"ARGHHHHHHH…" A bizarre ache started behind Leo's eyes. He groaned, reaching up to rub his temples. It felt like someone had stuck a rusty dagger into his skull.
He expected his fingers to brush against the expensive sleep mask. Instead, his hand felt a rough, sweaty cloth. He slowly moved, and a loud crunching sound echoed beneath him. He was lying on a sack of dry grass.
Leo forced his eyes open, fluttering against a harsh blue light stabbing his retinas. He squinted, holding a hand up to block the glare. A shiny, jagged blue crystal was embedded into the stone ceiling. It shimmered with a neon glow and hummed with an irritating buzz.
"Where am I?" Leo muttered, his voice sounding different than usual. It lacked its resonance. It was raspy and weak.
He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the cot. The room was a small, cozy stone cell. No curtains or blankets. Just cold rock and that irritating, buzzing blue light.
Suddenly, a painful headache struck him again. Foreign memories rushed into his mind like the water from a broken dam.
He saw tall castles, and the knights swinging flaming swords. He saw a frail, twenty-year old scholar named Leo collapsing on the floor, struggling for air as his body gave out.
Leo clenched the edges of the grass bed. He took a slow breath to calm his galloping heart. He was a professional, because he dealt with high stress situations daily.
"Transmigration," Leo whispered. "Huh… I died. Now I am in the Kingdom of Aethelgard."
Before he could process the utter reality of magic and knights, a digital sound chimed in his mind.
DING!!!
A luminous blue screen appeared in the air just in front of his face.
[Supreme Slumber System initializing...]
[Host: Yagami Leo.]
[Scanning Host body... Complete. Mana Level: 0. Physical Strength: F-.]
[World Scan Complete. Current Location: Kingdom of Aethelgard.]
Leo stared at the levitating text. He had read enough novels in his spare time to know what this was.
Another prompt appeared, flashing with a red warning.
[WARNING: Critical World Anomaly Detected.]
[The inhabitants of this world suffer from a 300-year insomnia due to the 'Aegis of Radiance'. The concentration of unspent dream energy is causing the ethereal realm to collapse into reality. The world will face total destruction in 365 days.]
[Main Quest: Cure the Kingdom's Insomnia.]
[Objective: Establish a clinic and force the population into R.E.M. sleep to drain the excess dream energy.]
[Penalty for Failure: Soul Erasure.]
Leo read the penalty twice. Soul erasure. No pressure, then.
He dismissed the screen with a thought and stood up. His new body felt light, and a strange energy buzzing under his skin. According to his new memories, this was the "holy mana" granted by the Goddess. It forced the body to stay awake, suppressing the need to sleep.
For three hundred years, nobody in this kingdom had slept for a full eight hours. They viewed tiredness as a test of faith.
"Idiots," Leo sighed, an overwhelming sense of professional annoyance. "You cannot run a human body on adrenaline and magic. It destroys the nervous system."
Leo walked to a cracked wooden mirror hanging on the wall. He watched his new face. He looked young, but his eyes were a tragedy, bruised purple bags hung under his eyes. His skin was pale, looking like a man who had died from exhaustion.
DING!!!
[Starter Package unlocked.]
[Reward 1: Skill - 'Calming Aura (Level 1)'. The host passively emits a soothing energy that lowers the heart rate and blood pressure of anyone within a five meter radius.]
[Reward 2: Skill - 'Basic Medical Eye (Level 1)'. The host can see the fatigue level and sleep debt of anyone.]
"Now that is useful," Leo said, walking to the single window and looking outside. The frontier town of Vespera looked like a gritty movie set. Cobblestone streets, wooden taverns, and iron gates.
But the people worried Leo the most. A blacksmith across the street hammered a sword on an anvil, swinging the hammer rigorously. Two town guards stood at the corner. They shook in place, their hands quivering over their sword hilts. Their eyes were wide and feverish.
THUD!! THUD!!
Heavy, frantic footsteps thundered down the wooden hallway outside his room.
BANG!!!
A massive boot kicked the wooden door open, splintering the lock and hitting the stone wall.
A giant six-feet man filled the doorway. He wore dented iron armor with a broadsword resting on his back. A jagged scar ran down on his left cheek. He looked like a man who ate gravel for breakfast. He also looked like he was about to burst into tears.
"Scholar Leo!" The giant man frowned, his voice echoing loudly, but his chest heaved with shallow breaths. "You live! The Guildmaster said the holy mana burned out your core. I told them you merely rested your eyes to pray!"
Leo blinked slowly. His memories provided a name.
Kaelen. A B-rank mercenary and the landlord of this cheap building.
"Hello, Kaelen," Leo said, his voice calm and steady.
Kaelen marched forward. He grabbed Leo by the shoulders. The man's grip felt like an iron vise, but Leo noticed the fingers trembled uncontrollably.
"The dark creeps closer, Leo," Kaelen growled, leaning in, his pupils dilated. "Scouts report shadow beasts in the woods. We must prepare. We must fortify our minds. I have recited the holy words for three days straight. I feel the Goddess light burning in my bones!"
Leo activated his new skill.
