Begin! Tooyama’s Dream!

“Familiar of knowledge?”

Looking at the woman who introduced herself that way before him, Tooyama felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

As if he had seen her somewhere before—

“Yes. Due to a certain connection, I have been allowed to build my Archives within your heart. The location is the worst, and the neighbors are atrocious on this worthless plot of land, but well, needs must, I suppose.”

“…I don’t get the point, but I can tell you’re being sarcastic.”

However, that déjà vu immediately scattered and vanished.

“Oh my, how rude of me. But despite how I look, I do intend to value you highly, you know.”

“I’m not happy no matter what someone who appears in my dream says to me.”

With a small face and doll-like, well-arranged features, the woman laughed while tucking the gray hair peeking out from beneath her feathered hat behind her ear.

“My, how harsh. Even though I am a resident of dreams, I am still a being with a will, so that saddens me.”

“A being with a will…?”

“Oops, were you not one of those hard-of-hearing protagonists so popular lately? I must be careful with my words.”

“…This stinks. I remember this kind of feeling somehow.”

She was suspicious in every way. That unpleasant feeling of her knowing everything while also rubbing his nerves the wrong way.

“Oh, could that perhaps be this?”

The gray eyes behind her glasses distorted as if she were truly amused.

Ping.

A message flowed by, matching the movement of the woman’s mouth before him.

“You bastard.”

Was it her? Was she the one who had kept displaying those nasty messages?

Tooyama instantly raised his guard against the person before him to the maximum.

“Hehehe, my, what a frightening face. It seems you might kill me at any moment.”

Her tone remained politely insolent, probably showing the composure of the woman before him.

“Shut up with that smug look on your face. Were those messages you?”

“Hmm, things around that are a little complicated, so perhaps I should answer that part with partly yes and partly no.”

With a crumpled wry smile, the woman before him suddenly sat down on a chair that had appeared at some point.

It was a strangely designed chair. There was not a single angular part on it. Everything from the backrest to the legs was rounded.

“…This doesn’t seem like an ordinary dream.”

The same chair appeared beside Tooyama too, and prompted by it, Tooyama also sat on the round chair.

When he checked the surroundings once more, even the bookshelves, fireplace, and every furnishing had a round design.

“Hehe, I shall leave that judgment to you. Well, if possible, it would be easier for me if you let your guard down and dismissed this conversation as nothing more than a dream.”

“…What does a resident of dreams want with me? Are you going to tell me about those messages and all kinds of other things?”

He switched his thoughts. It was strange for something called a dream. Tooyama changed his understanding: some being outside his common sense was meddling with him again.

“Well, do not rush toward the answer like that. You are my guest after so long. How about a cup?”

“…I’ll take it.”

After the chair, a tea table appeared, with steaming black tea that seemed to have just been brewed.

This too was designed entirely with rounded shapes.

Tooyama picked up the teacup and slowly took it into his mouth.

The rich fragrance of tea leaves. The mellowness and slight acidity were pleasant.

The black tea, at the proper temperature, delivered its aroma deep into his nose the moment it touched his tongue. Everything from the temperature control to the brewing method was perfect.

The taste and warmth were no different from reality.

“Oh my, that is a little unexpected. I thought you would be wary.”

The woman, who had been watching Tooyama drink from behind her glasses, raised a surprised voice.

“…You called yourself the familiar of knowledge, didn’t you? I’ve heard that name before.”

Ignoring that, Tooyama began moving the conversation forward. He needed to grasp some information through this conversation, and he had seen or heard the phrase “familiar of knowledge” several times since coming to this world.

“Ah, are you referring to the story of using my crystal at the Adventurers’ Guild this morning? I apologize for that. Recognizing someone like you, who is not an existence of this world, was rather difficult.”

“So you understand that too. That makes you even more suspicious… Hm?”

Had she been monitoring his actions? At that moment, Tooyama suddenly felt déjà vu from the woman again.

“Oh my, is something the matter? Was it not to your taste?”

The gray-haired woman who called herself the familiar of knowledge tilted her head.

“No, the tea is insanely good. …Have I met you somewhere before? Somehow, I feel like I’ve seen you.”

The déjà vu came from the woman’s clothing. A uniform-like outfit he felt he had seen somewhere before.

“…Who knows?”

The woman gave a faint smile, apparently unwilling to speak any further about it. Tooyama let out a small breath.

“Ah, whatever. Thinking about it is a pain. I’ll ask directly. What do you want with me?”

“Haha, getting to the point quickly is a virtue of explorers. Yes, I have prepared a good offer for you. The conditions have just happened to be met as well.”

“A good offer?”

It had to be suspicious. Tooyama naturally braced himself.

“Yes. Are you not about ready to know your current situation?”

“You…”

Tooyama’s eyes narrowed. This thing knew something.

“Oops, I have no intention of fighting you. Let us see. As a sign of goodwill, I shall tell you what I know about these messages that only you can see, free of charge. Hehe, will that not serve as proof of my plea for mercy?”

