Chapter 841: An Unexpected "Visitor" in Fool's Village, the Witch Aina
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 841: An Unexpected "Visitor" in Fool's Village, the Witch Aina
"This is... hm?"
I looked at the "visitor" who had arrived in Fool's Village, feeling a bit surprised. The figure before me wasn't a Dream Demon, nor was it one of those stray consciousnesses that had been sucked in.
It was a "living" soul consciousness.
Just through perception alone, I could feel the racial concept unique to Witches upon her soul's essence, as well as a life essence capable of touching Real Time.
There was no doubt about it—this person was one of those who had broken into the Primitive Dream Realm and ultimately ended up lost, just as I had heard from Sister Bai.
As for which one specifically... I had no way of knowing.
Even though there were ley lines within the dream, and the Ley Line Identification Art of my Tree of Great Knowledge had been "reconstructed" using dream information, the version of the technique used here lacked data on the Transcendent Witches of the real world.
Since she was a Witch Mentor I hadn't met before, my actions were naturally less rough than they were toward the Dream Demons and those chaotic consciousnesses.
I crossed the fake sky above Fool's Village and descended into the village itself. Soon after, the surrounding Fool's Dreams seemed to gather around, drawn by curiosity.
"It's Sage Sister~"
"Sage Sister, who is this? She looks a bit different from the Dream Demons the Village Chief talked about?"
Several Fool's Dreams crowded forward, asking curiously.
After spending some time together, their way of addressing me had shifted from "Lord Sage" to "Sage Sister."
Originally, I would have preferred them to call me Sister Xiao Han, but they clearly identified more with the title of Sage.
"This person is certainly not a Dream Demon~ She is a Transcendent Witch. You can think of her as being from the same race as me. However, I am still just a Little Witch, so she is someone even I have to call 'Sister.'"
"She's Sage Sister's sister? Then what should we call her?"
"She's the same race as Sage Sister? Then she must be a good person too, right?"
The Fool's Dreams spoke up with great curiosity, their questions quite amusing.
It was at that moment that the witch began to react.
I wasn't too surprised by this. After all, when I caught her, I knew she wasn't in a deep coma; rather, she was experiencing the soul-consciousness shock of the Primitive Dream Realm, something akin to a momentary consciousness blackout.
At this moment, Aina's "vision" was somewhat blurry. When she opened her eyes, she found her sight filled with a "cerulean" sky, and at the edges of her vision, there seemed to be several curious heads looking down at her.
Actually, she had experienced something similar before.
She once had an experience in the void where she accidentally fell into a small, unformed world. When she woke up, she found the animals of that world staring at her just like this. Then, realizing she was alive, one had leaned in and taken a bite out of her.
However, Aina wasn't afraid of such things happening. The physical strength of a Transcendent Witch wasn't something an ordinary beast could bite through.
Furthermore, she hadn't yet confirmed her current situation.
But as she adjusted her state and her vision cleared, Aina suddenly realized something was wrong.
"Wait... Xiao Han?!"
Aina suddenly noticed the anomaly!
Then, her situation came rushing back to her. She was supposed to be exploring the breakthrough point of the Primitive Dream Realm riot in the expansion realm, and then at the final moment... she had been captured by the dream world?
"Oh? Does this Witch Sister know me?" Hearing the witch call out my name directly, I followed up with a question.
"How could I not know you?" Aina sat up, her gaze instinctively sweeping the surroundings, only to realize that those little heads in her vision just now... were all Fool's Dreams?
"There might be many witches in the Witch Academy who don't use your [Transcendent Knowledge] fragments, but witches who don't know who you are... are definitely very rare."
"Huh? Is it really that exaggerated?" I scratched my head and asked with an incredulous smile.
"Yes..." Aina gave a subconscious hum of affirmation, but she clearly didn't want to waste time on this topic. "Where is this? Are we back at the academy?"
"No, this is Fool's Village within the Primitive Dream Realm, a paradise solely for Fool's Dreams. Since you already know my name is Xiao Han, Sister, how should I address you?"
"Fool's Village?" Aina was clearly still shocked by this magical place, but she quickly snapped out of it. "I am Aina. You can just call me Sister Aina."
"Then... hello, Sister Aina~"
"Hello, Sister Aina~" × N
Following my greeting, the Fool's Dreams on the side all mimicked my words and called out to Aina.
