#068 Sympathy
#068 Sympathy
Late at night.
'They're asleep now.'
Once the two of them had fallen deeply asleep, I put them together in one bed, then quietly set a chair beside them and sat down.
'That was a real struggle to get them to sleep.'
Lucius stubbornly refused to share a bed with Rosemas.
He kept saying it would be improper toward her to sleep in the same bed as an elf woman he wasn't even married to.
That it might needlessly block Rosemas's path to marriage later.
-Ugh, you're noisy. Sleep!
-No, I—
-...A Hero gets hit with Sleep Magic?
-It works on me.
-How?
-Easily.
He piled up all sorts of ridiculous excuses, so I just used Sleep Magic and forced him to sleep.
-Rosemas. I've set the table, so help yourself.
-...What about you, Witch?
-Me? I'll be meditating beside you. Why? Do you need help?
-Ah, no. Um... Is it really all right for me to sleep?
-Yes.
I had been looking forward to this a little.
Would Rosemas actually go for it?
'Go, Rosemas! You can do it!'
Like watching a dying Hero pour every last bit of mana into his sword for a final strike, I sincerely hoped Rosemas would just go for it.
And then.
-E, eep...!
Rosemas stretched Lucius's arm out to the side, then lay down using his arm as a pillow.
......That's it?
There ought to be something more than that.
Haaah, haaah, haaah.
At first she was so embarrassed she couldn't control her pounding heart, but Rosemas soon quietly closed her eyes and fell right asleep.
"......."
Maybe it was because she was too tense.
Or maybe she still hadn't learned about such acts.
'The elves I knew weren't like this.'
In my day, they would charge right in during a situation like this. It seems that as the times have changed greatly, the elves' methods of education have changed as well.
Haaah, haaah.
"...Hah."
Seeing them sleep so peacefully is a pleasant sight.
As expected, sleep is something that should be done by those who need it.
Lucius suggested that I sleep in the bed with them too, but to me, who has no need for sleep, sleep is nothing more than a brief closing and opening of the eyes—meditation.
'If mana recovered from sleeping, I would sleep.'
Even if an undead body sleeps, the body does not recover, nor does fatigue ease.
The brain and the body's organs have all already ceased functioning, after all.
Since I force activity through the power of mana, to enjoy an effect similar to sleep, absorbing mana is more effective than sleeping.
From where?
Nature?
Mana Stones?
No.
From people.
'I'll have to teach these two later how dream demons absorb mana.'
"Heh heh."
Absorb mana through dreams.
Absorb mana from Lucius's and Rosemas's dreams.
To do that, Lucius has to sleep with Rosemas.
To be precise, I have to put the two of them to sleep in the same place, then nibble away at the mana in their dreams.
'Because it's easier to absorb mana when the two of them are together.'
Extorting mana through dreams is a dream demon's method, but there is a way to produce a similar effect through 'magic.'
Humans and elves alike—all living beings dream when they sleep.
Although each living being's sleep pattern differs, if the moment of dreaming coincides similarly, the two dreams can be linked.
A living being's dream is the extreme of the unconscious, where everything manifests within imagination.
Within a fantasy where everything a single living being can imagine is concentrated, a living being sometimes resolves the desires within itself through dreams.
Of course, the content of a dream may be a meaningless dream, or there may be dreams filled with more elements of wish fulfillment than that.
It's a little awkward to say specifically, but based on that dream, I can gain power.
'Asmodeus taught me.'
Through a deal with the Demon King of Lust, I learned the method by which dream demons absorb mana from human dreams.
Even without performing any particular act, I learned how to absorb the mana that bursts forth from the bodily response of liberating the desires within a human's unconscious and obtaining the resulting catharsis.
'Why do you think I turned the Hero Party into Lucius's harem party?'
As someone without mana, I must use any means and methods.
In that sense, if Lucius and Rosemas sleep in the same bed, I can obtain the dream-power flowing from the two of them as mana.
Of course.
Not Lucius's—Rosemas's.
If we consider only the mana within the body, Lucius has far more, but 99% of the mana Lucius possesses is the Holy Sword's mana.
And the Holy Sword's mana cannot be 'absorbed' as my own no matter what I try, whether through dreams or anything else.
I could only borrow that power briefly, for a single use, through the orb Bareness had given me in Normance.
I cannot convert it into my lifespan.
If that were possible, I would have entered Lucius's dreams long ago and swept away the Holy Sword's power.
And if there is one physiological reason—
'I have no desire to absorb some swarthy man's mana.'
This body is a woman's body.
A man's dream energy—Asmodeus called it 'libido'—would certainly help as a fellow human, but it doesn't suit this body.
But Rosemas, who has the same female body?
'It's about sex rather than species.'
Absorbing Libido from Rosemas's body, as another woman, was more effective than absorbing it from a man merely because he belonged to the same human species.
