"Sparkle," Kallen said.
"Present!"
Sparkle snapped upright on reflex, knees pressed together, hands neatly folded on her lap like a student who'd just been called on by the homeroom teacher.
Even she thought the pose was humiliating, but she didn't dare change it.
"So you're saying you came to Penacony to do good deeds?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Sparkle nodded furiously.
"This time I really am here to do charity work! More genuine than pearls!"
"And how exactly were you planning to do this good deed?"
Sparkle blinked, her mind racing.
The question sounded simple, but it was full of hidden traps.
If she said too little, Kallen would think she was hiding something. If she said too much, she'd be laying all her cards on the table.
Since when had the great Sparkle been reduced to giving someone else a full confession?
And yet, she answered anyway.
"I hid a few… little toys around Penacony." Sparkle lifted two fingers again, showing a tiny gap, her face the picture of innocence.
"Bombs?" Kallen cut straight to the point.
Sparkle's fingers froze midair. "…How did Lady Kallen know?"
"Lucky guess."
Sparkle inhaled sharply, then decided to just smash the jar and be done with it. "Fine, fine, they're bombs. But please, Lady Kallen, hear me out."
She leaned forward and lowered her voice, her expression growing unusually serious.
"The Family's Harmony nonsense is way too dull. Everyone's drifting through sweet dreams in a haze—nobody can even laugh with any originality anymore. I just wanted to give everyone a little reminder."
She paused dramatically.
"No matter how beautiful a dream is, it's still a dream. When it's time to wake up, people should wake up."
"So you decided to remind them with bombs?"
"Well bombs have a sense of ceremony, don't they?" Sparkle said as though it were perfectly obvious.
But then she seemed to remember something and hurriedly added,
"Don't worry, Lady Kallen—these bombs absolutely won't hurt anyone!"
At that, Kallen flicked a glance toward Robin, who was still sleeping nearby.
If Kallen remembered correctly, Robin had a part to play in this as well.
Which meant all the pieces necessary to break Penacony's three dream layers had now been gathered.
What a windfall.
Sparkle shrank back under Kallen's gaze, mumbling in a small voice, "…If you don't like them, I can dismantle them, okay?"
"Sure," Kallen said.
"…Huh?!"
Sparkle didn't react immediately.
By her calculations, while she'd come to Penacony to amuse herself, the first round of bombs she planted was genuinely meant to do some good.
And yet this Emanator of Preservation was actually telling her to remove them?
No way.
The other woman didn't look like a villain at all.
Then Sparkle suddenly thought of a possibility.
Ohhh… maybe she's just too weak. Maybe she still hasn't figured out the truth of Penacony.
And the moment that thought occurred to her, Sparkle's mood perked right back up.
So what if she was an Emanator? She'd still been kept in the dark by the Family. That meant, in the end, she was no match for the great Sparkle!
A sly gleam flashed in Sparkle's eyes as the corners of her mouth curled upward.
"Lady Kallen, surely you don't think I'm the kind of lunatic who just blows things up without caring who gets caught in the blast?"
She wagged a finger in the air, her voice full of smug confidence.
"My bombs were specially prepared for people who've fallen too deeply asleep. Do you know what Penacony's biggest problem is right now?"
"What is it?" Kallen asked obligingly.
"They can't wake up." For once, Sparkle looked properly serious.
"My bombs were placed precisely to shatter the Family's conspiracy."
Kallen smiled faintly. "In that case, let them stay for now. They might still be useful."
Sparkle froze again, as if she hadn't expected Kallen to accept that explanation so quickly.
But as long as she'd achieved her goal, that was fine.
Her face immediately bloomed into an ingratiating grin. "Lady Kallen! You are truly far too enlightened! I just knew someone as grand as you would appreciate true art!"
But the instant she finished speaking, Kallen's lips curved into a cold smile.
In one motion, she grabbed the sleeping Robin with one hand and Sparkle with the other.
The three of them vanished on the spot.
Once they left the café, Kallen began to wield the authority she held over the dream.
She moved through the dreamscape carrying them both.
Robin was tucked securely under Kallen's left arm, her head resting against Kallen's shoulder, still sleeping deeply.
Sparkle, on the other hand, got far worse treatment.
Kallen held her by the back of the collar with one hand, leaving her limbs dangling and twitching helplessly in the air.
"Lady Kallen, where are you taking little old me?" Sparkle asked, her voice trembling with forced sweetness, though curiosity had already begun to stir in her eyes.
