System Programmer - 43 An Unexpected Visi

“I’m…dreaming?” Catherine replied.

The scene around her suddenly got blurry as memories rushed into her mind. Everything became clear, her mission, Joshua, the lab they were in and the fact that Jacques spent all his time in the dream world. She nodded to Jacques as she entered the state of lucid dreaming.

“It took me a while to find you. That’s quite the location your group has found,” he told her.

The area began to shake as Catherine’s dream was falling apart. She remained calm as this has happened before. However, before her dream completely shattered and she entered the bizarre dream world Jacques waved his hand and interrupted the process. When he did that, she noticed blood was dripping from his arm.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry. However, it’s probably better if we don’t leave your dream for now. There is something …troublesome just outside of here,” he explained.

“Troublesome? What do you mean?”

“There is a wandering nightmare lurking around you. It attacked me when I tried to enter your dream,” he said while showing his arm.

He had obviously waited to short the wound before healing himself. He was currently a soul projection so by pouring some energy in it, his arm quickly healed.

“A wandering nightmare? You mentioned those last time too. What exactly are they?”

Jacques took a deep breath and explained:

“Well, you’re without a doubt familiar with regular nightmares, they’re just bad dreams. Nearly all nightmares enter this category. However, there are times when a nightmare can get out of hand. Usually, they appear as a result of high stress or anxiety. Feeding on those bad emotions, they take their time to grow strong. The bad dream becomes recurring while floating around its victim when they’re awake. In the most extreme cases, the dreamer could end up dying of a heart attack. When that happens, the nightmare becomes free to roam this world, occasionally finding a new victim.”

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Catherine scratched her head upon hearing this.

“I see. And the one right outside of here?”

“He’s roaming around you. Tell me, did you have any nightmare recently?”

“No, I’ve been sleeping normally…” she answered and bit her nail.

Jacques seemed to understand what she was thinking about.

“If your spirit is the one plagued by nightmares, the situation is a bit different. He obviously can’t die of a heart attack but the nightmare could end up consuming him.”

Catherine nodded in reply.

“Thank you for the advice. I’ll take care of it. However, you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. I doubt you just want to say ‘hello’. Tell me, are you in need of assistance?” she asked, somewhat worried.

Hearing this, Jacques’ expression became grim.

“You’re right, we did indeed run into an unexpected situation. Actually, Vera and Edward’s group are in the same boat as mine. You probably lucked out finding this place and waiting for a bit. Otherwise, you would most likely have ended up like us by now.”

Catherine was shocked hearing this and instinctively put her hand in front of her mouth. Of the four teams that were sent, only hers was still all right.

“What happened exactly? Did you encounter a terrible foe and are gravely injured?”

Jacques shook his head.

“The good news is, we’re all unharmed for now. However, we’ve been taken captive somewhere.”

“By whom?”

“I have no idea… I see you’re confused. Let me start from the beginning. Starting from the surface, my group followed the road underground for several weeks. We had a few incidents involving local creatures but nothing major. Then one day, we exited the labyrinth of rocks that was leading us downwards and came out in a massive area.”

“You mean the forest we found?”

“Not at all. It was a massive cave, a large open space going on for kilometers. We thought we were on the right track and ventured into it. A few hours later, there was an earthquake, you probably felt it too.”

“We did indeed, it covered the passage we were taking but created a new one leading to the forest.”

“Is that so? Maybe you lucked out then. In any case, we took cover since rocks were falling from the ceiling. I later learned from Edward that the earthquake was provoked by the battle between his group and a creature. They vanquished it eventually but our trouble started soon after. You see, as we progressed, we eventually saw what appeared to be the ruins of a city in the distance. Everyone rejoiced as we thought we were about to reach our destination. However, as we got closer, we were all suddenly overcome by a massive headache and eventually fell unconscious.”

“A headache?”

“To be more precise, I felt it here,” Jacques clarified while moving his hair a bit to point a portion of his forehead.

As Catherine looked at the spot he pointed, she seemed to realize something.

“I see, what happened afterward?”

“Well, initially, I found myself plunged into a dream, but as you know, yours truly is a master at being active while I’m asleep. I, therefore, managed to become lucid and broke out my dream bubble. In the meantime, my body had been moved. I had been placed in a strange container full of green liquid with some bizarre tube connected to my face that allowed me to breathe. Looking around, I saw not only my teammates but also Vera and Edward’s party. I entered their dreams and learned they had gone through a similar ordeal than me. Together we tried to establish a plan. At first, I tried to break us free but even for me waking up was impossible. ”

“What about your Guardians?”

