Chapter 167: Auditory Hallucination

The little butterfly suffered some kind of immense blow, making its flight a bit erratic.

Hiroyuki merely harbored a subconscious aversion to such appeasement tactics. Why deliberately fatten up the Space Beast, diverting the disaster to cause havoc outside? Shouldn't it be pinned to the ground and beaten to death while it was still in its larval stage?

Trekjaer explained that it was simply because they couldn't.

They were currently unable to become gigantic. This wasn't due to any restrictions imposed by Noa, but because there is a limit to what a dream can bear. To put it simply—this dream ruin could no longer accommodate a Giant of Light.

This Space Beast was like a virus program, generating a massive pile of virus files that crammed the hard drive to its bursting point, preventing even the system's normal operations from running.

Therefore... the temple Trekjaer had found lacked an entrance. Right now, the entire interior of the building was probably solid, with the interior decoration not even "loaded," let alone any power of Noa.

Even if Oda rushed there, he could only stare blankly at a gigantic stone pier that merely had the exterior shape of a temple.

Thus, the solution was quite straightforward: expel it and let everything in the dream return to the right track. And the method of expulsion was to let it grow until it could no longer adapt to the environment of the dream, forcing it to leave on its own.

"...Then, Trekjaer, uh, Senior."

Sure enough, while calling Kiritaki "Mister" rolled smoothly off Hiroyuki's tongue, switching to Trekjaer felt somewhat awkward. So Hiroyuki thought for a moment and changed to an equally faultless form of address.

"Did you see any benefits for yourself in this matter?"

"What do you mean?"

Trekjaer asked in return, having no idea why Hiroyuki would ask such a question. Seeing that Trekjaer didn't seem angry, and recalling that he could no longer grow gigantic either, Hiroyuki mustered his courage and half-jokingly explained, "Since you've stepped in to help, you must have found something advantageous to yourself... Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to justify putting effort into this. Surely you aren't doing this now—"

At this point, Hiroyuki looked at Trekjaer with amused eyes.

"—running around for the sake of justice?"

"..."

Trekjaer seriously considered whether he should punch this little fellow. His words were getting increasingly absurd.

Was he implying that he never lifted a finger without a profit?

Actually, that wasn't quite it.

"That's right, solving this matter is also beneficial to me." Trekjaer answered anyway: "I have no interest in Space Beasts, Noa, or Nexus. My goal has never changed."

What he was interested in was his goal; what he wasn't interested in was just done along the way, nothing more.

Trekjaer thought this in his heart, and so he spoke it aloud.

"As long as you have a goal."

Hiroyuki smiled, perhaps thinking of something, and then said, "Well then, let's go out first and have a word with the Captain and the others."

Even though the conversation had been interrupted halfway, Hiroyuki still remembered this. As a warrior and a soldier, the habit of obeying orders in action was carved into his bones. Besides, this wasn't like ancient times with poor communication where a general away from home could act independently of the ruler's commands; it was merely withdrawing from the dream and then entering it again. Hiroyuki felt this task presented no difficulty.

However, when he removed his ring just as they had practiced and waited for the dream to dissipate, the only response he received was the rustling sound of the forest wind blowing through the leaves.

Hiroyuki: "..."

Hiroyuki stood blankly in place, staring blankly at the Spark Locus ring in his hand, then raised his head to stare blankly at Trekjaer.

"We can't get out?"

"We can't get out."

Hiroyuki didn't feel much surprise in his heart. Trekjaer had mentioned earlier that various functions of this dream had been disturbed and damaged to varying degrees by that Space Beast. It wasn't strange for such a situation of "inability to exit" to occur, much like a computer freezing and failing to close applications normally. Hiroyuki thought of the dream training sessions in the days before their departure, when the Captain had listed a long checklist, detailing every possible scenario that might occur, which naturally included being unable to enter the dream, and being unable to get out once inside.

How should one respond in this situation?

Just like getting lost by accident, try your best to stay put and wait for rescue, without blindly trying to find a way out, so as to avoid a situation where people looking for each other end up getting killed.

The look Hiroyuki directed at Trekjaer could not conceal his guilty conscience.

Earlier, Trekjaer hadn't stopped him, just watching him take off the ring. Trekjaer had probably tried it long ago and knew in his heart that they couldn't get out anymore. It was just that he knew even if he told the truth, Hiroyuki wouldn't believe him and would definitely still want to try it himself to be sure.

His guardedness and distrust had already been seen through.

Hiroyuki felt a bit sheepish.

Sometimes, trust between people was just like this.

"What do you say?"

Seeing Hiroyuki's gaze darting away without knowing what he was thinking, Trekjaer asked directly.

"...Then it can't be helped. Let's leave it at that for now." Hiroyuki let out a secret sigh and looked at Trekjaer: "So, is there anything you want me to do next?"

"Take off a part of the restraint device. Well, just take off any single piece."

Hiroyuki did as he was told, rolling up his left sleeve and dismantling the leather band on his arm. After taking it off, his hand paused: "Is this—is it enough to just take it off in the dream? But outside..."

Before he could finish his sentence, Trekjaer appeared in front of him before he knew it, reaching out to give Hiroyuki's head a sharp slap that interrupted him, almost making Hiroyuki bite his tongue.

"Stop letting your imagination run wild. Keep your mind under control."

Ah, this...

Hiroyuki touched the back of his head where the slap had stung, vaguely understanding what was going on. But he forcefully halted his train of thought and instead began reciting a section of Pi from memory.

Earlier, when he and the Captain were debriefing about the rocket launch base incident, the Captain had praised him for handling it very cleverly, making Hiroyuki blush. Afterwards, Hiroyuki had been deeply moved. In an idealistic world, being able to control one's mind was truly an extraordinary skill. If one could make good use of this ability, moving mountains and filling seas, or even creating a world, would not be difficult tasks.

Trekjaer simply found talking to a smart person genuinely effortless. Seeing that Hiroyuki merely took a deep breath, adjusted himself, and didn't press further about what "keeping the mind under control" meant, he took action.

Then, he clamped his hand around the neck right in front of him.

Hiroyuki was momentarily stunned.

Just a moment before, he was still regretting that he hadn't hidden his guardedness and distrust of Trekjaer well enough. To be honest, ever since he had "returned" to this world, Trekjaer hadn't really attacked him. Of course, if Trekjaer wanted to mess with him, given Hiroyuki's current abilities, he wouldn't last a single round. The fact that he was still alive was thanks to Trekjaer showing mercy... Trekjaer had even saved his life once.

But right now, what was this all about?

Hiroyuki felt the chill pressed against his neck, and the resulting premonition of danger shot straight to his glabella. Trekjaer's hand wasn't exerting force, and Hiroyuki didn't feel the oppression of suffocation, but breathing inexplicably became difficult.

He even began to experience auditory hallucinations.

At this moment, a young voice was echoing in Hiroyuki's ears, angrily shouting with great difficulty—

Let go!

Let me go!