Chapter 126: Mental Transformation

"So you had two dreams last night?" William one hand on the helm, his gaze partly fixed on the muddy river surface, mostly wandering over the hills along the banks, always keeping the vessel centered in the channel.

Since returning to the boat and escaping that distrust of the ground beneath his feet, his mental state had improved with the journey's length—though it would've been better without someone repeatedly jolting awake at night.

The river surface was calm, requiring little effort to steer frequently, so the captain could spare a few words to chat with the visitor.

"If waking up in a dream counts as waking up, then yes, two." No one had ever invented a standard definition; Kraft didn't know whether to distinguish them by continuity or content, so he could only describe them vaguely: "Two nested, linked dreams."

"Dreams within dreams aren't uncommon."

"But the content was unusual, so I want to know if you've dreamed of those things lately." Following the principle of parallel comparison, a control sample was needed to expose what was different; after experiencing these things, who could guarantee no psychological damage had taken root?

Since comparison was required, conditions had to be similar. The only two people here who had shared deep experiences were Kup and William.

The former indeed slept poorly, but most of it stemmed from his first kill. This retainer had performed excellently in training, swinging his weapon correctly, delivering each hammer blow at the right speed to every enemy without harming himself.

Once freed from the tension of battle, the numbness from intense emotion receded faster than the half-life of a short-acting drug.

When the sun rose the next day and he clearly saw the results of his actions, the exhilaration from his first night as a retainer vanished completely, replaced by confusion and fear—how fragile a human life could be.

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In the dead bodies, he saw himself. If life could drain away so swiftly from those wounds—human or otherwise—then when the same fate came for him, it wouldn't spare him a single second.

Content related to violence and death troubled Kup for a long time. He had sought guidance from Kraft, but Kraft had no direct experience with "why humans inflict such terrible violence on their own kind, or how they achieve self-reconciliation."

Indirect experience from elders suggested few veterans he knew had similar issues, and even those who did quickly moved past them. Looking back now, it was likely survivorship bias.

Thus, images of shattered bones, collapsed chests, and uncontained blood frequently haunted his dreams; the retainer must overcome this hurdle on his own and truly earn his "certificate of qualification."

Kraft also confirmed Kup's condition was entirely different from his own, so he went up on deck to find William, who seemed to have developed "land fear."

Clearly, the latter didn't want to discuss anything related to hills or caves, especially anything tied to the deep. He turned his head, brushed his increasingly dry beard, and coughed twice—likely acknowledging he'd heard.

Then silence. The two stood in the river valley's stinking wind, watching sailors adjust the main sail. Following the rhythmic, familiar northern ship chant, the crossbeam was slowly hauled into position, ensuring the vessel wouldn't be blown toward either bank.

This was, of course, William's demand. Even though occasional patches of yellow-green vegetation on the low hills indicated they'd approached the southern hills' edge, whenever he paid attention, the ever-present black hollows still appeared sporadically across the hillsides, each one proclaiming the existence of that terrible thing—larger ones clearly visible across the wide river.

He imagined that in ancient times, they ruled the land as whales ruled the sea, frequently leaping forth, hurling waves of stone and rain of rock. The scarred southern hills were witnesses to that terrifying era.

A distance of merely dozens of meters from shore gave him no safety when he saw those openings; he always had to watch them vanish completely from view, swallowed by the river's next bend.

Perhaps only when he reached the familiar ocean, with not a speck of land in sight, could he truly feel at ease.

Fortunately, that goal wasn't far. Once they reached the confluence with the Tem River, the estuary lay ahead, followed by the sea voyage to Comfort Harbor.

"In two more days, we'll enter the Tem River and say goodbye to these things forever." William turned his head back; his gaze always seemed alert, never pausing for a moment from the hills along the shore. "Can't you just let me rest for a few days?"

His tone carried resentment, like a demon who hadn't slept in days. It was easy to understand: if someone had occupied his private space for days, constantly making noise at night, drawing swords in the air, and discussing terrifying, reality-based dreams that left him mentally exhausted, he wouldn't be calm—even if that person had just pulled him out of hell.

William's beard had transformed from oily, high-quality fur to a wild tangle of southern hill grass—half due to the deep, one-tenth from the foul air, the rest entirely Kraft's doing.

"I'm just asking a simple question—I promise I won't describe those things to you again, okay?" Kraft raised both hands to show he was harmless, and abandoned recounting his series of encounters in Wenden Port, lest he further destabilize William's already fragile mental state and hair quality.

After two separate encounters, by observing others' reactions, Kraft had unexpectedly discovered he might be slightly different.

Taking William and Kup as examples, the immense shock had altered their worldviews to some degree. The writhing things of the deep had shattered the Church's lifelong influence on Kup, changing his outlook on life. William's experience had affected him even more visibly, directly reversing his perception of water versus land.

Kraft, however, displayed a strange stability. He didn't know whether to describe it that way—even setting aside other factors, a near-death experience alone was enough to be shocking; combining new senses, dimensional shifts, and conflicting normal senses, it wouldn't be surprising if he developed some dysfunction, let alone full-blown psychosis.

In fact, before this, he'd never experienced anything abnormal that affected his daily life. So after days of nightmares disturbed his sleep, while reflecting on his mental state, he began considering other possibilities.

"Alright, alright."

It seemed William couldn't shake Kraft off today without answering this question. Reluctantly, he recalled his recent sleep patterns. Honestly, the part closest to a nightmare was Kraft's own description. There seemed to be a kind of magic in it—the words overflowed with an atmosphere beyond language, pouring those deep, irrational experiences directly into his mind.

The speaker himself hadn't noticed these effects, but the listener, overwhelmed with the visceral sensation of reliving them, tossed and turned unable to sleep, finally collapsing into sleep from sheer physical exhaustion—and slept soundly, too drained even to dream.

"No, I have none of these symptoms. Next time you come, I hope you'll tell me something pleasant—like how we turn this secret into a pile of actual gold coins." Only the original purpose of this journey—the Westmin gold coins—could soothe his soul. And Kraft? He'd better vanish from the deck soon.