While Shin was busy harvesting skills and soul points from the slain Titanomyrma beasts, his squadmates had unknowingly stepped into a different kind of battlefield — one far crueler and far quieter.
The mont the three girls stepped through the shimring portal, they were consud by a fragrant breeze that kissed their skin with a sweetness almost too perfect to be natural. The scent wasn’t just floral, it was intoxicating. It clung to their noses and curled through their lungs like a lullaby.
"Oh... my... gods," Lilian breathed, eyes wide with childlike wonder.
"Is this... the land of the heavens?" Sylvia asked, voice breathy with awe, her lips parting as though she was afraid speaking too loudly might shatter the perfection around them.
Hearing their voices, a stirring ca from inside Sylvia’s front pocket. Gegee, stood up, her tiny hands gripping the lip of the cloth. She hoisted herself up and her fuzzy, bare body erged like a curious squirrel, her head poking into the light.
"What in the ever-loving..." Her breath hitched. "This place is unreal..."
Before them was a sight that could only exist in dreams or delusions. Lush, verdant adows stretched endlessly beneath a sky painted with the softest blue and scattered with clouds that looked like gentle cotton. Imnse cherry blossom trees lined the periter like guardians of a secret paradise, their pink leaves cascading to the ground like confetti with every tender gust of wind.
A glittering brook coiled lazily through the grass, the water so clear it reflected their faces when they stepped closer. The stones beside it were smooth and flat—so wide enough to rest upon, others small enough to skip across the water’s surface.
Sylvia gently lifted Gegee from her pocket and placed her on one of the flat stones, letting her take in the panorama with a full view.
The ground was covered in grass so thick and soft it felt like plush carpet under their boots. Unable to resist, Sylvia dropped to the earth with a playful giggle and began rolling back and forth like a child, the sensation too inviting to ignore.
Lilian hesitated, caught between laughter and caution. Just as she crouched down to join the Sylvia on the fun, she turned and glanced behind them.
Her smile faded.
"Huh...? The gate... where’s the gate?" Her voice grew sharp, her tone suddenly laced with confusion.
Sylvia sat up. "Wasn’t it right behind us just a mont ago?"
"Yeah," Lilian replied, now scanning frantically in all directions. "But it’s gone! And Master hasn’t co through yet!"
The worry in her voice spread like a virus. Gegee tilted her head. Her tiny hands curled into fists. Sothing about the air... it was too sweet, too perfect.
"Let’s find him—" Lilian began, but her sentence crumbled when a powerful wave of that sa intoxicating fragrance washed over her, stronger now, and denser. Her panic dulled. Her heart—which had just been thudding with fear for the absence of her master—began to slow, like it was being lulled to sleep.
She blinked slowly. The world swam in warm colors. The grass beneath her called out again, like a mother’s lap to a tired child.
Gegee gritted her teeth, her instinct flaring despite the sun warming her naked body pleasantly. Sothing was wrong. Deeply wrong.
Then it happened.
A wind blew across the adow, and in its current, thousands of golden petals whirled through the air in graceful spirals. The petals didn’t scatter—they danced deliberately, forming shapes, then letters, then words in midair.
"It’s... forming words!" Sylvia whispered.
"L-i-e... d-o-w-n... a-n-d... t-a-k-e... a... r-e-s-t," Lilian read aloud, her voice dreamy.
Sylvia sighed and collapsed back into the grass. "Wow... This truly is heaven. Let’s take a rest."
"But Master..." Lilian murmured, her legs already giving in. She moved without aning to. Her mind rebelled, scread for her to fight, but her body had been seduced by this strange paradise.
This isn’t right, she thought. Her forehead dripped with sweat. Her hands trembled as if her very soul was fighting her limbs for control. Her loyalty to Shin, the man she swore to protect was clawing at her conscience, but this place...
It was too peaceful. She had to only think of her master.
But another thought buried that quickly: Maybe l should just lie down for a mont. Just one peaceful mont.
Eventually, she gave in.
The mont she accepted it, all resistance evaporated. The cherry blossom tree she leaned on seed to exhale, its branches swaying down and fanning her gently. Birds sang above, their lodies wrapping around her like a lullaby.
And one by one, they began to fall asleep.
Sylvia, lying beneath the open sky, was the first to close her eyes. Gegee, lounging on her flat stone, tiny legs spread and arms folded behind her head, let out a soft sigh. And Lilian, once the most resistant, finally surrendered to the unnatural peace.
