"Sister, forgive me. I know I was wrong for not being there for you when you needed me the most. I will give up my life to make it up to you. Just please don't abandon me." Delilah's voice trembled as she begged for forgiveness from her sister, who was nowhere to be found. Her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks wet with tears, and her body wracked with sobs. "Whether alive or dead, isn't it alright as long as we are together?"
Roy's heart ached as he watched Delilah break down. He knew that her sister had long since passed away, and the person she was speaking to was just a product of her imagination. Like him, she had been ensnared in the Nightmarish Realm.
He had been rescued by the Obsidian Overlord, but Delilah was still trapped in the realm, and he couldn't leave her there. Who would save her if not him?
Without a moment's hesitation, Roy sprang into action, sprinting towards Delilah to save her from falling into the abyss.
With a firm grip, he pulled her back from the edge of the abyss and said, "Delilah, you need to snap out of it. Your sister is gone. It's just your imagination."
"No, you don't understand. She's here with me. We're together. Please, let me go!" She said hysterically as she struggled and fought to escape his grasp.
Roy held on to her firmly, refusing to let her go an inch away from him. She was no match for him. No matter how hard she struggled, she found it impossible to escape his grasp.
"I can't let you go, Delilah. You're not in your right mind. You're trapped in a nightmare. You need to escape it." Roy said calmly.
"How can you be so heartless? Don't you understand what it's like to lose someone you love?" she said as she struggled even harder.
In the midst of her desperate flailing, she slapped him hard across the face, leaving a fiery sting on his cheek.
But Roy refused to let her go.
"Of course I do, Delilah." When the old man who ran the orphanage died, Roy felt deeply pained. He was the only person who sincerely cared about him. His death made Roy realize how painful it is to lose someone. "But you can't let the darkness swallow you. You need to come back to reality." Roy shouted his voice firm and commanding. He jerked her body to bring her back to reality, assuring her that the horrors she had experienced were only a figment of her imagination.
"I don't know how. It hurts too much." she cried pitifully.
"I'm here for you, Delilah. You don't have to go through this alone. I'll help you through it." Roy held her closely, using his aura to envelop her, hoping it would calm her down.
Slowly, Delilah began to regain her senses, and the realization of what she had almost done came crashing down on her.
She had nearly killed herself! She had almost wasted the life that her dear sister had sacrificed everything to protect! If not for Roy's intervention, she would be a corpse by now!
"Thank you. Thank you so much." Delilah said softly, her voice choked with emotion as tears pooled out of her eyes and flowed down her face.
"There's no need to thank me," Roy whispered, pulling her close to him. His arms wrapped tightly around her, offering comfort and support. He stroked her hair and whispered words of reassurance into her ear as if willing her pain away.
It was his carelessness that led her to be trapped inside the Nightmarish Realm. He felt that he didn't deserve her thanks.
For what felt like an eternity, Delilah clung to him, as if she couldn't bear to let him go. Her tears flowed freely, and Roy held her steadfastly, unwilling to let her suffer alone.
But gradually, her tears began to subside, and Delilah managed to reign in her emotions, her trauma slowly dissipating. She pulled away from Roy, her eyes filled with gratitude and unspeakable love.
"I don't know how I can repay you," she said.
"There's no need to," Roy apologized to her, his voice heavy with regret. "If not for my carelessness and overconfidence, you wouldn't have been in such a mess. I nearly got you killed."
"Don't blame yourself. You were there for me when I needed you the most. That's all that matters." Delilah asked, "But what caused me to slip into that weird hallucination?"
Roy's keen gaze swept across the surrounding landscape, searching for any sign of the source of the Nightmare Dust that had been plaguing the region.
His eyes darted back and forth as he cast his Inspection Skill repeatedly, scanning every nook and cranny for the slightest hint of its location.
And then, suddenly, he saw it.
The sources of the insidious powder were hidden in plain sight, right before his very eyes.
Surprised by the discovery, Roy quickly realized that the culprit was none other than the Black Sunflowers that bloomed all around him.
"It's the Black Sunflowers," he replied to Delilah.
"We might fall into their trap again. It's better to deal with them now." Delilah said.
"Leave it to me," Roy said as he summoned the fire element with a mere flick of his wrist, conjuring forth snakes made of flames that danced with reckless abandon.
The snakes pounced on every sunflower within sight, setting them ablaze.
The conflagration erupted into a raging inferno, its fiery tendrils eagerly devouring the cursed flowers without hesitation.
The flames crackled and roared with an insatiable hunger, consuming everything in their path until Roy narrowed his eyes and willed for all the flames to disappear.
After the flames vanished, all that remained was a swirling cloud of ash and smoke.
『Ding! Congratulation. You have killed 300 Children of Nightmare』
The system notification rang out, resounding in his ears with a deafening 'ding!'. He had vanquished 300 of the vile Children of Nightmare, and the system was quick to laud his victory with a congratulatory message.
