"Some dreams are prophecies. Others are just your brain throwing spaghetti at the wall.The trick is figuring out which ones still have sauce on them."— Unknown Dream Seer.
I've learned something important as a world:
People are really bad at interpreting dreams.
Like, really bad.
I send a vision of a burning tree to warn someone that fire magic is unstable, and what do they do?
Build a temple to the "Holy Blaze Tree" and sacrifice cabbages to it every harvest.
It's gotten so ridiculous that I've started being petty. One time I dream-planted a perfect recipe for cold-resistant potato stew in a farmer's head.He turned it into a war strategy and tried to bribe an entire army with soup.
They won.
I don't even know anymore.
But then came Liora.
And she… she actually understood.
✦ A Girl Who Listened ✦
Liora was born in a glade I once shaded with a willow tree the size of a cathedral. An elf girl, sixteen summers old, with silver hair like frostbitten wheat and eyes that caught moonlight like glass catching rain.
She was quiet. Too quiet, according to her tribe.
Didn't like dancing, skipped bow practice, and spent most of her time sleeping.
Not out of laziness.
Because that's where she heard me.
In dreams.
Every night, she'd curl up under tree roots and slip into the half-world between sleeping and waking. And in that place, my whispers found her more clearly than anyone else.
"A blue mountain crumbles," she'd mutter in the mornings."The stars are bleeding again.""Someone lit a bonfire in the sky. It's a boy this time."
Her elders called her touched by spirits.
Some called her mad.
But I knew the truth.
She wasn't broken.
She was Threadbound.
✦ Threadbound Explained (Sort of) ✦
A "Threadbound" is a rare type of soul that resonates directly with the World Core's fragmented threads—which, in this case, is me.
These people see my dreams not as symbols, but as actual visions. Puzzle pieces of truth. Not complete, but raw. Real. Dangerous.
There are maybe six alive right now.
Liora is the most sensitive.
She calls the voice in her dreams "The Sleeping One." And instead of praying to me like a god, she listens like I'm… a sad lullaby.
I don't know why that makes me emotional.
Maybe because no one else ever listens.
✦ Today's Dream: A Red Thread in the Grove
Liora awoke beneath her favorite root arch, heart racing. Sweat dripped down her temple. The morning mist curled around her like spun silk, thick and whispering.
"It's changed," she breathed.
She sat up.
Around her, The Memory Grove stirred.
This place was special. A tiny forest tucked into a forgotten dip between hills, where the wind was always gentle and the trees never lost their leaves.
I made it that way. One of the few places I could gently rest my thoughts. Like putting a pillow under your head when everything else is rock.
Today, something new had appeared.
A stone.
Half-buried in moss.
Inscribed with… a red thread.
✦ The Stone of Forgotten Threads
Liora knelt.
The stone wasn't large—just wide enough to cradle in her hands. Its surface was smooth, unnaturally so, and a single glowing red line traced a spiral around it.
Not paint. Not blood.A real, woven thread.One that pulsed faintly. Like a heartbeat.
I didn't put it there.
That was the part that scared me.
It came from another part of me. A place I hadn't looked into since waking up. A dungeon node. A sealed vault. Something ancient that maybe… predated even me.
But the thread recognized Liora.
And when she touched it—
"Ah—!"
—She saw everything.
✦ Vision: Through the Eyes of the World
For one heartbeat, Liora's soul was pulled into me.
She saw deserts of glass, screaming storms, and glowing threads wrapped around a boy's body.
She saw Tatsuo—the Summoned Hero—laughing atop a camel throne.
She saw gods arguing over gameboards the size of moons.
She saw me. Not clearly. Just an outline. A sad shape made of roots and stone and memory, reaching out with invisible hands.
And she heard a voice.
"Do not let the Thread Sever."
Then silence.
✦ Back to Reality
Liora gasped and dropped the stone.
The red thread flickered—and vanished. The stone turned dull and crumbled to dust.
She clutched her chest. Something inside her was changing.
A mark began to form over her heart: a tiny spiral etched into her skin like a tattoo made of glowing silk.
[You have inherited: Dreamweaver Trait – Level 1.][Access to World Fragments unlocked.]
The system message wasn't hers.
It was mine.
I didn't mean to send it.
But part of me—the buried part—recognized her.
✦ The Prophecy Awakens
That evening, Liora went to the village oracle. An ancient elf with eyes made of mist and teeth like chipped pearl.
"The Sleeping One stirs," she whispered. "A Hero has landed in the sand. But the Thread is fraying."
The oracle stirred from her trance.
"Then go, Dreamwalker. The World cries for stitchers."
Liora nodded.
She didn't pack much.
Just a staff, her dreams, and the belief that something far bigger than fate had just winked at her through the mist.
She stepped out of the grove—
And the trees bent ever so slightly to let her pass.
✦ Elsewhere: The Hero Builds a Pyramid Casino
Tatsuo, meanwhile, had begun construction on what he proudly called:
"Neo-Egypt Zone Alpha."
It had waterfalls (imported via magic scrolls).A pit arena (camels only).And a gachapon stall run by the goblin Trudo (rigged).
He'd also tried to romance a local desert priestess, but was promptly smacked in the face with a ceramic tablet of laws stating:
"Thou shalt not seduce the sacred sandkeepers until level 30."
Fair.
Still, Tatsuo was thriving.
And most importantly, he kept talking to me.
At first, it was awkward.
"Yo, World-senpai, are you listening?"
[Yes.]
"I made grilled cactus today! Want some?"
[I do not eat.]
"Lame. But understandable."
But over time…
He started asking questions.
About magic.
About monsters.
About the strange dreams he kept having of a girl with silver hair walking through forests full of songs.
✦ When Dreams Begin to Overlap
The connection between Liora and Tatsuo wasn't direct.
Not yet.
But I could feel it forming.
Like threads drifting on a loom, slowly inching toward each other.
Their souls hummed on similar frequencies.
And for the first time since I woke as a world…
I began to hope.
Hope that maybe—just maybe—these people weren't here to break me.
Maybe they were here to help me rebuild.
Not as a god.
Not as a system.
But as a person trying to remember who he used to be.
✦ Final Scene: The Seamstress Threads Her Needle
In a space beyond stars, The Seamstress held up a golden needle.
She dipped it in black ink made from God knows what.
Then she whispered:
"One thread follows the storm. Another follows the dream. What happens when the threads knot?"
She stabbed the needle through reality—
And somewhere, a girl blinked at the moon, and a boy sneezed into his camel soup.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 3 ✦
Next: Chapter 4 — Of Dust and Dreams, the Hero Meets the Dream walker