Half an hour earlier
"Nighthawk, Dunn Smith, reintroducing myself," The man took off his hat with a smile and slightly bowed, then straightened.
He was the man he saw in his dreams after he tried to run away from him and get on a carriage to leave, but as it turned out, Nighthawk Dunn Smith was somehow the driver.
"You can control dreams? You made the dream I was in?"
"No, I only entered your dream and provided the necessary guidance." Dunn Smith slightly shook his head as he put his hat back on and continued. "In dreams, much of your usually suppressed emotions and dark thoughts run rampant, making everything seem chaotic, absurd, and crazy, which is why most people can't remember dreams after they wake up. But, they are all connected to reality since reality exists, and so for veterans like me, everything is crystal clear, which is why I believe you in your dreams more than I do the current you standing in front of me."
What kind of normal human could control dreams?
What next? An animal that had an affinity for dreams as well?
If Klein had dreamt something about Earth, wouldn't Dunn notice?
Yet, when Klein was dreaming, it didn't feel like a dream at all; he felt sober and rational, knowing what to say and what not to say.
Was this a reward for his transmigration to this place? A special body and soul, or was it the effects of that luck enhancement ritual he did with that old book?
"So, Mr. Smith, do you truly believe that I lost my memories?"
It seemed to be the very reason Dunn Smith knocked on his door in the first place in his dream.
"You don't seem too surprised at the course of events. How come? I've met people who didn't believe in the power of Beyonders, and I've met even more people who didn't believe they were truly awake, but rather they genuinely believed they were still dreaming."
"Perhaps it's because I always prayed, hoping that such a power would come to help me," Klein said as he briefly acknowledged the man's statement.
"An interesting train of thought, maybe it wasn't because of luck that you survived the gunshot." Dunn nodded with a blank expression.
"So I can go back now?"
"No, you still have to come with me to see the expert," Dunn said with a polite smile, placing his hands in his pockets and slowly walking towards Klein as the surrounding darkness grew gentle.
"What?! Don't you believe what you saw in my dreams? You just said that you did!" Klein blurted out in confusion,
"Calm down, I'm usually very humble yet confident in things related to dreams; however, because this is for an ongoing investigation, it wouldn't hurt to confirm twice. Plus, our specialties lie elsewhere, too; maybe the expert can help you recover some of your lost memories. After all, you're connected to the location of the Antigonus notebook."
"What?" Klein froze in place, and he felt his heart drop to his stomach.
"At the scene of the suicide, there was not a single trace of the notebook. Welch is dead, Naya is dead, which makes you our only lead." Dunn said, locking eyes with Klein as he stopped before him.
"Alright then," Klein nodded as he exhaled.
"Lock your door and come with me to Welch's apartment; the expert is waiting for us there," Dunn said with a nod as he walked past Klein.
Klein took a deep, silent breath to calm his wildly beating heart. He was feeling uneasy about the entire situation.
He wanted to decline and make a break for it, but the gap in strength and speed between a normal human and a beyonder was likely as big as a chasm.
Simply put, running from Dunn might as well have been like trying to run from a rhino with cement blocks for shoes while you were also stuck in quicksand.
That wasn't simple at all to any outsider, but it was simple to Klein! Dunn also might've had his revolver with him, too, which played a significant factor in why Klein didn't try to run off.
"Alright," Klein nodded,
"Then let's go," The man said in an indifferent tone,
"Actually, Mr. Smith, I… I would like to use the bathroom first.
I came out originally for the bathroom
"No problem, Klein. Believe me, I am far more powerful than you can imagine at night.
At night, Klein repeated his last words in his head,
Klein went to the bathroom, washed his hands, then washed his face with cold water, after honestly relieving himself.
He then left the bathroom, changed his outfit, closed the door to his apartment behind him, locking it, and followed Dunn down the stairs towards the building entrance.
"At the end of the dream, why did you try to run away? What were you afraid of?" Dunn Smith asked as he reached the door and held it open for Klein to walk through.
Minutes passed by as they rode in the carriage and talked about the deaths of the two people and the notebook, then their conversation ended abruptly. Klein sat in silence across from the man as they were transported from Klein's apartment to Welch's, so Klein could meet the 'expert'.
