Sometimes, even against your best wishes, the only way to progress was by moving toward the frightening sight before your eyes… Having already experienced terror, the steps were taken with unwavering confidence.

  A loud gasp filled the room, followed by a fit of coughing.

  A predominantly white room surrounded a certain someone lying in bed. She quickly recognised this place as belonging to a healer or physician… The smell did not lie, and it was far from her first time having to visit such a place. Not because she often got hurt or sick, but because of the children she watched over…

  “...What happened?”

  Mari was momentarily confused and lost. Not quite remembering what she had been doing, or what she had done recently–Everything soon clicked, memories flooded back, and a sharp pain radiated from her back.

  She had been stabbed. In the moment, the pain had been drowned out by adrenaline, but now she got to experience it in full. Her breathing was also riddled by a faint sensation of suffering. Her right lung had been hit… Mari honestly had no idea how she was still alive.

  A damaged lung should have been it for her. There were no healers in town who should have been capable of getting to her fast enough to bring her back from this, and even if they had somehow been right there at the time of the injury–She had no idea who could have possibly been competent enough to heal the wound so nicely.

  In fact, there was only one healer in the entirety of town! And frankly, he wasn’t the fastest guy around. No one would want him to run, anyway. He might break a bone otherwise…

  Nonetheless, it was in his clinic that Mari found herself following her escape from the nightmare trial.

  “...How long has it been since I fell asleep? And… Why are my bandages vines?!”

  “Oh, hello. You have finally woken up, Mari! How are you feeling, young lady?”

  The old healer walked into the room with steps so slow and careful that it was a wonder how he was capable of moving from one room in his home to his kitchen without starving in between. He was incredibly old. Some people speculated that he was more than a hundred years old, even.

  He had come to this small city, away from busier parts of the country, as a retirement of sorts. Despite this, he still offered his services as a healer and physician–But mostly healer… His surgery skills were no longer reliable due to how much his hands trembled.

  “I am… Fine, I suppose? My back hurt a little, and it is a bit straining to take deep breaths, but considering what happened to me, I would say that I am in top form”

  “You youths always shrug things off, heh? You got very lucky, however. Some good Samaritans passed by at just the right moment. I am afraid you would have died without them”

  “You weren’t the one to heal me? Are they the ones who wrapped me in vines?”

  “Yes, your healers were two curious-looking elves. One covered in flowery vines, and the other in moss and flowers… Quite the odd-looking fellows, I think they were nature mages or druids. Unfortunately, they did not stick around for long. They seemed to be in a bit of a hurry”

  “I see…”

  The old healer left Mari to rest in peace soon after making sure everything was fine with her. Apparently, from the moment she had fallen asleep and entered the nightmare, to now, a whole month had passed. This was far longer than she would have expected, but the vines had been providing nourishment and stimulation to her body and muscles. As such, it did not feel like she had been asleep for that long at all.

  During that time period, however… The orphanage had not been spared from the nightmares. It had been a massacre amongst both wards and caretakers–The place had been pretty much emptied, leaving only lasting mental scars and hollowness behind.

  The bringer of nightmares was without mercy, but there was a silver lining. The nightmares had gradually died down with those carrying them. Right now, no one was reported to be suffering from any nightmares anymore.

  Even then… So many had died. And they hadn’t just died peacefully in their sleep. They were torn apart. Mutilated. Dismembered and inflicted with torturous wounds. Mari knew that those people had felt every ounce of it. She knew that the injuries suffered in the nightmare were mirrored in the real world without fault now.

  Now, she knew that when people had suddenly burst with blood in their sleep, they had, in fact, been slashed while inside a trial.

  Not only that, but Mari knew exactly what the killer looked like. The wicked, ruthless, maniacal, and evil killer… The woman Mari had seen was nothing short of a joyful executioner. The sort to smile brightly as she would inflict the worst agony possible upon the undeserving… So, why?

  Why did she find herself unable to hate this woman? This was the person who had butchered colleagues, friends, and wards of hers without mercy. Someone who did not hesitate to target innocence personified… This woman was a monster. Yet–Mari only felt a strange warmth in her chest thinking about the nightmare bringer.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “What is this…? Am I having a heart attack or something?”

  Mari did not understand what she was feeling. The caretaker remembered feeling something similar during the nightmare. It was a weird sensation. It made her want to smile and chuckle for no discernible reason.

  “I don’t get it”

  She tried asking the old healer what it could be, but he just chuckled and told her that she would get it if she just talked with the person who made her feel this way… Of course, she hadn’t mentioned that the cause was a murderous lunatic who had attempted to kill her inside a strange, dream realm of sorts.

