Rika Fujimaru woke up, and then immediately realized that she was not awake.

This may sound very contradictory to others, but for the battle-hardened Chaldean Lord, it was a matter that had become so common that it was like a daily job. It's better to say that she hasn't seen a similar scene for a long time, and she also has a little nostalgia for it.

- She is now in someone else's dream.

Understand, intermission story, right? She cautiously rose from the darkness around her as silently as possible, trying to confirm her surroundings in order to roughly deduce which one needed psychological counseling in the dream.

It's always dangerous to fall into someone else's dream, but luckily, it's a dream. Fujimaru Rika's physical body, which had not yet fully recovered and was not yet very bright, could not affect her state in the dream world. Even if this dream is not her home field, based on her own experience, Ritsuka Fujimaru's current physical abilities are not much different from what she perceived to be when she was healthy.

The first thing she recognized after getting up was that she was lying on an untreated, hard piece of gravel and rock. It seemed to represent some kind of untouched outdoor environment, but the air around her was dreary, which made her suspect that she was actually in some kind of enclosed place.

It was dark, but not completely dull. Fujimaru Rika quietly attached a vision-enhancing magic to herself: such a basic magic trick was not easy to master for her third-rate qualifications, but she also thought that if she was to live with a group of Nostramo people for a long time, it would be better to put more effort into mastering it.

Under the influence of magic, she slowly adapted to such subtle light and began to be able to observe her surroundings normally. Then she realized she was in some kind of cave. The environment was obviously not pleasant, and although there were many signs of obvious hand-carved carvings on the vast walls some distance from her, and some corresponding equipment and scaffolding were piled up nearby, it was clear that none of the above existed for the sake of beauty or art.

This is a mine cave. Rika Fujimaru judged so.

Using the "mining equipment" stacked in the distance and which appeared advanced in her ancient conception as a clue, Fujimaru Rika first guessed that it was Conrad Coetze's dream.

Although from her own point of view, and from the occasional fragments of memory after establishing a contract with the other party, their impression of Nostramo was more of a polluted sky and atmosphere, a dreary nest, a pipeline that was forever spitting waste water, a "commoner" who was almost as numb as a "livestock", and a lavish aristocrat who had degenerated to the point of committing a lot of crimes—Nostramo, as a planet with ridiculously large reserves of pure gold, clearly had mines on it.

But she soon denied her suspicions, as she realized that the mine was not rich in Adamantite, or at least, not the Adamantite ore commonly found on Nostramo. Rika Fujimaru didn't do much research on this and couldn't tell what was mined here, but she could at least realize that the ore produced here was very different from the one she was more familiar with.

Then things are weird. Looking at the solo-wielded, rudimentary machinery that was still more advanced to her than it should have been in the era in which she had lived, she didn't think that the other Heroic Spirits who currently maintained a contract with her would have dreams in the context of such an era. The question bothered her a little, but it was only for a moment—and even the fact that she didn't have the "I couldn't tell the way in such a dark place" was even more of a headache.

The soldiers will block, the water will cover the earth, and there will be a road before the car reaches the mountain. It didn't matter which Heroic Spirit had a strange dream because of some recent stimulus, or if her consciousness had drifted into some mess for some reason, just standing there and thinking about it would not make her find the answer, let alone solve the problem.

She couldn't tell where she was going, so she simply gave up thinking and chose a direction that looked pleasing to the eye. Just in case, Fujimaru Rika casually picked up a pickaxe from the side of the road and prepared it for self-defense.

The pickaxe is only very similar in appearance to the "pickaxe" that Rika Fujimaru knows, but in fact, it has some more complex structures and cables on it, and apparently has an engine that is powered by an unknown fuel, and a very clear switch on the handle.

She didn't know what would happen when she turned it on, and she had no plans to give it a try. The engineering accidents caused by mishandling the equipment were terrible, and she didn't really need the other functions attached to the pickaxe: it had a weight that was intimidating enough to swing and had a sharp end, both of which were quite enough for Rika Fujimaru.

She was very familiar with similar occasions, and naturally she would not forget the most basic rules: to die in a dream is to be really dead—the only exception was in her illusion trial, but that time was guaranteed by the emperor, so it didn't count. Although she is not afraid to take risks, and even often makes intimidating risky moves, it does not mean that she has to try to the death in any matter.

In this way, Rika Fujimaru carried a pickaxe and simply marked the part of the wall that she had walked on, while walking through the dark cavern. She said she couldn't tell how long she had walked, but she knew that the space around her was sometimes wide and sometimes cramped, and that it was clearly not arranged according to the correct laws of physics. She felt like she had been walking in a straight line, and she had never passed the part she had walked, but the passage in the mine was undulating, with no fork in the road or end.

