"How many?!" Lune shouted.

"I counted 50, no, 46 still standing!" I replied, "Issei blew four up just now."

"You hear that, Ed?" Lune nudged him, "We can't let this dweeb outpace us!"

And so, with a dap followed by a running start, Ed and Lune ran headfirst into the crowd of enemies in front of them. One would call their unarmed assault futile, but that was most definitely all part of their plan to lower the enemy's guard. At the very last moment before impact, Lune did the hand gesture for Materialize - Connecting his pinky and thumb before shoving the middle three fingers inside as if reaching into a pocket dimension, and out of said dimension came out...!

"Bap!" He mercilessly shot the first guy in the face with a sawed-off shotgun, "Hah! Kill or be killed, eh? Then I choose the former!"

"Hyagh!" Ed followed up with a clean sweep with the Materialized wooden bat Lune gave him, "Hey, why'd I only get a bat!?"

"Because!" Lune chuckled before unloading another shot at the enemy and stealing his hatchet, "You're a doctor, right? Can't have you killing anyone now, can we?"

"That's just what it says on the diploma." Ed smashed the end of the bat off of an attacker's face, making the tip jagged and spiked, "But if you threaten to kill my friends, then the Hiccopatic Oath can go rest at the same place I send these guys to - In Hell!"

They... T-That's right, I sort of expected at the very least a few deaths on the enemy team, but to think these guys are not only condoning lethal force, but also actively pursuing the death of another human being! Again, Issei probably doesn't care all that much, since he's not from this world, but Edward and Lune! They and I went to the same war together, we saw the same horrors, so how come they're so casual about it!?

"Fuck you!" Ed impaled the spear-wielding enemy straight through the stomach after evading his attack, "Hoho! Gotcha' spear! Won't be needing this wooden piece of crap anymore, what an upgrade!"

"Oh, we playing gun game now?" Issei chimed in mere moments after using his Instarope gadget to pluck out both the enemy's Eyes, "Heh, yuck..."

"Gun game?" Lee asked.

"Yeah! It's a gamemode in most FPSes!" Issei elaborated, "Kill an enemy, upgrade your weapon! The one with the best weapon at the end wins!"

"Quit lying, I can read minds, remember?" Ed chuckled, "You just made up that final detail, didn't you? Says in your head that at the end we all fight each other with the weapons we got!"

"Well yeah, but I don't think anyone really wants to do that, Ed..." Lune patted him on the shoulder, "Watch out!"

Pushing him away from three enemies that all went to jump them at the same time, Lune managed to save Ed's life with the callout. Still, he didn't just blindly push Ed away into a random direction. No, that'd be too dangerous, it might send him straight into another enemy, so he carefully calculated the optimal direction and tossed him into the largest guy of them all.

"Nowhere to run, pipsqueak!" The ogre guffawed.

"We live in the third dimension, don't we, ya big oaf?" Ed pointed up before running up his belly and soaring high into the sky, "Now, off with your head!"

Skewering the large guy's bald head from the scalp, Ed masterfully used gravity to his advantage as he swung over him and tossed the guy into a group of 5 others, thus immediately incapacitating them.

"Hey, those guys can't move, but they're not dead yet!" Ed made sure to call dibs, "They're mine, so no one is allowed to steal the kills!"

"What is even going on...?" I couldn't help but chuckle as Lee and I casually stood there and observed, "They're don't even know the situation, yet they blindly jumped in without a second thought?"

"Heh, guess they really must like us." Lee patted me on the back before taking out a brass knuckle and joining in, "Can't help it if we're so charming, huh? But know this, Meil - I'll be damned if I lose to any one of you kids!"

Uppercutting the first person he saw straight in the chin, he sent him flying up, but that wasn't the end of it. Following up with his other hand that was winded back in full, he initiated a Slap of God. To those uninitiated, this forbidden technique is accomplished by slapping your enemy's face either during or immediately after they fall to the ground. This results in you practically melting them with the ground beneath, as they blunt trauma from the impact is practically guaranteed to snap their neck.

