120 – 25. Dream in a dream
“…Me?”
“Then who am I?”
Namgoong Min is shocked and Namgoong Min laughs.
Two people with the same physique, height, face, expression, and even voice faced each other.
I can know because it is ‘me’ and no one else.
That’s me.
“How…Did it happen?”
Can there be two ‘I’?
If I think about it, when I first opened my eyes in this world, I had already arrived at the academy.
Then, before that, I was living in the Korean Empire?
The past me that Liu investigated through background investigation?
“Somehow, things went wrong.”
“Twisted?”
“I… So Namgoong Min was kidnapped right before he entered the academy.”
“Kidnapping?”
“Uh. Normally, if you disappear like that, of course your admission to the academy would be canceled and an investigation would begin…”
“…I appeared?”
“That’s right. So I was kidnapped, but nothing happened.”
In other words, does this mean that the disaster happened because we were exactly the same ‘me’?
Originally, the investigation or something should have started when Namgoong Min was kidnapped, but it was forgotten because I showed up at exactly that time.
If it were true, the timing was shocking and even malicious.
“Isn’t it really like a trick of fate?”
“Wait, then how did you come into my dream?”
From Noble mtl dot com
“Well, I was sleeping, and when I opened my eyes, I was here. I didn’t know what was going on, so I looked around and saw you in a dream because of the gate.”
“…I was in a dream?”
“I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have a lucid dream, but when I looked from the side, you were talking to a girl with your head down.”
“……………….”
“Honestly, I don’t care about the reason. It’s a miracle that I met you, or myself.”
Namgoong Min laughed bitterly.
Then he extended his hand to me with a sincere voice.
“Help me, me.”
“…If you help me, are you asking me to save you?”
“That’s right. Honestly, I had given up on escaping.”
“……….”
If this is real, we need to save it.
Because the person in front of my eyes is clearly myself.
But.
“I want to check before that.”
“Huh? Confirm?”
“Confirmation that you are not my delusion.”
“……Hmm.”
Lucid dream.
Honestly, I’ve never dreamed it, and of course I’ve never experienced it, so I don’t know what it feels like.
But I know that it is a dream that can be freely transformed according to my thoughts and imagination.
‘What if Namgoong Min across from me is nothing more than a hallucination created by myself?’
Then he must be mentally ill and unable to pull out or put out anything.
That’s why I needed evidence to believe my words about being kidnapped.
“So, how can I prove it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then of course I don’t know… It’s a bit hard to say. I’m a little smarter than you.”
“……….”
“How about this? It proves that you don’t know about my past.”
“It’s the past.”
“You’re from another world, so you don’t know my past in this world, right? I’m confirming that for you.”
“……Hmm.”
“Go to the slums of Seoul, the house where my parents and I lived. My diary is buried there.”
“……………….”
“If you go there and see that my diary is really there, doesn’t that prove it? At least you never buried it there, right?”
“That’s right.”
“If I really am your hallucination, then of course all I know is what you know and remember. Isn’t that a good enough solution?”
“That’s right.”
Definitely, that’s right.
This is a really good method.
Except for just one thing.
“But there is one thing that bothers me.”
“What is it again? This is why I’m a bit dumber than I am.”
“Why are you lying?”
“……Huh?”
To be honest, I was skeptical, but after seeing it a few times, I now know for sure.
I, who is shrugging my shoulders on the other side, am lying.
Is it because I learned it from the same damn cult?
“What are you saying? Are you lying?”
“Don’t act like a fool.”
“No, it’s because it’s absurd. Why are you so dumber than me? Do you have a habit of lying?”
“Nothing. If that pseudo bastard had a habit like that, she told him to unconditionally erase it.”
“Then?”
“It’s just that I think that’s exactly how I would act when I lie.”
“……………….”
Restrain your movements, speak in a low tone, and give emphasis to important words.
It is a speech technique that builds trust in the other person, but because it is a speech technique that I know so well, I feel a sense of déjà vu.
If the other person were really me, there would be no need to use such techniques when talking to me.
In fact, when I was talking to the person across from me, I was speaking comfortably, without any such techniques or speaking techniques.
“And I did some research after coming to this world, and in this world I have not met any pseudo-bastards.”
