It hurt—
Her hand throbbed painfully, yet Konehl-Ghervil risked getting pricked all over as she dragged Ishmele-Esli from the dense cactus patch.
It was, in a way, a blessing in disguise.
To find a companion in this hellish place was a stroke of unexpected fortune.
Ishmele-Esli had been blown into a small clearing within the cactus field, with only a minor portion of her body pierced by thorns.
Wrapped in her sturdy coat, her skin seemingly impervious, she snored soundly, utterly oblivious.
Konehl-Ghervil, by contrast, fared much worse; the moment she lifted Ishmele-Esli’s arm, she was snagged by thorns clinging to the coat.
During the arduous process of pulling her out, Konehl-Ghervil was pricked several more times.
Once she had painstakingly removed all the cactus thorns from Ishmele-Esli, Konehl-Ghervil found herself utterly spent, slumping against a rock to seek meager shelter from the biting wind and relentless sun.
Her current state was one of intense heat and parching thirst.
The ground temperature likely reached, if not exceeded, forty-five degrees Celsius.
Sweat drenched her entire body, her limbs felt heavy and weak, and she felt as though she might melt into the scorching sand.
Her head grew heavy, and she longed to close her eyes for just a moment of rest.
“You mustn’t sleep. If you fall asleep here, you’ll never truly awaken.”
The long-awaited voice of Govet-Ghervil, both echoing in her ears and emerging from the depths of her consciousness, cried out with urgent alarm,
“Wake the unlucky girl! She has a way to save you.”
“…Where have you been? You’ve had me worried for so long.”
Konehl-Ghervil forced herself to reply,
“If I could have woken her, she would have been awake already.”
During the arduous task of moving her, Konehl-Ghervil had tried numerous methods: pinching her nose, forcing cactus sap between her lips, shaking her vigorously, and more.
Not only did nothing work, but it seemed the higher the temperature climbed, the deeper Ishmele-Esli’s slumber became.
“Do as I say. This is no ordinary dream; there’s only one way to survive here.”
“Give the unlucky girl a single drop of your blood—no more—then unfasten her clothes.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Konehl-Ghervil knew she couldn’t afford to perish in this desolate place.
She could genuinely feel her life force slowly draining away, while the desert’s temperature continued its relentless ascent.
Summoning every ounce of her remaining strength, she knelt beside Ishmele-Esli, pricked her finger with a cactus thorn to draw blood, and one by one, painstakingly undid the buttons of her coat.
The simple task took nearly five minutes, by which point three or four Ishmele-Eslis swam into her blurring vision, accompanied by a dizzying nausea that threatened to overwhelm her.
These were unmistakable symptoms of heatstroke.
During this agonizing wait, Govet-Ghervil continuously imparted knowledge, striving to keep Konehl-Ghervil lucid.
“The unlucky girl suffers from an affliction called ‘Hypothermia’ (TL Note: A unique dream-world disease, not the medical condition, characterized by an aversion to cold and insomnia, where the body temperature steadily drops, requiring external heat to maintain normal function.). Those afflicted experience a continuous decrease in body temperature, necessitating ample warmth to sustain a normal state.”
“Should their temperature plummet to zero degrees, their bodies would freeze, succumbing to the cold. Yet, no one typically proves so foolish. Those capable of mastering this disease possess exceptionally strong hearts, able to powerfully and continuously pump fresh blood throughout their bodies for twenty-four hours, ensuring their temperature doesn’t fall excessively.”
“So her weapon is, in fact, her blood?” Konehl-Ghervil asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Strictly speaking, it’s the water within her body. By separating the water from her blood, it freezes in a short time. The ability to extract bodily fluids is also a… specialty of this plague, one might say.”
Konehl-Ghervil now understood why waking the knight could be life-saving; in a desert, ice was an unimaginable luxury.
“Why does my blood awaken her?”
The voice in her mind fell silent for a few seconds before offering a simple reply,
“The Ghervil bloodline possesses a suppressive effect on plagues.”
“It’s not effective against all plagues, however. Some might even use the family bloodline as a nutrient, leading to horrific consequences, so you must guard this secret carefully…”
With the plague within her suppressed, Ishmele-Esli’s body temperature began to rise.
Like any normal person, she would naturally awaken from the heat, now averse to it.
Undoing her clothes was a preventative measure, ensuring her temperature wouldn’t soar excessively.
The rest of the explanation faded as the scene before her gradually dissolved into an encroaching darkness, until a distinctly mocking voice prompted her to respond from her subconscious.
