Chapter 53
Chapter 53
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 53
Chapter Title: Nightmare (2)
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"Aaaaaah!!!"
The first thing she heard was a scream.
*Who could be screaming in the middle of the night?*
As Yui's eyes opened, a strange scene came into view.
'Huh...?'
This wasn't where she had been.
The fine inn room and the plush bed were gone.
Still, it wasn't a completely unfamiliar place.
'What... what is this...'
It was the count's domain.
The place where she first met Luke.
Though the buildings were all ablaze, obscuring the original shape of the domain she knew, she could still recognize it.
Besides, it hadn't been long since she was last there.
As far as she knew, the count's domain was the only fiefdom with a view of the sea.
'A dream...?'
Before her very eyes were burning buildings and people dying at the hands of vampires.
The surreal scene made her think it had to be a dream.
After all, every vampire except her had been killed by Luke the day the mansion burned down.
And the domain she remembered wasn't a place engulfed in flames like this.
But it felt too real to be just a dream.
The feel of the hot wind heated by the flames, the sensation of moving her body.
Every single detail was vivid.
Moreover...
'Even if it's a dream, I hate this...'
She realized it wasn't reality, but a nightmare.
But few people could simply dismiss it with an, 'Oh, it's just a dream.'
Nightmares, by their very nature, are designed to torment. They dredge up a person's traumas, bad memories, or the things they hate most, hidden in their subconscious.
No matter how mentally strong someone is, they can't witness such things and remain unaffected.
Imagine someone who hates bugs has a lucid dream where they're alone in a sealed room, and insects start pouring out of the walls.
Would that person be able to stay calm and think, 'It's just a dream, so it's fine'?
Absolutely not.
That's the nature of a nightmare—you know what it is, but you're powerless against it.
Suddenly, Yui's gaze fell downward.
She hadn't noticed while looking around, but she was holding something.
When she looked all the way down, she saw an armless corpse beneath her, and in her hands, she held what she presumed to be its severed arm.
'Eek...!'
Startled, Yui wanted to fall back on her bottom, but her body wouldn't obey.
Instead, as if she wasn't its master, her body moved on its own, tearing the arm apart at the joint.
Fresh blood splattered across Yui's face.
Seeing the blood drip from the broken joint, Yui was overcome with thirst.
Many believe that vampires drink blood by biting their victim's neck with their fangs.
The reality is quite the opposite.
When blood is your main source of sustenance, how could you ever drink your fill by just sinking your teeth in?
When a person is severely dehydrated and thirsty, if there's a cup of ice-cold water in front of them, do they sip it through a straw?
Of course not.
Similarly, vampires use methods that allow them to drink quickly and in large quantities.
The best way is to tear off a limb at the joint, as her body was doing now, or to twist and wring it out.
Yui's body, against her will, raised the arm and drank the blood that flowed from it.
'N-No...!'
But despite her wishes, her throat gulped, and the blood went down her esophagus.
Yui felt a sense of fullness, a refreshing feeling, and strength coursing through her body.
Even if she knew she was just a big fish in a small pond, in this moment, she felt like an omnipotent god.
Soon, she rose to her feet and began to wander through the domain.
*What is it trying to do?*
She struggled to control her body, but it was no use.
Meanwhile, her body continued to move from house to house.
It smashed doors with blood magic, entered, and rummaged through the interiors.
As if searching for something.
After ransacking three or four houses.
"*Hic!*"
A hiccup came from somewhere.
Her eyes darted toward the source of the sound.
The sound came from a large wardrobe nearby, big enough for a person to hide in.
When she flung open the wardrobe doors, she found a little girl and a woman, presumably her mother, holding her tight.
They were people who hadn't managed to escape and were hiding.
"P-Please, just spare my child!"
the woman pleaded, hugging the child tightly.
Yui desperately wanted to spare them, but her body had other ideas.
Her brain began to perceive the woman and child before her not as 'people', but as 'food'.
Their forms began to morph into clumps of blood, a sight that chilled Yui to the bone.
And so, her hand reached out toward the woman and the girl.
The woman, trying to protect her child at all costs, held her tight, squeezed her eyes shut, and trembled.
Watching this, the corners of Yui's mouth stretched into a wide, tearing grin.
Her body reveled in killing, taking pleasure in the sight of someone trembling in fear.
A personality starkly different from her own. It was terrifying, even to her.
'Please...! Stop...!'
But it wouldn't stop.
Just as her elongated nails were about to touch the woman's head.
"Stop!"
