The forest chirped with birds and hummed with wildlife. Next to a gurgling stream, a large wet nose sniffed at the surrounding foliage. Finally, it found the scent it was after on a certain pair of leaf wrappings. The human must have discarded them here.

Elmarud followed the scent to the river, where it disappeared completely.

“GrrrRAAAAAAAAH!” He had spent so much time healing those injuries, then tracked the scent all the way here only to lose it. The scent trail was cold, and that left him with no choice.

He started to convulse. His sharp fangs retracted into his mouth and the claws on each of his legs also started to shrink. Forlegs turned into arms. Paws back into hands and feet. Fur that was out of place started to fall off, leaving only the longer strands on the top of his head. His skeletal structure itself even shrunk, the bones snapping and morphing into new shapes. All the matter in his body and brain compressed to take up far less space. After ten minutes, Elmarud was completely back to his normal, human self, gasping for breath and stark naked. The only indication that he was abnormal was his eyes slightly glowing with orange.

Finding himself shivering on the ground, he managed to pick himself up and examine the leaves he had found the scent on.

As a human, he would never be able to follow such a faint scent like his wolf counterpart could. But what he lost for in strength and sensitivity, he regained in intelligence. All of his mental capacities peaked as he adopted his human form. He could even blend into crowds if he found them. And now that he could think clearly, without the animalistic rage, one thing stood out to him the most; how in the world did that human keep these on his feet the entire time they had fought?

He pinched the tatters of leaf sandals and held them up in the light. Even that soft touch created a tear in the joint. There’s no way they should have stayed on that boy while he sprinted around his dungeon. Utterly ridiculous.

Elmarud turned his attention away from the sandles and looked around. Although he was better at tracking in his wolf form, he had the logic and reasoning of a human now. As he surveyed the river, his focus came to rest on the opposite shore. His lips curled into a toothy smile.

“Child. You should not underestimate me. You have left your scent here at the river. But I can already see your prints on the other side. I will track you all the way around the world for what you have done.”

Zach finished his twentieth piece of jerky provided to him by the knights. He had been walking behind the convoy for twenty minutes, playing with his windows and contemplating what to do next.

‘Now is as good a time as any. I need to start asking questions.’

He looked at the other knights before shaking his head. They were a no go.

In the first place, they were trained soldiers protecting their country. They might suspect him of being a spy. That’s what medieval knights worried about, right? Secondly, why were they giving him strange, cautious looks?

He looked down at himself and immediately realized something. His clothes… They were disgusting. Gory even. Yep! He was positively war torn. No wonder the head knight had drawn his sword on him. Zach smacked himself in the forehead for his obliviousness, causing the boy next to him to jump.

‘Oh, right.’

There was another boy about his age in the convoy as well. But he also seemed slightly terrified of Zach.

‘Let’s just roll with it. But what to ask about first?’

In the end, everything boiled down to three simple, but very important questions. Where was he? Why was he here? And what should he do next?

He could just come out and say it, couldn’t he? Something like ‘hi, i’m from another world.’ But why didn’t the heroes in movies and comics ever do that? It always seemed like some sort of rule that they shouldn’t confide their otherworldly origins in anybody else. But then again, it was a good thing to not sound too crazy when introducing yourself to others. So he would have to try for a roundabout approach…

“Hey. You.”

“Eek. Y-yes?” The boy next to him jumped.

“Can you tell me… hmm. How should I phrase it? Do you have a map?” He was about to ask, ‘where am I’, but decided that might reveal too much about his origins.

The boy nodded quickly and reached for the bags on his personage. “I have several maps, mostly of this region that we are traveling through. Would you like to see a map of the country or just the state?”

Considering he didn’t know where he was, “I’d like to see the world please.” As he waited for the map, fairly certain that it was going to be a scroll made of brown paper, he decided to add, “As you can imagine, I’ve been lost in the woods for a few days and I don’t know where I am.”

“I see. Here is the map of the known world.” There was an extra emphasis on ‘known.’

Zach took the map and, as he expected, it was a scroll that could be opened to reveal a map of ink drawn on brown paper.

“Oh! A-also that is my master’s so can you please try not to get it dirty.”

“Your master?”

“Yes.” He pointed toward the knight at the front of the convoy, the only one riding the horse and the one Zach identified as the head knight. “That is my master there, the one you yelled at.”

“Yeah. I guess I did that… didn’t I.”

“You are quite fortunate he didn’t kill you outright.”

Zach raised a curious eyebrow. “Really? He would do that so easily?”

