Chapter 669: Gradual Gentleness

Camus's spirit tensed instantly; he pushed off with his left hand and stood up, scanning his surroundings with caution.

He realized he was still on the second floor of Tewanako's house, where Ria was rising slowly, leaning against a wooden pillar, her expression dazed and confused.

Everything around him was unchanged from before he fell asleep.

"Are you joking?" Camus asked Louis Berry cautiously.

What kind of "Dream Festival" is this?

This is simply the normal state of waking up after a good night's sleep!

Lumián turned his body sideways and pointed out the window.

"Listen to the sounds inside the jungle."

Camus and Ria instinctively listened to the noises outside and found the nearby jungle utterly silent, as if it had fallen into deep slumber under the night.

This… Ria's eyes narrowed slightly.

Born and raised in the primal jungle and having lived in Tizamo Town for nearly a year, she knew the jungle could never be this completely silent.

Lumián pointed to the floor beside the mosquito-repellent candle.

"Look here."

Camus and Ria looked over and saw that all the dead insects that should have been there had vanished.

Lumián smiled.

"Of course, you could also assume I woke up earlier, cleaned up the environment, and subtly altered your perception of distant sounds—this is all just a prank."

After a few seconds of thought, Camus said:

"I'm inclined to believe you, but I need to verify some things."

"Yes," added Ria, who carried a hunting bow and arrows on her back.

Lumián looked at them, nodded slightly, and calmly reached a conclusion:

It's now almost certain that remaining conscious within this special dream is due to some hidden power within the "Siso" house, not any inherent trait of mine.

He invited Camus and Ria to sleep inside the "Siso" house and enter the special dream not merely to share intelligence with the patrol team and recruit more allies.

This was also an experiment—an experiment to confirm key details!

Over the past few days, Lumián had conducted numerous similar experiments and had already uncovered many patterns related to dreams.

With his hands in his pockets, he followed closely behind the hurriedly descending Camus and Ria, watching how they would verify whether they were still dreaming.

After leaving Tewanako's house, the two patrol members immediately headed toward the nearest villager's home.

Finding that the livestock kept in the basement had vanished, Ria hurried upstairs and tried opening the door with a simple iron-black key.

Camus opened his mouth as if to stop her, but ultimately said nothing.

Seeing this, Lumián nodded thoughtfully and murmured silently:

"Ardent Path aspirants instinctively uphold the current order and avoid destruction."

"If such an aspirant also holds an official position, this tendency becomes even stronger…"

Ria broke into the house and, together with Camus, searched every room but found no trace of the family who lived there.

Then, the two went to the police station near Saint Cien Church.

The local patrol team had five entire rooms there.

Colobo, Maxlo, and Loban were gone; even the two night-shift officers had vanished.

"Now I believe this is a dream," Camus turned to Louis Berry, who was walking slowly behind them with his hands in his pockets and a golden straw hat on his head. "But I feel completely awake—nothing like dreaming."

Before Lumián could respond, Ria's light-brown face furrowed slightly in thought.

"While running through the streets and searching these rooms just now, I felt a strange sense of familiarity."

"Familiar?" Lumián asked calmly, his expression serene.

Could this experiment yield an unexpected discovery?

After thinking for a while, Ria said:

"I think I've had a similar dream before."

"In the dream, it was just as dark and silent, the streets empty, only me running around, searching…"

"Was it a fragment or a complete dream?" Lumián pressed.

After recalling for several seconds, Ria replied:

"I don't know—I only remember these fragments."

"Is this something you dream about often, or only occasionally?" Lumián guided her to clarify the details.

Ria answered firmly:

"Occasionally."

"Occasionally…"

"Even villagers of Tizamo who don't sleep in this house on specific dates can occasionally enter this special dream—but without staying conscious, just like normal dreaming?"

"Perhaps they aren't truly entering, but their spiritual essence, influenced by environmental factors like the red moon, occasionally resonates with this special dream. Unfortunately, Ria clearly doesn't remember the moon phase or weather during those similar dreams—if only I could use 'Dream Divination' to help her recall…"

"None of the Tizamo people I questioned in Port Palos mentioned similar dreams—perhaps because such dreams are too ordinary to be remembered, or because they've been away from Tizamo for many years…" As Lumián's thoughts raced, he glanced at Camus, wondering what the "Interrogator" might ask next.

Camus, with an age-defying solemnity, asked Ria:

"What do you think is special about the villagers of Tizamo?"

Sharp observation—since this dream seems capable of affecting everyone in town and the surrounding area, these people must exhibit certain abnormalities in real life… Lumián nodded inwardly.

