“Put that knife down, Sylvia! Hear me out first!” 

“Go on… I have little patience left. Any bullshit,  and you’re done! [Nature Spirit : Thorny Vine] [Earth Spirit : Hardened Quills]”

Vines sprouted through the cracked floor, binding my limbs to the ground, rendering me immobile. Like rose stems, the little prickles on the vines scraped my skin here and there. The recently recovered skin now reddened with blood once again.

Additionally, 4 spikes made from hardened earth floated around her, preparing to shoot me down in case I play some tricks.

“Ouch! Hey, Mister Priest over there! Help me, please.”

Looking around, I attempted to ask for help, only to realise not even one of them noticed the commotion.

“Baston, don’t even try. Do you know how many days I have prepared for this?”

“What?”

As I gazed around more intently, I noticed a transparent curtain unfolding around us.

‘An illusion spell’

“Yes. Yes, it is, Baston.”

‘Ahhh’

Because of the pain and the situation overloading my mind, I completely forgot Sylvia can read my every thought.

By the looks of it, she still can’t completely read my memory. Or else she wouldn’t need to interrogate me in the first place.

“Now tell me, why do you abduct me into whatever this is every f****** night? Random times at that too!”

Without changing my expression, I calmly told her the “truth”.

“I didn’t do it.”

Just like how criminals caught red-handed act, I claimed that I was innocent.

*Ding* *Ding*

“Shut it! We both know well that it’s a lie.”

It seemed like, by connecting our spirit, I could also glimpse into her mind, albeit at a lower level than her, and she also had some sort of “lie detector” spell activated.

“One last chance! If you lie again, I’ll blast a hole through your chest and make a doughnut out of you.”

“I did do it intentionally, but only this time…”

*Ding*

“There! You li- . Huh, it’s the truth?”

In contrast to a double ringing sound signalling the lies, a single clicking sound was heard instead, which I figured signified truth.

“Looks like you expected it to be a lie. Well, it’s not like anyone wants to be in this recurring nightmare in the first place either.” I said it sarcastically.

Previously full of anger Sylvia disappeared like a lie, leaving only a dumbfounded version of her, who even let her spell out of control.

The spike bullets aiming at me vanished into the air. But as for the vines…

“Owwww! Can you release me now? Gahhhh! I’ll tell you what happened.”

It tightened even more, leaving me grasping for air while the pain almost reached my tolerance limit. 

“Oh, sorry… [Nature Spirit : Unbind]” Sylvia hurriedly removed all the plants devouring my body.

The vines binding me burrowed back into the ground, disappearing like a lie. What's left however, is my bloody body barely having enough blood to go around.

“Also, don’t expect me to heal you again. Just heal yourself up. You can cast [Basic Recovery] anyway, can’t you?"

“… You know you’re the one causing the injuries, right?”

And just as I expected, Sylvia looked away like it’s not her problem.

“*sigh* , [Basic Recovery]… Ahhhhh!”

Unlike others, my [Basic Recovery] spell made me re-experience the whole torturing process once again;  the pain almost brought me to tears.

However, seeing Sylvia’s face smirking, like she knew how my spell worked, I couldn’t bring myself to cry out.

Then, a few minutes passed by during my recovery… 

“Uhhh… And now I’m out of mana too. You planned for this too, didn’t you?”

Without mana, I’m basically unarmed, with no means to defend myself.

“Who knows?” She shrugged.

*Ding* *Ding* 

“…”

“…”

“Looks like someone shot herself in the foot.”

With her ears all red, she embarrassingly retorted, “Shut up!”

“Anyway, before I tell you. Don’t you think I need a little compensation for all the pain you caused?"

Suddenly, I felt a chilling sensation like I was in the middle of the Arctic. The cause is, to no one 's surprised, Sylvia’s murderous gaze currently piercing my body.

“You’re the origin of my problem, and you still dare to shamelessly ask for compensation. You should be glad I’m even letting you live.”

Shocked by her sudden behavior, I stayed silent, worsening the situation.

“You better start talking before I change my mind."

“Okay, okay. Stop with your bloodthirsty looks of yours first.”

With that, the tension was back to normal. No crazy spells, no trickery, no bloodshed… Pretending like nothing had ever happened, we’re just having a normal conversation like a civilized person.

“So, how much do you know about the current situation?”

“For the past 4 months, I’ve been entering this apocalyptic world placed in the future around 2 years from now.

“So, 121 times exactly, right?”

“Yes, and judging from your facial expression and your bits and pieces of your memories, I figured that you are the origin of the problem, or, at the very least, partially the cause of the problem.”

“Well, I am the origin of—”

The sentence was not even finished, and her anger surged once again. The mana flows around me got disturbed, probably from Sylvia’s preparation to cast an offensive spell.

Before I died in vain, I quickly finished my sentence.

“Every time I sleep, whether I like it or not, I get dragged into this apocalyptic world. And I only got to leave when I died.”

‘What a hot-tempered brat.'

“I can still hear your thoughts!"

“Uhhh… Don’t you know privacy?”

“No.”

“Eh?”

I was taken aback by her blunt and straightforward response, different from thr planned step-by-step behavior she prepared for during the interrogation. 

I thought. ‘Maybe she is just shy. Probably never talked to a boy before.’

“You are overthinking it.” Her voice’s a bit shaky. 

“Really?”

“Ye- Yes!”

Taking advantage of her unstable emotion, I pulled us back into the topic to dominate the flow of the conversation.

“So where did we leave off… Oh, right! I’ve been attempting to avert these apocalypses in the nightmare so that I can also do it in real life."

“You’re saying that this will also happen in reality?”

“Yes.”

“How are you so sure about that?”

“You know ‘Northumbria Miasma Outbreak’, the outbreak devastating the central region of Great Britain.”

“No way…” 

“Yes, I relived that nightmare for 2 years straight before it finally happened.”

“Then why don’t you tell others about it?”

“Think about it the other way around; who would believe a five-year-old crazily talking about a very unlikely disaster?”

“So, you just did nothing. Not even try?”

“l did nothing. But right now, I’m at least trying.”

She nodded along, seemingly like she understood my counterargument.

“So to summarize, you think of this place as a disaster simulation.”

“Yes.”

‘So that would also explain his mastery in practical swordsmanship despite being a mage’ Sylvia thought in her mind… 

“Yes.” I responded to her telepathically after figuring out how connecting spirit works.

“Ahhh, you!” She tried to kick me in retaliation, but I dodged it all.

“Now, you know what it feels like to have no privacy.” I said teasingly.

“Would you join me in my journey to save the world?”

I realized it after I said it out loud that… ‘F***, that sounds so cringey.’

“Hahahaha.”

She burst out laughing at my question, but, needless to say, she had nothing to lose if she accepted my offer.

“Sure, let’s save the world together.”

Sylvia responded with an equally embarrassing statement, but this time, I didn’t tease her.

Just her smile while answering my plea for help was more than enough to make me forget the suffering I had endured alone for the past five years.