[531] In the Coder (2)
Twenty-four hours later, Miro's group still hadn't even come close to the Under Coder.
To reach the Under Coder they first had to enter Drimo.
The problem was that finding the dreamer Luber required lucid dreaming—the ability to perceive reality while dreaming.
Marsha had managed lucid dreaming on only her second try, but Rian was struggling.
"Do we really have to go through Drimo? Can't we just leave the dream?"
Fermi shook his head.
"The Under Coder is a realm outside the mind. Drug designers tried various methods and failed. Dream Star only works inside Drimo."
"You heard him. This time, do it right, okay?"
At Marsha's words, Rian nodded dejectedly and went into the next room.
They were following the advice to reduce psychological pressure, but honestly, Rian had no idea what lucid dreaming was supposed to feel like.
"Dammit! Now I even have to work at dreaming properly?"
So the four of them plunged into the dream again.
Under Arius's guidance, the dream they entered was a slum of tangled alleys.
Miro, Fermi, and Marsha found each other quickly, but Rian was nowhere to be seen.
They found him at the end of an alley, in an open lot piled with discarded materials.
Miro watched him muttering as he swung a rotten plank and shook her head.
"He's fallen into Lilphin."
Lilphin was the opposite of awareness—a state of completely losing focus in a dream.
"You shouldn't be cutting like that, but maybe that sort of thing is fine… Still, if you must—"
"Mean- ingless muttering," Fermi cut in.
"Hey! Rian! Snap out of it! This is a dream!"
Marsha cupped her hands and shouted, but Rian was already beyond hearing.
Frustrated, she turned to Fermi. "How do you get someone out of Lilphin?"
"Give them a shock strong enough to make them become aware. But they'll wake up from the dream."
No sooner had he finished than Marsha strode forward and drove the heel of her hand into the back of Rian's head with all her strength.
"Hey!"
At the sharp smack, the real-world Rian bolted upright.
"Ow!"
Even though the hit had happened in the dream, he rubbed the sore spot in reality and the door burst open.
Marsha stood there, bristling, shoulders squared.
"You didn't have to actually hit him that hard—"
She marched in and, without hesitation, smacked the back of Rian's head again.
"Hey!"
This time, unlike in the dream, Marsha's hand went numb from the impact.
"Why did you hit me?"
"Do you want to die? Are you doing this on purpose? They said even ordinary people can learn it with professional help!"
"How am I supposed to know it's a dream while I'm dreaming?"
Marsha let out a long sigh.
"Listen. If you fail, Shirone will never be able to come back here. Is that okay with you?"
Rian's face hardened with tension.
Right. I have to save Shirone. But how…?
Seeing Rian was the one most determined, Marsha softened and tried to encourage him.
"If technique doesn't work, use grit. Force yourself to awaken in the dream. Think of Shirone."
"All right. I'll try again. Let's start now."
Exactly twenty-four hours later, the four of them finally met in the dream in a lucid state.
When they asked the dreamer Luber to find them work, he suggested three jobs tied to love, power, and honor.
When Miro's party turned them all down, he gave them a mischievous grin, opened one of the dream-doors, and said, "Go on in. Dream whatever you want."
They stepped through, and the landscape shifted instantly.
The door they'd come through had already vanished. In a world shrouded by thin mist, impossibly tall buildings pierced the sky.
"These are huge. Not even comparable to heaven."
"They're not actual buildings."
When Arius spoke, they looked down and saw a blue, fluffy dog sitting there.
It was the manifestation of Arius's wish to be Miro's dog.
"What do you mean they're not real?"
"It's just landscape data. The buildings themselves probably weren't formed into any concrete detail."
"So they're decorative—like stage scenery."
A heavy thud made the ground tremble.
Instinctively looking up, all of them went pale.
"Cotton candy?"
Marsha's voice trembled. "Who wanted cotton candy? You could've told me—I would've bought it."
"No. It's not only our thoughts here. That's why Drimo is dangerous."
Fermi said, "Sorry, but this is more serious. The capsules are about to dissolve. The Dream Star's effects will kick in soon."
As he warned, the four bodies lying side by side in reality twitched.
As the Dream Star awakened their brains and relayed sensations to the mind, Drimo's landscape began to convulse violently.
"Kyaaa!"
At once the cotton-candy colors soured as if soaked in filth, dissolved into smoke, and swept over them.
"Start! Keep your focus and run!"
Fermi led the way and Miro followed, asking, "Why's it acting like this all of a sudden? Bad food?"
"Because of the drug. In Drimo we've become an alien element we shouldn't be."
Rian nodded toward the front. "So that's not normal either?"
All the visible structures trembled, shattered like glass, and fell away.
The dream was collapsing.
"This way!"
Fermi swung a corner, yanked open a door, and the four of them ran inside.
The scenery shifted again. They found themselves on the deck of a single ship amid an endless ocean and froze.
"Damn it!"
There was no sign of an exit anywhere.
"What do we do? This place will collapse soon too."
"You can't escape Drimo just by changing dimensions like this. We need to either reach the edge of the sea or find a doorway to another dimension."
"Wait! Something's wrong!"
The ground rolled, currents thrashed, and the sea swelled ominously.