Perhaps sensing Tooyama’s dangerous atmosphere, the woman laughed while raising both hands in a gesture of surrender. Though she spoke of begging for her life, there was no fear visible in her.

“…Say it.”

“The messages—no, the sacrament, ‘Quest Marker,’ are a terrifying power. Fate, mission, and destiny, originally assigned to all people. Only you are able to visualize those notifications…”

“Assigned?”

Tooyama interrupted the woman’s words.

“Yes, exactly. Everyone’s fate is decided at the moment they are born. Where they will arrive in life. What they are meant to do. Your Quest Marker visualizes your own fate and helps you fulfill your mission.”

The woman continued speaking while taking black tea into her mouth.

If those words were true, then at that time, abandoning Lazaar had originally been—

“Those arrows and messages haven’t instructed me to do anything decent.”

However, Tooyama tossed that aside.

Not only then, but quite a number of times, he had defied messages he disliked and thoroughly mangled the arrows.

“…Yes, for some reason, you abandoned it. You threw away the mission you were supposed to follow, crushed it in your grip, and spat on it, becoming an existence that slipped out of the spiral of fate. …Honestly, that’s impossible, right?”

“Huh? Did you say something?”

The woman’s final words somehow seemed thorny.

“No, nothing in particular. In short, you are now truly a free existence. You abandoned the mission you were originally born with, and now walk a path bound by nothing, yet protected by nothing.”

The woman corrected her tone and continued.

The firewood set in the round fireplace collapsed with a clunk.

“You may reach a place no one in this world can reach. You may even change the decided future of this world. But at the same time, it would not be strange if you died at any moment. From the instant you threw away your fate, or main quest, you were cast into the wilderness. Into a world where you stand beside an unreasonable death that no one will protect you from.”

“The way you say that makes it sound like the others are different.”

Tooyama chewed on her words and thought. A decided fate, a main quest.

He thought of that message titled Return.

“Yes. A human bound by fate is also protected by fate. Unless the moment when they are meant to die arrives, they will absolutely not die. You do not have that protection.”

“Then conversely, that means there’s a chance I won’t die even when I’m supposed to.”

Tooyama replied while laughing lightly. He kept his thoughts turning and did not miss the woman’s words.

“Yes, it is sophistry, but that is correct. Though it would be endlessly difficult.”

The woman tilted her teacup. Just who was that small sigh directed at?

“So, you’re the one who gave me this Quest Marker thing. For what purpose did you give me something like that?”

Tooyama asked the woman who had interfered with those messages—in other words, the being that held his fate or whatever it was.

His sharp gaze caught the woman.

“…When did I say that I gave you that power?”

At the woman’s quiet murmur, Tooyama’s gaze softened slightly.

“Huh? But if you know that much about it—”

“It was not me. There is another existence who gave you that power.”

The woman muttered in a voice mixed with a sigh.

“…Listening to complicated stuff like this in a dream feels like it’ll make my head go crazy. What a pain.”

As the conversation began to tangle, Tooyama grumbled while sticking out his tongue.

“I recommend you listen anyway. You are already easy to kill. Would you not want to eliminate even a few uncertainties and unknowns?”

“You say that in an unpleasant way.”

“Hehe, it is my nature. …The one who gave you that power was not us.”

After a bit of light banter came a brief silence.

Come to think of it, this building had no windows. Tooyama suddenly became curious about that unrelated detail—

“The one who gave you that sacrament was the ‘angel.’”

“Ah… That’s a name I’ve heard recently.”

The woman muttered the name of an existence that was hard to say was surprising or not.

“Yes. Some ‘thing’ said to exist somewhere in this world. The one served by us familiars, whose true identity no one should know, yet who certainly influences the world.”

He recalled the bishop’s words at the Church. Some “thing” no one understood. Some “thing” that existed somewhere in this world and influenced it as if squirming.

The woman declared that such an incomprehensible existence was the one who had given him those messages.

“What is that thing?”

She called herself the familiar of knowledge. Then this woman had to know about this angel or whatever it was. Tooyama threw that natural question at her.

“I have no idea at all.”

“Huh?”

The answer that came back was anticlimactic.

“We know nothing. Not a single one of us familiars knows its true identity.”

“No, that’s strange, isn’t it?”

“Yes, exactly. We familiars are certainly the powers themselves subordinated to the angel. Normally, since it is the one who created us, it would only be natural for us to recognize it. But even the name ‘angel’—we do not know who first began calling it that.”

“Gross.”

He muttered that instinctively.

What was that? Tooyama’s face twisted with an indescribable unease and a confusion close to disgust.

“Yes, absolutely, absolutely correct. As the familiar of ‘knowledge,’ this is a grave situation. Something even I do not know is truly unpleasant. But that too will now end. A clue has appeared, after all.”

The woman, whose face was likewise clouded with disgust, suddenly raised her face.

Her eyes were staring intently at Tooyama.

“A clue?”

“You, of course. Greedy human, our master of dreams who threw away fate and killed a dragon.”

