Chapter 2 - 1: Welcome to the Safe Zone

Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Welcome to the Safe Zone

But Shi An spread his arms wide, welcoming the pungent yet familiar and reassuring scent.

’I’m here again.’

’Just as I thought. The moment I fall asleep, I fall into this dilapidated, decaying little shop, just like plunging into a dream.’

Was this a Nightmare?

It was very similar to the Nightmare dreamscape Hajilu had described.

But Shi An didn’t think so.

Ever since awakening the memories of his past life, he had begun to enter this dreamscape frequently. Yet no matter how many times he came, the environment never changed. There were no Butchers, monsters, or strange phenomena.

There was absolutely none of the so-called danger that nipped at your heels, chasing you like death itself.

Not to mention...

’The environment here is certainly dilapidated and decaying, but it doesn’t make me feel oppressed. It makes me feel at ease.’

Coming to this dilapidated little shop was like coming home for Shi An. He felt completely at ease, with none of the hair-raising terror that came with a Nightmare.

He didn’t think this was a Nightmare. ’Maybe it’s my golden finger.’

’What’s the point of transmigrating if you don’t get a golden finger?’

But what was the purpose of this dreamscape? Shi An didn’t know; he was still investigating. The only use he had discovered so far was...

...even if he spent several hours in this dreamscape, "dreaming" all night, he would wake up the next day feeling full of Spirit, as if he’d had a wonderful night’s sleep.

It was equivalent to having an entire extra sleep cycle compared to other people.

He could become a tireless, nuclear-powered workhorse.

But surely his ambitions couldn’t be limited to just that, Shi An thought.

He did entertain the idea of making money first and researching his golden finger later. After all, this was a peaceful, modern society. You could survive without a golden finger, but you really couldn’t survive without money.

But the problem was...

’What if this world isn’t actually so peaceful?’

He didn’t entirely believe what Hajilu said about the "Nightmare," but it still weighed on his mind.

His own current experience was a kind of dream itself. It was hard to say whether there was a connection between this dilapidated shop and the Nightmare.

If strange entities really did exist in this world, then researching his life-saving golden finger had just become a top priority.

But despite that, Shi An still had no idea where to start.

Shi An had already investigated everything there was to investigate inside the dilapidated shop.

Shi An walked to the shop’s front door. It was shut tight. Despite its rotten appearance, the door wouldn’t budge an inch, no matter how hard he pushed, pulled, or pounded on it.

And outside...

Shi An looked to the side. Through a glass window caked in dust and spiderwebbed with cracks, he could see a churning white fog. The vast, milky expanse completely obscured his vision, preventing even the slightest glimpse of the world beyond.

’Or maybe... this shop exists within the white fog itself?’

’What exactly lies in the world beyond the white fog?’

Shi An frowned. He had no way of finding out.

He rummaged around the shop but couldn’t figure anything out, so he decided to tidy up the messy place a little. He kicked a broken piece of wood that was in his way to the side, cobbled together a barely usable table, and swept the dust off the bar counter.

He lacked the right tools, so there wasn’t much more he could do.

The dream was incredibly real, and he could come and go as he pleased. The only catch was that he couldn’t bring anything in from the outside world.

The door, which had been shut for so long, suddenly let out a CREAK.

The main door opened just a crack.

Through the gap, he could see that the world outside was also shrouded in a thick white fog.

But now,

the white fog outside the door and window began to churn and gradually thin.

Shi An’s eyes widened.

One second, two seconds, three... after a dozen or so seconds, the white fog finally dissipated completely, and the scene outside the dilapidated shop came into view.

The street was empty.

A few old streetlights cast a dim, faint yellow glow, looking as if they might be swallowed at any moment by the devouring darkness deeper down the street.

Shi An frowned.

’Outside the shop is just... an ordinary road? It’s just a bit deserted, deathly still, and dim, at worst.’

But he felt there was more to it than that.

He looked toward the front door.

It seemed the door could be pushed open now. However, the moment the thought of stepping outside entered his mind, a powerful sense of unease surged through him.