  Mari wondered who she should be talking to about this. The existence of the nightmare trials, not her strange feelings toward the slayer.

  This ability, used by the purple-eyed woman, was an incredibly dangerous one. Who was to say that she couldn’t insert her endless nightmares into the dreams of someone important to the kingdom? She was a threat to national safety!

  But while being believed should be easy enough, since even though no one else had survived the final trial, many had spoken about their experiences while suffering from nightmares. It was widespread knowledge within the city and probably beyond it at this point.

  However, Mari was the only one who had met the woman with the raven-black hair. Whom she strongly assumed was the mastermind behind all of this… She needed to say something, perhaps that with a description, this woman could be found and stopped.

  Especially since she had those dark, deep purple eyes of a shade that Mari could swear she had never even seen before… Of a shade so odd that it had felt like looking at a colour that did not exist.

  Something was strange.

  Mari knew that it was the right thing to do, but thinking about doing it made her feel… Sad? Frustrated? Upset? She did not understand why, but she just felt strongly opposed to doing the right thing. Instead, something in the back of her mind was telling her to find the woman herself.

  “But… Why…? What could make my heart beat weird, make me feel uncomfortably warm, make me not hate a mad killer who tried to murder me and who slaughtered countless people I knew, and make me believe that doing my best to stop her is bad?”

  “What about that tall, beautiful woman, with eyes I could stare into for–By the gods. No… What? Why?! No, no, no… This can’t be… Am I… Did I… No way. I must be mistaken… Yes, there is absolutely no way this is possible. This would be insane! This would make me an utter lunatic if true!”

  The door of the room creaked open, and the old healer walked to grab something he had forgotten. He turned to visibly confused Mari.

  “You seem a bit confused. I guess it can be difficult to figure out if it is the first time… That feeling you have, Mari, is called love! Cherish it. It will eventually fade away forever if you don’t nurture it”

  The old man left the room, unaware that he had just used words to perform what Mari felt like had been a mace strike to her skull.

  She rubbed her temples.

  “...This is madness! It’s possible to just randomly fall in love with someone like this? In such a situation, at that?! Something must be wrong with me… It isn’t normal to be in love with someone like…”

  She visualised the nightmare woman.

  “...This…”

  There was no cutting it. Now that she realised what it was that she was feeling, she could see it clearly. The purple-eyed woman was everything Mari liked. The caretaker had never asked herself what her type was until now, and she didn’t need to now. Her type was precisely, exactly the nightmare butcher.

  Mari hadn’t even known that she liked women until today–In fact, she might not even like women. She might just like THIS woman. It was absurd to think about, but no matter, she failed to find anything attractive about anyone she tried to think about.

  The nightmare woman had invaded her mind without even trying. Mari had inflicted herself with the curse of infatuation. There was no cutting it. Mari needed to pursue her. Not out of vengeance. Not out of righteousness. Out of sheer, uncontrollable love for someone she knew only absolutely despicable things about.

  The caretaker could hardly comprehend how this sudden strike of affection had come to be, but it was clear that it wouldn’t just go away if she tried ignoring it.

  How could she find her, though?

  Just then, as though listening in on her thoughts, something appeared in front of her, making Mari recoil, straining her injury uncomfortably in the process.

  Your reward for achieving the first-ever victory in a final trial has been decided

  “...Is this a system panel?”

  Mari had never seen the system before. Her only interaction with it was the pitiful amount of experience she would get when squashing a bug.

  Now, it was appearing right before her eyes.

  Due to your obsession with who could have very well been your executioner, you have been granted a Special System Panel, which you can access at any time you desire. Only you can see. This does not affect any other system-related parameters

  To make it appear, simply will it. The panel will take the form of a compass. The compass will point directly at your beloved, indicating the shortest direction as the crow flies. Besides the compass, you will also see the current location of your beloved

  You can view the country they are in, amongst finer details

  You can learn about the details of the panels by simply willing it, farewell

  Mari was left dumbfounded. She slowly lay back down into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin.

  “This is so weird… I feel so… Giddy about this panel thing”

  She calmed herself down. Even if her heart was urging her to go and find the love of her life right at this instant, it was pretty clear that this wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Not only was Mari still wounded and having difficulty breathing, but her so-called ‘beloved’ was in an entirely different country at the moment.

  The caretaker soon let herself drift away into sleep once more, not like there was much else for her to do at the moment… She found her way into sweet, bright dreams–Dreams of a rather… Embarrassing nature.

  She was starting to wonder if her ‘love’ was really the normal kind. The effects were strong, to say the least.

  Mari could only hope that the nightmare woman would at least have an interest in other women…