Crazy Britain:They’re All Raising Me

"…What the hell? That's a thing now?"

Upon hearing the house owner's explanation, Gawain's face changed drastically. Then, from behind him came the sound of clinking metal.

He turned around to look and saw that Mordred's helmet, which had been detached and distributed across her armor, had now completely reassembled, encasing her face entirely.

"That helmet of yours can filter out toxic gas?" Gawain's eyes widened.

"It can't fully filter it out, but it helps a little." Mordred shrugged. "A little's better than nothing."

Then she patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry. If you die in front of me, I'll make sure you get a proper burial."

"You goddamn—!"

Gawain clenched his teeth and turned back to the house. "Do you have anything that can filter out toxic gas? A gas mask? Even a basic face mask will do!"

"If I had one, I wouldn't be holed up in here, would I?" the homeowner replied, sounding thoroughly exasperated. "I've been stuck indoors for over half a month. I'm almost out of rice. To stretch what I've got, I've been eating one day and starving the next. If I had a mask, do you think I'd still be like this?"

"…Fair enough." Gawain groaned, covering his face. "You make a valid point… Wait."

Something clicked in his mind. He looked up sharply.

"Half a month? Did you say this fog's been around for half a month?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"But in the dream, you said the monsters in the fog had only been around for two days, remember?"

"I… I don't really recall that," the homeowner said, looking helpless. "I barely remember anything from the dream."

"I see… so 'an endless nightmare' was referring to this."

Recalling what the system had written in the mission briefing, Gawain nodded slowly.

It was becoming clear now: the nightmare plaguing Londoners was a constantly looping one. Each time, at the end of the nightmare, the Black Star would descend and devour everything—forcing all participants to wake up. But after they inhaled the fog during the day, they would fall asleep again, reentering the dreamworld. And each time, the dream's timeline would reset back to the start of that day.

This… this made everything far more intriguing—especially the entity in yellow that always appeared at the end, devoured all, and yet allowed the cycle to repeat. What was He after?

Gawain's mind spiraled into speculation. Perhaps the Yellow King hadn't truly descended yet, and the dreamworld was just a simulation. But that seemed unlikely, given how much time had passed in reality.

Then maybe… someone was resetting the dream every time the Yellow King was about to arrive? Forcing the cycle to repeat?

That seemed plausible.

But now wasn't the time to dwell on theory.

"Alright. I've got the gist of things now. Thanks for your help—goodbye."

Without waiting for a reply, Gawain turned and started walking away—then broke into a run.

Mordred blinked, startled, before quickly catching up.

"Hey, wait! Why are you running all of a sudden?" she asked. "And what did you figure out? You said you'd share what you learned, didn't you? Spill it already!"

"That can wait."

Gawain replied without slowing:

"I need to get back to my place. I've got gas masks there. I really, really need them right now."

"Oh, please." Mordred sighed. "I've been walking around in this fog too, and I'm just fine."

"Then take your damn helmet off and say that again!" Gawain snapped.

…

Although many of London's streets had changed from how Gawain remembered them, the overall layout remained mostly intact. Thankfully, they weren't far from his residence to begin with, so it didn't take long to reach his home.

Soon, they arrived at the far end of a busy street, and Gawain strode toward a large estate. Thanks to the royalties he earned from his invention of the Excalibur Blade, he had made a small fortune, enough to purchase a grand home near the university where he taught. The estate was spacious, stretching into surrounding alleys, and even had its own garden and laboratory.

But as Gawain reached his property, what greeted him was not grandeur—it was neglect. The garden was overrun with weeds. The main gate was rusted over. The entire place looked more like a haunted castle than a scholar's abode. Even the windows were stained from years of wind and weather.

"Is this some witch's castle?" Mordred gawked. "This looks like it's been abandoned for decades. Are you sure this is your house?"

"…Yes."

Staring at the dilapidated building, Gawain sighed deeply.

"Just as I feared. Something's off with the timeline… Let's go in."

