306 You’ve Had a Really Long Dream, so It’s Time to Wake Up (1/2)

The battle concluded.

The remaining shadows all flew up to the clouds, and the Honey Candy Girl army descended from the skies and stopped fighting.

The dark clouds parted to reveal the sunlight, a beautiful pillar that pierced through the clouds.

The light illuminated the city, quickly scattering the lingering darkness. But the city wasn't restored to its original form. Instead, it started collapsing.

It was time for the dream to end.

Seiji and Mayuzumi weren't in a hurry to leave. Instead, they accompanied Reo and waited for her to stop crying and calm down.

”Brother Harano...”

”Let me introduce you, Reo-chan,” Seiji said. ”This is Mayuzumi Amami. For all this time, you've been treating her as your mother... you should say something to her.”

Reo looked towards Mayuzumi.

”Sorry... I've given you so much trouble.” The little girl bowed and apologized.

”It's alright.” Mayuzumi smiled gently and crouched down in front of Reo. ”Reo, you gave your mother a proper farewell. You're really strong.”

The little girl had an expression of sadness, but she didn't cry again.

Mayuzumi patted her gently on the head.

”This child's given you so much trouble, and you're going to let her off so easily, Sensei...” Seiji sighed. ”Forget it. Since Sensei isn't going to make a big deal out of it, I won't say anything else either.

”Reo-chan, you did a very good job in saying farewell to your mother,” he told her seriously.

”Brother Harano...” Reo looked towards him.

”You've had a really long dream, so it's time to wake up now.” Seiji smiled. ”Let's meet each other again in reality.”

The sunlight reached the area where they were standing, and all three of them were covered by bright light.

Seiji opened his eyes.

”Brother!” he heard Shika-chan call.

”Mayuzumi!” he also heard Editor Yoshizawa's voice.

He looked to his right side and saw that the manga author had opened her eyes. They exchanged glances and both of them smiled.

Then, Seiji looked to his left. He saw that Reo was slowly opening her eyes as well. The little girl looked confused when she saw the scene in this room.

”Welcome back, Reo-chan,” Seiji said.

The last clear memory that Reo Tachibana had in the real world was visiting her parents' graves with her uncle Shouhei Hirai, and then going to sleep later that night.

It seemed that while she was sleeping—or perhaps while she was dreaming—the mysterious power within her was somehow activated. It transformed Shouhei Hirai, who was living with her, to transform into that puppet-like state and attack Mayuzumi.

Reo also had some hazy memories of searching many places for her mother and then finding her... Fine then—simply speaking, Reo Tachibana was sleepwalking!

As for this power, the little girl didn't know anything about it. As for why she possessed it, or how she activated it, she knew nothing. After all, she was only a young child.

She forgot most of the dream-like experiences she had in her soul realm. She could only remember the basics of daily life there, as well as the most important things.

It was the same for Seiji and Mayuzumi. After they woke up, their memories of what happened in the soul realm were somewhat hazy.

Natsuya and the others were astonished to learn just how long the three of them had spent in Reo's soul realm.

After the connection to Seiji was cut off, everyone was incredibly worried. However, Natsuya was able to ascertain that nothing was wrong with Seiji's condition, and she didn't know what would happen if she decided to cut off the spell sending him to the soul realm.

When comparing their options of either maintaining or canceling the spell that sent Seiji to the soul realm, everyone trusted in Seiji's abilities and so they decided to not cancel the spell, focusing on reestablishing contact with him instead.

In the end, their decision had been correct. However, what they never expected was that Seiji, Mayuzumi, and Reo had spent such a long time in Reo's soul realm!

”I've heard that the greatest masters of soul spells can cast spells that change the passage of time within the soul realm.” The student council president sighed. ”It seems that this mysterious power has a similar effect.”

This effect... if it was used properly, it could have many advantages, but the flip side was...