Eldritch Horror Theatre

”Honestly, it isn’t as warm as last time.”

Unbothered by the greasy feel, Fu Qian took the ”Blood Collection Bottle” naturally.

A place as special as the seaside was definitely worth a visit, so why not knock out a task along the way?

Still, as he turned it over in his hand, he raised a minor objection.

”Not warm enough?”

The remark sounded a bit like nitpicking for the sake of it, making the Old Doctor frown.

”Looks like you ran into quite a lot after you left... Can you no longer see the person over there?”

Rather than flaring up right away, he fell into thought a moment later, as if looking at a battered traveler returning home.

”Not anymore.”

Fu Qian shook his head honestly.Just as he had noted earlier, his inspiration hadn’t simply dropped to zero right now—the attribute was missing altogether.

So much so that bathing in the moonlight to gain a point of inspiration wasn’t even a thing anymore. Still, the way the Old Doctor phrased the question was interesting. Shouldn’t Brother Werewolf out there have been sent on his way already? Don’t tell him there was an invisible corpse left behind?

”No wonder. So she’s that companion of yours? Looks like you really weren’t lying.”

His confusion was answered the very next moment. The Old Doctor let out an ”Oh,” seeming to piece together what had been so odd about Fu Qian’s behavior.

...

So that was it. The one kneeling out there right now was Serana?

Once again, a single line from the Old Doctor packed a massive amount of information, and everything clicked for Fu Qian too.

Brother Werewolf had indeed kicked the bucket; there was no rebirth or anything of the sort.

Yet someone was still out there right now—none other than Excellency Serana, the very person at the center of this ritual.

What could he say? True to form for Blood Clan offspring, she had gotten here even faster than he had.

Of course, that still left one question—

”She didn’t get a blood transfusion, did she? Staying that quiet out there?”

Fu Qian frowned slightly, picturing Serana kneeling and gazing up at the moon in the exact same pose as the werewolf.

”Of course not. It’s obvious she isn’t here for treatment.

”She showed up out there without making a sound, covered in wounds, and didn’t react at all when I called out to her.”

This time there was no hint of regret in the Old Doctor’s voice, as if he had known at first glance that she wasn’t a client.

Though that phrasing—she was covered in wounds, so she wasn’t here for treatment?

That Serana looked to be in rough shape was completely understandable.

After all, back in the Sub-Deep Layer of Dreams, she had ”sacrificed” several clones just to set a trap for him.

And back by the Mirror leading into this place, there had been pools of blood everywhere.

It made complete sense that she hadn’t made it into the garden in one piece.

In any case... interesting.

This place really was something special to the Blood Clan.

Fu Qian marveled inwardly.

The second half of the ritual was still a mystery, and even the Blood Nova was nowhere in sight—with nothing in the sky besides the moon.

Still, going by his earlier deductions, Annalise shouldn’t have gone out of her way to make things difficult for the Blood Clan; as long as they made it into this place, the rest shouldn’t have been too hard either.

Yet from the way the Old Doctor put it, Excellency Serana sounded almost as if she had gotten stuck out there?

Things really looked grim. After Annalise was gone, this Bottom Layer of the Dream must have undergone some mutations of its own, twisting it away from her original design.

To the point where certain things left behind exclusively for her offspring had turned into constraints instead.

”How could you tell she wasn’t here for treatment?”

Even so, the fact that her loyal offspring couldn’t even get medical care here might not be down to that alone, so Fu Qian pressed further.

The Old Doctor clearly had a pretty big heart, the type to save anyone who needed saving.

Look at Brother Ji Feng—he had ditched a stand-in here, and the doctor had still turned it into a werewolf, hadn’t he?

”Because she’s a local.”

Sure enough, the Old Doctor didn’t disappoint, answering the next moment as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

...Hiss—so the Warehouse really never wasted words?

The Old Doctor’s reasoning bordered on discrimination—reverse discrimination, even.

To Fu Qian, however, his choice of words gave off an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

A local—didn’t that correspond directly to an outsider?

Did this guy have Sky-Piercing Patterns built right into his corneas, able to spot even that at a single glance?

So Excellency Serana wasn’t being discriminated against because of her bloodline; by the looks of it, anyone who wasn’t an administrator would probably get the exact same treatment.

In fact, to a certain extent, that statement also proved that the name Ji Feng was genuine—the Old Doctor hadn’t been fooled.

And while that sort of special treatment was enough to make a person draw a sharp breath, another detail seemed to click into place right alongside it—”traveling to a foreign land in search of a cure.”

Looking back now, that line from the Warehouse’s mission briefing back then hadn’t just been a throwaway background setting; a core element like being an outsider had been written right into it from the very start.

Even the role of ”patient”...

Out of dozens of missions in his memory, that had been the only one to come with an identity tag; nothing like it had ever shown up again.

Thinking about it now, could that have been a piece of information that didn’t seem useful at the time, yet the Warehouse had tried its best to provide it anyway?

”You should get going, or it’ll delay the treatment.”

Unfortunately, while his thoughts were racing, the Old Doctor urged him along again, clearly uninterested in talking any further about discrimination.

”Got it. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Giving the Blood Collection Bottle a little shake and confirming it really was made of ordinary material, Fu Qian took the prodding with a cheerful smile.

By the time he finished speaking, he had already stepped out the door.

Unfortunately, not only did the courtyard still look completely empty, he didn’t catch any reaction from Serana to what had just been said either.

...

This Bottom Layer of the Dream really covered some ground.

Hopping straight over the wall to leave once again, Fu Qian looked out a moment later at the seemingly endless ruins stretching before him and let out a heartfelt sigh.

Though he was strolling along at a leisurely pace, his speed was by no means slow—yet even after walking all this way, as far as the eye could see there was still nothing but broken debris and thick fog.

Not only had the moon vanished again, there wasn’t a single spreading flower in sight either. All he could say was that if he was heading the right way, the Old Doctor had pretty good legs on him, and plenty of perseverance to match.

After all, trudging through these endless heaps of shattered rubble without even a single monster spawning along the way really gave off the disorienting feel of being lost in a dream.

Of course, Fu Qian was firmly convinced that he wasn’t lost.

Without breaking stride or changing his pace, he silently counted the time while pressing deeper into the thickening fog.

Oh?

A minute and twenty seconds further into his silent trek toward the seaside, he brushed aside another wisp of mist and noticed something different.

Someone was singing? And in harmony, at that?

In that instant, a peculiar melody drifted into his ears in faint, delicate threads.

It wasn’t loud—if anything, it was almost too soft.

A loose, gentle rhythm, nearly drowsy enough to put someone to sleep—a lullaby?

That was right. Even without a baby crying, the first thing that came to Fu Qian’s mind was the image of someone gently rocking and humming a soft tune.

Wait a second—it looked like the sea was right ahead.