This may go on forever. After walking like this for an immeasurable period of time, and feeling tired as a result, Rika Fujimaru began to develop this realization.

As a Chaldean lord who can even cross the American continent on foot, Rika Fujimaru may not be able to compare with the Astral Army infantry in this world in terms of marching speed, but in terms of endurance alone, she may be better than the mortal soldiers in the current world. Under the intensification of the magic, if you speculate based on her average score and physical number of steps, she should have walked at least forty kilometers during this time, which is about the distance of a day's hike on flat ground under normal conditions, but it is not the limit of Fujimaru Rika herself.

If you want to go, you can continue walking, but Rika Fujimaru decided to rest in place. The only benefit of being in a dream might be that she doesn't feel really hungry, so she doesn't have to bother searching for something to eat in this mine where there is almost nothing - but that's not the way to go.

She sat down against the bumpy walls of the cavern and took a brief break to think about what she should do next.

To sort out the current situation: although the mine itself is not strictly straight, it is indeed too "straight" for the "mine", and there is not even a fork in the road. In reality, of course, this is unreasonable, but this is a dream after all, so there is nothing too much to make a fuss about.

The scenes in the inner part of the dream do not follow the logic of reality, and these illogical scenes often express some kind of reflection in the subconscious of the dream owner. Based on Rika Fujimaru's past experience, she should have encountered something else, movable as she walked, and these things were often more explicit reflections of the nature of the problem, but apparently, in this section of the mine, which can be called "nothing", things don't work that way.

She didn't know if it was because the owner of the dream was special, or because the rules of the dream were different in different universes - after all, until now, she hadn't figured out the most superficial question of "whose dream was this", which did make her feel a little frustrated.

Somewhat unexpectedly, at the same time as she felt this frustration, a pitch-black flame appeared beside her out of thin air. It emitted no light, no heat, only swelled up with a little illusory hunting scorch, and spat out a figure:

"You're really hard to find." Edmond Dantès, Count of Monte Cristo, complained, "Merlin was only three minutes late when he brought me in, and you couldn't find anyone at all." ”

It's hard to say whether it's taken for granted, or because she's too tired to react, Fujimaru Rika didn't show any polite surprise, but asked calmly: "Can't you follow the general direction shown in the contract?" ”

"This dream is like a tower of gravel. Perhaps because of this, many things in my current senses, including direction and distance, have become ambiguous. The Count of Monte Cristo replied, but his answer, as usual, was still confusing to the listener, "and at last I could only try to chase your emotions like the 'subspace creatures' of this universe—did you realize that you had walked for eight hours in a narrow and lightless passage, and during that time there had been no mental fluctuations?" ”

The latter sentence is obviously a complaint, but Rika Fujimaru is a little baffled by it.

“…… Is there anything wrong with this? ”

"Of course there's a problem, if you walk in this environment for thirty minutes, you'd almost go crazy - but you even walked for eight hours in one go."

In this way, the Count of Monte Cristo was a subtle accusation that she had acted recklessly in spite of her own situation. In the past, Rika Fujimaru would inevitably have talked about some of the things that didn't have here, trying to mix up the topic, so as to escape a possible preaching. But now Fujimaru Rika just tilted her head: "Isn't that good?" ”

Her reaction made the Count of Monte Cristo frown: Something was wrong.

The dream itself had not yet shown its fangs, but its own circumstances alone were capable of confusing the senses of a heroic spirit like the Count of Monte Cristo. It's hard to say that it won't have the slightest effect on an ordinary person like Rika Fujimaru.

"Do you remember how far you've come?" He cautiously checked the situation, "What did you see along the way?" What kind of marks did you make? What kind of clues did you get? ”

For Rika Fujimaru, this is a question that should have been answered without thinking. As the Lord of the Chaldees, a battlefield commander who often visited the front line, it should have become her instinct to memorize and use this basic information at all times, and she should blurt it out when asked—but she clearly showed a "memory" expression at this point, and it was obvious that she was struggling to recall.

"It feels like I've walked about forty kilometers or so." She said slowly.

Although it cannot be ruled out that the dream itself changed after Fujimaru Ritsuka's walk, or that Merlin did not put the two of them in the same position when he put it out, the Count of Monte Cristo calculated carefully when he re-crossed the "origin" - he was able to move at high speed with his Noble Phantasm, so he crossed this distance almost instantaneously, but "this distance" was actually fifty-two kilometers.

