I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 449: Ray and the Compass

At the edge of the sacred mountain, the ceramic figurine lifted its head and looked toward the Door Nymph, Rosa.

It was seeing a wood nymph for the first time, and for a moment it did not recognize her at all. The ”giant” before it was simply too large, and it stood too close to make out her shape. It fell dumb on the spot.

Then it heard her say, of all things, that it wasnʼt good-looking enough, and the ceramic figurine exploded into a furious shout.

”Who are you calling ugly?!”

”Who are you calling ugly?!”

It leaped up in a fury, as though it meant to land a punch square on Rosaʼs knee.

”So Iʼm not good-looking, so what? So Iʼm small, so what? So my voice isnʼt pretty, what of it?”

”All that matters is being strong enough.”

In that instant, the ceramic figurineʼs mind ran wild, imagining every kind of contempt behind Rosaʼs words. It had always assumed the very worst of everyone.

Nymph Rosa studied the little thing, barely the size of a finger, and marveled that anything so small could have so big a mouth.
So she asked, ”Then, are you very strong?”

The ceramic figurine fell silent again. It could hardly say, My master, the Evil God of Original Sin, and I fight side by side. Though the whole world turn against us, we fear nothing, and we cackle our way through the slaughter.

The Evil God of Original Sin handled the slaughtering. It handled the cackling.

All it could do was mumble, ”Someday... I definitely will... for sure... get stronger.”

Still, after this exchange with the ceramic figurine, Nymph Rosa began to feel that judging someone by appearance alone wasnʼt quite right.

Rosa turned back to look at the towering mountain, the sea of clouds, and the temple gleaming white from end to end.

”It is true that you are not very impressive now. But if you work hard, you will become very impressive indeed.”

”Your Dream is beautiful. Is this the sort of beautiful place you wish to go?”

The ceramic figurine studied Rosa in puzzlement. The great key swinging overhead kept drifting into the way, however, and no matter what it tried, she stayed a blur.

At last it spoke up. ”Just who are you, anyway?”

The Door Nymph, garland resting on her head, replied, ”I am Rosa. I am gathering the Dreams of those who wish to go far away. You are the first person I have found.”

Countless thousands of doors filled Rosaʼs Door Spirit Realm, and filling them all would naturally take countless thousands of Dreams bound for distant places. That was not a harvest she could gather in a single stretch of time.

Among billions upon billions of Dreams, she had to seek out the thousands of people who longed for distant places, hunting down both the Dreams and the candidates who qualified. And that was only the first threshold. Beyond it, a candidate needed the ability to actually create a Teleportation Gate.

And at this very moment, out on the sea near Ruhe Beast Island, no one longed for a distant place more desperately than the ceramic figurine. Hunted by every god of the mortal world, it had nowhere left to run, no path to heaven and no door into the earth.

And as it happened, the ceramic figurine was also exactly the kind of ”wealthy person” who could afford the price of creating a Teleportation Gate.

Rosa could feel the ceramic figurineʼs longing, and its Dream was more beautiful than she had expected. Even so, she still felt uncertain.

No matter how she studied the ceramic figurine, something about it seemed off.

”Hmm...”

”Are you a person? You do not look like a snake person, or a winged person.”

Rosa hugged her book to her chest and began to search her memory.

One by one, every Wisdom Seed race she knew, both those still living and those long vanished, flickered through her mind. But not one of them matched the ceramic figurine standing before her.

”You are indeed neither a snake person nor a winged person. Your build resembles a trilobite man somewhat, but you are far too small for that, and far too crude.”

”Nor do you look like a monster or a demon spirit. And you are certainly no lizard person, and no ghoul.”

”And since you can run about out here unbound by the Abyss Race Covenant, then surely you are not one of the Abyss monsters either?”

”Then what are you?”

”How is it that I have never once heard of a living thing like you?”

Yet the longer she looked, the more familiar its style seemed, as though she had seen something like it somewhere before.

”Hmm... though that ugly little look of yours reminds me a great deal of the dolls I have seen the little spirits play with. Except that those dolls do not move.”

The ceramic figurine did look like a shrunken, cartoonish trilobite man, its body smeared all over with strange paints and colored patterns.

It had exactly that odd, ugly style some spirits seemed to love.

The Door Nymph liked to think she had read widely. Not one of them, as far as she could recall, had ever described what sort of living thing a creature like the ceramic figurine actually was.

Buried in Rosaʼs muttering, though, was a crucial clue, and the ceramic figurine caught it.

”Collecting Dreams?”

