The Name Beyond My Reach
The room was pitch-black, the lights long since extinguished. A triumphant fanfare blared through the darkness—poooowooowoo!—followed immediately by the cheerful voice of a black cat who had clearly been waiting for me to wake.
[Congratulations! Wow, I honestly didn’t think you’d actually clear that special training! You did great! I can finally relax a little… With this much, you should be able to pull off a spectacular debut!]
“……”
I stared blankly into the dark. Ulthar, wearing a ridiculous party hat he must have scrounged up from somewhere, looked utterly nonchalant as he offered his congratulations the moment I stirred. My mind was still foggy from sleep, but as clarity returned, every detail of the dream came flooding back—the successful dungeon clear, the sudden intrusion, the witch’s grotesque transformation, and that final, incomprehensible gesture.
Memories crashed over me all at once. I pressed a hand to my forehead, lowered my head for a moment, then snapped my eyes open. The haze in my mind had finally lifted. At the same time, a cold anger began to settle over my previously expressionless face.
Now he shows up, acting like nothing happened? That blank, innocent look on his face—how many times had I seen it before? I knew exactly what it meant. He was hiding something. He might have been trying to play it cool, but I wasn’t about to fall for it.
Confronting him outright would have been easy, but instead I curved my lips into a frosty smile and spoke slowly.
“Haha… You were waiting just to congratulate me? Thanks. I didn’t know you had that kind of sense. But I distinctly remember calling for you during the boss fight. Why didn’t you show up right away? Don’t tell me you were busy preparing this little surprise.”
[U-um…!]
Ulthar tried to answer, but I kept going. His mouth, which had opened so cutely, froze mid-motion. He let out an awkward cough. Just as I suspected—he’d been waiting for the perfect moment to offer his congratulations, all part of a hastily improvised plan to avoid awkward questions. Now that the plan had fallen apart, his flustered expression was priceless. He squirmed, twisting his body and averting his gaze, which was as good as a confession.
I simply stared at him, eyes narrowed, radiating silent pressure. He couldn’t keep denying it forever—not when he himself had once promised that nothing he did would ever harm me. Yet the final event of the training had very nearly cost me everything. He had no choice but to explain.
After a suffocating silence, Ulthar let out a small sigh and spoke in a low, serious voice I had never heard from him before.
[Haaah… I can see you’re not going to let this go. I suppose it was my mistake in a way, so I can’t just brush it off.]
The playful tone was gone. His seriousness felt strangely unfamiliar, almost unsettling. I widened my eyes and listened carefully.
[The incident near the end of the raid was definitely unplanned. Someone targeting you forcibly intruded into the space I created and altered its difficulty. Neither Nabi nor I could respond to your call because our access rights were temporarily revoked.]
His words matched exactly what I had already suspected. So it hadn’t been Ulthar. That unpleasant sensation I’d felt inside the altered space made sense now—it was the aftershock of someone forcing their way into my dream. But that only raised a new question.
Who could possibly possess the power to invade someone else’s dream? They had to be on the same level as the being sitting in front of me. An unexpected, unknown entity. My head was already full of worries about the future, and now this.
“So… who did it? What grudge do they have against me that they’d go that far? I don’t recall ever doing anything to earn the hatred of some supreme being.”
I recalled the witch’s resentful face and the way her lips had silently begged me to return something. Someone else had been possessing her. The hostility she showed wasn’t the usual monster-versus-human kind—it felt personal. Yet no matter how far back I searched my memories, I couldn’t recall ever crossing paths with an existence powerful enough to do this. A few hunters might have overpaid me a little, but surely that wasn’t enough to provoke something like this. Besides, my appearance had changed completely—how would they even recognize me?
Ulthar fell silent, clearly knowing the answer but hesitating.
[That… I can’t tell you.]
“……?”
[Whoa, time-out! It’s not that I don’t want to—it’s literally impossible for you to hear it right now!]
His stern expression and firm tone made my thoughts grind to a halt. As the meaning sank in, my face grew icy. Ulthar was the one who looked panicked now, but I kept glaring.
“What kind of bullshit is that? You know but you can’t say it? You just don’t want to tell me! Stop playing word games.”
[Hing, I’m really doing this for your sake. You sure you want me to say it?]
“Yeah. I’m not asking twice. Spit it out.”
[You won’t be able to endure it… Don’t say I didn’t warn you!]
His reluctant tone carried an ominous weight. A vague unease flashed through me, but it was already too late. Cheeks puffed out in a sulky expression, Ulthar opened his mouth.
[The entity’s name is… ‘@##^$#@$^&*%%#’.]
“?…… What?”
[I said, it’s ‘$#%#$^&@#^#&’.]
I doubted my own ears. Ulthar was clearly speaking, yet the words refused to register. Some sound reached me, but my mind couldn’t process it. I asked again, but the result was the same—only incomprehensible noise. Desperate to understand, I focused all my attention on the name.
That was a mistake.
[Huh—why are you—% oh? $%#? #$%^$%#@!!!!]
A splitting headache tore through my skull the instant I tried to recall the name. Ulthar’s frantic voice reached me, but even that dissolved into meaningless static. My vision warped. The dark room and Ulthar’s figure melted together like paint, defying physics. All sensation in my body vanished. The boundary between “me” and the world blurred.
Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
‘Aaaaaaaaah!!!!!!’
In the center of a collapsing world, I felt my mind shatter. Every part of what made me “me” was breaking apart, and no amount of struggling could stop it. I could only watch as fragments of my consciousness scattered like broken glass.
Just before the final thread snapped, a faint touch pulled me back. Sensation returned all at once, as though someone had grabbed my arm and hauled me up from the depths.
“Hhhhk!!!!!!”
I gasped, body trembling like a leaf. Drool trailed from my slack mouth. Only after forcing my scattered thoughts back together did I realize Ulthar was perched on me—one paw on my shoulder, the other resting gently on my forehead.
I didn’t understand what had happened, but one thing was clear: the cat had stopped my mind from disintegrating. Without his intervention, I would have become a vegetable.
[Honestly… I knew this would happen the moment you got stubborn. I warned you. I told you you wouldn’t be able to handle it.]
His voice held both worry and reproach. I could only stare at him with unfocused eyes. Ulthar sighed deeply and shook his head.
[There’s a reason I said no. You’re still far from the level where you can comprehend that existence. Trying to understand it without any preparation just shatters your mind. If I hadn’t acted fast, you’d be a wreck right now. Do you finally get how serious this is?]
“Ah…? Uh… ah……”
I understood the gist, but my mouth refused to form proper words. The shock had temporarily damaged my language functions. My limbs felt alien, and even maintaining human form was becoming difficult. Ulthar observed me for a moment, then spoke again.
[As expected, the aftereffects are still severe. Continuing this conversation would be too much. Rest for a while and you’ll feel much better. We can finish the rest of the story then.]
He pushed my shoulders with both front paws. My body, which had been sitting on the edge of the bed, fell limply backward. Sleep rushed in immediately, and I closed my eyes. The last thing I saw before consciousness faded was Ulthar’s bright golden eyes glowing right in front of me.