Red Wings in a Dream
From time to time, ever since childhood, I would have a certain dream.
A dream so vivid while I was inside it that every detail burned itself into me — and yet, the moment I woke, it would slip away without a trace.
That dream again.
Strangely enough, whenever this particular dream came, I always knew from the very first moment that I was dreaming. How could I not? It always began the same way: standing behind a woman in what looked like some kind of corridor.
Her long, shimmering red hair cascaded all the way to her waist. She stood motionless, staring blankly up at the ceiling with a pair of crimson eyes that glowed as if flames lived inside them.
The most striking thing about her, though, was the enormous pair of wings that sprouted from a back cut so deep it was almost indecent to look at.
…No matter how many times I see them, they're beautiful.
I would always find myself staring, entranced, at those magnificent red wings — and before long my gaze would naturally drift to the clothes she wore.
A long-sleeved black dress that left nothing exposed except her bare back. The dark fabric might have felt cold and severe on its own, but gold-thread embroidery softened it into something solemn, almost sacred. It clung to her body, tracing every elegant curve, and both sides of the skirt were slit open — for practicality, perhaps — though what showed through the openings was not bare skin but a soft black underskirt of some kind.
Even with that deeply cut back that might have seemed provocative, the contrast of her pale white skin and those gorgeous crimson wings against the black dress somehow transformed the whole image into a work of art.
In all my ten years as a mercenary, I had never seen anything quite like it — but the garment was unmistakably a type of vestment worn by priests who served a god.
Which god, I always wondered. The question nagged at me every time… and every time I woke up, I couldn't remember a thing. Infuriating, really.
Anyway. I would stand there quietly observing her, and before long—
"Haa…"
—she would stop staring blankly at the ceiling and let out a soft sigh.
At the same instant, my vision would blur, and a strange weightlessness would wrap around me, as if something were pulling me toward somewhere else. I would close my eyes and wait for that floating sensation to fade…
Almost time to wake up, then.
The final moment of this incomprehensible dream would arrive.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself inside a temple that wasn't particularly spacious. Stone statues ringed a central altar like sentinels — statues so vicious in design they looked as if they had been carved to embody the very image of a reaper from a fairy tale.
Turning my gaze to the altar itself, I saw something different from any ordinary shrine: a massive bird-shaped statue standing there, looking down at me. Its wings were shaped just like the ones belonging to the woman I had been watching moments before.
The instant my eyes met the statue's—
—Fwoosh!
Flames erupted from the stone with tremendous force. Whether because it was a dream or for some other reason, the fire didn't burn so much as it felt warm and gentle. And once those flames had consumed the entire world, the dream would end.
Beneath an ominous sky thick with dark clouds, a sound broke the silence of a deep forest steeped in gloom.
"Ugh, another stupid dream. I've been having them way too often lately."
The voice belonged to a young man dressed lightly, with leather armor covering only his vital points. He was short — maybe around five-seven — with a boyish face, and he was raking his fingers through his reddish-brown hair with an irritated scowl. His name was Ren.
He must have dozed off while leaning against a tree for a short rest. Stretching, he surveyed his surroundings.
"Haa… How much longer do I have to wander around this damn forest? If the captain hadn't asked me, I wouldn't set foot in a creepy place like this."
He had already been lost in these woods for more than three days. What little patience he normally possessed had long since hit rock bottom, and his red eyes burned with pure annoyance as he ground his teeth, vowing to thrash the captain within an inch of his life the moment he got back for dumping this job on him.
"What kind of expensive relic is supposedly sitting in a forest like this, anyway?"
Just as he had done countless times over the past three days, Ren launched himself upward in three effortless leaps and landed at the top of the tallest tree nearby.
And then—
"Oh. Over there, maybe?"
Spotting a dilapidated building not far off, Ren smiled and dropped from the tree.
"At least I won't starve."
He opened the pack on his back, checked what little food remained, and set off.
After roughly two more hours of walking, Ren arrived at his destination.
"Whoa."
It looked nothing like what he had seen from a distance. The temple before him was so grand that just looking at it was enough to make a person feel small. Unlike ordinary temples, which carved the name of their god in elaborate detail right at the entrance, this one bore neither a divine name nor even a small statue of its deity.
And yet—
"That's one hell of a vibe."
—the atmosphere pouring off the place was more menacing than any temple he had ever seen. Ren swallowed hard and rested a hand on the sword sheath hanging at the small of his back.
The moment he took his first step into the pitch-dark interior—
—Fwoosh.
