"Sunless, huh? Fittingly ominous for a monster like you. Perhaps the name sealed your fate," she commented after Sunny introduced himself.
While the witch laughed at his name, Sunny confirmed his thoughts stayed private unless he chose to project them.
'Thank the gods, I'm already forced to say the truth!' Sunny internally gasped as his heart loosened a little from being terrified of having no privacy for even his thoughts.
Sunny felt oddly comfortable with the witch; it was as if her presence in the room made the atmosphere shift from great to delightful. The plants seemed to lean their leaves towards her, the sunshine seemed to wrap around her like a blanket, and even Sunny himself was entranced by her, who was suspecting a mind hex was slowly being placed on him.
"Wait, you said you had gotten this for a friend. Are they living with you currently?" Sunny had an inkling of an idea that she had purposefully brought the amulet for the beast, but for whatever reason, it seemed the amulet was unwilling to translate.
"Yes, you are correct in that regard. Currently, they're out now doing... some missions assigned to him by me. I will also assign you missions and tasks for you to complete while I look for a way to turn you back," she explained before turning her back, and just before leaving, added, "I should probably let you rest now. I'll allow you a month to recover and permit you to roam around my sanctuary. However, pass this floor, and you're not allowed any lower than what we are now. Anything above this floor is allowed, and you may wander anywhere outside."
Just as Sunny was about to lie down, she turned around once again, "Another thing-"'Damnation does she suffer from short-term memory loss?' Sunny mocked her internally but did not dare voice his thoughts.
"-, my name is Selena. I am the witch of the Everbloom forest, which is the forest surrounding the town that I'm sure you've seen." She said, with a hint of pride in her alluring voice.
She closed the door behind her as the room had turned back into a peaceful, normal place, and Sunny fell back into bed.
Sunny wanted to know what the floor was underneath him now. He predicted that it was where the workshop was, or the weird room where the dark obelisk sat. Either way, he wasn't about to risk being caught to satisfy his curiosity. Closing his eyes, he allowed shadow sense to reach its maximum distance and filtered out all the unnecessary parts to create a mental map of the building. Most of the time, if not all, he limited his shadow sense ability since it put a mental strain on the larger the area he sensed.
He was sure that once he awakened, the strain put on his mind would lessen drastically, but awakening wasn't something that could be done at the moment, so Sunny sucked it up. At the very least, if he was able to beat the second nightmare, then both he and Nephis would become Masters, and with it came immense power, not to mention fame, considering they would be the first dreamers to beat the second nightmare - something that even awakened cohorts weren't guaranteed success.
'If only...' Sunny lifted his arm, and not knowing when he summoned [Moonlight Shard], stared at his reflection from the sharp blade.
His body was jacked and could easily crush rocks with ease, but his eyes did not look like a killer from before, but like someone on the verge of collapse. He would feel pain if he said that everything so far hadn't had a toll on his mental health, especially after the fall of the Crimson Spire. When he had been in the dark city, he at least had the knowledge that there were other humans that he could see if he had wanted to. But afterward, he had only Neph to rely on for companionship since his shadows weren't exactly the talking sort.
He was sure that without Nephis, he would've already gone insane and would be no different from Gunlaug in terms of insanity, but even with her, he was still slowly suffering. He was sure that she, too, was still suffering from not being able to see civilization - perhaps even more than himself, since he worked as the leader of the dreamer army - from her eyes. Sunny had agreed to challenge the second nightmare not because it was a good idea, but because it was the quickest and ironically the safest way of returning home before he went crazy.
'Well, crazier than I already am, although Nephis sure does love how crazy I could be in be-' Sunny noticed his shadows shaking their heads as he let out a growl that was supposed to be a laugh.
Sunny's small smile slowly faded as he closed his eyes and continued to map out the building. After a bit, he finished the crude map of the building as he had to guess some of the layout, as the witch - Selena - had the temple mostly lit to his dismay. His mental map included the four floors minus the final floor at the bottom that was identical to the future temple. He would've sent his shadows out to explore if not for worrying about spooking Selena or activating a hidden mechanism. Both would spell doom for his poor shadows.
He had nothing to do after finishing his map, so Sunny tried and failed to sleep, feeling oddly weird about suddenly having nothing to do for once and not worrying about his survival. Sighing, Sunny opened his runes and looked through them until he found Nephis's
...
Soul shards: [720/5000]...
It bugged him that her counter hadn't increased even once after entering the nightmare, which caused him a great deal of stress.
