A dull longsword and a heartbroken villager

After a long silence, Bray decided to knock on the door.

"Knock knock—" He wanted to confirm something.

"Hehehehehehahahahahahaha!!!!" A maniacal laugh came from inside the door.

It's the kind of sound that normal people can't laugh out loud.

Bray stopped knocking, and the maniacal laughter also stopped.

They kept knocking, and laughter continued.

Bray switched to another company, but the result was the same.

He stared blankly at the walls on both sides, which were covered with human figures.

The carved human figures seemed to want to escape from the walls; although their expressions were blurry, their ferocity was still evident.

“So here’s the question: is this really Knight Town?” Bray murmured, stroking the blade of his longsword.

The layout of the places Bray walked through was exactly the same as that of Knight Town.

But Bray was certain that this place was not Knighttown.

Neither the walls, nor the lights, nor the people inside the houses belong to Knight Town.

No… perhaps this place could be called Knight Town, but this is the terrifying Knight Town.

"Bang!!!" Bray's dead fish eyes narrowed, and he turned around and kicked the door of the house behind him.

There was a maniacal laugh coming from inside the house just now, and Bray wanted to know what was inside.

Bray glanced at everything behind the door with his right eye.

It was old, and everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.

Fortunately, there was still some moonlight, which allowed Bray to barely see clearly.

There was a chair in the house, and a person was sitting on the chair with their head down.

Bray walked up to the man and realized that he was just a puppet.

A well-dressed puppet sits quietly in a chair.

The chill traveled along the spinal cord straight to the brain.

There was no one in the house, so where did the laughter come from?

"Ghost stories? What a terrible genre." Bray dislikes horror stories the most.

But despite saying that, Bray's eyes remained completely calm, unaffected by anything that had just happened.

"I really hope Levy can't see these things." These things would definitely terrify Levy.

Naruko? Forget it, this is probably a new adventure for her.

Bray left the house and continued onto the eerie street.

The night continued, and Bray continued to wander through this eerie town.

Wandering aimlessly was not Bray's intention, but he really had no other choice.

"Crack—crackle—" I remembered that sound of a series of things colliding with each other.

And this time it was heard near the minefield.

"Thump—" Bray simply pulled out the greatsword from his back, the blade dragging on the ground.

Finally, something came to Bray; he had been waiting for it for a long time.

Something was approaching the mine in the thick fog.

The thing didn't seem to be moving very fast, but the distance it covered was rapidly decreasing in segments.

Bray stood calmly in place, gripping his two swords, quietly waiting for the thing to come closer.

"Kara—Kara—"

As the thing drew closer, Bray finally saw what it was.

"A monster? That can't be right..." Bray curled his lip.

Although Bray didn't know how to define a monster, his intuition told him that what he was looking at was definitely not a monster.

Its liquid lower body wriggled on the ground, while its upper body was a skull pieced together.

It can't really be called a skull, since there seem to be some muscle fibers on it.

Among these closely connected heads, eyes are moving.

The densely packed eyes are enough to make anyone with trypophobia back away.

"Woo woo woo woo—" The eerie monster let out an indescribable scream.

All eyes turned to Bray without prior arrangement.

Bray remained calm despite being stared at like that, showing no sign of panic.

A murky liquid dripped continuously from the monster's body, and it wriggled faster and faster, leaving a long, wet trail on the ground.

"Clang!" Unfortunately, Bray didn't intend to let the monster perform any acrobatics before making his move.

Are we really going to wait for this disgusting thing to use its disgusting skills?

Are you kidding me? Bray only lets interesting monsters use moves; this kind of weird stuff doesn't count.

"Shoot-"

The greatsword cleaved the monster in two, its hard skull as fragile as tofu.

Blood gushed from the monster's split body.

In the middle of the monster's body was a mixture of various internal organs, and inside these organs were eyeballs.

The tightly connected heads loosened, and countless tentacles stretched out from the gaps.

