"Bang!"
The young man snapped his fingers, and a clear, sharp sound reached Ryuju Momo's ears. At the same moment, the morgue cabinet bearing her photograph violently twisted, and the space behind it suddenly vanished from Ryuju Momo's sight.
Coming back to her senses, Ryuju Momo sat up from the floor, still somewhat dazed as she held her head.
"I… what am I…?"
Looking around, Ryuju Momo realized that she was still in the corridor, but not on the first floor; she was standing in front of the door to her own hospital room.
"What happened?"
Clearly, Ryuju Momo still hadn't fully processed everything. She rubbed her eyes, trying to recall everything she had just seen.
She clearly remembered running out of the room and going down the stairs, didn't she?
And it seemed that she had just heard someone's voice… who was that?
Lost in thought, Ryuju Momo stood up, picked up the iron pipe from the floor, and cautiously peeked into the room.
But the sight inside the room instantly left Ryuju Momo speechless.
Inside the room, a young man was holding a gleaming Golden Sword, and in front of him lay a headless body.
However, that body was not human; it was a deformed monster covered in bony spikes!
The monster lay sprawled on the floor like a pile of mud, clearly killed by that young man.
"You… are you Nakano Yu?"
Standing at the doorway, Ryuju Momo finally remembered whose voice she had heard earlier, though she still found it hard to believe.
As the daughter of the Dragon Pearl Group, Ryuju Momo didn't know much about Nakano Yu, only that her father held him in extremely high regard. Of course, part of that was because she was a girl and would not inherit the Dragon Pearl Group in the future.
At first, Ryuju Momo thought her father was so respectful toward Nakano Yu because of the Nakano family. After all, large-scale violent organizations like theirs least wanted to offend the medical industry, because they often had conflicts and clashes. If they offended doctors, there would be no one to save them.
But now… Ryuju Momo felt that things were not that simple.
"Yes, that's me."
Putting away Joyeuse, Nakano Yu nodded and turned toward the girl.
"Y-you… you saved me?"
After sizing him up, Ryuju Momo asked cautiously.
"I did, but not completely. What, Miss Dragon Pearl, are you going to offer yourself to me in marriage?"
Nakano Yu didn't hide anything. When he arrived, he saw Ryuju Momo strike the monster twice with a stick and then flee the room, only to fall into the illusion of this mental hospital.
She had bad luck. If she had encountered some other strange entity that could withstand physical attacks, Ryuju Momo might have escaped. Unfortunately, she ran into this type of mental anomaly.
"It's still too early to talk about marriage, but if Nakano-kun is willing to date me for a while, I might be willing to marry you. By the way, what was that Golden Sword in your hand just now?"
Hearing this, Ryuju Momo also composed herself. Although she spoke boldly, she honestly stepped closer behind Nakano Yu and quietly grabbed the young man's arm.
"Hm?"
Noticing her action, Nakano Yu was slightly confused, but Ryuju Momo's next words made him laugh:
"…I'm scared."
As her eyes darted around uneasily, Ryuju Momo could clearly discern the current situation. She must have run into something unclean, and staying close to Nakano Yu was the safest option. Nakano Yu had just said that he hadn't completely saved her, which meant that it was still not safe.
Still, Ryuju Momo was curious about how Nakano Yu… possessed the ability to fight such monsters.
"You're quite smart. Didn't your father tell you about me?"
Hearing this, Nakano Yu didn't pull his arm away, tacitly accepting it. He led the girl toward the exit of the mental hospital.
Nakano Yu had met Ryuju Momo's father, a very thin man who somewhat resembled Tachibana Gen. Speaking of which, Ryuju Momo's father had appeared before him ten years ago as the General Superintendent of the Police Department.
At that time, that man had been very righteous, constantly shouting that he would send him, the murderer, before the law.
But what happened afterward didn't need to be said. That guy seemed to be an old friend of Nakano Maruo, and although he had angered him back then, Nakano Yu didn't kill him.
Now, Tachibana Gen had become the General Superintendent, and Ryuju Momo's father had become the leader of a violent group. One could only say that fate liked to play tricks.
However, after that, Ryuju Momo's father's attitude toward him suddenly improved greatly. Nakano Yu didn't know why, but he guessed it was because he no longer held that high position and had lost his arrogance.
Nakano Yu had originally thought that her father would often mention him because of the events from ten years ago, but it turned out not to be the case.
"What do you mean by that?"
Hearing this, Ryuju Momo still didn't quite understand and asked.
"Nothing, forget it."
Nakano Yu waved his hand and didn't say anything more, instead leading Ryuju Momo out of the mental hospital.
But when Ryuju Momo stepped outside and looked back, she realized that the mental hospital was actually an unfinished building in a desolate mountain area!
Moreover, all around that barren mountain were mounds of earth, clearly indicating that it was a mass grave!
"What… what's going on?"
It was deep night, and faint mist rose in the mountain forest. Ryuju Momo frowned, tightened her grip on Nakano Yu's hand, and asked.
"You ran here by yourself, how would I know?"
Nakano Yu shrugged. He also found it strange why Ryuju Momo had run here, which was why he had to search for her for so long. Still, Nakano Yu guessed that it was probably because the so-called dream nightmare had limitations, meaning it couldn't leave this mountain graveyard.
