Only one day remained until the winter solstice. Everyone was prepared for that moment, or at least wanted to believe they were.
Giovanni had seen firsthand the despair and fear of those who arrived in the final weeks of the year, as green as fresh sprouts, forced to race against time to accumulate the bare minimum of skills required to survive.
It was horrifying.
The lessons of all his teachers could be exhausting and demanding, yet he felt nothing but gratitude toward them.
To dedicate so much of one's life to teaching strangers and enabling their survival was a noble task.
As the weeks passed, he watched his own abilities and competence grow little by little, until he had finally become someone worthy of the effort invested in him.
His debt to each of them was immense, but to one instructor in particular, it was far greater.
Beako was a difficult woman to deal with.
She behaved in an immature, provocative, and merciless manner. When they first met, the clash of reality had been unavoidable.
But Giovanni had also come to know the capable, experienced person she preferred to hide behind that mask. In the end, they were not so different.
Why did she choose to maintain that façade? He never dared to ask.
Regardless, he would not trade the mentor he had gained if given the chance.
The kind, loving people he once lived among were far away now, and he needed someone to teach him just how cruel and painful the world ahead would be.
Each day under her tutelage pushed him to the limits of his mental and physical endurance.
At times, the thought of giving up crossed his mind.
Yet even when the pain became unbearable, and the bitterness of defeat lingered in his chest, he always heard those magical words. They compelled him to try again, to fail again, until he finally triumphed.
And now, at the end of that journey, the idea of leaving all of this behind felt…lonely.
Seated beside the door, he cooled himself with a bottle of chilled water. Meanwhile, Beako was stuffing herself with cookies atop her favorite beanbag chair.
Neither of them seemed nervous, yet the air still felt strange. Had their efforts been enough? Or, in the end, would Giovanni become just another victim of the spell?
Only he and fortune could decide that.
He chose to break the silence, voicing doubts he had carried for quite some time.
"Professor Beako, if I may ask… why did you agree to give me private mentorship?"
Whether he liked it or not, he was still just a sleeper. She was an awakened, and she took considerable pride in that fact. Her personality was far from charitable enough to explain it, either.
Lazily, Beako dropped the container onto the floor, shoved one last cookie into her mouth, and spoke while chewing.
"What a silly question, golden boy! My brilliant move is called an investment!"
She swallowed and patted her stomach, satisfied.
"I saw your name at the top and thought: if he gets famous, little old me can ride the wave! Heehee."
Giovanni gave an awkward smile, recalling his initial performance.
"I'm afraid I didn't quite live up to your expectations…"
"Not even close. I felt cheated! I almost tossed your fraudulent ass out of here."
Even if it was true, the words hurt all the same. Giovanni cried internally.
"But… you weren't completely useless. I saw a glimmer of hope, and like a master gem-cutter, I cleaned away the impurities and found the jewel I was looking for. You owe me, with interest! So be ready to spoil me even more later."
"Can I pay in cookies? Considering your appetite, you'll die before you manage to bankrupt me…"
The container flew at his head, but Giovanni dodged it in one smooth motion.
"This is what I get for teaching a trick or two to these brats. They start showing their little claws! I have a fast metabolism, alright?"
Giovanni covered his mischievous grin with his hand, pleased to have lightened the mood. Beako sighed and fully reclined on the beanbag, staring at the ceiling.
"Now that our lessons are over, I can give you just one last piece of advice. So listen carefully, golden boy."
He straightened his posture, sensing the shift in her tone.
"The Dream Realm isn't a sprint. It's more like a marathon. It's not about rushing forward and giving everything at once, but about consistency and discipline. Here, in training, you had the luxury of failing endlessly, becoming familiar with pain, and understanding the intensity of combat without needing to care about your body."
In that regard, his mentor's healing ability had been a blessing. If Giovanni had needed to visit the infirmary every time he was seriously injured, his progress would have been drastically hindered.
"But I won't be there. The idea of fighting until your absolute limit, defeating your opponent with your last ounce of strength, is heavily romanticized in stories. But listen to me, it's a trap. A broken leg means death. Internal bleeding means death. A severe concussion means death."
He remembered how his miserable condition during the first nightmare had been a death sentence. A single mistake had left him infected, and nearly doomed him to fail the trial.
"In a world where any mistake kills you, your only option is not to make mistakes. Minimize risks and triple your caution. There are thousands of aberrations. You are only one. There will always be another. Perfection doesn't exist in this world… so just try to get as close to it as possible. Understood?"
