there were no traces of the fresh bloodstain. Kaito breathed a sigh of relief. I guess it was a dream after all. Suddenly, though, he frowned. There was something strange about a particular patch of the ground. The soil was disturbed, like something had exploded up from underneath it. It was the kind of thing you'd expect to see on a battlefield. It's almost as though...a stake burst up from under the ground... Nah, there's no way. "By the way, Kaito." "Yes, Miss Elisabeth? However might I be of service?" "Oh, drop the forced politeness. Anyhow, if you have the time to be brazenly napping like that, then you must surely be bored to death. 'Tis fortunate for you, then, that I have the perfect job for those idle hands of yours. Come along now. And be chipper about it." "Okay, so I'll admit that I was napping, but that doesn't mean I'mâ€” OW!" "Oh, shut up! Just come!" Elisabeth grabbed Kaito by the earlobe. It would seem that resistance was futile. He began reluctantly following her, his eyes as forlorn as those of a calf being taken to market. The two of them left the garden. For some reason, though, Kaito decided to take a quick glance back. ...Huh? When he did, he saw it. At some point, a crimson pool had spread across the ground like a putrid swamp. Sticky-looking foam bubbled on its surface. However, it vanished in the blink of an eye like a fleeting mirage. All that remained was the dry ground. Kaito turned his gaze back in the direction they were heading and continued after Elisabeth a good deal less reluctantly than before. I'm seeing things. Yep, definitely just seeing things. After all, the alternative was that he wasn'tâ€” â€”and if that were the case, then that crimson swamp was an ominous omen indeed. Kaito followed Elisabeth down a set of stairs, and the two of them arrived underground. He stepped down onto the stone floor. The long passageway that stretched before him reeked of mold and was turned at a corner partway down. The corridors beneath the castle were laid out in a complex maze, and they were filled with mysterious groaning, which evoked the sense of a labyrinth containing a monster. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising if there really was a monster down here. Kaito glared straight ahead. There was something important that Elisabeth kept in the room at the end of that hallwayâ€”the teleportation circle etched in her blood. However, it would seem that that wasn't what they were here for. She selected one door from amid the innumerable rows of them. Then she kicked it open with all her might. "Saaaaays me!" "Why's it always gotta be the violent option with you?" Exasperated as he was, Kaito peered into the room from beside her. The inside was terribly cramped. It looked like a dungeon that had been designed to psychologically torture its prisoner. However, that wasn't the room's true purpose. Instead, there was a strange object installed in its center. What, it's a glowing glass ball? No... It couldn't be anything that simple. However, it was true that the clear orb was filled with a crimson light. This light was composed in the shape of a flower. A moment after it bloomed, its petals fell off. Then they transformed into butterfly wings in midair. The butterflies flapped about, then gathered together back into a flower. And thus, the light began its transformation anew. The cycle repeated, never ceasing. Elisabeth pointed at the strange orb. "'Tis a magic device I tested out many ages ago, then promptly forgot all about. But when I saw you plagued with those nightmares of yours and constantly fatigued, I suddenly remembered it existed." "I get this weird feeling that I'd be better off if you hadn't." "Oh, no need to sound so suspicious. 'Tis but a device designed to prevent nightmares." "A device designed to prevent nightmares?" Kaito parroted Elisabeth's words back at her. That sounded harmless enough, not to mention extremely handy. Given the option, he'd rather not relive the moment of his death any more than he had to. He couldn't help but be interested. When she saw Kaito's reaction, Elisabeth curled the corners of her lips into a malevolent smile. "Of course, any small error when using it would leave you unable to return, permanently crippled, or something to that effect." "Okay, that's gonna be a reeeeal hard pass from me!" In times like these, discretion was the better part of valor. Kaito immediately made to dash out into the corridor. The moment before he could flee, however, Elisabeth snatched him up by the collar. Behind him, she began making an unusually enthusiastic declaration. "No, no, it'll work! I haven't the faintest shred of proof to support that notion, but I have this strange feeling that you'll do just great!" "That's a little too important to leave up to a notion, don't you think?! Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop! If you're gonna shove someone into something, at least make sure it works first!" "You're a man! Show some spine! Worry notâ€”if anything happens, I'll be sure to retrieve your ashes!" "Oh, so we're just working under the assumption that I'm gonna die... Hey, wait, ahhhhhhhhhh!" Kaito's resistance was in vain, and he found his back getting pressed against the glass ball. Thenâ€” â€”with a brief, unsatisfying shoopâ€” "Huh?" â€”Kaito got sucked into the ball. The world was filledâ€” â€”to the very brimâ€” â€”with crimson flowers in full bloom. It was a bewitchingly beautiful sight, but an endlessly ominous one as well. As he lay sprawled atop the flower field, a shallow thought passed through Kaito's amazed mind. He retracted his statement from back in the garden. "...Okay, I take it all back. Demons or not, this life is way more messed up than my last one." No