Aizen shifted uncomfortably.
"You know I hate being bait."
Aizen was a blade caster who specialized in stealth. Everything he did involved staying hidden, hitting weak points, and shaving down an enemy force little by little without them noticing. Being out in the open to pull attention went completely against his nature. Despite this, he was the best option for the role, so he was often the one to get stuck with it.
Eileen rolled her eyes in annoyance.
"I wasn't talking about you, Aizen. Look at this."
Several more pages flipped by, revealing a compilation of notes scribbled in various handwritings.
"I aggregated some notes about the kobolds. I found quite the rabbit hole of information, actually. And the more information you have, the more you can exploit."
The pages settled on one particular report that went into far greater detail than the others. Apparently, someone had an unhealthy obsession with the things, having stalked the creatures to observe and document every detail. The report talked about the kobold social hierarchy, their methods for settling disputes, the strange things they would do that seemingly had no purpose- it even had an analysis attempting to decode the kobold language.
"You guys know what kobolds eat?"
Everyone looked around at each other, clearly no one knowing the answer. Surprisingly, it was the hired hauler that took a stab at it.
"... Dead adventurers?"
Bellum's eyebrows shot up in surprise and his jaw dropped as he stared dumbly at the hauler beside him. Everyone else was shocked too, an uncomfortable silence filling the space as they all considered how direct his guess had been. Elaine coughed, clearing her throat before giving the right answer.
"Well... They can eat that, yes. But the staple of the kobold diet is actually ore."
Letting the book float off to the side for a moment, Elaine reached into her personal bag and produced a number of stones, handing them out so everyone could familiarize themselves with them. A handful were actual gems while some seemed to just be normal rocks. Elaine continued her lesson, moving on from the awkward moment.
"To be exact, there are actually a lot of minerals they're known to consume. It's theorized that kobolds gain different features and abilities depending on what they eat the most of."
Aizen turned over one of the stones, observing it dubiously. Kobolds were very dog-like, with sharp and pointed teeth, not the kind that would be able to crush stone.
"You expect us to believe kobolds eat rocks?"
"They do! It's been confirmed several times, actually. How it's done doesn't matter right now, the important bit is that they really crave rare minerals, and they need them to get stronger. This is the reason they mine, after all."
With a wave of her hand, the book fluttered once more.
"This is an illustration of a corpse slime. It makes itself look like this to lure scavengers in. Long story short, you dont want to eat it under any circumstances. Anything that does is in for a really rough time. That being said, these little guys are slimes, so they have solid cores that should be dense in the minerals kobolds need to eat."
A glint could be seen in Eileen's eyes when she looked up from the creature's description.
"Even if the kobolds know not to eat the soft parts, they'll still be drawn to the cores. In theory, these little guys are the perfect distraction. We just have to drop them off at the front door."
---
Galos woke up with a jolt, finally free of a terrible dream. He dreamt... He dreamt... He couldn't remember what he dreamt. Somehow, such an intense dream had only lasted a few moments in his memory. He sat up in his bedroll, focusing to see if he could grasp any part of the dream before it faded completely.
He remembered... Massive buildings, square towers made from perfectly smooth glass that reflected their surroundings. They were so tall, he remembered seeing clouds floating by below.
Galos squinted hard, trying to remember what was so terrible about the dream.
Inside the buildings... Were people. And they sat in front of little windows of light, tapping away on something in front of them.
The bizzare scene helped him remember. The dream didn't seem so fleeting anymore. He remembered sitting at one of those windows of light as well, his eyes glued to little, clean runes that continuously assembled themselves in perfect lines as he tapped away. At some point, he had looked to his side, discovering another person who smiled brightly at him. They had discussed something... Though he couldn't remember what.
Galos furrowed his brow as he laid down again. What had made the dream so terrible? It was strange, yes, but there had to have been more that he was forgetting... There had to have been something...
A moment later, Galos was asleep once more.
---
The machine cursed. Dream Casting was practically impossible to control. The night had been long, providing him ample opportunities to experiment.
He quickly discovered that to start dream casting, he simply needed to reach out to a sleeping individual. The range of this ability was much further than his normal reach, and was easy to send out. However, once the connection was made, he would slip to the same level of consciousness as the host, his world becoming hazy and sluggish. Not only that, but it was difficult to think. Thanks to that, the dreams would become whatever was drifting across his subconscious mind, or whatever was in the subconscious of the host. On top of that, he couldn't leave until the dream was done.
It was like a runaway train. He could buy a ticket to board, but there was no controlling what happened once he was in. His only choice was to ride it to the last stop.
That being said, it wasn't a fruitless night. He had infiltrated the dreams of several people, and had collected ample information. Many of the slaves had dreamt of their mistreatment, much of which was terrible to witness. He had already confirmed what he wanted, but had enough mana left for one more ride.
'Let's buy one more ticket.'
He reached far, blindly feeling for a connection. It felt different from his normal ability, similar to feeling for heat in a cold room. After some searching, he found someone new and let the dream world fill his mind.
Everything faded to darkness, as if the host hadn't yet formed a dream. Everything was pleasantly quiet, the world around him unmoving.
The machine looked around, the world black and endless in every direction. He took a step forward, suddenly hearing water slosh at his feet. He looked down in surprise, realizing this whole void was covered in water. A mild light shone down from somewhere above, just bright enough for him to see the ripple as it moved away from him in all directions.
He felt as if he had disturbed something sacred, as if those ripples would continue onward, forever marring the perfect tranquility of this place.
He watched as the ripple grew, an ever expanding circle with him at its origin. It was fascinating, in a way. Sometimes it was beautiful to disrupt something beautiful.
But at some point, that perfect circle was disturbed. It seemed to encounter something in the darkness, something standing directly ahead about ten meters out. The machine focused his vision, trying to see in the darkness.
He saw a silhouette, a man with horns standing ahead. In the darkness, he saw the glint of the man's eyes as they opened, then they rose to meet his gaze. The two stared at each other in silence, the ripple warping around the horned man's silhouette.