“Hahaha, Konehl-Ghervil, what on earth has happened to you?”
“…What do you mean, ‘what happened’?”
“How can I make you see yourself… Ah, I have it!”
A blinding flash of light banished the darkness from her eyes, its intensity making her unable to open them fully.
“My apologies, a slight angle issue! There, that should do it!”
Opening her eyes, Konehl-Ghervil saw an embarrassed figure reflected on the smooth surface of an ice mirror.
The girl in the mirror—or perhaps ‘vagabond’ would be a more fitting description—had eyes like a panda’s, with several dark brown ‘vertical lines’ extending from beneath each eye, tracing down her entire face.
Her face was mottled and caked, a gritty mixture of sweat, foundation, and sand, forming deep impressions across her skin, with only small patches of her original, sunburned complexion peeking through.
It was a patchwork of black, white, and red.
Her lips were severely cracked.
Her hair, tangled and disheveled, was encrusted with hardened sand, as if it had been mixed with mud and left to dry.
Her clothes bore numerous tears, revealing glimpses of the skin beneath.
All of this was the result of sweat soaking through her makeup, followed by the relentless assault of the wind and sand.
“Were you perhaps invited to a circus performance within the dream? How did I miss that?”
The laughter, undisguised and persistent, continued to ring out.
Konehl-Ghervil suddenly felt a pang of regret for waking this unlucky idiot, wishing instead that she’d left Ishmele-Esli to experience the treachery of human nature once the evening temperatures plummeted.
Had it not been for lugging that particular person, her stamina wouldn’t have depleted so rapidly.
She was convinced she would die here, utterly exasperated.
Was this the curse of misfortune, then? So potent it could infuriate those around her to death…
“Let me tell you something even more delightful.”
“What?”
“I’m dying soon, and once I become a ghost, every time you sleep, I’ll enter your dreams and transform them into a world of ice and snow… blowing cold winds down your neck each night…”
The one holding the ice mirror shivered, taking a step back.
“That’s not funny at all. How could you harbor such malicious thoughts? The mere idea is terrifying.”
Noticing the girl’s silence and closed eyes, she finally grasped their current predicament.
“You’re really dying!? Don’t panic, I’ll save you right away!”
Ishmele-Esli had indeed been awakened by the heat, but her symptoms were barely suppressed; soon after waking, her temperature dropped to a ‘warm’ level.
She unconsciously overlooked the fact that this ‘warm’ temperature was already scorching and lethal for anyone else.
Twenty minutes later, having consumed the water from two large chunks of melted ice, Konehl-Ghervil regained control of her body and senses.
The water was mixed with a bit of sand, an unavoidable consequence, as this rock offered only minimal shelter from the wind, and no clean receptacle was available.
Approximately five kilometers away lay a gravel desert, rich with rocks, which might offer better refuge from the wind and sand.
They would head there once they had gathered sufficient supplies—namely, cacti.
As for the taste of the water… it was quite palatable, virtually tasteless, much like ordinary pure water.
However, the thought that it was water condensed from a living person’s body made her feel a peculiar sense of revulsion.
She stopped drinking after that, instead using the remaining ice chunks to cool her face.
Ishmele-Esli’s method of rehydrating was remarkably simple: she used her immense strength, enough to effortlessly uproot cacti two to three meters tall, to squeeze and drink the moisture from their leaves.
Astonishingly, bypassing the usual processes of digestion and absorption, the water she consumed could be directly purified and transformed into ice within her body.
With an abundance of cacti, they would have enough to sustain themselves for a considerable period.
Govet-Ghervil then outlined their general situation.
Their preliminary assessment indicated they were currently in a Real Dream (TL Note: A dream realm rooted in history or reality, not solely a product of human imagination, distinct from ordinary dreams.).
Only Konehl-Ghervil and Ishmele-Esli had been drawn into it.
The key distinction from normal dreams was that Real Dreams originated from history or reality, not purely from human creation.
Ordinary Favored Ones (those possessing dream power) could not enter or exit them normally.
To depart, one could only rely on sheer luck or await the dream’s natural conclusion.
The reason for their entanglement in this Real Dream was largely clear.
The illustrated notebook kept by Mrs. Penelope, and Konehl-Ghervil’s dizziness while reading it, must have triggered a mechanism left by someone, causing them to be targeted by the dream.
Finally, and most crucially, was one particular point.
Should one perish within a Real Dream, they would be forever lost within its confines.