”A spirit?”

Only in legend did the messengers of the Divine Kingdom of Creation gather Dreams.

The ceramic figurine took a step back, and only then did Rosaʼs full form finally come clear.

A Godʼs Form, crowned with a garland of many colors.

The painted expression on the ceramic figurineʼs face changed in an instant. ”A... a... a nymph?”

Understanding dawned on the ceramic figurine at last. ”Am I... dreaming?”

Panic flickered through the ceramic figurine. Never once had it imagined running into a messenger of the Divine Kingdom of Creation, and dealing with beings so far above it frightened it more than a little.

It thought of itself as a messenger of the God of Original Sin, but set beside a being like this, that title suddenly seemed hardly worth mentioning.

Fighting down its fear, it stammered out to Rosa, ”Of course Iʼm a person! Even a little person is still a person!”

”Messenger of the Divine Kingdom of Creation, you mustnʼt discriminate against me!”

It worried that the nymph in front of it might destroy it simply for being some kind of monster.

After all, it always assumed the very worst of everyone.

To Rosaʼs ears, however, what the ceramic figurine had said seemed to mean something else entirely.

”You must not treat me differently just because of how I look. I should be given the chance to have a Teleportation Gate of my own.”

Rosa considered this for a moment, then nodded.

”You are right. I should not have spoken of you in that way.”

”For that, I apologize.”

Rosa delivered her apology to the ceramic figurine with perfect solemnity. The ceramic figurine, for its part, was left utterly baffled. The two of them were thinking about entirely different things, and neither had the faintest idea what was going on in the otherʼs mind.

Her apology finished, Rosa turned back to look at the ceramic figurineʼs Dream again.

”Is this the place you wish to go?”

”It truly is beautiful here.”

”Were it me, I would want to come and see it for myself.”

In the end she decided to give the ceramic figurine a chance. That did not mean handing over a Teleportation Gate and the power to travel far away outright.

Whether it could ever truly use a Teleportation Gate, whether it could ever actually reach that distant place, would in the end depend on itself.

Rosa told the ceramic figurine, ”If you give me this Dream of yours, I can give you a Teleportation Gate Key.”

”Once you hold the key, you will be able to summon your own Teleportation Gate. The power to open a path through space, the power to travel far away, both will be yours.”

”From this day on, distance will never again be a barrier that binds you.”

The ceramic figurine did not understand what a Teleportation Gate actually was, but it had a rough idea of what one could do.

”I open a door, and then I can go far away?”

”How far can I go?”

Rosa said, ”As far as the world you know reaches, that is how far you can go.”

At once a door rose up before the ceramic figurineʼs eyes. All it had to do was open it, and it could slip away without a trace.

Leave behind the Storm Sea. Leave behind the gods of the mortal world closing in from every side. Leave behind this place of death.

Overcome with excitement, the ceramic figurine lunged forward as though to throw its arms around Rosaʼs leg.

Then the book slipped out of Rosaʼs hands and fell, and the figurine slammed straight into it, left dizzy and seeing stars.

Still, the ceramic figurine kept shouting, ”Nymph... Lady nymph!”

”Youʼve come to save me, havenʼt you?”

”I want to go far away! As far as I possibly can!”

”Best of all, to the very end of the world, where not a soul could ever find me!”

Rosa found herself moved by the ceramic figurineʼs spirit. Such a small, humble thing, and yet it had the courage to seek out the very ends of the world.

Rosa asked, ”Building a Teleportation Gate requires the sacrifice of a great deal of transcendent material. Are you certain this is what you want?”

To fully manifest a Teleportation Gate and summon it out of the Dream demanded a cost so enormous that no ordinary person could ever afford it.

Out on this sea, though, no one was wealthier than the ceramic figurine. A cost like that was hardly any burden at all.

But going by its own way of thinking, the ceramic figurine assumed the nymph before it was simply angling for a bribe.

It flattened itself to the ground in an obsequious bow and said to the wood nymph, ”Lady nymph, that is no problem at all.”

”Iʼll pay double!”

”No, triple!”

”No, wait. Name any number you like, and Iʼll give you all of it!”

”You are my savior! A debt like this could never be repaid in full. How could such a thing ever be measured in treasure!”

But Rosa had misunderstood. Thinking the ceramic figurine wanted multiple doors, she shook her head at once.

”Double?”

”Triple?”

”So you are saying you want three doors built?”

”But you have only one Dream. So you may have only one key, and one door.”