“……….”
“But you said, ‘I learned it from that pseudo-bastard.’ What kind of contradiction is this?”
“……………….”
“That’s not all. Since I am a , Of course you are also a , But I do not have the ability to link my mind to a Or interfere with my dreams. Moreover, it is strange that you and I have met now. I am already here. “It’s been half a year since I came to this world.”
“…Could it be because of the uniqueness of this gate?”
“Of course it is. But how did you know I entered the gate?”
“What?”
“That’s right. Even if the dreams are connected, we usually think of other possibilities. Is it normal to think, ‘The dreams were connected because I entered a gate called a dream in a dream’?”
“……………….”
“Even if you thought so, there are gates related to dreams other than this one. Even so, you spoke with confidence using the keyword ‘lucid dream’.”
And even before that.
How did I know I came from another world in the first place?
If you were really kidnapped, it would be normal not to know what’s going on outside, but how would you know that I’m from another world and attending the academy?
At that point, it is not speculation, but delusion and mental illness.
I opened my mouth after glaring at ‘me’ with a stiff face.
“What’s wrong? Answer me something, Namgoong Min.”
“……….”
“I know you’re not delusional. If you really were my delusion, there’s no way you’d make such a beginner’s mistake. So what is it? A disguise? A trick? I don’t know what it is, but one thing is certain.”
“…What is it?”
“You are definitely ‘me’, but you are not completely like ‘me’.”
From the first time we talked, I emphasized things like ‘I’m better than you’ and ‘You’re dumber than me.’
Maybe there is a clue in that part.
That was the time when I was thinking about that and waiting for my answer.
“……hehehehe, hahahahaha. Damn, this is truly a damn thing.”
“………?”
“This is so different from what I expected. You are so…Intelligent.”
──Maybe even more than me.
Those words were the beginning.
As soon as I said that in a creepy voice across from me, the surroundings began to change.
Cow!
“……!!”
The small semi-basement studio suddenly becomes larger, walls are built, and it is filled with all kinds of colors.
The floor was wooden, the wallpaper was white, and ordinary furniture appeared throughout the house.
Before I knew it, I was in a house that looked peaceful.
“…This place.”
“You know the scenery, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
Here…… Because it was the house I lived in when I was young.
Before my parents’ business failed, before my parents met the pseudo-as*shole.
A nostalgic home full of happy memories from childhood.
It was the same scenery I remembered.
However, there is one difference.
‘There, there is no door.’
My younger sister’s room was closest to the entrance.
Where there should have been a door originally, it was only decorated with walls and furniture.
“Yeah…It’s the same…”
“…….”
“I don’t understand at all. Why was it you and not me? Why did I…”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t need to know. It’s already in the past, and it’s a fate you must accept.”
“…Fate?”
“That’s natural, right?”
Likewise, as I was looking around the scenery of the house I missed, I took something out of my arms.
…… It was a tarot card.
“You and I are both fortune tellers, and fortune tellers are beings who obey fate.”
“……………….”
“A fortuneteller can only read fate, but must not interfere with it. Fate cannot be disobeyed; it must only be followed.”
I was fiddling with the tarot cards and soon put them back in my arms.
Those eyes were eerily emotionless.
“So, what do you mean?”
“…What is it?”
“Are you going to fight?”
“………?”
What is that──
“──Wow!?”
“Sigh.”
Puck! Wow!!
I immediately closed the distance and lunged at him, swinging my fist, and I stumbled when he hit me square in the face.
While pain was pounding in my brain, I was hit in the abdomen and solar plexus, causing me to lie down on the floor.
Then, he hits me with his foot.
“Whoa!?”
“He has decent physical ability, but he has no fighting skills. He is much weaker than me.”
It seems like it was just for confirmation.
I took a final step back and tilted my head.
“At least my head seems to be spinning, but that’s all? A weakling like that?”
“Whoa…Whoa…”
I graduated from a police academy, so what is this?
…… Oh, I came here before I learned self-defense.
Rather than that, is that really me? Why are you so strong on the same theme of ?
“I don’t understand…I can’t understand…”
“What nonsense from earlier…”
“Fate. This is fate? Is it fate that I, an inferior person like that, are chosen? It can’t be that way. It can’t be that way!”