Every torch inside the temple flared to life at once, flooding the space with light.
"'Challengers are always welcome,' huh? Something like that?"
—Creeeak— creak-creak.
With an eerie grinding of stone, the statues lining the temple began to move one by one.
Gargoyles.
Grotesque living statues with the heads of dragons, the wings of demons, the bodies of men, and the limbs of beasts. In ancient times they had served as sentinels for fortresses across the land, but the method of creating them had long been lost, and they survived now only in legend. A temple full of them was a spectacular sight indeed.
That said—
"Tch. Rock piles are such a pain."
—none of that history mattered much to Ren. The only things he cared about were free time to rest and a good fight against a strong opponent.
Muttering that he had been thoroughly played — the captain had promised to leave him alone for a while if he just finished this one job — Ren drew both swords from the twin sheaths at his waist.
"No wonder the others saw me off with those big stupid grins."
Normally his comrades would have hassled him right up until the moment he left on a mission. This time they had waved him off with cheerful smiles, and that had felt off from the start. Turns out there had been a reason.
With an irritated click of his tongue, Ren closed his eyes and drew a long breath.
"Huu…"
The instant those eyes opened again, more than a dozen gargoyles found themselves taking an involuntary step backward.
The gaze that met them now was utterly still — nothing like the irritation from moments before — and the crimson haze rising from his blades carried a certainty that even their vaunted stone bodies would split as easily as soft flesh.
A short while later—
—KRAAAAAASH!!
A thunderous roar shook the deepest chamber of the temple as it came apart.
"Pffft— cough!"
Having smashed through the final guardian and the door blocking his path in a single blow, Ren stumbled into the chamber coughing on the cloud of dust and debris the collapsing entrance had kicked up.
"Did I overdo it a little?"
Sheathing his swords, he stepped inside. The first thing that caught his eye was an altar, softly lit by moonlight filtering through the broken ceiling — the sky must have cleared at some point.
"Whoa."
Stone statues shaped like reapers stood arrayed around the room, and atop the central altar, radiating an overwhelming presence, a sphere of light was shining.
"Something about this feels familiar… Nah. Just my imagination."
A strange sense of unease made Ren pause for a moment as he took in the scene. He shook his head to clear it, then leaned in to examine the luminous orb more carefully.
"Anyway, that thing looks expensive as hell."
An orange-hued sphere resting before the great bird-shaped statue. Ren swallowed hard, watching the red energy that rippled across its surface like living flame.
"Better not touch it wrong or I might get cursed… Huh? Wait, where's my bag?"
Apparently the strap of the pack on his back had snapped during the fight with the final guardian. Ren sighed as he spotted the bag lying a good distance behind him.
"Ugh. Great. More stuff to carry."
He started walking toward it to pick it up.
—Tap.
"Huh?"
A sound so faint he would normally have ignored it completely. A tiny fragment of stone falling from the ceiling and striking something — utterly trivial.
Except—
—Tunk. Clunk.
—when that something was the red orb, it was a different story entirely.
Like any spherical object, the orb began to roll from even that slight impact. Downward.
"W-Waaaaaah!!"
Of course, a treasure stored in a place like this wasn't going to shatter just from hitting the floor. But human instinct is what it is. When something expensive starts tumbling off a pedestal right in front of you, your hand shoots out before you can think.
Ren threw himself forward and snagged the orb a hair's breadth before it hit the ground.
"Whew. That was close."
Well, he'd already grabbed it — nothing to do about that now. He brushed the dust off the surface once, and in that instant—
The red energy swirling around the orb suddenly flared outward like an explosion.
"Ah— hot!"
Startled, Ren tried to fling it away.
"No, wait, what the hell is this— AAAAAAGH!!"
The orb clung to his hand as if glued there, spraying crimson energy in every direction. In moments the red aura completely swallowed the chamber.
And when that energy finally faded—
"Ugh, that scared the— Huh?"
Still clutching his chest and muttering in irritation, Ren suddenly sensed that something was very wrong and raised his voice.
"Wait. Hold on. What? What's going on with me?"
Something soft and yielding pressed against his chest. His voice, too, was coming out all wrong — a high, girlish pitch nothing like his usual tone.
And more than anything else—
"Shit, where the hell did my arms gooooo?!"
He looked down at the hands that had felt as though they were wrapped in something, like gloves — and where the two hands he had lived with his entire life should have been, there was instead a pair of wings dense with crimson feathers.