Hearing the ceramic figurineʼs agreement, Rosa at once brought out her miracle tool, the Star Key.

The moment the Star Keyʼs power surged out, space itself could be seen twisting and shuddering, and the sight sent the ceramic figurine flat to the ground in fright.

”What is that?!”

Rosa told the ceramic figurine, ”The Star Key. A tool given to me by the Dream Sovereign.”

The ceramic figurine suddenly felt a pang of inferiority.

Whatever backing Rosa had, whatever powerful patron she could lean on, it knew it stood no chance of comparing.

As Rosa drew in the power of this Dream, all the light of it began flowing inward toward the Star Key.

A new point of light appeared within the orb at the end of the Star Keyʼs handle.

At the same moment, it split off a smaller key of its own.

Rosa watched as the key finished forming, then handed it to the ceramic figurine.

She told it, ”This is the door key, formed from the power of your Dream. Use it to perform a ritual sacrifice to the Door Spirit Realm, and you may summon your Teleportation Gate.”

The ceramic figurine took the key, so overcome it was nearly moved to tears.

At last. At last it had glimpsed some hope of leaving.

Watching it, Rosa suddenly asked, ”Once you have your door, what do you mean to do with it?”

”You will not go doing anything wicked with it, will you!”

The ceramic figurine immediately swore up and down, as if taking an oath, ”Lady nymph! Iʼm a good person, truly I am! Not once have my hands been stained with an innocent life.”

”The moment I have my door, Iʼll go straight off to some distant place, the farthest place there is, to the winged peopleʼs Land of Light.”

”I wonʼt linger anywhere, not for so much as a moment!”

The ceramic figurine never harmed anyone directly. It only ever incited others to do the harming.

Even the deaths aboard that ship not long ago had come from suicide and mutual slaughter. And everyone on board had been a pirate anyway, hardly what anyone would call innocent.

But to call it a good person would be the most monstrous lie imaginable.

Still, at the moment it genuinely had no thought of harming anyone. All it wanted was to save its own life.

Rosa considered this too. A Teleportation Gate carried no destructive power of its own, after all, so it really couldnʼt be used directly for anything wicked.

And hearing what the ceramic figurine had said, she nodded, pleased. ”Small as you are, you dare to venture somewhere so far away. That is truly admirable.”

”But once you have your door, you must not go using it carelessly.”

”You must find the proper way to use it.”

Clearly, though, the little figurine hadnʼt taken in a word of that second half. It was giddy with excitement, clinging to this chance the way a drowning man clings to a straw.

By then Rosa had put away her Star Key and was ready to leave.

The ceramic figurine gripped its Teleportation Gate Key and fiddled with it for a long while. Nothing happened at all.

”Why wonʼt it work yet?”

Rosa said, ”Because you are still inside a Dream.”

With that, Rosa waved her hand and sent the ceramic figurine on its way.

”Very well!” Rosa said. ”I must go and seek out the next person now. Farewell, little figurine, you who dare to venture into the distance.”

The whole Dream drew inward into Rosaʼs Star Key, and the beautiful sacred mountain and its white temple faded slowly away, never to be seen again.

Out on the sea, the ceramic figurine suddenly woke from its Dream.

It opened its mouth wide and yawned.

But it still felt exhausted and groggy. The wounds from its repeated sacrifices and grievous injuries were not so easily healed.

”Where am I?”

”Am I still alive?”

The ceramic figurine raised a hand, and suddenly realized it had grown larger.

And that hand was now sheathed in dark bone armor.

By now it had transformed into a large nesting doll, one that not only masked the ceramic figurineʼs presence entirely but disguised it as a living, breathing person.

A living, breathing trilobite man, no less.

But the sight startled the ceramic figurine so badly that its true body, nestled inside the doll, very nearly shook loose another fragment. Its groggy head snapped instantly awake.

”A trilobite man?!”

Wasnʼt wearing this shape practically begging to die?

The trilobite man bloodline had died out long ago. If one were to appear out on the open sea, every god in the world would come rushing in the blink of an eye.

No sooner had the thought crossed its mind than the nesting dollʼs appearance began to shift, taking on the form of a snake person instead.

A snake person child, at that.

The ceramic figurine waved its arms about, delight spreading slowly across its face. Ordinarily it would never have wanted to take on a mortalʼs shape like this. For now, though, the plainer and more unremarkable it looked, the better.

At last it understood part of what the nesting doll could do, and this was exactly what it needed.

”Not bad. Not bad at all.”

”Like this, nobody will ever know who I really am.”

But as its arms swung, the key swung into view along with them.