“……….”
“…Ha, I wasn’t going to do this.”
Namgoong Min is looking at me.
His eyes were no longer emotionless.
Rather, it felt like I was filled with all kinds of negative emotions and overflowing.
I snap my fingers as he stares at me with those eyes and gaze.
Just right.
As if that was a signal. All doors in the house opened simultaneously.
And.
“Crrr……….”
“……Crazy?”
“Don’t worry. Even if I die here, I won’t actually die. I’ll just be a little shaken up.”
“What are you doing!?”
“It would have been nice if you had obeyed me obediently. I think it was punishment for being pointless.”
A four-footed animal comes in through the open door.
It was not a lion, a tiger, or a bear, but it was all of them.
A demonic beast in the form of all kinds of creatures stared at me, and I walked out through the door the demon came through.
“See you again, inferior me.”
“This is crazy…!”
“Keuaaa!!!”
As soon as I go out the door, the demon attacks me.
The skill is not being used, and there is no way to stop it──
Click!
“……Namgoong……Min…….”
“Huh…?”
──A way to stop it appears from the other side of space.
Abel Legion, the hero who suddenly appeared in the space right next to the demonic beast, looked at me and the demonic beast alternately for a moment.
Immediately, he lowered the great sword he was holding in his hand.
Kwasik!!
“Kooooo!!!”
“A trivial…Animal…”
The demonic beast roared in pain for a moment as the great sword pierced its torso.
The warrior pulled out the great sword that was stuck and cut the beast to pieces.
“……Die…….”
Although he clearly holds the great sword with both hands, the sword strike is not even visible to the eye.
The hero, who had cut down the beast more than ten times in the blink of an eye, wasted no time in striking the beast’s tattered neck.
Degurrr.
“…Wow.”
…… The monster that boasted such overwhelming majesty suddenly rolled over on its head.
The hero, who had slaughtered a monster I couldn’t even touch in an instant, looked at me while holding a great sword.
“……….”
Well, I’m really thankful.
You didn’t mean to swing that at me…… ?
*
“Wow!”
Dark space.
The man suddenly vomited blood while lying limp and gritted his teeth.
Clap!
The chains on both wrists made unpleasant noises in sync with the man’s movements, but he didn’t even pay attention, as if he was used to it.
The blood that was vomited wet the floor, but as if this was not the first time, the floor was already full of dried blood stains.
“Finally… We met…”
His voice was rough.
Only the sound of metal scraping came from the vocal cords, which seemed to be as cracked as a waterless desert.
But the man was smiling.
He was smiling as if he was really happy.
“Namgoong Min……Namgoong Min……Namgoong Min.”
Lift the chain connecting both wrists and hold it as if holding a pencil.
One of the chains that made up the chain stuck out and began to engrave something as if writing on a wall in a dark place.
Even though it is a space where only a weak light comes from somewhere.
The man wrote down without the slightest hesitation, as if he was familiar with even that faint light.
“Nam Goong Min.”
That name.
Carve into the wall with strength.
And.
Great!!
“Definitely…”
I roughly cross the name that was engraved.
Like putting a cross mark on an incorrect question.
Like erasing incorrect writing by coloring it in with a pen.
With all kinds of emotions, sincerity, and feelings of inferiority.
Erase that name.
“Definitely…!!”
What is being erased is someone’s name, but at the same time, it is his name.
From Noble mtl dot com
Namgoong Min erased Namgoong Min’s name in the darkness.
Over and over again.
Over and over again.
Delete it as many times as you want.
Then, suddenly, I quit.
“……………….”
With all emotions such as hatred, inferiority, and anger erased.
Namgoong Min sat quietly in his seat and took something out of his pocket.
“The point….”
Tarot cards.
Take out the old and worn tarot cards, but the pictures are barely recognizable, and mix them up.
As if it were a lie that he had been expressing his emotions just a moment ago, Namgoong Min was already handling the cards in a solemn manner.
Soon, he chose a card and turned it over without wasting time.
“……….”
Major Arcana No. 21, The reverse direction of .
What that card means──
“……….”
Nam Goong Min was silent.
It was the same result as always.
Because it was a result that will not change in the future.
Idk what just happened