Tap. The woman struck the table with her thin finger.

Softly, softly, as if taking that as a signal, round books flew from the bookshelves through the air like butterflies and settled into the woman’s hand.

While fixing the slipping of her glasses, the woman turned the pages of that book and layered her words.

“That angel interfered with you. It gave you the power to know your own fate and tried to intervene with you. That means you are a human who drew the angel’s interest.”

“…Quest Marker. Those arrows and messages are because that thing called the angel is showing them to me?”

As he organized the information gained from the conversation, Tooyama spun his words.

“Yes, exactly. I do not know whether your escape from slavery to fate was according to the angel’s intentions, but surely, there is some kind of connection between you and the angel.”

The woman answered while laughing amusedly.

Her glass-bead-like eyes, however, clearly carried heat.

“No, wait. That’s strange. If its identity is that unknown, how can you assert that the one who gave me those messages and arrows was the angel?”

Tooyama voiced the obvious question. The woman’s words before him contradicted themselves.

If she did not know the angel’s identity, he could not understand the logic that connected those messages to an angelic origin at all.

“Ah, quite sharp. I do not dislike conversations with quick-witted mortals. The answer is simple. It is because the one who planted me in your dream was the angel.”

“…Planted?”

At the unpleasant ring of the word, Tooyama instinctively asked back.

“Yes. When I realized it, I was inside your dream. No existence but the angel could force such a thing upon me, a familiar. And in the first place, no existence except the ‘angel’ can interfere with fate, destiny, or mission. It is simple logic.”

“I get the feeling that’s just your wishful thinking. It’s only circumstantial evidence.”

“Oh my, how harsh. But it is more than enough evidence to form a hypothesis.”

This one is pretty much talking on vibes. Tooyama switched to listening to her story with half an ear.

It seemed that whether one was human or some other existence, mixing wishful thinking into clues did not change.

“…Why can you interfere with those messages?”

Tooyama asked about the mechanism behind the earlier phenomenon, how she had spoken to him through the message.

“Ah, that is an application of my authority. I am merely delivering messages through your dream. Just a little assistance.”

“Then the other things, those ridiculous quests or whatever…”

“The things titled ‘quests’ are, without a doubt, nothing other than the voice of fate continuing to ring from somewhere in this world. The sacrament given to you visualizes them and delivers them to you.”

“…That’s creepy.”

Main quests, side quests, and hidden quests. He had thought those were hallucinations shown by his otaku brain, but apparently that was not the case.

It was simply too incomprehensible, and that made it creepy.

“Yes, absolutely. But honestly, hehe, what creeps me out the most is you.”

“Huh?”

At the sudden thorn thrown at him, Tooyama lowered his voice.

“Is that not natural? You were originally one of the people on the side that had things. Your fate was decided, what you had to accomplish was decided, and you were even given training wheels, or a Quest Marker, to help you reach that destination. And yet, you threw all of that away.”

The woman laughed amusedly. Reflected in her glasses were Tooyama and the flickering fire in the fireplace.

“Heh, hehehe. You were an existence given things because things had been taken from you, and yet you threw all of them away. In a sense, do you not think that is more distorted than something born with nothing at all?”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Don’t talk in such a roundabout way.”

“Oh my. Then I shall be simple. I want to make a deal with you. With you, our master of dreams, the greedy human who removed the angel’s shackles.”

“I don’t want to make one with someone suspicious.”

Tooyama declared that flatly. It stank to high heaven.

“Oh my, hehehe, how cautious. Then for the sake of mutual understanding, I shall speak of my purpose without concealing anything.”

“Somehow the conversation doesn’t quite line up, but fine. What’s your purpose?”

A conversation with a resident of dreams. It was suspicious, and he could not trust her, but Tooyama answered out of simple curiosity.

“Where did I come from, and where am I going?”

Tooyama froze slightly at those words.

The woman’s expression was direct, aimed at Tooyama.

“That is what I wish to know. The question I cannot know even after becoming an existence possessing all knowledge. The secret hidden by the angel, which even the familiar of knowledge cannot reach. That is what I wish to know.”

“…Huh.”

Tooyama became a little interested in the woman.

Tooyama had forgotten that knowledge always crept up on people like this.

“A familiar is something like a role that rotates by replacement. Perhaps you could call it roleplay decided by the angel. I am the familiar of knowledge, Harvey, but that is only the name of the role. I wish to know my own true identity.”

“Ah, so you’re asking me to join you on a journey of self-discovery?”

Tooyama shot back lightly. Harvey, the woman who called herself that, nodded.

“That is what it amounts to. Ah, of course, I will not say it is free. This is a transaction. I have prepared many benefits for you.”

Harvey grinned.

“I shall grant you rights to the books within my Archives.”

Flick, swish.

Harvey waved her long, slender finger like a conductor’s baton, and as if obeying it, one thick book danced from the bookshelf again.

It quietly reached Tooyama without making a sound.

“Whoa, what is this round thing… A book…?”

A circular book. The binding and pages were all circular. It had no corners.