“You don’t know? Are you a foreigner?”

Zach gave him a flat look, answering his question.

“Well, based alone on the crest on his chestplate, you should have recognized him as one of nobility. But by the embellishments on his armor and the ornate rapier, you should have… well most would have recognized him as one of the elite.”

“You make it sound like he is actually better than just what you have said.”

“Well, since we are traveling, of course, he can’t don his fancier garments. So of course you wouldn’t have been able to know that he is actually Sir Deltris, the Third Knight of Pluria.”

“Wow. So you are the apprentice of the Sir Deltris of Pluria. Amazing.”

“Indeed.” The boy nodded proudly.

Zach let the sarcasm seep into his voice. “Great! And who are you then?”

The boy’s shoulders drooped and he stifled a sigh. “Ferney. It’s fine. No one remembers me except as Deltris’ apprentice.”

“Aww. It’s fine Freddy. I’ll try and remember.”

“Actually, it’s Ferney--”

“Hey look, can you point me to where we are on this map. It’s nothing like a GPS.”

“W-well, sure. I don’t know what GPS is, but we are somewhere in this forest heading North towards Fernsdale, here on the borders of Pluria.”

“I see, so this is Pluria we are heading towards. That’s this little region. And what are these two large regions marked down here, to the South East and South West?”

Ferney gave Zach a look that read, ‘do you live under a rock.’ “To the South East is the Armanger Province, or what used to be. This map is at least ten years outdated. The other country that used to be here, to the South West, was called Sumus.”

“Oh.”

“After we took over Sumus’s land and resources, we became an Empire. That’s why we aren’t called the Thane Kingdom anymore, but the Thane Empire.”

“I see.”

“Where are you from if you don’t know about this?”

Well, that was a good question. The map was completely subpar by modern standards. It barely had a view of half of the continent. A few oceans were labeled at the edges of the map, but there was not enough land to denote the shape of a single continent. The whole thing actually reminded him eerily of video game maps from the fantasy genres.

“Abroad,” he responded. “Do you mind if I study this for a bit? I promise I’ll give it back in a while.”

“Uh. Sure.”

If he could just memorize the map, then by the next time he woke up on Earth, he could compare it to a real map. Hopefully.

There was just one more problem. He couldn’t read it. It wasn’t written in English or any form of language that he knew of.

‘What the heck do these symbols mean?’ he wondered.

If they were just English letters made to look like different things, then there should be twenty six characters plus a few punctuation marks and perhaps an accent mark. But this didn’t make sense either because he had already counted more than forty different looking symbols.

So if this was really written in a different language, how was he communicating with these people? Was he the one talking in a different language.

Suddenly lights danced across his eyes. Strings of text appeared next to each name on the map.

‘A translation? Well that’s convenient.’

Zach read over the map, memorizing everything down to the slightest detail.

Ferney must have started to get bored of the scenery because he started to fiddle with something from his numerous bags. The previous conversation had decreased his fear of Zach, which apparently allowed him to relax.

Zach looked over from his map at Ferney, trying to make more conversation. Fortunately, it was easy to find a common subject. The thing in his hands looked slightly familiar to him.

“Is that a gun?”

“What?”

“That thing in your hand? Isn’t that a gun?”

“Well the pirate-- I mean, the esteemed merchant I bought this from said it was called a matchlock. Is that the same thing?”

Zach rolled his eyes, “Yes! They are the same thing! But why do you have one? I thought guns weren’t around during the medieval age.”

Ferney gave Zach the blankest and flattest of stares he had seen on anyone. “Sorry. I have absolutely no idea what you just said.”

Zach just sighed. “Can I see it? Here, I actually don’t need this anymore.”

Zach traded the map in return for the gun, surprised at its weight. Well, he had never really owned a gun. And while he had an instilled respect for the weapon, drilled into him by society itself, he didn’t fear them irrationally. The one in his hands hardly felt threatening to him now, even if it had been loaded.

“Although you call it by a different name, do you know how it works?”

“Sure, you just load it, aim it, and fire it. Right? My society actually has quite an aversion to these kinds of devices, but I think everyone knows how to work one.”

A look of suspicion flashed across Ferney’s face. “I know exactly what you mean.” He said while glancing toward the front of the convoy. “My master also detests black powder weapons.”

“I see. Well, trust me. In the future, I’m sure they will be everywhere.”

“Oh. And why do you think that?” The image of several pirates-- er, esteemed merchants-- all carrying a matchlock or the newly developed rose lock flashed through Ferney’s mind.

