Chương 442: (435) 6.49. Let’s Wrap This Up

"So time in a dream works differently than time in the waking world," Vin said, raising an eyebrow at Lumel as he secured his boots to his feet once more. Doing so with only one hand was challenging, but a quick cast of Mage Hand was more than enough to get the job done.

"Which means thirty minutes in here is like four hours out there, right?"

"I'm not sure if that counts in the way you're insinuating, but I wouldn't worry too much on that front if I were you," Lumel giggled as she fixed her dark robes. Once she was dressed, she drifted over and took his face in her hands, giving him a tender kiss before pulling back and smiling at him.

"Not to mention once we're out of here, we'll have plenty of time to run official experiments regarding time dilation in the dreamscape… and maybe a few more unofficial ones as well."

"Oh," Vin blinked, shocked to find that Lumel was able to even say something like that without more than a slight flush to her cheeks. The pulmon's hard-fought confidence surrounding their relationship that she'd been slowly building over the last couple of months they'd been together was back and stronger than ever.

Despite her initial shame and embarrassment at realizing she'd all but proposed to the real him rather than a dream version, the moment Vin assured her that he was more than happy to take that next step with her, she'd rebounded faster than ever. Even now, as she double checked to ensure her robes weren't out of place, she was humming softly to herself, the musical tune drifting through the water and putting a smile on Vin's face.

"I like listening to you sing," he admitted, causing Lumel to pause and blink, as if only just realizing what she was doing.

"Huh… It's been a long time since I used to hum that song," she muttered, shaking her head and smiling as she turned to him.

"But I'm glad to hear. Maybe I'll try and hum it more often, then."

"No need to do anything special on my account," Vin said, just happy to see Lumel no longer trying to hide herself against the wall of the labyrinth.

"Ready to try to figure out where Fria's gotten herself off to?"

"More than ready. I feel pretty bad that all this happened because of me," Lumel admitted, giving him a sheepish smile as she drifted beside him.

"The fact that she felt the need to reach out to her brother and ask for help is more than a little embarrassing."

"Don't worry. Fred told me they didn't realize what an effect you having just been on a Dream Walk would have on your own dream journey," Vin reassured her, picking up his staff and securing it against his back once more. The shifting labyrinth walls had long since raised off his staff, though Vin was pretty certain it wouldn't have mattered if they'd tried crushing down against his staff for the next decade.

The glowing, spiraling wood looked strong as ever, and the staff continued to give him vibes of security and strength when he looked at it.

"Having dreams based on dreams was bound to create some freaky scenarios."

"Speaking of… You said you entered halfway into the dream journey, right? What was the first dream you ended up going through?" Lumel asked, looking nervous again all of a sudden.

"I had to wrestle a book away from a librarian," Vin said, giving her a curious look.

"Why? Something wrong?"

"Nope, not at all!" Lumel said a touch too quickly, letting out a sigh of relief as she took his hand and began dragging him down the corridor.

"Come on, no sense keeping Fria waiting any longer than we already have!" Chuckling to himself at how obvious she was being, Vin let the topic drop, happily allowing Lumel to pull them along with her superior swimming speed. It was obvious that there may have been a particular dream or two she hadn't wanted him to personally witness, and he was more than fine with that.

He certainly had his own fair share of dreams during his own dream journey that he wouldn't have wanted her to have to sit through, so he understood completely. After Lumel confirmed that she hadn't seen so much as another living thing within the labyrinth since they'd first entered it, Vin felt comfortable expanding his casts of Sense Life a bit.

With the recent use of his divine boon, he wasn't quite ready to start blasting the spell out as far as it could reach, but he pushed it farther and farther with each cast, eventually getting a hit nearly a half-mile away.

"No wonder the two of you have been trapped in here for so long, this is ridiculous," Vin muttered, directing Lumel toward what he could only hope was Fria. It took them another ten cycles to navigate their way through the ever-shifting labyrinth, but thanks to Lumel's superior swimming speed and Vin's magic showing them where to go, they managed to pull it off without too much hassle.

Eventually, they turned one last corner and found Fria sitting on the floor, gently banging the back of her head against the stone wall of the labyrinth again and again. The moment they appeared, her eyes widened in shock.

"You made it!" she shouted. Launching herself into the air with a burst of pixie dust, she flew over and slammed into the side of Vin's face, doing her best to wrap her tiny arms around his head.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! I thought we'd be trapped in here forever!"

"Not on my watch," Vin smiled, brushing the residual pixie dust off his cheek as Fria let go and turned to glare at Lumel. The dream guide looked like she had a lot she wanted to say, before she sighed, deflating slightly as she shook her head.

"As much as I want to blame you for all this… I suppose this is really my fault. A dream guide getting separated from their charge is pretty pathetic." Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"It's my fault for not being more careful," Lumel said, giving Fria an apologetic smile.

"How about we put that behind us and just focus on getting out of here?"

"Fine by me… but how exactly are you planning to do that?" Fria asked, looking around as if expecting to see a glowing portal around the corner.

"Did you figure out the way on to the next dream?"

"I think so… It wasn't until Vin showed up and I cleared my mind that I managed to put the pieces together." Taking a deep breath, Lumel looked hard up toward the ceiling as she called out.

