Chapter 743: Read The Room.

The hallway outside the restaurant was the same as before, but Dante couldn't shake the feeling that there was something deeply wrong with it. His Absolute Awareness wasn't picking anything either. No matter where he looked, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

'Volcan?' He called his resident AI. 'Mind checking the security feed for me?'

Silence.

The eeriness that followed the lack of response almost triggered a panic attack in Dante. He had grown so used to having a different voice inside his head that it felt so wrong to not hear it reply right away.

"D-Dante! Stop it!"

Snapping back to his senses, Dante realized that he was squeezing Merry's hands, almost crashing it. Letting go right away, he looked her over a couple of times before shifting his attention back to the problem at hand. The orange haired hero pouted a little then held her injured hand with the healthy one. A faint glow enveloped them, and soon after she was completely healed.

"Say, what's going on?" She said. "Are we under attack?"

"No shit."

Right now, he couldn't be bothered to watch the way he spoke to her. Volcan was literally integrated into his soul and spoke to him through his MLP. The fact that they were somehow disconnected was nothing short of a disaster.

'Calm down.' He told himself. 'Think rationally.'

Forcefully quelling his growing irritation, Dante went through everything from the beginning. Just then, something clicked in his mind, and he whipped his head back inside the restaurant. The pink sheep were gone, and the diners seemed more amused than they were afraid. No one noticed the threat they were.

"You realize that you fell asleep only after you woke up…"

"What?" Merry blinked at him.

"This is a dream." He replied. "We had been attacked at the restaurant, and it looks like they managed to knock us out without our notice."

"Wha-" Merry's eyes shot wide open, and so did her mouth. "When did that happen!?"

"How would I know?"

The sheep were likely responsible. A sorcery capable of robbing people's consciousness before they could even realize it. Though it might not deal any direct damage, it was as dangerous as the Shirogane clan's Silent breath.

"Wait, if this is a dream…"

Holding her chin in thought, Merry hummed for a couple of second before her expression brightened, as if realizing something. Before he could ask what it was, the bright hero grabbed his face with both hands and brought hers close, locking their lips.

"!!!"

The shock halted all of his thoughts, leaving him stunned still. The kiss itself wasn't much of a problem—it was the fact that the orange haired hero dared to do something like that in such a serious situation that crashed his brain. He considered kicking her away, but she backed away before he could decide, looking a little confused.

"Hmm… that's strange." She muttered.

"What in the world are you talking about?"

Looked up, Merry blinked at him a couple of times before flashing her usual smile.

"Let's try one more time!"

As she leaned in with puckered lips, a vein bulged on Dante's forehead, and his right hand came down on the hero with a chop.

"Idiot! This isn't the time for that!"

"Ouch… you didn't have to hit me…"

"Read the goddamn room."

"I was just trying to wake myself up, but it didn't work." She grumbled while rubbing her head. "It's not supposed to go this far…"

"And why would you…"

Once again, Dante found himself noticing something odd. That kiss just now. It wasn't something he would dream about, and he couldn't see a reason why whoever had trapped him inside that dream would force it on him.

"Hold on… are you lucid?" He asked.

"Yeah. Are you sure this is a dream?"

Holding a hand over his mouth, Dante thought for a moment.

"There is no doubt about it…"

He had checked a few things to confirm, one of them being the other functions of his MLP. He couldn't open apps or give commands, although he could accelerate his perception and reflexes. He considered the chances of it being just a mental block of some sort, but if that were the case, wouldn't blocking access to his limbs make more sense.

"Dante!"

A familiar voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to find Boris striding toward him. Following right behind him was Nana, a terrified look on her face.

"Hey, big guy. What a coincidence." Dante tried to feign ignorance. "And you got Ms. Yukimura with you? Were you two on a date?"

"She already knows." Boris frowned. "Anyway, what was that just now? Those pink sheep."

Dante could only purse his lips at the question.

"Listen…" Pausing to think for a moment, he then looked at the big guy again. "You two go back to your able and wait it out. I will look into and tell you once its over.

"I don't know man." Boris said. "It sounds like things are getting dangerous. Maybe we should get out of here."

"That would be a good idea, but…"

"Um…" With a nervous look, Nana tugged on Boris's sleeve. "Boris… where is the restaurant?"

The big guy turned around, and Dante took note of the way his vision had been blocked the moment his friend showed up. Because of that, he hadn't noticed when the extravagant entrance to the restaurant vanish, turning into nothing but an unadorned wall.

"You got to be kidding me." He gritted his teeth and whipped his head back. The moment he saw that the elevator doors were gone as well, he almost lost it.

He wasn't planning to take them anyway, but the option being removed meant that whoever trapped them there was trying to lead them in a certain direction. It also meant that they have a lot more control over it.

'Goddamn it…'

At first, Dante thought that the enemy would use this chance to attack his motionless body in the real world. That gave him the relief of knowing Volcan was there to interfere, but with the way thins were going, it was starting to seem unlikely. He was currently trapped in a world controlled by someone else, and though he had no idea how one would go about killing someone in a dream, just knowing he was in enemy territory gave him the impression that he was at a severe disadvantage.