Chapter 23

Chapter 23

That can’t be right. I’ve been thinking about wanting to leave this place the entire time, but this space hasn’t let me out.

What the hell. So I really wasn’t the master of this place after all. Feeling a little relieved, I let go of the doll’s hand and hugged Blackie again.

“I’ve been thinking about wanting to leave this whole time, but it didn’t work. See? I’m not really the master here, am I?”

“That can’t be. If you, Master, wish to leave this place and yet cannot, that means an external factor is at work.”

“External factor?”

“That is precisely why I first checked whether you were injured.”

Avan tapped its own chest with its short doll hand, thump thump. It seemed Avan had a habit of tapping its chest whenever it was proud of something, or when it thought it was being impressive.

“I was trying to see if you were badly injured, or perhaps unconscious due to an external factor.”

“…Hey, I get the first one, but wouldn’t you be able to tell the second one just by looking? I’m right here in front of you, plain as day.”

“Ah, I can see that your consciousness is intact, but whether you’ve lost consciousness is a separate matter.”

“…….”

What kind of nonsense is this? I stared suspiciously at Avan, who seemed to only say things I couldn’t understand. Avan, as if deeply offended by my expression, flailed its short limbs, waddled over to my feet, and cried out loudly.

“I-I’m not saying anything strange! This place right now is a kind of mental space that you, Master, created with your own power.”

“…….”

That was something I had never even considered.

A mental space? This place?

I hugged Blackie tightly in my arms and looked around. If what the doll said was true, calling it just a ‘mental space’ didn’t fit — every single thing here was far too realistic.

And more than anything, I had felt direct pain when I was dealing with the little guy whimpering in my arms right now.

‘Do you normally feel pain in dreams?’

My answer was no. I wasn’t the type to dream much at night, but even so, I had never felt pain in any dream I’d ever had.

Maybe Avan read what I was thinking from my expression. Still clinging to my calf, it cried out again in a rather pitiful voice.

“I know roughly what you’re thinking, Master! You’re probably thinking about pain, yes. As you suspect, under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t have felt any pain. Furthermore, from the moment you entered this world, you should have been able to neutralize external threats to some degree.”

“…Is that so? Then why did it turn out like this?”

“That is… because you did not enter this world of your own will, Master.”

It looked like this conversation was going to be a long one, so instead of squatting, I decided to just sit down on the ground and stretch my legs out.

Avan seemed to immediately catch on to what I was about to do, loosening its doll arms from around my calf and stepping back.

…Come to think of it, this was a remarkably perceptive doll.

Only after I had finally settled on the ground, my bottom touching the dirt, did Avan turn to me with what was probably the question it had originally intended to ask.

“You did not come here of your own free will, did you?”

I answered Avan without a moment’s hesitation.

“That’s right. I didn’t come here because I wanted to. I came here because of this little guy.”

“Yes. That creature is a Black Dream Wolf… Now that you have captured it, the encyclopedia should contain a description of it as well.”

Without delay, I immediately opened the monster encyclopedia and searched for ‘Black Dream Wolf.’ As Avan had said, a description of the Black Dream Wolf was written there — thankfully, the skill that subjugated it under my command counted as a defeat.

<Black Dream Wolf>

A black beast that travels between dreams. Its main diet is nightmares, and its snacks are the groans of those having nightmares.

The Black Dream Wolf causes its target to have nightmares and then consumes their dreams. It does not harm its target’s life, but if encountered within a dungeon, there is a possibility that while the target is having a nightmare inflicted by the Black Dream Wolf, they may lose their life to another monster.

“…Hmm.”

Just from the description… it seemed to be a monster that made its enemy have nightmares and then fed on those nightmares. So at least it wasn’t the kind of creature that directly took its enemy’s life…

“Blackie, so you weren’t trying to kill me back then?”

“Eeek.”

“So that’s why you’ve been crying all this time, acting like you were wronged?”

“Eeeng, eeeeeng…”

Now I finally understood why Blackie had been crying all this time, acting like it was the one being wronged.

Blackie probably thought this place was the inside of a “nightmare.” And since it feeds on nightmares as its main diet, it must have been tormenting me to turn my dream into a nightmare… but the situation happened to be so unfavorable that things ended up like this.

‘Of course, no matter what, the threat and fear I felt back then are a separate matter.’

