Translator: Lonelytree
“Ladies and gentlemen, let us present to you the Nightmare Man, are you ready for the horror of your life?” Since Gu Jun’s eyes were fixed to stare forward, he could not tell who the host was but based on what was happening, he understood that the reason the black merchant bought him from the Zoogs was to make money off of him as a spectacle. Inside this strange theatre, there were seated about 300 to 400 audience in strange dressing, many of them wore an expression of suspicion.
“How is this a nightmare wonder?” A male audience in a round hat grumbled noisily, “This is more like a freakshow!”
“That is one hell of an ugly man.” A female audience in purple robe complained to her friend. “And how come his face is destroyed like that? I know someone who had fallen into hot water when he was young, but even he did not look as disfigured as this.”
“Beautiful lady, this is the sign of the nightmare’s corruption!” The host claimed loudly. “We will now instigate the pain, please look into his eyes, you will be granted visions of the nightmare.” Gu Jun could see from the corner of his eyes that a black-robed man was walking towards him with a glittering silver needle. ‘Stop!’ His heart was shaking with nervousness, anger and some fear. ‘Don’t you do anything stupid.’ However he could not make any sound. The black-robed man stopped beside him and poked the needle into his right eye without any warning. The man was very fast and highly technical. He aimed for Gu Jun’s musculus orbicularis oculi, it did not cause any damage to his eyeball but did bring upon a hell of pain. He poked Gu Jun’s right eye and then his left.
‘Ah...’ Gu Jun screamed in his mind. The pain instantly triggered the chaos in his mind, the power of the corruption was unleashed!
He knew that if he did not survive this, once his consciousness was wiped out, he would be turned into a nightmare machine. He’d become a puppet that would only respond to pain and nothing else. These black merchants knew that very well so they did not converse with him at all, for them, Gu Jun was never a human being to begin with...
At the same time, illusions danced around the theatre and the audience broke out in shrieks. The people who were voicing their suspicion earlier instantly had their faces frozen in fear. They saw maggots, broken fingers, plague, guillotine, fresh blood, wilted faces and open graves... Joy was a need, so was horror.
“Ah!!” being ravaged by the nightmare, some of the audience wailed, others cried tears of mercy. The man in the round hat shouted, “Demon!” as he climbed to hide under the seat. They were normal citizens of this city, they rarely had the chance to venture out of the city so they had not seen nightmarish spectacle like this before. The female audience in the purple robe had her face turned ashen. She stared transfixed at the nightmare man on stage. She was completely stunned, she couldn’t move even if she wanted too. The nightmare man’s face which was covered in purplish red scars, and the eyeballs bursting with veins, were tearing at her soul. “How could there exist such a horrifying face in the world...” She wanted to move her head away but she felt apprehended by the pair of eyeballs. More madness streamed into her mind. Her heart was getting twisted as her mind spiralling into fanaticism.
Just as the audience was about to go crazy, the black-robed man replaced the black cloth over the nightmare man. The sound in the theatre immediately quieted down. The nightmare that troubled the audience earlier was slowly receding.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the nightmare is over!” The host exclaimed. “Are you satisfied?” Instantly, gasps, cheer and curses echoed throughout the theatre, the audience exploded in emotion. “That is the most horrifying nightmare wonder I’ve seen. Earth’s God, what has this man even experienced?””I’d rather go to the legendary House of the Worm than to look into his eyes again!””Son of the demon, the abandoned of the Gods!” The mob was getting angrier, “We should burn this monstrosity in a cleansing fire now! This is a monster that does not belong in this world!”
Earlier, Gu Jun had been trying his best to resist the darkness by thinking about the fountain at Carlot Academy and his friends in the real world but the nightmarish energy was consuming his sea of consciousness, leaving no space for him to hide himself. He was feeling rather dazed and overwhelmed when his attention caught the five sweet dream bubbles. Before his consciousness was fully consumed by the nightmare, he clicked on the most left bubble and he was immediately sucked into it. It was still a theatre before his eyes but it was an ancient playhouse without any audience. The nightmarish waves had disappeared, they were isolated outside the bubble. His consciousness appeared to have slipped into a shelter. He understood in that moment how helpful the sweet dreams were. They were distinctive from his sea of consciousness because they belonged to other dreamers.