'The spell would surely alert me if Nephis had died, right?' Sunny questioned, feeling that both fate and the spell were once again toying with him.
Sighing, getting up, Sunny cautiously stretched his limbs that had gotten sore from the lack of movement when he was knocked out for about a day or so, according to his shadows when he asked them to estimate.
'Now... where the hell is the damn bathroom!'
***
Outside on a balcony sat a beautiful woman wearing a silk sundress adorned with flowers picked from her garden, which she personally attended to each and every day. She made it a great deal to dress herself up as if she were attending a ball.
'Just like my mother once said, "Dress like you mean it!"'
Quietly, the glass slide door opened before a large creature walked through it, approaching the woman. Its dark green body was covered by a large maroon tunic, while its head was covered by its long black hair that draped over its body as if attracted by an invisible force.
"Ah, I was wondering when you were going to return from your expedition. I hope it all went well, Eliji."
The creature, who was named Eliji, walked over to her before putting a gray vial filled with green liquid. It stayed silent as it sat on the other side of the table.
The two sat in silence in the wooden able as the large birds overhead chirped, ready to find their prey.
"By the way, we have a visitor that's going to stay to help us out, its miraculous abilities to keep itself hidden even from me would surely help us out in our... mine... plans." She monologued to the creature as it heard her.
The creature nodded as the witch poured a cup of tea into a glass cup before pushing it towards Eliji. In response, it grabbed the cup delicately - which surely was a comedic sight for her - before slurping down the tea in an instant.
"Anyhow," She continued as the creature put down the cup, "you can rest for now as there's nothing for us to accomplish at the moment. However, make it a point to greet our new guest before I assign him on a mission. Try not to give him a scare, though. They're still recovering from the beating I gave them."
Suddenly putting on a serious face, she continued, "Although I feel that if I had messed up for even a moment, I wouldn't be speaking to you right now. Not only is he treacherous and sneaky, but he also possesses higher power than he should. It's also in a weird liminal space between a mundane human and an awakened. Never before have any recordings or murmurs of a curse given to a human resulted in a weird soul core that it possesses.
I'm not even sure if I can fix whatever curse has been placed upon him by who I suspect was Shadow God... but it doesn't matter, I don't plan on being able to fulfill my promise if my plan succeeds." She had a stone-cold face, but if someone had keen eyes, they would be able to see the worried yet determined smile that lay beneath.
Behind the door, there was a pot filled with rocks with a tall purple flower that sprang from the pot. With no one noticing, an ordinary rock turned into a shimmer of golden sparks before disappearing within a few seconds.
In another room, a few rooms away, the same rock appeared again on Sunny's hand. He had secretly bugged their conversation between Selena and a green monster that walked onto the balcony with her. He didn't want to risk being sensed by the witch, so instead she summoned a shadow tentacle and brought [Ordinary rock] into a flowerpot and hid it among the other rocks.'2-1 ordinary rock and my shadows,' Sunny smirked as he planned to listen in on the recording inside his soul sea so as not to be caught peeping on them.
***
It took Sunny about a week to heal from his injuries, and even his lung was restored thanks to the witch having a variety of potions, with one being able to restore organs. His healing was also accelerated by Blood Weave, but she merely thought his quick healing was due to his body, which she only knew from books.
Sunny walked through the stone hallways laid with wooden walls and floors, since having stone as the actual surface and building material would be uncomfortable. He had gotten used to wandering the building out of boredom as he recovered, learning all the rooms until he could navigate the whole building with his eyes closed, even without shadow sense.
This morning, he had been visited by the witch, and after evaluating his recovery, had been asked to meet her outside on the balcony to assign him a mission. Before he started heading towards it, he had made himself breakfast. The witch had all sorts of ingredients that the first time he had looked into their pantry, he was in shock. There were vegetables, meats, milk, and eggs, as well as she had a farm of animals that were surpassingly similar to chickens on earth.He had made himself an omelet as he ate it along the way before approaching the glass door. Devouring his omelet, he opened the glass door and was greeted with Elena sitting on a wooden chair, leisurely drinking tea from a cup.
"Welcome, Sunless. How about you sit down before we begin, unless you prefer standing up." She said calmly before putting down her cup as Sunny sat across from her and drank the tea in front of him that had already been prepared for him.
"How about we cut to the chase?" Sunny said straightforwardly.
