I Fight Kal'tsit? Seriously?

When some of the older Banshees saw Gerald pick up his sword and charge in again, they nearly used Incantation themselves to stop him—fortunately, the leading Banshee was calmer and knew her sisters well enough to directly stop them.

But how had the younger Banshees ever seen anything like this?

To them, Lamaline was a hero who had slain countless enemies on the battlefield and driven back the allied armies of three nations alongside the King of the Sarkaz Eaters. During the final defensive battle, they hadn't been assigned to the walls near Kazdel for the sake of preserving their bloodline, so they had never witnessed Gerald's strength firsthand.

Now they knew.

The sight of every Incantation vanishing in an instant was so terrifying that the young Banshees' curiosity about Gerald from that morning had entirely turned into bone-deep awe.

Along with the shattering of their worldview.

"This is good too."

Lamaline smiled without a care, pursing her lips. "Just as you said, the children should know that the ruler of their Royal Court isn't omnipotent. Even the Incantation she takes such pride in can be broken. This memory will be carved deep into them—and even into the memory of the Banshee race."

"As for now—"

"I don't think we should be the criminals who disrupt the children's thoughts. Don't you agree?"

Lamaline winked at the Pegasus before her, then wrapped an arm around his waist while lifting her bone pen with her right hand.

Incantation surged beneath them. Though its scale was nowhere near what it had been before, the pressure emanating from it still made people instinctively look away.

But Gerald wasn't having any of it.

He directly grasped Lamaline's hand holding the bone pen, slowly raising his gaze to meet hers. They were so close that they could almost feel each other's breath.

His eyes lingered quietly there, watching those gentle eyes that faintly betrayed a trace of panic.

Lamaline's gaze gradually lost the strength to resist. In the end, she lowered her eyes, her long lashes casting soft shadows as though avoiding his overly direct stare.

Her other hand lightly rested over the back of Gerald's hand.

The brief silence seemed to stretch endlessly until her voice spilled out in a low murmur, like wind brushing across a River Valley:

"[I shall sing for you.]"

"[The River Valley's gift, the wind that turns all things.]"

"[So it is today, and so it shall be tomorrow.]"

"[Until one side reaches its end, this melody shall not cease.]"

"[For you granted me freedom and released me from my heavy duty.]"

"[—My beloved.]"

It's Time to Speedrun Mansfield Break

The dream ended.

This dream led Gerald to three conclusions.

First, there were no new relics. And when he emerged, the necklace on his chest hadn't changed. It was still missing one-fifth of its color, which suggested that the outcome within the dream was closely connected to the necklace's condition.

Death might be a dividing line. If he escaped the dream through death again this time, the missing portion of the necklace's color might become even more severe.

Second, there was another potential way to leave the dream: losing consciousness within it.

During the latter half, barely maintaining consciousness had already been his limit. After leaving the Wordcraft Tower, he had remained in a dazed state almost the entire time. Once he was brought into the room, his consciousness had slipped into a coma.

Incantation still affected him deeply. Even though Lamaline had quickly restored him to normal, the lingering side effects showed signs of reaching into reality.

Third, Lamaline was terrifying.

The dignified ruler of a Royal Court kept saying things that influenced people. What truly... despicable methods.

Gerald slowly pushed himself up from the bed, then slowly covered his face. Even when Anthony cast him a curious look, he didn't turn around to meet it.

...At this point, it was difficult to keep deceiving himself.

Dreams were impossible to explain, and he didn't think the current information was enough to draw any clue that led directly to the core answer.

But the cloth wrapped around him, the necklace, and the other relics he'd obtained, along with the experience and skills he'd learned through conversations and battles in the dream, all truly existed.

To him, they weren't merely extensions of a dream. They were reality intertwined with it.

Whether it was another timeline, a real reality that had once existed in the past, or some unknown part of his own past causing trouble.

All he had to do was ask his own heart to resolve his current doubts.

If he invested effort and sincerity into the dream, would it affect him in any way? Would it cross his bottom line? Would it make him regret it? Would it affect reality?

The answers were: positively, no, no, and most likely no.

Just as with that Feline general, experience and knowledge would become his nourishment. As for the unexpected developments and this rapidly advancing relationship... since the previous dreams had allowed him to enjoy perfect battles without any cost, he could treat this as repaying the debt he'd owed before.

Besides, he was willing to acknowledge that Banshee ruler—whether it was her determination to preserve her people or her strength, both deserved his respect.