Amid the chaos in its mind, the ceramic figurine finally recalled the Dream it had drifted through in its half-conscious daze, and everything it had seen within it.

At that, the ceramic figurine erupted into an utterly ecstatic shriek.

”Itʼs real! Itʼs really real!”

”Everything in that Dream was real?!”

”Hahahaha!”

”Kekekekeke!”

After cycling through several different kinds of laughter, it spun its snake person tail through the water like a propeller, and lifted the Teleportation Gate Key high overhead.

”The key!”

”The key!”

”A Teleportation Gate! A Teleportation Gate!”

”I can finally leave!”

Next the ceramic figurine took its key and searched the surrounding waters until it found a stretch of rock. Whether that counted as a reef or a small island, it couldnʼt quite say.

There, it performed the ritual.

Following the ritual steps the key impressed upon its mind, it drew out transcendent materials enough to pile up into a small mountain.

Once the ceramic figurine had laid out this crooked, lopsided, yet fully functional ritual formation, it called out the name of the Door Nymph, Rosa.

In an instant, the ritual opened a channel all the way to the distant Door Spirit Realm.

One point connected to another.

A door within the Door Spirit Realm shuddered violently, and light from the mortal world came streaming in through the crack.

Bit by bit, the transcendent materials of the ritual melted away in that light. On the other end, the patterns etched upon the Teleportation Gate within the Door Spirit Realm grew ever clearer, its whole form steadily transforming.

Divine Blood poured into it, anchoring a mortal-world coordinate upon it.

After a long and intricate procedure, the ceramic figurine at last completed the sacrifice and the ritual.

A strange door fell from the sky and crashed down onto the reef, or island, whichever it truly was.

The doorʼs style was more than a little odd, its surface a riot of color as though someone had scrawled all over it with paint. But strangely enough, it suited the ceramic figurine perfectly.

The ceramic figurine rushed forward, unable to wait. At a moment like this, it hardly cared whether the door looked good or not.

It pulled out its key and jammed it into the Teleportation Gateʼs keyhole, thinking of nothing but throwing the door open and vanishing without a trace.

Unable to contain itself, it shouted, ”Take me far away, take me to the Land of Light, take me anywhere at all!”

”Away from here, away from Ruhe Beast Island!”

Then it gave the key a hard twist. The door did not budge, not even slightly.

The ceramic figurine pulled the key back out and tried again. Still nothing.

”Why?”

Just then, the voice of the Door Nymph, Rosa, sounded at its ear.

”Because your longing is not yet strong enough. The key is your dream of the distant place.”

”This is the first time you have used the key and the door, the first time you have awakened their power.”

”You must pour your dream and your longing for the distant place into it utterly, down to the very last drop. Only then can it be awakened and become a true Teleportation Gate.”

The ceramic figurine stared up at the sky and clutched its head.

Now it was truly desperate. ”My longing isnʼt strong enough?”

”Iʼm about to lose my mind here, and thatʼs still not enough?!”

The ceramic figurine hopped about in frustration and pressed the Door Nymph, Rosa, at once.

”Then how much longing does it take?!”

Rosa said, ”A great deal of longing.”

An exasperated look crossed the ceramic figurineʼs face. That answer told it absolutely nothing at all.

Still, Rosa added, ”A longing free of every distracting thought. One that places everything you are into the single idea of reaching that distant place.”

The ceramic figurine let out another confused cry, spinning its body around and shouting up at the sky.

”Canʼt it just open already?!”

”O beautiful nymph, please, save this poor little figurine!”

But by then the wood nymph had already left completely, gone off in search of her next target.

The ceramic figurine gripped its key and stared at the ornate door, still rippling faintly with the distortion of space.

”Longing?”

”How much more longing could there possibly be?”

The ceramic figurine was on the verge of losing its mind. Even disguised as a snake person child, its expressions remained every bit as exaggerated as ever.

”A mind free of distraction?”

”Iʼm about to die out here! How am I supposed to keep a mind free of distraction!”

With no other option, the ceramic figurine stuffed the door into its own stomach and kept turning the key over in its hands, puzzling over it endlessly.

The Divine Kingdom of Creation

Before Rosaʼs eyes, the Dream faded away bit by bit, dwindling into a single point of light inside the Star Key. She nodded to herself.

She wandered on across the Dream Starry Sea, searching out the next Dream.

Rosa drifted here and there, pausing and moving on, until at last she came to a realm of darkness, utterly silent, where the bubbles of Dream grew thin and scattered.