’Danger! Grave danger!’

’There’s definitely something dangerous—something wrong—with the world outside!’

As Shi An watched, a figure appeared at the far end of the gloomy street.

It was a man of about forty. He wore a black business suit, but on his head was a hard hat, and he tightly gripped a pair of reddish-brown shears the length of his forearm.

The getup should have been bizarre, but in this environment, Shi An found it looked completely normal and natural.

At the moment, however, the middle-aged man’s black suit was in tatters. Terror lingered in his eyes as he limped along, constantly glancing over his shoulder as if being pursued by some ferocious beast.

"Damn it, that ghostly thing is catching up again!"

It was a writhing Shadow—no, a bizarre entity that merely resembled a shadow. These Shadows came from the end of the street, constantly Spreading like a tide and picking up speed.

Wherever it passed, the streetlights—already like candles in the wind—were extinguished, and a terrifying darkness swept over everything.

The middle-aged man in the black suit took a deep breath, once again wringing the last dregs of strength from his exhausted body.

He ran for his life, but the gloomy street seemed to stretch on forever, and the writhing tide of Shadow behind him drew closer and closer.

’Danger! Danger!’

「...」

Shi An sucked in a sharp breath. ’My intuition didn’t fail me!’

The world outside the shop was incredibly dangerous! The man in the black suit was running fast enough to leave a good-for-nothing like him in the dust, and even so, his life was hanging by a thread.

’If that were me? I would’ve been toast a long time ago!’

’It was the right call not to be reckless and step out of the shop.’

Shi An muttered to himself, and just then, a mysterious prompt materialized in his mind.

[Prompt: Invite the other party to enter the Safe Zone?]

[Countdown: 9, 8, 7...]

’Invite? Safe Zone?’

Shi An had no time to ponder their meaning. The conspicuous countdown was ticking away before his eyes like a death sentence.

It was indeed a death sentence—just not his own. Still, this sudden "variable" was the one and only opportunity Shi An had been desperately waiting for all week.

After a moment’s hesitation, Shi An chose:

[Invite!]

Out on the gloomy street, the middle-aged man in the black suit, who was burning through his last reserves to escape, suddenly froze.

To his front right, about forty or fifty meters away, the tall brick wall that had been stretching endlessly down the road was suddenly interrupted. In its place stood a shop with a storefront about ten meters wide.

It was conspicuous and utterly out of place!

It was the only thing different on this entire gloomy street! Its very style seemed inconsistent with everything else.

"What on earth is that?"

It was bizarre for a shop to suddenly appear on this dim road, which was otherwise nothing but faint lights and an endless brick wall. But the man in the black suit knew he had no other choice. Without hesitation, he unleashed his final burst of strength and sprinted toward the half-open door.

CRASH!

The middle-aged man burst through the door as if crashing through a curtain of water, through the veil of the world, through the very gears of fate.

His powerful momentum vanished, and he staggered forward.

The black tide, hot on his heels, slammed against the shop’s mottled glass windows and the faint white fog in front of the open doorway.

The tide surged, letting out a sharp, grating screech.

The man’s heart leaped into his throat, his eyes glued to the door and windows.

Outside the windows, darkness reigned. But the panes of glass—caked in dust, covered in cracks, and seemingly fragile—didn’t even rattle under the terrifying dark impact.

The faint white fog at the doorway was like a threshold separating two worlds, completely holding back the bizarre and terrifying black tide.

The great terror stopped at the threshold.

The warm yellow light from inside the shop illuminated his exhausted face.

The man looked inside. The shop had the same dilapidated feel as the rest of the Nightmare World, with one exception: a lone figure was leaning against the bar counter.

The person wore a black shirt and a silver-gray overcoat. A pendant depicting a great sun and a crescent moon hung from his neck. His eyes were as deep as a starry sea, holding flecks of golden light.

His mere gaze was enough to make one afraid to meet his eyes.

"Welcome, fated one."