4. The Stuff of Dreams (1)
A dozen crimson doors stood in a line down the corridor. There wasn't a single window.
There was no telling whether the stairs ran down or up.
The fifth. No — the sixth door.
Neatly sculpted topiary, a pond so clear you could count the stones on its bed, grass that yielded soft as a pillow underfoot.
Craning my neck until it ached, all I could see was grey wall.
I knocked on the triple-banded iron gate. The shout I loosed at the top of my lungs scattered into nothing. It was time to turn back.
Time to turn back, and yet—
The massive gate swung wide open.
"Huh?"
"Exactly when do you plan on letting this damned dream of yours end?"
A boy went gliding through the empty air.
A shimmering silver crown. The Demon God's robe, stars glinting in its jet-black folds. Blue eyes and waves of golden hair.
On that beautiful, sighing face sat a look of pure exasperation.
"Out of everyone alive, I get stuck with a lunatic like this. How does anyone have nightmares every single day without missing one?"
At some point the enormous mansion on the city's outskirts had vanished without a trace, and in its place spread a bizarre space overflowing with black radiance. Even in the middle of it, I forced myself to keep my calm.
"Trickster, you old geezer?"
"I told you not to call me that."
"So — the new life suiting you?"
"...Déjà vu, is it? Feels like I've heard that question before."
"Because it's the second time I've asked, dummy."
The boy, grumbling, opened his mouth again.
"Anyway, I'm relieved. I never dreamed you'd go this far for me."
"...And what exactly did I do for you?"
"You're living, aren't you? Fiercely."
Something unreadable in that answer set my temper smoldering. I drew a short breath.
"What the hell did you do to me?"
"I merely sent you an invitation. Just as you wanted."
"Why, you son of a— ...Hoo. Fine. Then what is this place I'm standing in? What, some kind of virtual reality?"
"Virtual reality?"
The boy's face twisted.
"What sort of nonsense is that?"
"Nonsense? Ha — I got dumped out of a world that had watched me through a monitor for twenty years. What am I supposed to think?"
"That world is no simulation or mirage. You've lived half a year there already, and you're still mixing the two up?"
The boy let out an incredulous laugh, then clicked his tongue.
Watching him made my mood curdle.
"Is this bastard insane?"
"What was that?"
"You used one line of chat as your excuse to dump me in some shit-hole of a place, and now you just sit there cackling?"
The boy tilted his head.
"Isn't Earth the 'shit-hole,' from where you're standing?"
"...Don't talk shit. And — I'm sorry, what? You 'gave me what I wanted'? You want your mouth torn open?"
As I bore down on him spewing abuse, the boy burst out laughing and flicked his hand away. Something invisible clamped down around my body. I ground my teeth and strained against it, but I couldn't so much as twitch.
"That hair-trigger temper of yours hasn't changed."
"You — son — of — a — bitch—"
"...No, hold on. Did it get worse?"
The boy folded his arms and looked about. The dark radiance blanketing every direction was slowly thinning.
"Hm. Now that I think of it, I can see how you'd get that impression. From where you stood, you couldn't help but put the cart before the horse."
"...The cart, before the horse?"
"Yeah. It isn't that your world resembles a game — it's that the game resembles your world. Strictly speaking, it resembles the world I lived through, though."
Just then a thunderous roar rolled in from every direction and space itself began to warp. The boy heaved a long sigh.
"Another day of nothing but ravings."
"Hold on! The world you lived through — what's that supposed to mean?"
The boy drifted up into the void and let the darkness fold around him.
"It wouldn't mean much anymore. It's twisted — twisted far beyond fixing."
"Trickster, you bastard! Wait—"
Clang. The world shattered into pieces.
I barely choked down a scream and blinked my eyes open.
It was still the dead of night; darkness pressed in from all sides, and the camp lay silent.
Ah. That dream again.
The one where Trickster turns up — I'd had it once before, a couple of months back.
Last time he'd spouted garbage about Kim Seung-soo being dead and other such nonsense, and this time he'd left another trail of riddles behind.
A game that resembled Trickster's world. And the twisting...
I was still turning the strange dream over in my head when I looked down at my hand.
"Aaahhh—"
"Hhk—!"
"Goddammit, that scared me."
My right hand was locked around somebody's forearm. I must have seized it without thinking as I woke.
The arm's owner lay curled up beside my ribs, wearing a look on the verge of tears.
A small, boyish face with short brows, black hair swaying at his shoulders — and huge eyes without a trace of a double lid between them, gazing up at me...
"Mungchi?"
"Th-that hurts..."
I let go of the arm at once and whispered to him.
"You startled me. What are you doing here?"
"Uh—"
He kneaded his forearm, eyes sliding away, then sat up with a stiff, awkward little motion.
"I-I was a widdle cold."
"Your spot was right beside the campfire, wasn't it?"
"...Ah. Yes. But, it's warm there too, but, um,"
Mungchi's eyes wheeled in circles as he fumbled for words. By the time his restless fingers, with nowhere better to go, had taken to fiddling with the ends of his hair, a sound rolled over from somewhere — KHWAAAGH—
His eyes went round, and he pointed toward the source of the noise.
"Over there, Stidman's, snoring. It's noisy, weally."
"Ah."
I propped myself up on one elbow and took stock of the camp.
Ellen lay to my right, wrapped in her cloak like a cocoon, and a little farther off, Heila and Simos were fast asleep. Away to the left, Utekwai sat perched on a block of wood, drawing. And at his feet, near the campfire, Stidman was snoring like a forge bellows.
