Blood

After stepping through the front door, Lumian felt as though he had entered another world.

Before him was no longer the familiar Cordou Village, but a dark-red mountain peak surrounded by rings of collapsed buildings. Together, they formed a bizarre ruin.

Thick, pallid fog filled the sky, barely letting any light through. The ground was shattered and strewn with rocks. Carrying his axe, Lumian advanced cautiously, unable to find a single place along the way where he could conceal himself.

No weeds grew here, and there were no trees in sight.

Lumian walked with trepidation, hunching his back and consoling himself-at least if there really was any danger in this area, it would be plainly visible, allowing him to spot it in advance.

At last, he reached the ruins and stopped before a building that had been half destroyed by fire.

Lumian observed it for a while, tentatively confirming that no other living creatures were inside. Only then did he cautiously enter, avoiding the charred timbers overhead that might fall at any moment, and begin his search.

Sweeping his gaze around, he spotted a glint of gold inside a broken clay jar in a corner of the house.

Lumian approached step by step and discovered that it was a gold coin.

Is it really this realistic? There's even treasure in the ruins of a dream? As he muttered to himself, he picked up the coin and wiped it against his clothes.

The designs on the coin's surface emerged.

Its obverse bore the portrait of a man with a thin face, hair parted to one side, a mustache, and a resolute gaze. On the reverse, a cluster of sweet irises surrounded the number "20."

Lumian recognized the man. He was Lefvanks, the first president of the Republic of Intis.

"It's actually a Gold Louis..." Lumian was quite surprised.

First, he hadn't expected the currency of the real-world Republic of Intis to appear in these strange dream ruins. Second, what he had casually picked up turned out to be something as valuable as a Gold Louis.

The Republic of Intis's current legal currency consisted of Felkine and Kopek, with 1 Felkine equal to 100 Kopek.

Kopek came in both copper and silver coins. Copper coins had denominations of 1, 5, and 10 Kopek, while silver coins came in denominations of 20 and 50 Kopek.

Felkine came in silver coins, gold coins, and banknotes. Silver coins had denominations of 1, 5, and 10 Felkine, while gold coins came in five denominations: 5, 10, 20, 40, and 50.

Banknotes had an even wider range of denominations: 5, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1,000 Felkine.

In daily life, however, the people of Intis still habitually used some units from the old currency system. For example, they called the most commonly used 5-Kopek copper coin a Rick.

Similarly, a gold coin worth 20 Felkine was called a Gold Louis.

Of course, under the old currency system, a Gold Louis had actually been called a Golden Roselle. After the republic was established, it was renamed the Gold Louis to eliminate Emperor Roselle's influence.

As far as Lumian knew, although it wouldn't be possible in a city, in a rural place like Cordou Village, one Gold Louis was enough for a poor family that owned farmland to live well for an entire month.

Had Aurora not earned a good income, he might never have even seen what a Gold Louis looked like. In all of Cordou Village, apart from the two siblings, only the parish priest's family and the administrator's family had ever seen or owned Gold Louis coins.

For any villager, this Gold Louis would be a find worth treasuring.

What a pity. This is only a dream... Lumian sighed inwardly, a little disappointed.

This wasn't anything supernatural, so he probably couldn't "bring" it out of the dream.

Even so, Lumian carefully put the Gold Louis away. His past life as a vagrant had taught him to treasure every Kopek.

And a Gold Louis was worth a full 2,000 Kopek, roughly equivalent to 1 gold pound in the Kingdom of Loen. A little less, of course-according to the newspapers, it took 24 Felkine to exchange for 1 gold pound.

Lumian resumed his search.

He wanted to find some written records to establish the details of the ruins, to see whether this place corresponded to somewhere in reality, or whether some village in the Republic of Intis had been "moved" into the dream in its entirety. The appearance of that Gold Louis had prompted Lumian to make these guesses.

As he moved step by step, Lumian noticed dark-red stains along the edge of what had once been a stove.

"Blood?" His pupils widened as a guess immediately occurred to him.

Then he made a judgment:

Although this blood wasn't fresh, it wasn't old either. It hadn't blackened and looked as though it had dripped there only two or three days ago.

Perhaps even more recently!

As his heart tightened, Lumian felt the light around him suddenly dim.

It was as though something had silently crept onto the half-collapsed roof, blocking the little light that filtered through the thick fog!

Memories of being attacked during his years as a vagrant surged into Lumian's mind like a raging wave, making him react on instinct.

He lunged forward, curled up in midair, then rolled as he hit the ground.

Thud!

Something heavy landed behind him.

Lumian rolled to the left of the ruined stove, pressed a hand against a stone, and used it to turn himself around.

Raising his axe, he saw a figure standing where he had been a moment earlier.

In the dim light, Lumian couldn't tell whether it was a human or a humanoid creature.

"He" stood hunched over, wearing neither clothes nor shoes. His skin seemed to have been peeled off, exposing crimson muscles, blood vessels, and yellowish fascia. Drop after drop of viscous fluid flowed over them without falling to the ground.