"Then, what do we do now?"
Hearing this, Ryuju Momo panicked a little. Although she appeared fierce, she was essentially an ordinary person and had no idea how to deal with such strange things.
But when she saw the young man's consistently calm expression, she suddenly calmed down.
She felt that Nakano Yu beside her definitely had a solution.
"Simple, we blow this place up."
After saying that, Nakano Yu didn't wait for Ryuju Momo's reaction, but directly wrapped an arm around the girl's slender waist. Immediately afterward, his figure flickered, carrying Ryuju Momo far away from that desolate mountain graveyard.
But just after the two of them left, an enraged roar suddenly echoed from the abandoned building, as if it had noticed Ryuju Momo's departure.
Then, to Ryuju Momo's shock, the four-story building actually grew a pair of flesh-and-blood eyes.
"Buzz~"
A strange sound like a siren came from the building. Under its influence, the mounds around the building began to tremble, and pairs of already rotten hands, crawling with maggots, violently burst out of the ground.
Living corpses, dragging bodies that had been dead for who knows how many years, crawled out from underground. They staggered about, and their hollow eye sockets seemed to have a fixed target, staring in the direction where Ryuju Momo was.
"Woc! What the hell is this?!"
Seeing such a horrifying scene, Ryuju Momo's pupils constricted, and she couldn't help but curse.
If she had been alone today, or if she had just escaped on her own, wouldn't she have been eaten by those disgusting things?!
Thinking of this, Ryuju Momo felt a surge of lingering fear.
Casting a glance at Ryuju Momo beside him, Nakano Yu said nothing.
Ryuju Momo had good mental fortitude. Seeing those disgusting things, her knees didn't even give out; instead, she was still lively and cursing.
In reality, that was largely thanks to Nakano Yu being there. If Ryuju Momo had faced those terrifying monsters alone, it really couldn't be said that she wouldn't have collapsed from fear.
Without dwelling on it further, Nakano Yu raised his hand, and a low chant reached Ryuju Momo's ears, drawing her gaze.
Nakano Yu spoke very quickly, but for some inexplicable reason, Ryuju Momo heard every single word, and very clearly!
It was as if those words were engraved directly into her brain.
"Wolf born in the steel forest, wolf that bites through all shackles. Your name, Fenrir, is now mine. Wolf of the Twilight of the Gods longs for the sun and the moon. And I shall destroy many stars…"
As the words fell, dark clouds covered the full moon in the sky. The clouds swirled and churned, and from their center emerged an enormous wolf's head.
"Roar!!"
The giant wolf opened its blood-red maw and began to roar. The building that had transformed into a monster visibly trembled at the sound of the roar. It raised its gaze toward the sky and saw the giant wolf devouring the sun and the moon.
"Boom!!"
Just a single glance at the giant wolf was enough to fill the building with fear. The building spontaneously grew fleshy limbs and actually tore itself out of the ground, using them to try to escape.
But how could Nakano Yu allow that?
With a single look, the building instantly turned into a massive pillar of salt, and even the living corpses in the graveyard turned into pillars of salt under Nakano Yu's gaze.
But Nakano Yu didn't stop there. He knew that he had killed the monster-building, but the system notification hadn't sounded, which meant that the system's target this time, the dream nightmare, was still not dead.
Regarding this, Nakano Yu had a hypothesis: the so-called dream nightmare was this mountain itself!
He waved his hand, and the enormous wolf's head in the sky crashed down toward the ground.
The wolf's head was like a meteor, capable of shattering the earth, capable of destroying everything!
"Boom boom!!!!"
The moment the wolf's head struck the ground, a terrifying explosion, accompanied by pillars of smoke and dust, shot into the sky. The earth shook, and rocks crumbled!
"Ding! Daily Quest [Dream nightmare] completed. Congratulations, Host, you have received +1 Lottery Chance!"
Hearing the system message in his ears, Nakano Yu finally nodded in satisfaction.
He looked at Ryuju Momo beside him, only to find that she was already petrified. Staring at the gale of wind and dust raised by the giant wolf's head, she showed no intention of fleeing.
Seeing this, Nakano Yu didn't linger. He grabbed Ryuju Momo's hand and vanished from that place in the next moment, taking Ryuju Momo with him.
In the very next second after their departure, the shockwave from the Wolf of the Twilight of the Gods striking the ground swept over that spot, grinding down the point where they had been standing.
After an unknown amount of time, the earth gradually calmed down, but the mountain range had now turned into a massive crater.
Nakano Yu, of course, didn't concern himself with such matters. The police department would come to investigate and would probably come up with some explanation like a geological collapse.
At this moment, Nakano Yu had already returned home with Ryuju Momo.
That's right, someone had just called him, so Nakano Yu simply used his Wind avatar to teleport home with Ryuju Momo.
However, Nakano Yu was now looking at the stunned Ichika in front of him, wondering how to explain the situation to her.
Ichika, meanwhile, looked at the still-dazed Ryuju Momo, then at Nakano Yu, and asked with a serious expression:
"Yu… did you pick up some girl outside and bring her home?"