After a long pause, Ria said:

"Nothing special—just extremely domesticated…"

Mentioning this, Ria sighed:

"They're polite, courteous, gentle, emotionally stable, obedient, and follow orders without question. Even when angry, they calm down quickly; when faced with trouble, they prefer to let authorities handle it rather than fight or argue publicly…"

These were precisely the traits Camus had mentioned and Lumián had read in official records—superficially normal, the result of thorough domestication.

Ria added finally:

"Their only issue is a lack of warmth—everyone is coldly detached. This isn't because they hide indifference or hatred behind politeness; they simply don't express warmth at all, as if unwilling to show such emotions directly."

Hearing this, Lumián recalled the Tizamo people he'd encountered these past days.

Aside from a few gentlemen and ladies from the North Continent, everyone else was calm, gentle, avoided arguments, and always communicated politely.

Then Lumián thought of the Tizamo people he'd questioned in Port Palos.

They showed fear, worry, flattery, and expressive, vivid emotions.

This was clearly different from the villagers of Tizamo!

"Has most of their emotion been drained away by this dream?" Lumián finally identified the anomaly among the Tizamo people.

Their problem clearly isn't entirely caused by attacks from the primitive tribe in the jungle!

Hearing Lumián's speculative words, Camus hissed:

"I always thought the Tizamo people felt weird—too docile. Even real cattle and horses occasionally get emotional and resist… Could this really be the reason?"

Ria's expression grew serious, tinged with faint fear:

"I've lived here nearly a year—I feel I've become calmer myself…"

"My most intense emotions haven't disappeared—they're still inside me—but often they feel like they're asleep…"

Ria began to analyze herself.

"It seems everyone within Tizamo Town gradually becomes affected by this special dream, but the effect fades slowly after leaving," Lumián said, glancing at Camus. "We've only been here a few days, so we're fine for now—but if we stay long enough, we might become just as calm."

Before Camus could respond, Lumián asked:

"When will the patrol team and the General's Guard reinforcements arrive?"

At this question, Camus's face darkened; he gritted his teeth and cursed:

"Those selfish bastards! There probably won't be any significant reinforcements."

"The General's Guard says they already have a team of specialists here, plus troops. Only Captain Reyasa of the patrol team promised to come—damn it, those damn bastards!"

Lumián paused, then burst into laughter.

Institutions under native generals truly differ from those of the North Continent.

If this patrol team were replaced by the Church of the Eternal Sun or the Church of the Earth Mother, their official specialists would have already devised a plan and dispatched sufficient powerful personnel to handle the problem—and prepared to obliterate Tizamo Town entirely if things went wrong.

"Now, General Quilariel believes that with me—a big adventurer backed by the Church of the Fool—on the scene, he can leverage the Fool Church's power to solve Tizamo's problem without needing to send his own specialists?"

"That makes sense—specialists aren't cabbage you can just grow from the ground. If too many of his top people die, General Quilariel won't just grieve—he'll lose his ability to effectively rule Matani Province…"

"Recruiting replacements won't fill the gaps quickly, nor can new recruits be trusted immediately. Even if he recovers the Special Traits, training the survivors poses serious problems: low-rank ascensions are manageable, but mid-rank promotions carry significant failure rates—most of these specialists here haven't even mastered the 'Performance Method' yet." Lumián quickly understood General Quilariel's mindset.

He turned to the emotionally agitated Camus and said:

"Let me take you around this dream and show you everything."

"Alright," Camus breathed deeply.

He and Ria followed Lumián as they wandered through the dark, silent, and deserted town.

After a long time, Lumián led the two patrol members into the primal jungle and told them he had seen Tewanako's figure in the chaotic area ahead, seemingly composed of dream fragments, suspecting the presence of the "Apostle of Desire's" mark.

As they moved through trees towering like giants in the night, Camus grew increasingly oppressed.

Before he could ask for details about Tewanako's figure, he suddenly heard the twang of a bowstring.

*Snap.

An arrow wrapped in crackling electricity flew from afar, narrowly missing Camus as he dodged, and embedded itself in a rubber tree behind him.

Amid the sizzling, blackened wood, Lumián, Camus, and Ria turned to see a woman standing on a branch of a massive tree nearby.

She wore dark leather armor, carried a hunting bow and arrows, and had her brown hair tied into two braids that hung down.

Her skin was a light brown, her face bearing a wild, beautiful beauty, yet radiating unmistakable coldness and hatred.

Lyra!

She is Lyra!

(End of Chapter)