Chapter 6
I thought a dream was a dream.
But it wasn't.
As it turned out, the dream was reality.
It was realism.
……
Chirp chirp.
The sound of mountain birds was heard.
I also felt a fresh breeze blowing.
It wasn't a tight, closed space, but a liveliness that can only be felt in the wide outdoors.
“Huh?”
Startled, I sat up abruptly.
Chirp chirp chirp.
Birds were still chirping, and I woke up with a dazed expression and looked around.
“Where is this?”
I was just in the elevator of death, but this place was familiar.
I had been lying on the wooden porch of a Hanok house and had just woken up; I was still in that strange house I had visited earlier today.
“You’re awake.”
A calm yet cool voice was heard.
Long straight black hair swayed in the wind, and from between those strands of hair, her quiet and gentle gaze was watching .
“Huh?”
She appeared, wearing a fluttering white hanbok.
We parted ways earlier because she said sothing strange?
I wore a confused expression.
“How am I here?”
She replied with an expression of disbelief.
“It’s my house, though?”
Huh?
That’s right.
This place was indeed that woman’s house.
“Huh? Didn’t I leave this house earlier?”
Her small lips moved slightly.
As if she knew sothing.
“Did you have a good dream in the elevator?”
Huh?
How do you—?
Instantly, I got goosebumps, and a fine trembling ran through my body.
A thrill spread from my mind throughout my whole body, like the feeling of my heart stopping.
“Pardon?”
Seeing my surprised expression, she imdiately asked back.
“‘How did I know?’ you’re asking?”
“Ah, well.”
“I’ll tell you one thing again. I wanted soone with narcolepsy.”
At that mont, a thought flashed through my mind.
What she had said to last ti ca to mind.
“Go to sleep. Right now.”
Her tone had been firm.
It wasn't a joke.
“Could it be?”
“Do you get it now?”
She spoke suggestively.
“That was a dream.”
That was a dream?
People turning like zombies.
That elevator of horror that wouldn't stop.
All those scenes of terror still remained vividly.
“A dream?”
I had never had such a nightmare before.
Because it was such a vivid pain for a dream.
“I was in that dream too.”
“Pardon?”
I thought it over.
In that dream, there were the grandfather, the man, the female student, and the middle-aged woman.
They were the people who rode the elevator together.
“You weren’t there, though?”
“I was.”
“Who?”
She gave a mysterious smile.
Seeing that subtle expression tinged with laughter, an image ca to mind.
The figure behind it all, the one who had planned everything in the elevator incident. It was similar to that biting expression the middle-aged woman wore at the end.
“The middle-aged woman?”
“You finally noticed.”
Like a willow tree swaying in the breeze, her gaze glimpsed between the strands of her hair was calm.
“That dream wasn’t yours. It was a fabricated dream.”
“Huh?”
It was a statent I couldn’t understand at all. She continued speaking.
“There are things in this world that are beyond our control. Beings like souls or ghosts are like that.”
“Is it like an urban legend?”
“Similar.”
An elevator urban legend? That thought crossed my mind for an instant.
“Spiritual entities aren’t actually a threat. Because they have no physical form.”
“Souls?”
“They exist as illusions. Since they have no physical bodies, they can’t do much in reality, but dreams are different.”
Her tone was firm.
“They can access dreams as much as they want.”
Dreams. The dreams I, a narcoleptic, had all the ti.
“Souls access dreams?”
“They can make you have nightmares.”
“Like the elevator?”
“Exactly.”
A nightmare. That horrific mory sent a chill down my spine.
“It would be fine if it just ended as a re nightmare, but in severe cases, it can shatter one's mind.”
It made sense. What if soone dread of dying while being chased by a ghost like in a ghost story? I felt that illusions and nightmares could truly kill a person.
“Souls that threaten even one's life are evil spirits. Because they threaten human lives within urban legends.”
It was the first ti I had ever heard of such a thing. It was a bizarre and strange story, but that vivid experience in the elevator just now swallowed all my doubts.
“I work to erase those urban legends and catch evil spirits.”
A catcher of evil spirits. She introduced herself as such.
“In dreams?”
“Right. Since evil spirits and urban legends only appear in dreams. I have no choice but to enter the dreams myself.”
“Ah.”
I answered in a voice as small as a mosquito's. Solving things that happen in dreams within the dreams themselves. It was like sailing an endless sea without a compass.
“What if... what if you die in that legend? In that dream?”
“You won't be able to wake from the dream,” she said coldly. “Your mind truly dies.”
“That’s dangerous.”
