He was clearly aware that he was dreaming at the moment, but he was able to control the dream and make it show the scene he wanted.

As soon as the thought came to his mind, golden wheat fields, fiery red maple forests, a barbecue grill with a fragrant aroma, and Hope, who was only wearing a tube top and low-waist shorts, appeared all around him.

"Huh?"

Carl was startled when he saw Hope.

But Hope in front of him just maintained the half-kneeling posture as when they first met, with neither follow-up movement nor consciousness. It was obviously just Carl's imagination.

"It seems that the scene at that time had a big impact on me, but I think the time when the mind flayer larvae parasitized me should be more memorable, right? I thought of this kind of thing when my mind was a little empty. Is it because of the influence of puberty?"

Gathering his thoughts, Hope, dressed in cool clothes, disappeared into the dream.

As Carl gradually focused his attention, some information began to emerge in his mind.

'Is the mind flayer larva brain dead? Because it can't process the information in my mind? I am now absorbing its psychic energy, and its body has become an implanted organ to assist my brain? Is this the reason for this dream?'

Through psychic power, Carl quickly figured out his current situation.

He was very sure that this was not the environment created for him by the mind flayer larvae, because he was slowly mastering psychic energy, although the total amount of psychic energy was not much.

Feeling this power that was different from magic, Carl calmed down and tried to continue to explore more of its uses.

Gradually, Carl felt the psychic energy interacting with his own spirituality, and then, an illusory attribute panel suddenly appeared in his dream.

[Name]: Carl Iris

Age: 14

[Race]: Human (?)

[Profession]: Artificer Level 2

【property】

Strength: 11 Agility: 11 Constitution: 12 Intelligence: 14 Perception: 12 Charisma: 13 [Feats]: Artificer Apprentice, Ritual Caster, Telekinesis, Telepathy

Spells

Level 0: Mage's Hand, Magical Pretense, Lightning Pull

1st level: identify (ritual), feather fall, long stride

Looking at the attribute panel displaying his own information, Carl's attention was mainly focused on his two specialties: telekinesis and telepathy.

According to the textbooks at the magic academy that Carl attended, expertise is the combination and sublimation of spirituality and skill.

As a spellcaster, Carl is able to understand what expertise he has acquired through his own mental power.

Before this, he only had two specialties: Artificer's Apprentice and Ritual Caster.

"Is it because I have completely acquired the body and psychic power of the mind flayer larva that I have these two specialties?"

Just as he was about to study the matter carefully, Carl suddenly remembered that he and Hope still had to escape, and now was not the time to waste time on curiosity.

With a thought, Carl's dream dissipated and he woke up from his coma.

Before he even opened his eyes, he could sense Hope's concern.

'It seems that my telepathy can only sense other people's emotions at present, and cannot accurately read and transmit thoughts.'

Thinking of this, Carl opened his eyes.

"Phew~, thank God, you finally woke up."

Seeing Carl wake up, Hope, who was sitting on the ground holding him, breathed a sigh of relief.

"How long have I been unconscious?"

While asking this, Carl stood up from the other person's arms.

"About five or six minutes? Or... ten minutes? Sorry, I don't have such an accurate judgment of the passage of time."

Pushing her hair behind her ear, Hope thought for a moment and gave a not very accurate answer.

However, Carl did not expect to obtain accurate data. He asked this question only to cover up the embarrassment of being unaccustomed to close contact with girls.

"Okay, then we have to speed up. The words written on these stone pillars are those of the Mind Flayer. I fainted just now because I touched them and triggered my psychic energy."

"With the help of psionic energy, these stone pillars will exert psychological influence on intelligent creatures who see them, making them unable to notice the abnormalities in them."

After vaguely explaining the reason why he fainted, Carl picked up Hope's hand axe and chopped at the stone pillar he had just touched.

With a "clang", most of the spiritual absorption characters on the stone pillar were destroyed by Carl's attack, and a trap door made of wire mesh appeared in the center of the originally empty room.

This is where the airflow goes.

"Hurry! This should be the passage leading to the outside, let's..."

Arriving at the trapdoor in high spirits, Carl had just lifted up the thing when he was suddenly sucked under the trapdoor by a powerful suction force.

Caught off guard, he fell straight down.

Seeing that something was wrong, Hope swooped over and tried to grab Carl and pull him away.

But the suction force was rapidly increasing, and the violent airflow rushed towards the passage below.

The wind pressure pushed her body closer and closer to the passage. Hope changed from a standing position to a prone position, but it still could not prevent the two of them from being swallowed by the ghost thing below.

"Leave me alone! Run away if you can!"

Seeing that both of them were about to be sucked into the ground, Carl tried to get Hope to give up on him.

But Hope's brain responded before her mouth did.

"I am not the kind of ungrateful person!"

The strong thought was captured by Carl's telepathic power, and Hope also overdrew his own strength at this time, trying to pull Carl up from the other side of the trapdoor.

But at this moment, an unprecedented and violent shaking came from the surface.

Countless pieces of debris fell from above, and one fist-sized stone fell right on Hope's head.

Suddenly, her eyes rolled back and she fainted.

Before Carl could find out what was happening up there, he and Hope fell into deeper darkness together.

While falling, Carl tried to find a handful of fluff from his bag of classic fashion trash to release the Feather Fall technique again, but before he could make any move, he suddenly felt that he and Hope had crossed a "boundary".

At the same time, the originally dark cave was suddenly illuminated by blue-purple light.

Carl tried hard to look back and saw a slowly rotating energy vortex at the bottom of the cave, constantly sucking in the air.

Carl knew this thing.

The adventure manual compiled by the Magic Academy mentioned it more than once, and even children of eight or nine years old knew it in detail.

This is a portal leading to the dungeon demiplane, and on the other side of the door is the realm of the underworld dragon Khyber.

'How come there is a portal to a dungeon right here!'

As the thought came to mind, Carl and Hope fell into the portal.

The rock cave above collapsed in the violent tremor, completely burying the portal passage.

(End of this chapter)