A dull longsword and a heartbroken villager

Kaima felt her mind was completely blank and she couldn't think straight.

It's as if I've lost all my emotions.

I don't feel excited, I don't feel frustrated...

She no longer smiles at her children.

A strange sense of numbness, and a feeling of emptiness in my memory.

“Teacher Kaima.” Bray walked up to Kaima.

"..." Kaima looked up blankly.

There was no light in his eyes; his pupils held only an endless abyss.

“You must be Ms. Kaima,” Bray said.

"Hmm." Kaima simply nodded, offering no further response.

“Thank you for the amulet,” Bray said.

"..." But Kaima didn't respond much.

She was completely different from the enthusiastic Kaima she had been before.

Kaima now is no different from a walking puppet.

Bray stared at Kaima expressionlessly.

Kaima stared at Bray expressionlessly.

After a long time, Kaima simply walked past Bray, showing no intention of continuing the conversation.

"Thud." The book that Kaima was holding fell to the ground.

But Kaima acted as if she hadn't noticed and left directly.

Bray silently bent down and picked up the book that had fallen to the ground.

Kaima teaches at a primary school, and her students are all very young children.

"A picture book." Among the several books was a picture book.

Bray stared at the picture book in his hand for a long time without saying a word.

What should be done with this picture book, Bree?

Give it back to Kaima? Would that even be of any use?

Bray had no idea what state Kaima was in.

But it's definitely not normal. It's like an empty shell. It knows what it should do, but other than that, it's no different from a puppet.

After a moment of hesitation, Bray caught up with Kaima.

Kaima walked slowly, and Bray quickly caught up with her.

Bray grabbed Kaima's shoulder and then shoved the book, along with the picture book, into Kaima's hands.

“Don’t throw any more away,” Bray whispered.

Then he released his grip on Kaima's shoulder.

“Goodbye,” Bray said to Kaima, who was now an empty shell. —“In the darkness, abandon mercy.”

"The cursed are like walking corpses."

"Whether it's real or illusory, in the end all one can do is groan."

Bray could understand some of what the old man was saying.

Bray arrived at Irving's house.

Without any warning, the door was opened.

The one who opened the door was naturally the elderly Irving.

The old man remained the same, unchanged.

As if he had expected Bray to arrive at his doorstep at this moment, old man Owen had been waiting for Bray for a long time.

No one knows how this old man, whose senses were deprived, knew that Bray had arrived.

“…” Bray wanted to say something to old man Owen.

But in the end, he didn't say it, because there was no point in speaking.

Old man Owen cannot hear himself speaking.

But Bray knew that old man Owen could guess what he wanted to ask.

Irving pushed his wheelchair slowly down the hallway of his home.

Bray followed at a leisurely pace.

Old man Irving eventually took Bray to the study.

This time, instead of giving Bray a book, the old man Irving took out a piece of paper.

Irving didn't even have to fumble around on the table before he easily picked up a pen.

Despite having lost all his senses, he gives the illusion that he can "see" and "hear".

In reality, the elderly Irving was unable to communicate with Bray using language.

However, he could communicate with Bray using words.

He knew all the questions in Bray's mind.

Kyrie Irving reached the level of "sharp-wittedness" a long time ago.

It transcends the five senses, becoming a true sixth sense.

In a sense, Irving has successfully realized his ideals.

His body was that of a mortal, or perhaps even weaker than that of an ordinary mortal.

He didn't possess any powerful magic either.

It's fair to say that the elderly Irving has little strength.

However, his "heart" had reached an abnormal level.

He is probably comparable to Bray, and it wouldn't be surprising if he were even stronger than Bray.

A powerful "heart" allows the elderly Irving to do all sorts of incredible things.

For example, one could freely enter a nightmare and wander within it.

For example, one can suppress the duration of a nightmare through willpower.

All these miracles are simply due to the "heart" of old man Irving.

"Thump—" The old man tapped the table with his pen, catching Bray's attention.

"You want to write something?" Bray asked.

But the old man ignored Bray's question, perhaps because he thought it was nonsense, or perhaps because he really couldn't hear it.

"The cursed can only live a false life." Owen slowly wrote this sentence on the paper.

"..." Bray lowered his head and remained silent, thinking of Kaima.

Bray probably understands the meaning of falsely "living".

However, what Bray wanted to know was whether there was a way to restore it.

"There is no way to recover."

As if knowing about Bray's problem, the old man added another sentence to the paper.

"I knew it." Bray had this bad feeling all along.

However, everyone has a tendency to take chances, and Bray is no exception.

Bray's right eyelid drooped as he sighed helplessly.

"I've lost all control over the nightmares, and Logan wants to speed things up," Irving continued.

Bray has realized that the duration of last night's nightmare is a bit off.

It lasted for a full four hours.

Normally, it would only last for an hour.

"I don't know how many more experiments he wants to do."

"But if this continues, the whole town will turn into hell."

What if everyone in the town who was dragged into the nightmare died twice?

So how bizarre will Knighttown become in the end?

"You have good intentions in your heart, so you will help this town."

"And if you stand by and do nothing, then the people around you will eventually be dragged into Logan's nightmare as well."

Irving wrote slowly, but Bray waited patiently for him to finish.

“!?!” Bray frowned.

Irving mentioned in the book that being pulled into nightmares is entirely random.

"This is only a part of it now, but the town will eventually be pulled into an endless dream."

"You and the people around you will all be deeply trapped in it and unable to extricate themselves."

—A person whose heart is not firm cannot control their own heart.

After writing these words, Irving stopped writing.

Bray sighed, realizing he hadn't asked many questions from beginning to end, and Irving had answered them all.

It's really strange to feel like your words are known even before you say them.

“There’s one last thing I want to know,” Bray said in a deep voice.

Even though Irving couldn't hear him, Bray still asked out of habit.

"Those monstrous materials are the nightmare of the dead."

"Don't worry about it."

The materials used for the synthetic beasts were not from the townspeople of Dream Town.

Instead, they were dead strangers.

How can the dead have dreams?

"The dead can dream; this is one of the miracles of the gods."

But the monsters inside the school were indeed townspeople.

The dolls piled up at the market are also from the townspeople.

It is very difficult to distinguish which are reflections of the deceased in their dreams.

However, the phrase "dead strangers" raises another question.

"Why are so many outsiders dying here?"

Old man Irving held the pen in his hand for a long time without moving it.

The study was shrouded in a somber atmosphere.

"That is our sin," the old man Irving wrote on the paper long afterward.

After writing this sentence, the old man Irving put down his pen and pushed his wheelchair closer to the window.

Bray looked at the sentence written on the paper, his eyelids drooping.

These characters were written with great force, as if the brush weighed a ton.

Bray knew very well how many human corpses those chimeras had used.

The deceased lingered in dreams, then were killed in nightmares, and their remains were pieced together.

Who killed them? And who killed them again in the dream?