A space shrouded entirely in darkness.

Flash—!

Like dawn breaking over the horizon, light began to spread rapidly, coloring the whole world.

Whooooosh—!

The wind blew fiercely, as if it might suck you in.

Brrrrring—

A ringing in my head accompanied by a headache, and new knowledge began to imprint itself on my mind.

Ah, is it really new knowledge?

“Phew, I’m alive at last.”

When the psychiatrist in the dream told me to speak Rafdonia’s language, I was so ashamed I couldn’t say a word, only moving my lips.

Well, now that I’m back, it doesn’t matter.

I lowered my head and looked at my hands.

Unlike the small hands of Hansoo, these were rough, coarse, and thick-veined—barbarian hands.

Clench.

I clenched and unclenched my fists several times to check my body condition.

Tap, tap.

Familiar footsteps echoed in the distance.

I turned toward the sound and, as expected—

Tap, tap—

The girl I briefly saw when pulled into the dream world appeared like a ghost and approached me.

“Alice Groundia.”

As I murmured her name, the earth witch stopped and looked at me intently.

“I clearly told you not to come back.”

“...”

“Why on earth have you returned?”

There was an oddly sad emotion in her voice.

I smirked and answered.

“Because this is where I belong.”

But perhaps that answer was not enough.

Hearing my response, the girl looked up at me with a resentful expression and continued as if arguing.

“This was the world where your dream was realized.”

“But it was fake.”

“You know it’s not fake, don’t you?”

Hmm, well...

Indeed, the more time I spent there, the more I sensed it wasn’t just a simple dream world.

But, as I said before.

“I don’t care. That’s not where I belong.”

Once again I firmly stated my will, and the girl stayed silent for a while.

Whooooosh—!

The endless wind blowing.

And as time passed, the world became more than half washed in white light.

Crackling—

With the sound of something breaking, a boundary between darkness and light formed between the witch and me.

“I think I made my intentions clear. Aren’t you going to send me back now?”

Breaking the short but long silence, I asked.

The earth witch clenched her fists like a child.

“You will suffer more pain and sadness there.”

Oh, so that’s how it would be?

“Still want to go back?”

A childish question fitting the girl’s image, but I listened seriously and answered.

“Yes. I’ll go back anyway.”

I had no objections to the fact that it’s a dog’s world where I always have to watch my back and worry about my survival and my companions’.

“You’ll lose something precious again. The pain you’ve felt so far won’t even compare—you will despair deeply.”

Just hearing that made it hard to breathe.

“So what?”

Isn’t that what life is?

It’s tough and painful, and you always want to run away.

And I, Hansoo, always ran away in reality, so I lived ignorant all my life.

Running away is not the answer.

The life of a warrior taught me that.

So...

“No matter how much it hurts, I will go forward.”

“No matter what shitty things happen, I will struggle desperately to survive till the very end.”

“Because I’m a barbarian.”

As I finished speaking, the girl stepped over the boundary into the darkness and took one step back.

Whooooosh—!

The darkness shrank by the same amount I advanced.

Oh, this is kind of fun.

Thud.

I took a bigger step forward.

The girl did not back away.

She just stood still and spoke to me.

“You have...”

Thud.

“Chosen to live as Bjorn Yandel.”

Thud.

The witch watching me wore a strange, hollow smile.

“In the end, you were no different from us.”

...Huh?

“Us? What do you mean?”

I stopped walking, confused, and asked, but she gave no answer.

“You pretend not to run away, but you are running away all the same.”

“No, so what does that mean—?”

Just as I said that, taking a bigger step forward—

“Yes, we were right after all.”

The girl turned her back and walked into the darkness.

Tap, tap.

The footsteps grew faint.

And with them, the darkness faded.

“Hey, wait!!”

I tried to follow, but for °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° some reason, no matter how slow she walked, the distance between us did not close.

Tap—

The faint footsteps disappeared completely as the whole world was covered in light.

“Baron... Yandel...!”

A man’s voice thundered through the space.

The voice was distorted and cut out intermittently like noise, but suddenly became clear and distinct.

“Ah! Baron Yandel!”

“Hah...”

The ending was a little awkward, but—

“Hey! Get up already, pleeease!!!”

“I’m awake, stop shaking me.”

“...Huh?”

Finally, I returned.

To where I should be.

I was a little worried, actually.

Where would I go if I cleared [Dungeon and Stone] again?

Would I inhabit a completely different barbarian body and start the coming-of-age ritual from scratch?

Or would I wake up decades ago, or decades later?

What if my comrades and I had disappeared into history?

And only a few who survived into the future greeted me as old men?

Well, the answer turned out to be delusion.

“Stop shaking me, I’m awake.”

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the deck of a ship.

I was soaking wet, sprawled out, and Ibaekho was grabbing my shoulder, shaking me hard...

“...Huh? Tongue... No, Baron? Oh! You’re awake! Are you okay?”

Ibaekho took a step back as if startled when I opened my eyes.

I quickly and briefly confirmed the most important things.

“What’s the situation? Is it an emergency?”

“Oh, no. The danger is over.”

Oh, that’s a relief.