I recalled the mory of the elevator just now. What if I had gotten off on a different floor? What if I hadn't found the answer? It ant I would have had to accept the experience of dying in a dream as reality.
“I almost died earlier.”
It was a sentint born from the experience of dealing with a ghost. A traveler walking through a nightmare of an urban legend. It was a path of hardship, like walking through a field of thorns.
“What about the dream you gave ?”
“It was a test.”
“Pardon?”
“Evil spirits create urban legends in people's dreams. They use those legends to shatter people's minds or even take their lives. I tested such a legend on you. I told you earlier, didn't I? That I would be conducting an interview starting now.”
Was that why she told to go to sleep imdiately? It was a test to try by planting an elevator urban legend in my dream?
Only then did I realize the true nature of the ssage I had heard.
『The domain of the ** is transitioning.』
That phrase I had caught a fleeting glimpse of.
As I replayed it in my mind, the words I had missed ca back to .
『The domain of the urban legend is transitioning.』
This elevator urban legend.
It was a dream domain she had created.
“Is that even possible? How did you do it?”
I tilted my head with a puzzled expression, but she continued speaking as if it didn't matter.
“The elevator urban legend. You rember it, right?”
Haha.
As if I could forget.
I was just put through the wringer so harshly.
“To catch an evil spirit, I usually have to enter that dream. I cast a spell to enter the urban legend.”
“You enter soone else's urban legend?”
“That's right. I enter and purify that urban legend completely.”
It was a very dangerous task.
The opponent is a ghost or an evil spirit within an urban legend.
One must overco all sorts of mockery, traps, and even bloodcurdling threats of death.
She said her job was eliminating ominous urban legends.
“People can't endure such cruel dreams.”
“I suppose so.”
Since I'd experienced it firsthand, I felt it deeply.
That this wasn't just a dream, but an urban legend where death was on the line.
“If you fail, your mind can collapse. That's why I need soone with an incredible ntal state.”
I understood and was convinced.
Honestly, that elevator urban legend was the ultimate despair I’d felt in my life.
“We’re going to enter those nightmare-like urban legends. I can enter an urban legend via a spell, but ordinary people are different. They have to fall asleep and dream so that I can put them into soone else's urban legend using a spell.”
She extended her slender arm.
The strange hand gestures she made with her fingertips were elegant, like the fluttering of a butterfly's wings.
It looked similar to a shaman casting a spell.
Her white skin shone as if reflecting the sunlight.
“Ah, so?”
“I’m used to entering nightmare urban legends. But the opponent is a ghost. An evil spirit.”
Her gaze was calm.
“Two people must always enter an urban legend. One person deals with the legend, and the other has to find the exit or watch each other's backs.”
“That would be .”
I understood.
The reason she wanted , a narcoleptic, too.
“For an ordinary person to enter an urban legend, they have to fall asleep, right? Then you’d need soone who dreams frequently. It’s advantageous to be able to fall asleep quickly at any ti.”
“Correct.”
A person with narcolepsy, whose sleeping ti is longer than their waking ti, was the optimal partner to work with her.
“A partner to go into urban legends with.”
I recalled that urban legend from earlier.
The people who died in the elevator.
Holding onto my sanity amidst extre terror and even finding the ghost hidden in the elevator.
If I had to do sothing like this again?
It felt as if that terror I never wanted to rember was etched into my mory like a brand.
“I don't want to.”
I refused imdiately.
She smiled with a relaxed expression.
“There's no need to worry. I'll be entering the urban legend with you.”
Risking my life to enter an urban legend.
Dealing with ghosts together with this suspicious woman?
“Why? Are you scared?”
She laughed.
It was close to a sneer.
“Evil spirits only enter the dreams of humans they intend to devour through urban legends. I am afraid of neither evil spirits nor urban legends.”
She declared firmly.
“They only enter the dreams of easy targets?”
Dammit.
That could be .
“That makes it even worse.”
A sigh escaped .
I felt drained and nauseous.
“I refuse.”
It was a matter of life and death.
Dealing with mysterious and grotesque evil spirits within urban legends.
Not just a simple dream, but the absolute worst nightmare.
Confronting traps laid by ghosts and malice that transcends imagination.
It was a matter of wandering through urban legends where death was at stake.
Never again.
“I never want to have a dream like that ever again.”
Step, step.
I walked across the courtyard.
I wanted to escape this strange house and this suspicious woman as quickly as possible.
“That dream.”
She spoke calmly.
“The elevator urban legend, I an. Do you happen to know?”
“Pardon?”
“It was sothing that actually happened.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)