… Get out of my head already!

  “!”

  By the time he finally finished his inner rebuttal, Somnu had already been relocated.

  In his initial frustration, he hadn’t noticed the pop-up messages, but looking at the new one, it seemed as though his relocation had gone smoothly for once.

  [Sleeper successfully relocated back to original location!]

  [ALERT: Please remain in the designated Nightmare Layer!]

  “Hey, you’re the one who sent me to who knows where!” Somnu clicked his tongue, then looked around to see where he landed this time. “Speaking of…”

  “Caaw!”

  “Yeah, we’re right back where we started, aren’t we?”

  The wide empty room he was in seemed all too familiar. He was brought back to the same crypt he had been before getting falsely relocated.

  Except, instead of the room with the summoning circle, he was right at the entrance to the long and narrow hallway.

  “Wait, how come I was zapped here and not on the portal in that room?” He questioned, but could not think of an answer. “That’s weird…”

  “Caaw!!”

  “!”

  Fala on the other hand, seemed to have found a clue.

  “Ah! There was a summoning circle here all along?!” He blurted out after following Fala’s line of sight.

  Behind him, on the inside of the door leading to the long hallway, he finally noticed the bloody pentagram drawn around the rusted metal.

  There were no candles on it, just a poorly drawn pentagram.

  “That’s right… I didn’t really look at the inside of the door, did I?”

  Nevertheless, Somnu remembered where he had failed. He had opened the door so quickly, only to be surprised by the long hallway and the active fears at the time.

  “Not to mention that the first Slowing Bunny had somehow teleported behind us after we got in…” He connected the missing puzzle to that mystery. “If those two portals here don’t lead to that place with Mr. Emberlyn, I wonder where they would lead…”

  Holding his chin in thought, Somnu considered trying to find out the answer to that.

  “Caaw! Caaw!”

  “I know, I’m not going to do that.” He shook his head slowly. “I think I had my fair share of portals… I don’t want to use one ever again…”

  As he said the words, he clenched a fist. He knew that he would one day have to at least use one more portal to save Mr. Emberlyn and if possible, help him restore that castle to its former glory.

  I don’t want to be forced on a throne though… No, thank you…

  He wasn’t the making of a king, and he knew it.

  He was a scarecrow, and that's what he wanted to be.

  “Alright! Fala, let’s head out and get stronger! We need to prepare if we want to fight that-?!”

  “Caaw?”

  Noticing her master’s enthusiasm suddenly die out as he froze in place, Fala flew up and landed on his shaking shoulder.

  “?!”

  Following his line of sight, she saw what he was looking at.

  “W-what…?!”

  Somnu couldn’t help but mutter as he looked at the wall where the two hung up torches opposite to the entrance had been.

  There had been nothing between them before, Somnu had made sure of it during his previous inspection of the room.

  However now, just between them, there it was.

  The bloodied symbol of a skull, grinning directly at Somnu.

  H-how?! How is it here?!

  His voice gave out as his teeth immediately started clattering. If it weren’t for his shaking nerves and knees, he might’ve already run away in the opposite direction, as much as he would have opposed it in his mind.

  Time had stopped for Somnu, and so had his breathing.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  His world narrowed, growing smaller by the second.

  His mind went blank.

  He didn’t know how long he had been stuck in that trance, but his body soon gave out and he found himself writhing on the floor. The pain coursed through his entire body, sudden and sharp like invisible daggers repeatedly stabbing through him.

  His breathing went from complete halt to short, heavy breaths. His shivering wasn’t giving out, it was feeding on his strength, rendering him unable to get up.

  And yet, he still couldn’t pass out even in this realm, courtesy of his [The Last Unrested] personal title.

  “Caaw!!”

  “I can… do this…”

  It didn’t matter whether he could rest or not, if he could pass out or not.

  He wanted to fight back against these panic attacks, he needed to be able look directly at that damned symbol and not feel a shred of fear or panic.

  Because if he couldn’t, there was no way he would be able to face the very one who drew it in his house.

  The one who killed his beloved mother.

  I can do this… I can do this… I can do this…

  He repeated inside his mind, again and again. He was on his knees, hitting his head on the ground in an attempt to resist the one thing that could happen when he got overwhelmed.

