System Programmer Chapter 45: Cowardice

Seeing the look in Catherine's eyes, Joshua has a bad feeling.

"You know, the look in your eyes is usually beautiful, yet sometimes it can be scary. This is one of those moments," he told her.

"Calm down, I'm not gonna yell at you," she said, chuckling, "Jacques just warned me about something else that we need to take care of."

"Is it related to their kidnapping?"

"No, it's about you," she paused for a moment and added: "When he contacted me, he was assaulted by a wandering nightmare and said it's been lurking around me. However, I didn't have bad dreams recently. So, please tell me, have you been sleeping well lately?"

Joshua gulped hearing this. Catherine saw that his fingers began to move rapidly out of nervosity. His face became quite pale

"What… That's not possible." he blurted out.

Ignoring Catherine, Joshua began thinking while walking around the room and biting one of his fingers.

'Obviously, that nightmare she's talking about refers to the abomination. It's not supposed to appear unless I go to sleep. I thought I could avoid the issue by remaining awake. However, it attacked someone other than me which means it's not impossible it decides to go after Catherine should I choose to ignore it. Damn! This is all wrong, I made a big mistake!'

Joshua was so focused he didn't hear Catherine talking to him. He suddenly dashed out the room. Catherine ran after him but he ignored her. She saw him enter the big laboratory containing all the creatures corpses. A few seconds later she entered the room as well and saw Joshua open the vat containing the body of Delilah. He dragged her corpse on the ground for a moment and placed it on a table.

'What did she do to me?' he thought. 'Could there be a rune still active, still after her death?'

He launched a scan. From what he could tell, a few runes which were located in her brain. However, since he had murdered her by smashing her head, they were quite damaged. Even if her mental abilities originated or were amplified via those runes, it was impossible that they would be responsible for the current situation. All logic dictated that her death should have been the end of it. And yet, the little monstrosity had appeared in front of him afterward, he was clearly missing something.

Joshua was so focused on the issue that he didn't notice that Catherine had joined him. She called his name a few times but he didn't seem to register it. Ultimately, she got annoyed and just grabbed his shoulder and yelled 'JOSHUA!!!!!!' in his ear. Only then did he realize she was there.

"Oh… you're here," he said, weakly.

"What the hell are you doing? You're worrying me."

"Trying to figure out the source of the problem."

"Well then, start by telling me what happened to you. I can't help you if you don't talk."

"I'm sorry. I can't… I'll find a solution… Trust me." he replied, looking away.

He clearly didn't dare to meet Catherine's gaze. She even saw his body react as he was getting shocked. Even Luna could tell he was irrational.

Catherine was getting angry. They were a team. They were supposed to face hardships together and yet Joshua was ignoring her. Surprising herself, she slapped him in the face.

"I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on. I don't know what that woman did to you but please, talk to me. I'm not gonna eat you."

Her slap seemed to have some effect as Joshua finally looked at her. However, his usual cheerful expression was gone. Instead, his expression was filled with fear. Catherine had the impression he was like a little boy afraid to tell his parents he had done something bad.

"I'm sorry."

That's all he said, leaving Catherine clueless about how to proceed. Did Joshua really have so little faith in her? She bit her lip and then realized that there was only one way out of this situation.

"I see, I'll leave it to you then. Tell me if you change your mind" she said.

Joshua sighed with relief and turned his back to look at the body. Before he could start experimenting, however, he was suddenly hit in the back of the head and fell unconscious.

Catherine quickly grabbed his falling body and gently placed it on the ground.

"Seriously, I didn't want to do that but you leave me no choice," she said out loud, clearly unhappy.

Joshua's body just had the strength of a regular human so overpowering it was a piece of cake for Catherine. He usually dismissed his physical form upon resting, but Catherine had dealt just enough damage to knock him out without causing his body to vanish. She had to act quickly. She lied down next to Joshua and closed her eyes.

"Luna, show me the recording of Jacques hypnotizing me!" she ordered.

[Video found. Now playing.]

When she went into the dream world for the first time, Jacques had hypnotized her so she would fall asleep quickly and more easily enter a state of lucid dreaming. The recording existed from both hers and Joshua's angle. She obviously watched it from her angle as Jacques had used a pendulum to put her to sleep. Even though it was a mere recording, she focused on the pendulum and quickly slumbered away.

Catherine found herself walking down the Royal Archives. She was looking for something and knew it was pretty urgent but she didn't remember what it was. She tried to find the archivist, but he wasn't behind his desk. She was confused and had no idea what she was doing here but if she was in the archives, she probably needed a book. She grabbed one from the shelves at random and tried to read it. It was all gibberish. The whole thing was familiar to her and she had a hunch. She pulled another book from the shelf and same result, the content was unreadable. A smile appeared on her face.

'The no reading in a dream trick is pretty useful.' she thought.

This was her third time lucid dreaming, so she was pretty used to it by now. The dream bubble she was in began to break apart and soon she found herself back in the laboratory, next to her sleeping self. Like her previous visit, the scene around her was a bit blurry when reflecting the real world. She looked around, the nightmare hadn't arrived yet.

Joshua was still unconscious, it had only been about two minutes since she had hit that idiot. Knocking someone out isn't the same as sleeping though and Joshua wasn't currently dreaming. Still, since he wasn't conscious, whatever was tormenting him should act soon.

Obviously, Catherine was unhappy with the situation, Joshua refusing her help was baffling. But the look in his eyes had convinced her, it wasn't something he could deal with on his own. She found herself subconsciously petting Joshua's hair.

'Don't blame me for this, it's for your own good.' she said out loud.

Suddenly the lights in the room started to flicker before shutting down. Catherine put her guard up. She would deal with this nightmare while watching over Joshua.

The door to the lab opened and a small figure entered the place. The figure was hopping up and down as if it was playing around. Soon, Catherine caught a glimpse of it. It was a little girl. The girl waved at her as she approached. When she was about ten meters away, Catherine finally saw her face in detail. For some reason, she felt a vague sense of familiarity with this child but then realized the girl looked a lot like a small version of her.

This confused her. Was that really what Joshua was afraid of? No, that couldn't be it. Catherine clearly felt this child was something much more sinister than the innocent appearance she gave off.

When she arrived in front of Catherine, the girl looked up, smiled and merely said:

"Hi Mommy!"

Chapter end