“Well take a look at the bows and arrows on your knights’ backs. Don’t they look heavy and take up a lot of space.” Ferney nodded. “Well, you can fit a lot more ammunition for a gun in the same amount of space. Plus, it is easier to carry this than an entire bow.

“And since this is still a relatively new weapon, I’m sure there will be some vast improvements made to its design to make it more effective. This uses a ramrod and powder keg, right?” Feryney nodded again, his expression becoming more thoughtful as Zach talked. “You probably even light it with actual fire too. Well, all of this can be fit into one single cartridge. A bullet, if you may. You create a small canister of metal and fill it with powder, then cap it off with a piece of led, and now, you just ignite it with a strong kick to the canister.”

“That’s genius! I never thought of using one of the powder’s most dangerous properties as a trigger mechanism! Normally, you’d just worry the entire time about not handling the stored powder too roughly.”

Zach nodded sagely. “Yeah. It’s probably more elegant to use physical shock as an ignition source than it is to use fire. Then you can just use the concept of a bullet to streamline the reload process.”

Ferney looked at Zach with eyes alight with passion. “That’s such a great idea. Of course, I can’t imagine how reliable just the gunpowder would be. So perhaps another kind of reagent would be better for starting the ignition, and of course it has to be cheap too...”

Suddenly a thought crossed Zach’s mind. Maybe he shouldn’t be messing with the prime-directive?

Of course casually flaunting his knowledge of the future, otherworld, or all else sci-fi is a bad thing. Perhaps his casual conversation about guns and bullets would have a butterfly effect on the history of this world! He shut his mouth promptly, hoping in vain that he hadn’t said too much.

“Mister, Zach.”

“Hmm. Yeah?”

“You can’t read a map (it’s obvious) and you don’t know where you are on Vera. You also yelled at the third highest knight in the country, but then you go and say things like that. Who are you?”

Zach paused for a minute. “What’s a Vera?”

“The name of the world!?”

“Oh.”

‘So that's what this world is called? Good to know.’

When the convoy of knights with the addition of Zach, arrived at Fernsdale, one of the knights had the decency to hand Zach a dark brown robe to cover up his attire. That made Zach a bit embarrassed as he had forgotten about his bloody clothes once again, during the short trip. But in his defense, he couldn’t feel the pain or discomfort of battle wounds, much less of uncomfortable clothing.

But all of his concerns went away as soon as they approached the gates. They had been passing through crop fields for about an hour, usually manned by a team of farmers using hand tools. There were a few houses along the way, the only structures Zach had witnessed so far. But Fernsdale was something else. Definitely not modern. It was massive. It’s entire perimeter was surrounded by a three story tall wall of brick, topped by platforms of sturdy looking wood. He couldn’t even see the rooftops of the houses, or any of the buildings for that matter, from the outside of the city.

The only entrance Zach could see was a maw of iron and heavy looking wood. Currently, farmers with empty wagons and unloaded mules were exiting through said maw, while farmers with full loads entered. All assortments of farming goods went in: barrells full of wheat, massive wagon loads of hay, and closed barrels which smelled strongly of fruits.

Zach was so fascinated with the whole display that he was caught off guard by the inside of the city.

Smells assaulted him from every angle. Fresh baked bread. The smell of roasting meats. His mouth watered. All that time in the woods with only a single duck meal. He would love to have something cooked by an actual chef tonight. Perhaps even just something seasoned would be nice.

But that might be a problem. He saw the open window of a bakery, something that looked straight out of fantasy. People were in a line for the good inside, and they each handed something small in exchange for their prizes.

Zach figured he would need money eventually, but wasn’t sure where to start. Perhaps he could try selling the wolf teeth he extracted earlier.

He was still following the convoy of knights as they strolled through the city with annoying efficiency. He didn’t even know why he was still following them, actually. He didn’t know what to do or where to go next, so his brain was on autopilot. He looked around for his informant, Ferney, who had disappeared suddenly.

He still followed as the convoy made their way up to a higher level of the city. The people here had nicer looking clothes. A lot more colors. The houses looked a little nicer too. A tug of self consciousness overcame Zach when a group of noble looking girls giggled amongst themselves while looking at the convoy. He pulled the brown covering over his soiled clothing, thankful for the protection.

What if they had seen him without this? That would have been embarrassing.

The convoy continued to venture upward in the city until it reached a much larger house, a mansion by the looks of it, surrounded by a lawn and an elegant but sturdy looking fence. That’s when everyone stopped outside the gates. Only the carriage and its passengers were allowed to go through it seems.

