Arknightcraft Modpack
Chapter 465: Is This… a Dream?
After seeing Alina back safely, Steven didn't stay in the Infected camp any longer. Since Talulah had only just set out, the group of Infected preparing to leave shouldn't have gone very far yet.
Having already promised not to interfere with Talulah's choices, Steven naturally wasn't going to track her out of worry. That was trust—pure and simple. And given Talulah's abilities, it wouldn't be easy for her to stumble into disaster anyway. Not to mention, she was still carrying a Totem of Undying on her.
As for Alina, there was even less to worry about for now. With Patriot holding the fort inside the camp, and three Emperor's Blades outside who had accepted his request to protect her, the situation was rock-solid.
One could say that both the light and dark sides of Ursus were currently working for Steven. Anyone who wanted to break through those layers of defense and harm Alina—short of Steven himself—would be hard-pressed to find many candidates capable of doing so.
Rather than waiting around here, it was better to go back and rest. As long as he was still on this frozen land, he wouldn't allow anything to happen to Alina.
Worst case scenario, he could always open a black hole and warp over. It would only take a second or two.
Returning directly to the small wooden cabin he had built on the snowfield, Steven first sent a message to Kal'tsit, informing her that he might not be able to return to Rhodes Island for the next couple of days. Only after that did he head inside to wash up.
Nian was probably still busy these past few days helping him forge tools to conceal his presence, so she likely didn't have time to film her "world-shaking masterpiece." As for the temporary actors he'd roped in, not having to participate in that movie might actually be a blessing for them.
Halfway through his bath, Steven remembered to send another message—this time to Centaurea—to let her know he was safe. Being unfamiliar with Rhodes Island, she'd probably panic a bit if she suddenly realized he was gone.
"Maybe tomorrow I'll have Amiya take Suzuran and the other kids to hang out with Centaurea," Steven muttered, stroking his chin. "Staying in her room all day, doing nothing but eating and sleeping… that's bound to ruin someone sooner or later."
Ever since Centaurea quit her job as Platinum, her lifestyle had basically turned into something akin to livestock farming—sleeping and eating day in, day out. Steven could barely recall ever seeing her leave her room.
If this were the first world he used to live in, she'd absolutely become a NEET. Who knew, maybe one day she'd choose to be a Vtuber and rake in a fortune online.
Thinking about such trivial nonsense, Steven lay down on the bed and pressed his fingers to his brow.
Ever since returning to the snowfield, he'd been feeling something strange lingering around him. That vague sense of danger concerning Alina had been born from it.
Now that he was lying down, fully relaxed, that odd sensation seemed to vanish instead.
Unable to figure out what was going on, Steven let out a quiet sigh and dropped his head onto the pillow.
At this point, getting some proper sleep seemed like the best option.
And yet, the very instant his head touched the pillow, the entire world plunged into darkness.
Steven felt as though the reality he had been lying in was suddenly pried loose and flipped upright. The world stood on end, and he was forced to shift from a lying position… to standing.
Steven lowered his head and glanced at the ground that had appeared beneath his feet out of nowhere. When he raised his head again, he realized he was no longer inside the familiar cabin on the snowy plains.
Instead, he was standing on a somewhat modern-looking street, surrounded by people scattering in panic.
"Is this… what people call a lucid dream?" Steven muttered. "Or a hallucination?"
He paid no attention to the civilians rushing past him in chaos—some even screaming as they fled through him, as if running away from something behind him. Calmly, Steven summoned his interface and glanced at the status bar in the top-right corner.
After confirming that there was no "Hallucination" debuff listed there, he gained a rough understanding of his situation.
The status bar was still visible, but both the inventory and equipment tabs were missing. That meant there was a very high chance he really was inside some kind of dream. Otherwise, judging by the known figures on Terra—even so-called gods shouldn't be able to interfere with his MC system to this extent.
Thankfully, the command input bar was still functioning normally. That alone gave Steven a strong sense of reassurance. As long as commands still worked, there was nothing he truly needed to fear.
Having sorted that out, Steven finally lifted his head and surveyed the utterly chaotic scene around him.
Judging from the bear-like rounded ears on the heads of the fleeing civilians, as well as their unmistakable Ursus accents, this place was likely one of Ursus's mobile cities.
And once Steven noticed that those panicked civilians couldn't see him at all—some even passing straight through his body like holograms—he was able to confirm another thing.
He was probably in a state similar to MC's spectator mode.
Or perhaps this dream—or whatever it was—was trying to show him something.
"People can't dream up things they've never known before," Steven murmured. "So whether this is actually my dream… that's still up for debate."
He glanced up at a nearby street sign bearing the name Chernobog, scratching his head slightly. The name rang a faint bell, but he could say for certain that he didn't recognize a single one of the Ursus civilians fleeing past him.
"Normally, background NPCs in dreams don't have faces, right? Or at least you can't see them clearly."
He muttered the complaint to himself—and before the words had even fully left his mouth, the faces of the crowd instantly blurred, as if someone had smeared them out. In the blink of an eye, they turned into indistinct masses of visual noise.
"So it is live feedback-based bug fixing, huh?" Steven chuckled. "Man, if the games I played updated this fast, that'd be amazing."
With that lighthearted jab, Steven had already more or less figured out who was behind this entire scene.
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Note: Character Illustration is in this Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iuyfwNVFHzIi9H4rWNT_lAm7jTSiah_M
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https://www.patreon.com/collection/55713?view=condensed[4]
[1] https://www.patreon.com/collection/55713?view=condensed
[2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/156361807?collection=55713
[3] https://www.patreon.com/posts/156361807?collection=55713
[4] https://www.patreon.com/collection/55713?view=condensed