When the plot-skips players into the game world

"Don't you find this absurd?"

Hayna's eyes widened as she retorted.

"...What's absurd?"

Sherlock was even startled for a moment before finally realizing what Hayna was referring to: "Oh, I see. It's fine now."

"Objectively speaking," Aiwass chimed in from the side, "that is, based on the objective conditions of Avalon and Star Antimony. This development isn't entirely impossible."

"But in the future that I encountered, Avalon was already in chaos! Decaying dark magic permeated the earth, crops could no longer grow, famine had been ongoing for several years, and the Round Table Hall had completely fallen into ruin and become a joke, and the Supervisory Bureau had turned into rubble. The corpses of animals and plants were corrupted by the power of shadows and rose again. Souls couldn't enter the Dream Realm for reincarnation but were instead trapped by the magic on the ground. Those shadowy ghosts had at least the third energy level, attacking everyone indiscriminately..."

Hayna even sped up her speech noticeably.

It was as though she was a madwoman who had seen the true future, desperately, and alone, recounting a future no one would believe...

"Don't hurry, don't be in a rush."

Aiwass helplessly reached out and held the increasingly agitated Hayna: "We're not saying we don't believe..."

...The only problem was that Hayna was actually the last one to know about any of this.

If Aiwass hadn't awakened his past life memories and did nothing, this would be Avalon's future. Sherlock had so much investigative data and secret information from influential figures at hand. With his intelligence and wisdom, he must have already guessed this kind of future—this was also the reason why he initially treated Isabel so poorly.

Maybe he didn't know as many details as Hayna did, but he surely had guessed the future direction of Avalon. In the original game, he didn't react much to it; and when Aiwass vaguely mentioned it at the bishop's home before, he just hummed and ended the topic.

Sherlock's loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen had made him ready to give his all and die without regrets. That was not loyalty to Avalon or the Avalonian royal family, but solely to Her Majesty the Queen alone.

As for Lily, she didn't care about those things at all. Besides, she was the one who had personally experienced "how far the Round Table Hall had fallen"—her own father was a minister of the Round Table Hall, a spy who colluded with the Star Antimony people; Aiwass and Lily had just executed him not long before.

-- Speaking of which, Hayna actually didn't know about this.

Because the death of Minister Drost in Avalon was actually top secret—he had to "stay alive" to be meaningful. In this way, they could continuously extract various "confessions" from the void, keeping those people in a state of fear and unease. Maintaining such political pressure made it easier for those people to show their flaws.

"Why don't you start by telling us," Aiwass said softly, "what you experienced and foresaw in that 'future'? Or rather, what was the specific content of the ritual you participated in this time?"

"...It's quite long,"

Hayna calmed down a bit, rubbing her temples with a touch of distress: "My memory is almost a blur now... but this time the dream was very long, extremely long—I could have been there for over a month, possibly two or three months."

"Can it last that long?"

Aiwass was somewhat surprised.

"Yes," Hayna nodded, still showing traces of fear, "in that future, I was an Inspector of the Supervisory Bureau... but in that future, people no longer believed in Inspectors. My mission was very simple... it was 'to protect the civilians,' but even such a simple task..."

She faltered, her words catching in her throat.

Aiwass sat quietly by her side, waiting for her to slowly calm down. Meanwhile, Lily came over and gently embraced her, whispering words of comfort.

But Hayna was, after all, a strong Knight. She didn't cry in Lily's arms, but instead composed herself in less than ten seconds.

"At first, there were twenty-eight civilians I found. I remember each of their faces. They were very distrustful of me and full of hostility. It took me a very long time to gain their trust... It wasn't until I was exhausted from a battle with those monsters that they slowly began to believe in me. It was then that I realized what had happened to that world..."

Aiwass noticed that Hayna had subconsciously referred to fragments of the Dreamland as "another world."

He quite liked this reaction. It meant that deep down, she hadn't treated those fabricated semblances of souls as mere shadows or ghosts but as real people.

Even though, strictly speaking, this was somewhat naive and foolish.

But just as Aiwass liked puppies and kittens, he also liked friends who could trust from the bottom of their hearts—even though his contact with Hayna wasn't extensive.

"I don't know what the others' missions were, but I was met with betrayal,"

Hayna said through gritted teeth, "I remember that person—his codename was 'Pastry Chef.' When I heard this codename, I thought he must be a good person, or he wouldn't have chosen something so soft and sweet... But just when I trusted him and brought him into our gathering place as a teammate... that's when the civilians began to disappear.

"By the time the tenth person disappeared, I finally realized he was gathering materials for the ritual. He mocked me for trusting him so easily and attacked me with a ritual that shredded the tenth person into pieces right in front of me. She was a mother of a girl who had prepared porridge for me that morning. She had even considered taking her daughter to the Iris Flower to learn music..."

"It was only then... that I truly understood what the New Moon Ritual meant.

"I was furious, but anger was of no use. I couldn't possibly defeat a ritualist who was fully prepared—especially not while protecting those people. In the end, I only escaped because those people covered for me... And by the time I staggered to a safe location, out of the twenty-eight, only six were left."

"—I will always remember their names,"

Hayna said earnestly.

Her words were sincere and fiery, the fists clenched in her hands gripped a tangible rage.

"If I ever meet him in reality... I will teach him a lesson,"

"What kind of lesson specifically?"

Aiwass suddenly interjected with a query.

Hayna was silent for a while, then spoke seriously, "I would kill him." Continue reading on My Virtual Library Empire

This girl, who, when threatening someone in the past, would at most say "I will arrest you"... was now clearly stating with her sober will, in a very serious tone, her desire to kill someone, not out of a heated head.

Aiwass smiled with satisfaction and nodded slightly.

It was much better to grow within a dream than to truly lose something in reality and then come to an awakening.

"Very well,"

he said calmly, "You have indeed grown. Alright, I'll do you this favor."

"...What?" Hayna didn't catch on.

"I will help you find him, and then let you kill him,"

Aiwass sat on the edge of the bed, murmuring softly with a smile, "This will be your baptism, and it signifies that you are on the path to maturity. Few people have the chance to use the person who awakened them as the offering, but the nature of that is ultimately different. The one who truly angered you should be ended by your own hands. That is the meaning of strength."

Sherlock, who was nearby, always felt as if Aiwass was akin to a devil sowing temptation at that moment.

His expression became exceptionally complicated. But in the end, he did not stop Aiwass.

Forget it, let him do as he pleases...