There will always be errors between "feeling" and "actuality", but Rika Fujimaru should have been very skilled in similar estimates, and such a large error is almost impossible.

The Count of Monte Cristo furrowed his brow even more. He was thinking about whether to wait for Rika Fujimaru to answer all his questions slowly, or whether to just throw the words "something is wrong with you" in her face now. However, while he was hesitating about it, the Chaldean lord also realized something.

"I think...... A little off. She desperately drove her apparently heavy thoughts, as if she were stirring a bucket of cement that was about to solidify, "I can't remember what happened before other than the 'I'm walking' thing." I should have looked around, but I don't remember what I saw. ”

The "......" situation seemed even worse than the Count of Monte Cristo had imagined: although he had only cast a hasty glance on the road, he had seen some ...... clearly Quite an impactful sight.

Mountains of miner corpses, repressed rebels armed with guns, black monsters with feathers, hook claws and twisted wings, tattered fragments of Astarte, and so on. He didn't think that any sane person would easily forget these sights when they saw them, and they would find it difficult to remember. And Fujimaru Rika, at least until she came to this dream, was obviously mentally normal.

"I'm ...... now It's hard to think. Fujimaru Rika struggled to get up from the ground, "But it doesn't work—"

"—I understand, you calm down first." The Count of Monte Cristo said so soothingly, and then focused his gaze on the tool she had placed at her side as the other moved.

"What did you bring you?" He asked cautiously.

"Huh?" Rika Fujimaru's reaction was still half a beat slower, but overall it was timely, "This is where I got it from where I started......"

She slowly turned her head back and looked at the tool. After realizing that "something was wrong", the word "pickaxe" in her mouth could no longer be spoken.

Leaning quietly against the wall was not a pickaxe, but a piece of thigh bone with a little knee attached to it, which clearly belonged to a human.

- Changing to an ordinary little girl of this age, she will basically scream loudly when she realizes this, and even Fujimaru Rika herself will be startled under more normal circumstances. But now she does not show similar feelings at all, and instead of saying "calm", it is better to say that she is "sluggish" now.

Now that the evidence is here, the conclusion is clear: this is a pollution of cognition. In normal times, Rika Fujimaru could have thought of this in an instant, but now, it took her a full three seconds. The Count of Monte Cristo was very worried and confirmed to her: "Is there something wrong, or I will take you out of this dream." She still stood still, just shaking her head.

It took her, perhaps five or six minutes, desperately driving her sluggish mind, to finally make sense of it all, relying on the repeated promptings of the Count of Monte Cristo:

Since this dream will pollute her cognition, then naturally, it may also pollute her spirit. Her current emotional response is very sluggish, her concentration is reduced, she has difficulty receiving new information from the outside, and her thinking has become difficult. It was an unusual thing for her, and all these changes had happened after she had entered this dream—so it was clear that the one who started it was needless to say.

"I've read a little bit that these are typical 'depressive symptoms.'" Fujimaru Rika's wording also began to be flawed, "I'm not a real psychiatrist, and I can't count my diagnosis, but for convenience, let's call it that." ”

"I think it's better for you to go back first." The Count of Monte Cristo did not answer, but proposed another plan, "Go back and sleep well, and don't think about anything; I'll go back and beat Merlin, he deserves it. ”

Fujimaru Rika didn't speak for a while. This made the Count of Monte Cristo a little uneasy. As usual, he would have been willing to trust all the judgments of the Chaldean Lord, but now the situation is clearly different. He began to be a little unsure, judging from the other party's current state of mind, whether this matter should continue to be judged by her.

"Whose dream is this?" After a brief pause, she asked.

The Count of Monte Cristo didn't know if it was a reflection she had made after she had recovered somewhat, or if something she had decided to explore a long time ago had finally arrived in line on the to-do list in a slow motion. He thought about it for a while, and finally decided to "answer truthfully" as a test for the next round:

"Corvus Colax." He said, "Do you remember who he was? ”

Rika Fujimaru stood in place in silence for a moment, not immediately responding to this.

The heart of the Count of Monte Cristo sank.

Miwoo (Leopard Kill)

Overestimating myself, how can I feel that it still can't work.

By the way, the original interlude is really not that easy to fight, and the problem of the Raven King cannot be solved by a single dream therapy. You see, Coetze's interlude (what) has to fight a whole expedition to save Nostramo at the end, and then he is still that virtue, except for the favorability, he basically hasn't brushed up......

Suddenly it occurred to me that I had to shout: depressive symptoms do not equal depression! Anyone can have short-term depressive symptoms due to various things, but if you are not depressed, you still need to really see a reliable psychiatrist!

(End of chapter)