"That one's sleeping habits are nasty, I'll grant you. He snores like a bellows, and every now and then he grinds his teeth, too."
"Yes, yes. He does. Weally nasty. Couldn't sleep at all."
He nodded along so earnestly his hair bounced, and the sight was too adorable for words; chuckling, I ruffled Mungchi's hair.
"Aww. So much for that."
".....Pardon?"
He'd been hunching his shoulders and melting into my hand, and now he just looked baffled.
"I thought you'd crawled in here because you missed the old days."
"Ah—yes?"
"Don't you remember? Back when you were a boar, you slept pressed right up against me every single night. All soft and squishy — you were adorable."
"...I-I, um, remember, but, uh,"
"Which is why it was awkward for a while after you turned human, you know. Sleeping all alone — somehow I never got used to it."
"Uh—aahh,"
His cheeks had gone scarlet; his gaze spun in circles and only his lips flapped.
Mungchi's Milanol had improved by leaps and bounds lately, but every so often his words still jammed up like this.
"U-um, I—"
"Take your time. It's all right."
At moments like these, waiting patiently was what consideration looked like, so I sat still and simply watched his eyes.
Mungchi opened his mouth, embarrassed and downcast all at once.
"I-I don't have fur now. Not pig— a boar— and not fwuffy anymore."
"Mm. Is that so?"
I casually stretched out an arm and drew him against my side. Mungchi went rigid, both hands pressed together in front of his nose.
I took stock of the warmth pressed against my ribs and shrugged.
"Feels about the same to me? If anything, warmer."
"...... U-uh—"
Red to his face, his ears, the nape of his neck, even the backs of his hands, Mungchi scrambled upright and blurted,
"P-p-potty!"
— and bolted.
Aigoo, adorable. If his tongue still trips like that, I'll have to put him through more pronunciation drills.
Smiling to myself, I rose from my spot — figured I'd take a lap around the camp while I was awake anyway.
And that was when—
Tap. Something dropped from around my knees to the ground.
A pair of gloves, gleaming jet-black, made of something I couldn't place — leather, or velvet.
I quietly swallowed and picked them up. A material supple yet tough, faintly etched with the pattern of scales.
The Serpent King's Scale Gauntlets — one piece of the Serpent King set.
"...Ha. I really am losing my mind."
A full month had already slipped by since we left Longville. In that time the party had crossed the high pass of Mount Graduil and entered the kingdom's central reaches.
What followed was a fairly punishing stretch of road, and the central region's politics were to blame.
Ordinarily, a baron was the king's vassal of a vassal — a retainer sworn to a retainer. Barons were lesser lords who followed counts, and counts were great magnates sworn directly to the crown.
On the surface it hardly seemed to matter — count or baron, both were the king's subjects either way — but the air of it ran subtly different. A baron, apparently, was under no legal obligation to heed the king's commands at all.
For that reason, a baron's real fealty almost always belonged to his count rather than his king, and so in any given region it was common enough to find some great noble of comital rank or higher ruling over a whole string of baronies.
The central reaches of the Kingdom of Milanol, however, broke with that pattern — because there were no counts at all.
A vast sweep of land centered on the royal capital of Brist belonged to the crown outright, and around it ringed the domains of sixteen barons known as the King's Standard-Bearers — every one of them sworn directly to the king.
In a word, the king held the entire central region — the most fertile land in the kingdom — to himself alone.
Perhaps that was why every barony we had crossed of late — every territory of the 'King's Standard-Bearers' — had felt a touch peculiar. Less like an ordinary domain than a garrison or a fortress.
But damn it all, if it had stopped at atmosphere, that would've been one thing — they cost us real time, too. With strongholds and watchtowers crowding every road and inspections so ferociously strict, we bled hours by the fistful.
Worse, the gates were barred at sundown and the bridges shut behind them, so miss your timing and there was nothing for it but to camp right where you stood. On the worst days we had to loop far out of our way just to stay moving.
For all these reasons, it took a solid month of travel before we finally shook free of the 'King's Standard-Bearers' lands.
"We should arrive in five days, give or take."
Kol, never one to sleep in, was up bright and early, soaking hardtack of flour and oats in water.
"According to the fellow from Eastern Riding, the roads around here are far from safe. He says it will be nothing like the past month."
"Is that so?"
I stirred the campfire and smiled.
"Doesn't sound so bad to me. I'd sooner run into a highwayman than stand in line for an inspection."
At that, Kol said nothing, only chewed at his jerky.
Four campfires burned in our camp. With so many people, the fires had naturally multiplied to match.
Tallying up the party...
Me, Ellen, Utekwai, Mungchi, Heila, Stidman, Mira, Kol, and Simos made nine, plus ten mercenaries hired back in Longville. Nineteen in all.
Until half a month ago we'd been exactly twenty, counting beanpole Buny, but we'd happened upon a merchant caravan bound for Lavaltton and parted with him a little ahead of schedule.
I hoped he'd reach the estate safe and sound and make a proper show of his duties as steward. Well — Buny had lived nearly twenty years in Lavaltton, born and bred there; settling back in would be no trouble at all.
In any case, nineteen made a comfortable size for a company on the move — big enough to rotate the night watch with room to spare, small enough that provisioning was never a struggle.
Passing the fortresses and gates was a bit of a nuisance with all the scrutiny, granted. Even that posed no real problem once we split into a few groups.
As Kol and I traded small talk, dawn crept in by degrees.
And right about then, we received some very peculiar guests.