An attempt

The night was deep, and all was quiet.

Lumian woke in the dream once again. The first thing he saw was the faint gray fog.

Instinctively, he raised a hand and slipped it into his pocket.

The cold, hard touch of metal immediately registered in his mind.

He took out the object he had touched, and a gleam of gold lit up his eyes.

It was a gold coin.

A Gold Louis.

"It's actually still here..." Lumian sat up and looked himself over.

He was still wearing the padded cotton clothes and leather jacket from his last exploration. The steel fork, nearly two meters long, and the sharp, iron-black axe lay within easy reach.

Everything was exactly as it had been when he left the dream.

"So this dream keeps progressing. It doesn't start over every time I enter..." Lumian toyed with the Gold Louis, then slipped it into the pocket of his inner cotton jacket.

Although he couldn't take it into reality, simply looking at it lifted his spirits.

Lumian rolled out of bed and gazed through the window for a while, confirming that there were no obvious changes to the ruins or the reddish mountain.

Picking up the axe and steel fork, he left his room and entered the dim hallway.

The doors to Aurora's bedroom and study remained open.

Lumian glanced inside, and an idea suddenly struck him:

"In the dream, my room mostly matches reality. Everything that should be there is there, and Aurora's seems the same at first glance.

"Then could I find her witchcraft notes, potion formulas, or a way to become a Warlock in this bedroom?"

The idea was like a devil's whisper, tempting Lumian so strongly that he wanted to try.

Compared with exploring those unknown, dangerous, mysterious, bizarre ruins, rummaging through Aurora's room was a much easier and safer choice.

No, no! Lumian shook his head sharply, casting the thought aside.

He would rather take risks than pry into Aurora's private affairs. Until she gave him permission, he would not search her bedroom.

That was a matter of respect for Aurora.

Without Aurora, he would have died five years ago as a street child.

With considerable difficulty, Lumian tore his gaze away and headed for the stairs.

Had that bedroom belonged to anyone other than Aurora, he would already have gone inside to search for useful information.

After descending the stairs, Lumian didn't hurry outside. Instead, he checked the kitchen supplies.

The olive oil, corn oil, and animal fat Aurora had stocked were neatly arranged in barrels and jars, just as they were in reality.

Almost without thinking, Lumian first picked up the barrel of corn oil and placed it beside the stove.

His only reason for choosing it was that animal fat and olive oil were more expensive.

Then he deftly lit a fire in the stove with coal and wood, and made several torches ready to be lit.

He was preparing to burn that monster.

Of course, it would be better if he could deal with it another way. This was his last resort.

Once he had finished these preparations, he picked up the axe, opened the door, and went outside.

Lumian immediately noticed a difference:

The faint gray fog that pervaded the dream felt damper than before, and the ground beneath his feet was slightly muddy.

"Has it rained? When I'm not here, when I'm not dreaming, this place still exists and evolves naturally according to certain rules?" Lumian was a little surprised, yet somehow felt that this was only to be expected.

Recalling the strange stories Aurora had written, he suddenly came up with a theory:

"Could this be a real world?

"My dream connects to a real world, and that Tarot card made me lucid so I could cross the barrier between the dream and the ruins?"

Lumian quickly glanced to either side. On both sides of the ruins, at the "edges" of the dream, gray fog stretched as far as he could see.

"I can test that later. Instead of going to the ruins, I'll walk out into the gray fog and see whether, beyond it, there's a strange, illogical dreamscape or real land, sky, villages, and towns..."

If it was the former, that would mean this was still part of a dream. Otherwise, Lumian would have to establish exactly which world this was.

Judging by the use of Gold Louis, he thought this place still seemed to be in the Republic of Intis, but it might not belong to the present era. Perhaps it was somewhere lost or vanished decades or even a century ago.

Still, Lumian felt there was a very good chance he wouldn't be able to get out of the surrounding gray fog.

Gathering his thoughts, he continued toward the ruins.

He had not forgotten that his purpose in entering the dream this time was to try to deal with that monster.

After walking a hundred or two hundred meters across the muddy wasteland littered with rubble and cracks, Lumian suddenly stopped.

A problem had occurred to him.

There had been an oversight in his preparations!

Previously, his two-story home had been unlit and perfectly safe in this world shrouded in gray fog. Now that a fire burned in the stove and light shone out, would it attract a large number of monsters and make his safe haven unsafe?

Lumian instinctively looked back the way he had come. Through the faint gray fog, crimson light shone in the various windows at the bottom of the two-story building, which was partly sunk into the ground.