“Yes, it is a book. Please open it.”

“…It’s blank.”

When he opened it as told, nothing was written on the moist parchment pages. Only blankness spread across them.

“The blankness of that book is filled by the knowledge you desire.”

“…What does that mean?”

Suspicious words. However, for some reason, Tooyama could not take his eyes off the blank book.

“Exactly as the words say. The Archives provides the knowledge needed by the one who holds the right. If you wish for victory, this library will contain the knowledge to kill enemies and obtain rewards.”

The woman raised one finger. Her words pointed toward a cheat for conquering this world.

“If you wish for survival, this library will contain knowledge to let you survive by any means.”

The woman raised two fingers. Those words pointed toward a cheat for surviving this world.

“If you wish for return, then the knowledge to return to your original world—”

The woman raised three fingers. Those words were about Tooyama Naruhito’s adventure—

“You bastard…”

Interrupting the woman’s words, Tooyama sharpened his gaze.

This thing knew. She knew where Tooyama Naruhito had come from, or at least knew that he was not an existence of this world.

“Since I have been allowed to live in your dream, I have viewed all sorts of things. Tooyama Naruhito, Advanced Explorer, male, primary weapons: blunt instruments and handguns. Personality: self-centered, cautious, and cunning. Favorite foods: honey, bread, sweets, and vegetables in general. …Personally, I preferred your story as a student over your story after becoming an explorer. A self full of holes, one that did not forgive enemies, was faithful to desire, cold-hearted and self-righteous, yet indulgent toward those close to you. A lonely person who had no choice but to become an adult, and—”

Her gray eyes. Their pupils distorted into squares. Eyes like those of a goat, an existence that deceived and tempted people, called in the West the very image of a devil, gazed at Tooyama.

“And an alien thing itself, not a human of this world.”

“So you know all the circumstances around that too.”

He understood her cards for the most part. It seemed best to recognize that she knew everything about him.

Tooyama stared back at those square pupils.

“Yes. Since the moment I was planted in your dream, the sheet has already been complete. …Alien thing from another world, the fate protecting you has already vanished. Do you not now need knowledge and power?”

Ping.

What echoed was the sound of fate assigned to all. Tooyama Naruhito had choices: accept it, or reject it.

The arrow pointed at the gray-haired woman, the devil.

“See? The sound of fate has arrived. Well, honestly, you may obey it or refuse it. I will merely tell you that doing the opposite is not always the correct answer.”

“………Isn’t your explanation lacking?”

“Pardon?”

“You called it a deal. You’ve only talked about the benefits for me.”

It was a deal with a devil.

Tooyama quietly spun his words.

“My, I thought I had spoken of my purpose.”

The woman, Harvey, smiled pleasantly, and her expression carried a color that could even be called bewitching.

“Don’t play dumb, four-eyed octopus. What do you want from me in this deal? What are you going to make me do?”

Tooyama pressed forward to understand the contents of the deal.

Everyone was like that. They mistakenly believed they alone could handle a deal with a devil well.

“Hmm, hmm-hmm. I see, I see. You truly are capable of negotiating properly with that bishop. As expected of our master of dreams. Hehehe, the Dragon of Human Knowledge was quite perceptive after all.”

“Ugh, you’re connected to that pervert dragon?”

Tooyama reacted to the familiar and highly distinctive name.

“…That is my line, seriously. —Ahem. Yes, I too had my eye on the bishop, Kanosa Tier Field. However, no matter how excellent she is, she is far too loved by fate and destiny. She does not suit my purpose.”

That was another name he had heard before. While idly thinking that the world was small, Tooyama continued listening.

“And the Dragon of Human Knowledge, Ai Kelbrem Doctustail… She is… truly. How did she end up like that? No matter how one looks at it, she was won over far too easily…”

“No, what’s your relationship with her?”

“She and I were… in a relationship like an alliance until very recently. Since she was the All-Knowing Dragon and I am the familiar of knowledge, the things we sought were similar… But from one month ago, when she suddenly began calling herself the Dragon of Human Knowledge, she became… simply that sort of amusing existence…”

“Ah, I see…”

He somehow understood without needing to ask. Tooyama felt just a little familiarity and sympathy for the woman before him.

“Damn it, seriously, what the hell is a dragon who knows humans… I feel stupid for naming her the Eternal Seeker…”

“Did you just say something?”

He asked back after hearing her quiet grumbling, words he could not make out.

“No, nothing in particular. Master, yes, exactly as you say. I accidentally forgot to inform you of the details of the deal. I would be grateful if you could forgive me.”

After clearing her throat to cover it up, Harvey spoke with a refreshed face.

“You raccoon dog. Just hurry up and tell me your benefit. The price I have to pay.”

Tooyama let that slide and urged her on.

“Yes, it is simple, truly simple and straightforward. To continue using the knowledge gained from the Archives. That is all.”

“Huh.”

Tooyama repeated that condition to himself.

He somehow had a bad feeling. The price sounded too light when he heard it.

