And here it was. The moment he had been dreading since he got here. The thing that would either make or break him, his flaw. He had read plenty of webtoons and comics where the main characters always had crippling flaws, so, truth be told, he wasn't feeling excited.
'Maybe going blind wouldn't be that bad, perhaps the spell will take pity on me.' Lec thought as he stared up at his soul core before shaking his head. "Whatever my flaw is, I'm sure that I can take it head-on!"
As he opened his runes, any ideas of that went out the window as Lec had one thing to say.
"I'm so fucked."
Flaw: [Pure Chaos].
Flaw Description: [When the chaos energy within you pushes the limit of what you can handle, the boundary between yourself and the chaos you carry dissolves. What emerges in your place does not share your values, your warmth, or your restraint. It only shares your power.]
Lec stared at the runes for a few moments, smacking his head against a stone pillar. 'Of course I'd get some bullshit like this...' Despite the Spell's usual vague description, Lec understood fully what it meant.
It was a pretty similar situation to one book he had read, where the main character had a demon living within him. But his situation was real, not a book about ninjas. 'Ughh, the hell does "pushes the limit of what you can handle" even mean?'
It was bad enough that he seemingly now had an evil twin living inside of him, but now he couldn't even strain himself in chaos energy usage without waking the damn thing up. 'I've never even heard of a flaw like this in the real world!!'
Lec wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all, but it seemed like the spell had had enough of that, opting to finish his appraisal right then.
[Wake up, Black Wind!]
The grassy green field suddenly began to crumble, revealing the black void, which soon began to disappear as well.
***
Lec was currently sleeping on the least comfortable bed he'd ever had the displeasure of lying on. Seriously, it was somehow worse than his mattress back in his makeshift shack.
Tossing and turning, he'd try his best to go back to sleep before realizing it was a fruitless endeavor. Slowly opening his eyes, it'd take only a few seconds to become aware of his surroundings. The armored ceiling of the police station's vault hangs above him, an unwelcome sight.
He already started missing his room back at the Ark...
But that was besides the point, because as of right now, only a single thought was in his mind. 'I survived, huh...It's strange, I came here expecting to die the most awful, downright horrendous death possible.' An image of Maria flashed through his mind, a small smile spreading across his face.
Looking around, Lec instantly spotted a strange sight.
A sleeping ethereal-looking woman sat at his bedside, probably the prettiest person he'd ever seen in his rather short life.
She had short, raven-black hair, similar to his own, actually, and icy blue eyes. Her flawless skin was smooth, supple, and as white as snow. This was Lec's first time meeting someone this pale, actually, the only other person to rival this was the other person who went under with him into the first nightmare. 'What was his name again? Sunshine?'
However, while Sunshine's skin looked strange and unhealthy, the beautiful stranger was nothing short of striking. Lec didn't care all that much, though; all he wanted to know was, 'Who the fuck is this random???' He thought as he inspected her body. Not in a perverted way, he was a true gentleman.
He eventually noticed the fact that there was a shoulder insignia on the woman's left sleeve. There were three stars on it.
'Three stars, huh,' he thought. 'If my knowledge from random pieces of media holds up, then three stars means an Ascended, right? But why would a master be next to him?'
As if sensing his eyes on her, the strange woman slowly began waking up, stretching her arms. She acknowledged him as her back cracked. "What are you looking at, brat?"
Lec blinked a couple of times before a vein popped up on his forehead. 'Who the hell is she calling a brat?' Lec put on a rather smug look on his face before replying with "You, obviously. You're the only one in this room."
The strange woman's face remained blank as she began snickering, "At least you aren't as perverted as the other kid, no less blunt though." She then stood up and approached him, causing Lec to begin panicking.
"W-wait, I'm too young to die!!!" It was at that point that Lec noticed the restraints tying him down to the bed, which the weird lady promptly removed. "Geez, kid, relax, I ain't gonna hurt you. Much."
Lec shook his head at that, scooting over to the other side of the relatively small medical bed. Anything to get him away from this weirdo. Snickering as she sat back down with a strange grace. "Anyways, color me impressed. I didn't think a scrawny brat like you could survive not one, but two weeks in a nightmare."
"The hell does that mean?"
"It means that I had zero faith that you'd make it." Her words hit harsher than expected, but Lec knew that it made complete sense. It was already uncommon for someone from the outskirts to survive their first nightmare, but taking into account that he was as weak-looking as he was, and that he spent an unprecedented amount of time in there. It was no wonder that nobody expected him to live. Not to mention how young he was.
Looking away, Lec reluctantly had to agree with the weirdo at his bedside. He half expected her to ask more questions, but it seemed like she had no intention of doing that; instead, she simply carried on with congratulations.
"Anyway, since you did survive, welcome back to the land of the living. Congratulations on surviving your First Nightmare, Sleeper Lec."
***
'Sleeper, huh...So that's how people will refer to me as.' When reading, Lec hardly paid any attention to the ranking system for the awakened and certain terms.
Technically, the correct term was "Dreamer". Not that anyone outside of the Spell really used that word. Regular people had their own names for those infected.
People who had just finished their First Nightmare were called Sleepers. Which, when he thought about it, made complete sense. Once your spirit gets dragged into the Spell, your body falls asleep. And it stays that way for however long it takes you to claw your way out of the Dream Realm. Days, weeks, months, whatever. Hence, Sleeper. Simple enough.
Once you actually escaped and became an Awakened, life went mostly back to normal. During the day, at least. Every time you fell asleep, though, it was back into the Dream Realm you went. The word "Awakened" was used by both humans and the Spell itself, and sometimes people just threw it around as a catch-all term for anyone infected.
Then came the Masters or Ascended, as the spell calls them. They're people who had survived a Second Nightmare. They could enter and exit the Dream Realm whenever they felt like it. Some of them apparently just... never went back. And beyond that, they could travel between worlds physically. Not just in spirit, but actually, physically show up somewhere else entirely.
The above Masters were Saints, Transcendent rank, Third Nightmare survivors. Pretty much demi-gods walking around in human skin. Not only could they hop between the real world and the Dream Realm freely, but they could BRING PEOPLE WITH THEM.
It was strange to think that using all seven chaos emeralds, he had basically skipped everything and became as strong as a Saint. 'I probably shouldn't tell anyone about that, right? Pfft, it's whatever.'
Looking back to the woman that he assumed to be a Master, he listened as she continued to speak.
"I am Ascended Jet. You can call me Master Jet. These past weeks or so, I've been on watch duty due to your Nightmare."
Lec simply nodded, but he was still a bit confused. "Well, then, if you're a Master, why would you watch me? Especially if it was for that long. Just feels like a waste of time..."
Jet gave him a strange look before continuing. "You're smarter than I thought you'd be. Recently, there were a lot of Gates opening in this sector. Most of the local Awakened are either wounded or occupied with the clean-up. Or dead. It's always like that close to the winter solstice."
Glaring at her for the backhanded compliment, Lec shook his head and spoke with gritted teeth. "So they sent you due to being understaffed?"
"Yeah, there aren't a lot of Awakened who, like me, directly work for the government. It's by far the least lucrative or glorious career one of us can choose. Would you abandon wealth and fame to work abysmal hours and risk your life, fuelled only by altruism and a sense of duty?"
Lec stared at her, a look of contemplation on his face, before replying with a single strange little word. "Yes."
He himself almost didn't believe that he said it. Past him certainly would have said no, definitely would have said no. Did the Ark really change him that much?
Master Jet stared at him blankly for a few moments before frowning.
"I see, it seems you really aren't that smart, huh?"