"This..." Aina was also a bit overwhelmed by this group of Fool's Dreams. After all, she couldn't bring herself to be harsh toward such a group of cute things. "By the way, Xiao Han, what exactly is going on? Can you explain it to me? These Fool's Dreams... and... you, why are you here?"
"Well... I figured you might not quite understand yet, Sister Aina." At this moment, I could naturally empathize with Aina's confusion, so I began to explain in great detail.
"Sister Aina, you should remember that you were in the Primitive Dream Realm earlier, right? This is still the Primitive Dream Realm, but it's a very special dream within it that I call Fool's Village. Although I'd like to say it's just a coincidence, this place really is the origin of the Fool's Dream clan. Even the Fool's Dreams in the academy share this same origin..."
"So you mean... this is still the Primitive Dream Realm, and this place is related to you, right? Dean Mei said you were conducting a life experiment, so you chose to enter this place from the expansion realm?" Aina asked.
"Um... more or less? But my coming here really was an accident," I emphasized.
"I know, I know... mm-hmm. So, this place is more or less safe, right?" Aina nodded, ignoring my emphasis.
"It's not exactly perfectly safe. Occasionally, some Dream Demons or crazed consciousnesses will break in... Sorry, excuse me for a moment. Another new visitor has arrived over there. I need to go receive them. Sister Aina, if you have any questions, you can ask the Fool's Dreams here!"
I was only halfway through my sentence when I suddenly felt a disturbance in the sky above Fool's Village, which instantly put me on alert.
Ever since that first Dream Demon descended upon Fool's Village, the frequency of visitors had been increasing. Therefore, I had to clear these guys out immediately.
Aina watched me fly off like a bolt of lightning, looking a bit dazed.
She instinctively reached out her hand as if to cast a spell, but she couldn't even conjure a single spark.
Spellbooks were completely unusable within the Primitive Dream Realm!
This was a conflict between rules and order. As a witch who explored the Great Soul Subject, she had tried and groped her way through the Primitive Dream Realm more than once. Few witches knew better than she did that spells could not be cast within the Primitive Dream Realm.
So... how did Xiao Han fly away?
Aina was extremely puzzled, but the fact remained that Xiao Han had left. Now, she was the only witch remaining, surrounded by the Fool's Dreams.
They tilted their heads and blinked, watching her with great curiosity, their eyes full of interest.
"Hello there," Aina said, resting her hands on her knees as she half-squatted. She then put on a gentle smile and greeted the Fool's Dreams.
"Hello, Sister Aina~"
"Mm~ Such good girls~" Aina instinctively reached out, wanting to pet the cat ears on top of a Fool's Dream's head.
She occasionally visited the Witch Cat Cafes, so she wasn't unfamiliar with Fool's Dreams. Unfortunately, the Fool's Dreams at the cat cafes were very difficult to pet.
But here... there were so many!
And they were all surrounding her!
For a moment, these cute little creatures even managed to push aside the fact that she had just been in danger.
"You are all Fool's Dreams, right?"
"Yes~ Is Sister Aina Sage Sister's mentor?"
"Does that mean Sister Aina is even more powerful than Sage Sister?"
"Ah, well..." Suddenly faced with such a question, Aina didn't quite know how to answer.
Currently, in the Primitive Dream Realm, she could say that the vast majority of her power was unusable. At this moment, she was at most just harder to kill than an ordinary person. To avoid embarrassment, Aina quickly changed the subject. "Wait, you call Xiao Han 'Sage'? Why do you call her that?"
"Huh? Because... Lord Sage is the Sage."
"Because... the Village Chief said she is our Sage?"
"Because Sage Sister said she wants to make us into true life!"
The Fool's Dreams gave their various answers. Some were nonsensical, while others seemed even more far-fetched to her.
Turning dream creatures into true life?
She had heard Dean Mei mention this, saying that this was a life experiment Xiao Han was conducting.
She finally understood why the life experiment had caused a riot in the Primitive Dream Realm. It turned out Xiao Han was messing with dream life?!
"By the way, how does Xiao Han use special powers? Do you know?" At this moment, Aina was even more curious about why Xiao Han could use power within the Primitive Dream Realm.
