Chương 86: Almost There

Silvester awkwardly looked around the campfire. The trio of himself, Martin, and June had grown to 15 people. Having two new Dreamers in their roster was both comforting and paranoia-inducing, even though one had fallen into a deep slumber and the other turned deathly white at the thought of June.

'At least we have 2 Aspirant healers now… I don't need to walk with a limp anymore.' June had once again stepped away from the group to pluck his eyes. At first, Silvester was worried and even a little appalled when June told him about what he carried in the pouch on his waist, but at the same time, Silvester could somewhat understand his actions.

June had developed an odd routine of tearing out his eyes, which, fortunately, was non-permanent for a flesh-shaper; the injury would heal within minutes or seconds if he focused on it. It wasn't as if June enjoyed plucking his eyes or carried them around as mad curios; it was a painfully utilitarian solution to the blinding will accumulated in his eyes, and even though plucking them weakened the will dwelling within him, they could still be used to replenish his will or used as a catalyst for spirit magics.

Silvester sat on the limp prince with his hand resting on a dagger. Martin had gone catatonic long ago; he no longer complained due to hunger, no longer screamed due to pain, and no longer had any light in his eyes. June had made sure of it. Martin was the leader of the Royal Faction, but in reality, his retainers held the real power.

The prince had no actual value in the royal faction, but to Brighthaven, he was useful leverage; the entire organization fell onto the zealous retainers' shoulders, and without their little prince, the retainers went mad and allocated almost all of their resources to looking for him.

'Remind myself not to cross June anytime soon… or be mean to his partner!' Regardless of what many novels and children's tales would entail, this prince won't suddenly be enlightened by the goodness of mankind, nor will he attempt to do so, since the hero of this story was also callous enough to become the monster for his values.

June sat on a log and looked up with hollow sockets. His jaw was clenched, and his fists were bloodied. Some of it belonged to him; most of it belonged to two large boar-like carcasses lying near him. He did his best to take in the nature around him, to calm his boiling blood that hadn't calmed down since his previous fight days prior. He and Silvester were on the cusp of reaching Brighthaven's survivors, and he didn't want to greet them with lingering violence in his body.

Becoming a Dreamer grounded him; meeting the cohort made him find meaning. Meeting the Beast tore the cohort away from him and rended his mind, but despite the Beast's influence on him and despite the fact that he witnessed it with his own two eyes, his body didn't warp, nor had he died. It shook him to the core. But did it really? He was used to pain; he expected pain; he predicted it, and instead of readying his mind to brace itself, it lingered somewhere else.

He had a habit of being in a constant state of dissociation. His pain was someone else's, his joy was someone else's, and his worries were someone else's. It was as if he were someone else watching over his own body from the sidelines. Meeting Lilia grounded him once more, meeting Mortimer grounded him further, and meeting the Voice grounded him beyond choice. After meeting his voided reflection, his mind sharpened suddenly, similar to the sharpening that came with his Dreamer transformation.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. June was forced to clash with reality as a Dreamer, and things kept on happening to him that pried his eyes open to the truth he subconsciously and comfortably ignored.

'Ignorance is bliss.' It was a battle of defending his frail self and the world that wanted to rive it. For the past few days, the exhaustion of stoking a timid flame within him had been taking its toll on him. To fight, he had to be someone else. Like method acting, taking its price from a talented actor, pretending to truly be someone he wasn't, left a lingering impression on him. He considered taking out his uncharacteristic bloodlust on himself.

'Better me than someone else.' June sighed and placed both hands on his thighs as he stood up. He had moved quite a distance away from his group. Silvester was fine on his own, but in case he had spirits of light lingering around him, a few kilometres meant nothing to a Dreamer infused with will. June lifted a thick gauntleted fist; he had shaped all his armor to cover it so it was less obtrusive for standard activities.

His forearm swelled and popped, letting out lines of flesh and soft bone, and he calmly moved to wrap the two boar-like creatures in them. He took his sweet time securing his dinner before beginning his walk back to the group. It wouldn't be a boring walk, considering the fact that he has a few invisible companions to talk to. The spirits and the voice. The Voice always seemed to listen and watch June's activities unless they were private.

'For an all-knowing reflection, he surprisingly respects boundaries.' The Voice didn't always respond, though, and often suddenly popped into June's mind with checkups, so he wasn't exactly someone June could always chat with, though they only really talked about the present.

'I am a bit curious about his past… no, no, I should respect his boundaries too.' The spirits, on the other hand, were less respectful of his boundaries, at least he assumed so, considering that they sometimes disappeared or reappeared suddenly, regardless of his scenario; they often responded back if he spoke out to them. June didn't quite understand how they worked.

He had to focus his eyes to see them, but sometimes they would appear without focusing his eyes, and other times they would not appear if he mustered all his will and focused as hard as he could. They communicated in novel ways; some chirped, some barked, and some meowed to him in a human voice; it was as if they were parrots mimicking noises they heard, but so far, even if they repeated a word in an understandable language, it carried its own meaning.

They spoke in notions instead of words; sometimes they would mimic an animal's dying scream but meant that they were sleepy. Although not understanding why, June understood their notions and was able to differentiate their mimicry from the real things.

So far, he had only met water and light spirits and still carried the theory that the simulation was using them as a catalyst or some central cause; he felt like a caveman talking to them, since he had to talk in gists and frequencies that sometimes changed meaning mid-conversation with them. There were no linguistic pieces from what he understood, simply an innate understanding that was simultaneously easier to communicate with and harder to understand.

He occasionally felt like a foreigner in another country who knew the language, but had horrible pronunciation. He tried to understand their actions, since sometimes they suddenly disappeared in fights and other times wanted to join in; it was like he suddenly became a kindergarten teacher who went to battle with powerful and rowdy third graders. June tilted his head back, since one of his rowdy students had been constantly nagging him since he started transporting the carcasses.

"You want to drink the fluids from the animal…?" June looked at a blue blob with stubby legs floating right behind him with an incredulous stare. Others couldn't see or hear spirits, so if anyone saw him in the forest at this moment, he would have looked like a crazy man mid-flashback.

"Sure, why the hell not? Just don't damage the skin. I need it for a stretcher." This water spirit was one of the first to join him; it was the same one who went into his strings and let him tepidly vomit water out and eventually escape by making the dirt malleable enough to dig through, so June was fairly fond of this one. He continued walking, expecting the carcass to be dehydrated, but stopped shortly since its incessant chipping hadn't stopped. He let out a long sigh.

"Why do you need me to expose my strings? You know they chafe against the wind…" June let out another sigh and dropped the carcass in his non-gauntleted hand and exposed a string.

"What are you going to do now—" June winced as the water spirit and a few of his invisible friends rushed to touch the string and were suddenly absorbed in; it wasn't unpleasant, but an unnatural feeling. This was the first time since escaping the hole that a spirit entered his strings. He lifted his hand up.

"I'm glowing blue..." A bioluminescent blue shone through his skin, and he rubbed his fingers together; his hand felt softer, not slick or slippery, nor wet, but a gentle coolness permeated from his hand like an aura. He lifted his hand up to the sky and saw that his olive hand was now slightly translucent, and a caustic network of light shone through and onto the floor.

"Whoa, cool trick…. What now?" A piece of his hand bubbled off like water floating in space, pointing in the direction of the carcass. June touched it, not knowing what to expect, and felt a sudden running feeling in his hand as red beast blood began to squirt into his arm, flowing in a straight line like a needle ejecting a fluid.

"What the…" June nodded his head and grabbed the carcass. As novel as his new discovery was, it would be better to experiment in a place where there was safety.

'Tomorrow we get to a new Brighthaven.'