This was a monster!

"His" eyes, mostly white with little blue, seemed embedded in his face. His mouth stretched wide, revealing uneven teeth, and saliva hung from it in long strands.

Over the past few years, Lumian had made up plenty of ghost stories. He hadn't expected to encounter something today that truly deserved to be called an evil spirit.

Whoosh!

A blood-scented gust struck him, and harsh panting reached his ears.

Lumian instinctively sidestepped, dodging the blood-red monster's attack.

If he hadn't frequently received Aurora's "guidance," and if he hadn't spent years learning to fight and brawling in the streets, the shock to his mind and body might well have left him unable to react in time.

Steadying himself, Lumian took a step after the monster as it lunged past him, raised his sharp axe, and hacked viciously at the center of its back.

Bam!

The monster, which had been about to turn around, was knocked to the ground. Pus and blood splattered everywhere.

Without hesitation, Lumian decisively dropped to one knee and raised his axe again.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

He hacked at it repeatedly, each blow biting deep into flesh and opening a deep, wide gash, until the back of the monster's head, its neck, and its back were mangled beyond recognition.

Finally, the monster stopped struggling and lay motionless, face down.

"Huff, huff! You're not nearly as terrifying in a fight as you look..." Lumian let out a breath of relief and murmured with a hint of mockery.

He wiped his face with his left hand, leaving it covered in bloody filth.

"Could this monster's bodily fluids be poisonous? So far, there's none of that corrosive pain..." Lumian began worrying about another problem.

Just as he worked up the courage to search the monster's body, the skinless, blood-red creature braced its hands against the ground and abruptly sprang back up!

It's still alive?

Even after being hacked up like that, it won't die?

Lumian was both shocked and terrified.

There was no denying it: he was frightened. His courage had failed him.

If he had encountered an ordinary human, beast, or monster, he wouldn't have been this terrified even if he couldn't defeat it. But the thing before him seemed impossible to kill, no matter what he did. Everything he had done was useless!

While the monster seemed a little "dazed" and couldn't locate its enemy, Lumian made an instant decision. Pushing off with his feet and driving through his knees, he broke into a mad sprint.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

He ran as fast as he ever had, yet he could still faintly feel bursts of breath against his neck, while heavy panting echoed in his ears.

The monster was chasing right behind him.

Lumian gritted his teeth, feeling as though fear had conjured a surge of strength within his body.

He ran even faster, surpassing his previous limits.

To his delight, he realized the monster was no longer gaining on him.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

At last, Lumian reached his own two-story house, its lower level partly underground.

He pulled open the unlocked front door and darted inside.

Clang!

He slammed the door shut behind him.

Without stopping to rest, Lumian rushed straight to the stove and picked up the steel fork leaning against the nearby wall.

Then he fixed his attention on the doorway.

The sound of the monster's running stopped nearby, but more than ten seconds passed without it attempting to ram the door.

"Does it know I'm waiting to ambush it here?" Lumian couldn't believe the monster possessed much intelligence.

He inched toward the window beside the front door and quietly peered outside.

A face suddenly appeared against the glass!

A skinless, bloody face with uneven teeth!

Lumian's heart nearly stopped, and his whole body froze for a moment.

But the monster didn't seize the chance to smash the glass and attack. It merely stared into Lumian's eyes.

Coming to his senses, Lumian quickly backed away and raised the long fork in both hands.

The monster promptly moved away from the window.

Lumian remained exceedingly cautious, keeping watch and staying on guard.

Through the faint gray fog, he saw the monster linger for quite a while before leaving his house and slowly returning to the ruins.

"..." Lumian was utterly bewildered.

He had already prepared himself to find some way to trap the monster and hurry out of the dream, yet it had simply left...

After thinking for a while, he came up with a possibility:

"That monster doesn't dare enter my home?

"Right, there's no sign of damage anywhere in the house...

"In the dream, is this a completely safe place?"

With this conjecture, Lumian relaxed considerably.

The next second, an intense weariness washed over him.

That brief chase had exhausted him even more than an entire afternoon of combat practice.

Carrying the long fork and axe, Lumian went upstairs, entered his bedroom, and tried to fall asleep.

In a haze, Lumian opened his eyes.

It was still dark beyond the curtains, and the room was dim.

If not for the absence of the faint gray fog, and if he hadn't already "changed" into his pajamas, Lumian wouldn't have been able to tell whether this was reality or a dream.

"Did the fright wake me up early?" He instinctively felt the pockets of his pajamas but found no Gold Louis.

This disappointed him a little and confirmed one fact once again:

Money really couldn't be brought out of the dream!

Gathering his thoughts, Lumian began considering a serious question:

How should he deal with that undying monster?

Although he could skirt that area and sneak deeper into the ruins, he still had to consider the possibility of encountering similar monsters later. He had to prepare accordingly. He couldn't gamble with his life.