Chapter 102. Devouring the Nightmare (2)
Chapter 102. Devouring the Nightmare (2)
Damn it. This was the worst possible situation.
I'd thought Serika falling was one thing, but I'd expected Ymir to hold up better than this.
Could the formidable mental fortitude demanded of a Grand Archmage truly not withstand that goddamn whore's mind control?
"Get down, Dave!!"
In that instant, a shout burst from her lips.
Every trace of anxiety I'd felt up until then vanished. I obeyed the cry and hurled myself to the ground.
I'd realized it instinctively — a shout like that couldn't have come from someone whose mind was being controlled. And if she was telling me to get down, there was a reason for it.
-KWA-BOOM!!
As if confirming my instincts, a wave of physical force swept past me.
The high-pressure blast created a storm above me, tearing through whatever lay behind me.
Crash! Rumble! The corridor I'd passed through collapsed in sequence. At the center of that terrifying firepower, a dream demon was caught in the shockwave, its form disintegrating into pieces.
"H-how did you find me...."
"I can sense everything, you bastard. I already know more about the demonic races than any other human alive. I figured out how you succubi's abilities work a long time ago."
Hoo. Ymir blew on her fingertip, then snapped her fingers. As if responding to that force, the mana left at the spot she'd attacked began to vibrate, binding the dream demon's disintegrating body.
"Even for beings that are nothing more than mental entities, there's still some kind of medium needed for movement. If you can't see them, you just blanket-crush the entire area where they might be. Isn't that obvious?"
"W-wait...."
-BOOM-BOOM! BANG!
The space collapsed in a chain of explosions. With that, the dream demon who'd been trying to beg for its life just moments ago vanished completely.
Dream demons are supposedly impossible to counter with purely physical attacks because they're mental entities. And yet she'd annihilated one using nothing but physical force....
Back when I'd tried to mentally subdue a woman like this — just how badly had I failed to know my place?
"Anyway, these gods-damned tits."
Just as that sense of self-reproach and fear was settling in, Ymir — having casually eliminated a dream demon — looked down at her own chest and started venting her irritation.
"The moment I raise my output even a little, they shake like crazy. How am I supposed to aim properly? The second I try to get a feel for it, they start causing trouble again, so I can't do anything seriously."
-Jiggle, jiggle.
Her breasts swayed with the slap of her own hand.
As I stared blankly at that embarrassing sight, Ymir stopped slapping her chest and glared at me.
"...What, you bastard. Enjoying the show?"
"Ah, no. N-no, ma'am."
Damn it. How could someone with such an obscenely lewd body have so little sense of modesty?
I turned my gaze away, worrying that she might show that kind of sight to other men as well. Just then, Ymir chuckled and started walking toward me.
"It was a joke, dumbass~ You can look all you want~ You're the guy who already took my virginity. You think I'd be shy about showing you this much?"
"Th-that's enough, so please just put this on already!"
I hurriedly threw the outer garment I was wearing at her. Ymir caught it and stared at me intently, grumbling under her breath.
"Geez, you're the one who did all that to me, and now you act like this."
Muttering her complaint, Ymir concealed her body with the clothes I'd thrown at her.
The buttons straining over her chest looked ready to pop, but Ymir paid no mind to that precarious state and closed the distance between us.
"...Miss Ymir?"
"Never mind that. Let me see your face."
"No, wait—. Guhk!"
She grabbed my chin and pulled me right up to her.
The way she stared at me with half-lidded eyes seemed almost like she was scanning me.
Right. Now that I thought about it, this woman had called herself an expert on the demonic races. She'd detected the presence of the dream demon trying to ambush me purely on instinct. There was no way she wouldn't pick up on something about me.
But even so, what could I do?
The fact that I'd done unspeakable things to her was undeniably true.
"...The blood vessels inside are all ruptured. I told you, this is what happens when you overdo it just because you learned how to use mana a little."