Giovanni stared at the woman a few meters away, absorbing her words. He had only one answer to give.
"Yes, ma'am!"
***
It had been six months since Giovanni last stood face to face with someone intent on taking his life. The adrenaline of a truly lethal situation was unique, something that intense training under his tutor could never replicate.
The nightmare creature was small and seemingly weak, but the machine under its control more than compensated for that. If he were to make a polite estimate, he would say it posed a threat equivalent to an awakened beast, perhaps even a monster.
It was an entire rank above him. Running away was always an option…
But he had not trained for all those months just to flee from every challenge before him.
There would be moments when escape was not an option, and until then, he needed to gather every grain of experience he could to become stronger.
Only then would Giovanni be powerful enough to return to them, strong enough to promise that everything would be alright.
The candle still burned within his memories. His gaze reflected a threat standing between him and his family, the first of many.
'So please… step out of my way.'
Both moved simultaneously, charging toward each other at high speed.
The field of flowers trembled, and the gust of wind generated by their movement sent the pale rows of tentacles swaying violently.
The robot's arm extended to its limit, delivering a lethal thrust aimed at the small human head.
Giovanni watched the weapon approach like a battering ram, moments away from turning his skull into pulp.
Slow.
His body lowered, allowing the attack to miss by mere centimeters. His reaction was immediate.
Before the creature could launch another strike, Giovanni's palm touched the silver cylinder.
Clang!
Half of the staff fell to the ground with a gentle thud. The area touched by the young man was transmuted into molten metal in an instant.
The nightmare creature retreated quickly, realizing its weapon had been destroyed with ease.
'The weapon's gone. Next.'
Giovanni closed the distance again, forcing the opponent into combat. In response, the robot raised its arms and attacked in a descending arc, attempting to crush its prey.
Before it could complete the motion, the earth beneath its left foot turned into fine mud, sinking instantly without any chance to react.
What had once carried the force of an awakened being collapsed. Its body pitched forward from inertia, creating a valuable opening.
Giovanni struck the beast's left shoulder with his palm and propelled himself backward, narrowly evading a violent swing that would have easily torn through nearly any human.
His tunic was resilient and would never be damaged by such a weak being, but the concussive force of a direct hit still posed a mortal threat.
What the creature did not expect was for its arm to go flying in the process. Once again, Giovanni had melted the artificial ligament, causing the limb to detach effortlessly.
Each strike was calculated with surgical precision. He needed to hit the machine while taking care not to harm any of the small tentacles controlling it.
If he hesitated even for a moment or lacked certainty in his movement, his flaw would activate to prevent him from harming the opponent.
The nightmare creature grew increasingly erratic as it watched its host's body be dismantled piece by piece. Taking on a feral stance, the robot appeared ready to charge like a furious bull. But Giovanni's surprises were far from over.
A sea of earth rose, cutting off the line of sight between them and catching the opponent off guard. It was clearly a distraction.
Earth could not damage the machine, and he could not attack the nightmare creature directly. He only needed the enemy to hesitate.
Running at full speed, his pace rivaled the fastest and most athletic humans in history. Considering his fragment count, Giovanni had surpassed even them.
Combined with his oldest technique of moving the earth beneath his feet to increase the distance covered per second, he reached the wave of soil and split it in two, slipping through like a blur between the robot's legs.
In a fluid spin, he struck both of the beast's knees with his palms. Behind him, the sound of joints collapsing echoed loudly.
He turned to face the robot's torso lying on the ground, with only one arm still attached.
The fight had lasted no more than ten seconds. The enemy was strong and large, but compared to Beako, its attacks were simple, almost childish, making them easy to predict and counter in advance.
The fact that the nightmare creature was controlling a body that was not its own also made every movement feel stiff.
Giovanni watched in silence as the creature detached itself from the robot and crawled away, trying to escape and possess another machine. It would not get the chance.
Its entire body was sealed inside a smooth sphere of stone and buried underground. He could not harm it, but he could at least prevent it from continuing to fight.
And so his first duel came to an end.
Neither participant bore a single wound.
Giovanni gazed silently at the field of flowers… and kept walking.
The path ahead was no longer safe. Using his expanded seismic sense, he could scout hundreds of meters ahead, locating solitary threats and clusters alike.
There were many beings similar to the one he had encountered earlier in the region, usually attached to the heads of other dead nightmare creatures.
