Dion was an ordinary Dreamchaser addicted to the dream. He loved Penacony and everything it had to offer, especially the Dream Bubble experiences that made people reluctant to leave. Honestly, it was so wonderful, so wonderful that he truly wanted to live and die in that beautiful dream.
Unfortunately, no matter how wonderful a dream was, reality would always force one to wake up. Before long, once the Grand Festivity ended, Dion would have to return home. After all, the money his family had given him was already gone. If he stayed any longer, he would not even have enough left for a ticket home.
"Ah! Damn it. The family business is going to be inherited by my big brother anyway, so what does that have to do with me? I'm just a piece of trash who has been good for nothing since childhood. I can't write, I can't fight, and I can't do anything. All I know how to do is eat, drink, and have fun. What am I supposed to do when I go back? Act as a foil for my brother so everyone can see how outstanding he is?"
After finishing a bottle of SoulGlad, Dion muttered curses under his breath. He was already such a piece of trash, so the family fortune would never fall into his hands. Once he returned, he would simply work under his brother's supervision as a minor supervisor within his jurisdiction, then spend his days living in a daze.
Then, under his family's arrangements, he would enter a marriage alliance, marry a woman he did not know and might not even come to love, have a child, pass on the family bloodline, and continue living in a daze until the day he died.
He would be better off staying in the dream!
"Anyway, Mom and Dad have only ever talked about how great my brother is, how great my brother is. Then they point out all my flaws and everything wrong with me, nagging on and on. That's right, I really am just a piece of trash..."
Even though he was only drinking soda, Dion cursed and muttered as though he were drunk. Then, perhaps driven by the frustration in his heart, his emotions flared. He casually hurled the glass bottle toward an empty space, only for a hand to catch it in midair.
A gray-haired man wearing a black trench coat stepped out of the previously empty space.
Dion did not seem to care at all. He picked up another bottle of SoulGlad from beside him, opened it, and took a deep drink.
"You seem very dissatisfied with your life."
A voice sounded beside him. Dion turned his head and saw a man he had never met before. Judging by his appearance, he was quite handsome.
"How many Dreamchasers willing to lose themselves in Penacony are actually satisfied with their lives? If they were truly satisfied, no one would become addicted to the dream!"
Dion sneered at the man's question.
"But dreams are ultimately false, and there will always come a day when you must wake up."
"Who are you? Why are you preaching to me the moment you show up? You aren't one of those crazy Mourning Actors, are you? Those people who can't stand seeing others enjoy themselves and love making them cry?"
"No. I have no intention of lecturing you about learning to face reality or breaking free from the dream. I only want to ask you this. If an eternal dream were to descend one day, allowing everyone to spend their entire lives in happiness and fulfillment within it, and the price was completely abandoning your physical body in reality in exchange for eternal spiritual happiness, would you be willing to remain immersed in that dream forever?"
"Huh? There's such a good deal? Then I'd be begging for it! Look, in Penacony, you even have to pay money to dream. But in that eternal dream you're talking about, you could enjoy eternal happiness without spending a single credit. Why would I refuse such a good deal?"
"But the dream is false."
"But everything you experience is real. Your memories would truly contain that period of existence and those experiences. The only difference is that you didn't experience them in reality. You only experienced that kind of life in the spiritual realm. But honestly, how many people in reality can live the life they truly want?"
Perhaps it was because he had drunk too much SoulGlad and it had gone to his head, but after seeing the young man before him, Dion could not help wanting to say more.
"I'm actually doing all right. My family is extremely wealthy. My parents and the rest of my family manage the logistics of an entire star system, so our family has a lot of money. Although we depend on the IPC, the money we earn is still real."
"I only became like this because I couldn't compare to my brother and couldn't inherit the family business. No matter what I do, I'll only end up as a minor executive, living out my days in a daze. But look at those ordinary people."
"The lives of ordinary IPC employees are far more difficult. The amount of unpaid overtime they work every day is beyond anything we can imagine. Under such intense workloads, they eat nothing but various nutrient pastes all day. From time to time, they even have to pay out of their own pockets for supplements and stimulants, or they simply won't be able to keep going. Then there are those barren planets where people can't even get enough to eat."
"Look at those people. Even someone born into wealth like me isn't satisfied with life, so what about those who are worse off than I am? And how many people like me are there in the entire galaxy? What proportion of the galaxy is made up of those ordinary people?"
"Some places say, 'Suffering a loss is a blessing.' I say that's bullshit! That's only because you have no choice but to suffer losses and endure hardship, so you comfort yourself by saying that suffering is a blessing and hardship tempers you. But if hardship could be avoided, who would willingly endure it?"
"Buddy, if you asked other people whether they would be willing to lose themselves in an eternal dream, do you believe that countless people would willingly become your loyal followers just so they could sleep forever in that dream? Even some wealthy tycoons with fulfilling lives would want to experience that eternal dream, simply because there are things they want to experience in dreams that they could never experience in reality."
"An eternal dream, a feast that never ends, a play that never closes."
Dion spoke softly, then walked away with somewhat unsteady steps.
Caelus watched as the man walked farther and farther away. Beneath Dion's outward pursuit of pleasure and eternal dreams lay a nihilistic core that believed reality was meaningless.
When the course of one's life could be seen at a glance, there would always be people who found such a life too boring and numbing, believing that everything in the world was meaningless. Nihilism would gradually erode and consume them.
Dion was such a person.
He believed that after returning to his family, he would live an ordinary, numb life whose course could be seen at a glance.
Yet he was unwilling to face the risks and hardships of venturing into the galaxy alone after abandoning his family's support.
He was a weak person who had lost his courage.
[Main Quest: Reality or Dream]
[Task Objective: Choose reality or choose a dream.
Task Reward: 6,000 System Currency or partial knowledge of the Path of Dreams.
Note: A real but cruel reality, or a beautiful but false dream? Make the choice you believe is right, or, like so many others, go with the flow.]
This time, the main quest was a choice between reality and dreams.
(To be continued.)
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◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)