Eldritch Horror Theatre

Ignoring the stitched-together monster that was Fu Qian, Hayami Suzune turned and walked straight toward the door.

From the corner of her eye, she secretly watched for his reaction. The result was nothing at all.

Fu Qian turned a blind eye to her actions, entirely focused on stitching his arm back together.

...

With her hand resting on the doorknob, Hayami Suzune found her own emotions difficult to describe.

Steadying herself, she pushed the door open with a firm shove.

A dense gray fog had settled outside the door at some point, reducing visibility to practically nothing.

An artificial dreamscape couldn't be infinitely large. Was this the edge of the Nightmare?

As long as she left this place, then...

This was...

A moment later, she stared in horror at the dim space before her.

The familiar Underground. Rectangular stone slabs lay in their usual layout, and on one of them rested a mutilated corpse.

The only difference from last time was an open door in the wall behind her, leading at an upward slant to the outside.

Looking through that doorway, she could see the fog outside, thick as soup.

How could this happen!

After staring at the gruesome corpse for several seconds, Hayami Suzune suddenly spun around and marched up through the newly appeared door.

This time, before she even reached the surface, the fog surged toward her.

Hayami Suzune kept her feet moving. When the gray fog dispersed, she found herself standing in an unfamiliar room right next to a bed.

Facing the spacious bed was a massive floor-to-ceiling window, outside of which lay that same gray expanse.

This was a bedroom.

Taking a deep breath, Hayami Suzune opened the door, moved through the hallway, and headed down the stairs until a familiar living room once again appeared before her.

So the room just now had been the second floor of this building?

"Did Madam Suzune have any pointers?"

Almost instantly, the cannibal beside the dining table looked up, a muffled voice sounding from behind his turkey mask.

This time, however, Hayami Suzune was in no mood to chat. She had already realized that her current predicament was far more complex than she had imagined.

"Sorry, but dinner will be a while longer."

Fu Qian continued talking, gesturing toward the nearby soup pot with his punctured hand.

"If you're hungry, help yourself."

Before he even finished speaking, Hayami Suzune raised her hand again.

Only this time, her target wasn't Fu Qian's hand, but the massive window on one side of the living room.

Crash!

Amid the sharp shatter of glass, the Razor Blades flying from between her fingers instantly pierced through multiple panes, leaving a massive hole behind.

Unfortunately, even with such destruction, she didn't sense any instability in her surroundings.

She couldn't walk out, and this level of destruction didn't affect the space at all.

Hayami Suzune's heart sank.

Crash...

Amid a continuous barrage of shattering sounds, several more panes of glass fell victim to her blades.

And Hayami Suzune's expression grew uglier by the second.

Still absolutely zero reaction. It was glaringly obvious that this completely exceeded her understanding of artificial illusions.

"I can understand your urgency, but trashing the dining room is just wrong. Haste makes waste, and besides, the ingredients haven't even arrived yet."

Fu Qian glanced around his instantly devastated living room and sighed.

Unfortunately, the culprit had no desire to humor him. A moment later, she actually rushed forward and vaulted right out through one of the shattered holes in the window.

...

So this was how it made itself inescapable?

The moment someone tried to cross the edge of the dreamscape, it triggered a sort of spatial distortion, randomly dropping them into another corner of the area.

Simple physical destruction wouldn't affect its stability, either. Since its upgrade, the structure's solidity had clearly increased by a significant margin.

That was right—Hayami Suzune was currently trapped inside the Lucid Dream. And as its initiator, Fu Qian could naturally pinpoint her location at all times.

Watching Hayami Suzune refuse to give up, trying every conceivable method to escape only to repeatedly respawn in random locations, Fu Qian gained a deeper understanding of this Item's effects.

After all, aside from giving her a little scare at the very beginning, he hadn't lifted a finger. Hayami Suzune's current predicament was entirely the dreamscape's spontaneous reaction.

The facts proved that a physical fighter around Tier 7 was practically helpless against this thing.

...

After who knew how many cycles, when not a single intact pane of glass could be found in Fu Qian's mansion, Hayami Suzune finally stopped.

"Do you think you've won?"

She marched right back up to Fu Qian, her voice trembling with resentment.

"Hard to say, but it's pretty obvious you definitely haven't."

Fu Qian's response was as punchable as ever.

Hahaha!

Her emotions spiraling out of control, Hayami Suzune let out a string of uninhibited laughter.

"You're right. I haven't won, but I still have one last method, don't I?"

The next moment, she pressed the Razor Blade in her fingers against her own throat.

"I figure whether this is an illusion or a dreamscape, as long as I—the core subject—die, it has to end."

"Generally speaking, that's true. But I haven't actually tested it yet."

Faced with her new idea, Fu Qian fell silent for a few seconds before nodding.

"But are you sure you want to do this? You haven't eaten a thing!"

He pointed at the still-steaming pot of soup.

"After running around for so long, you must be starving, right?"

...

Hearing Fu Qian's meaningless prattle, the previously resolute Hayami Suzune actually hesitated, her hand stalling just a fraction.

Self-destruction was undoubtedly the ultimate weapon to shatter any Nightmare illusion.

Driven to the brink of collapse, she had already resolved to use this final method. But his question acted like a magic spell, twisting the emotions in her heart into something bizarre.

You must be starving, right?

That was certainly true. Following attempt after attempt, her physical stamina had drained away, and that gnawing hunger from earlier had grown increasingly heavy.

The feeling was so intense and grounded in reality that it made her doubt whether she was truly in a dream.

Could it be that none of this was a dream, but rather some clever mental manipulation? And what if coaxing her into self-destruction was this villain's true goal?

He had been baiting her this whole time.

The moment the seed of that possibility took root, it rapidly expanded and grew, making Hayami Suzune's previously firm hand tremble with hesitation. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't force the Razor Blade down.

Amid her fierce internal struggle, Hayami Suzune unconsciously looked toward that pot of soup again.

This...

A moment later, she swallowed a mouthful of saliva completely out of her own control. Something was violently assaulting her reason.

"Really, there's no need to stand on ceremony."

Right at that moment, a ladle dipped into the pot and gave it a stir.

Fu Qian had produced a soup bowl from who-knew-where, filled it to the brim, and pushed it toward her.

A maddening tug-of-war raged inside her mind. Eventually, moving as stiffly as a wooden puppet, Hayami Suzune reached out and cupped that bowl of scalding soup.

As the rich aroma wafted over her, a certain string in her consciousness completely snapped. Burying her face in the bowl, she greedily began to slurp it down.

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