"Quiet," Kallen said, shooting her a glance.
"Yes, ma'am!"
Kallen moved quickly.
The dream folded beneath her feet. Streets shrank like rubber bands that could be stretched and kneaded at will.
She crossed the Golden Hour, passed through Clock Studios Theme Park, and skimmed by Dewlight Pavilion.
And every place she passed, her fingertip hooked lightly through the air, as though plucking invisible fruit.
But Sparkle could see it.
She watched the bombs she had so carefully hidden rise from their hiding places, like summoned familiars answering a call, gathering one after another and trailing behind Kallen.
Sparkle's mouth twitched.
She'd spent three whole days hiding those bombs. Some were tucked into the gaps between clocktower gears. Some were stuck behind advertisement boards. Some had even been disassembled into parts and hidden inside Family decorations.
She would have sworn that even the Bloodhounds' best investigators wouldn't have found a third of them.
And this woman had uncovered every single one just by walking past.
"That's impossible…" Sparkle muttered under her breath.
Kallen didn't bother acknowledging her.
A moment later, they came to a halt at the top of a clocktower.
It was the tallest structure in the Golden Hour, crowned by a circular platform at the summit.
Kallen casually tossed both girls down onto it.
Then the bombs began to fall.
One. Two. Three…
They dropped from the air and piled up in front of Sparkle like a little mountain.
Sparkle counted them.
Exactly fifty-seven.
Not one missing. Not one extra.
And at last, her face really changed.
"Lady Kallen, how did you—"
"Any more?" Kallen cut in coldly.
Sparkle's lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she only shook her head.
"No more." Her voice had lost its usual playful lilt. "All fifty-seven are here."
Kallen nodded.
Then she drew out Judah.
In an instant, countless spears of light flashed through the air, skewering every single bomb and shredding them all to pieces.
"Lady Kallen… what exactly are you trying to do?" Sparkle had finally realized something was seriously wrong.
According to the intelligence the Stellaron Hunters had provided, somewhere inside Penacony's dreamscape there was a Dreammaster who controlled the entire dream itself.
And the way Kallen had just located the bombs… it had absolutely nothing to do with Preservation.
Sparkle suddenly felt as though she had uncovered the truth.
Oh no. This Kallen is a black-hearted monster. She's in league with the Dreammaster!
"Lady Kallen…" Sparkle swallowed. "May I ask something terribly rude? You and Penacony's Dreammaster, Gopher Wood… you're not close, are you?"
"Gopher Wood?" Kallen turned back toward her with an eerie smile. "Why don't you guess?"
Sparkle's heart sank straight to the bottom.
She, the great Sparkle, had roamed the galaxy for years. What storm had she not weathered? She could handle the madmen in the Masked Fools, and she could laugh and trade banter with hard cases like the Stellaron Hunters.
But right now?
Right now, she was genuinely panicking.
And so she acted at once.
With a thump, Sparkle dropped to both knees and wrapped her arms around Kallen's thigh in a pose so textbook-perfect it could have gone into a manual.
"Lady Kallen, little Sparkle is just a messenger!"
"I know I was wrong! I shouldn't have pried into your affairs! I shouldn't have believed the nonsense those Stellaron Hunters fed me! And I especially shouldn't have…"
Her nose twitched as she looked up at Kallen with wide pink-violet eyes brimming with just the right amount of tears.
"I especially shouldn't have disguised myself as Sunday and tried to scare you in the café. Sparkle truly knows she was wrong! You're magnanimous and noble, so please just let me off this once!"
Kallen looked down at the Masked Fool clinging to her leg.
To be fair, Sparkle's acting was first-rate.
The trembling lashes, the reddened nose, the lips pressed tight with feigned anxiety—every last detail made her look pitiably helpless.
If Kallen hadn't known exactly what kind of person this girl was, she might actually have fallen for the performance.
"Let go," Kallen said.
"No!" Sparkle buried her face against Kallen's knee and spoke in a muffled voice.
"The moment I let go, Lady Kallen will definitely hand me over to that Dreammaster!"
"Who said I was going to hand you over to Gopher Wood?"
"Then why did you take away my bombs?" Sparkle lifted her head, tears still trailing down her cheeks, though suspicion had already begun to creep into her eyes.
"And the way you moved through the dream just now… I may not know much, but even I can tell that definitely wasn't the authority of Preservation."
She paused, lowering her voice even more.