As the carriage moved at a moderate pace with the hooves of the horse clacking throughout the quiet streets, Klein mulled over the conversation he had just had about the suicides he was told had happened over the past year, including the recently deceased Welch McGovern and Naya, friends of the original Klein Moretti.
After a long minute, he decided to push them into the gutters of his mind and go over what had transpired over the past couple of days since he transmigrated into Loen Kingdom on June 28th, 1349, leading up to this very moment.
Klein quietly inhaled and exhaled, then began summarizing.
First, Klein transmigrated into this world by performing a luck ritual from an ancient book; then he woke up in a room he didn't recognize, with a painful headache.
Then he went to look at himself and found a hole in the side of his head from the result of the original Klein shooting himself, at least that's what Klein gathered from the scene in the room.
Klein didn't know much about guns in his previous life on earth, but he understood their basic functions and knew they were extremely loud, especially revolvers.
So how did Melissa not hear it go off?
Klein knew that his sister cared about him a great deal, so he knew that Melissa would've rushed into his room to find her older brother's fresh corpse slumped in the chair.
And yet she didn't, in fact, she came into the room yawning and rubbing her eyes from sleepiness, meaning she slept through the whole thing.
Did it have something to do with the notebook the original Klein wrote in?
No, that would be absurd,
Klein dismissed those thoughts as he likely wouldn't know what truly happened that night for a long time.
Next, Klein went to buy items for dinner later that night and came across many tents with people wearing clown makeup and funny attire, distributing fliers to passersby.
As he went to approach one of them, a "fortune teller" asked him if he wanted to have a divination. Once Klein learned it cost nothing, he went inside. Once inside the tent, he asked the woman if there were any additional fees, and the animal trainer posing as a fortune teller shook her head.
Then she asked what he wanted to know, and Klein told her he wanted to know his past, present, or future. So the woman made him reshuffle the deck, and Klein placed it on the table. The animal trainer, pretending to be a fortune teller, picked out one card from the deck, telling him that this was his past, and placed it on his left side.
Then she picked a second card, telling him this was his present, and put it in front of him; then she picked a third card, telling him this was his future, and put it on his right side. She then asked which one he wanted to know about first, and Klein chose the present.
The 'fortune teller' picked up the card and turned it over, showing an image of a colorfully dressed person wearing ragged headwear, a stick over his shoulder, and a puppy trailing behind him.
"The fool," She called it, but before the woman could continue, the real fortune teller came in, scolded her, and shooed her out. Klein left the tent once the real fortune teller said he had to pay for it.
Klein was going to continue until he heard Dunn's voice,
"Stop the carriage,"
Huh? What's wrong? I was almost finished with my summary!
"Mr. Smith, is something wrong?" Klein asked,
Dunn didn't answer, but was looking out the carriage window to his right, so Klein followed his line of sight and saw… goodness gracious… seven ridiculously, almost obnoxiously good-looking people standing in front of a store, talking amongst themselves, bathed in the crimson moonlight. One of them, with auburn hair, was staring at Dunn with a curious gaze.
Though, strangely enough, another one of them, with intense black eyes and black hair, blended in with the darkness so well that Klein wouldn't have noticed him if the moon hadn't been shining on the man who, for some reason, was staring at him with wide eyes.
It's probably because of his clothes and the cape he's wearing that he blends in so well
Nighthawk Dunn Smith got their attention by clearing his throat and rapping at the carriage door several times.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Hey, it's already past midnight, and thugs and lowlifes are lurking around every corner at night who will mug you, steal the clothes off your back, and sell them to whoever wants them. I hope there is a good reason you all are still out here." Dunn said as he eyed each of them for a moment.
A slender, tall man in a simple black suit stepped forward with a polite smile, bowed, then straightened.
"We are terribly sorry for any inconvenience we might've caused. You see, we just moved here recently and are still trying to figure out our way out of this fair city. We just finished purchasing new clothes and were just on our way home, officer…"
"Captain Smith, Dunn Smith of the ACSOD," he corrected the man, reaching into his pocket to show his insignia, the very same one that was on the side of the carriage, then put it back in his pocket and continued. "You seven being new here explains why I don't recognize your faces."