good could ever come of a world with magic in it. However, just lying there lamenting that fact wasn't going to get him anywhere. Crimson flower petals scattered in his wake as he stood. "All right, first order of business: Let's figure out what the hell happened to me." Kaito glanced around, trying his best to stay levelheaded. Unlike the ground, which was as red as a sea of blood, the sky was muddled and gray. Butterflies made of crimson light glittered through the air with a dim glow behind them as they continued their lively dance all the way to the horizon line. As beautiful as it all was, it was decidedly bizarre. Kaito wasn't sure where to go. He looked around again, hoping to find some sign. A moment later, he did a double take. Something weird was floating there. "Whoa, what's that thing?!" "Bakuuuuuuuuu." "Whoa, it made a noise." There was something round in the middle of the field. It was some sort of mysterious black-and-white creature. Kaito began thinking to try and figure out what it was. The only black-and-white animal that immediately came to mind was a panda. This thing looks different, though. Wait, I feel like I might have seen one in a picture book back in schoolâ€”some sort of black-and-white animal that had something to do with dreams... It was so long ago, though, and I only went to school for a short bit, so my memory's a little fuzzy. "Bakuuuuuuuuu!" "Whoa, it made a noise again." As Kaito leaped back, something dawned on him. The strange creature was making an odd noise, but its actual cry probably sounded different than that. His golem body's translation function was probably just coming up with something that it figured was "close enough." After letting out a dissatisfied groan, the animal went silent. Kaito steeled his nerves and walked toward it. The creature was floating in the air with its eyes closed, as relaxed as a baby in the womb. Seeing how adorable it looked helped alleviate Kaito's fears a bit. He timidly reached out to touch it. Suddenly, with a big chomp, the creature snatched up Kaito's hand in its mouth. Kaito was a few seconds slow on the uptake, but he eventually let out a shout. "Hey, don't eat me!" "Baku. Munch, much, munch." Fortunately, it didn't hurt. Apparently, it wasn't actually eating his flesh. However, his hand grew wet with drool all the same. The munching sound went on as the creature continued gently gnawing on him. A sensation came over Kaito that felt like he was having something sucked out of his body. He tilted his head to the side. How odd. Then out of the blue, the creature's body began swelling up. "Whoa! Are you okay there, buddy?!" *** The black-and-white creature didn't answer, instead choosing to persist in its unnerving silence. All the while, it continued inflating. It was almost like some sort of balloon he was blowing into. Its fuzzy body grew rounder and rounder, and thenâ€” â€”with a popâ€” â€”it burst. "...Huh?" Kaito let out a dumbfounded yelp. However, the creature's body hadn't actually exploded. Instead, its skin merely split and peeled off from its top down. Afterward, it was left as a sphere of muscle fibers decorated with lard and veins. The creature had been reduced to a horrible blob. Then it began pulsating in midair, like it was the heart of very world itself. And its horrible transformation didn't stop there. Next, it began melting, losing its form like a piece of fruit rotting. Chunks of meat began cascading off it. They fell down like a dark rain, then seeped into the ground in the spaces between the flowers. And eventually, the worldâ€” â€”stopped moving in turn. "What...the hell?" The eternal cycle had come to an abrupt conclusion. The butterflies, midway through flying through the air and falling down as flower petals, froze in place. Kaito looked around in a panic. He was pretty sure he hadn't done anything wrong, but his heart was pounding up a storm all the same. Something bad was going to happen; he could feel it. He braced himself. However, no such disaster came. Kaito breathed a small sigh of relief, and the tension flooded out of his body. But he had let his guard down too quickly. The world began moving. It was like it had just finished "perceiving" him. The crimson petals all cascaded to the ground in unison and crumbled away into nothing. All that remained were the flowers' stems and stamens, and those then hardened and changed color and material. Now they were a bed of silver needles. The butterflies' wings followed suit, thinning out and sharpening into knives. The entire space was filled with objects designed to hurt people. Kaito stood stock-still in the newly silver world. His voice grew hoarse. "...You've gotta be shitting me." If he took so much as a single step forward, the needles would impale his feet, and the knives would slice his skin to ribbons. At a loss for what to do, Kaito gave the cruel world a quick glance over. However, he didn't see any way to reverse the transformation. The strange creature had melted, and it didn't look like it was coming back. Kaito's one lead had quite literally vanished. That said, just standing there wasn't going to get him anywhere. Kaito mulled over his options. There's gotta be some way for me to get out of here. If I make my way to the edge of this worldâ€”the glass ball, that isâ€”maybe I'll be able to call Elisabeth for help. The problem was, if he moved even a little, he would end up getting hurt by that same world. It was a situation that would induce despair in just about anyone. Kaito took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. Welp...not like I have much of a choice. That about summed it up. Kaito placed a foot atop the needles and carefully took a step forward. When he did, the