Warlock Apprentice

“You’re back early, Jon! Muey hasn’t returned from school yet,” an old man greeted his visitor while sitting inside a bright room enclosed in glass walls.

“I earned vacation for finishing my research ahead of schedule. Can’t wait to see my family,” the visitor spoke in a charming man’s voice.

Angor was currently “attached” to the second man. He felt great emotions and excitement overwhelming his mind upon hearing the familiar accent and language.

He was with Jon.

Upon entering the dream, Angor found the owner of the dream walking down an empty street, both sides of which had beautiful maple trees planted. The bright red leaves falling off them suggested that it was autumn.

But there was only unending darkness beyond the trees. The lone street was the only thing that existed.

He couldn’t see Jon’s face or tell whether it was Jon at all at first, or whether the strange street was from Earth or some other places. This was until the silent pedestrian arrived at a small glasshouse at the end of the street.

As soon as the old man inside the house started talking, the empty area around the house started expanding until a large building complex came into view. Angor was now sure that this was Earth.

Angor found Jon’s voice to be both familiar and strange since they had been apart for many years, and that this “Jon” in the dream seemed a lot younger.

After greeting the old man, Jon left the glasshouse and headed to the structures farther behind. As he walked, the street behind him slowly crumbled and was covered by approaching darkness, until the glasshouse and the old man also disappeared.

“The dream is not complete…” Angor frowned.

Usually, a dreamer could only “remember” bits of their memory such as specific details that either defined the dream as a good one or a nightmare. But as a rule of the dream world, insignificant parts that were “left out” by the dreamer, such as the dream’s brightness and negligible objects would be automatically completed and shown in the dream.

But in certain cases, these “unimportant parts” would be left completely empty, which would, in turn, cause the dream to appear as a chaotic mishmash.

Freud mentioned three possible causes for this to happen. One, the dream was devoured by “native monsters” of the dream world. This was very unlikely because these creatures would not go after common and “private” dreams. This was also an unspoken rule of the dream world.

Dream Manipulators could achieve something similar either by controlling their own dreams or someone else’s. However, people who knew this art were scarce, similar to Gourmets. If a Dream Manipulator were here to meddle with Jon’s dream, Eureka would have already noticed.

As for the last possibility… This would happen if the dreamer suffered from brain damage and could no longer come up with dreams properly. This usually meant the mental injury had reached a very dangerous state.

Thinking about this, Angor’s mood instantly dropped even though he was feeling joyful at hearing Jon’s voice a second ago.

Although this wouldn’t affect the “Jon” in the dream in any way.

Jon was entering the villa area while occasionally greeting clusters of random shades on his way. Each time he did, the shades would slowly gain forms and become someone living in the area, who returned their friendly regards happily.

“Look who’s back in the house! The best botanist in the field!”

“You flatter me, Miss Shen. I’m just an assistant researcher right now,” Jon replied somewhat bashfully, which was new in Angor’s view.

“Shawn’s been waiting for you for two weeks! You’re not going to disappear after a phone call overnight like how you did last time, right?”

“No, I won’t. They promised to let me rest up for a month at least. I might even take Havier to the institute next time.”

“Good to hear!”

Once again, Jon kept moving forward, leaving the villa buildings to be devoured by the dark curtain behind.

It seemed Jon clearly remembered where his neighbors and friends lived around his home, telling from how he always stopped to talk to somebody at accurate locations.

And of course, Jon looked really happy to be home.

Compared to Jon, Angor was feeling rather sad when looking at everything. Jon spent 20 years at Padt Manor, during which he never told Angor anything about his friends from Earth.

Angor used to play pranks to help Jon recover from low spirits when he was little. But now, he wasn’t sure it was a good thing to do when witnessing the true reason for Jon’s sadness.

The more he watched young Jon heartily talking to all the friendly folks who existed in another universe, the more heartbroken he grew when thinking how Jon was grievously separated from them.

Finally, Jon walked past the last friendly neighbor and arrived home.

Angor was a little surprised to see a stilt house built in Jon’s garden, where such places were usually reserved for fountains or private swimming pools.

The house made from sturdy bamboo looked almost identical to the one in Padt Manor.

On the balcony on the second floor, a woman wearing a sun hat was sound asleep in an armchair.

Instead of going inside, Jon stood in front of the house and watched the sleeping lady in silence.

Angor couldn’t see Jon’s expression from his position. But he knew Jon loved the woman. That was very likely Jon’s wife.

Angor could almost feel the great happiness radiating from Jon’s body.

When Jon was still healthy at Padt Manor, there used to be servants or maids who showed their interests in him. According to Leon, even Head Maid Mana seemed to love Jon’s company.

Of course, Jon did nothing in response to the gestures of affection other than maintaining his best manners.

There was one time when Angor asked Jon whether he was planning to get a new family and pass his knowledge onto his own child.

Jon answered him using an ancient poem at that time. Angor couldn’t remember the phrases, but he was sure he was greatly inspired then.

Even across the unreachable boundaries between worlds, Jon stayed faithful to his wife and never strayed.

Angor did not even know the names of Jon’s wife and daughter. But the longing love he felt from Jon never changed, and he was feeling it again.

Jon remained still for a long time until the falling maple leaves had covered up his boots.

A gust of wind suddenly came and blew the leaves away, and the woman’s hat was also carried away and landed in Jon’s hand.

She yawned and looked around in confusion. She then looked below and saw Jon gazing at her.

“You’re back!” She happily waved both arms. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I planned to, when this thing came and interrupted me,” Jon spoke while waving the sun hat.

Angor noticed that the woman shared similar body features as Jon, probably because they were born in the same homeland. She was far from being an alluring beauty, but her humble and tender look went well with Jon.

When Jon and the woman shared the blissful moment, Angor also noticed a tiny trace of a different emotion coming from Jon.

Sadness.

He thought his senses were off, which was soon proved otherwise when a drop of tear moved along Jon’s cheek.

Surprised, Angor watched the teardrop land on Jon’s boot.

It could be explained if Jon was crying out of joy for reuniting with his love, but that sorrowfulness didn’t fit in this context.

“Does Jon perhaps… know that this is a dream?”