As if some fire had started beneath the ocean, sea creatures leaped above the surface in arcs and dove back down.
"I don't think we can make it on time."
The information might end just ten meters past the water.
If they took that at face value and rowed, and it turned out to be wrong, they'd be submerged with no escape.
"There—there!"
Marsha couldn't finish her sentence and pointed at the sky. Everyone turned.
A planet-scale white pillar descended diagonally from the heavens and plunged into the distant sea.
They stared, stunned, at the empty air.
A child's face, with something disturbingly wrong about it, floated across the sky; the white pillar was held between that child's lips.
"Another dimension is beginning to interfere."
"Get out! Off the ship!"
Miro used air magic to levitate everyone and launched them off the deck.
As they surged upward, the child's cheek hollowed, the sea level dropped in an instant, and water was sucked into the white pillar as if being evaporated.
The sight of an entire planet's ocean being drained all at once was beyond comprehension.
Arius, clinging to Miro's back, shouted, "Found it!"
"Where?"
"That pillar—the straw!"
They'd located the only passage to another dimension, and there was no need to struggle for it.
As the sea vanished, air rushed in and the four humans and one dog were pulled through.
"Whew."
The child exhaled and beautiful soap bubbles formed and drifted on the breeze.
Five bubbles popped, and Miro's group glanced around, astonished.
A cluster of pretty children were playing with bubbles nearby.
They barely had time to savor their escape before the collapse's aftereffects hit.
Darkness rolled in from beyond the meadow and the children burst into frightened cries.
As if reacting, the ground shook and countless sticky, mucous-like forms descended from the darkened sky.
"Nightmares! Don't let them touch you! If they do, this world will turn into a nightmare!"
"Kieee!"
Sleek, shadowy shapes surged toward Miro's party.
Rian reflexively reached for his sword but remembered Arius's advice and cast Deny.
His torso twisted as if the space itself distorted, and a Nightmare scraped past his chest.
"There are too many of them!"
They weren't especially fast, but their movement ignored inertia; each attack flowed with an unnatural, slicing precision.
Miro slid two Nightmares between their flanks and yelled to Fermi, "Can we teleport out of here?"
"Can you maintain focus?"
"Have you forgotten who I am?"
"Then do it quickly!"
As soon as Fermi finished speaking, Miro teleported them all, and darkness descended like a collapsing sky, crushing the land.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The massive shadow pursued each teleportation flash like an elephant stalking ants.
"Where does it end!" Arius shouted.
"The Nightmares are expanding it! We can't get out like this!"
"Ugh, damn it!"
When Miro stopped teleporting and set them down, a gigantic Nightmare beyond the horizon reached out a hand shaped like a human's and surged forward.
"Let's see this through to the end!"
Facing the tide of Nightmares, Miro pressed her palms together and thrust them forward.
Psychic Transcendence—Prajna: Ilsujang.
From Miro's halo a colossal manifestation of Kannon sprang forth; the joined palms plunged into the heart of the Nightmare.
When Miro spread her arms, the avatar mirrored the movement and tore the Nightmare's body apart from side to side.
"Done! Let's go!"
Ignoring Rian and Marsha's bewildered looks, Miro immediately teleported them all outside the Nightmare's territory.
"What's left now?" Fermi asked, sounding uneasy.
"The nightmare itself."
Kukukukukukuku!
As if the meadow floated on the sea, the ground rippled and explosions burst from under the earth.
The party scattered, darting in zigzags, but time began to slow.
'Damn. Nightmare time.'
Booms echoed from all sides; pillars of flame erupted through the ground.
Finally, an explosion unlike anything before detonated at the midpoint linking them.
Paaaarng!
In the slowed moment they were all shot into the sky and spun uncontrollably by the blast.
Marsha watched them drifting slowly, as if suspended, and took in the scene vividly.
Passing the pitiably upturned Arius with his tongue lolling out, her gaze fell on a spectacle that sent a chill through her like nothing she'd ever known.
A bloom of flame unfolded and blossomed, filled with scorching heat.
Flowers of fire bloomed in every direction.
Their surfaces gleamed like oil, burning like gold and lighting the world as bright as day.
"Ah…."
Marsha watched, dazed.
This really is one hell of a nightmare.
Time snapped back.
"Pull yourself together!"
Just before losing focus, Miro wrapped an arm around Marsha's waist and flew toward the horizon.
Everyone had already gathered around her.
The largest explosion's shockwave hurled them hundreds of meters, and just as the drifting Lilphin sensation threatened to take them, Miro slammed into the ground and rolled.
"Huff, huff."
Marsha couldn't calm her excitement after the grand sight she'd just witnessed, and Rian looked completely spent.
"We've arrived."
Fermi smiled and pointed ahead.
"This is the edge of the mind."
No explanation was necessary.
The sunset they'd seen on the meadow lay before them unchanged.
Like a painting on a wall, it was exactly the same size whether viewed from afar or up close.
"No more information is being generated. Cross this threshold and you'll enter the Under Coder's domain."
Miro rolled up her sleeves and strode forward.
"All right—shall we really begin?"
Pausing before the sunset, Miro pushed forward as if resolved, and her body slipped inside like a curtain of illusion swallowing her.