Stelle realized she'd been tricked again.
This damn place hadn't followed the normal procedure and sent her into her own proper dreamscape at all.
'*Where the hell did it send me? Is this even The Reverie Hotel anymore?*'
According to the hotel handbook, if Stelle remembered correctly, she was supposed to appear in some kind of metropolis, possibly even in a very unusual way.
But she was still in The Reverie Hotel, or rather, a different suite in The Reverie Hotel. It wasn't her room, nor was it anyone else's. She had no idea where she was.
'*The ability to trace my origins... huh? I actually remember how I entered the dream. I even remember the feeling of lying in the pool to fall asleep. That means my ability to trace my origins hasn't been lost...*'
'*So this place... it shouldn't be a dream within my dream, then? But that doesn't seem right...*'
'*Am I forgetting something?*'
Stelle searched her memories, trying to recall if she'd forgotten any unusual circumstances or lost something important.
But just as she was about to delve deeper, she suddenly heard a strange voice in her ear.
"Over here. I'm over here. Can you see me?"
The voice was somewhat familiar. Stelle remembered it clearly; it was the voice of that hotel bellboy.
Her face remained impassive. She acted as if she hadn't heard a thing and went to open the door, following her normal train of thought.
As she expected, the door wouldn't open.
The only strange thing in the suite right now was the glowing, cracked picture frame she had noticed earlier.
Stelle still didn't move. She seemed to have more patience than the person calling out to her. She even had the presence of mind to check around the suite to see if anything extra had appeared.
There was a note. The signature on it read [The Clockmaker].
Even in a dream, there are impossible things. Find it, and you may have an audience.
'*An audience with who? Damn these riddle-makers!*'
Stelle's face was a mask of exasperation. The fact that someone was still pulling this kind of stunt at a time like this was really testing her patience.
If they wanted to tell her a secret, why not just say it directly, like with a cypher key? Or find a trusted person to go to the Astral Express and tell them? Why did they have to speak in riddles in a dreamscape controlled by The Family?
'*Even in a dream, there are impossible things?*'
'*What kind of impossible things could there be? Are you saying people in dreams can rule over people in reality or something?*'
'*The most impossible thing would be...? Huh?*'
'*Why do I know this?*'
'*There are impossible things?*'
Muttering the phrase to herself, Stelle walked steadily toward the picture frame.
The painting depicted many hands, which seemed to be tearing a rift in the canvas, waiting for her to crawl through.
Stelle hesitated for a long moment, then casually picked up a teacup from the table and threw it right in!
Her aim was good, her throw accurate. It hit someone or something inside the frame.
"Ouch!"
She heard the cry, followed by the sound of a shattering teacup.
'*Good. Looks like there's gravity in there, and places for people to stand.*'
'*Impossible things in a dream? That just means something that none of the people constructing the dream have ever experienced, right? So I just need to find the inverse of the dreamers' shared real-world experiences...*'
'*Holy crap! How am I this smart?!*'
'*Who the hell is telling me these things?!*'
Stelle's head was spinning, but she climbed through the picture frame anyway.
She was going to see just what this Clockmaker's Legacy was all about!
Noldrei once again lost his link to Stelle's senses. Or rather, Stelle's sensory system had been isolated and grafted elsewhere by some kind of Memoria energy. All that was left here was a shell in Stelle's likeness, while her consciousness had been moved and replaced.
Just as he had predicted, this dreamscape wasn't a so-called dream-within-a-dream. It was a box-like structure, like a dream game. It was only because people's consciousnesses could be linked and grafted to reality through Memoria that it created the illusion of everyone being connected in a dream-within-a-dream.
The Stelle lying in the water woke up. 'She'—or rather, Noldrei—opened 'her' eyes and saw March 7th waiting nearby.
The two of them hadn't entered the "dream-within-a-dream" at the same time. Considering the various strange occurrences in The Reverie Hotel, they had decided to take turns watching over each other in case anything went wrong.
Stelle had gone in first, while March 7th sat on the sofa, waiting for her to wake up.
"Huh? How did you wake up after just a few minutes?" March hadn't even finished unpacking when she saw 'Stelle' suddenly sit up.
'Stelle' looked calmly at March 7th, wondering if this girl had even realized she was in a dream yet.
"March, it's me, Noldrei. Do you remember how we got in here?"
Noldrei's words startled March 7th. She stared blankly at 'Stelle', unable to process it for a moment.
It took her a good while before she finally screamed in terror, "Body snatcher! You've body-snatched Stelle! Where is she? Did you eat her soul?!"
A black line formed on Noldrei's forehead. He hadn't expected March 7th's imagination to run this wild.
He explained, "This is just a shell sculpted from Memoria within the Memoriascape. Your current body is the same. The bodies we're using now are not our real ones; only our sensory systems have been grafted over."
March 7th clutched a sofa cushion tightly, tucking her feet up onto the couch and shrinking into the corner. She watched Noldrei nervously. "How do I know if you're telling the truth? All I know is that you using Stelle's senses is up to no good! Get out! Get out of her body right now!"
'*Is she dense?*'
Noldrei thought to himself. They were all in a dream, how could March 7th still think this was a real body?
"I told you, this isn't a real body!"
"I don't believe you! Not unless you come out!"
March 7th simply didn't believe in something so bizarre. What kind of normal person would use someone else's body?
Noldrei's gaze sharpened. "If you shout one more time, I'll snatch your body too! Think about it! You are in a dream right now!"
Hearing this, March 7th froze.
Her brain, a half-beat too slow, finally caught up. She suddenly realized that she was, in fact, already in a dream. She had just thought she'd gotten off the Express and checked into a suite.
"I... I'm already in a dream..."
"I'm in a dream, and they're making me dream again!!"
March 7th's eyes widened, her whole face looking dazed and silly as she finally understood what Noldrei had been trying to tell her.