That left only facing this uncertainty head-on.

"What are you doing, staring at me the whole time?"

Gerald rubbed his face hard to wake himself up, then walked over to the mirror. He looked at Anthony next door, then at the clock on the wall. "Why are you making that face?"

The hour hand had already passed two hours, more or less following the same rhythm as last time.

"I was about to ask you that."

Anthony, who had been quietly reading, had noticed Gerald napping long ago. His expression was subtle, as though he had witnessed something rare yet bizarre. "You give me the feeling that you've attained some great enlightenment. Can someone attain enlightenment through a nap?"

"You figured it out again." Gerald looked at himself in the mirror. He did seem rather refreshed. "Didn't I tell you this morning that I'd explain my arrangements later?"

"Hm? Right." Anthony was briefly puzzled by the abrupt shift in topic, but he didn't mind discussing business. "I also went to the infirmary this morning and met Robin—the person who came to assassinate me."

"She'll come by again this afternoon to change her bandages. Do you want to come with me?"

Robin... ah, that rare Anaty. One of the assassins who had come for Anthony.

That was the downside of dreams. Once he stayed inside for too long, his memories of reality would be affected slightly.

Handling two matters at the same time made it difficult to focus. Considering that the mechanics were still unclear, along with the potential dangers in reality, the best plan for now was to resolve matters in Mansfield first, then gather information from the dream.

Things in reality wouldn't drag on much longer. It was time to settle many matters quickly. For the next few days, he should put the necklace aside.

Having roughly sorted out the key issue, Gerald used Wind Listening to check the surroundings. After confirming no one was nearby, he nodded. "Sure. What's your plan now?"

"There was a slight accident." Anthony sighed after hearing that. "Kafka said we originally had another friend helping us, someone responsible for figuring out the prison's layout and escape route. But she ran into guards searching her room today, and they took the blueprints she had."

After saying this, Anthony looked straight at Gerald. "That friend said the person who took the blueprints was a female guard. And she was a Vouivre."

"This?" Gerald took out the blueprints Anthony had been thinking about from the corner of the cell. After he had drawn Saria a structural map of the storage area, they had become meaningless to her. "It's fine. You know that guard is one of us."

"Why am I not surprised at all?" Anthony silently glanced at it. "Put it away. The cameras are still recording. Good thing you usually have a habit of taking notes."

Gerald casually rolled up the blueprints and placed them on the nearby table. "Just treat it like a poster Duma put on the wall. Be generous about it. No need to arouse suspicion."

"...You're right." Anthony silently considered all the necessary elements. "So that guard is the escape plan you prepared. Is the reason you've been with her these past few days also to escape this place?"

More or less. Though you might have to leave first. I need to stay here with her for a while.

"Why?" Anthony frowned in confusion. "We won't leave you here and escape on our own."

"Because this concerns Columbia's political issues."

Gerald looked at himself in the mirror and removed the upper half of his prison uniform, revealing his body and the cloth wrapped around his right arm.

The colors on the cloth had been replenished, becoming even more vivid, as though they might flow out from it.

There was something he didn't say.

His confrontation with Lamaline had not left him empty-handed.

After waking from the dream, although traces of mental pain remained, the wind had brought him senses he had never possessed before. When he carefully listened to the sounds carried by the wind, the foul stench coming from Mansfield's power level entered his mind as well.

Beside the heart of the mobile platform, a furnace was constantly burning firewood.

And the source of that stench was burning blood and flesh.

Once the Explanation Is Over, It's Time to Get to Work

Mansfield, infirmary.

As Gerald pushed open the infirmary door, he was met with the familiar mixed scent of medicine and disinfectant. His eyes swept across the room. The people inside were standing or sitting, nearly cramming the small space full.

"Why do I feel like we're becoming more and more like a little group?" he sighed. "We're practically like delinquent students skipping class to avoid the teacher. Though it seems there aren't any bad students among us, except Kafka?"

"Me?!" Kafka pointed at herself with a shocked expression. Apparently, after only a day, she had already become quite familiar with everyone. "When I was in college, I could rank in the top ten of my class!"

"From the top? Also, colleges actually rank people?"

"I just happened to check the professor's computer privately. And that's no fun to talk about." Kafka waved a hand, looking utterly unconcerned. "When I infiltrated the place, those people had already learned everything in the textbooks. Exams should be a matter of luck. If you memorize all the material, isn't that basically cheating?"