“Yes, yes. You will continue using my knowledge for your own sake. Just by doing that, these Archives will be yours.”

“If you gain knowledge for victory, you need only continue winning. If you gain knowledge to live, you must continue living. That is all. With only that, you can obtain new knowledge.”

“Our master of dreams, you should be one who knows the value of knowledge. To avoid losing, to obtain, you should need power.”

“Power, huh…”

That was indeed something he had strongly felt throughout the day.

With his power alone, a limit would come someday, somewhere. Tooyama had no intention of changing his way of life, and if he died because of that, he seriously thought that would be fine in its own way.

But if he died—

“Yes. You will continue using the knowledge here and advancing through your life. That is my wish. The more you, who have drawn the angel’s attention, rampage, and the more influence you have on this world, the more surely frays will appear. Those will become clues to the answer I seek.”

Harvey’s explanation was understandable. Tooyama nodded.

“I see. In short, I’m some kind of decoy or chum. You’re hoping that angel or whatever will meddle with me.”

“Hehe, no, nothing like that. This should be a more win-win deal. Either way, you have many enemies. If you continue living in this world, conflict will be unavoidable, will it not? I merely watch over that.”

“That’s what a decoy is.”

This stinks.

Tooyama narrowed his eyes while opening the blank book. Throughout all times and places, anyone who said they would give something in exchange for doing something was never a good person.

The benefits he could gain and the predictable disadvantages.

The condition was to continue using the knowledge in exchange for obtaining it. At first listen, it did not seem like a big deal, but that was wrong.

He would probably truly have to continue using it. If he asked for knowledge for victory, that existence would have to continue winning. He would likely have to always place himself in conflict.

Harvey was hiding that twisted disadvantage, and she had not explained what would happen if he broke it either.

A deal with a devil resembled making a major purchase in the modern age, with contracts involved.

They would casually say it was your fault for not asking.

Tooyama was a person who understood such conventions.

All right, I’ll refuse.

Tooyama tried to open his mouth.

Ping.

Images flowed into his head.

Lazaar was collapsed, covered in blood. Shadows seeped out around him as he lay on his back, dragging his body into the ground.

“Ah…?”

He held his head. However, the images did not stop.

【Bro… I’m sorry, for being a burden…】

Images.

Everyone was dead. In a room he had never seen, the children were dead. Luca showed a hollow dead face with blood flowing from his head, Niko had been split clean in two, and Rida sank in a pool of blood. As for Pero and Shiro, only their bloody clothes remained—

“Wait, wa…it.”

He collapsed from the chair.

As strength left his body, new images entered his head again.

Images and voices—

【Then I shall choose the world of humans! In this world you scream has no worth, I shall find worth! Because I believe the lives of humans are precious, because they are worthy of being my collection!!】

A golden dragon shouted into a sky thick with dark clouds. She shouted her heart toward the swirling flames themselves. The beautiful, dazzling gold, however, was engulfed in the flames released from the heavens.

Until her very end, the golden dragon continued to revere the worth of the human world. Six roars thundered from within the flames, and then the golden dragon melted and vanished.

“What, what is this…?”

Nausea and chills raged violently through his body. Unable to bear it, Tooyama put his hands on the spot and crouched.

Those gray eyes merely watched him.

【Beginning fraudulent recognition of the adventure city as the human world. Hypothetically recognizing the current situation as a crisis of “humanity.” Selecting my entire existence as the magical reactor core… Conditions achieved. Now, it’s your turn. Let’s go. The traces of humans who lived, the marks humans left behind. This time, the correct role to you all. Yes. I am satisfied. Goodbye, my—no, our—】

Her silver hair returned to black. Looking up at the sky thick with dark clouds, she gently watched the melting golden dragon and glared at the flames dozing in the heavens.

She fed her existence into the fire. She used the power of omniscience through the principles of human knowledge. She vanished, and the beings she offered up her existence to call forth in exchange were great humans manifested from the heavens—

Six of them. The great humans faced the flames trying to destroy humanity.

“…Hah, hah, this is them…”

The flowing images were so real that he no longer even knew where he was. The dream seen within a dream violated Tooyama’s consciousness.

He could no longer distinguish between reality and dream. The images shown by the Archives were that vivid, that cruel—

“What did you see? No, what exactly did the Archives show you?”

Harvey was laughing.

Her eyes, looking down on Tooyama, were endlessly amused.

“You… bastard… Just now, that was you—”

“It was not me. That was what the knowledge of the Archives showed you. Did you know? Knowledge waits to be found. It waits to be used.”

Tooyama looked up, but unlike Harvey, there was not the slightest composure in his expression.

“What knowledge showed you was the end of walking forward while still lacking. Knowledge whispered this to you: to protect, to obtain, to overturn, you need power, do you not?”

“U… Ah…”

With cold sweat on his face, Tooyama covered it.

The images, the voices, robbed him of normal judgment. Despair and tragedy eroded Tooyama Naruhito’s self.

“Now, which knowledge will you choose? Knowledge to kill enemies? Very well. Let us kill your enemies before they kill those dear to you. That is the fastest way.”