Even if Blackie had no intention of directly harming me, the fear, threat, and pain I felt in that situation were real.

I couldn’t fully forgive Blackie, but I couldn’t be completely cold toward it either. Stuck in that awkward middle ground of emotion, I looked at Blackie with a complicated gaze.

Even then, Blackie was still whining pitifully and rubbing its head against my leg.

“Eek! You stupid dog. Get away from the Master right now!”

“Ah, wait…”

“Get away right now— hup.”

Whether it was because Avan didn’t like seeing Blackie like that or something else, Avan suddenly charged at Blackie and swung its cotton fists around. It was truly not a threatening action at all.

But Blackie seemed to think differently. Blackie stared blankly at the rag doll swinging its fluffy fists at its body, then chomped down on the doll’s head whole.

…Yep, whole.

“Kyaaaaaaah!! Let go, let go, you stupid dog— ack, please let go! Please let me go!!”

“…Blackie, let go.”

“Eeeng.”

Fortunately, Blackie immediately released the pitiful rag doll. As soon as Avan was let go, it gasped for breath and awkwardly scrambled to its feet.

…Come to think of it, how does a doll even breathe?

“Don’t just charge at Blackie for no reason. You’re the only one who gets hurt anyway.”

“Ugh, th-this ill-mannered little puppy… I, Avan, cannot tolerate this! Considering the actions and words the Master has shown so far, I can clearly tell that this creature was the one who caused the Master trouble!”

“…Anyway, moving on. So I get that I ended up here because of Blackie. The encyclopedia said it’s a beast that travels between dreams, so it seems like it dragged me here…”

“Ah, that… is half right and half wrong. By any chance, when this black wolf was dragging the Master… was it acting of its own will?”

Acting of its own will?

I heard Avan’s question and paused to recall the past situation again.

The black wolf biting my ankle, the black something spreading out behind the wolf, and me and the wolf being sucked into it… Hmm.

“…I don’t think so.”

This was just my subjective impression, but rather than Blackie taking the initiative to drag me along… in that situation where it was biting my ankle, I had a strong feeling that Blackie was also ‘pulled in’ by that black something.

“Yes. In fact, I thought so because there’s no way a mere dream wolf could open the door to the Master’s garden.”

“So you’re saying there’s another cause besides Blackie?”

“Yes. And I believe that is… the current Administrator’s doing.”

“…Wow, so that unlucky bastard shows up here too.”

“Pardon?”

“No, more importantly… why would the Administrator meddle with someone like me? Is that even possible? No, before that, is there even a reason?”

“Of course there is. Because the Master is the master key to everything.”

“…It feels like this conversation keeps heading in a direction I can’t follow.”

I was sure I’d first asked how to get out of here, but I had no idea how we’d ended up here. I pressed my forehead and let out a groan as I looked at Blackie.

This time, instead of whining, Blackie chose to approach me and lick my hand. I stared blankly at the black puppy licking my clenched fist, then turned my gaze back to the doll.

“Let’s say I am that… master key? …And that’s why. So, are you saying I can’t leave now because of the Administrator’s interference?”

“It has become a bit difficult. How should I explain this… It’s close to a situation where the lock holding the door shut has broken because the Administrator forced the door open.”

“Then is there a way to fix that lock?”

“It’s both simple and a little difficult… Um, if the Master would help me just a little, I think I could do it.”

“You? How?”

It wasn’t that I intended to dismiss Avan, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit suspicious. And that was only natural, since… the Avan I saw before me was a rag doll barely big enough to reach my knee.

Especially from when it grabbed my calf earlier, I could tell this thing didn’t have much grip strength either. Honestly, I was embarrassed at myself for falling over just because this thing had grabbed my ankle.

“I, of course, I know it’s hard to earn your trust in this form. So… I would like the Master to, um, grant me just a little permission…”

“Permission?”

“Yes. Permission to return to my original form.”

‘Original form’? Was it saying this rag doll appearance wasn’t its real form?

I tilted my head slightly and stared at the rag doll with a dubious look.

The rag doll twisted its cloth body around, fidgeting nervously, like someone who had a guilty conscience. Seeing it like that only made me more suspicious.

“You’re not plotting something, are you?”

“Th, that can’t be! It’s not like I was planning to try and seduce the Master once I return to my original form, hup.”

“……”