BabyBus

Rachel stood where she was, motionless.

Perhaps it was because she was far enough away, or because she hadn't fixed her gaze directly upon the two people in front of her. Or, of course, it could be that her visual camouflage was working quite well... Regardless, at least up until now, no one had walked up to her and said, "Your disguise is really terrible."

So, she hadn't intended to eavesdrop on that stowaway lady pouring her heart out to the Nameless.

The other party suffered from a condition called "entropy loss syndrome," something Rachel had never heard of. Rachel felt deeply sorry for her; if this condition were real, and if it truly, as the woman described, forced her to enjoy the ordinary things of life only within dreams, then she could fully understand why the woman had chosen to become a stowaway.

If it were her, she reckoned she would do the same.

That is, assuming everything the woman said was the truth and not a lie.

Rachel felt conflicted.

She knew the most rational course of action right now would be to report the woman to the Family, take the reward money, and walk away, distancing herself from the whole affair.

Any potential danger would never catch up to her, and her life would continue to oscillate between construction sites and school.

But...

That woman actually seemed quite sincere, even going so far as to tell the Nameless lady the fact that she was a stowaway.

She had also mentioned the "Watchmaker." Rachel frowned. Of course, she knew of the Watchmaker, but she had always assumed he had been left behind in the past along with the pioneering era of Penacony.

From their conversation, she realized that the dream as she perceived it was not the same as the dream they perceived, just as it was also different from the true Penacony.

Rachel glanced once more at the young girl with her hands resting on the railing in front of her. The look of longing for happiness on her face didn't seem faked. Just then, the girl started pulling the Nameless into a selfie.

The atmosphere felt rather lovely. The emotional part of Rachel suddenly surged, pushing down the rational side that had just calmly stated the optimal operation: *Just look, you have the ability to protect yourself now, don't you? If things get truly bad, you can just use "Kachidoki" and escape... right?*

Thus, Rachel decided to briefly skip work and follow along to see how things developed.

If anything went wrong, she would report them to the Family immediately.

If everything was normal today... then she would just leave the matter alone.

*

Rachel followed very carefully.

It could be said that she applied all the techniques for manipulating memetic substances she had learned at the Origami Academy of Dreams to keep herself hidden.

If the professors at the academy knew that this was how she was using the techniques taught in their classes, she wondered if they would be furious enough to die.

Trailing far behind them, Rachel saw the empty Golden Hour at almost the same time they did.

At the moment she realized something was wrong, Rachel heard one of the two songs that made her DNA knot up.

"Never gonna give you up."

She tried to find the twin-tailed girl in the red dress, but what she saw instead was a tall, deep-blue-skinned man wearing a top designed with many cutouts, revealing a large expanse of his abdominal muscles.

Was he also a Masked Fool? It was possible; it was plausible that all Masked Fools shared the same background music. But Rachel's intuition told her it was likely something else:

A trick of the Masked Fools, something akin to an illusion.

Beneath the empty Golden Hour, the real Golden Hour was actually still there—the streets were still filled with a constant flow of people, and the waiters at the shop entrances were still enthusiastic and polite.

Behind this male face she was seeing for the first time, the person truly standing there must be that twin-tailed girl.

Sure enough, she saw pink and gold goldfish with neon-bright color ribbons swimming past the Nameless and the stowaway lady. In just a moment, the two of them collapsed to the ground, and their bodies... gradually turned into blue memetic substance, dissipating like foam.

Rachel: !

She gripped her phone tightly, her palms instantly slick with sweat. She knew there was no death in the dream; their consciousnesses would be sent to a safe place under the Family's protection—namely, reality. But as far as she knew, people didn't return to reality like this!

Who leaves behind a puddle of rapidly dissipating blue foam when they leave?

But should she open her phone and call for help right now? Such a large movement would surely be noticed.

She—

Rachel's thoughts were interrupted by a voice suddenly ringing out in front of her.

"You didn't think I wouldn't notice you, did you?"

The Masked Fool stopped in front of Rachel's hiding spot and looked up at her, staring straight into the colors where Rachel was concealed.

The twin-tailed Masked Fool smiled and raised her hand, her fingers moving as if to touch Rachel's chin. Rachel stopped hiding, the colors on her body fading away in an instant. She looked warily at the girl who was half a head shorter than her.

She tried to bluff: "Your illusions are useless against me, Fool."

The Masked Fool said with a giggle, "Just call me Lady Sparkle. You're not bad; you realized it was Lady Sparkle's little trick earlier than those two."

The next second, her playful expression collapsed: "But you can't escape my illusion either, am I right, Dreamweaver?"