  He needed to resist blacking out.

  And so, he continued resisting.

  In his state, the world condensed into itself, all sounds, vision and senses had been blocked.

  He couldn’t have known how much time had passed, but eventually, through the agonizing pain inside his body and mind, he was able to bring himself back to a calmer state.

  “...”

  When he opened his eyes and came back to himself, he was sitting in the middle of the empty room facing the entrance, with his back to the very thing that put him in his current situation.

  Thankfully, he seemed to have calmed down enough to regain his thoughts and the normal flow of his breathing.

  “How could this be possible…?” He narrowed his eyes, refusing to turn his back and acknowledge the existence of his waking nightmare following him even to this rotting swamp.

  However, he knew. Deep down, he knew it could only have meant one thing.

  His mother’s murderer was here somewhere, or he had been in the past.

  “No, he must have been here recently… Otherwise, who would have drawn the symbol there…” He figured, then realized another detail. “Mr. Emberlyn said the time here flowed slower, and I was only in that realm for a few hours maybe…”

  And Somnu knew time flowed faster there, it could have only meant…

  “!”

  He immediately summoned Eclipsed Requiem and looked around.

  “In terms of time on this Layer, I should have only been away for barely a second, a minute tops.” He guessed, not knowing the specifics. “Did he just draw that and leave…? Was he already here while I was farming cockroaches?”

  Noticing no immediate danger, or anyone around him, Somnu sat back down and canceled the summoning of his sickles.

  Dammit…

  Without realizing it, his brows were furrowed and his nails were digging into his palm again, to the point of drawing blood.

  As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn’t ready to face that murderer yet.

  No matter what, he needed to become a version of himself that could.

  He needed to make sure his mother’s murderer wasn’t getting scott free.

  Somnu had resolved himself to the fact that John Doe was in prison, rotting away for the rest of his life, unable to hurt anyone else ever again.

  And now, he learned that the same criminal is enjoying his life in the Abyss of Lethe, most likely doing whatever he pleased here.

  “I’ll get you… I’ll make you pay for what you did to her…” He grumbled through gritted teeth.

  [Your Grudge grows stronger.]

  “!”

  Seeing that System message, Somnu finally realized that his crow companion had been missing ever since he came to.

  “Fala!!”

  He shouted, then remembered he could simply cancel the skill and then resummon her.

  However, just before he could…

  “Caaw!!”

  “W-wait…!”

  SPLASH!

  Somnu was greeted with a bucket of water that Fala had very likely carried over from all across the hallway, from inside that room.

  Now, he, along with Grudgekeeper, were drenched in still hot water from when he had boiled it, confirming Somnu’s rough estimate of time of being away from the First Layer.

  “Sorry… You must’ve been worried…”

  Instead of showing him any affection, Fala seemed to be repeatedly drilling a hole above his ear, perhaps trying to make a third one so he could hear her cries next time.

  “I said I’m sorry…” He apologized again, hoping his crow companion wasn’t accumulating her grudge against him as he, or Grudgekeeper, had been doing.

  Nevertheless, Somnu decided to get up and get to work.

  First, he needed to check on his new stats and make sure he had a grip on all the necessary information.

  Then, he needed to find some food and water again, as well as a place where he could rest for a while. Even if he couldn’t sleep, he had exerted too much energy to simply keep on going.

  “...”

  However, before all that, Somnu glanced one last time towards the symbol, making sure to prepare himself in advance for whatever impact might follow.

  While his clenched fists were shaking a bit, he seemed able to resist it somewhat better now.

  For a while, he simply stared at the symbol, as if making a silent vow to himself.

  And then, he noticed forming symbols above it, where words had been written in blood, words he could perfectly read as if the language had been chosen specifically for him.

  “Oh fearful soul, you have now experienced both divinity and impiety, both heaven and hell. Now choose, would you rather revel in your virtues, or sing with your sins?”

  “Caaw?”

  “What does that even mean…?”

  Somnu questioned, but as soon as he read the words out loud and began to consider them…

  “?!”

  “Caaw!!”

  The floor under him disappeared and he fell into the void.

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