A thunderclap rang out, and dawn broke over Redicor.
Barf was startled awake by the commotion outside. He suddenly opened his eyes and reached for his neck.
He sat up, drenched in cold sweat, only to find no wound on his neck. Somehow, he was still alive.
But wasn't I killed by that evil thug?
How could I still be alive?
Could it have been nothing but a nightmare?
He rose in fright and examined his entire body. Then he repeatedly checked himself in the mirror, only to discover that not a single wound remained. All the bloody gashes he had carved into himself, one after another, had vanished without a trace.
"Phew—
It really seems to have been a dream!
But that dream was far too real."
Barf was overjoyed. Immersed in the bliss of his "new life," he cheered aloud, then squeezed against the window and looked toward the street, wanting to know what the noisy crowd outside was doing.
After asking around for a while, he learned that at dawn, a bolt of thunder from a clear sky had blasted open the ground beneath the statue, exposing Lord Skalt's tomb.
He was horrified when he heard this. Without even taking the time to dress properly, he rushed out of his room and toward the gathering crowd.
Four or five others had rushed out in similarly disheveled states, exactly matching the number of lucky ones Cheng Shi had selected.
They pushed through the crowd to the front. While the guards from the Foolishness Prohibition Institute cleared the blast site and maintained order to prevent the onlookers from disturbing the soul resting beneath the statue, each of them wore an odd expression, their eyes flickering uneasily.
Before long, they noticed one another. Especially after exchanging glances in pairs, their