Huh? He told me he was with the nighthawks earlier, unless he's using this as a cover because they are regular civilians.
Now that he thought about it, the cover made sense as Klein knew that the name Nighthawk was simply a code name of the church of the evernight goddess, beyonder teams. This was something most normal civilians weren't aware of to begin with.
"Yes, we are all in a shared space for the time being until we get enough money to have our own places. May I ask what street you're heading to?"
"I see, there is no shame in doing what you have to do in order to survive, even if that means having to live together in cramped spaces. Alright, we're heading to Iron Cross Street. You all stay safe out here and have a good walk back. May the goddess bless you all." Dunn said as he took off his hat, made a gesture of the crimson moon on his chest, then put his hat back on and knocked on the carriage, signaling for the driver to move again.
"May the goddess bless you as well," Mordret mimicked the gesture perfectly with a gentle smile and waved as the carriage rode off.
It seemed like the prince of nothing had already learned the customs of this place.
But how did he do it so fast?
How many more people had Mordret taken in the past few hours while he was with them?
These were the last things on Sunny's mind when something completely overshadowed them all: the fact that he had just seen the young man in the strange vision that had occurred not too long ago.
No one spoke until the carriage was a silhouette in the night; only then did Mordret smile pleasantly.
"Don't say I never did anything for you all," He said as he turned to with a dramatic bow.
"Be quiet, you lunatic," Lonesome Howl hissed.
"You wound me," Mordret said, faking a pout, as he straightened and they began walking back to the nameless temple.
"What else have we learned so far about this place?" Nephis asked as she turned to everyone else while walking, ignoring the conversation between Lonesome Howl and Mordret.
"The people of Tingen Street mentioned the gods not possessing human bodies, so maybe we are still in the waking world? No, no, what am I saying? That doesn't make sense at all. The gods were dead long before this time. I-I don't understand how any of this is even possible if we don't have the nightmare spell." Kai rubbed his temples, a troubled expression on his face as they walked through the quiet streets, and continued.
"Even if this is some different dimension like the tomb of Ariel, then why hasn't anyone noticed or said anything about Lord Shadow's 'domain'? Surely they would have reported it to the authorities, and the police would have swarmed this place by now."
Kai was right, the fragment of the shadow realm was as significant as a city, and yet not a single person made a report about a dark presence surrounding their apartment complex, not a peep.
The fragment of the shadow realm was impossible not to notice, even if you tried your hardest.
When they first got here, he knew something was odd when he felt the shadows of people approach the nameless temple, and Sunny thought they would see it and report it to the police. Instead of running or hiding, they went about their day as if the temple hadn't fallen out of the sky and landed in the middle of the city.
'Maybe they thought it was an earthquake? No, they couldn't have, so why hasn't anyone said anything about it yet?'
Where were the police?
Where were the nosy and concerned tenants?
None of it made any sense. Was it the guardian of the nameless temple using a sort of undetecting spell? Was it the work of a god?
'No, the gods are dead…. Right?'
Kai said the civilians of Tingen street said the gods didn't have human bodies, so if they were alive, maybe they had avatars similar to the shadow god, who Sunny suspected used his divine shadows as vessels to communicate with humans.
Even if the gods were somehow alive, which was impossible, then why hadn't one of them, or rather the 'evernight goddess' the people of Tingen street kept mentioning, come down to investigate the apparent anomaly that was Sunny and his companions?
He didn't think for a second that they somehow escaped their notice, as only a fool would believe that they weren't aware of their presence.
'If they're even alive in the first place,'
Was Evernight goddess simply a forgotten title of the shadow god? Sunny somehow doubted the moment the thought crossed his mind,
His head was beginning to hurt,
'Ah, the first day isn't even over yet,'
He let out a tired sigh; he needed to take a long walk to think about this.
Sunny looked up at the crimson moon and wondered if it was always like that or if it once looked like Luna.
