Chapter 5 - a dream within a dream

Splash.

My steps echoed through the empty world, resounding in my ears like the tears of a mortal.

In the distance, two shadows stood side by side, staring into the black nothingness of the sky.

"There's two this time?"

Doing a double take, I confirmed: There were indeed two of them. Though, when I turned around, I felt a chill run through my spine.

One of them was staring at me.

"Huh…"

The fact it was staring, almost glaring, at me was incredibly concerning. Though, I figured if I were to escape this dream, I would have to do the same as I did before.

Having made this conclusion, I ignored their gaze and approached the one facing away from me. Stretching out my arm to touch their shoulder, I found myself sinking into them.

In an instant, the other turned its head to make direct eye contact with me.

My heart skipped a beat, startled by this sudden movement. In that same moment, the light came forth. New memories and information poured into me: lockers, shoes, classrooms, classes, tests, quizzes, objects, billboards, faces too blurry to make out. I could hear yelling in the background, and what sounded like a harmony of sounds— music.

The visions soon stopped, and I found myself standing in front of a school— It was the same one that Mia just showed me.

"What is this place?"

My mouth moved without me doing anything. I was no longer in control. Because I knew exactly what this place was: it was a school.

I looked up at the sky. The positioning of the light in the sky suggested it was early in the morning. A small mortal brushed against my shoulder, knocking me to the side.

I let out a grunt, annoyed by their rudeness.

"Oi, oi, oi." The mortal grumbled, pumping out his chest as he towered over me. "Watch where you standin', kid."

~What a horrid manner of speech.

That is what ran through my mind at the time.

I simply stared at the boy, unamused and unentertained by his attempt to intimidate me.

"Got a problem?" The mortal muttered and spat at me, winding back his arm and clenching his fist.

~Man, I'd love to smite this guy. But I can't use magic right now.

Those were my thoughts.

Though, quite obviously, the human had no way of knowing who or what I was. Nor did I know who he was or why he wished to pick a fight with a random stranger.

~Is he just bored? Loid would always pick fights when he was bored.

That was my first assumption, or rather, my only assumption. I knew that in many worlds, mortals would come into conflict with each other for a number of reasons. None of which I cared for.

Naturally, I didn't care for his reason either.

~I don't have time for this.

I concluded, even though I had all the time in the world. It was more like…

~Yeah, I don't want to deal with this idiot.

The boy swung his fist towards me, but stopped. His swing had not even reached the midway point.

~He stopped? That's too bad. I was kind of curious how strong humans were.

The reason he stopped soon became clear. Somebody was yelling at him. That same somebody was quickly approaching our location.

"I told you not to pick fights with other students."

I stared at the new human. He was tall, lanky, and wore a pair of framed glass panels on his face— glasses, to make things simpler.

"But sensei, this guy isn't even a student." The smaller mortal protested.

~Doesn't that make it worse? I'm just guessing but it feels like it would…

"That's not any better, sir. If anything, that's worse." The 'sensei' responded in kind.

~Thought so.

I quickly slipped away from the two, continuing to walk down the street.

However, I was still curious.

~Just how strong are humans? I heard many mortal nations build armies to use against each other. I wonder how strong those are.

Just then, the most insane thought passed through my mind.

~I'm going to go find this world's army and challenge them. That sure won't be boring.

Kzzt.

Static rang in my ears. The darkness returned and I found myself once again in that gloomy world of nothing but water and night.

I stumbled backwards, skidding across the water like a rock across a river.

"Huh?" I said, confused why I ended up back in my dark dream world.

The two shadows before me glared at me with much malice.

One held up his fists, the other a shield.

"Huh?" I repeated, confused by what was going on.

Without a word, the two charged and attacked me.

"The hec-"

I weaved my back backwards, dodging the shadow's fists. Grabbing its arm, I flipped him over my shoulder and then spun him towards the other.

However, the shadow never hit the other directly. Instead it appeared as if he just slammed into an invisible wall.

"A barrier!? Hang on a second-"

I narrowed my eyes, studying the two dark figures closely.

Sure enough, as I suspected, they looked very similar to me— practically identical!

Shit.

Once the fisticuffs shadow stood up, the two approached me again.

As I stood there, tensed up as I wracked my mind for a solution, I recalled Ener's words to me.

~"The gods and powerful beings alike gods that reside in worlds are called inner gods. Outsiders of such status are called outer gods. We are the textbook definition of outer gods as it is our duty to watch from outside the realms. In a way, one could refer to us as cosmic horrors. Our existence is beyond human understanding and above almost any level of mortal strength. To even enter a world would cause its balance to crumble and thus lead the world to collapse. There are other risks, too. As we don't know how our abilities work in each mana field or how that interaction could affect us or those around us."

"Dammit!!!" I yelled out in frustration as his long lecture scurried through my mind.

I swiped my hand, creating a number of large kitchen appliances to rocket towards the shadows.

Eep!

A yelp echoed out around us, surrounding me completely as if to grasp me.

~Was it the shadows? No, they clearly don't make any noise. Then—

…

I opened my eyes.

"Wha-?"

The glare of the sunlight seeping through the window made my flinch.

"Oh good!"

A voice pierced my ears. It sounded familiar, but the tone was new to me.

I turned to the side to see. There she sat, her face wrecked with worry.

"Mia?"

She quickly gave me a big hug, patting my head.

"When you screamed, you scared me. I wasn't going to wake you, but when I heard that I couldn't help but worry. So I did my best to wake you up." Breaking the hug, she put her hands on my cheeks, looking me directly in the eye. "Are you okay? Were you having a nightmare?"

~A nightmare? Ah… so a bad dream…? That's probably what she means, right?

"Yeah… I guess so." I murmured softly, having made a wild guess on what she was trying to ask me.

"Look, you don't have to go to school today if you're not feeling up to it. Alright?" Mia said, sniffing as she tried to hold back tears. Once more, she gave me a big hug, this one tighter than the previous.

The pain aside, all I could think about was the dream.

~What could it mean?

Despite being the strongest of the gods among that small group of primordials, I knew not of my abilities aside from my ability to create and my immense memory capacity.

The only reason I learned of my memory capacity is because the other gods seemed to forget a lot of things, while I remembered practically everything. It was mostly based on assumption, though I still decided to play along with it.

~Is it possible it has to do with an actual magical ability?

I peered out the window from the corner of my eye.

I intended to find out for sure, however; to do that I would need to go back to that place again.

I had a new goal: To learn the secret behind my dreams and my memory capacity.

~But for now, I suppose…

"Actually, Mia. I think I would like to go to school."

~I guess living the life of a mortal doesn't seem like a bad passtime.