Her voice bounced, endlessly amused.

“Or knowledge to survive? Very well. Separation and loss are, in the end, caused by death. Then if you do not want to lose anything, you and those dear to you need only keep living forever. That is the most efficient way.”

Even without putting it into words, her voice told that she was enjoying this beyond measure.

“Shut up, shut up… This is obviously way too suspicious, damn it.”

Instinctively, Tooyama refused to decide.

However, even that was being distorted by the Archives, by knowledge itself.

“Ah, hehe, our master of dreams, you are a human who had no choice but to become an adult. A human whom no one protected, whom no one saved, who gave up on everything, and yet still stood up nonetheless. …So, look, please look behind you. The one you threw away is still there, all alone.”

Harvey pointed behind Tooyama.

That was possible in this space.

A horrifying performance possible precisely because this was Tooyama’s dream.

What the familiar summoned there was—

“Huh?”

He looked back toward where she pointed. He looked back despite himself.

What was there was—

“M-Me…?”

Tooyama.

Behind Tooyama, there was Tooyama.

A Tooyama whose eyes had been gouged out, whose mouth had been sewn shut, and whose ears had been sliced off—

And then, softly.

That figure vanished.

In the next instant, Tooyama and that Tooyama’s body overlapped.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

An abnormality occurred.

His body began to shrink. His trained flesh, his familiar blood, and even his refined mind.

The time of Tooyama’s existence began to rewind within his consciousness.

All the weapons Tooyama Naruhito had obtained over the time called life vanished.

The familiar of knowledge had dragged out what he had pushed into the deepest place of the dream world, his own depths.

“Look, now you are back to normal. You, who are incomplete, have now returned to childhood. The more humans grow, the more they begin to ignore the voices of their own hearts.”

Harvey laughed.

She knew well the fragility of mortal beings. She knew well how to make humans fall: beings who could never be complete alone, and who were, at their essence, frail.

“Ah…”

Before he knew it, Tooyama Naruhito had changed into the form of a child.

Unkempt, messy hair, thin limbs, and a delicate body. Only his eyes could not be seen, because his messy bangs hid them.

“But in that form, you should be able to obey the true voice of your heart. Hehehe, you look very delicious.”

The familiar of knowledge smiled at the child who could not face hardship, overcome crisis, or kill injustice.

Her red tongue licked her lips.

“Now, please come this way. I shall guide you through my Archives…”

“…Okay.”

Led by the hand, he began walking through the bookshelves together with the gray-haired woman, Harvey. His mind was pulled by his form, and Tooyama’s thoughts grew hazy.

“What frightens you?”

The familiar of knowledge asked the child. Tooyama, returned to the age of an elementary school student, answered the question according to his heart.

“…Being weak is scary, because everything gets taken away.”

An exposed heart. Tooyama, in the form of a child, laid bare to Harvey the most defenseless part of his heart, one even he himself had not been aware of.

“Ah, certainly. That is frightening. Then how about this knowledge? Knowledge of strength. The secrets to reaching the strength sleeping in this world will become yours. No one will be able to stand equal to you, and you will be able to wield power exactly as you wish.”

“…”

“Oh my, does it not please you? That is fine. We have plenty of time. What do you want?”

“…Friends. I’m always alone. So I’m lonely…”

“Ah, then how about this? Knowledge to be loved by people. If you use this, any human will love you unconditionally. You will be wrapped in countless loves and never feel lonely again.”

Harvey offered another round book. Written in that book was the knowledge of love and desire. The power and knowledge to be loved by any existence.

“………No.”

However, the child shook his head at that too. He should have hated being alone and feared loneliness, but he rejected love.

“Hm? That is strange. You should be more honest with your desires than most…”

Harvey was somewhat confused. What was appearing now should have been the weakest and most honest part of the human called Tooyama Naruhito.

Therefore, he could not lie, and therefore, he could not endure. He should have been unable to hide his craving, and yet neither power nor love could draw Tooyama’s interest.

“W-Well, there is still plenty of knowledge. Now, please tell me what you want.”

“What I… want…”

“Y-Yes, that is right. I shall give to you. I shall offer to you. The power to conquer this world, the knowledge to conquer this world. You want it, do you not? You saw it, did you not? What you will lose from now on while remaining weak. You hate it, do you not? Having things taken from you—”

Kneeling down and meeting the child Tooyama’s gaze, Harvey clouded her gray eyes.

Apart from using Tooyama Naruhito as a clue, as part of the instinct of her role, she also found purpose in giving to people and witnessing the outcome.

“What I… want…”

“Yes! Yes! Everything is here. Knowledge is the power to arrive at one’s destination. My master of dreams, this familiar of knowledge shall grant you everything needed to reach it—no, everything you desire!”

“Now, mortal, desire it, obtain it. In your limited life, obey the desires overflowing within you—”

The familiar, a mass of power deviating from this world. That existence, equal to a higher-dimensional information body called a “god,” something that did not exist in this world, attended Tooyama Naruhito.

