Chapter 71: A Butterfly’s Dream (2)

A boy of unknown identity had suddenly appeared.

I looked once more at the boy’s face.

Hair as white as blank drawing paper.

Features carved as if with a sculpting knife.

Skin so pale it bordered on ghostly.

An appearance so foreign that he couldn’t possibly be Korean.

‘Was there ever a foreigner living in our villa?’

Yet something felt off.

[Morgue Mu Featherback]

‘…Huh?’

When I looked at the name tag again, it wasn’t written in Hangul.

Symbols that seemed to represent people, animals, the sun and moon, mountains and seas.

Hieroglyphs I had never seen before in my life—yet I read them without effort.

And then.

“Feather…back?”

My eyes refused to leave the silver name tag.

[Morgue Mu Featherback]

An extremely alien name.

Yet strangely, impossibly familiar.

At that moment.

…Ugh!?

A sudden headache crashed over me.

Pain as though a red-hot skewer was stabbing into my brain.

Immediately after, fragmented memories poured in chaotically.

Gate. 

Magical beasts. 

Dungeon. 

Hunter. 

Awakened. 

Lokpia. 

Warehouse Keeper. 

Morgue’s Demonic Warehouse. 

Sorcerer Emperor. 

Featherback. Death Knight. 

Jeanne d’Arc. 

Sword Demon of Ravianglily. 

The Seven Traitors. Binsfeld. Maslow’s Tower……

They were surely just dreams.

But for dreams, every single one felt far too vivid.

Then Featherback’s voice reached me.

“Take a good look at your parents’ faces while you still can. It’ll all be over soon.”

“…What?”

Featherback continued spouting incomprehensible words.

“Three years ago, Christmas evening. You got a call from neighborhood friends and went out. You drank until you blacked out, hopping between karaoke rooms and PC bangs all night. And you came home at dawn.”

Disgust and irritation surged like a whirlpool.

I tried to snap back at him, but my mouth wouldn’t open easily.

I couldn’t refute him.

Because everything Featherback was saying was…

“When you returned, the house was on fire. Your parents… they died in that blaze, caught up in a fight between unlicensed Awakened.”

Even breathing became rapid.

It felt as though someone was strangling me.

With a choking voice, I barely managed to continue.

“That… I saw that in a dream… How do you know that…?”

“A dream?”

Featherback answered with an expressionless face.

“Dreaming isn’t bad. But… if you spend your whole life dreaming, that’s a problem. So.”

He placed a finger against my forehead.

And muttered softly.

Crack!

“Stop sleeping and get back to work, you slacking junior.”

An intense pain exploded in my forehead.

***

My eyes snapped open.

“Ugh!?”

Even though my eyes were open, my vision was blurry.

Not only that, my head felt like it was splitting, and my limbs tingled painfully.

Especially my forehead—something felt lodged in it.

A long, thin sensation… like a metal needle driven inside.

With trembling hands, I touched my forehead.

My fingertips brushed against a thin acupuncture needle.

“Since when was this…!?”

I yanked out the needle stuck in my forehead.

Along with a sharp sting, my clouded vision gradually cleared.

Only then did the surroundings come into view.

“What the… where am I…!?”

Everything was covered in bright red, lumpy masses of flesh.

Twitch— twitch twitch twitch—

They even pulsed vigorously, as if alive.

Exactly like the insides of some creature.

Upon closer inspection, the lower half of my body was buried in the fleshy wall.

The wall of meat was very slowly swallowing me whole.

‘So the warmth I felt until now…’

The cozy, comforting warmth from the dream.

It had been a disgusting illusion felt while buried in this wall of flesh.

‘If I had been even slightly careless, I would have died dreaming.’

I hurriedly tore at the fleshy wall and escaped.

Rip— rip rip rip— crack!

The wall tore apart with wet, sticky sounds like overboiled meat.

Contrary to my fears, my body—which had been buried—was completely unharmed.

…No, rather than unharmed, it felt healed?

All the wounds I had received from the manager of the Food Appetite section had vanished without a trace.

Even the hair that had been shaved clean had grown back to its original length.

