Welcome to Golem Mayhem (6)
I eyed the horned woman who had suddenly started screaming and gave my cheek a tug. It didn't hurt at all. So this really was a dream.
"I-I told you not to look this way! Turn your head! No, turn your whole body and face the other direction!!"
The horned woman squeezed her eyes shut and shouted. I did as she said and turned around, though something about my cock felt off.
"Oh shit."
My cock was still coated in Franc's love juices and my own semen like some kind of medal. I'd wiped it off a bit, but precum was still dripping from the tip.
"Sorry. I don't know who you are, but do you have anything to wipe with? A towel or something?"
"Of course I don't! If I had something like that, I'd have covered myself first!"
"Fair point."
I nodded. For some reason, showing my naked body to this woman didn't make me feel the slightest bit embarrassed.
Is it because it's a dream?
Everything around me felt slightly unreal. Even the grassland had a dreamy quality to it. The blue meadow stretched to a horizon that faded into light, like a painting that had been started but never finished. Since this was supposedly my dream, maybe the scenery simply hadn't loaded that far.
I decided to just roll with it.
"Rrrheeeeng."
Even my thought process felt like it was following the raw stream of consciousness. You know how it is in dreams—absurd thoughts and sudden changes feel completely serious. If a horde of zombies suddenly sprouted wings and took to the sky, you'd just think, Shit, gotta hide! and dive into the bushes without question.
I shook my dazed head and turned back to the woman.
"Standing around here isn't going to accomplish anything. Why don't we move?"
"I already told you this is a dream!!"
The horned woman shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Wandering around here won't mean anything unless you wake up, and more importantly, stop looking this way! It's been so long since I've had a human body that I'm embarrassed!"
"A human body?"
So long?
"Aha! I thought you were some wild exhibitionist, but you're Bicorn, aren't you?!"
"E-exhibitionist?!"
The horned woman looked horrified. Her true identity was none other than Bicorn! How was that even possible? Amazed by the mysteries of this other world, I ran straight toward her.
"Whoa, holy shit! You passed the mugwort and garlic trial, huh? But the horns stayed! Did you sneak out of the cave for a visit around day ninety-nine?!"
—Thud!
With completely inexplicable energy, I grabbed Bicorn's horns. They felt like the handlebars of an expensive bicycle held upside down.
"Look at these solid horns, kid! You've got general material!"
"G-get that disgusting thing away from my face!!"
When my cum-smeared cock swung right in front of Bicorn's eyes, she threw her hands up to shield her face in panic.
"Ah, sorry. Forgot to wipe it."
I rummaged through the grassland and luckily found Franc's panties, using them to clean my cock before stuffing them into my pants pocket. Wait—how did I put them in my pocket when I was naked?
"Ugh… This is exactly why I hate human dreams. Their unconscious minds are filled with madness…"
Bicorn crouched down again to cover herself. It was the same pose an actress in an outdoor exposure video might take after having her coat stolen. Strangely, it didn't turn me on at all. Her breasts were huge and her ass was firm, so why?
Whatever. That wasn't important.
"Hey, Bicorn. Bicorn. Last time we met, you said you'd tell me your name and repay the favor next time, right? Teach me runes. Runes."
—Slap! Slap!
I smacked Bicorn's back and asked,
"Spill it! Where's your secret base?!"
"Stop hitting me! I don't even understand what you're saying, and more importantly, we're both naked right now! What kind of master and disciple teach while completely unclothed?!"
"Don't the Ulster people teach that way?"
"That's right. The descendants of Erin educate while naked."
Semmus answered. The bastard was naked too.
"Shhhhaak (sex)."
From between Semmus's legs, his cock—the serpent—spoke.
What the fuck was this?!
"Aaaagh, shit! Censored image ban!!"
—Boom!!
I launched Semmus into the distant stars with an eagle kick like I was shooting a soccer ball. His cock-comet flew with him and became a constellation in the sky. That was the origin of the Serpent constellation.
"Crazy bastard… crazy bastard… crazy bastard…"
Bicorn trembled like a girl confronted with incomprehensible madness. She remained crouched because she had no clothes. I tried to comfort her.
"Give up. There are no clothes here."
But there is a cock.
"Eek!! D-don't spread your arms like a T and fly at me! You don't have to follow common sense, but at least obey the laws of physics!!"
"That really hurts my feelings."
So what was I saying again? Ah, right. Runes.
"Hey, Bicorn. Teach me runes. They're pretty useful."
"Damn it… If I want to stop any more of your madness, I have no choice."
Bicorn muttered and nodded.
"Ask away. What do you want to know, traveler?"
"Why are you in my dream?"
"What? Earlier you asked about runes… No, never mind. I'm the fool for trying to think logically."
Bicorn shook her head for some reason and spoke.
"I don't know. I can only guess it has something to do with the rune connection we made last time, but why I ended up here with the curse lifted… I have no idea."
"A rune connection?"
Ah, that time. When we got tired of talking with words and connected our minds through runes instead.
"Yeah. That was weird. How does that even work with runes? You escaped the city using rune magic too, didn't you?"
I asked. The rune magic Bicorn used was very different from the runes that had spread through human society. If it was that useful and immediate, it wouldn't have died out even in modern times. Even if training was difficult, its versatility would have left at least one school of mages studying runes.
"……Because humans cannot properly handle the rune language."
Bicorn glanced at my cock as she spoke.
