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 After Story 13. Island of Dream Demons

The first day after entering the 2nd floor of the <Dungeon of the Deep Sea>.

Night was already deepening.

After setting up a campsite at the entrance of the island and having dinner there, Eun-ha received a daily report from Jin Seo-na.

"According to information from each country, it seems they found 3 crystal ball pieces today."

"3 pieces on the first day... That's quite smooth. Before the regression, Portugal finding 1 piece was the achievement of the first day. Where did they find them?"

"Portugal, the United States, and Monaco, they say. Seems they were lucky to find them near the entrance. Do you want to know the more exact locations too?"

"No, the exact locations aren't necessary. Hmm, the United States and Monaco... The US probably found it quickly because they didn't suffer much power loss unlike before the regression. Player Ezekiel must have taken my advice to heart too. And Monaco..."

"It's probably because of our intervention. Wasn't Monaco originally supposed to be in charge of our current area? But we took over instead."

"That's right. If things had flowed like before the regression, Monaco wouldn't have found any pieces and would have suffered serious damage from the monsters living here."

"Then is it okay for us to suffer that damage?"

"Why would we suffer damage when I'm here?"

"Sigh, does it feel good to show off?"

"Yes, it feels really good."

It's really comfortable now that I've opened up about the regression.

I don't need to rack my brain to persuade my friends like before.

Eun-ha chuckled after replying nonchalantly.

"Anyway..."

Jin Seo-na, who had been glaring at Eun-ha, softened her expression as if giving up.

"Any other messages?"

"No, that's all. The next contact will be tomorrow morning."

"I see, got it. You've worked hard."

Just then, the beef jerky brushed with sesame oil was nicely grilled.

Eun-ha, who took out the grill from the fire, held out a piece of jerky.

"Here, I'll give you one. It's just grilled so it'll be chewy and delicious."

"I just brushed my teeth..."

"You can brush again after eating."

"Well, that's not wrong. Thanks, I'll enjoy it."

Jin Seo-na chuckles.

She munches on the jerky.

Her fluffy and luscious fox tail swayed left and right as if reflecting her mood.

It was then that the twin sisters appeared, smelling the jerky.

"Clan Lord! We want to eat too!"

"Clan Lord, feed us directly! Ah~"

"You two grill and eat on your own."

"Wow, that's mean! You're giving it to Seo-na but not to us? Clan Lord, this is discrimination! You're so mean!"

"By any chance, Clan Lord, are you trying to train us this way? If that's the case, we can endure it."

"Oh my, unnie. Is that really it? Then I like this treatment too."

"Little sister too? Me too. Clan Lord, we'll hang our underwear in our tent and wait for you later, okay?"

The twin sisters Mei-ling and Mei-rin.

The two of them clung to both sides, putting on airs that didn't suit them at all.

While Jin Seo-na gave a bitter smile, Eun-ha waved his hand to shoo them away like flies and sighed deeply.

"Stop saying weird things and just go wash up and sleep. Or go stand guard outside."

"Hiing... Unnie, Clan Lord always scolds only us. He treats Seo-na and Kaede well."

"Sob sob, that's right. Did you see how Clan Lord treated Kaede earlier? He acted all cool and said, 'I only trust you.' When have we ever heard such words?"

"I saw it, I saw. That's why Kaede's face turned red, right? I'm envious... Clan Lord, say it to us too! We only trust you."

"Work hard like Seo-na and Kaede, then complain. Would I treat you like this if you did? You're always slacking off..."

"But we slack off after finishing our work, you know?"

"That's right, haven't we done our work?"

Mei-ling and Mei-rin puff up their cheeks and express their disappointment.

Eun-ha finally decided to appease them with a generous heart.

He handed over some jerky.

"Alright... Here. Eat this and stand guard diligently later."

"Wow, Clan Lord! We'll eat well!"

"Clan Lord is weak to us, right? Thank you, we'll eat well!"

The twin sisters only became quiet after putting the jerky in their mouths.

Eun-ha chuckled as he watched them munching like squirrels.

At that moment, they spoke up.

"By the way, Clan Lord, if we knew the crystal ball pieces would be this hard to find, wouldn't it have been better to bring Twenty-five oppa?"

"That's right, with Twenty-five oppa's gift, we could have found them easily."

The twin sisters' question was reasonable.