The last thing I remembered was being chased by Dryzen and falling underwater, so I thought it was an urgent wake-up situation.

“How long was I asleep?”

“Not long.”

“Exactly how long?”

“Uh... about 30 minutes?”

Thirty minutes...

I felt relieved but somehow empty.

I’d spent at least half a year there.

“What about the others?”

“The mages are exhausted and meditating, and the rest, as you see, are fine.”

Okay, so nothing unusual happened while I was asleep.

So I took it easy and listened to the story.

“Tell me exactly what happened after I fell off the ship. Don’t leave anything out.”

Maybe thinking info sharing was important, Ibaekho started immediately.

In short:

“The moment I saw you fall, I jumped in.”

He jumped into the water to save me.

By the way, awakened monsters beat him up badly, and he almost died...

‘I filtered out his unnecessary detailed heroics.’

Using wit and improvisation, Ibaekho finally managed to rescue me from sinking.

Luckily, the barbarian’s heavy skeleton and armor saved me.

Otherwise, I’d have been swept away by the current and fallen over the waterfall, never to be saved.

“After that, we barely got back on the ship and escaped quickly.”

“That easily...?”

I couldn’t quite believe it from the story.

Even if the mages burned all their magic to activate the defensive runes on the ship, it was surprising they held out against first-class ‘special boss’ Dryzen until saving me...

And then ‘just escaped well’ was all there was.

“To be honest, I don’t understand either. That’s really all it was. We just ran like hell and they left us alone? They barely touched us when holding out on the ship.”

According to Ibaekho, there were many questions about Dryzen’s behavior.

Because that monster is normally not so docile.

But since he said so, I let it pass for now...

“Then why did you wake me up in such a hurry? There didn’t seem to be any particular danger.”

Ibaekho’s expression changed oddly when I asked next.

“You don’t know? You’re asking? Ah, never mind.”

“What the hell are you trying to do?”

I gave him a ‘are you kidding me?’ look, and Ibaekho cleared his throat repeatedly and answered as if nothing had happened.

“Ahem! Of course I was urgent! Your heart stopped back then!”

“...What?”

“I really thought you died! I was so shocked!”

Only then did I notice Ibaekho’s appearance was terrible.

He really looked like he almost died in the water.

Soaked, with broken gear and unhealed wounds all over.

‘Did he scream like that because my heart stopped?’

I suddenly felt embarrassed for seriously considering shoving Ibaekho under the ship in the chaos.

But...

‘Still, he saved me for a reason. It wasn’t because he truly cared about me.’

Thinking about it, he only saved me with all his might for his own benefit and purpose.

So don’t be too grateful.

Yeah, that’s the cold logic fitting Rafdonia.

“Ibaekho, I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“No, never mind. It’s nothing.”

“What? You want to see me go crazy?”

Startled by the sudden ‘brother’ title, I noticed the others didn’t seem to care.

Well, Ibaekho is the kind to say anything to anyone.

“What? What? Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”

“I said it’s nothing.”

“Ah!! That makes me go crazier!!”

Seeing Ibaekho get several times louder than usual, I considered telling him just to calm him down, but decided against it.

Because...

‘Why didn’t you just leave me to die?’

That was the real question.

He was the one who once planned to kill me and revive me with the Resurrection Stone.

Today, after I die, he could use the Resurrection Stone I carry to resurrect me.

Then he could manipulate me at will while my memories were erased.

But...

‘He probably didn’t know.’

Thinking about it, Ibaekho couldn’t be sure if I still had the Resurrection Stone.

Misha might have it, or I might have entrusted it to someone trustworthy.

He’s smart, so he probably judged the highest chance was that I had it.

‘My pocket dimension can’t be opened before I die. It was a gamble for him.’

So I stopped asking.

Because if I mentioned it, he would learn I had the Resurrection Stone.

That could become a variable later...

‘I really feel like I’m back.’

I smiled at the thought, and Ibaekho looked like he remembered something and asked me.

“Oh, right! Since I’m done asking what I wanted to ask, can I ask one more thing?”

“Go ahead.”

“While you were unconscious, you smiled occasionally...”

“And?”

“What kind of dream did you have?”

Ibaekho’s question made me hesitate.

‘What kind of dream did I have...?’

If I honestly told him what I experienced, he’d think I was crazy.

Just like people in that world thought so.

Whether the earth witch or parallel world or whatever, they’d think it was a hallucination from sleeping due to field effects.

‘That’s funny when I think about it.’

But what’s funnier is that I don’t really know either.

Whether what I experienced was a real dream or if I actually visited a real alternate world.

Whether the witch I met was real or an illusion.

Thump—

I’m still a bit confused.

In fact, since waking, my memories from there are fading.

Like only some memorable scenes remain when you wake from a dream.

“Why won’t you say? Did you have a sexy dream or something? Were you trapped in an orgy hallucination... or something like that?”

“It wasn’t like that, so don’t talk nonsense.”

“Then what was it? You can tell me at least this much, right? Between us.”

What are we between each other?

I wanted to retort but figured it’d just drag on, so I summarized shortly.

Not much.

Something you might experience once in a lifetime.

“It was just a stupid dream.”

So no reason to feel sorry.