Backstab
"Uh... P-Princess? Do you happen to know what kind of place that is?"
The boy turned to the girl as he asked, and she tilted her head with feigned innocent purity.
"Isn't it a place where ladies and their knight escorts go? Look, that couple's heading in too."
The spot she pointed to had a couple entering the motel.
A man burdened with piles of the woman's luggage, scrambling desperately to cater to her whims.
…
Ah.
How the hell do I explain that one?
Well, Princess? It's not that kind of place...
As the boy's mind blanked out,
"Hurry up!"
The girl seized his wrist and yanked him forward with brute force.
What the—why's she so damn strong!
"W-Wait just a sec!"
"What's 'wait a sec'?! Get over here!"
It was the moment the boy was dragged across the motel's threshold by the girl.
RUMBLE
The world shook violently.
"...Huh? I didn't do anything?"
Buildings crumbled around them like an earthquake had hit, plunging everything into chaos.
"...Prince. Do you hate me that much?"
"N-No! I didn't do anything!"
The girl drooped in feigned disappointment, her acting pulling the boy right in.
—At last! The time has come!
A sinister voice echoed through the air.
"!!!"
Horror washed over the girl's face.
She knew that voice.
All too well.
From her human days to now, it had never brought anything good.
A voice she'd thought she'd never hear again.
"...No."
That voice.
"No!"
Why?
Wasn't the nightmare gone?
Hadn't she shattered every chain?
The girl began to tremble uncontrollably.
This doesn't make sense.
It should've been just a voice at most, but now it's meddling in reality.
She shuddered violently.
"No... stop... please, no more..."
The radiant, beautiful dream of that one night began to fade.
Despair crashed over her like a wave—as if to say she had no right to such happiness.
"No...!"
The girl curled into herself.
She had no strength left to act, no will to resist.
Just hearing that voice was enough.
Thud.
A warm embrace enveloped her entire body.
"Princess."
"!!!"
The boy pulled her into his arms.
"I told you earlier. Nightmares like that are over now."
"...Ah?"
As the girl looked up, she saw the face of the man she adored.
"No nightmare will ever dare torment you again. I'll stop them all."
The prince's face she'd only seen in dreams.
The touch she'd fantasized about, imagining he'd one day pull her from this hell.
Its beauty and warmth outshone anything she'd ever dreamed.
The girl took the boy's hand and slowly rose to her feet.
"That's the bastard who's been tormenting you, right?"
The boy smiled.
"If I wipe it out, you can finally sleep easy, yeah?"
"...Yes."
Sleep easy? That was just the start.
If the voice that'd kept her trapped in her room—her domain—vanished, she could roam freely.
Step beyond her domain, descend to the mortal world, sneak into his room, and sleep together.
How many kids would be nice?
Constellations can't get pregnant, but an avatar body would work fine.
Once I'm back, I'll have my apostles make one.
And then!
Crunch!
"Gah!"
As her fantasies peaked,
A hand burst from behind, piercing straight through the boy's chest.
"Ahh..."
A woman identical to the girl.
"Who're you planning to erase?"
But her smile was nothing like the girl's—
It brimmed with sickening malice and cruelty.
Crunch!
Mana erupted from the hole in his chest.
"Gurk!"
Light flashed a few times, then—
BOOM!
The boy's body exploded, scattering in chunks.
Reduced to unrecognizable meat scraps.
"Thanks, pest. You've fulfilled the resurrection conditions."
The evil in the girl's form grinned wickedly.
The lab director.
The director she'd thought was dead, revived as a soul fragment.
Thud.
Her legs gave out, and the girl collapsed to her knees.
It's been inside me all this time...
The director's blood, absorbed when she ascended to godhood.
It wasn't mere magical catalyst.
It had hidden within her, using her divine body as a host to resurrect as a god. That was why he'd artificially deified her instead of himself and slaughtered the other researchers.
"Sluuuurp... haaah."
The director spread his arms wide, inhaling and exhaling deeply.
"I had little time left. Not enough to build the saga needed to become a god. But create an artificial god artificially and bide my time inside? Perfectly feasible."
The director had dreamed since childhood.
To become a great god encompassing all human knowledge.
That single ambition had driven him.
A genius from youth, hailed as a prodigy, he became a scholar revered across the continent and rose to head the empire's premier Imperial Lab.
But he could never become a god.
For all his intellect and gathered knowledge from across the lands, he never ascended to divinity.
Why?
After endless research, he pinpointed his missing piece.
A saga.
The Three Great Scholar Constellations, like the Magitech Sage, all had sagas of their own—but he lacked one.
A saga potent enough to serve as the core for divinity to surge forth.
By the time he realized it, he was too old.
Masks hid his age, forced lifespan extensions bought time, but limits loomed.
Not enough left to forge a saga and ascend.
So the director schemed.
If I can't, I'll make someone else a god.
Then use that god as my vessel to be reborn a Constellation.
Hiding his true intent, he convinced the emperor.
The emperor bought it, never dreaming the plan would lead to his betrayal and downfall, and approved the absurd scheme to artificially create a god.
"And now, every condition is met."
No matter how many contingencies he'd hidden, a god was a god.
Stealing that god's divinity required precise triggers.
The god's emotions unstable, its power weakened.
Above all, contact with something otherworldly to partially nullify its authority.
The voice endlessly looping in the girl's mind, tormenting her.
It was to control her, maneuver her into fulfilling the conditions.
"Activation required intense emotions beyond a threshold. I was certain a pest like you would trigger it once all conditions aligned and the chains weakened enough!"
The knowledge limits imposed by this world's lore strengthened those restraints, but also obsessed her with otherworldly things.
Struggling to escape knowledge's curse, she'd seek the otherworldly—and feel raw emotion upon finding it.
Whoooosh
The authorities forming the world.
The divinity within the girl.
All power began flowing into the director.
Ah...
Again.
He died because of me.
I asked him to...
If he hadn't gotten involved with me, he wouldn't have died.
I'm doing it again...
The director stood before the despairing girl, greedily devouring her divinity.
What perfect prey!
Absolute authority over Raipania Continent's knowledge, plus otherworldly lore and dream powers.
The continent would welcome a new God of Wisdom.
The greatest human god ever!
"Thanks, you pest! You were my finest creation! Hahahahahahahaha!"
The endless years hiding in her divinity, enduring.
Excruciating.
But over now.
The continent would kneel to him!
He alone, amalgam of all knowledge and intellect, would stand as its true master!
"Another backstab, huh."
Then, a voice rang out—one he never thought could reach here.
"!!!!"
The director's eyes bulged.
"Same pattern? Players would riot about recycled boss fights."
Crunch!
"Gaaargh!"
An invisible force slammed down, crushing the director into the ground.
The director couldn't comprehend.
What the hell just happened?
How'd it pierce every defense around me and hit my true body?!
It should've erased my existence outright!!
"The Dream's Mistress doesn't die in dreams."
Slam!
The boy's foot stomped the director's back, grinding it down.
"Can't die even if she wants to. Not inside a dream."
Anything's possible in dreams.
Except death.
As long as dream authority holds firm, no one stops the dream's mistress.
Unlike that other guy, you can't nullify powers, huh?
What kind of boss should I make you?
Players are bored of old ones. Gotta give you some pattern variety.