"Epic..." Lune, Issei and Ed all stopped their fighting to gawk, "Meil, you too! Come on, show us your moves!"

My moves? But I already exhausted everything I had. Well, probably not, seeing as I use improv to create new moves on the spot, but that way of fighting heavily relies on both Sinus Wave to align as well as the environment around me. My Sinus Wave is currently at its lowest point, so it'd be extremely stupid to jump in. Still...

"If you want luck, go grab it yourself!" I paraphrased Lee's advice as I ran to the corner where Rotriko and his doctors were.

"Hey, they ain't a threat, you can fight stronger gu-!" Lune mocked before stopping.

...Hm? Hey, why'd everyone grow quiet all of a sudden? What are they looking at, is it me? I can understand the loud and sudden battlecry might've alerted one or two heads to turn my way, especially since I'm going for their leader, but it's like everyone suddenly turned to me the moment that loud bang echoed the room. Wait, loud bang?

"Ah." I looked at my right shoulder to see a chunk of it missing, "I see now. Quite the predicament indeed."

Verily, it appears Rotriko caught sight of me planning on finishing him off and just barely managed to pull out a revolver from his pocket to shoot in self-defence. No, anything that guy does can't possibly be classified as self-defence, period. Daintily falling to the ground, I had closed my Eyes to rest.

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***

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"Yo, yo guy!" I heard echoes of two familiar sounding voices waking me, "Yo, Meil! Broski, did you seriously doze off from lying down for 5 minutes?"

"Heffer?" I glanced at them both, "Aguilar? Wait, aren't you...?"

"Eh, let him be, Aggie." Heffer got up from the grassy field we were lying on and dusted off his pants, "Meil's still in dreamland, wasting the sunny day as usual."

Usual? Is this a common occurrence? No, they're speaking to me like they're my closest of friends, when in reality...

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Can you blame him?" Aguilar shrugged, "He spent the entire week planning Nelly's schedule, helping Kevin with his homework, tutoring Kiara..."

"O-Oi, those names... How do you know my friends' names?"

"Huh?" Heffer couldn't contain his laughter anymore, "Bahaha, see what I told ya'!? The dude's zonked out the wazoo."

"Broski forgot we're his friends too." Aguilar returned an unnaturally warm smile, "Makes me wonder what kind of dream you had."

"What kind of...? N-No, you two are dead." I warily got up as I looked around the place, "I killed you."

Staring at me in abject silence, the two sighed before they just seemingly ignored me and started walking to a tree in the distance. A tree in the middle of a field, where could this place be, I wonder? Usually I can ascertain loosely from the ecosystem, but there are no landmarks, animals, clouds or even Sun nor Moon anywhere at all. The sky is blue, the grass is green, that's it. What is this phenomenon? Heck, even the grass feels incredibly warm to the touch, something not usually characteristic for grass.

"Hey, you comin'?" They turned back to me.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Aguilar pointed to the tree, "Heav-ome."

"We're going... home." Heffer confirmed.

They wanted to say something else just then. But yeah, with this I'm certain. This is nothing more than a dream. Yes, I got shot in the shoulder by Rotriko, so I'm probably currently still lying on the floor in the real world. Surely, this must have been me fretting over dying, hence the whole ephemeral Heaven talk with two deceased enemies turned allies. But I've been fighting delusions for a year now, so this much is well within my scope of detection. Immediately after Heffer said what he said, though, I didn't even have to take a step to find myself back in my home. But it wasn't the home in Simpleton, no. It was Oden.

"Meil!" The old man's nostalgic voice called out, "Apollo's coming, come set the table!"

"Dad?" I stopped to take a good look at him.

"What's the matter? Beauty ain't viral, so you ain't gonna contract mine just from gawking, haha!" He joked just like he used to before, "Seriously though, you were the one who called him over for a business meeting, didn't you? I can't believe you didn't even prepare anything, what a blunder..."

Oh right, I didn't used to prepare any food even for myself, let alone others.

"Ah, the door." I heard someone knock, "Dad, that must be-"

"Well go answer it!" Joseph ordered, "And stop calling me dad!"