This caused Zach to panic slightly.

‘Where is Ferney? What is going on? Should I be here?’

Eventually, he relaxed when the head knight started walking towards Zach along with a few of the other knights.

“Hey! Mister Deltris, right? Um. Sorry about earlier, can you tell me what is going on?”

The head knight’s lips curved into a smug grin and his eyes narrowed slightly. An idea had popped into his head the moment the boy had continued to follow them through the city and up through areas that only nobles were allowed to walk. “Sure I can. Zach, was it? Well it seems to me that my mistress has taken an interest in learning more about you. From what I have heard from Ferney just now, it seems you aren’t from around here.”

“Yes… I suppose that is quite true.”

“Well, you can tell me right now. Where are you from?”

It was a question but the way the knight said it, it sounded more like an order. Tell me where you are from. By the way several other knights nearby were looking at the two of them rather intensely. It was as if they were waiting for him to make a wrong move. And they all had hands on their weapons. Zach had better diffuse this situation fast. It also didn’t help that the distracting blueberry scent was back.

“Sir. It might take a little bit of explanation to tell you exactly where I’m from, since I am also rather confused myself. But the gist of it is, it is a really, REALLY long ways away at the moment.” Not to mention it might not exist in this world at all, he wanted to add.

The knight shifted in the corner of his vision, but everyone else was standing uncharacteristically still yet alert. Why didn’t he just come out and tell the knight? He was from another world. He was a long way from home and needed help. Why were they so tense?

“Would you care to tell me where that place is.”

“Um, a small town in Colorado. Like I said it is a really long ways away. Say. Why don’t I come back to you another day and tell you all about it!”

Damnit. Why didn’t he just tell him?

“Zach.” The knight sighed and pinched his brow with his left hand, while his right hand remained on the pommel of his rapier. “I’m going to give you one last chance. Tell me where you are from. And tell me the truth.”

Damnit.

“Like I said. I’m from Colorado. I grew up in a small town there called Burlington.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“Yes.” Zach nodded. Somehow, even telling the truth didn’t make him feel at ease. He gripped the brown cloak just a little bit tighter and summoned a rock in a concealed hand. “Don’t you believe me?”

Zach racked his brain. Thinking about all the possibilities. Of escape. Of a fight. Of running and hiding.

While he knew he had the power and willingness to systematically slaughter a dungeon full of giant wolves, he wasn’t sure he had either when it came to fighting other humans. He had never fought anyone before, much less killed. Instead he would have to run and hope they didn’t catch him, which posed other problems on its own.

These were soldiers. If he decided to run from them, or fight back, that would automatically make him a fugitive. And then, for the rest of his life in this world, he would be running from the law, constantly looking over his shoulder, and ultimately make his chances of survival in this world monumentally low.

But then again, these were soldiers. Trained soldiers. Did he stand a chance of fighting and winning? Or even running away, for that matter? He was already level 12, but he was still just one kid.

The head knight, Sir Deltris, closed his eyes one more time. “You leave me, no choice. Men.” Several nearby knights straightened.

This was it.

It was now or never. He could take out the head knights knee with a well placed [Stones Throw] then charge the weakest looking knight.

“Arrest him.”

‘What?’

Two knights moved toward Zach. Their weapons were not drawn.

Zach was shocked at being arrested for the first time in his life. But to even his own surprise, he let out a small sigh of relief. Sure, he was still being arrested. But as opposed to kill or be killed, then run for your life forever, he would much rather choose this outcome for now.

He quickly stowed away the rock he had just moments before. The knights grabbed him by his arms and escorted him through the gates of said mansion. Of course he would let them.

“Put him in a jail cell on site.” The knight ordered. “I’ll deal with him in the morning.” Then he went about his business with the other wagons the convoy had towed along.

As Zach was escorted toward the mansion, he briefly thought of the absurdity of it all. He had been transported to another world in his sleep, left in the wilderness to hunt ducks, fought monstrous wolves with nothing but a few rocks and a flint dagger he had made himself, and was now being escorted by knights into a mansion. The last part was a little more complicated, but that was essentially what was happening.

The carriage from the convoy, the one they had been escorting, was parked in front of the mansion at the main entrance. Although his new captors were taking him on a scenic route around the mansion towards the back of the building, he couldn’t help but notice a girl in a beautiful white dress exiting the carriage. She was then immediately engulfed in a reception of butlers and handmaidens, who were also very pretty, but did not compare to the girl in white.