Someone had arrived.
The voice wasn't familiar, but it wasn't unknown either.
It was them. The people from that day.
The man who said she had to be killed, and his companions.
Their aura was different from the last time she saw them, but it was definitely them.
Only then did the hand reaching for the woman stop, and Yui's body turned around.
There stood three human-shaped clumps of blood.
Her brain, having tasted blood, now perceived them not as 'interferers' but as 'food'.
"Oh? Food talks back these days?"
That short taunt was the end of the conversation.
Arthur charged, swinging his sword. She leaped back and blocked it with a pillar of blood.
As his companions evacuated the woman and child, the battle intensified.
Magical explosions shattered the windows, scattering shards of glass across the floor. What was once a happy home was gradually reduced to ruins.
Even as her body fought, Yui stared at the glass shards in her field of vision.
Reflected in a piece of glass on the floor was her own image.
Her frame was small, reminiscent of a child, but her eyes were not the sapphire blue she was used to. They were red, just like Luke's.
Blood was smeared gruesomely around her mouth.
'Ah...'
In that moment, she remembered.
*What would have happened if Luke hadn't come that day?*
She didn't want to admit it, but this is what would have become of her.
As the fight dragged on, her body accumulated more and more wounds.
She was cut by the shining sword and suffered burns and frostbite from his companions' magic.
And finally.
*CRASH!*
"Ugh...!"
Slammed into a wall, she let out a groan.
*Crunch, crunch.*
She heard the sound of footsteps crunching on glass shards and creaking on the wooden floor.
*Is this the end?*
As her head, pressed against the floor, slowly lifted.
"Yui, it'd be fun to kill you. *Slurp*."
"E-Eek...!!! I'm sorry!!!"
At the sight of that terrifying face smiling at her and the sound of those dreadful words her body remembered, Yui's eyes shot open.
"Ah..."
Just as she thought.
It was a nightmare.
For a moment, she felt relieved.
But...
'Why did I suddenly have such a horrible nightmare?'
Did something happen?
Yui slowly got out of bed and left the room.
***
The first person Yui saw after leaving her room was Luna.
The rooms were arranged on either side of a hallway, so opening their doors meant they would run into each other like this.
"Ah...! Lady Luna!"
"Yui, you're safe."
"Y-Yes...?"
"You had a nightmare too, didn't you."
"Ah, did you too, Lady Luna?"
"Yes. It seems someone intentionally induced these nightmares. You must have realized that and broken free, correct?"
"Ah, ah... yes... sort of."
Yui thought she might have been trapped if not for that final scene, but she decided to keep that to herself.
"Huh? But where's Luke?"
"Since he's not here, it seems he hasn't escaped his nightmare yet."
Honestly, both Luna and Yui wondered if he was even capable of having nightmares.
A nightmare that forcibly extracts weaknesses and traumas.
Given Luke's personality, it seemed impossible that he would have any weaknesses or traumas, yet he hadn't woken up.
"Then we should go help him right away!"
"Right."
Luna and Yui headed to Luke's room.
When they opened the door, they saw Luke lying neatly on the bed. Just as Luna quickly moved to wake him.
"S-Save me!!!!!!"
A horned woman burst out of Luke's stomach.
"A demon...!"
"Eek...!"
Setting aside the heavy, unpleasant dark mana, her appearance was far from human.
Dark, dreary wings, horns like a goat's sprouting from her head—no matter how you looked at it, she was a demon.
If a demon was the cause of this incident, it wasn't entirely incomprehensible.
Demons were the very embodiment of the absurd, after all.
She hadn't fully emerged yet; only her upper body was out.
If they were to kill her, now was the time.
Filled with rage from the nightmare, Luna gripped her sword in a reverse hold.
"No!!! I want to stop!!! Just kill me alreadyyyyyy!!!!!!"
The demon woman started convulsing.
She was the cause of all this, so why was she freaking out?
And for some reason, she looked terrified.
"Goin' somewhere?"
Just then, along with a man's voice they'd never heard before, someone popped out, grabbed the demon woman by her horns, and dragged her back in.
"Kya, kyaaaaaaah!!!!!!"
He vanished back into Luke's stomach, still holding the demon woman's horns.
The man's face, visible for just a moment.
With dark circles under his eyes and a grin that stretched from ear to ear, his face was so terrifying that it momentarily made Luna forget her anger.
"......?"
After the brief commotion, silence once again fell upon the room.
Luna and Yui, who had witnessed the scene, could only stand there stunned, forgetting what they had come to do.