Whoa, that was rude. Well, it's a dream, so I imagine I just made him say that for random shock factor. I know he wouldn't ever tell me such a thing in real life. Anyways, opening the door for Apollo, I...

"Err, scratch that. It's not Apollo." I chuckled as I saw a grown up Nelly standing in front of me, "How come you're here? Shouldn't you be a baby in this time period?"

"Geez, I see you're still half-asleep, spouting such nonsense." She got a bit annoyed by my statement, "Hey, come on, let's go do that thing!"

"I'm not following."

"Are you being coy with me right now!?" She blushed for some reason, "The thing! Don't make me spell it out for you, it's embarrassing!"

I genuinely don't know what it could be, though. And wait, I just realized now, but Nelly isn't grown up. She's still her fourteen year old self, only I de-aged in the dreamworld to match her age. How fascinating, was I really this short as a kid?

"Meil, invite him in alread-WHOA!" Joseph caught a glimpse of Nelly and jolted, "And who's this pretty little lady!? Please, missy, can I paint a portrait of you!? Please, pretty please-!"

"Da-Joseph, please." I caught myself in time, "Nelly is..."

"Nice to meet you." She ignored his usual and odd behavior as she greeted him with a smile, "You must be Meil's dad, right? I'm Nelly Grimheart, your sons..."

...His sons what? Why'd she stop just now? Come on, just say your son's friend and continue on. Well, I guess we're not technically friends, since I'm her caretaker, but I'd like to think she sees me as more than that. Then again, this is a dream, so it doesn't have to make sense.

"Hey!" A young girl with long Purple hair whose facial and bodily features closely resembled Nelly's popped up behind her to berate me all of a sudden, "You cheating on me with this kid, Ouroboras!?"

"Hm? No, Aru, I-" I went to reply, but stopped myself, "Wait, have we met before?"

"Tch, not in your human lifetime... Hell, I still don't know your human identity in the real world even." She clicked her tongue, "But never mind that, answer the damned question - Are you dating this little brat!?"

"D-Dating!? My Meil is willingly dating a girl!?" Dad jumped a bit, "Ha-ha, nah~! He'd rather solve world hunger than settle down with someone, what am I saying?"

"We live together, but we're not dating." I answered Aru's question.

"Huh!?"

"Eh!?" Aru jumped as well, "You damned...! And you, girlie! Wipe that smug look off your face! Your boobs are tiny!"

"That insult hurts you as well, idiot!" Nelly got offended before insulting Aru back, "We've both the same chest size!"

"Wrong, mine're bigger!" She then roped me into this somehow, "Right Meil?"

"Meil, prove me right!" Nelly shouted.

"How the hell should I know?" I shrugged, "I've never even seen eith-"

"Oh, shut up!" Aru snapped, "We'll just show you and THEN you can judge for yourself!"

Hm? What does she mean by that? As I raised an Eyebrow to ponder over this very question, both girls began unbuttoning their shirts. O-Oi, what the hell are you doing!? Wait, no, this is MY dream, so what the hell am I MYSELF doing!? Wait! Stop it!

"L-Lune's gonna kill me if you-!" I woke up with a jolt and a bead of cold sweat falling down my face, "Wow, that was weird."

"Why would I ever kill you?" Lune heard my muttering as he greeted me, "Morning, broski. I cast Heal so you should be fine."

"Broski?" I scanned around me, "Where's Rotriko?"

"The guy that shot you?" Ed sighed, "Welp, he managed to get away after causing all that ruckus..."

H-He's gone!? Crap, that means he's running straight to the campus to report me! No, this is bad!

"Eh, we'll deal with him later." Issei shrugged, "By the way, what was that about Lune killing you? Don't tell me you were having a wet dream about his daughter, you depraved bastard."

"Issei!" Lune scolded him, "Come on, dude, not funny! You too, Meil - Stop acting all zonked off the wazoo and say something!"

"...I'm just gonna go back to bed for now." I weighed my options and decidedly fell to the floor again.

"Oi! Now I'm worried!" Lune wouldn't let me, "Meil!"