Eldritch Horror Theatre

”Wait, that works? So that idea from earlier actually paid off?”

Though Yuan Shan had lived through certain incidents herself, her store of knowledge still fell somewhat short of Fu Qian’s.

Once she managed to grasp her teacher’s meaning, her first reaction was still sheer disbelief.

Not only at the fact that the person had vanished into thin air, but even at Fu Qian’s ”peer-to-peer” proposal.

”Still, doesn’t that mean you miscalculated a little?”

Without even giving Fu Qian a chance to be modest, a strange look soon crept onto her face, as though she were gloating.

’Sigh... in the end, she still has no faith in this seat’s heart of salvation.’

Fu Qian knew full well why Chief Yuan was asking that.

Having been burned one too many times over the past few days, she had clearly made up her mind from the start that he had ulterior motives—she had even come up with that wild guess about having a baby in exchange for reaching Tier 2.

And if it wasn’t that sort of traditional arrangement, then given his cultural-sector day jobs as an Academy professor and a Bookstore Owner, using poor Serana as a guinea pig to probe forbidden knowledge made all the sense in the world.Under that assumption, the current situation suddenly looked rather awkward.

After pouring in resources, finally setting the stage, and pushing the exploitation to the absolute limit... the subject had gone and locked herself behind closed doors to dance alone. Putting oneself in those shoes, the sheer frustration was right up there with getting caught in a honey trap.

All in all, the malicious intent behind Chief Yuan’s speculation was painfully obvious—even if she had hit the nail right on the head.

The role Serana was playing this time really was that of a tool being used.

In fact, the extent to which she was being used went far beyond simple academic research.

As the mastermind behind the scenes, Fu Qian’s core purpose in helping establish contact had always been to use this as a special channel to further study, and perhaps even treat, the Red Moon’s condition.

And now that the connection was established, the whole thing had turned into a complete Black Box operation?

On the one hand, with his plan falling through, all his hard work was for nothing; on the other, for the one being used, this was anything but good news.

On the other side was a half-mad higher entity who could lose her mind completely at any moment.

Expecting a figure like that to cooperate with the ritual while no one else could lend a hand...

After all that, if Serana could still remain a carbon-based lifeform by the end of it, that alone would count as a massive success, wouldn’t it?

”It really is a bit troublesome.”

With the sigh of a man whose noble intentions went unappreciated, Fu Qian didn’t bother arguing his innocence; instead, he focused on the impasse before them and voiced concern for the person involved.

”...That’s the transcendent world for you. Looks like all we can do now is wish Serana good luck.”

That people-first spirit came across so naturally that even the one who had just been mocking him seemed to feel the pettiness of her own outlook.

For a moment, Yuan Shan shook her head and let out a sigh right along with him.

”What are you doing?”

Yet the sentimental mood lasted barely three seconds before she watched the man across from her cover his mouth and let out a yawn.

True, it was the dead of night, but did a Tier 2 player like him actually get sleepy?

”I’m going into the dream to supervise. Sorry to trouble the two of you to keep watch tonight.”

Fu Qian’s explanation left her even more dumbfounded—he was openly announcing that he was going to take a nap.

Before finding a spot nearby to sit down, he even made a point of asking Old Man Henry to keep an eye on things.

”Sure thing.”

Sure enough, the old man was completely accommodating, agreeing with keen interest without even pressing for details.

This... Even hiding in a dream wasn’t enough to escape him—he was actually following her inside to play overseer? Wasn’t that a little too ruthless?

Yuan Shan certainly didn’t buy that Fu Qian was actually sleepy. Putting it together with what he’d just said, did that mean he even had a way to chase someone into a dream?

Shock washed over her, followed closely by an emotion best described as Suffocation.

Once he set his sights on someone, was there truly no escaping the fate of being exploited no matter what?

She had just been laughing at him for miscalculating, when in truth everything had been well within his grasp all along?

And after all those twists and turns, the two of them left behind were the ones who wouldn’t get to see a thing.

’You...’

Swallowing the words on the tip of her tongue, Yuan Shan ultimately couldn’t bring herself to ask him to take her along, and could only watch as Professor Fu lowered his head, propped his cheek on his hand, and drifted into a half-asleep state.

To be fair, that posture could easily be read as an attempt to smooth over his embarrassment—

After miscalculating and getting mocked for it, spouting a bunch of nonsense and putting on an act to salvage a shred of pride.

Too bad anyone who gave the slightest thought to how this man usually operated would know that the word ”pride” meant nothing to him.

He would sooner walk straight back for a cup of tea than bother with something so pointless. ...

Interesting—

What Professor Fu was doing was certainly not pointless.

How could a seasoned academic exploiter fail to guard against his lab rat going behind his back to secretly publish a paper on her own?

As far as Fu Qian was concerned, no matter how you looked at it, Serana’s advancement ritual was best carried out right under his nose.

Every step of his arrangements had been geared toward that, even adding the double insurance of Yuan Shan and her mentor.

Even so, there was still one risk he had to guard against: what if Serana slipped away right from under his nose?

It might sound abstract, and even without a store of knowledge like Old Man Henry’s, Fu Qian had just gone through some firsthand experience he could draw upon—

Red Moon Tiranqi’s opponent was Annalise, the wielder of ”God’s First Dream,” and the Archipelago had already demonstrated the power of a Divine Dream fragment once before.

Facing an opponent like that, whether she might drag things into her home territory and use her wealth of experience to seize the upper hand was a question that simply had to be considered.

Thankfully, during that very same firsthand experience, he had picked up a highly targeted prize of his own—Night Demon.

Yes, the very thing he had gained through Insight with Brother Patches’s help.

[Cursed by the Dream Chaser’s Corrupted Blood, an eternal hunter of longing.]

This passive skill, which at first glance looked like a negative effect that drastically lowered his ability to block out harassment, carried immense authority in anything related to dreams.

”Any dream directed at oneself will automatically call out and establish contact.” The way Fu Qian understood it, whether the dream’s owner liked it or not, so long as he made a guest appearance in the dream, it would be very hard to hide from his gaze.

Applied to the unexpected trouble Serana might run into, it was nothing short of a fully automated pursuit system.

And what if ”Annalise” wasn’t thinking fondly of him?

Nothing to worry about there either; he had multiple layers of insurance in place.

Even if Annalise wasn’t thinking of him, there was still ”Mother” Tiranqi.

And beyond the Red Moon, there was also the core tool of this whole operation, Serana.

The Seeds of Writhing inside the two of them had both been planted by his own hand; a karmic tie like that was no easy thing to sever.

Unless Annalise held such an absolute advantage that she could put together an airtight shielding system.

Though if it really came to that, there wouldn’t be much point in bothering with this sort of technical finesse anyway—he might as well skip straight to preparing the final means of destruction. All in all, what he had been worried about seemed to have happened after all.

Yet gratifyingly, after waiting the span of just a few exchanges, Fu Qian was already enjoying the full Night Demon treatment.