approach the power source that could shut down the system.
The scenery changed again, and we arrived at a field with a crumbling tower. There was no lightning.
“We… can’t… go… any… further.”
“Hurry… Go!”
They turned back to block the approaching Mark Connor.
I ran forward, without looking back, towards the tower that reached the sky.
“Gasp… Gasp…”
As I reached the entrance of the tower, my body floated upwards, and I instantly reached the power source floating in the sky.
“Uaaah!!! No!!!”
Connor screamed from below while climbing the tower.
But he couldn’t climb past a certain height.
I ignored him and turned my attention to the man standing before me.
He was wearing a white hood, his eyes closed. His appearance strangely drew my attention.
“Do you wish to turn off the power?”
“Huh? Ah, yes.”
“Warning. Turning off the power now will result in 120 million users entering a brain-dead state. Do you still wish to proceed?”
“Uh… What?”
“Turning off the power now will result in 120 million users entering a brain-dead state. Do you still wish to proceed?”
What nonsense was this?
Did the lives of 120 million people rest in my hands…?
Killing hundreds of millions of people… that was a bit of a problem.
‘But… the Dirty Waters told me to turn off the power…’
Honestly, wouldn’t it be better to end their lives cleanly than to live like that forever?
Moreover, they had all asked me to turn off the power.
“I will turn it off.”
“Yes. The command is being processed. [World Editor Simulation] will now shut down. Thank you for using our service.”
The system AI smiled happily, as if grateful that I was turning off the power.
Rumble!!!
The red sky shattered, revealing an empty void.
Mark Connor’s form crumbled, and the ground collapsed.
The world was being destroyed.
A universe met its end at my hands.
You will soon awaken from the dream.
Transitioning from ‘Shared Dream Tragedy’ to ‘The Observer’s Workshop’.
“Oh…”
As the world faded to black, I was transported to another place.
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“Damn it… When will this dream end…?”
I finally regained consciousness. My head felt like it was going to explode.
“Hmm. You arrived here through a rather unique method. To think you could get here with that measly blue pill… Fascinating.”
“Huh?”
I woke up in what looked like a study. Or perhaps a workshop.
A large clock, a telescope, and a compass were placed around the room like symbolic objects, along with gauges and other items from seemingly different eras, arranged haphazardly.
“Welcome, Player.”
And before me sat an old man with a long white beard who greeted me. He looked like a homeless beggar, but his eyes held a certain power, making him seem like a wizard.
I wondered if he was another fake helper like that Mark Connor bastard.
“Haha. You don’t have to be so suspicious. It won’t change anything. No one can die here, and you can’t use your… little powers either. Yes, the things you call skills.”
“Wh-who are you? I’m a bit confused…”
Honestly, I was struggling to keep up with the situation.
Everything was jumbled, perhaps because this was a dream world.
“I am the Observer of World Lines, or sometimes called the God of Dreams. Don’t ask for my name. I have too many to remember them all.”
“Anyway, you will receive a gift to commemorate your visit here.”
“This space… is a kind of an easter egg. I never thought that anyone would be able to reach it. But you managed to do it.”
“Is it because of that abnormal luck of yours? Or is it because of the fruit of origin you consumed?”
“It’s incredible that you awakened the God of the Void. And to have her favor as well… Amazing.”
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down, Bothamili. Hahaha!”
He seemed like an old man whose mind wandered around…
The old man clapped while praising me, and then held out two crystal balls.
One was blue, and the other was red.
“Now, this red one contains a misfortune that will befall you relatively soon. The blue one contains a veeeeery small fragment of a record about your death. You can change the red one by observing it, but the blue one becomes fixed the moment you observe it.”
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Now, what will you choose, Cultist?
Make your choice.
A misfortune you can change.
Or a record of your end.
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T/N – This is a no brainer. Why look into something that you won’t be able to change the moment you see it? Better go for something you can change rather than fixate on something you can’t.
Also, that “Shared Dream Tragedy” scenario was pretty bonkers. He should definitely get something out of killing 120 million people, right?
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
