294
In the darkest hours before dawn, Klein drifted into a dream. He dreamed that he had returned to Baron Pound's ancestral home. His view moved along the underground corridor, passed through the collapsed earth, and once again reached the enormous chamber containing blasphemous statues of the Six Gods.
Klein instinctively looked toward the door at the very back. He knew that an unidentified, bloodthirsty evil spirit was sealed behind it. It had lured members of the Pound Family there one after another, causing both of the old Viscount Pound's heirs to die in accidents and forcing him to bring in the current baron from a collateral branch to inherit the family. Amid various deliberate inducements and upheavals afterward, the baron had grown increasingly hopeless. By now, he had sunk so low that he had sold even his residence and was renting a home elsewhere, abandoning all respectability.
Normally, it should have stopped there. From a mystical perspective, perhaps some hidden thoughts in his daily life had reminded Klein of the underground ruins, leaving traces in his subconscious that he had not noticed, which then manifested as a dream.
To his surprise, however, when his view reached that door, it did not stop. It drew closer still. Before Klein decided to wake up, his perspective in the dream had already pressed up against the crack in the door.
He saw that there was no one inside!
Nestled beneath warm, soft bedding, Klein slowly opened his eyes.
This should have been an omen, but with his sleep interrupted, he could not think rationally at all. He hazily recalled the contents of that dream, then slowly closed his eyes, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
At that very moment, in a fully equipped private ward in a private hospital affiliated