Moreover, an inexplicable surge of energy coursed through my entire body.

As if I had slept eight hours straight without a single dream.

Soon, the drowsiness lifted, and my foggy mind returned to normal.

My limbs moved perfectly, and both stamina and mana were fully recharged.

I looked around.

“…!”

In the bulging fleshy walls all around, I spotted people.

They were completely buried in the meat, only their heads exposed.

Every single one wore peaceful expressions.

The faces of people having the happiest, most pleasurable dreams imaginable.

Thin acupuncture needles were also stuck in their foreheads.

But.

“They’re dead.”

The people buried in the flesh weren’t breathing.

Faces drained of color, deathly pale.

As if every drop of blood had been sucked out.

‘If I hadn’t met Mr. Featherback in the dream…!’

I would have slowly withered away in blissful dreams just like them.

A chill ran down my spine.

At that moment.

[Snoooore— whoosh~! Snoooore— whoooosh~!]

The sound of snoring came from somewhere.

Following the source, I saw a gigantic ball of wool sprawled on the floor.

[Snoooore— whoooooosh~!]

The wool ball rose and fell in time with the snores.

I crept closer, silencing my footsteps.

‘This is…!’

Upon closer look, it was a gigantic fly-human wearing wool clothing.

Flap—

<Cherocheropari>

– Danger Rank: A+

– Discovery Location: Maslow’s Tower, Sleep Desire Section

The manager of the physiological desire hierarchy’s sleep desire section.

It had the head of a fly fused with a human body, and after putting its prey to sleep, it sucked out their brain fluid while they were still alive.

‘…It puts its prey to sleep and sucks out their brain fluid alive?’

I examined the heads of the people buried in the flesh walls.

Sure enough, there was a small hole in the crown of each corpse.

If I hadn’t woken up in time, I would have ended up the same way.

‘Th-thank you, Mr. Featherback.’

Thanks to the Warehouse Keeper’s mental resistance correction, I had barely survived.

I silently expressed my gratitude to Featherback once more.

Then the snoring fly-human began mumbling.

[Khh… mumble mumble… sleep desire… floor… mmm… and I… zzz… this place is…  

Chechepari… the manager… of this place… mumble…]

[I’ll move… them… give them… sleeping sickness  

until… they die… I’ll let them have good dreams forever… as long as they have… my sleep needles… they can sleep… eternally… ]

[ The door… I need to lock it… zzz… so… sleepy… Master will… scold me…  

but… still… sleepy…]

Upon closer inspection, a long acupuncture needle dangled from the fly-human’s own index finger.

It was the exact same kind of needle that had been stuck in me and the others.

—Ding-dong!

-<Chechepari’s Sleep Needle> / Dagger / A+

A sleep needle possessed by the manager of the sleep desire section.

Anyone stabbed by this falls into ‘False Eternal Sleep’ within seconds.

Living beings in ‘False Eternal Sleep’ can only be awakened by intense external shock.

– Attack Power +1

– Skill ‘False Eternal Sleep’ available

└ False Eternal Sleep (A): Causes the target stabbed by Chechepari’s sleep needle to enter the ‘False Eternal Sleep’ state. There is no duration limit; they can only awaken through intense external stimulation.

‘Did it accidentally stab itself with its own needle?’

Whatever the case, that mistake had saved my life.

Featherback’s face from the dream floated in my mind.

‘I never imagined he’d be such a little kid… I naturally assumed he’d be a cranky old man. He must be way younger than I thought.’

Then I noticed another sleep needle poking out from the pocket of the fly’s wool clothing.

“No harm in taking it just in case.”

I carefully picked up the needle and stored it in my inventory.

I had to be careful not to prick myself—if I did, I would fall asleep again.

Looking around, I saw thick blood vessels hanging from the ceiling like ropes.

Above them, a fully opened gate shimmered.

I grabbed hold of a blood vessel and slowly climbed toward the gate.

Toward the next floor.

Finally, I leaped into the gate where a storm of mana raged.

Ding-dong!

<Entering the final section of the Physiological Desire Hierarchy!>