Nightmare (1)
Nightmare (1)
Raize, who had entered the dream, looked down at her own outfit and freaked out. A slingshot-like swimsuit that barely covered her privates and breasts. It was an outfit so revealing that even back-alley prostitutes wouldn't wear it.
"Hu, huu...."
Thanks to the characteristically tough mental fortitude of a mage, she managed to avoid screaming and collapsing. She knew this was Dojin's dream, which helped too.
If she caused a needless commotion and woke Dojin up, it'd be a headache. She'd just end up wasting expensive reagents.
'I need to find the memory.'
Somewhere in this dream, there had to be a memory hidden deep in the subconscious. Once she found and stole it, she could escape the dream.
She had plenty of time. Thanks to the reagents and magic circle, she'd adjusted it so that even hundreds of days passing in the dream wouldn't wake her.
Raize looked around. The surroundings were a dojo. This was what a dojo looked like, where beastkin taught martial arts.
As expected, Dojin must have been a disciple training at some dojo like this, she thought, lifting her head to gaze outside the dojo.
And she was stunned.
'......What the hell is this?'
Skyscrapers soaring endlessly into the sky.
Square buildings stacked with machine-like precision.
To an otherworlder, it was a terrifyingly calculated sight—block after block of rectangular concrete filling her vision.
'Dreams are made from memories as materials.......'
Just like the things in a child's nightmare were limited to beasts seen in the forest, goblins, cockroaches, or baby rats at most.
Dreams were ultimately formed based on the memories the dreamer had experienced.
So this dream was made from Dojin's memories too...... but it was hard to believe.
Raize shot up high into the sky. It was flight so swift she couldn't even use it in reality, but in the dream, it was a piece of cake.
From high up there, what she saw was silent steel carriages, populations easily in the tens or hundreds of millions, giants trapped in walls, and citizens who thought nothing of it all.
'Dojin lived in a place like this.'
Raize sat on the roadside, watching the people pass by. Not a single one paid her any mind. Even though she was dressed in something a prostitute might wear.
That was because she was an outsider to the dream. Dream inhabitants couldn't perceive outsiders. Except for one single exception.
She slipped into a random shop and stole some mysterious food someone had just ordered. The dream resident didn't even notice the theft and started miming eating air.
She brought the stolen food over, tore open the packaging, and checked the contents. Food with salad and a meat patty between bread. She didn't know the name, but it was a hamburger.
Raize took a bite of the hamburger and gaped at it in shock. The taste was phenomenal. No matter how much dreams enhanced memories into superb flavors, they couldn't recreate a taste she'd never experienced.
Which meant this was food Dojin had actually eaten.
"A place like this...... actually exists?"
It was unbelievable. Before she knew it, Raize was swinging her legs back and forth, starting to enjoy modern civilization.
This world wasn't that big. Just 2 to 3 kilometers in radius. And yet, within that tiny space, it was packed with things far more fun and fascinating than her entire world put together.
She went into an arcade to play games, hit up a dessert shop to taste all sorts of delicacies and ice cream, and even got hit by some mystery device that sealed her image onto paper.
After enjoying it all, the sun began to set in the dream. Raize decided it was time to start looking for Dojin.
She'd been so blissfully happy that she'd forgotten the whole reason she'd come to this world.
"Ahem, if I searched the entire city and still couldn't find Dojin......."
He was probably near the dojo where she'd first landed. Convinced of that, she headed to the dojo.
In the dojo's backyard, a certain man and a ten-year-old kid were training. Thinking the man was Dojin, Raize approached.
"Hup!"
And she froze. The man swung a live blade at the kid right in front of him. The heavy, razor-sharp live blade came crashing down toward the child.
The kid blocked it with a trembling hand, but there was a limit. He couldn't overcome an adult's strength and weight.
Suruk─!
In the end, he couldn't fully block it, and the blade sliced sharply across the kid's skin. The child bit his lip hard in pain. But he didn't shed tears or scream.
'What the.......'
The Dojin that Raize knew wasn't the type of man to do something so brutal to a child. Much less in her world—there was no one who trained kids that harshly.
"Too soft."
"B-but... my arm won't go up...."
"I've told you a hundred times: you don't swing a sword with your arm, you swing it with your body. Not even a proper stance."
"No matter how much I use my body, how am I supposed to block Father-nim's sword......."
"I told you technique can overcome that much of a size difference. Tsk, pathetic."
The man said that and swung his sword again. The kid desperately swung his own to block it. Had he taken the advice to heart? This time, he somehow managed to block it.