Yet here, she spotted a single, solitary bubble of Dream.

Rosa could sense that this too was the kind of Dream she was looking for. It seemed to be calling out to her.

”And who might this be?”

”Why is there no one else dreaming anywhere nearby? Only this one person, all alone?”

Rosa leaned in eagerly, eyes wide, peering into the Dream.

A crimson sun filled her vision.

And beneath it, a sea dyed red by its light.

She watched the sun climb up out of the sea, and a single aircraft, a lone silhouette, chase after it all the way to the very edge of the sky.

East of Ruhe Beast Island

On a stretch of sea whose distance no one could say, an aircraft rested upon the waterʼs surface. It had not sunk, but simply drifted there.

A figure sat upon the aircraftʼs wing, seemingly scribbling and sketching away in a notebook.

It was an ancient puppet demon spirit, with a compass hanging at his chest.

Inside the cabin sat another demon spirit, this one with a great glass head, while up in the sky a kite drifted about on the wind. Its string had clearly snapped, and yet it never strayed beyond sight of the aircraft.

This was none other than Rayʼs adventure team, the one that had left Ruhe Beast Island in search of the place where the sun rose.

This stretch of sea seemed to have no end at all.

Ray and his two demon spirit companions flew on toward the distance together, yet it always felt as though they were circling in place, lost, unable to find their bearings.

The compass could only point the way back. What lay ahead in the distance, Ray could do nothing but imagine. He had no way of knowing what it truly looked like.

They had even tried flying straight up into the sky.

They wanted to see just how high they could go. Past a certain height, however, no matter what they tried, they simply couldnʼt climb any farther, and had to give up.

Still, it wasnʼt as though Ray had gained nothing at all.

Along the way, he spent most of his time recording, stopping to note down the conditions of the sea, logging one attempt after another. Whenever he came across some interesting sight or island, he would stay a while.

The notebook in Rayʼs hands was his travel journal.

In it he recorded the entire course of his journey and its maps, along with the strange places he had come across and the odd forms of life he had seen.

Every unknown stretch of sea, every unknown corner of the world, Ray set down within its pages.

For some time now, Ray had been lingering in these waters.

He was searching this stretch of sea for islands, in truth hunting for the Rainbow Trees that might grow upon them.

Ever since the Dream Sovereign, Hila, had opened the door and scattered the seeds of the Rainbow Tree across the mortal world, a Rainbow Tree might now be found almost anywhere at all. Ray himself had once spotted one on a small, untouched island he happened to pass, a place no one had ever set foot before.

He was hunting for a Rainbow Tree now because, not long ago, Ray had received a letter from Oran in a dream.

Oran had asked to borrow the miracle tool called More Than Just a Compass for a while, and so Ray was trying to find a way to send it to him through the hollow of a Rainbow Tree.

Ray opened his notebook and marked the nearby islands on his sea chart.

”Here. Thereʼs an island here.”

”Why isnʼt there a single Rainbow Tree anywhere around here?”

Next, Ray drew a circle on one page of the chart.

”Search this area tomorrow, perhaps?”

”Or fly back a ways instead?”

He closed the notebook. In the distance, the sun was slowly sinking behind the horizon.

The light of the setting sun spilled across the water, falling over the three demon spirits.

Their shadows stretched long across the shimmering, rippling water.

Watching the sunset, the ancient puppet demon spirit gradually let himself relax.

By the time the sun had sunk entirely below the horizon and the moon had begun to rise, he too had drifted off into sleep.

For an ability user, rest was never simply a bodily need. It was also a way to restore mental power, and if oneʼs strength had suffered some grievous blow, it served as a means of recovery as well.

But this time, Ray had a very strange dream.

He dreamed that he simply kept flying on and on, until at last he reached the very place where the sun itself resided.

It was a great island, where the sun rose up from a towering mountain and carried its light out into the mortal world.

The island was blisteringly hot, and volcanoes stood everywhere across it.

”So this is what the place where the sun rises looks like?”

Ray sat happily piloting his aircraft, leaning out to look down at the land below, when an unfamiliar voice suddenly sounded beside him.

Ray turned to look, and found a girl with a garland on her head seated right beside him.

”A wood nymph?”

Ray recognized her at once, though he had no idea why a wood nymph would come looking for him.

Seeing the confusion in Rayʼs eyes, Rosa spoke plainly, ”I am the Door Nymph. I am gathering Dreams of distant places.”

It all came clear to Ray at once, and he glanced around.

”So this is only a dream, then.”