The moment he pushed the door open, a gust of stale air blew a thick cloud of dust into the room. Mordred started coughing immediately.

"This place is completely uninhabited!"

"It's a time discrepancy," Gawain muttered.

He walked over to his mailbox and pried it open. A stack of letters spilled out. He skimmed through them and frowned.

"The most recent letter is dated ten years after my time… Looks like I've been thrown into a different era."

"What do you mean?" Mordred asked, frowning.

"This is a Singularity," Gawain explained. "You're a Servant, so you should understand what that means—a broken fragment of time, detached from proper history. The surrounding time is warped. It seems I've been displaced—literally."

"Seriously?" Mordred blinked. "That's even possible?"

"Don't look at me like that. I'm just as shocked as you are."

Gawain took a few steps through the house, nodding to himself.

"Well, I got lucky. The windows are still intact, so the fog can't get in. Most of my equipment is still usable. Just needs a little cleaning. I can definitely build a couple of gas masks with what's here."

"Alright then… Let's go over what we know so far—wait, don't say anything yet. Let me finish organizing everything first."

Seeing Mordred clearly itching with curiosity, Gawain cut her off in advance.

"Tch… fine."

Clicking her tongue in frustration, Mordred turned away and wandered off to explore the house. But she hadn't gone far before she cried out in surprise.

"Hey! Why do you have so many books? You weren't kidding about being a scholar!"

Her eyes were wide as she stared at the towering bookshelves and countless volumes lining them.

"Of course. Why would I lie?" Gawain replied with a shrug.

"So all that stuff you said about researching King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table… that was true?"

"More or less." He pointed toward a section of the shelf. "If you're curious about how your story was recorded and remembered by later generations, you can check out those books. I've collected most of the relevant material."

"…Sure, why not!"

Satisfied that Mordred was busy combing through the pile of legends and folklore, Gawain let out a silent sigh of relief. Then he reopened his system interface and pulled up the completed mission details, examining the briefing closely.

If even a mission preface could hide so many clues, then the actual description might contain something even more vital.

[You have triggered the special Subjugation Quest: Subjugate the Nightmare Incarnation I – The Wailing Mass of Innocent Death.]

[In the dream-city of London, now functioning as a temporary sacrificial ground, you encountered the dream-projection of the unaltered and identity-less Heroic Spirit: Jack the Ripper.]

[Though she has not been altered or given an identity, her nature as a cluster of resentment resonated with the countless wrongly-dead souls of Ityl, causing her to accelerate her transformation into a Nightmare Larva.]

"Dream projection? Nightmare incarnation? Nightmare larva?"

Gawain furrowed his brow, trying to parse the cryptic phrasing and extract whatever information he could.

First—what exactly was the connection between these nightmare incarnations and Hastur? According to the system, defeating them would prevent Hastur's descent. But why? Why couldn't He descend directly? Why use these incarnations as proxies? And what did this have to do with the mysterious force that kept rewinding the dream?

He felt close to an answer—but not quite there yet.

Still, there were a few things he was confident about.

The so-called Nightmare Incarnations seemed to originate from the dream projections of Heroic Spirits. In Jack's case, her projection had mutated into something else—a process triggered by resonance with the souls of the dead in Ityl.

This transformation—the system called it "corruption." Gawain suspected it was the same shift they saw in Little Mordred and Little Jack under the blood moon.

If that was the case, then "corruption" might be tied to specific moments—like the tolling of that eerie bell they heard before everything changed.

Yes… within this dream, the bell marked every major transition.

Still, key pieces of the puzzle were missing. Until he found them, all he could do was gather more clues.

But at that moment, from across the room, Mordred suddenly exploded:

"Bullshit! When the hell did I try to steal Queen Guinevere from my father?!"

"That's the most ridiculous lie I've ever heard! We're all women! How the hell would I 'possess' Guinevere?! That was Lancelot's mess, not mine!"

Gawain turned to see Mordred toss a book violently to the ground and summon a crackling bolt of red lightning, incinerating it on the spot.

"These books are full of garbage! Lies! Slander!"

…