But without a word of praise, the man spun his sword around and smashed the flat of the blade into the kid's face. The kid, who had been joyfully relieved at blocking it and let his guard down, couldn't even react and collapsed.
"Argh-!"
His nose must've been smashed, as blood started gushing out. The man clicked his tongue and called for the attendant.
"Treat him."
"Yes, understood."
"That's enough for today."
The man said that and turned away. Only then could Raize finally see his face. He looked just like Dojin, but wrinkles creased his face here and there.
'Not...... Dojin?'
Then where the hell was Dojin? Raize scanned the surroundings. In the meantime, the attendant had treated the kid's wounds and left.
Left alone in the yard, the kid silently raised his sword again, even though no one was watching. And swung it.
Thinking that sword technique looked familiar from somewhere, Raize landed on the ground to check up close. And at that moment, the kid stared right at Raize.
He recognized her. With a 'no way' in her heart, Raize opened her mouth.
"......Kid."
"─Who are you?"
"You, by any chance. Do you know where someone named Dojin is?"
"I'm Dojin, who are you......."
"Ha, no way, no way......."
Raize looked at the child standing before her.
This abused boy was Dojin himself.
"Sis...... though you don't look much older than me."
"......Shut up, kid."
Raize looked down at Dojin, who was about her size, feeling an ironic mix of emotions. She could look down at Dojin, whom she always had to look up to.
And in such a young state too.......
"What are you doing here? This isn't a place just anyone can enter."
"What do I look like I'm doing?"
"Hmm...... Barbarella?"
"Barbare...... what's that?"
"Perverted woman."
"......Pervert?"
Raize scowled and started to retort, then realized her current look gave her no room to argue.
Well, a woman wandering around like this deserved to be called a pervert. Whore, exhibitionist—what hadn't she heard?
So she let that slide and looked at Dojin. Memories were typically hidden in the deepest recesses of the unconscious, and usually, they were the things the dream's subject cherished most.
To find the memory, she had to coax it out of Dojin. She pondered for a moment how to coax him.
Kids, as a rule, loved mysterious things.
"Sis is a mage."
"A mage?"
"Yeah."
As she said that, she used a very simple spell. A flame flickered up from her fingertip. It was minor magic, but enough to prove she was a mage......
"Pfft, you hid a lighter in your finger, huh?"
"......What?"
"Who falls for that these days......."
But this cheeky little brat wouldn't be fooled so easily. Realizing Dojin was still Dojin no matter how young, Raize thought of another approach.
She flew into the sky.
"Wires, right?"
She shot lightning.
"Wow, where's the battery?"
She made ice.
"Brought it from your fridge?"
She levitated nearby objects without touching them, made Dojin fly in the sky, moved clouds, made the ground shake.
But nothing convinced Dojin.
"Huk, heuk...."
It was a dream, but magic was magic. She felt her magic power stagnating and panted. Dojin distrusted her even more for getting tired from so little.
"How...! How will you believe me!?"
Raize snapped back in frustration. Dojin looked a bit startled, like he hadn't expected her to raise her voice, then returned to his usual expression.
"If sis really is a mage."
Despite all the magical feats she'd already shown, Raize tensed a little, wondering what miracle this brat wanted, and listened closely.
"Please kill my father."
"......Huh?"
And the words from his mouth were absurdly grave.
"W-wait. What did you say?"
"I said kill my father. Can't you? You're a mage, right?"
Dojin glared at Raize with a fierce expression. He was dead serious. He truly hoped she'd kill his old man.
Why? No need to ask. She'd seen it with her own eyes earlier. Dojin's father didn't love him. At least, it couldn't be called love.
How deeply those blades, received in place of love, must have scarred this child. How that festering wound had burst open, leading him to beg for his father's death.
Raize couldn't even imagine.
"......Sorry, that's impossible."
"Why?"
"I'm not a resident of this dream. If I did that, the dream would shatter right away."
If she killed Dojin's father, the dream might hold for a brief moment. But if Dojin witnessed it?
He saw his father's death as a magical event. Magic, put differently, meant things impossible by common sense.
Recognizing the impossible would make him realize it was a dream, and no amount of magic or reagents could prevent it from breaking.
Considering her goal was recovering memories, not comforting him, she couldn't kill his father.
"Then something else."
"Oh, something else?"
"I wasn't expecting much anyway. What can a fake mage do."
"...I'm not fake."
At least that was a relief. Raize egged him on to name anything. Dojin eyed her breasts, then pointed at his not-so-large chest and said.
"Show me your boobs."
"Ah......."
This cheeky little brat.