"The role of language is to speak, listen, write, and convey. But the mysteries of the rune language were never granted to you humans. Only writing and reading were permitted. That is why you cannot draw out the true power of runes."
"True power?"
"Speech is communication between people. If you could handle the true words of runes, you could produce countless effects with a single rune without any medium, just like I do."
A medium. As if to demonstrate, Bicorn floated a rune between her horns and chanted a spell—without using any physical medium at all.
"That's a huge difference."
"Indeed. That is why human rune magic only works through 'additional explanation' in the form of a medium. Think of it as being limited to only certain applications."
"What? So even if I train, I won't be able to use it like you?"
"That… is probably the case. Since the ancient civilization era, humans have not been permitted to use the true words of runes. Though it seems they could during the mythological age."
"That's disappointing."
I clicked my tongue. Even if I could use ordinary rune magic, it was ultimately just support magic. In the end, training Beast Regression like usual would probably be more effective for getting stronger.
"Huh? But Bicorn. How do you guys use runes? Aren't you human?"
I asked because something felt off. From what she'd said about the curse, it sounded like they had originally been human before being cursed into becoming horses.
Bicorn organized her words before answering.
"Because we Bicorns are the divine race, descendants of the Æsir. No, it would be more accurate to say we were the divine race."
"The divine race?"
If she meant Æsir—that was the gods of Germania! The same gods as in Norse mythology! They had been the first clue that made me think I might be able to return to Earth. Bicorns' homeland was there, and runes originated there too.
I've heard the word Æsir somewhere before.
Because this was a dream, I couldn't quite place it. But as far as I remembered, it had been discovered in some ruins.
"Indeed. We are the descendants of the playful god who was cursed so that we could never carry Einherjar or Valkyries. Abandoned by the gods and born unable to serve pure warriors. However, the divine blood still flows within us, undiluted."
Bicorn sighed as she said this.
"Even as I say this, I have no idea where my other kin are or what they're doing…"
"……Wait, but what did you just say? The playful god?"
It was a familiar naming convention. The unreal space suddenly became vivid, and I felt the sleep completely leave me.
"Bicorn. Do you happen to know what the Nine Gods or 'deiwōm dyēus,' the sky god, means—"
—No, I was going to ask. But perhaps because my consciousness had sharpened, the dreamy scenery of the dream suddenly collapsed, and my body floated up into the sky.
—Float.
"Huh?"
My body rose, and I stopped mid-sentence. It felt like I was falling upward because gravity had disappeared. My consciousness was waking up from the dream.
Shit, it was ending here? What kind of shitty structure was this?! The moment you regain your senses, you wake up from the dream and can't ask anything properly, but in that half-asleep state, you can only ramble through stream-of-consciousness talk! This had been my chance to ask about the secrets of Beast Regression that I'd been curious about for so long!
I felt like I'd wake up again before I could get an answer even if I asked once more! So I shouted at Bicorn, who was standing on the upside-down ground.
"Hey!!! Where do you live!!!! At least tell me your name!!!!"
If I knew her identity, I could find her and ask later. Thinking that, I asked the question, and Bicorn answered as if relieved.
"Don't worry. If we dream on the same day, we'll meet again."
Then she reached out her hand as if to see me off while I fell. Despite her appearance as a demon with two horns, her face looked fragile and modest. Even the smile that suited that face perfectly.
"Let's meet again, traveler. Next time, please be in your right mind."
—Whoosh!!
With Bicorn's farewell, I was sucked into a hole in the sky like a dust bunny being vacuumed up.
Gaaaah!! It felt like I was on a slapstick roller coaster with only one foot tied down!!! My neck whipped in every direction as I screamed.
"Where the fuck do you live, why are you saying something else!!!!"
—Thud!
With that completely reasonable protest, I woke up from the dream. I had fallen off the bed and was face-planting into the floor.
"Shit."
It was a refreshingly shitty morning.
****
Five minutes after waking up from rolling off the bed.
After getting up, stretching, and confirming that Franc was still asleep, I was able to leisurely evaluate the dream I'd just had.
"In dreams, I'm not in my right mind."
Shit. Calling a perfectly normal human woman a "Pela Handle girl"? That was ridiculous even for a dream. The rough sex and anxious mating with Franc must have had a bad influence on my dreams too.
I'll apologize next time we meet.
Since Bicorn herself had said we'd meet again, there would probably be an opportunity somehow. Thinking back, Bicorn had been flustered the entire time and couldn't keep her composure. She had probably been dragged into that dream without any warning. Originally, she had probably planned to come find me in "grateful foal mode" and reveal her name as repayment. Instead, she'd been forcibly invited as a guest into my dream and thrown in naked. Even if Freud came back to life, he'd be flustered by that situation.
It probably wasn't just a random dream.
It was a dream where the busty, curvaceous female version of Bicorn had almost told me the secret of Beast Regression. If this was just a meaningless dream, then what kind of memory was my brain organizing to produce something like that? It was the kind of dream that made you not want to believe it even if it were true.
"Mmm……"
While I was organizing my thoughts, Franc woke up too. I stopped rubbing my chin and approached her.
"Franc. Did you sleep well?"
"Huh……? Ah, Nord. That's unusual. You woke up before me."
"I had a weird dream."
I kissed Franc's cheek as she smiled softly, then got dressed. Today's plan was still golem hunting all day long. If I hunted just a few dozen more golems, it seemed like I'd be able to acquire one more rune.