The soul is irrelevant.
What matters is the flesh.
"Inhale."
I don't even need to reach out my hand.
Just by sharing breath in the same space, I can enter their dreams.
'This is why I'm staying awake.'
A comfortable state with no threats whatsoever.
If no one interferes, I can enter Rosemas's dream and absorb an immense amount of libido.
'I'm sorry, Rosemas, but I'm going to have to use your feelings a little.'
Because I am a Demon King.
I use everything that can be used.
Even if that thing is pure love directed at a Hero.
"......Link established."
The two dreams connected into one.
Lucius will dream his own dream, but Rosemas's case is different.
Why do you think I put Rosemas to sleep beside Lucius?
It was all to direct Rosemas's suppressed desires—the direction of her longing—not elsewhere, but toward Lucius.
So if I connect to Rosemas's dream now, I should be able to see her desire, her longing, built upon Lucius—her 'dream' in the truest sense.
'Link, start.'
I closed my eyes along with the magic's Trigger Word.
My body remained awake, but my divided consciousness entered Rosemas's dream.
And then.
My vision clouded over as though I were walking through fog.
A short while later, I opened my eyes in a plaza paved with white marble.
My body was an Ether Body.
Even in a dream, perhaps because my physical foundation was the Crimson Mage, my Ether Body was still female, but since I was purely an observer in this dream world anyway, it didn't matter at all.
Clatter, clatter.
Passing carriages did not notice my presence, and no one recognized me.
Because here, I am only an observer who cannot exert any physical force.
But.
"...Whoa boy."
This place is the world inside Rosemas's dream.
It was a dream, but even if it was a manifestation of the unconscious and tightly hidden desires—
"Isn't this completely perverted?"
The world inside Rosemas's dream was an empire of half-elves.
All the half-elves, all the quarter-elves, had blonde hair and silver hair, blue eyes and violet eyes all mixed together, and every one of them was the very picture of a handsome man or beautiful woman.
In the center of the plaza.
The figures who seemed to evoke the empire's emperor and empress were, naturally, Lucius and Rosemas.
"Well, well."
It was funny.
Funny, and at the same time, a little sad.
"In the dream they're husband and wife, but in reality they're not."
A dream is a wish for a reality that has not yet come true.
In other words, Rosemas desperately wishes to be with Lucius.
She is even thinking of filling the entire empire's population with her and Lucius's children, and she harbors the ambition of building an eternal, immortal empire with her and Lucius's children.
She had probably imagined an empire because, for a human like Lucius, the position of emperor was the ultimate ideal—and she had built the fantasy that way out of consideration for him.
"......Hah."
Seeing this, I couldn't help but pity Rosemas.
Seeing this, I felt that I had to push Rosemas more actively.
'Why is Lucius trying to push Rosemas away?'
It was obvious at a glance.
Lucius had noticed Rosemas's feelings—he'd have been an idiot not to—but he was at a loss over what to do about them.
'Could it be because of me?'
I might be the cause.
That was definitely the reason—100%, no, 140% certain.
"He's worried the Hero Party will break apart, the little punk."
If he were to advance his relationship with Rosemas, Lucius would surely waver between the responsibility a Hero must bear and the responsibility a man must bear.
'Many Heroes were often swayed or frustrated because of that.'
The great cause for humanity?
Or responsibility for one's love?
In the end, most humans chose the latter.
All the more so if the woman was a beautiful, well-built elf like Rosemas—especially a High Elf. In such cases, men often chose the woman they loved over their sense of duty.
'I had a lot of fun with that.'
-They say the childhood friend waiting for you in your hometown went to the mill holding hands with the man next door?
With that single remark, I once blew apart a Hero Party.
The man who had been a Hero immediately ran back to his hometown, and on the spot, the Hero Party disintegrated.
For some men, the woman they loved could become their reason for living.
Sometimes, for love, they abandon everything they have achieved.
Love could drive someone to make a mad decision that overturned their fate in an instant—the same was true of all living beings.
Yes.
Love is truly a terrifying thing.
'As a Demon King, I'm a different story.'
If I used this emotion called love, I could make the Hero Party stronger more quickly.
Then I could quickly deal with Zepar and the rest of Acedia and return to the Demon Realm.
I am the Demon King Belphegor.
The unprecedented Great Demon King who uses even the love of young men and women.
"Where is Rosemas and what is she doing~"
I headed toward the imperial palace within the dream to absorb her libido.
Naturally, since Rosemas is the empress, she must surely be strolling through the imperial palace with Lucius.
"Ahh, Lucius...!"
"......."
...The sight of Rosemas that I encountered in the imperial palace was something I could not bear to look at with open eyes.
Ahh.
Rosemas Tervation.
"What a pitiful and wretched creature."