After all, Twenty-five's gift <Shadow Stepping> was specialized in finding things by tracing mana traces.

But Eun-ha shook his head.

"I did consider it, but unfortunately, Twenty-five's gift wouldn't have been able to find the pieces. The log I read before the regression stated that the mana imbued in each piece was different, making it impossible to trace mana traces to find them."

"Ah, that's a shame... So we have to find them the hard way?"

"We don't know exactly where they are and have to go deep inside to find them..."

"Still, it's better than not knowing their general location at all. We'll probably be able to find them tomorrow, so work hard tomorrow."

"Yes..."

The twin sisters hang their heads low.

Eun-ha, understanding their feelings, stood up holding the grill.

"Everyone worked hard today, so rest well. Seo-na, let me know through telepathy if anything unusual happens."

"Okay, you must be tired too, so rest well."

"Clan Lord, where are you going? Play with us more!"

"That's right, let's play fun games!"

Leaving Jin Seo-na and the twin sisters behind, Eun-ha replied lightly without turning his head.

"To Iriya."

I should go check on the defenses.

Eun-ha left the place and went to find Iriya.

She was warming herself by the fire in front of the central campfire, offering prayers.

'It's nice to see her working hard.'

She must be setting up a barrier to block the approach of dream demons.

Judging so, Eun-ha quietly sat down across from her so as not to disturb her.

Soon, she opened her green eyes.

She smiled softly as she saw Eun-ha.

"Master."

"Were you setting up the barrier?"

"No, I set up the barrier a while ago, I was just praying."

"To whom... No, never mind."

"Of course, to you, Master!"

Iriya answers energetically.

Eun-ha, feeling embarrassed, quickly changed the topic.

"Are you hungry? Here, eat this."

"Wow, did Master grill this himself? Thank you, I'll eat well."

Iriya rejoices with a bright face.

Eun-ha looked at her biting into the jerky with a warm gaze.

"How's the barrier? Is it okay?"

"I put my heart and soul into it, but I can't guarantee safety from 4th tier and above dream demons. I'm sorry."

"There's no need to be sorry, that's enough. The problem is the other countries' conquest teams..."

"Didn't they set up some defenses after hearing your advice? If I may be a bit confident, they probably couldn't set up a barrier stronger than ours. You said it before, right? The anti-dream demon barriers set up by the conquest teams before the regression weren't very effective against 5th tier and above dream demons."

"That's right, I did say that. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have been able to set up anything better than that either."

Iriya puffed up her chest with a soft snort.

It was a signal asking for praise.

Eun-ha didn't hesitate to praise her as she wanted.

During this.

"By the way, I'm really disappointed..."

Iriya suddenly sighed.

Eun-ha tilted his head.

"What are you disappointed about?"

"That I couldn't spread the Eun-ha Religion."

"..."

"Since we came to Italy and met people from other countries, I wanted to spread the word about your greatness, but there weren't many opportunities unexpectedly. Even when I did try to spread it, people just looked at me with strange gazes..."

"No, you don't need to do that. Please don't..."

Eun-ha answered immediately.

But Iriya's attitude was stubborn.

"No, Master. Big Yu-seong said it would be good to spread it too. He said if we widely spread the word about your greatness, you'll be able to use myths comfortably even when you operate on the world stage someday."

"No. Still, please don't do it..."

Eun-ha, pleading in a desperate tone...

Couldn't raise his head for a while.

'No wonder the people I met in the forest earlier looked at me strangely...'

He felt like dying of embarrassment.

* * *

Crackle crackle.

The campfire was burning.

Eun-ha was standing guard, occasionally putting logs into the fire to keep it from going out.

'Is it about time to change shifts?'

The next guard duty is Bong Gu-rae's.

Eun-ha, checking the time on his wristwatch, wondered if he should wake up Bong Gu-rae who would be sleeping in the tent.

Then he shook his head.

'No, let him sleep a bit more. He must have been very tired today...'

It was when he was thinking that.

There was a rustling sound from the tent behind, and then Bong Gu-rae came out.

Unlike usual, he wasn't wearing makeup and yawned while covering his mouth.

"Yawn... Is it my turn now? Honey, go inside and rest comfortably."

"You could have slept a bit more."

"No, I can't do that. And among us, you must be the most tired, right? Go in, go in."

