A dull longsword and a heartbroken villager

Until she discovered that her Master was trapped in another mental world and could not wake up no matter what she did.

Only I can wake him up; I must wake him up.

Thus, she dragged her Master into the world of "The Last Echo" for the first time.

"Nice to meet you! I am 'Echo'!" the girl said to her Master, her tone somewhat cheerful.

Perhaps realizing she was too excited, she quickly covered her blushing face with a book and curiously looked at Bray.

Bray doesn't have any special temperament. As for his appearance, he looks fierce at first glance because he is one-eyed.

But after a few more glances, you'll find that Bray is quite laid-back.

Yeah, that's what I mean by being Buddhist-like.

Even though the girl already knew these things, she had never seen them with her own eyes.

She was a little nervous after witnessing her Master's appearance with her own eyes.

She sat under the tree, her knees rubbing against each other restlessly.

What should she say next? A sudden greeting can be quite jarring, right?

"Where am I?" Bray asked, bewildered by his surroundings.

"The world of the mind is your world, and it is also my world." The girl slightly lowered the book that was covering her face, revealing her eyes.

But after glancing at Bray a few times, her gaze began to dart away.

"A world of the mind?" Bray tapped his forehead and began to ponder.

"It's a small world that resonates and is born when the user's state of mind aligns with that of the forger of a weapon." Knowing that Bray didn't know what a mental world was, the girl quickly explained.

“I am the ‘swan song’ beside you.” The girl was afraid that Bray would forget her.

If even Bray has forgotten, then who will remember him?

She doesn't want that; she doesn't want to be forgotten so soon after her birth.

"The Last Echo... You are the sword I've always carried with me..."

Bray had no idea what the mental world was, but he remembered that he had a very important sword by his side.

"The Last Echo? Are you the Last Echo?" Bray crouched down, bringing his gaze to the same level as the girl's.

"Yes, I am 'The Last Echo'." The girl finally put down her book and smiled shyly and happily.

This shy girl should perhaps be given a prefix; she should be called a "literary girl" because she loves reading.

"Although I don't know why, this is how I am now."

"I... I can talk now, I can see things, and you can ask me anything Master doesn't know," the girl said, blushing.

She didn't know why she was so easily embarrassed.

Why do you call me Master?

"Because that's what the book says," the girl said weakly, though she only knew the answer but not the reasoning behind it.

"Oh!" But she seemed too excited, and the book she had placed on her lap slipped off, causing her to exclaim in surprise.

Feeling helpless, she tried to cover her face with the book, only to find that the book had already slipped away.

So she had to pull down the brim of her hat so that Bray wouldn't see her blushing face.

"So do you know exactly what my situation is right now?" Bray asked.

He instinctively straightened "The Last Echo"'s hat and patted it afterward.

The girl instinctively closed her eyes when she was patted on the head.

This was probably the first time I had come into contact with a "strange" Master, and I felt a little resistant.

But she soon opened her eyes, because it seemed that the Master wasn't so scary after all.

“The Master is now trapped in a larger mental world than this,” the girl explained.

She explained the situation to Bray very carefully.

If Bray doesn't find the "core" of his mental world, he will slowly be assimilated.

Assimilation was Bray's state before meeting the girl—he had forgotten everything, yet felt that everything was reasonable.

Is it contradictory? No, in this world of mental images, these things do not contradict each other.

"Master, do your best!" "Echo" clenched her little fist and cheered for Bray.

After doing all that, she picked up the book and used it to cover her face.

"I'll do my best," Bray promised the girl.

"If you forget again, I'll... wake you up again."

"so…"

“I won’t forget,” Breton said softly after a pause.

"If you don't believe me, let's pinky swear." He held up his little finger and said to the girl.

After hesitating for a moment, the girl also extended her little finger and hooked it with Brera's.

Her fingers were very slender; a comparison with Bray revealed the vast difference between the two.

Her heart, like her fingers, is actually quite delicate.

The newborn girl was not very strong inside; she was timid and shy.

She was terrified of making a mistake, terrified of losing something.

It's a bit funny to say this, especially considering it's a sword.