“I don’t know what happened to them. I can still feel my connection to Ferry but I’m unable to tell you where he is… Anyway, seeing that you were absent, we hoped you hadn’t been captured yet. I’m glad we were right about this. Vera suggested I leave the place we were in to find you but my spirit couldn’t leave the room we were in, I don’t know why.”

Catherine recalled the walls of the lab, Joshua mentioned that due to runes, he couldn’t pass through them, even in spirit form.

“But…if that’s the case, how did you get here and how did you find me?” she asked, considering the glaring hole that had appeared in Jacques’ story.

“Honestly, I was getting desperate. But be it either luck or fate, an opportunity appeared tonight. It’s thanks to your dream just now. You see, my dream technique allows me to roam in the dream world, but it has another advantage: if someone dreams about me, I can establish a connection with them. When you dreamt about the party from a few months ago, my presence in the dream allowed me to let my spirit be guided in your direction. I would normally have been teleported in your dream directly, but the wandering nightmare intercepted me at the last moment. I managed to shake it off and entered this dream.”

“This sounds a bit too good to be true…”

“Catherine, Catherine, Catherine… You should know by now. I’m the luckiest man alive! No matter the situation, an opportunity always presents itself to me!”

Catherine smiled vaguely.

“If you say so. In any case, you want my help, I presume?”

“If possible, yes. But don’t endanger yourself. If you get too close to the city, the same thing will happen to you. If you don’t find a solution, head back to the surface to get reinforcements.”

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“I’m afraid not, I’ve never seen who took us there and the room we’re in is sealed.”

“I see. I’ll do what I can but I can’t promise you anything I’m afraid.”

“Ha! Don’t worry, that’s already an improvement. Your help is appreciated!” Jacques replied and added: “I believe our time is up. Contacting people from far away drains my energy much faster, I should head back toward my body.”

“Don’t lose hope. We’ll come for you!” Catherine told him as his body began to vanish.

Jacques just had the chance to wave her goodbye before disappearing completely. As for Catherine, she forced herself to wake up, considering what she had just learned, she could no longer afford to relax in the lab.

Catherine opened her eyes and quickly stood up. She asked Luna for the time, it was close to 7 in the morning. She was a bit groggy so she splashed her face with water. She thought about immediately talking to Joshua but Jacques’ warning about the nightmare haunting him made her reconsider. Instead, she headed to the bathroom and took a shower. While washing herself, she wondered how to best approach the situation. About 10 minutes later, she put clean clothes on and exited the place. She had concluded that a direct approach might be a bad solution so she would carefully bring up the subject.

When she entered Joshua’s soul world, she realized all the ice had vanished and the place had been patched up. She headed for the lab, expecting to find him there but the place was empty. She then saw him a bit further up and headed in his direction. She frowned a bit seeing him in action. Joshua was dressed bizarrely. His head was covered by a beret and he was wearing a shirt with diamond-like motives. His pants had been replaced with a short and his socks were matching his shirt. He was holding a metal stick and was hitting a ball with it, trying to knock it into a hole. It looked like some sort of game. Catherine asked Luna what that was and the system replied to her ‘miniature golf’. Also smoke was coming out of an object he had in his mouth.

Joshua noticed her, took out the cigar out of his mouth and smiled.

“Good morning! You’re up early!” he said.

“You seem to enjoy yourself. I thought you would still be in the middle of blowing stuff up.”

Joshua grinned, hit the ball with his golf club and put it in the hole.

“I just wanted to be… par with the course,” he replied, giggling like an idiot.

“… What?”

“Nevermind. The truth is I just finished my experiment a few moments ago, so I was waiting for you to wake up and inform you about the situation.”

Catherine was a bit surprised, she didn’t expect him to finish so soon, considering how damaged his world was when she went to sleep. She smiled at him and told him:

“I also have important news to report to you.”

“Good, let’s exchange information then.”

Catherine decided to go first. Ignoring the nightmare situation, she began by recounting Jacques’ visit in her dream. Joshua listened with care as he waited for her to finish.

“That spot he mentioned his headache was occurring when he fell asleep…” he began.

“I’m fairly sure it’s the spot the rune in our brain is located.” Catherine completed his sentence.

“Hmm, this is troublesome. It seems that rune acts as some sort of security system that activates once you get close to the city.”

“If that’s the case, then Boris should be the only one able to enter since the rune in his body has been destroyed, right?” she asked.

“For the time being, yes.”

“For the time being? You mean… you have a way to remove it from our brains?”

“Not currently but thanks to all our recent discoveries, we should be able to design a countermeasure to it.”

“So…, you’re gonna mess with our brain?” Catherine asked, half-joking.

Joshua shook his head.