Chapter 68
Chapter 68
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 68
Chapter Title: How to Steal the Protagonist's Woman
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"Haa... you're really pretty."
Lena's mind went blank at the sudden ambush of a comment.
'...Huh?'
Lena thought she'd misheard.
She couldn't imagine any idiot of a man in the world actually liking her.
Setting aside her position as the duke's daughter, Lena had always believed she had zero merits as a woman.
She was the kind of foolish girl who was always rolling around on the dirt floor, getting punished by the grand duke.
She'd charge headfirst into battles, and thanks to her strict upbringing, she had no flexibility whatsoever.
Her relatively tall height intimidated men, and with no gift for words, women avoided getting close to her.
If there was one thing Lena felt sorry for toward her late mother, it was that she lacked the dignity every woman should possess.
But as long as she had her father as her pillar, she thought that was enough.
Even if marriage was arranged by her father, she was confident she wouldn't care who the opponent was.
She had lived convinced that her heart could never hold love for a man.
But it was all a delusion.
Lena's heart began to pound so fiercely it felt like it might burst right through her chest.
Thump thump thump thump.
'N-no... it has to be a misunderstanding. Calm down, I need to calm down...'
If the man embracing her as the duke's daughter had been anyone else, she wouldn't have gotten this excited.
The chest of a man she was feeling for the first time began to stoke her arousal even further.
'What is he trying to do? Is he planning something more?'
But despite Lena's doubts, the man simply held her close and whispered to himself.
Yet his tone carried a completely different vibe from before.
"...What?"
"...?"
Lena snapped back to reality at the man's puzzled voice and tried to focus on his words.
But the heartbeat emanating from his chest was bewitching her mind.
Thump... thump... thump...
'Haa... haa... just a little... eh...?'
Lena had poured all her attention into the heartbeat rather than his mutterings when suddenly sleepiness overtook her.
..
..
"...?"
Lena found herself in a situation she couldn't comprehend.
She had clearly been lying down just moments ago, yet suddenly she was somewhere else entirely.
The place she was in was unforgettable, etched into her memories.
It was the bedroom of Grand Duke Peron IV.
And standing weakly before her, shedding tears of joy, was Grand Duke Peron IV himself.
"Lena... it's all thanks to you. Without you, this war would have..."
"... "
The moment Lena heard those lines, she instantly realized it was a dream.
Whenever she slept after arriving at the Demon King's Castle, she always had this dream.
The repertoire was always the same: her weakened father clinging to her, weeping pathetically.
'A dream? But can you really recognize it as a dream like this?'
Fascinated by her first-ever lucid dream, Lena ignored Peron IV and began looking around.
She experimented by altering the objects nearby.
She changed the tulips in a vase to roses and swapped the landscape painting on the wall for a portrait of her mother.
Growing even more intrigued, Lena scanned her surroundings until one man caught her eye.
It was the man who had definitely been holding her and lying down with her moments ago.
'This dream too... before...'
Recalling the scene she'd seen previously, Lena's face flushed red.
'Don't tell me it's going to happen again...'
Since the dream started in a similar situation as before, Lena naturally assumed he'd spank her buttocks again.
But things began to unfold differently.
Suddenly, Peron IV bellowed.
"Who are you! How dare you invade my bedroom! Guards?!"
"...?"
Instead, Peron IV was trying to have him seized.
Guards burst into the bedroom and aimed their spears at him.
The man stood there awkwardly, surrounded.
'This won't do, not like this!'
Lena decided to protect the man for now.
Without realizing she could even control people, she stepped in front of him to block the guards.
Lena spoke urgently.
"Please calm down just a moment, Grand Duke!"
"Who is that man that you're blocking for?"
"Th-that's..."
No matter how much of a dream it was, it felt too real, and Lena didn't want to see him get hurt.
But the only ones allowed in the grand duke's private chambers were guards, retainers, servants, and family.
This man blocking her path didn't belong to any of those categories.
'Father knows the names of everyone in the castle. Any sloppy lie...'
No matter how hard Lena racked her brain, no solution came to mind.
'I can't exactly say he's family-to-be...'
Even in a dream, she couldn't bring herself to utter something so embarrassing.
"Everyone, stand down."
But with those sudden words from Peron IV, the guards lowered their spears in unison and stepped back.
Lena looked around in bewilderment before her eyes landed on the grand duke beaming with a bright smile.
"...?"
"I've committed a most inexcusable rudeness. Forgive me."
Lena, not understanding, asked Peron IV.
"Grand Duke, what...?"
"To treat Lena's future husband with such discourtesy—forgive me."
Lena's eyes widened like a rabbit's as she glanced at the man beside her.
The man wore an equally baffled expression as he looked back at Lena.
The two of them opened their mouths in sync.
"“...What?”"
Today, too, thrilled at the chance to hold the duke's daughter, I barged into the kid's room, snagged the key(?), and entered her room.
Like yesterday, I gently embraced her and, without thinking, muttered while gazing at her.
"Haa... you're really pretty."
Even without doing anything lewd, just holding her filled me with inexplicable joy.
And in that embrace, I cast dream intrusion.
But it didn't take hold, and all I could see was the top of the duke's daughter's head.
'What? Dream intrusion isn't working. Gotta try again.'
I refocused and cast dream intrusion again.
It felt different from usual somehow, but I barely managed to slip into the dream.
'Something's off...'
What my vision showed was the grand duke's bedroom, where the duke's daughter was conversing with Peron IV.
'Hehe~ Today I'll crank up the intensity and give that plump butt a good spanking.'
Anticipating the feel of Lena's chubby buttocks, I commanded Peron IV to act.
But...
Nothing happened.
'What the? Wait, what is this...'