The most numerous enemies by far were creatures with segmented, transparent exoskeletons, long, flattened bodies, and dozens of tiny legs. Their tails stretched into a thin veil that faded into the air.
Their faces bore two black eyes on the sides and a narrow, elongated mouth, seemingly used to inject something into prey and liquefy their organs.
He knew this because of the dozens of small skirmishes taking place between these creatures and others resembling fleshy stars. From a central mouth, the stars could eject several serrated tongues that attacked anything that came too close.
The transparent creatures were roughly human-sized, while the stars were comparable to an armored vehicle, making their clashes a battle of numbers versus quality.
Many of the swarm were crushed and devoured by the tongues, but the cumulative damage of acid injected into the star's innards eventually brought it down.
I need to move quickly…
This place was a true infestation of nightmare creatures. If he chose to fight, he would eventually be drowned beneath a mountain of them. Handling one, perhaps ten dormant beasts was easy, but incapacitating dozens would be another matter entirely.
The stars posed little threat to him. Large as they were, they were far too slow, and avoiding them would suffice.
This time, he decided to employ an improved version of a technique from his first nightmare.
In the past, his aspect could only manipulate sand, dust, and small grains. Now, far more experienced, the terrain itself rested in his hands.
He opened the ground and covered himself almost completely, leaving only a narrow slit for air. After that, all that remained was to move the soil around him, allowing himself to be pushed forward.
In this way, he could traverse the enemy-filled field without standing out like a beacon of fresh meat.
The creatures were already fighting among themselves. As long as he did not become the reason they united against a more appetizing prey, he would manage.
His journey through the infested field was cautious, always using his seismic sense to chart paths with fewer creatures present. Even so, it was impossible not to be discovered now and then by some of the translucent aberrations.
In those cases, all Giovanni needed to do was transmute the soil beneath them, sinking them into mud before turning it back into stone. They were too weak to escape with their bodies immobilized, left flailing their heads uselessly.
The situation might have seemed a little ridiculous, but Giovanni was quite proud. His tricks were proving effective. Wasn't he a genius?
Laughing softly to himself, his voice muffled by the earth, the boy moved on without looking back.
***
[You have slain a dormant beast, Crimson Slug]
Somewhere not far away, several elongated, crimson mollusk carcasses lay scattered across the ground.
A tall young woman, clad in improvised garments made from local algae, wielded a long, black knife as she split open the head of one of those disgusting creatures that slithered swiftly toward her.
Her arrival in the Dream Realm had been eventful from the very start. With no armor type memory, she had been forced to urgently address the problem of waking up naked and defenseless.
She had hesitated at first to cover herself in those strange things, but it was either that or take her chances fighting demonic slugs and whatever other horrors infested that end of the world.
Speaking of the damn things, Shelly had been attacked by them only minutes after awakening. They hid in cracks in the ground and poured out in swarms, advancing on the first prey that came close enough.
Unfortunately for them, the bastards had decided to mess with the quickest rat in… somewhere, damn it!
'You've gotta be kidding me. I ended up at the bottom of the ocean?!'
Of all places, this one felt like a particularly deadly trap. Water did not flood the region, meaning there had to be some barrier separating them from the surface.
That made it unlikely any clan had successfully reached this area, though it was not impossible.
In any case, the odds that she had been sent near an unconquered citadel were high.
I was ready for the worst… but like they say, the world can always fuck you a little harder.
The thought occupied her mind as she went through the tedious process of cutting open the flesh of each creature she had slain.
She was not desperate enough to risk eating slugs that could probably kill her with a single bite. Her interest lay in the Soul Shards within them.
Being such weak beings, she would gain only five in total, but any amount was better than none. In her mind, a plan was already forming rapidly.
She needed water, food, and shelter. The strange atmosphere might resemble some odd liquid, but not enough for her to fill her belly with air, so she would need fresh water urgently… at the bottom of the sea.
Finding some nightmare fish creature for sustenance should not be too difficult, so food was not her greatest concern.
Finally, a safe shelter was nowhere in sight. A high point, difficult to access, would be preferable, but the surrounding region was quite flat despite the uneven terrain.
However, in the distance, she could see the terrain of the oceanic trench gradually rising until it disappeared behind colossal natural sea walls.
Between risking a deeper descent into that nest of creatures or climbing closer to the surface, the choice was obvious.
But then… the sound of footsteps made her body turn instinctively, blade pointed toward the new presence.
Her eyes widened in surprise.
She knew that person.