The tentacles attacked Bray fiercely, trying to tear him to pieces.

"Enough with the noise." The longsword flashed with a cold light.

Bray expressionlessly severed all the tentacles.

After a long time, the monster finally stopped moving.

Yes, only the body stopped moving; the eyes in the skull were still moving restlessly.

Meanwhile, the liquid in his lower body spread out like a puddle of mud, making it impossible for him to move.

After a moment's thought, Bray finally used his appraisal skill.

---

Chimera (Nightmare)

The monster, pieced together from countless corpse parts, has no self-awareness. However, this synthetic beast is special, as it is composed of a head, eyeballs, and spinal cord, and has no strength whatsoever.

Addendum: Ta-da! I've arrived! Missed me? You seem confused, so I'll mercifully tell you: you're currently in a materialized nightmare, where the line between reality and illusion is blurred. If you want to leave, wait until dawn. But how did this happen? I won't tell you! Want me to tell you? Then chat with me! Chat, chat, chat!

---

Chatting? Sorry, Bray doesn't chat with chatterboxes.

Bray looked at the results of his unreliable appraisal skills and was somewhat speechless.

Am I in a nightmare? When did this happen?

Bray had no idea what was going on; he had just inexplicably ended up here.

But the person who created such a nightmare must be quite remarkable.

But no matter how awesome that guy is, Bray is still very unhappy.

"Another chimera." Bray's expression turned cold.

He hates this stuff.

“Nightmare, and then Knight Town.” Bray could roughly understand why the surrounding scenery looked the way it did.

Ordinary methods simply cannot make Bray be plagued by nightmares.

After all, Bray's "heart" is too high.

But why was he dragged into a nightmare this time?

"But it'll still be several hours before dawn," Bray said, a little annoyed.

According to the goddess, Bray could only leave this wretched place when dawn broke.

But who knows what else might appear in this eerie town during these next few hours?

Just as Bray was wondering when dawn would break, the surrounding fog began to dissipate.

The night suddenly faded, and sunlight, which shouldn't have been there, shone into this terrifying town.

Dawn broke, it happened in an instant, and Bray didn't even have time to react.

---

It was still night in Knighttown.

Bray glanced at Naruko, who was yawning, and Levy, who was wagging her tail, beside him.

"Were you spacing out just now?" Naruko asked Bray, her eyes half-open.

She keenly noticed that Bray had been acting strangely for a while.

Of course, the time is very short, and you won't notice it if you're not careful.

"Are you sleepy?"

“A little,” Bray replied casually.

It seems that no one else has had any accidents except for myself.

“By the way, that strange sound from earlier has disappeared,” Naruko said.

Previously, we could hear a "crackling" sound, as well as indescribable monster cries.

Now they've all disappeared.

"Did you hear that?" Bree asked Naruko.

"Of course, it was such a clear sound."

"Levy must have heard it too."

Levy's hearing is more than ten times better than Naruko's.

"Levy heard it! She even heard the dripping sound of water!" Levy raised her hand to speak.

“Is that so?” Bray fell silent.

That voice must have come from the chimera in the nightmare.

The dripping sound, Breczek guessed, was coming from the chimera, whose lower body was liquid.

Why can Naruko and Levi also hear it?

The things in my nightmares are affecting my reality.

Bray had a feeling that he might have taken on a really bad job this time.

I should have gone to cause trouble for Miqiu Rabbit instead of courting death by standing guard.

"Woof woof woof!" The urgent barking continued from the alley.

"Meow~" Fireball barked along with the dog.

"Don't disturb people's sleep." Bray covered Fireball's mouth without any mercy.

The fireball really wanted to bite down, but after calmly considering the consequences, it chickened out.

After Bresson released his hand, Fireball shut up.

"It's still a long, long time before dawn, Bray," Levy said to Bray, wagging her tail. =A=

“Hmm, there are still several hours left.” Bray stroked Levy’s hair.

Is Levy sleepy?