"Lady Kallen… you're not actually allied with the Dreammaster, are you?"
Kallen said nothing.
She only looked at Sparkle, her gaze as still and depthless as a dead pond.
That silence was far more frightening than any threat.
A chill shot up from Sparkle's tailbone, racing along her spine straight to the top of her head.
She wanted to release Kallen's leg, but her fingers felt frozen in place.
"I—I didn't say anything!" she blurted out at once.
"I know nothing! Whatever Lady Kallen's true identity is, it doesn't matter! What matters is that Lady Kallen is definitely a good person!"
"A good person?" Kallen finally spoke, her voice tinged with amusement.
Given the situation, it no longer mattered whether Sparkle had figured out her identity or not.
Even if Sparkle had kept quiet to the bitter end, Kallen still wouldn't have let her go—not if there was any chance this little menace might cause more trouble later.
Unfortunately, Sparkle still clung to a tiny shred of hope.
So she nodded frantically again.
"Yes, yes, yes! A good person!"
"Look! You helped the Astral Express so much, and you took care of Miss Robin, and—"
"And you spanked me twice," Kallen supplied.
Sparkle's face turned scarlet.
"T-that was because I deserved it! Who told me to overestimate myself and test you?"
At that, Kallen finally smiled.
Then she hoisted Judah onto her shoulder once more.
And Sparkle, no fool herself, immediately understood what that meant.
This woman had no intention of letting her off.
Damn it. She'd already abandoned her dignity to this extent, and still it wasn't enough?
Did this woman think the Masked Fools were made of clay?
The masks above. Aha above.
Today, she—Sparkle—would defy an Emanator with mortal flesh!
"Damn it! Then I'm blowing this whole thing up!"
She lunged to fight back.
Thud.
Sparkle's body went limp and collapsed on the clocktower platform, her cheek pressed flat against the cold stone floor. The stubborn expression she'd worn in her last burst of resistance still lingered faintly at the corner of her lips.
That's right.
Kallen had knocked her out with Judah.
"Hah. All bark and no bite, huh?" Kallen said.
Putting Judah away, she lowered her gaze to inspect the two "trophies" lying on the ground.
Robin was curled up quietly in one corner of the platform, breathing evenly, sleeping so peacefully she looked as though she were simply in the middle of a very long dream.
Sparkle, meanwhile, was sprawled by Kallen's feet, limbs splayed in every direction, flattened into a ridiculous posture like a frog that had been smacked onto the ground.
"Not bad," Kallen commented. "Symmetrical, even."
In truth, Kallen had never intended to let Sparkle go in the first place.
Even if she confiscated the bombs Sparkle had planted, there was no guarantee the girl hadn't hidden more somewhere else.
Now then…
The next step was to find a place to stash these two away.
At the very least, they couldn't be allowed to come back out and cause trouble again before the Charmony Festival was over.
But just as Kallen was about to act, a shrill ringtone suddenly sliced through the stillness.
It was Sparkle's phone.
Kallen glanced down.
The incoming caller ID displayed two words in bold.
Silver Wolf
Ordinarily, a call like this couldn't connect unless the owner accepted it.
But the person on the other end was a hacker.
Normal rules didn't exactly apply.
An offhand female voice came through the line.
"Sparkle? How's it going on your side? What did the probing turn up?"
"…Why aren't you saying anything? Sam's already gone in. She's still waiting for you to pick her up."
Kallen chose that moment to speak.
"Sparkle can't answer the phone right now. But I can go pick Sam up for her."
Silence.
It lasted about three seconds.
"…Who are you? And where's Sparkle?" Silver Wolf asked again.
But Kallen didn't reply.
Because by then, through her authority over the dream, she had already locked onto the peculiar signal connecting Silver Wolf to the dreamscape.
And then—
Nihility cut the signal.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 155)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter200)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter110)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter230)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 200
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 180
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/5
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 230
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 220
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/30
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 120
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 135
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 110
I Can Copy Unique Skills 100
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 100
My Harem Is Indescribable 90
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 95
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 105
Still playing traditional Honk 69
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 80
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 70
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 75
Checking In in Demon Slayer 80
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 85
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 70
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 65
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 70
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 70
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 65
Why did they assign me to Uma 65
MYGO Beauties 65
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 55
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 65
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 45
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 45
The Uma Musume Who Became 40
I'm Definitely Not the King of 45
After Maxing Out Every Class 45
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