But fortunately, what came out of her mouth was something far removed from having figured out my identity.
After roughly examining my condition, she made a pitying face, then began tapping my cheek.
"You idiot. Did I or did I not tell you to keep your mind clear when handling mana? Mana itself is fundamentally pure physical force. If you put it into your body and handle it wrong, obviously your muscles and blood vessels and everything else are going to get wrecked."
"M-my apologies. I was wrong... Bwugh!"
My body shrank back instinctively under her scolding. Ymir, who'd been rough with me just moments before, then pinched my cheek and pulled it.
"Your handsome face is all messed up."
"Ny-yes?"
"Whatever. Let me ask you just one thing. The drug I gave you — was it helpful?"
Ymir looked me straight in the eyes and asked.
I hesitated, wondering how to answer, but soon found my head nodding before I realized it.
"Y-yes, ma'am. Thanks to it, I was able to escape the crisis. And I was able to save Heira, who'd fallen into danger from the dream demons...."
That wasn't a lie.
If it weren't for her drug, I wouldn't have been able to devour the dream demon that had entered my mind. I wouldn't have even thought of going further and saving Heira from her nightmares.
"...Then that's good."
Ymir smiled bitterly at me, patted me on the back, and quietly turned away.
As if it were nothing at all.
"But, Miss Ymir, are you all right?"
I still couldn't shake the unease in my heart.
No matter how much of an airheaded fool she might be, this was a situation where the Queen of Dream Demons had been pulling her goddamn nonsense, wasn't it?
"All right? What do you mean?"
"I don't know the details, but this mansion seems to have been occupied by the dream demons.... You didn't have nightmares or anything?"
She might seem fine right now, but there could be some suggestion planted inside her by that whore.
I thought I needed to confirm whether there was anything off about her. But Ymir's reaction as she thought it over was perfectly nonchalant.
"Ah, yeah, I had one. It showed me my only friend getting gang-raped by bums in the slums and then dropping out of school and leaving. Every detail."
Even a memory that sounded devastating at a glance, she recounted as if it were nothing at all.
"...You're really all right?"
"Pff, if I was going to break from something like that, I'd have broken a long time ago. It didn't even happen to me. You think recalling it a few times is going to shatter my mind?"
Ymir laughed it off as if it were trivial.
Then she glanced back at me and spoke as if murmuring.
"Well, if I'd gone through something like that myself, it'd be a different story."
With that, she averted her gaze from me.
The words themselves weren't particularly problematic, but I couldn't help but feel something odd in her reaction. Even if she was pretending to be composed, she was definitely different from usual.
How to put it — it was almost like she was being overly conscious of my gaze?
"Well, anyway, you don't need to worry about me. Let's check on this one first."
I was concerned in many ways, but Ymir's attention had already been pulled away from me.
The place she approached next was where Serika still lay collapsed on the floor.
Just like Ymir, her clothes had been stripped off, and she was laid out on top of some kind of magic circle, as if some ritual had been performed....
"It seems like the situation was getting pretty strange while I was asleep."
But what Ymir felt as she looked down at Serika was closer to seriousness than a sense of crisis.
It was confusion born not from immediate danger, but from not knowing how the situation was unfolding — even to herself.
"U-ugh...."
At that moment, a groan came from one corner of the room.
When I turned my gaze there, a dream demon hiding under some disheveled furniture came into view.
That whore... no, it wasn't her.
Looking closely, it was one of the ones who'd tried to toy with Heira earlier and then fled. Had it come here to ask that whore for help after running from me?
"Y-you... what the hell did you do?!"
But unlike before, the dream demon was now trembling in terror.
The moment our eyes met and it realized we'd noticed it, it began screaming at Ymir and me.
"What did we do...."
"I've never heard of anything like this. H-how? No matter how much of a hero she is, how could something like this... Th-this is insane. This doesn't make any sense!"
The dream demon clutched its head, babbling incoherently.
Its face was contorted in terror, as if it had witnessed something utterly impossible.
A dream demon — a being that forces nightmares upon its targets, beguiles them, and violates them — reduced to this state. What the hell had happened?
"Just explain the situation, will you?"
As I wondered, Ymir used telekinesis to sweep aside the furniture and seized the panicked dream demon by the throat, lifting it into the air.
The dream demon gagged and writhed in agony. It was a mental entity, but whatever it was — now that it had been caught, it would be easily eliminated by her hand.
"You saw your colleague get blown to bits earlier, right? I'll decide whether to let you live based on what you do next. So explain what state this little runt is in."
Crack, crunch. The moment her grip on its throat tightened.
The dream demon shuddered in greater pain and then cried out through gritted teeth.
"Th-that's not what's important right now."
"Wow, I'm asking about your colleague's safety right in front of you, and you say it's not important. Just how much of a pushover does this blockhead bitch think humans are...."
"She's dead."
The moment Ymir's mocking remark died in her throat.
"...What?"
"Yeah, dead! Th-that woman...."
The dream demon looked down at Serika.
Following its gaze, my mind involuntarily conjured the worst possibility.
That the goddamn whore hadn't stopped at simply dominating Serika. That, whether by accident or intent, she'd taken Serika's life as well.
"That hero bitch killed Lady Garbonia!!"
But the words that followed were the exact opposite of what I'd expected.
"...What?"
Yes. So unbelievable I couldn't trust my own ears.
Dead? Not Serika, but that whore?
The Queen of Dream Demons, who had lived for thousands of years, killed by a fledgling hero who hadn't even been adventuring for a year?
"Th-this is insane. This... there's no way this is real. It can't be real!!"
But for an arrogant species like theirs to show a reaction like this, something of that magnitude had to have happened.
More than anything, Ymir was awake now. And that whore still hadn't shown any meaningful reaction, had she?
"...I don't understand."
Ymir released the mana choking its throat, seeming to gauge that its reaction was genuine.
But confusion still painted her face.
"The one who pulled this bullshit on us is the captain of your whore army, isn't she? No matter how much innate talent this runt has, she shouldn't be at the level of killing an officer."
I thought the same.
No matter how vast a hero's potential might be, that applied in terms of growth.
For a still-developing hero to counterattack against an officer of the Demon King's army — at this stage, it should have been impossible.
Provided the circumstances were normal, that is.
"No, it's not impossible."
"...You know something?"
"Yes, I'm not certain, but... depending on her mental state, she might actually be able to take down a dream demon that infiltrated her mind."
Hadn't I dealt with Morgana exactly like that?
Infiltrating a mind meant you could collapse your target's psyche. But at the same time, it meant you had to be prepared for the infiltrator to be devoured, depending on the mind of the target.
In short, just as I'd devoured Morgana in turn and absorbed her, Serika had in turn devoured that whore who'd entered her mind to dominate her.
Inside her own mind.
None other than the Queen of Dream Demons.
"Serika."
But even if it wasn't impossible, I couldn't shake the thought that it was utterly absurd.
To devour even the Queen of Dream Demons — a despair greater even than that of the long-lived species who have endured a hundred years.
"Just what kind of dream are you having?"
Just how deep was the despair inside this young hero?
Watching her as she slept, I couldn't even begin to imagine it.
***
...And then.
-Creak. Click.
The sound of the firmly shut prison door opening.
Feeling her drowsing consciousness roused by the noise, a woman quietly opened her eyes and turned toward the source of the sound.
Two soldiers stared down at her from the entrance.
A knight stepped out from between them and aimed his blade at the listless woman, speaking quietly.
"Insurgent Berdia. The execution ceremony will begin shortly. Do not resist. Follow along quietly."
The Ten Strongest of the Continent, the Shrine Maiden of the God of War.
And the woman who served as the core of the hero party prepared herself to humbly accept the fate that would soon befall her.