That was the name of the moon, and a place where lunar colonies now lay in ruins, and where the nightmare spell first appeared. Luna also held the nest of an unholy titan along with the highest category of a nightmare gate.
It was also the place where he spent more than two decades, trapped by those two traitors.
Ah, but that was in the past, and it was time to focus on the present.
His thoughts drifted as he wondered which pathway Nephis would choose in the future and how it would affect her, as aspects came from the soul rather than the nightmare spell itself.
Would her aspect be suppressed due to the pathway, or would she still be able to use it simultaneously with her new Beyonder abilities that came with sequence nine?
What would happen to the lineage that he had been waiting to get for so long?
He was also curious about what pathway he would end up choosing- hang on, wait, what the hell was a pathway?
And- And why did Sunny start thinking about lineages along with Nephis? When….when the hell did Sunny start thinking about any of these things?
Sunny was torn from his thoughts when he felt someone's gaze on him and turned to see Mordret staring at him with a polite smile, one that Sunny wanted to punch off his face.
"Saint Mordret, is something the matter?" Sunny asked, forcing a smile.
"I was thinking that you really should buy a cane and a top hat whenever you get the chance. I spotted a place where you can go once you acquire enough money. I think having those will complete your look." Mordret smiled pleasantly at him, causing Sunny to suppress a frown.
"Yes, I agree, a gentleman like yourself should dress to impress, especially since you are the first one out of all of us to get a job within the first hour of being here. Well done by the way," Beastmaster nodded with a smile that was growing by the second as her eyes slowly trailed over him.
"Shut up, Bin, don't you have any subtlety? You're going to have the man running down the street in terror if you keep staring at him like that. Slow the hell down." Lonesome Howl rolled her eyes as they made their way through the fragment of the shadow realm.
"Oh? I didn't realize that a loudmouth like yourself would know anything about being subtle," Beastmaster scoffed and waved her sister off dismissively.
"You flirt with anything that breathes, and yet you somehow can't get a date even if it saved your life," The handsome woman rolled her eyes,
"That's not true, Howl, and you know it; it's because I have yet to find a man who doesn't only want one thing. Also, I'm trying to get the young man to loosen up." Beastmaster shrugged with an aloof expression.
"I'm not sure it would look good on me," Sunny said in an earnest tone as he ignored the sisters' bickering and turned his attention to Mordret again with a polite smile.
The only other time he wore this attire was at the Valor Ball, and that night ended horribly; it was the whole reason he went to Antarctica, and the chain of events that followed began there. All this transpired because of that night.
"Nonsense, my friend, I'm sure anything you wear would look dashing on you, and maybe add a monocle too. I personally think they look ridiculous on anyone who wears them, are a waste of money, and are outdated. Then again, I've never worn one, but regardless, I'm sure you can pull it off!" Mordret smiled as he walked in step beside him.
If Sunny didn't know what Mordret was truly like, he likely would have been fooled by his charming act; then again, that was probably why the bastard put on the act in the first place.
Finally, they reached the temple's main hall, where his avatar sat on his throne, silently staring at them as they approached the dimly lit area.
Sunny watched as Mordret silently reached into his pocket, took out a shattered mirror, then put several broken pieces into his hand and began handing them out to everyone as a way to contact him whenever they needed to.
"I will be in my room if you need anything," Sunny said as he walked into his Emporium, closed the door behind him, and let out a breath, standing there for a moment to take in the situation he and his companions were in.
"We are in a strange situation," Sunny muttered to himself,
"That we are," a delicate voice responded, making Sunny snap his head up to see his blind friend, Cassie, sitting calmly at a table to the far right of the dining room, staring at him with her unseeing eyes and her hands resting on the dark oak table.
He had almost forgotten she was in here when the Brilliant Emporium was teleported to the nameless temple.
"Ah, Lady Cassia, are you going to introduce yourself? I don't mind having you in here, but I think it would be best if you let the others know of your presence sooner rather than later."
"I will eventually, but Saint Mordret is already more than aware of my presence here; in fact, he likely has been this entire time."
"Well, if you need anything, I will be in my room."