She was about to give him a cheat—

“I don’t need it.”

“…Hm?”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Huh?”

Her gray eyes wavered. His brown eyes did not move at all.

The gloomy-looking boy began muttering quietly.

“I don’t need it. The fact that I’m weak and have things taken from me, the fact that I’m alone and lonely, all of that is mine.”

“Eh, no, no, no, what are you saying?”

“Even if I can’t arrive there, even if things are taken from me, even if I’m lonely and suffering so badly I might die, that is all mine, even those emotions.”

Essence.

Harvey had misjudged Tooyama Naruhito’s essence.

The familiar of knowledge, who had seen countless existences, and who for a time had even made that “All-Knowing Dragon” her servant, had misjudged that tiny human from the very beginning.

“The end, the conclusion, the process, and every one of the choices are mine alone. Being guided by others, ordered by others, leaving it to others, or being given it by others must never happen.”

“Ah, gh!?”

The boy grabbed the dumbfounded Harvey’s slender neck with his small hand.

Weak strength, thin arms.

Suddenly, the eyes hidden behind his bangs peeked through the gaps in his hair.

That look in his eyes had not changed. Only the eyes of an explorer, utterly without hesitation in killing an enemy.

No, that was wrong. It was not because he was an explorer. Tooyama Naruhito had been like this from the beginning.

“Ah, gh, wh-what are you…”

“You don’t give it to me. You don’t guide me. You don’t choose. I do. I decide everything about myself.”

A dark voice. The boy’s high, cute voice was nevertheless endlessly deep and dim.

“Tarou isn’t here. But I’m going on an adventure. Don’t get in the way. His and my adventure belongs only to us.”

The words of him in the form of a child were all of the human called Tooyama laid bare.

True greed desires even the suffering of desires that were not granted as its own.

Therefore, he did not allow it. The instant another person intervened, that desire stopped being his. Tooyama knew that.

“Ah, gh, Ta-Tarou…? Don’t tell me what’s at the bottom of that lake is—”

“You’re not the one who gives. I’m the one who takes it from you.”

“Hi, r-return!”

Flutter, flutter. Harvey’s outline blurred, and then her figure transformed into countless bats, escaping from the child Tooyama’s strangling grip.

“…Are you running?”

“R-Return, return, return, returnreturn!”

Swaying, the boy walked toward Harvey, who had pulled back. Each time he took a step forward, the familiar of knowledge frantically began waving her finger over and over.

She had mistaken the battlefield. It was Harvey’s Archives, but at the same time, this was inside Tooyama Naruhito’s dream.

The true nature of a mad human as he was, in the form of a young boy. The familiar of knowledge was genuinely frightened by that child in a T-shirt and shorts.

“I’ll kill you. You tried to get in the way of my adventure. Enemy…”

With steps like a ghost, swaying and wavering, Tooyama Naruhito gazed at his prey.

“Hi, no, no, no, no!! R-Re-turn!”

Harvey no longer had the leisure to keep up appearances. She waved her finger again and again, and then—

“Ah.”

Pop.

A silly sound like a champagne cork being pulled out. At the same time, Tooyama Naruhito’s figure returned to normal.

“Hah, hah, hah, thank goodness…”

“Ow, ow, my head hurts. Damn, what was that…? My body turned into something like a kid’s…”

Tooyama sat down on the spot and held his head, confused by the strange sensation.

However, for some reason, his feelings had become rather, completely refreshed.

“Thank goodness, he returned, he is back… Hehe, hehehe, a-as expected of our master of dreams. It seems you are no ordinary person.”

“Shut up. I really can’t trust you after all. Turning someone into a little boy and trying to mess with him? Doing something like out of a dirty doujin.”

The despair that had clung to him from those images was now gone.

With only a flat sensation, Tooyama stood up.

“Wh-What shameless words… A-As if such a terrifying child could be a cute little boy!”

“Ah, I was adorable, wasn’t I?”

“No! That was definitely the kind of child who had already killed several people… Ah, you had, now that I think about it…”

“What are you talking about? Hah, but I somehow understand how this place works now. Knowledge, I see. It seems you want to force me to use the knowledge here, whether I like it or not.”

“Y-Yes, that will lead to my objective, and to overcoming the trials approaching you—”

“I’ve decided. Knowledge. Give me the knowledge I need right now.”

Interrupting Harvey’s words, Tooyama spun his own.

Tooyama Naruhito had decided to take the familiar of knowledge’s hand.

Ping.

The shitty disadvantage he had expected was revealed.

However, Tooyama laughed at it.

He had already decided what knowledge he would continue using.

“H-Hehe, good, that is good. Wh-What will you choose? Knowledge of power? Or knowledge of love? Knowledge of life? There is also knowledge of death… Ah, ah, ah, that is right. Dragons, knowledge to gain the power of dragons. Dragon knowledge would be fitting for you, the dragon slayer, would it not?! Yes, the only counter against the angel—”

“Bread knowledge.”

Tooyama spoke the knowledge he sought.