"You win, my queen … Your labyrinth has bested me. I will give up my study of magic and my dreams of ever setting foot on the surface." Silence stretched throughout the labyrinth for a solid five seconds, before the walls began to shake once more. Slowly, two sections directly beside them pulled open, revealing a door that looked as though it had been sitting there for ages." Seriously?! That's all you had to do, all this time?" Fria asked, her mouth gaping as she looked between Lumel and the door.

"Like I said, I wasn't thinking clearly. After we got separated right at the start, I forgot I was in a dream at all," Lumel said, and Fria's face heated up as she stopped complaining. The Dimensional Mage drifted over to the door and began examining it as she continued.

"It hasn't been used in some time, but my kingdom has a labyrinth they used to utilize as a form of punishment. Primarily for people who went against the wishes of the old kings and queens. From what I read in the history books, if they managed to conquer the labyrinth, they were allowed to continue doing what they were doing. But if they failed, they were forced to abandon their dreams and fall in line."

"That makes sense why you would have dreamt about this then," Vin said, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Also, it really annoys me that the queen would rather force you to give up your own dreams than let you leave your city behind. She wouldn't even have to see you as much if she'd just done nothing and let you become a true Airwalker!"

"Well, by exiling me, she got the best of both options. At least in her opinion," Lumel shrugged, turning to give him a crooked grin.

"Though it sure would be funny if I ever tried going back. They almost certainly think I died months ago."

"Perhaps we continue on?" Fria asked, drifting over to poke at Lumel's cheek.

"We've wasted enough time in this dream, and there are most likely more layers to go. And don't forget it will take you some time to connect your mana pool to your subconscious once we get to the bottom. We're not nearly out of the woods just yet."

"Fair point," Lumel conceded. Taking Vin's hand and ensuring she had a firm grip on him, she turned and opened the portal, walking proud and prepared into the next dream. Just as Fria predicted, there were in fact more layers Lumel had to work through before they reached the end of her journey. Though now that she and Fria had Vin and his magic with them, they were able to bypass the different dreams far faster than before.

The three of them blazed through the remainder of the dream journey, conquering fears and solving puzzles side by side, and they made it down into Lumel's mana pool in no time. Vin recalled how much of a struggle it had been for him to try and utilize his mana from within a dream when he'd gotten to the end of his own dream journey, and Lumel seemed to be having an even harder time.

The downsides of her having a spatial affinity quickly revealed themselves, as the dream-aligned mana fought her every step of the way. Even so, she was nothing if not persistent, and Vin watched in awe as she threw herself at the mana again and again, refusing to back down or give up so much as an inch as she wrangled it into submission. Without the queen calling out hours passing at consistent intervals, it was impossible to tell how much time was passing within the dream journey.

Before he knew it, Lumel had managed to link her mana to her subconscious, had added Sense Dream and Create Dream to her magical repertoire, and had officially finished her dream journey.

"Would you believe this still wasn't actually the worst dream journey I've ever been on?" Fria asked, causing them to pause in their preparations to leave as she laughed.

"I once helped a young princess who'd run away go through her own dream journey, and boy, that had been an ordeal! She was scared of her own shadow, and she spent ages going through every single one of her dreams. She never got totally lost like you did, but I'm pretty certain we spent nearly twice as long in her dream journey than in this one."

"That's kind of funny… I mean, Lumel is actually a princess as well," Vin pointed out. Fria's wings stopped beating for a moment and she nearly fell out of the air as if she'd only just realized this, and the pixie began grumbling to herself as her brow furrowed.

"Note to self… stop taking princesses on dream journeys…"

"You ready to wake up?" Vin asked, watching Lumel as she prepared herself to cast her first real piece of dream magic.

"More than ready," she nodded, giving him a huge smile.

"Thank you again for coming, Vin. You have no idea how much that meant to me."

"I think I have a rather decent idea, actually," he chuckled, grinning as her face heated up one more time.

"But don't worry, I'm glad things turned out the way they did."

"The two of you can be as sappy as you want once we get out, but we're literally burning daylight with every second we spend in here!" Fria reminded them, flittering from one face to another.

"Let's go!"

"Right, sorry!" Lumel said, turning and taking a deep breath as she held out her hand." Create Dream!" Vin looked around, confused by the realization that the three of them were now standing within what looked like one of the countless corridors running through the Underside and connecting the different rooms together. There was an exit stone frame before them, glowing with white light that was impossible to see through. Noting the look on his face, Lumel merely smiled.

"Getting exiled from my people was one of the worst things I ever experienced, and while fleeing through the dungeon to the Underside, I thought my life was all but over. But then I realized it was only just beginning. The Underside is a world of possibilities, and it connects all of Edregon. Every corridor isn't just a new beginning, but also a continuation of one long, magical adventure. It seemed fitting. Especially with… everything that happened between us."

"I think it's perfect," Vin said, squeezing her hand as he motioned her forward with what remained of his left arm.

"Shall we?" With a nod, Lumel turned toward the glowing light, and the two of them stepped forward. It wasn't just a step away from the dreamscape that had held Lumel prisoner for the past few weeks, but another step forward on that wonderful adventure that was Edregon.