Dream
Xu Huo's goal was to find people, so after discussing it with the other two, they decided to split up. Fortunately, they had already "cleared" a stretch of level ground in the middle, making it easy to contact one another if anything happened. If they suddenly lost contact, that would mean something was amiss.
The "getting lost" that had happened to the three players who'd been ambushed earlier was strange too, but they hadn't found any clues, so they could only let it go.
As they made their way along, the player who'd been ambushed fell asleep again. He was easier to wake than the two ordinary people had been, though, and seemed to be in very good spirits.
"I had a dream, too." After being woken, the ambushed player said with a lingering sense of wonder, "I dreamed of a huge stretch of wisteria in full bloom. It was more beautiful than any wisteria I'd ever seen. Nothing in real life, or even a projection calibrated on a terminal, could compare to that kind of beauty. Do you know what I mean?"
"It was the sort of beauty where you could see every detail at a glance, but nothing was glaring. Instead, everything gave off a soft beauty. And the color—the color was different from the purplish pink you'd see with the naked eye. It was a beauty you just couldn't describe..."
"Okay, okay," the female player interrupted impatiently. "What else was there besides the wisteria?"
The ambushed player thought for a moment. "Just flowers."
Their eyes met. The female player could see he wasn't joking, and was speechless. So you really had just had a dream? We thought you'd found something useful in it!
With no time to keep dealing with him, she turned to Xu Huo.