“Who’s that exiting the carriage?”

He got a rough tug from his captors, bringing his attention away from the front of the mansion.

Normally, such an action would have hurt. His guards were a head and a half taller than he was and positively overflowing with muscle. But the rough handling had no effect on Zach, who couldn’t feel pain.

Surprisingly though, he got a response to his question.

“That… was the girl of your dreams. You’ll never see her again.”

The guard chuckled to himself when he saw Zach’s unnamused expression.

Screeeech-clang. Click.

That was the last sound Zach had heard hours ago when the guards had locked him in the cell. At least it was very clean and hygienic.

Nope.

The bars of the cell were slightly rusty, the floor was rough stone so dirty that it was practically made of hard dirt, and the walls were slimy from a damp moisture.

It was a good thing that Zach could only feel the cold coming through the barred window as the sun set on the horizon. That was a strange sight, the horizon. There was a literally fantastic wall cutting it short. The only other thing that Zach could see was a large tree. He couldn’t even see the mansion because someone had discretely removed the jail from the mansion’s line of sight. He assumed he was in an attached part of the build or at least a building nearby, but he still couldn’t see it.

Oh well. At least he had food.

Nope.

The only thing he had to eat was a single loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese that they had given to him when they put him here an hour ago. Let’s just say he had finished that by now. And the pitcher of water tasted bad.

He sighed. Well. What was he supposed to expect from a medieval society? Proper prisoner care? Clean, filtered, and mineralized water? Sugar in the bread? A bed?

In hindsight, though, he realized that because he could neither feel pain or discomfort while in this world, sleeping in a cell would feel just as comfortable as a five star hotel. That was… actually really useful.

He sat down on the dirty ground. Surprisingly, they hadn’t taken away his cloak, so at least he had some substitute for a blanket. He had some sticks stored in his inventory. But he doubted the guards, wherever they were, would let him start a fire in the cell.

He decided to play with his information windows. He opened the inventory and experimented with the new cloak he had gotten. He transferred it to his inventory, then took it out. It created a little bit of light every time he did so he decided he should stop if he didn’t want to get caught. It was getting pretty dark after all. And for no special reason whatsoever, no one flipped a light switch.

Zach opened up his stats. Nothing new had changed significantly since he checked it last outside of the dungeon. He was still level 12. He hadn’t learned any new skills, and he hadn’t improved his magic.

‘I guess I could work on that while I wait.’

Zach channeled the orange magic toward the tip of his finger like he had done that first night. That was the fairly easy part. It came almost intuitively. And because it was getting darker, it was easier to see where the magic was flowing in his hand. The next thing he did was summon his dagger and a plain rock not made of flint.

Then he held both in each hand while he channeled mana toward each. Next, he tried using input mana on each item. The plain rock resisted his attempts to imbue it with power while the flint dagger let him do so in a much easier fashion.

So it seems that magic is material dependent. He wondered what would happen if he tried to imbue something like his new cloak, or maybe his shoes. He tried the cloak first.

To his surprise, the mana flowed extremely easily into the cloak. He could tell because the whole thing lit up like it was on fire in half a second. He quickly cut off his [Input Mana] skill and the light on the cloak started to fade at a rapid pace. Well, rapid compared to his dagger, which seemingly held the charge for a while unless he used it to cut things open. The power in his cloak lingered for about as long as the old tv in his bedroom took to turn on.

Eventually, the light faded from the cloak completely. That was good to know. So it seemed his [Input Mana] skill wasn’t dependent on equipment type, but rather the material the equipment was made of. Though, he couldn’t really figure out how, or why.

His cloak was made of wool and probably some sort of dye. His dagger was made of flint. And the stone was made of, well, stone. What was the correlation between those materials and his mana?

As he pondered this, something surprising interrupted his thoughts. It was a little noise from his window.

*ping

[Nightmare Detected: In range]

‘Nightmare? In range?’

What was this? Something to do with his class which was supposedly called {Dreamer}. But a nightmare sounds kind of dangerous. At the very least, it sounds scary. What should he do?

[Enter: y/n] [Open: y/n]

He looked around his cell. What the heck is he supposed to do? Obviously not ‘open’ the nightmare. That sounded worse than just simply entering it. Why was he looking around his cell? No one was there.

Go in. Don’t go in? Why was he just deliberating this? He had nothing better to do.

‘It’s a nightmare. It wouldn’t even hurt me.’

Ugh.

Ok. Fine.

He quickly stored everything in his inventory, including his cloak and the pitcher of water left in the cell. Might as well. Then he looked at the system message.