"Alright," Cassie nodded,
They needed to know where they were and if they truly weren't in the waking world of the past. And so, with that in mind, he focused on his gloomy shadow, which he commanded to hide within the young man's shadow he had seen in his vision, as well as within the carriage earlier.
Sunny had slipped his eldest shadow into the carriage as they were talking with the police officer named Dunn Smith; the older man was clearly an awakened being at the very least.
Sunny walked upstairs, stepped into his room, closed the door behind him, sat on his bed, then turned his gaze to his shadow and watched the top-hatted man and Dunn Smith step out of the carriage and walk to the apartment.
The place was still in the city of Tingen, and the house was detached with a garden. The road outside held hollowed metal gates that looked big enough to allow four carriages to pass through side by side without a problem.
There were the same gas lamps Sunny had seen in the store earlier, now as tall as an adult man, serving as street lamps, spaced every 50 meters.
He watched as the two men began walking along the pathway, eventually passing through an ajar metal gate to reach the destination. There was a garden to the left and a lawn on the right
Although Sunny couldn't sense any other shadow besides Captain Smith, the young man, and a woman sitting on a sofa, he still felt dozens of gazes staring right at his shadow, making it feel as if he were in a crowded market.
His gloomy shadow felt their stares as well and silently glared back at whoever was staring at him, then eventually gave up, since his shadow couldn't see them. The hat-wearing man seemed to feel the gazes, too, as he shivered and looked around.
"Something's wrong!" The top hat man blurted out,
"Just ignore them," Smith replied calmly, his expression unchanged as he walked beside him.
'Ignore who?'
Sunny had a lot of questions, but no answers yet.
"Come in, gentlemen," a delicate voice said from inside the home,
"Daly, any results?" Dunn asked as he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, revealing a woman sitting on a sofa.
There was an unlit chandelier in the living room, and a set of two leather couches surrounded a marble table. On that same table was a lit candle, its flame cobalt blue, illuminating the living room, dining room, and kitchen in an eerie glow.
The woman named Daly was sitting on the sofa in a hooded black robe, wearing blue eyeshadow and a hint of makeup, along with a silver bracelet and a white crystal pendant hanging off her wrist.
She looked like a tangible medium, not like the mundane ones who tried to scam you with their "tellings".
Sunny watched from Klein's shadow as Daly took a quick look at him with her twinkling green eyes, then looked at Dunn Smith.
"No, all the original spirits have disappeared, including Welch's and Naya's, which only leaves these little rascals that know nothing hanging about.
'Spirits? Actual Spirits? Those were the gazes I felt staring at me from this guy's shadow?
She was an actual spirit medium, meaning that she could see and speak to every single one of them, right? No wonder she said they didn't know anything; she meant it!
There were so damn many!
"Good evening, madam," Klein said as he took off his hat, placed it over his chest, bowed, then put it on after he straightened, unaware of Sunny's thoughts on the matter.
"That's tricky," Dunn sighed and gestured to the top hat man." Daly, this is Klein Moretti. See if you can get anything out of him."
'So that's his name, Klein Moretti,'
"Please take a seat," Daly nodded to Dunn, then shifted her gaze to Klein and pointed to a single armchair
"Thank you," Klein said as he moved a few steps over and sat in the chair.
"I need a bit of help here, since you are not an enemy, I can't treat you harshly, it could make you uncomfortable or put you in pain, it might even leave some serious after effects. That's why I will give you some fragrances to help you feel tender and smooth that will loosen you bit by bit and make the experience much more enjoyable, and that way you can truly indulge in these feelings."
'Gods don't tell me she's a pervert like Effie,'
Sunny groaned from his room, and gloomy stared at the woman with a disappointed gaze, but his eldest didn't stare at her directly on orders of his idiot of a master, as he didn't know if the woman was like Seishan and could sense his gaze.
Daly didn't move for a while but instead stared in Sunny's General direction for a while as if trying to see if he would do something.
'No way, she can't see me, that's impossible,
"What is it? Is something wrong?" Klein asked,
She didn't answer for a long time as she continued to stare at Klein's shadow on the wall for a few seconds for some reason before meeting his eyes again with a slight smile.
"Nothing much, you just have the smell of death on you."
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :)