Chapter 101. Devouring the Nightmare (1)
Chapter 101. Devouring the Nightmare (1)
I let my eyes drift open, and for a quiet moment, I gazed up at the moon framed in the window.
It hung in the same position as before.
Had it been an illusion? Or had less time passed than I'd thought?
"......Cough."
Either way, the backlash was crashing through my body with brutal force.
So much so that if I lost consciousness for even a second, I would collapse right here...
Well, of course it would be that way. I was hemorrhaging blood from every orifice I had.
"Lord Dave, are you alright?"
Katarina began to approach, worry plain on her face.
She, too, was in a state where her whole body was smeared with blood from holding the entrance.
Most of it was likely from the ones she'd dealt with while guarding the door. She seemed to have taken numerous minor wounds, but her ragged breathing was probably exhaustion rather than blood loss.
"...I'll manage."
It was because she had been there that I was able to devour the nightmare demon bastard clinging to Heira's spirit.
But instead of expressing gratitude, what burst out of my mouth was a wad of congealed blood.
Damn it. Human willpower doesn't exactly match up well against dream demons that have lived for centuries, I suppose.
I should count myself lucky I could even manage this much, thanks to the drugs Ymir gave me.
"Lord Dave......."
"...The entrance. You no longer need to guard it?"
I deliberately ignored Katarina's concern and asked her instead. She stopped questioning my condition and glanced back toward the doorway.
"No, thankfully.... For some reason, the number swarming toward us began to thin out partway through."
"...Could they be plotting something?"
"No. If anything, it has been confirmed that the power binding their minds has weakened."
The power has weakened.
When I actually checked the entrance, I caught a glimpse of the mansion's servants and guards she had dealt with.
There were casualties, but there were also those who were merely unconscious instead of dead.
Their minds must have been freed from the binding force in the middle of combat.
If it was true, as Katarina said, that the power constraining their minds had been released, then there was no immediate need to worry about an attack.
Immediate, anyway.
"Could the dream demons be plotting something? Like, they're stretching their power thin because they're struggling to subdue the Hero and the Archmage...."
"Could be. Or maybe another officer, or someone from the human side, caught wind of things and set foot in this place."
Whatever it was, I had to figure out the situation.
And to finish what was left, I would have to get out of here.
Leaving Heira behind, still unconscious and lost in a deep sleep.
"......Dave."
Heira whispered, her head resting near my knee.
As I stroked her hair, a smile slowly began to spread across her lips. She could feel my presence even in her sleep. If she was like this, she probably wouldn't be racked by anxiety like before, even if I was gone.
"Katarina."
I called out to her as she quietly watched the scene.
"Am I a disappointment?"
Imagining what she must be feeling, seeing me like this.
Yeah, anyone would have a lot of thoughts looking at this picture.
"...Lord Dave."
"Saving a single person from a nightmare has left me in this state. And she's not even an official party member, at that. I risked my life to save a woman who has absolutely nothing to do with the goal of leading the hero party to strike down that bastard."
"......."
"...Do you truly believe this version of me is worth following?"
I was in a position where I couldn't complain even if she slit my throat on the spot and walked away.
I might resist, if only to protect the girl in my arms, but I was a far cry from the image she must have expected of me.
So far gone, in fact, that I might choose to make an enemy of her—someone who, like me, had no choice but to betray humanity.
"...I couldn't save anyone."
But she didn't swing her sword at me.
Instead, borrowing the peace that had settled over this moment, she quietly let her helplessness spill out in a low voice.
"Even when my comrades, with whom I shared life and death, were toyed with by their schemes, I could do nothing but cut their throats. Unlike me, you saved the one you set out to save. You are, without a doubt, a greater person than I am."
"...Katarina."
"Saving her was something you desired, wasn't it?"
An incredibly clear and upright spirit.
Faced with that fortitude, I finally cast aside my guilt toward her and answered quietly.
"......Yes."
Because she had already decided to bet on me, and if that feeling held true, I had a duty to live up to it.
If I couldn't even do that much for her, after she had protected me this far, wouldn't I lack the face to look her father in the eye if I ever ended up in hell?
"She's a child I genuinely wanted to save."
"That desire, too, will serve as a driving force propelling you toward your goal."
Katarina said this as she knelt down to meet my eye level.
Not a single tremor could be seen in her gaze, illuminated by the moonlight. That upright stare was fixed directly on me.
"Lord Dave."
Soon, she spoke, facing me.
"No matter how strong and wise a sovereign may be, they can achieve nothing alone. To realize their ambitions, they need someone to support them. And the reason followers pledge loyalty to a sovereign is not because they have already achieved something, but because they have shown proof—proof that they are qualified to lead others."