Gu Jun gave a long sigh even though he could still sense the chaotic condition inside his sea of consciousness just outside the sweet dream, the waves were ravaging the bubble as well. He did not open the door to summon the audience. He did not do anything. He quieted down to meditate until he felt the situation outside had settled down.
‘It’s over?’ Gu Jun cautiously exited the sweet dream. He was greeted by the black cloth and the noises of the audience drilled into his ears. The bubble of the leftmost dream had lightened further but Gu Jun felt strangely relaxed and his mental power felt more stable...
At that moment, a notification came from the system, “Your mind has been digested, corruption rate decreased by 0.1 percent, current corruption rate 47.87 percent.”
‘Ah!’ Gu Jun welcomed this notification with joyous surprise. He had not done anything but it had dropped for 0.1 percent! That was equal to consuming 100 old photographs and completing 20 difficult missions. But something popped out at him. ‘Digested? The system did not use the term cleansed but digested, why?’ Gu Jun pondered about it and concluded that the audience had unwittingly taken away the nightmarish energy that was forcibly unleashed from within him... trading it with their own peace and hope... After all, he was not the house of nightmare, he was merely a receptacle for a pool of energy that had been greatly weakened. The horrors that he unleashed were for the purpose of entertainment, the audience was not harmed and they did not help to grow the darkness. By drawing on the life energy of the audience, he managed to digest 0.1 percent of the corruption.
‘I’ve been focusing on ‘cleansing’ but the goal of the abyssal mission is to ‘deplete’ the corruption so digesting it should work as well. Is this an opportunity to complete the mission?’ Gu Jun heard the host announce in good cheer that the next nightmare wonder would be happening at the same time tomorrow. Gu Jun calculated in his mind, ‘The larger the audience, the faster the digestion. This time the audience was only half full, if the theatre was completely seated, the corruption rate might lower for 0.2 to 0.3 percent. If the show operates for 10 times a day, then wouldn’t I be able to digest 2 to 3 percent in one day?! Then depleting the 10 percent corruption rate in a week should not be a problem!’
Surrounded by the audience’s agitated screaming, Gu Jun heard the wheelchair that he was propped on being rolled to backstage.
‘These people are banking on my human consciousness dying so that I’ll be turned into a nightmarish spectacle for them.’ Gu Jun contemplated as he came to the decision. ‘I mustn’t let them know that ‘I’ still exists! I have to pretend that my consciousness has faded away and will not cause them any harm. I have supposedly become an empty shell after ingesting the nightmarish energy, that way they would hawk me out as the nightmare man without any hesitation...’
Right then, he saw the black cloth move and his consciousness immediately flitted back into the sweet dream bubble.
The group of black-robed people studied him and all they saw were the emptiness in Gu Jun’s pair of eyes. The black cloth returned. Sensing this situation, after hiding out for a bit longer in the sweet dream, Gu Jun slipped out from the bubble. ‘Yes, this is indeed my chance. The larger the audience, the greater the digestion. I probably will be able to move again in less than a month.’
Gu Jun rejoiced. The cunning of the Zoogs and the heartlessness of the black merchants had given him a second chance at life. But there was still another problem, could the five sweet dream bubbles sustain him for that long?
They did not remove the machine from his eyes. He could not close his eyes, making sleep impossible. He thus stared at the blackness of the cloth and meditated to recover his mental power. Time seemed to slow down.
The next day, the nightmare wonder show arrived as expected. He was once again wheeled out of the darkness. Gu Jun could hear more noises coming from the audience. It was still the same host based on the recognizability of the voice. “Is it that scary? Or as some of you claim, it was our fake promotion? Is this really something Dylath-Leen has not seen before? Well, see yourself. I bring to you the nightmare man!”
The scarier the nightmare, the larger the audience. Only by becoming a hotspot at the city would Gu Jun be able to digest the corruption faster. He tried to focus on death scenes, darkening his mood and emotion. When the black cloth was lifted off, he slipped into the sweet dream bubble. He could feel through the bubble, around 70 percent wide-eyed people sitting in the audience, this was almost double the amount of visitors compared to yesterday.
Time to get this show started. In a haze, he clicked on the system and accepted the abyssal mission:
“Abyssal Mission: Deplete the corruption rate by 10 percent in a week, mission reward: Unknown.”
Accept.
“Mission accepted!”
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