No matter what I tried, Peron IV just sobbed while looking at the duke's daughter, showing no reaction.
'Guess I need to wake up first... but how?'
I'd only ever practiced entering dreams; exiting had always just happened naturally on its own.
As I pondered, suddenly Peron IV bellowed at me.
"Who are you! How dare you invade my bedroom! Guards?!"
"... "
With his shout, over a dozen guards flooded the bedroom and thrust spears at me.
'Holy shit... I'm screwed? If I die here, does my real body get messed up too?'
Judging the situation more serious than expected, the duke's daughter suddenly blocked the guards with her body, protecting me.
"Please calm down just a moment, Grand Duke!"
'...Huh? This is different from last time.'
Last time, she'd tried to chase me out, but now she was shielding me.
To check, I tried controlling just her.
Sure enough, the duke's daughter didn't respond to my commands.
'As expected, can't control the duke's daughter directly.'
Dream intrusion couldn't manipulate the dream's owner to begin with.
I'd tried it several times before and learned it was impossible.
Unless I gave subconscious, indirect commands without realizing.
After some back-and-forth between Peron IV and the duke's daughter, the guards suddenly lowered their spears.
'...What the hell's going on? Why are they acting like this...'
The moment frustration hit with zero control working, the grand duke spoke up.
"I've committed a most inexcusable rudeness. Forgive me."
"...?"
"To treat Lena's future husband with such discourtesy—forgive me."
I looked at the duke's daughter upon hearing that.
She stared back at me with a dumbfounded expression and opened her mouth.
"“...What?”"
..
..
I somehow ended up in the duke's daughter's room in a daze.
The duke's daughter sat at the same table as me upon entering.
She said nothing, just kept her head down, staring at the table.
I tried to piece together the situation while watching her.
'...Did her mental strength recover or something?'
One possibility I could think of.
I figured her mental strength had partially recovered, making my dream intrusion control ineffective.
'Or maybe it's my condition.'
Considering how the dream intrusion hadn't landed on the first try, I kept that option open too.
'No way she wasn't asleep— I dove right into the bed, and she'd have snapped my neck otherwise.'
Whatever else, it didn't make sense that she hadn't been sleeping.
Beatrice had definitely said dream intrusion had side effects.
Subordination carried high risk, but dream intrusion issues were limited to within the dream.
'Side effects, huh... I get the control not working, but what if I can't get out?'
Time flowed the same in dream and reality.
Over five minutes had passed for sure, but I still couldn't exit the dream.
'Stay calm and figure out how to slip out of the room.'
It was worrying, but I couldn't just sit there twiddling my thumbs.
The duke's daughter was dreaming anyway, so if I left the room and got out of her sight, things should work out somehow.
'From the duke's daughter's perspective, we're pre-marriage, so I'm probably lower status? Never really thought about marriage...'
The only marriages I'd known were from games.
And in most games I played, I didn't marry.
I'd slap marriage tags on other guys and stamp slave seals on the women—that was my style...
Even typical pure love stories mostly ended marriage at the credits.
For now, I smiled at the duke's daughter and said,
"Thank you, milady. Thanks to you, the misunderstanding's cleared up."
"Eep! A-hem... N-no, quite the opposite. I'm just relieved you weren't hurt."
"...?"
The duke's daughter startled at my words, let out a weird fake cough, and her mouth twitched.
'Are the duke's daughter's dreams always this refreshingly unpredictable every time...'
One time begging for a spanking, now her usual stoic demeanor was nowhere—her actions felt overly dramatic.
The moment I figured out the root of her punishment dreams, bam, a new puzzle.
'Just throw together some excuse and bail.'
"My uninvited visit today interrupted your reunion with the grand duke. I'll take my leave..."
"...Please don't go."
"Pardon?"
As I stood to leave, the duke's daughter approached and hugged me tightly.
Wearing heels, her height matched mine perfectly.
'Whoa, check out that figure...'
I wrapped my arms around her body and asked,
"Milady?"
"Haa... please don't go."
I was thrust into a utterly baffling situation.
"Thank you, milady. Thanks to you, the misunderstanding's cleared up."
"Eep! A-hem... N-no, quite the opposite. I'm just relieved you weren't hurt."
The instant Lena heard him call her "milady," she flustered without realizing, her face twitching.
'Th-this feels... good?'
Just hearing the person she always served use honorifics toward her felt refreshingly uplifting.
On top of that, she sensed the gentleness he showed to Viola, not his usual brusqueness.
'Stuff like this can only happen in dreams, huh. But if this is a dream...'
A sense of futility mingled with rising euphoria.
This place was a dream, after all.
To Lena, Seong Suho was just a figure from her dream.
And she figured the real Seong Suho outside the dream had no way of knowing what happened here, no matter what she did to this one.
'Yeah, it's a dream... This might be the last time, right? He's leaving in a few days anyway...'
Lena didn't want to let this chance lucid dream slip away.
She already knew from experience breaking a promise to her father just how foolish it was to miss an opportunity.
The man suddenly stood, preparing to leave.
"My uninvited visit today interrupted your reunion with the grand duke. I'll take my leave..."
"...Please don't go."
"Pardon?"
Lena approached the man and pulled him into an embrace.
And she resolved herself.
'Even if just here... I want to be with him...'
But Lena's wish couldn't come true.
...Huh?'
Lena's vision wasn't the Peron Duchy bedroom anymore—it was her own room in the Demon King's Castle.
And Seong Suho was still fully in her arms.
'...Something's really off today.'
I'd been suddenly ejected from the duke's daughter's dream.
Cause unknown.
'Whew... Armonia, is this a side effect...'
'...'
Hearing Armonia's words, I unwittingly cast my eyes downward just a bit.
The duke's daughter, gazing up at me from within my arms, came into view.