"...So Kafka means that despite not having studied anything at all, several people still scored worse than her?" Duma raised her head and asked with a serious expression, her voice carrying a trace of utterly sincere confusion. "Does that really happen?"

The moment she finished speaking, Robin in the corner suddenly covered her face with one hand, seemingly trying her best to hide her expression.

Anthony cleared his throat and straightened up. His gaze swept over the room as he tried to bring everyone's attention back to the main topic before they wandered too far off again.

"Enough fooling around. Robin and Kafka have limited time here, so we'd better begin quickly. Robin, we discussed some of the things you mentioned while you were away. Could you repeat them for Gerald?"

The Pegasus's sharp eyes turned toward Robin, making her shoulders tremble involuntarily. She seemed not to have completely escaped the shadows of the past.

The wound on her leg seemed to ache faintly at that moment, but Robin quickly gritted her teeth and suppressed her fear.

"Uh, ah, okay." Her voice carried a trace of nervousness. "This is about the mastermind who hired me before."

"He came directly to me."

"You mean—"

Gerald frowned, hesitation showing in his tone.

He tried to organize the fragmented information. It was obvious that the pieces could be connected. "Your father, as the general manager of the Black Cloud Group under the Hyde Brothers, needs an astronomical amount of medical expenses because of the Simon Family's counterattack?"

"And then," he emphasized heavily, "that man named Jeston hired you because you held a grudge against Anthony."

"Ah... yes." Robin nodded, her voice lowering as undisguised gloom appeared on her face.

"Looking at it now, even if I had really succeeded, he would've had no reason to let us out of prison. He probably just wanted to use my anger to make me willingly complete this commission for him."

Unexpectedly, Gerald shook his head, his expression gaining a trace of certainty. "Don't take it too seriously. You're just an unlucky person caught up in all of this. As for Jeston and the real mastermind behind him, they fundamentally don't care whether Anthony lives or dies."

"Wait." Kafka couldn't help interrupting. "What do you mean, they don't care? Didn't the Hyde Brothers hire Jeston?"

"No. I'm not important, and the Hyde Brothers who hired Jeston aren't important either."

Anthony nodded, agreeing with Gerald. "Robin mentioned before that Jeston's advance payment to her was three hundred thousand Columbia Gold Notes. Even if Jeston wanted to skim money from it, there was no need to transfer it directly into Robin's account. Besides, he had no ability to recover that money. Most likely, the company behind him gave the order directly. Otherwise, that money would be purely wasted on him."

"That company... was Beach Umbrella, the one mentioned before?" Duma tried hard to sort out these complicated connections in her mind, but her expression betrayed a trace of dizziness. "But why would a pharmaceutical company get involved in something like this?"

"Beach Umbrella and Mansfield are partners. Randall used to be one of Beach Umbrella's members." Gerald promptly added the crucial information.

"So that's why." Anthony let out a long breath and looked at Gerald. "To them, there's something else in this prison more important than me. So whether I die, escape, or remain imprisoned doesn't matter. As long as someone's attention is diverted."

"The only possibility I can think of is your friend, Gerald."

Exactly right.

It broadly matched his previous deduction, but this conclusion completely clarified Mansfield's situation.

Putting the timeline in order: the warden learned that Saria needed to enter prison for an investigation, and that it involved Anthony --> learned of the Hyde Brothers' recent moves and cooperated with them through Beach Umbrella --> used the assassination attempt on Anthony to focus Saria's attention solely on Anthony, preventing the matter from being exposed.

The reason wasn't important. What mattered was understanding everyone's motives and the logic behind their actions.

Anthony and the others' escape plan wouldn't face too many obstacles. Combined with his current ability to control the wind, as long as they found an opportunity to approach Columbia and a route leading outside, they could leave directly.

Thinking of this, Gerald looked at the heights of the three women in the room, then finally settled his gaze on Duma.

"Duma," Gerald asked, "when will Mansfield next approach Columbia?"

"In ten days, we'll arrive at Ticarondo, where we'll receive some supplies. But the docking time will be short. The mobile platform will be in a soft-docking state then, so the passages in the docking area won't connect. No one will go outside. Only the supply area will have a connection."

Duma answered with curiosity in her eyes. "Do you have a plan, Gerald?"

He nodded lightly and took out the blueprints.

"Let's first look at the prison's structural design."

"If we're lucky, we can begin acting in ten days."