Yes, that reason alone is enough for an oath of loyalty.
Even if this body and mind were to break down, they would still swear loyalty to the end, trusting that their prince would grant their wishes.
"I do not regret following you, who has shown me that possibility. So I will say it once more. The path you walk is my path, and what you achieve will be my pride. So please, do not hesitate in carrying out your will from this moment on."
Katarina spoke these words of fealty and bowed her head lower than my eyes.
Anxiety crept in about whether I could live up to that loyalty, but now that I'd started, there was no stopping.
"Then."
My two legs, laden with that resolve, wobbled but slowly raised me up.
Before long, those footsteps began to carry me toward the room's exit.
"Then I can't afford to stop here."
"Lord Dave, in that body...."
"Katarina. It seems I was a terrible, greedy bastard after all."
I didn't look back at her as she tried to dissuade me. Because even now, a complete wreck, there was work I had to do.
"I got power, accomplished something... and I ended up wanting more."
"...Lord Dave."
"Not just Heira. The other two as well......."
Serika, who knew nothing and whispered love to me with all her heart.
Ymir, who knew my true nature but couldn't shake her feelings for me.
"I don't want to just use them and let them go. Like you, who swore loyalty to me, and like Heira... I've genuinely come to want the two of them at my side."
So I can't stay still in this spot.
To make the impossible possible, to break through this situation with sheer stubbornness if force alone isn't enough...
"So, I leave Heira in your hands."
"...Yes."
Katarina read my heart and, in the end, didn't stop me.
Understanding that even this was the result of her trust, I left the room without hesitation.
My whole body ached, and my head throbbed, but I endured it and gritted my way through all that pain.
"Cough!"
But I couldn't help it when my airway was blocked by coughed-up blood, and I had to stop for a moment, leaning against the wall and hacking it up.
The instant agony surged up from inside me.
But more than that, what made me hesitate was the anxiety welling up from a corner of my heart.
Could I do it?
I'd become a wreck just from Heira alone. Even if I'd absorbed the dream demons' power, was it possible to crush that goddamn whore and save the two of them?
"...Stop with the pathetic thoughts."
I dismissed even that anxiety as an illusion of my own making, and repeated the cycle of forcing my stopped feet to move again.
It wasn't a matter of whether I could or not.
I had to. No matter how strong that whore was, no matter how deep and dark the feelings the two of them harbored...
Yes, hadn't I decided to do right by them, even now? Even if it was only now that I decided to repay their feelings for me, what did it matter whether it was for the Demon King's army or the hero party?
I had things I needed to say to them.
My life up until now had been all about running away, but from now on, it had to be different.
Just as I had taken responsibility for what I'd done with Heira, when this situation was over, I would pay the price for it as well.
"......Right. Not yet."
If necessary, even restoring their memories and revealing my true self.
"I... have something I need to say to you both...."
Even if it wasn't right now, I had to endure until my heart was ready.
Steeling my resolve and walking, I finally arrived at a place where I could feel the thick presence of that damnable whore, detected by my own power.
"Are you two alright...."
As soon as I stepped inside, my breath froze, and my legs, which had been creaking along, were nailed to the spot as if frozen solid.
And in that state, I took in everything etched onto my retinas.
The room's interior, smashed and shattered as if struck by a violent shockwave.
At its center, Serika lay sprawled out, her body stripped bare.
"Seri...."
The moment I tried to voice her name, a gust of wind blew in. In that split second, my eyes reflexively turned toward the broken window, and another shadow caught my sight.
Unkempt black hair and a voluptuous naked body.
Like Serika, she wasn't wearing a single thread, but what was drawn on her face was far from shame.
No, there were no visible emotions there in the first place. The stiff, cold line of her lips and her empty, murky eyes.
From a gaze where I couldn't even tell if reason still existed, I felt a chill run down my spine.
"...Ymir."
Could it be I was already too late?
Had the hero party's Archmage already...
been reduced to a puppet of that goddamn whore?
"Dave?"
Ymir immediately responded to my reflexive whisper, laden with anxiety.
And then, the moment her murky eyes turned toward me—
"......Ha."
A faint smirk touched her lips, and she stood with her back to the broken window, reaching out a hand toward me as she murmured softly.
"No wonder something felt off. So that's how it was."
A muttering whose meaning I couldn't grasp.
But I had no time to dedicate to understanding it.
-A low resonant hum.
In this very moment.
The mana gathered at the fingertips aimed at me was raging wildly.