Bong Gu-rae, sitting on a folding chair, poked the campfire with a poker.

While doing so, he waved his hand at Eun-ha, telling him to go sleep quickly.

Eun-ha chuckled and stood up as if following his wishes.

"Alright, I'll go inside and sleep. Let me know if anything happens."

"Okay okay. Sleep well, honey. Dream of me."

Eun-ha waved back at Bong Gu-rae who was waving his hand, and went inside the tent.

Inside the tent, the male clan members were sleeping.

"Mmm, Eun-ae noona..."

Perhaps because he tossed and turned in his sleep, Avenier was sleeping while hugging Kang Si-hyeong.

Because of this, Kang Si-hyeong occasionally made pained noises.

"Ugh... Can't... breathe..."

He seemed to be having a nightmare.

Eun-ha lay down in an empty space, wishing them a peaceful sleep.

He closes his eyes.

'...Who's snoring?'

The occasional sound was annoying.

Nevertheless, perhaps due to accumulated fatigue, sleep was creeping in.

Eun-ha surrendered to the sensation of his strength draining away.

Just as his consciousness was about to sink.

Zap!

Suddenly, his gift activated.

Eun-ha, whose consciousness was forcibly awakened, quickly got up.

'It's a dream demon. These bastards are targeting me?'

Thanks to his gift <Endless >, attacks that tampered with the mental world didn't work on him.

Eun-ha circulated the mana in his body, trying to draw out the dream demon that would still be on him.

Soon after, a lump of smoke shot out from Eun-ha's body.

Pwueeeek!

A lump of smoke with an elephant-like long nose and a pig-like face.

The creature, which had begun to take on a physical existence by revealing its presence in the material world, let out a strange cry.

"W-What is this!?"

"...!"

At that sound, the people in the tent woke up startled.

But Kang Si-hyeong was just groaning, not waking up.

He had fallen victim to another dream demon.

Eun-ha shouted loudly.

"Someone flow some mana into Si-hyeong!"

To counter the dream demon's method, one had to either deal a big blow to the dream demon in the mental world, or flow mana into the body of the person affected by the dream demon from the outside.

After instructing the clan members to take action, Eun-ha immediately swung the Honghwa Sword.

The Honghwa Sword, which he hadn't let go of even while sleeping until just now, cut the creature's shoulder.

Pwueeeek!

The creature let out another strange cry.

No, this time it was a scream.

The creature tried to rush outside in a hurry to escape from Eun-ha.

At that moment, Bong Gu-rae, who was standing guard, poked his head inside.

"Honeys, are you oka...!?"

"Stay right there."

Eun-ha immediately told Bong Gu-rae and swung the Honghwa Sword diagonally upwards.

The Honghwa Sword grazed past Bong Gu-rae's nose and cut off the dream demon's neck.

The dream demon, having lost its head, oxidized and turned into mana particles.

"...That startled me. I thought I was going to die."

"Sorry. You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"Shouldn't you be more worried about yourselves than me?"

"We're fine, but Si-hyeong..."

"...Cough cough! No wonder I felt suffocated, was I attacked by a dream demon?"

Just then, Kang Si-hyeong woke up.

He frowned while grabbing his own neck.

Only then did people feel relieved.

Pwueng...

Meanwhile, the small animal-sized dream demon that had been possessing Kang Si-hyeong was wriggling on the floor.

Crunch!

Kang Si-hyeong angrily stepped on and killed it.

Bong Gu-rae comforted him and said in a worried tone.

"So dream demons did invade after all. This is serious..."

"The ones we just killed are just simple avatars. The main body must be somewhere. We need to find it quickly."

It's a situation where we can't help but worry about the people in other tents.

Eun-ha quickly went outside the tent to assess the situation.

As expected.

"Ugh... S-Save me..."

"Dream demons have appeared! Wake everyone up!"

"Kyaaaa! Don't do it, don't do it, no!"

"Snap out of it! It's just a dream!"

"..."

The campsite had fallen into a chaotic atmosphere due to the appearance of dream demons.

And as if they had been waiting for this moment.

Screech!

Growl!

Kiki kik kik?

Monsters revealed their presence.

Creatures with red eyes flashing in the darkness instantly broke through the barrier and attacked the campsite.

A battle broke out under the night sky where even the moon wasn't visible.