But sleep here was not a gift. It was a curse.
Her eyes fluttered closed, her consciousness slipping into dreams...
**
Inside Lilian’s dream, she was sitting in a mist-covered wasteland beneath a crimson sky. Scrawny, dried-up trees lood around her like skeletal sentinels. Her clothes were tattered. And resting in her lap... was Shin.
He was in the sa state, battered, bruised, but peaceful. She combed her fingers gently through his hair.
"The world has ended," he murmured. "Most of the people... are gone."
She smiled down at him, brushing his hair off his handso face before their lips t in a soft, longing kiss.
Then — thud.
The crunch of boots nearby. Dead leaves rustling.
She looked up.
Sylvia stood before them, one arm missing, the other gripping a bloodstained axe. Her eyes glowed red, her lips twisted in restrained fury.
"You two never cared about ," she growled. "You’re the reason I lost an arm... You think I can just forget that?"
"Dwarf girl," Lilian said, frowning, confused. "What are you talking ab—"
Sylvia launched the axe.
It slamd into Shin’s face, cracking it, tearing through his cheek and smashing his nose inward. His teeth burst like glass, scattering across the earth. Blood poured down his chin, soaking Lilian’s hands.
She scread. Shin groaned, horribly, through the gore.
"You’re a useless servant!!" he barked, his voice impossibly still clear, even without a mouth. "Can’t even protect ! I hope you die in hell!"
The forest deepened with the color of blood. The mist thickened. The air pressed down on her lungs.
Sylvia raised the axe again. "You’re next. Say goodbye to your pathetic little life."
Lilian couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream.
The axe fell.
And then—
"ARGHHHHH!!"
Lilian bolted upright, eyes wide, chest heaving. Sweat drenched her skin.
She was back in the garden. But the peace was gone.
A voice echoed inside her mind, soft, kind, and terrifyingly gentle.
"You didn’t like that dream? I can give you a better one... a peaceful death, instead."
She spun left, right — no one was there.
Gegee twitched on her stone bed. Sylvia, nearby, groaned in her sleep, her face twisted with fury.
**
Gegee was dreaming too.
In Gegee’s dream, she was back in her original, voluptuous body. Naked. On top of Shin. Grinding her hips down, taking him deep inside her. His hands were tight on her waist. She moaned softly, riding him with slow, sensual moves, enjoying the lovemaking, and moaning with desire when suddenly—
CRASH!
The windows burst open violently. Glass shattered across the floor as shadows poured in, swirling like phantoms.
"You’ve betrayed ."
The voice was male, bitter, and thick with accusation.
Gegee looked up, panting. "Who’s there?!"
"Who am I?" the voice laughed. "I’m the man you forgot."
From the smoke stepped a figure.
Her heart dropped.
"...Gerald?" she whispered, shaking.
"It hurts," he whispered. "To see you fucking the man who murdered ."
"No... I didn’t an—"
"I should kill you both."
Shin convulsed beneath her. Gooey, black ink spilled from his mouth, nose, and ears. His eyes rolled back, bloodshot and white. The fluid drenched the bed. He writhed beneath her, dying in agony.
"SHIN!!"
The door burst open. Lilian and Sylvia entered, both naked and stood on either side of Gerald, holding his hands.
"You killed him," Lilian hissed.
"You killed us all," Sylvia cackled.
And now you’ll die too!"
Darkness took her too as she choked, still on top of Shin’s cock, the ink surging up her throat.
**
She snapped awake, dangling off the edge of the flat rock. Her tiny fingers barely clung to the edge. One slip, and she’d fall. Her little legs would snap like twigs.
"Sobody!! Help ! I’m about to fall!"
Sylvia, waking up with a gasp from her own night terror, looked over with trembling eyes. She looked at Gegee, then Lilian.
And then her face hardened.
"You two... are traitors."
She spat on the ground. Her eyes flared with rage.
"I’ll kill you!!" she scread, reaching for the axe on her back. "You and your twisted loyalty! I’ll kill you both!!"
Lilian shot to her feet in confusion.
Gegee dangled helplessly.
And as the chaos brewed beneath the cherry blossoms, the flowers simply danced, swaying to a wind that no longer slled like heaven... but sothing far more sinister.
To Be Continued...
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