Dream Erosion

The Empire's border had been dangerously unstable lately!

So dangerous that Ethan had been dragged out of bed after less than four hours of sleep to attend a meeting. A blackboard had appeared in Ivy's living room, covered in documents sent from Gear City. She'd even prepared name cards bearing the codenames "Head Wolf" and "Chicken Farmer."

But before the meeting could begin, Madam Rose had to get one thing straight.

Her beautiful eyes were full of confusion. "Why are you gnawing on hardtack again?"

Before he knew it, Ethan had practically become synonymous with hardtack, as if he'd been born with a piece of it in his hand.

"Because I came without eating breakfast... Huh? Are we not allowed to eat during meetings?"

"Breakfast? It's almost afternoon!"

Realizing that Ethan had derailed the conversation, Ivy continued, "I never said you couldn't eat during meetings. I was just asking why you only eat hardtack. How much do you even like it?"

Anyone who didn't know better might think the Brookwood Town Containment Bureau's intelligence station treated its staff terribly, and that she, as the Station Master, abused her subordinates. If the people she knew in the Imperial Capital heard about this, she'd bring shame upon the Margaret Family.

"Reporting to Madam Rose: the last time I went to the shop, they were running a buy-ten-get-three-free promotion, so I bought too much!"

Fortunately, Miss Chloe was never picky. She was happy with whatever he fed her. In fact, Ethan had once noticed that when there was no food to be found, she'd even eat tree bark.

Ivy pressed a hand to her forehead. The buy-ten-get-three-free deal was obviously a promotion for hardtack that wasn't selling, and this guy acted as if he'd found a treasure.

She'd have to invite him over more often to improve his diet.

"Early this morning, the Containment Bureau in Gear City sent a letter asking us to suspend all investigations for the time being. They also warned the residents of Brookwood Town not to leave town without good reason."

"What happened now?"

Ethan's heart tightened. More major incidents had happened in Brookwood Town over the past few days than in the previous two years combined. Could Becky and her seven old butlers have won the team Resurrection Match and be coming to film Becky's Revenge Season Two?

"A few days ago, Containment Bureau investigators spotted two members of 'Dream Erosion' near the Empire's border. They seem to be trying to enter the Empire through a border town."

The crunching stopped. Pale-faced, Ethan handed the remaining two-thirds of his hardtack to Miss Chloe. She accepted it without hesitation, swallowing the whole piece in one bite and stuffing her cheeks until they bulged.

"Do you mean that Dream Erosion?"

Ethan felt that putting two dots in the middle of the name was the only way to convey how serious this was.

"Who else?"

Ethan knew that, according to the usual pattern, he was supposed to sink into a flashback now.

The first time he'd seen Dream Erosion in the Gryphon Daily, it had left an indelible impression on him. It was a murder case in Gear City. The victim, the deputy director of the Containment Bureau, had been killed in his mistress's home. The bodies of both him and his mistress had been cut into 316 pieces with some kind of sharp implement, which were scattered throughout the crime scene.

Worse still, the Gryphon Daily's illustrations often moved, like an old black-and-white film. They'd let Ethan witness the blood- and body-part-filled luxury apartment from a first-person perspective.

The murder had happened not long after he'd crossed over. It had cast a shadow over his young heart that he'd never been able to shake.

After that, Dream Erosion appeared in the Gryphon Daily from time to time. Every appearance was accompanied by a major case that sent shockwaves through the Empire. Not one person whose name became connected to the organization ever survived. Even if they hired the best guards in the area and strengthened their manor's defenses to the utmost, the only result was a few or a few dozen more corpses at the scene.

And the victims who died at Dream Erosion's hands usually met particularly inventive ends.

The crime scenes were the sort of thing you rarely even saw in a B-movie.

If he had to compare them, the gap between Becky and Dream Erosion was like the difference between a one-person business and a Fortune 500 company.

Over time, concerned citizens who read the paper as often as Ethan began to wonder:

Why was there a gang of killers murdering the Empire's great nobles, senior officials, and Church leaders, yet no one had managed to take them down?

At least during the two years he'd spent in Brookwood Town, not a single member of Dream Erosion had been captured or killed.

And so a rumor had run rampant among the public.

Every member of Dream Erosion was a saint who worshipped an Evil God. Wherever they went, it was as if the Evil God had descended upon the world to spread calamity.

And now two such evil saints had appeared at the Empire's border at the same time?

A sense of foreboding crept over Ethan. Trembling, he asked, "The branch sent over all these files. They're not planning to have us deal with those deranged killers, are they?"

"Of course not. After receiving the report, the Empire began assembling an elite Knights Order. They should be heading for the border soon. Our job is to receive them here in town and help them learn about the area. Now that I think about it, the Witch's delay in attacking Brookwood Town might be because she's heard about Dream Erosion."

"That's probably it!"

Ethan immediately agreed. "By the way, the big shots in Dream Erosion wouldn't pick on ordinary folks like us, would they?"

"Hard to say."

"...What do you mean, 'hard to say'? I don't remember the Gryphon Daily ever reporting them massacring civilians."

"But they're hunting Containment Bureau personnel."

Ethan's expression turned grave. "Madam Rose, I have a plan. I'm not sure whether I should bring it up."

"Go ahead."

"Could we leave the Containment Bureau and go back to being ordinary residents, then re-register the Brookwood Town intelligence Base Station once those deranged killers have left?"

"That wouldn't help. The Gear City branch received word this morning that a researcher fired from headquarters a few years ago was killed in Fireplace Bay. In fact, quite a few former Containment Bureau investigators who'd retired or changed careers have also been assassinated."

She saw Ethan's expression grow more and more serious, then added a key detail. "But most of them were A-Class Investigators or higher. I think there's something strange about these cases, so I asked the branch to send over the relevant files. We have nothing to do while we wait for the Kingdom Army to arrive, so we might as well use the files to pass the time."

Ivy's dark circles made everything clear.

Ethan could have guessed with his eyes closed that she'd been too excited to sleep after receiving the files and had gotten up at the crack of dawn to investigate.

As a B-Class Investigator at the Brookwood Town intelligence Base Station, she shouldn't have had the authority to look through these files. But that was the power of the Margaret Family.

"Have you found any clues?"

"Three years ago, the Containment Bureau suffered a serious containment breach. To put down the rampaging contained entities, the former director led a team into the isolation zone. He died in there."

"I know about that."

The former director was the author of Encyclopedia of Cursed Items. He died at the age of thirty-three.

"Every former Containment Bureau investigator targeted by Dream Erosion was involved, to one degree or another, in that containment breach."

Ivy stared at the case summaries pinned to the blackboard, lost in thought.

This seemed less like a terrorist attack and more like a highly targeted reckoning.

A reckoning against the A-Class Investigators who'd survived the containment breach.