"No… Misha looks like he's trying to lead us straight to Dreamflux Reef."
Evan made his decision immediately. He gave up on following Misha and turned toward Firefly instead.
The moment he spread his consciousness across the entire area, everything within this space became crystal clear.
In his perception, every person inside this shattered dream turned into a point of light.
He could identify each one with absolute precision—who they were, and exactly where they stood.
Almost everyone who should've been here for this "raid" had already gathered inside this dreamscape.
"Huh?"
Sparkle still hadn't figured out what was going on when, in the very next second—
Evan grabbed her and stepped straight through a wall.
He had already locked onto Firefly's position.
Sure enough, it didn't take long before the two of them arrived in a vast, open room.
"It really is Firefly!"
Sparkle blinked, then turned toward Evan in disbelief.
"Evan, what exactly did the Elation guy give you? That's ridiculously useful!"
"It doesn't really have anything to do with the Elation path," Evan replied. "This is another kind of power."
"Forget that for now. Let's check on Firefly first."
It seemed Firefly had heard Evan's voice as well, because she turned around almost immediately.
The instant she saw him, delight flashed across her face—
But before that smile could fully form, a pale violet mist began to gather behind her.
A pitch-black figure emerged from the fog and lunged straight at her!
"Holy shit! The script—!"
Before Sparkle could even react, Something Unto Death had already slashed toward Firefly.
In the next second, a faint golden shield lit up around Firefly's body.
It blocked the creature's razor-sharp claw right in front of her chest.
Everything had happened far too quickly.
Sparkle hadn't even had time to process it, but Evan had already thrown a Jade Shield onto Firefly before she'd even appeared in front of him.
At that same moment, the system's familiar voice rang out in Evan's mind.
[Ding ding ding! A treasure chest has been detected in this space! Would you like to claim it?]
From somewhere in the corner came that familiar notification.
Evan's face turned cold as he looked at what had just happened.
That bastard Elio.
A girl this pretty, and you're seriously making her go through three deaths?
If Sparkle hadn't set things up in advance, what if Firefly had actually died here?
What kind of garbage script was that? Was he really planning to force the plot through no matter what?
"Claim it."
[Congratulations, Host! You have obtained one Glamoth Firefly Type-V Armor set!]
"..."
What the hell?
A Glamoth mech?
An outdated relic like that?
Firefly's strength didn't come from the armor itself—it came from her.
Of course, the armor still mattered to her. For Firefly as she was now, that mech was practically her medical cabin.
Evan muttered to himself inwardly for a moment.
This thing probably wouldn't be much use to him. He'd see later whether Ruan Mei or Herta wanted it.
After all, it could still count as anti-Swarm technology. Since it was related to insectoid systems, maybe Ruan Mei—who loved studying bugs—might actually be able to get something useful out of it.
As for the present—
Firefly stared blankly at the monster in front of her, its claw frozen inches from her chest by the shield.
Or rather, the memetic entity.
She was stunned.
Elio's script… had failed?
According to the script, she was supposed to die once here.
So why had things changed?
Strange.
Way too strange.
"Alright, alright. It's over."
Evan stepped forward and pulled Firefly up from the ground.
"This memetic entity isn't actually a bad guy. Right, Gallagher?"
"Huh?"
Firefly was still dazed when Evan helped her to her feet, and the moment she realized just how close he was, her ears went hot.
She didn't even dare breathe too hard.
Seriously.
If the others outside ever found out that Sam—the Stellaron Hunter who could throw hands with Blade and tear through Swarm monsters barehanded, the same Sam whose bounty from the IPC was worth billions—had a side like this…
She'd never hear the end of it.
"Gotta say," a voice drawled lazily from behind Something Unto Death, "it really is just like you."
"You were the first one to meet Mikhail, and now you're the first one to solve the mystery too."
A figure slowly walked out from behind the memetic entity.
His hand rested casually on Something Unto Death's body.
And strangely enough, the monstrous creature obediently crouched down.
It was a bizarre sight.
That giant twisted body looked horrifying no matter how you looked at it, yet here it was, behaving like some oversized pet.
Even Sparkle frowned.
"Hey, darling… is this guy okay in the head?"
"That's a memetic entity, you know?"
"He's touching it! He's actually petting it!"
Something Unto Death looked terrifying, but in truth, it had never actually harmed anyone.
Because dying in the shallow dream without guidance would cause someone to fall into the deeper dream, and sometimes that fall came with injuries.
But if it was guided by Something Unto Death, then aside from a little pain at the start, the person would actually descend into the deeper dream in the safest way possible.