But that's what she really thought.

From the day she developed her own will, she was no longer simply a sword to be used by others.

---

Bray woke up.

The sword was drawn.

"Clang—" A crisp sound rang out on the street in the early morning.

After glancing at his sword, he put it away.

According to what "The Last Echo" told me, a certain "story" is unfolding in the mental world I inhabit.

The girl speculated that if the story unfolded normally and ended, then there would be another round.

In other words, he has to be foolish again, and the girl has to be woken up again.

That won't do.

It is a heinous crime to forget another child who has high expectations of you without your consent.

Sure enough, I had to complete the game in one life.

His right eye stared blankly at the fake sun in the sky.

In such a vast world, it seems impossible for one person to end it all alone.

It seems unrealistic to even think about it, since the chances of finding the "core" person or thing are too low.

Normally, an unlucky person won't find it without making a few mistakes.

He sighed helplessly.

"Brey, why are you up so early, and sighing so early in the morning?" Caesar asked as he pushed open the shop door behind Bray.

"Good morning, manager. I was just contemplating life," Bray replied casually.

"Reflecting on life?" Caesar was puzzled by Bray's words.

Thinking about life first thing in the morning, is this guy a philosopher?

"What are you thinking about? Tell me."

“I was thinking, this world is so big,” Bray said.

Yes, this mental world is so vast, ridiculously vast.

"Really? I think the world is quite small."

"Small?"

"Yes, no matter what, the area we've been to is only so big."

“These places, in a sense, are what we call ‘the world’,” Caesar said out of the blue.

"Hmm... thinking about it that way, it doesn't seem that big." Bray nodded.

The real world is vast, but for people, the actual world is not that big.

Is it hard to understand? It's definitely hard to understand; actually, I don't understand it either.

"Caesar!!!" As Bray was talking to Caesar, a pleasant voice quickly approached.

A girl named Ulitina stood proudly beside Caesar, seemingly waiting for his response.

Just standing there, she was like a bright red rose—proud, beautiful, and lovely.

"Ulitina, what brings you here..."

“Of course it’s for you… no, it’s to have you accompany me!” Ulitina cleared her throat and said.

Bray was completely oblivious to the interaction between the two people behind him.

Hmph, the stench of mere romance.

At this moment, he was more concerned about the "size" of the world.

Is the world... actually very small...?

The mind that trapped Bray was like a vast world.

In his view, the size of this kind of city that can be traveled from one city to another cannot be considered small.

But then he wondered if the world was essentially just a box.

A box that only allowed him to see so many things.

If it's a box, you always have the illusion that you can "slash" it open.

With his sword, he could sever the world of his imagination? That seems rather unrealistic.

Numerous ideas kept swirling in Bray's mind.

There are relatively realistic ideas, as well as wildly imaginative ones.

"Master, what do you want to do?" the girl in the sword asked curiously.

She could vaguely sense what her Master was thinking.

But it wasn't mind reading; it was the kind of feeling where, after spending so much time together, you could understand the other person from just a small detail.

So the girl couldn't know what Bray was thinking; at most, she only knew what Bray wanted to do.

"Tell me, can I destroy the entire world of my mind?" Bray said to the girl.

"Ah, this..." For a moment, she didn't know how to answer Bray's question.

Normally speaking, there are very few ways to leave this enormous mental world.

There are three possibilities: first, the master of the mental world, Fang Lei, must leave; second, one must find and destroy the self-will that is at the core; and third, one's consciousness must be strong enough to detach oneself autonomously.

The first two are achievable, but the last one is basically impossible, unless the Master of this mental world is really incompetent.

But even Bray himself has been assimilated to some extent, proving that the Masters of the Mental World are not weak either.

The girl never thought of "splitting" the world apart.

Looking around, no matter how you look at it, this mental world doesn't seem like it could be cut open by a sword.

"People don't actually have that many constraints."

"Since we don't know, let's give it a try," Bray said quietly, taking out his longsword.

"Hmm...hmm." The girl said nothing more. Since it was what her Master wanted to do, she wouldn't object.