Once he understood, Ray couldnʼt help laughing out loud.

”No wonder it all felt so odd. I made the whole thing up myself.”

But Rosa said, ”Imagined or not, it is a beautiful thing.”

”This Dream of yours is truly lovely. Would you give it to me?”

”I can give you a Teleportation Gate Key in return. Then, should you ever wish to go somewhere else, it will be far easier.”

”And once more people have doors of their own, you will be able to reach even more places, instead of flying along so slowly, as you do now.”

Ray asked Rosa just what a Teleportation Gate was, and what a door key was, too.

Rosa repeated what she had already told the ceramic figurine, and Ray came away with a rough understanding.

Ray told her, ”Messenger of the Divine Kingdom of Creation, thank you for your favor.”

”I would be glad to give you my Dream. And I hope that in the end your wish to connect the world comes true.”

Rosa asked, ”Once you have your door, what do you mean to do with it?”

Ray thought for a moment. ”I havenʼt decided yet. For now, I might not do anything with it at all!”

Rosa looked puzzled. Hadnʼt he been so desperate to reach that distant place?

Sensing her confusion, Ray scratched at his iron skull.

”Youʼre quite right.”

”I really do want to find the place where the sun rises. But I want to experience the search itself as well.”

”Finding where the sun rises is my purpose. The searching itself is the meaning of my life.”

”I couldnʼt do without either one.”

Ray said with a smile, ”I love keeping my journal like this. I love a journey that uncovers secrets and unravels mysteries.”

Looking at Rosa, Ray suddenly thought of a use for the door.

”I know what to do with the door now.”

”If I ever manage to reach the place where the sun rises, Iʼll leave my door right there.”

Rosa asked, ”And what would you leave it there for?”

Ray said, ”So other people can go see it too!”

”So they can see how big the world really is. So they can know that the world isnʼt only Ruhe Beast Island, isnʼt only what lies right in front of us, that there is so much more out there, unknown places, distant places, waiting beyond.”

Hugging her book to her chest, Rosa could not help but say, ”If that is so, then I too would want to go and see it.”

Hearing Rosa agree with him, Ray was overjoyed.

His gaze drifted up to the top of Rosaʼs head, and he found himself studying the garland there with sudden curiosity.

He had heard that a wood nymphʼs garland was something she was born with, a part of her very body.

Then it struck him that staring like this was rather rude, and he turned his head away in embarrassment.

Just then, something occurred to Ray.

He had been searching for a Rainbow Tree all this time, and now here was a wood nymph, right in front of him. What need was there to go looking for a Rainbow Tree at all?

”Oh, that reminds me. Thereʼs a favor Iʼd like to ask of you.”

”Messenger of the Divine Kingdom of... ah... oh no...”

Ray suddenly leaped up from his seat on the aircraft, and even though this was only a Dream, the craft immediately spun out of control.

It was simple instinct. Some part of him was certain that standing up like that would send the craft out of control.

Ray quickly wrestled the dream-flying aircraft back under control, then turned to Rosa and said, ”Iʼve been wanting to send something to a friend of mine, but I canʼt find the nearest Rainbow Tree anywhere.”

”Messenger of the Divine Kingdom of Creation, could you help me send it to them?”

Rosa told him, ”That falls to the Letter Nymphs. I am the Door Nymph.”

”But I can pass your item along to the other Letter Nymphs, and have them send it for you.”

Ray turned back to her, full of gratitude.

”That would be wonderful. This has been troubling me for a while now!”

Rosa said to him in turn, ”Then, are you willing to give me your Dream?”

Ray nodded. ”Of course. Didnʼt I already agree to that just now?”

With his confirmation in hand, Rosa rose to her feet and brought out the Star Key.

She waved the Star Key as though it were a magic wand, and the entire Dream began drawing inward toward it.

Everything dissolved away into starlight, and Rayʼs strange Dream was drawn into the Star Key along with it.

When Ray woke, the aircraft was still drifting on the surface of the sea.

It was not yet dawn. A full moon hung bright and brilliant in the sky.

The ancient demon spirit puppet turned his iron skull, raised a hand, and found a key clutched in it.

His hand went at once to his chest. The compass that had hung there was gone.

”Looks like itʼs already been sent off to Oran.”

Ray had no need for the compass at the moment anyway, and once he found the next island where a Rainbow Tree grew, he could get it back.

But more than any of that, what occupied Rayʼs thoughts was the Dream itself.

”What a wonderful Dream that was!”

”The place where the sun rises... what could it really look like?”