It was like a lighthouse in a world of darkness.

Considering how much time had already passed, it was clearly too late to try putting out the fire now. Lumian simply quickened his pace, entered the ruins, and hid in the fire-collapsed building at their edge.

He tucked the axe into his belt behind his back, nimbly climbed a wall, and concealed himself in a dark corner screened by masonry and timber.

Lumian watched his distant home across the wasteland.

Time ticked by, but he saw no monsters drawn toward it by the stove fire.

"Looks like the fire won't change anything. At least it won't leave my home surrounded by monsters..." Lumian quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

This meant that even if he encountered danger, he could escape it safely as long as he got home in time and fell asleep as quickly as possible.

He began considering how to lure out and deal with the monster from before:

"Judging by our brief fight last time, its strength, speed, reflexes, and agility are all about the same as mine. But I could clearly feel that it fought entirely on instinct. It lacked experience and technique, and didn't have the intelligence to match. That's why I was able to kill it even after being ambushed...

"It can get confused and freeze up, just like a human...

"Aside from fighting technique, I have two more advantages over it. First, I'm far smarter. Second, I can use weapons and tools. That's the greatest advantage humans have over this sort of monster...

"As long as I'm careful, beating it again shouldn't be difficult. The key is figuring out how to finish it off for good..."

Just as Lumian was about to deliberately make some noise to see whether he could attract any monsters, he spotted a figure silently approaching beside a completely collapsed house off to one side.

The figure was blood-red all over and had no skin, leaving its muscles, blood vessels, and fascia exposed. It was clearly the monster from last time.

Unlike last time, however, the monster was carrying a pitchfork.

A pitchfork!

"It can use weapons too..." Lumian's face stiffened for a moment, and his expression turned bitter.

Without realizing it, he lost a little confidence.

As the monster approached and turned, Lumian saw horrific wounds on its back, neck, and the back of its head. But those gashes were no longer oozing pus and appeared mostly healed.

"It really is the one I encountered before...

"Its ability to heal itself is who knows how many times stronger than mine, or any normal human's..."

Lumian silently drew a sharp breath.

He forced himself to calm down and quickly analyzed the situation.

A moment later, Lumian made his decision:

This is a good opportunity. When an opportunity comes, I have to seize it, not let it slip by!

He quietly pulled a stone brick from beside him and waited for the monster to reach the spot he had in mind.

Within a step or two, the monster entered Lumian's "ambush zone."

Lumian abruptly hurled the brick at the ground behind the monster.

Thud!

The brick struck the ground, making the monster whirl around to look at what had attacked it.

Seizing his chance, Lumian gripped the axe in both hands and leaped ferociously off the wall at the monster from the side.

Thump!

With the weight of his fall behind it, the axe hacked into the monster's neck, cleaving most of the way through.

Two thuds sounded in succession as Lumian and the monster hit the ground at the same time.

Lumian sprang up, grabbed the axe, rushed over, and chopped hard at the monster's neck again.

One blow, two, three-the monster had no time to fight back before its head was severed.

As the head rolled aside, the skinless body twitched twice and stopped moving.

Lumian didn't stop there. He stepped diagonally forward, turned the axe around, and smashed its thick back into the hideous head with all his strength, pounding it to pulp.

Then he turned back and hacked several more times at the body with its exposed muscles, blood vessels, and fascia, destroying its heart and other vital organs.

Only after doing all this did Lumian retreat two steps. Looking at his handiwork and panting heavily, he laughed softly. "I thought you really couldn't be killed. Turns out this is all you've got!"

Amid his restrained laughter, the headless corpse suddenly jerked.

Lumian's gaze sharpened, and he instinctively wanted to turn and run.

He forcibly suppressed that urge, stepped forward again, and raised his axe.

After jerking twice, the corpse fell still again, as though it had merely made one last, futile struggle in its death throes.

Lumian watched for a while longer before finally confirming that the monster was completely dead.

"What tenacious vitality..." Lumian marveled inwardly. Then he moved closer, crouched, and used the axe to pry apart muscle and fascia as he examined the corpse.

The monster's anatomy was no different from a human's, but its tissues were clearly far more vigorous. Even after its death, some of the cuts still wriggled faintly.

"No treasure, and no supernatural power transferred into me..." Lumian assessed his current condition and felt a little disappointed.

As expected, growing stronger with every monster he killed was something that existed only in Aurora's stories.

He then moved the monster's body and head inside the collapsed building and partially buried them with bricks, stones, and pieces of wood.

Afterward, he searched the fire-collapsed house, hoping to find something.