"Alright then, as per our deal, I'll start assigning you missions for you to take on, most of them requiring being sneaky. For your first mission as practice, but still important, I want you to spy on Wolf Pine, which is the name of the town, if you didn't know. Stay there for about a week or so and merely see what the town is up to, and if I'm correct, I'm sure they're militarizing themselves before trying to kill me, I'm as much of a threat as that Corrupted Tyrant that had attacked them. It's relatively quick and easy compared to what I'll give you in the future, and I'm sure you're dying to get some fresh air by now." She explained the mission in detail to Sunny, who paid attention to every word.
After hearing her to the end, Sunny spoke up, "Why are they trying to kill you?" Sunny wanted to prob the witch since Sunny didn't know what the witch had actually done to earn the town's pure hatred and unyielding bloodlust.
letting out a low sigh, she looked at Sunny thoughtfully, as if unsure how to answer his question, like a mother trying to explain the concept of death to a child. There was also a sad expression hovering over her calm demeanor as well, which made Sunny suddenly feel a little guilty as he tugged on the collar of [Puppeteer Shroud] awkwardly.
"I used to live in that town with my family once. We were a family that was devoted to the God of growth, Heart God. The townsfolk, on the other hand, all believed in War God, and it made sense since the town is merely a vassal town to the War Empire in exchange for not being destroyed and pillaged. For a time, there was harmony within my family and the town, for generations even, until I was born.
At that time, the War Empire had fully relied on conquering neighboring empires to fuel itself, like feeding wood into a campfire. With it came dislike against any believers who weren't devoted to the War God, as they were mercilessly killed or worked under the empire. I remember my father trying to convince my mother to convert to the believers of War God for our safety or move away, but she refused, saying that she would not hide her belief in Heart God. Oh, how naive my mother was, thinking our very neighbors wouldn't hold the same contempt and pride in their nation.
And in one faithful night, my life was changed forever as deep into the night the townsfolk all gathered around our house, and most likely with a torch, set fire to our home. I was awoken when the smoke had reached through my door, and I was horrified, as any child should be, when I saw that the whole house was burning down at an alarming rate. I ran downstairs, and luckily, due to my father's worry, he had built a secret exit under a rug in our living room as I went through the crawl space. After reaching the end, which was at the tree line right before the forest, I turned around to see our house fully enveloped in flames.
Oh, how long I waited at the exit of the tunnel, hoping that my parents would appear and smile and hug each other, being grateful that at least we had survived and had each other. Instead, I cried for a long time as the realization dawned on me that my parents had died in the fire; they hadn't been as lucky as I, as the flames must've reached them before they could awaken in time. Soon after, I pulled myself together and ran into the forest before I was caught by the nightguards.
Soon after, with the supply sack that I had grabbed in time, I survived the forest and its many dangers, as it was still riddled with dreadful beasts. After a few weeks, I met Eliji, whom you've already met, I'm sure of it. He gave me quite a fright when I met him. I thought I was finally going to perish and die and meet my parents in the afterlife, but instead, he merely helped me up. It's rare, but sometimes an uncorrupted creature can survive the wilderness without being killed. Together, we teamed up and eventually built this safe haven. So, with this background information, to answer your question, the reason they want to kill me is that I'm a believer in Heart God.
In their eyes, I'm a stain that needs to be wiped in order to not to make them look bad. However, they cannot do that yet as my aspect is much more powerful than the ordinary Ascended, so I also want you, if you can, to find out when they're going to launch an attack on me."
Sunny merely looked at her with blank eyes as puzzle pieces started to click inside his mind. The murals had indeed told the witch's story, one that was filled with pain and suffering. What had caught his attention was that apparently not all creatures that weren't human were corrupted. More importantly, Sunny wondered if the warrior who had saved him in the first nightmare, who survived under the War Empire, was the same as the one the town is a vassal of.
'The slave had said that the War Empire was protected by the War God, but was that true or merely propaganda to strike fear into other nations' hearts. And would the same hold true in the nightmare, even though they're dead? It would be a pain in the ass to be struck down by War God.' Sunny questioned before deciding to leave it for later, since most of it was unanswerable.
"I'm sure your parents are proud of how far you've gotten," Sunny responded, not with sympathy but with praise, since he hoped that his parents were also proud of how far he had gotten. He was sure they were.
"Perhaps, anyway, I shouldn't hold you any longer, you've got work to do, so chop chop." Sunny wanted to roll his eyes in return but held himself back.
He simply nodded as he entered back into the house, and after stocking up on supervisions he traveled back to the hill where he had first seen the town.
'It's about time I acted like a proper spy for once.'
***
I hope I introduced her well; I may have made a plot hole or two without knowing, so ignore those