After hearing Nero's words, Sunday stood there in a daze for two seconds before barely coming to his senses. Only then did he realize that this kid had chosen to skip the final stage of negotiation and was preparing to fight directly.
Before this, he had been immersed in a complicated mix of emotions: fear, guilt, sadness, grief, panic, worry... All kinds of emotions had come looking for Sunday after Nero asked, "Is Robin really important to you?"
For a moment, Sunday even felt like he was about to fall apart.
How could he not care about his sister?
How could he?
It was precisely because of his sister's accidental injury, precisely because he did not want her to go through the same dangerous situation, that he had made the decision he had now...
But... every word Nero said cut into his heart, as if one punch after another was landing on his chest.
After a long silence, Sunday slowly turned around. He looked at Nero...
"You're right... I have, in some ways, ignored Robin's wishes too much."
Brother Sunday staggered backward two steps, almost falling to the ground.
After being "scolded," he suddenly realized that the consequences of what he was doing might be countless times more frightening than he had expected.
At the very least, his "betrayal" and imprisonment had definitely hurt Robin badly. What would she think of him afterward?
Just imagining the Robin Nero had described, someone who had no one to rely on, was enough to make Brother Sunday ache inside.
Although he and his sister had always had a good relationship, what if his sister got angry and refused to speak to him after this?
For a sister-obsessed person, this was the kind of thing that would make his whole body tremble just thinking about it.
Sunday stumbled backward a few more steps, then collapsed onto the ground as if all his strength had left him.
"You're right. I should communicate more with my sister. I'll release Robin and Mr. Welt... No, that's not enough. I'll also help you catch the Dream Master!"
Nero carried the sword on his shoulder, looking at Sunday with a face full of confusion.
Although this was a good result, wasn't the other side's change of allegiance a little too fast?
Sunday, however, wasn't thinking about that much. Nero's words about Robin had dug into a sore spot in his heart.
If you asked what Sunday cared about most, it was definitely neither the Dream Master nor Penacony, much less Taiyi and Xipe. It was Robin.
Although he often stood from the perspective of a god when thinking about problems, in the end, he could not escape the limits of being human.
At this moment, Sunday had already decided to go after the Dream Master. He believed that it was all because the Dream Master had quietly whispered in his ear about how bad Harmony was in this way and that way, how Order was like this and like that, and how Robin would not have ended up like this if it had been Order, and all those things. That was what had led to the current situation and created such a huge conflict between him and his sister.
Behind them, Tiriandes and Argenti watched this scene, then silently stepped back and left without making a sound.
"Looks like there isn't much of a problem here anymore. It may not be a good story, but there should be a good development from here on," Argenti said.
"Mm. There's no need to worry about things here anymore. This is a good chance to test the additional information you gave me just now. What exactly is going on?" Tiriandes asked.
"I remember Nero had sent other brothers and sisters out to look for the Dream Master. The two of us personally watched the god leave this place," Argenti said.
Tiriandes nodded. "Definitely. And the god didn't leave to search like the other brothers and sisters. She had a clearer target. More precisely, her task was to protect Mr. Welt while also catching the Dream Master."
Argenti nodded. "Then do you think that with the god's strength, she would leave Mr. Sunday and even that Dream Master unmoved?"
Tiriandes shook his head. "I think that if Mr. Sunday and the Dream Master don't have some stronger hidden power as their trump card, it wouldn't be difficult for the god to defeat the two of them in a direct battle."
"Hmm... Indeed, Mr. Sunday never mentioned the god at all, and the god couldn't simply ignore his request. That doesn't make sense."
"Exactly, so... I came up with an idea," Argenti said. "While searching for Nero, because of Black Cut, I discovered something that caught my attention."
"Crossing directly from the reality Dreamscape Hotel into the dream without passing through the Dream Pool. You mentioned that in the information you sent earlier," Tiriandes said. "That is indeed somewhat concerning."
"Now that I think about it carefully, the appearance of the two Miss March 7ths also happened around that time. After searching for a long time, Nero's return also happened around then," Argenti said. "Directly crossing through dreams, along with so many unbelievable things..."
"These are simply things that could only be done in a dream," Tiriandes continued. "Are you saying that perhaps we've been in a dream all along, including the reality Dreamscape Hotel where you were waiting earlier?"
Argenti nodded.
"There is indeed such a possibility. If we are all inside a huge synesthesia dream, then these unreasonable things from before can naturally be explained," Tiriandes said.
"Although it is difficult for a person to notice when they are dreaming, an individual's will still has an influence on their own dream. That's why we were able to find Him.
"As for crossing through dreams... perhaps not everyone is in the same dream, just as there are twelve Moments within the Family's Sweet Dreams."
"For example, different groups of people could each be in different but parallel dreams, and you happened to break through the boundary between two layers of dreams."
"Hmm... If that's the case, then perhaps the matter of the two Miss March 7ths can be explained this way."
"Let's assume that all the deductions above are correct, and that we have been in dreams from beginning to end. Then, in order to prevent the people in the current layer of the dream from feeling that something is wrong, an image of the person they are missing would appear according to their individual will."
Tiriandes began thinking, constantly putting forward hypotheses and analyzing them.
"This can indeed explain from another angle why we suddenly found Nero and Miss March 7th, but you can't explain why a second Miss March 7th appeared," Argenti said.
"That's the key," Tiriandes said.
"Creating parallel dreams is not easy. It is countless times more difficult than the twelve Moments, and these are synesthesia dreams that are infinitely close to reality."
"So under this assumption, the Family... or rather, that Sunday, must have used some kind of shortcut or something. And based on the information we have now, I have a very clear suspect."
"What is it?" Argenti asked.
"The Mirrorholders," Tiriandes said.
"The Mirrorholders?" Argenti frowned slightly. "But the Family rejected them..."
"Looks like you also know about that incident where the Mirrorholders were surrounded and attacked," Tiriandes said.
"But as one of the parties involved in the encirclement, their rejection of the Mirrorholders doesn't mean they didn't get something from the Mirrorholders."
As he spoke, Tiriandes opened his chest and took out a broken shard of mirror.
"If we look at it from the current perspective, if there is somewhere the Family is most likely to have obtained a tool that can quickly, steadily, and conveniently create parallel dreams, wouldn't the Mirrorholders be the most suspicious? Perhaps they happened to have such a fragment in their hands.
"The person who created me said that the form of my god's fragments and the powers contained within them aren't necessarily the same. This fragment in my hand can easily send higher-dimensional matter down to the two-dimensional level."
"And if it were a fragment similar to mine but with a different power... for example, something that could copy things like reflections projected in a mirror, then it would be easy, convenient, simple, and safe to create parallel dreams."
"You mean that there are conflicts between the authorities controlled by different gods that mortals cannot resolve..." Argenti showed a look of realization.
"Because it is necessary to copy a reflection, when a certain layer of the dream is missing an entity that exists in another dream..."
"Then the missing individual will be copied and projected into the dream that lacks that individual," Tiriandes continued. "But my god isn't affected by its own authority, so in the end, we found one Nero and two Miss March 7ths."
As he spoke, the two knights stopped walking. Tiriandes said, "An interesting hypothesis, right? And what we need next is verification. Let's return to Golden Hour first, then take the Himeko's Hardly Seen to try crossing between dreams."