Whether it was flight or any other means—her own mental strength here could, at most, influence things in the dream on a large scale or collapse dream creations, but those methods were useless for actual combat. Even against dream creatures, they could only serve to drive them away.
But Xiao Han was clearly different!
"Maybe... because of the Holy Relic?"
"Holy Relic? What's that?" Aina looked curiously at a Fool's Dream walking toward her. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination, but she felt this Fool's Dream was slightly different from the others.
"That is the most precious thing to our Fool's Dream clan, and the foundation that stabilizes the existence of the Fool's Village dream. Currently, the Holy Relic is divided into two parts. One part remains in Fool's Village, and the other is in the hands of Lord Sage."
"Holy Relic..." Aina still wasn't quite clear on that description, but she guessed from another angle that this so-called Holy Relic was very likely [Transcendent Knowledge].
After all, as a witch of the Great Soul Subject, she knew that a Great Spellbook could have some effect in the dream world. Though not much... it was very useful.
And as it happened, Xiao Han had a Great Spellbook—two of them, in fact!
This truly made her quite envious. After all... that was a Great Spellbook! Just as she was about to learn more from this Fool's Dream, my figure suddenly appeared, and in my hand was an additional consciousness body.
"Oh? The Village Chief is here too?"
I was a bit surprised to see the Village Chief of Fool's Village standing there.
"Lord Sage, you've returned. I didn't expect that in just one trip, you would solve another problem for Fool's Village," the Village Chief said with a humble posture.
"Alright now~ There's really no need to speak to me like that."
"Village Chief?" Aina was also quite surprised. she really hadn't expected that this somewhat unique Fool's Dream was actually the Village Chief of this Fool's Village!
No wonder she knew about the Holy Relic. Moreover, judging by the Village Chief's attitude, she held Xiao Han in very high regard.
"Yes, she is the Village Chief of Fool's Village and the watcher of the entire village. She is a great existence."
"A great existence?" Aina looked at the Fool's Dream before her. She really couldn't see that trait, but now was not the time to question it.
"What is that in your hand...?"
"Probably one of those unlucky experimental fodder pushed into the Primitive Dream Realm by the Transcendent Academies," I said with a shrug, giving the "person" in my hand a casual shake.
It had gone completely mad, with no hope of recovery. Facing such an existence, the only thing I could do was to decently send them out of this world.
Aina watched as I dispatched the consciousness with a single strike, feeling an indescribable sense of strangeness. But this time, she truly felt the power Xiao Han wielded!
It was a very special power, a "reasonable" power derived from the order of this place. But the more "reasonable" it was, the more unreasonable it felt!
How did Xiao Han manage to use transcendent means within the Primitive Dream Realm!
The Village Chief had just said Xiao Han might be using the power of a Holy Relic, but she didn't see any sign of a Great Spellbook.
Instead, it gave her a very familiar feeling... the aura of order from a Saint Realm Domain!
After all, she was a Saint Realm Witch herself. Although the domain she mastered was a common Spell Domain, once a domain was deployed, it could utterly crush many Transcendents.
Thus, Aina followed her good habit of asking when she didn't understand, directly saying, "Xiao Han, how do you wield transcendent power in the Primitive Dream Realm? Is it through a Great Spellbook?"
"Transcendent power?" I looked at Aina with some surprise. "Oh, that. Saying it's through a Great Spellbook isn't entirely accurate. How should I put it? It's not exactly a specific transcendent power, but rather a type of Dream Domain."
"Dream... Domain?! What is that? A domain can be born from a dream?" Aina was instantly bewildered by my description! The concept I had proposed was simply too inconceivable!
"It's not a domain born from a dream. If I were to make an analogy, it's actually a concept similar to a standard Saint Realm Domain. Sister Aina, you should know that I possess a Domain Prototype, right?" I explained with some difficulty. My method was indeed a bit contrary to common sense. The deeper one's understanding of domains, the harder it was to step out of that mental framework.
"Impossible! I am a Saint Realm Witch, and the Primitive Dream Realm has absolutely no foundation for a domain expansion. I am very clear on this. How could there be a domain that can be expanded within a dream?!"
"...Sister Aina, there's no need to be so surprised. The fact is right before you, isn't it?" Seeing how agitated Aina was, I waited for her to calm down before slowly trying to persuade her.
After all, it takes time for a person to accept something new, and Transcendent Witches are no exception.