[Enter: y/n]

Yes.

[Entering Special Dungeon]

[Tutorial Complete. Skills will no longer come to you instinctively.]

‘Wait! What!?’

The next moment, Zach found himself surrounded by complete darkness. Unusually though, he wouldn’t describe the “dark” space around him as black. It was just realy, really hard to look directly at. He would almost describe it like it was blurry, but on a far more profound level.

He had always had exceptional eyesight since he was born. The one time he had gotten a hold of his grandfather’s quarter inch thick glasses and put them on, the world had become a befuddled mess. This was worse. But ultimately, that wasn’t the most pressing thing on his mind after that sudden revelation of the system.

‘Tutorial?’

‘Special dungeon?’

Just what the hell was going on. The system didn’t seem to provide any sort of indication that he was in some sort of tutorial mode. And the few attempts he made to question the system about this proved futile. He attempted just calling out loud to the system. Where was he right now? What was the tutorial? No answer. He searched through his windows for anything resembling a search bar or a browser without luck. It seems he would have to find out through some other, more indirect means of questioning his system.

Since his screaming into the dark void in an attempt to question the system wasn’t working, he decided to focus on the problem at hand. That mainly being this new, mysterious, almost ethereal place he had found himself in.

He couldn’t look at the ground, the sky, or parts of his own body. It really was as though he were in a dream. It was just simply too hard to focus on any of those aspects. Even his body was mostly numb, but still, he just knew somehow that they were there, and that they all existed.

The only way he could deal with the onsetting vertigo was to set his eyes straight in front of him and forcefully unfocuss his gaze. This actually worked well enough. The previous blurriness became much clearer as he focused on his peripheral vision.

He was in a castle of some sort. A decaying, ruined castle, with the roof exposed to the would-be sky and the ground covered with grasses and vines which also creeped up the weathered walls, but a castle no less.

When he tried to focus on any one particular thing though, his vision got blurry and dark again. So he returned to just using his peripheral vision to look around.

His body was strangely numb, even considering his condition in the last world. Still, he searched with his hands to try and make out his surroundings. He knelt and touched the grasses, felt the rocks, and even pulled something thin and stringy off of his fingers.

He then tried to move. That was when something strange happened. Even though he moved his legs and arms in a familiar walking pattern. His eye level never wavered. It was as if he was floating an inch off of the ground, even though he knew that was just absurd.

“What the heck is this place?”

No one answered him, of course, so he set about exploring the ruins. He moved down various plant infested corridors, ducked under several archways and lept over a small, slightly “darker” depression.

Everything was open-aired but he couldn’t see the sky. That might’ve been one of the weirder things that he noticed. Everything was well illuminated as if by the sun, but for the life of him, he just couldn’t find it. The sky was simultaneously blacker than a cloudy night and light blue like midday.

He should just resolve to call it “dark,” since that was how his brain first seemed to describe it, and everything else.

Now that he thought about it, why did he initially think these were the ruins of a castle anyway? He didn’t really know what castle ruins looked like compared to any other collapsed stone structure. Why was he so insistent on them being castle ruins?

A shrill scream pierced his thoughts and at first he stiffened.

‘What was that?’

Whatever it was, it wasn’t human.

What did the system say about a so-called “nightmare” being detected in his vicinity? Then foolishly, he had entered it without knowing what it would do. Oh well. Live and learn. So he had entered a nightmare. But whose nightmare? Certainly it wasn’t his own.

Again, a scream sounding like metal grinding on metal came from somewhere out of sight. The hairs on the back of his next stood straight up and goosebumps covered his arms.

Move.

…

…

Move, damn it!

…

The next scream jolted him out of his stupor and he did move… away from the scream. If this really was a nightmare, that meant danger.

Move. Move. Move. Move.

Why wasn’t he moving any faster! This sucked! It was like his legs were wading through water, going at the same walking pace as before.

There was another scream to his left. This one sounded closer actually, and it echoed off of the strange space like a cavern.

He quickly turned left, ducking another crumbling archway and moving away from the source of the sound. He sped down the remnants of a hallway with various decaying objects displayed on the walls. Finally he came to a breach in the castle’s structure and he brazenly hurled himself over the short wall and out of the castle.

It was as if fate, or maybe just the echoes of the strange space, had led him to this spot. He gapped at the sight in front of him.

In a clearing of short grasses just outside of the castle ruins was a girl and an enormous, hideous spider the size of a house.

[End Chapter 8]