She had to admit, she was right. At least for the short term, Rachel couldn't break free, because she hadn't yet been able to "needle in a haystack" a suitable song from her library, which wasn't particularly rich, though it couldn't be called barren either.

Reality... reality... *The Truman Show*? But she couldn't remember at all if *The Truman Show* had an ending theme or any interludes, let alone hum it.

As for illusions, using a "run-away" anthem like "Kachidoki" wasn't quite appropriate. However, she might be able to make the other person sink into the depths with her. She had already found this song; either the other party would dispel the illusion, or they would remain in a stalemate while she searched for a song capable of piercing through it.

Or, the last possibility: the other party would use the same method on her that she had used on the Nameless and the stowaway.

Rachel stared into Sparkle's eyes. The tension between them escalated over time. A bowstring had been stretched between them, and now it had finally reached the moment of snapping.

Both of their movements happened at the exact same instant.

Sparkle's eyes lit up as if they were equipped with small LED lights, her fingers tapping against Rachel's forehead;

While Rachel used all her willpower to skip all the introductory rhythms and music, jumping straight to the point, and as she grabbed Sparkle's wrist, she sang out loudly:

"Let me hold you close in my heart!"

The world spun around.

Memetic substance swirled and flowed around Rachel like water. The sensation of rotation turned into a vortex in a short time, pulling her downward, pulling her incessantly, until she sank and hit the bottom...

And the last thing she saw before everything in front of her turned into completely abstract blocks and ribbons of color in this sinking rotation—

Was a look of panic appearing on Sparkle's face.

*

Sparkle's expression still lingered on Rachel's retina.

The other party's voice, unable to contain her emotions, still echoed in Rachel's brain.

"What did you do—?!"

Clearly, even a Masked Fool who never minded being part of a joke would briefly reveal the expression of an ordinary person rather than a fool when reality and her previous expectations took two completely different paths.

Rachel shook her head, clearing the residual sensations and the dizzy feeling of being dragged down from her body, and looked around.

This was a dim corridor, looking similar to the layout of the Reverie Hotel she had only seen once before enrollment, but the lighting was much gloomier.

Everything around was bathed in deep green light, as if the surrounding architecture had been packed up and shoved beneath the surface of the water. In the deep sea, it relied on that little bit of remaining light to keep the surroundings from falling into complete pitch-blackness.

Yes, it looked very much like the deep sea.

Small items like luggage carts and footstools floated in the air, and there were some blue memetic bubbles slowly changing shape nearby. The plants, however, were still growing perfectly in their proper places.

Overall, Rachel personally thought this place was a great spot for filming a horror movie. Things like "The Reverie Horror Night" or "The Shining 2" would be good options.

Sparkle was not by her side; Rachel guessed she had fallen into a different location—after all, the Nameless lady and the stowaway lady weren't here either.

Where was this?

According to what Sparkle had said to the Nameless ones earlier... was it a more "real" dream?

Rachel took a step forward.

The soft red carpet under her feet was exactly the same as the one in the real Reverie Hotel, with the same texture.

She took out her phone, tapped on the Origami Academy of Dreams administration office, sent her location information, and briefly and concisely explained her current situation and how she had ended up this way.

The message went around several times and finally displayed "Send Failed."

Rachel didn't give up; she turned and forwarded it to Sunday—this time, it was "Send Failed" again.

Well, it seemed it was an exploration for her alone now. Rachel sighed. She was a bit curious if she would encounter the Dreamjolt Troupe. Her library did contain some songs with decent offensive power; she just didn't know how much damage they could cause... Anyway, if she couldn't beat them, she could still run.

Just then, she felt something hard gently tap her on the shoulder from behind.

The moment Rachel turned her head to look behind her, a cheerful nursery rhyme played in her ears. But at the sound of the nursery rhyme, her legs went weak, and she nearly fell to the ground, causing her tailbone to feel a piercing pain that wouldn't actually cause real injury.

A nursery rhyme... a nursery rhyme?!

Rachel didn't understand why a... monster that had so many eyes that looked so eerie—looking no different from anything that could be the final big boss of a horror movie—would be paired with such a warm and... uh, childish song.

But this dangerous and eerie-looking thing didn't seem to mean her any harm; those brightly colored eyes even blinked.

In a sense...

It was actually kind of cute.

And the nursery rhyme repeating the words "pulling the radish" in her ears reached a special point.

Four clear, articulate words emerged from the background music:

"Baby... Bus... Bus."

Rachel: "..."

*Damn it.*

...Baby Bus.