"Your Majesty... Your Majesty?" Nightingale's voice woke Roland from his daze. "The City Hall Director is still waiting for your reply."

"Ah, I already know about this," said Roland as he blinked his eyes, trying to concentrate. He handed over the report in his hand to Barov and said, "Let's proceed according to what you said."

"Yes," said Barov. As he saluted Roland, he also solemnly added a sentence before leaving. "Please take care of your health, Your Majesty."

After the chief left the office, Roland asked Nightingale, "Does my face really look that bad?"

"Well, you look okay," said the latter after some deliberation, "it's just that you've been daydreaming more recently. Could this be related to the Erosion of the Dream World?"

Roland shook his head. "The changes in Dreamland can't really affect me. It's just a few strange things in retrospect that have been bothering me. There's nothing to worry about."

"That's good to know," said Nightingale while she pursed her lips.

This was already the fourth day since he had left the Dreamland. Although Faldi had succeeded in locating the headquarter of the a.s.sociation, Ling had failed to sneak into it—according to her, there had never been a place like that one. It was built underground, but it had been impossible for her to find any hiding spot there and some s.h.i.+ny "light band" had covered her head. It had just kept glowing, no matter how long she had waited.

Afterward, Ling had even despondently requested for Roland to punish her for failing her task, but naturally, Roland had refused to do so.

The next play plan had been executed smoothly, and Roland had brought more Taquila witches into his Dreamland, but what he had seen and heard in the headquarters that day still troubled him immensely.

The whole incident had so many strange factors that could not be explained.

The first was the conclusion about the membrane world.

He had always believed that the Dream World would present a modern society filled with the Force of Nature in order to integrate both his and Zero's memories and keep his internal government self-consistent. In other words, no matter how many weird phenomena there were, they were all rules based on the needs of being self-consistent—most of these rules came from his consciousness, which he understood and was able to accept.

However, those words spoken by the Chief Disciple Lan completely exceeded the scope of his knowledge reserve.

The only thing Roland knew about the membrane theory was that it evolved from the superstring theory. These two theories were particularly profound and he had never carried out in-depth reading on them. Unlike Quantum mechanics, he had at least read through one or two popular books about it. In the Dream World, these theories should have been hidden as if they were invisible, just like those blank books that only had covers.

However, both Lan's explanation and the derivation formulas and evidence displayed in the lobby screens seemed to be logical—this was the first time he saw something totally unintelligible in the Dreamland, as if a High school student had dreamed about the Grand Unification Theory in physics which was absurd and incredible.

This even made him think that the Dream World today was completely different from the world when he had first entered.

As if something was growing wildly out of his sight.

Another weird thing was the Chief Disciple herself.

After Garcia had reminded Roland, he had recalled that the vision, hearing and reaction of the martialists was better than ordinary people. If Lan had spoken to him on the stage, not only would the defenders, but even the first two rows of new people in the lobby have been able to hear something. But the fact was that no one at that time had s.h.i.+fted their attention to them. It had not sounded like a whisper to him, yet, surprisingly, it had not attracted any attention. At that time, he had not paid any attention to this point. But later on, when he thought about it, he questioned why a newcomer who was shown special attention by the Chief Disciple did not cause public concern?

The things Lan said also left him scratching his head.

"Listen carefully to what I'm going to say next as it might help you!"

How would the knowledge about the origin of the Erosion, the relations.h.i.+p between the martialists and the Fallen Evils help him? Even if he wholeheartedly wanted to join the a.s.sociation and become a savior of the world, knowing these would still not be important to him, right?

All these weird signs made Roland form some resistance toward the Dream World. He intended to temporarily stop the connection with Dreamland, once all the G.o.d's Punishment Witches had gone in once to enjoy themselves.

It would be better to behave cautiously whilst the Battle of Divine Will was approaching.

"Your Majesty?" Nightingale's voice once again could be heard, but this time with some urgency. "You look like you're in a daze again."

"Ahem, I'm fine," Roland shook his head and threw his distractions behind him. "It's just that I've got a little more things to consider lately and so I'm a little sleepy."

"But why do I feel that you're hiding something behind those words," Nightingale sat on the table, propped her feet up and said, "don't tell me that in the Dream World, you and the witches..."

"That's impossible!" He suddenly felt dumbfounded. "I just took them to experience the taste of different flavors only!"

"Well... that's true," Nightingale blinked and revealed a cunning smile. "I'm a bit worried about that world that I can't enter. There's no way to protect you at all times, and in case they suddenly make trouble, that would be problematic. After all, they've pa.s.sed hundreds of years of unconscious days. And now that they've finally recovered their senses, I'm sure they would try to revisit all their past feelings. But that's more than 20 women. How could you cope if they all swarmed towards you?"

"You're getting more ridiculous." Roland glared at her and said, "Who did you get these ideas from? Can't you spend more energy on studying?"

Nightingale covered her mouth and said, "I was just joking."

"If I had your ability, it'd surely remind me loudly that you were lying," Roland snorted and said, "from the very beginning, you wanted to ask this, right?"

"Well, I admit it... But this was not just my own opinion," Nightingale stuck her tongue out. "I was also asked by someone else to raise this question."

"Asked by someone else?" Roland did not have the time to ask who it was as there was knocking on the office door.

He had to temporarily withdraw his questions and said, "Come in."

The door opened and a tall man quickly walked in, neatly closed his legs and then raised his hands to salute Roland. "Your Majesty, Iron Axe is here to report to you!"

From Port of Clearwater to Neverwinter took almost four or five days, and by boat it was a rather laborious thing. But on the face of this foreign officer, he could not see a trace of exhaustion. His eyes reflected an energy that was full of war spirit.

"Fine," Roland nodded rea.s.suringly. "I think you already know about Neverwinter's combat plans?"

"I've heard Brian talking about it," said Iron Axe. "The First Corps will be divided into two roads from east and west to regain Graycastle before crossing the border, and striking Kingdom of Dawn's Glow City. But there's something that I don't understand. If you asked Brian to take over my task and stay in the Port of Clearwater to protect Miss Echo, who's responsible for the Eastern Front?"

It seems that even before the task had been a.s.signed, Iron Axe had already placed the responsibility of leading the Western Front attack on his shoulders. Roland could not help but smile. "Brian is still lacking in experience. Leading a garrison isn't a problem, but he could still be p.r.o.ne to accidents if he had to lead an entire army alone, so Eastern Front Army will be your responsibility."

Iron Axe was slightly stunned and replied, "Then what about the Western Front..."

"I'll lead it personally," said Roland slowly.