After quietly observing for a few seconds, Klein stepped forward onto the staircase and carefully descended step by step.
The light around him gradually dimmed, only a gray haze enveloping this supremely quiet world. The deeper Klein went, the more he felt as if he were locked in a dark, soundless room. He gradually heard the gurgling of his own blood and the powerful beat of his heart.
The latter grew faster and faster, slowly tinged with uncontrollable anxiety and panic. Klein quickly focused his mind, visualizing a layered ball of light to calm his emotions and restore his state.
To his side, the grayish-white cliff representing Groselle's subconscious domain stood cold and still, as if dead, but within the surrounding haze, a light dot would occasionally flash.
Klein looked closely and in one of those dots saw a giant tearing open a human and stuffing it into his mouth, along with a terrified Groselle. At that time, Groselle was less than three meters tall, clearly still in his early childhood.
The dot flashed, revealing a frozen evening spilling over the mountaintops, where time itself seemed to have slowed.
Klein was about to search for more valuable information in Groselle's subconscious when the sound of a beastly panting suddenly rang in his ears.
With a sweep, a huge hand emerged from the gray haze. Its skin was gray-blue, covered with signs of decay and marked with yellow-green liquid, it quickly grasped for Klein's ankle.
With "heh, heh, heh" sounds, on the steps below, one after another, similar hands reached upward, as if to forcibly drag Klein's spiritual body into the deepest, most unfathomable parts of the mental world.
All at once, these rotting hands were like a forest or a sea, dense and countless, constantly stretching upward while issuing terrifying pants that made one's hair stand on end, scaring Klein into instinctively jumping up three steps.
But these countless hands, like those of a giant corpse, did not stop. They pressed against the steps and crawled upward like a tide, flooding every inch of the space below.
Klein was about to reach his right hand for "Death Knell," using purifying bullets in conjunction with "Slaughter" to deal with these countless "monsters," when two questions suddenly flashed through his mind:
Where did these "hands" come from? Why did they appear in Groselle's subconscious?
As soon as the questions emerged, a flash of insight came, and Klein vaguely understood something. He immediately gave up on using "Death Knell," calmed his breathing, and visualized a ball of light.
In that moment, those huge rotting hands surged to his feet, grabbing at his ankles and calves!
Just then, they silently vanished, as if they had never appeared at all.
"Indeed, this is an illusion created by Groselle's subconscious influence. Here, minds not only directly 'face' each other but also intermingle. Without the corresponding Beyonder powers, the deeper one delves, the easier it is to experience emotional collapse, be gradually eroded by the other's subconscious, and eventually have one's 'mental body' severely contaminated, becoming a mental patient unable to recover sanity, which could lead to losing control... This isn't like necromancy; staying clear-headed and rational isn't enough to avoid contamination, because you're already inside the target's 'mental body'..." Klein silently said to himself, gaining insight.
He hesitated for a few seconds, then turned around and climbed back up the stairs, no longer delving deeper into Groselle's mental world, because he lacked the Beyonder powers to soothe his own mind. Pushing forward would be tantamount to suicide.
"After I collect magical items in this area, I'll consider continuing the exploration." Klein made up his mind, walked faster and faster, and finally leaped back into Groselle's dream, back to where the guards of the "Giant King's Court" lived.
Already feeling tired, he immediately left the dream, walked through the wall out of Groselle's blacksmith shop, and once again studied the wonders of the book world.
"I've already met Groselle, Mobet, and Shatas. And earlier, while wandering and chatting with people, I also heard about the devout priest Snowman and the 'Philosopher' Longzer, but there is no Anderson Hood, no Edwina Edwards, no Danitz, and certainly no Gehrman Sparrow... So, is it that the dead gain new roles in the book, or that adventurers who stayed here for a long time and fully revealed themselves in daily life have a portion of their subconscious copied?" Klein strolled along the edge of the street under the setting sun, pondering this question crucial to him.
If the former guess was correct—that the dead "reincarnate" into new roles—then Klein had nothing to worry about. But if it was the latter, he would have to reduce the frequency of exploring the book world and strictly control the duration of each stay.
"I can't tell for now. I'll proceed according to the latter case. Caution is never wrong..." Klein quickly reached a decision and was about to return above the Gray Fog.
At that moment, he saw another familiar figure.
Longzer, with black hair and blue eyes, sat on a long wooden bench by the street, staring blankly at the sky that seemed to have been burned by fire, lost in thought.
Thinking that the ashes of this former Loen soldier were in his hands, ready to be sent back to the Storm Church cemetery in Backlund, Klein silently sighed, walked over, sat next to Longzer, and asked casually:
"What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking, who am I, where did I come from, and where should I return to..." Longzer said without shifting his gaze, as if talking in his sleep.
Before Klein could ask further, he shook his head and laughed softly:
"I've always felt that I don't belong here, that I'm not the me now. There's a place waiting for me to return.
"They laugh at me for always thinking about these useless things, so they gave me the nickname 'Philosopher'..."
As he said this, he looked at the setting sun and fell into silence again, staring blankly.