"Yeah, he is weird," Evan admitted. "But he doesn't have any ill intentions toward us."
"And more importantly…"
"He's the one who sent the invitation to all of us."
"Clap, clap—"
Gallagher couldn't help but applaud.
"Mr. Evan, even the old man probably never expected this," he said with a crooked grin.
"He'd originally planned to wait for you Nameless to return to this planet on your own."
"But you…"
"You threw every single one of those plans into chaos."
"You forced Gopher Wood to move ahead of schedule and try to trap all of you inside this broken dream."
"..."
"Alright," Evan cut in. "The others should be here soon."
"Gallagher, whatever you want to say, wait until everyone's gathered. We'll talk over there."
Evan spread his consciousness across the entire shattered dreamscape, using his authority to forcibly suppress the twisting and distortion of the space.
Because of that, the scattered groups quickly found the correct routes and made their way to the very center of the dream.
Sure enough, not long after Evan finished speaking, familiar figures began arriving one after another.
"Huh? Evan! Why are you here too?!"
"And that Fool! The one who set off fireworks in Belobog—she's here too!"
"And who's this pretty big-sis type?!"
As expected, the moment March 7th showed up, her endless stream of questions started immediately.
Gallagher sighed, lit a cigarette, took a long drag, then dug at his ear as he looked at Evan with a complicated expression.
"Seriously? Are all the Nameless the old man was waiting for this noisy?"
"Or were the people from his era like this too?"
"Come on, Gallagher," Evan said helplessly. "Don't you think March is full of energy?"
"If your old man's generation didn't have that kind of life in them, Penacony wouldn't even exist today."
Evan simply waved his hand, utterly giving up on answering March's rapid-fire questions one by one.
March, Himeko, Welt, and the others all wore confused expressions.
They had no idea how they'd ended up here, and they certainly didn't know who the man standing in front of Evan was.
All they knew was that Evan now had two beautiful girls by his side.
One of them March recognized immediately—the Fool who'd set off fireworks in Penacony.
The other one she didn't know.
She looked soft and delicate, but she was standing awfully close to Evan.
That was enough for March to step forward without hesitation and glue herself right onto Evan's other side.
Only Firefly reacted differently.
She stared at one familiar figure with a mix of confusion and surprise.
It was her.
That's right—if Elio's script had gone as planned, the first person Firefly was supposed to meet here should have been her.
But now, every time Evan got involved, the script started changing.
At this point, even Firefly was starting to lose confidence in it.
Golden Hour
Outside a bar in Golden Hour, a blond man wearing sunglasses and a hat sat quietly with a bottle of sweet SoulGlad in hand.
The sugary drink really didn't suit his tastes.
Compared to this, he much preferred the refined red wines specially blended by IPC master sommeliers. Those suited his status far better.
Even so, his gaze swept across the crowds passing by, and the confusion on his face only deepened.
"That's strange…"
"Where did everyone go?"
Aventurine had already been inside the dream for quite some time, yet the people he was looking for had completely vanished.
That wasn't right.
According to his plan, Sunday was supposed to discover that he had secretly brought his Aventurine Stone into the dream, after which the Family would detain him.
But as one of the IPC Strategic Investment Department's Ten Stonehearts, Aventurine had naturally prepared for that long in advance.
His plan had been simple:
Destroy the Aventurine Stone and hide it somewhere the Family would never detect.
As for the one they'd confiscated?
That had only been Topaz's stone.
Even if using Topaz's Cornerstone exposed part of the plan, he still had Jade's stone in reserve.
In short, as long as he could crack open the Family's unity from the inside, it would create the perfect opening for the IPC's next move.
He hadn't come here on behalf of the IPC to negotiate.
He'd come to split apart this seemingly airtight alliance.
Only by prying them apart could they be taken down one by one.
As for backup plans?
Sorry—Aventurine never did things with a backup plan in mind.
He was only the vanguard.
Everything after this would naturally be handled by Lady Jade herself.
And yet…
After all the maneuvering he'd done inside the dream, after circling around Sunday and the Nameless for this long, after even preparing to put his real plan into motion—
To guide the Nameless toward the truth of Penacony and use them to hollow out the authority of the Oak Family—
Everything had been proceeding perfectly.
And yet, somehow, Aventurine suddenly found himself alone.
Where had everyone gone?
The Memokeeper was gone.
The little gray-haired raccoon girl was gone too.
No matter how hard he tried to contact them, he couldn't find a trace of either of them.
So now the question was—
If everyone had vanished, who exactly was he supposed to perform the rest of this show for?
To read advanced Chapters, head over to p@treon:
patreon.com/nani_kaito