That became the signal.

“…………………………..Hm?”

“I want bread knowledge.”

“……………………What? Bread?”

Clunk.

It accepted Tooyama Naruhito’s wish.

The transaction was made. The Archives optimized itself toward the knowledge wished for by the one who held its rights.

“Ah, no, wa—wait, wait a moment! Archives!! That does not count, it does not count! Knowledge of bread, something like that!?”

“Oh, amazing. The books are flying.”

“Aaaaaaaaah!? No, no, no, no, no!? You are kidding me, right?! Why, why is the entire Archives being overwritten?!”

“Because it’s inside my dream, maybe? You know, like land rent.”

“Ah, aaah, no, no, no, stop, stop… Ah, aaah, my Archives, all of it…”

Clank, clank.

The bookshelves changed as if a puzzle were being assembled. The Archives, with its artisan-like feeling, cared about its own atmosphere and design.

“Whoa, it smells amazing. This book smells like bread.”

Bookshelves designed like a bakery’s stone oven, bookshelves shaped like baguettes, and bookshelves shaped like baskets.

On top of that, for some reason, the scent of freshly baked bread drifted properly through the air.

The Archives, which had already left the familiar of knowledge’s servitude, welcomed its new rights holder.

“Ah, aaaaaah…”

“Whoa, it’s all written in Japanese. Ah, there’s how to make sweet bean buns too. Oh, this book is the history of croissants… Huh.”

Ignoring Harvey, who was letting out a voice of despair, Tooyama immediately began rummaging through the books.

Before he knew it, even the book designs had changed. They were no longer circular.

They had properly returned to ordinary designs with corners.

“Ah, aaah, power, love, life, death, justice, contracts, evil deeds… It all turned into bread…”

“Hey, you. The contents of the deal with you were to keep using that knowledge, right? Don’t worry. I’ll use it all up for you.”

Holding a round book that smelled of fragrant bread, Tooyama laughed.

“You are insane… After seeing that tragedy, how could you… choose bread?”

Unable to understand from the bottom of her heart, Harvey asked Tooyama without trying to hide her disgust.

“Ah? That could’ve just been a hallucination you showed me. Reaching for some incomprehensible, dangerous thing for the sake of something that might not even happen is what idiots do.”

“Are you saying… you are fine with losing them?”

There was no longer any strength in that question, but it was a natural one.

“Hehehehehehe, that won’t happen. Even if I lose them, I’ll take them back. I’ll dispose of anyone who gets in my way. This time, I’m definitely building a house by the lakeside.”

He laughed at despair and tragedy.

“All of it. This time, I’ll do everything. I won’t give up on anything, and I won’t compromise on anything. Do you know what I need for that?”

Explorers always laughed away despair and tragedy. That fact alone did not change no matter what world they were in.

“…Ah, aaah, those eyes, those eyes are scary…”

Happy eyes drenched in intoxication. Harvey saw them and trembled.

“Delicious food and a warm bed! A satisfied life! To challenge trials, to smash everything according to my desires, that’s what I need. So I’ll gratefully use this knowledge, familiar of knowledge.”

Tooyama leaned back smugly with a proud face, while Harvey sat on the floor, frightened.

The ranking had been settled.

“The deal is established, then.”

He made the strongest smug face in Tooyama history, as much as possible.

The greedy man laughed at everything and usurped the knowledge of bread from the familiar of knowledge. Not power, not life, not death.

Therefore, as long as Tooyama Naruhito continued living according to his desires, as long as he lived like himself, the transaction would be fulfilled.

“Ah, aaah…”

The familiar of knowledge finally realized it.

This was the type of human one must not get involved with.

Her Archives, created over a long span of time, was now no longer a library that preserved all the knowledge of the world, but a library that preserved all the delicious bread of every world.

The desires of a greedy adventurer had completely invaded the domain of a godlike existence.

“Ah, no, you are kidding me… The knowledge of power, the knowledge of life, they only existed inside me. All the books are gone…”

“Oh, found a book on hot dogs. I like these.”

Harvey knelt there blankly, frozen. Most of the knowledge that had existed in her Archives had been invaded by bread.

“Huh, it even lists how to make sausages. But I heard those go bad if you don’t chill them and stuff.”

Tooyama looked around the bookshelves with endless carefreeness.

Crackle. The firewood in the fireplace popped again.

“Pweh.”

“Huh?”

He heard a strange voice from Harvey’s direction.

“Pweh, wa… Pwah, pweh…”

Behind her glasses, tears rapidly gathered in her gray eyes. They soon burst.

“Waaah, uwaaaaaaaaaaan!! Pwehn, pweeeeeeeh, nooooooo, my, Harvey’s books… Waaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

She bawled. Harvey, tears flowing like a waterfall as she lay on her back, made the Archives shake with her crying voice.

Holding a book under one arm, Tooyama Naruhito stood stock-still in a daze.

“………………She started crying!!!”

Before the familiar who had suddenly burst into tears, he was honestly panicking quite a bit.