[Basic Medical Eye activated.]
A small blue box appeared above Kaelen's head.
[Subject: Kaelen. Age: 28.]
[Sleep Debt: 112 hours.]
[Status: Severe mana-induced insomnia. High risk of cardiac arrest.]
Leo gently reached up and pushed Kaelen's massive hands off his shoulders. As the system showed, his passive skill, [Calming Aura], brushed over the giant mercenary.
Kaelen flinched, the frantic twitching in his jaw slowed down. The rapid humming of the holy mana in his blood met a soft wall of relaxation.
"Kaelen," Leo said, his tone dropping into a soothing, authoritative register. "When was the last time you sat down?"
Kaelen looked confused. The fierce scowl on his scarred face faltered. "Sat down? The Vanguard does not sit. I walked the western patrol route for seventy-two hours."
"Seventy-two hours," Leo repeated, shaking his head, "and before that?"
"I worked at the forge. A forty-hour endeavor. The Goddess provides infinite stamina!"
"The Goddess," Leo said firmly, "is going to give you a heart attack before you turn thirty."
Kaelen narrowed his bloodshot eyes. His hand drifted toward the hilt of his broadsword. "What is a heart attack? Is it a shadow demon? Point me toward its lair!"
"It is not a demon, landlord. It is extreme stress," Leo stated, stepping back and pointing to the floor. "Stand right there. Do not move. I need to fix this terrible lighting before my own head explodes."
Kaelen froze. He came here expecting the frail scholar to help him decipher a protection rune. Instead, the kid analysed his flaws with scary confidence.
Leo walked to the window. In the dark corner of the stone windowsill, hiding from the blue light on the ceiling, there was a shivering mass of black jelly.
It was a Shadow Slime. A bottom-tier dark creature. They were harmless and only ate dust, but the people of Aethelgard hunted them like deadly monsters.
"Scholar, step back!" Kaelen roared, ripping his broadsword from its scabbard. The steel blade instantly ignited with a roaring white flame. "A spawn of the Abyss! Stand behind me!"
"Put that away, you are ruining the room temperature," Leo commanded.
He reached down and scooped the Shadow Slime up with his bare hands.
Kaelen gasped loudly, dropping heavily to one knee. The flames on his sword flickered with sparkling sound. "By the Goddess... you touch the abyss without flinching! Your mind will corrupt!"
The slime felt like cool gelatin. It shivered pitifully in Leo's hands.
"It just wants a dark place to nap," Leo murmured, patting the slime.
He carried the wiggling slime to the center of the room. He dragged his writing desk under the glowing blue crystal. He stepped onto the chair, then onto the desk, reaching up toward the ceiling.
"Scholar Leo, what are you doing?" Kaelen pleaded, his voice cracking with terror. He held his flaming sword out like a shield. "Do not let the dark consume your soul!"
"I am not letting the dark consume my soul, Kaelen. I am trying to make the light dimmer." Leo firmly pressed the Shadow Slime against the glowing crystal.
The slime hated the harsh light. It instantly spread its black jelly body, wrapping around the jagged edges of the crystal to obscure the source. Then in a blink, the neon blue light vanished.
The room plunged into a soft, cool twilight. The ear-piercing hum of the holy mana muffled beneath the mass of the slime.
"Huff…." Leo let out a slow exhale. The stabbing pain behind his eyes receded. He climbed down from the desk and turned to look at Kaelen.
The giant mercenary dropped his sword, holy flames snuffing with a hiss against the cold stone floor. Kaelen stared at the ceiling. Without the bright light and the buzzing crystal forcing his brain to stay awake, Kaelen's exhaustion crawled up to his brain. One hundred and twelve hours of missing sleep rushed into his body.
His knees buckled.
"The... the holy light..." Kaelen slurred, his eyelids drooping. He staggered backward, his massive armored body tilting, falling aside. "You... killed the Goddess's gaze... with a demon..."
"I optimized the sleep environment," Leo corrected him smoothly, stepping forward to catch the falling giant. With a loud clatter of iron, Kaelen collapsed forward. Leo caught him by the shoulders, grunting under the weight of the armor. Using his momentum, Leo guided the mercenary toward the bed.
Kaelen landed onto the dry hay. A second later, a loud snore rumbled from the fearsome warrior.
Leo stood over the sleeping giant. He dusted off his hands, looking at the bloodshot eyes finally closed in peace. The tight muscles in Kaelen's neck slowly relaxed in the dim room.
DING!!!
[System Notification!]
[First Patient treated successfully. R.E.M. sleep achieved.]
[Reward: 100 Rest Points.]
[New Item Unlocked in System Shop: Basic Memory Foam Pillow (Cost: 50 Rest Points).]
Leo smiled, reading the system prompt hovering in the air.
He walked to the window and looked out over the vibrating, and utterly exhausted city. The people thought they fought a glorious, unending holy war, but they were wrong. They were just overtired.
"Alright, Aethelgard," Leo whispered into the cool evening air. He opened the System Shop interface. "Prepare yourselves. I am going to put every single one of you into sleep, and it will cost you an absolute fortune."