Chapter 103. If It's in a Dream... (1)
Chapter 103. If It's in a Dream... (1)
Berdia was hauled out of the prison, her body weary, the guards dragging her along.
Stripped of the armor she always wore, she was now wrapped in layer upon layer of heavy chains.
Of course, if she called upon her full strength, she could easily shatter restraints like these.
But under the circumstances, Berdia felt no pressing need to do so.
'...It's a dream.'
Yes. Once she thought about it calmly, it wasn't hard to recognize that this was all a dream.
The last thing she remembered was lying down to sleep in her own chambers. The notion that she would open her eyes and wake up in a place like this, being dragged along by guards—it was absurd.
And even if political machinations sometimes saw innocent people branded as rebels, she herself was a knight sworn to the royal family and a woman of faith.
Rebellion was utterly unthinkable—both in terms of her knightly oath and her religious devotion.
Above all, for someone who had risen to the ranks of the Ten Strongest of the Continent, branding her a rebel, no matter the pretense, would inevitably provoke a massive public backlash.
'So this is a lucid dream. I've heard tales of them, but this is my first time experiencing one.'
Having analyzed the situation with cold logic, Berdia quietly studied the guards escorting her.
Their faces were utterly rigid. It was less the gravity you'd expect from soldiers and closer to the vacant blankness of dolls.
Even if they were escorting one of the Ten Strongest of the Continent, could they really maintain such complete detachment?
'If it's a dream... I suppose there's no real need to resist.'
Yes, in a dream, nothing that happened could truly be strange.
So she resolved to simply let the situation carry her along for now. As she held her silence, a guard came running from the opposite side and conferred with the ones escorting her.
"They say the preparations for the execution ceremony will take a little more time."
"Then we'll have to wait, I take it?"
It seemed the originally planned event had been delayed.
Since she was aware it was a dream, she had no intention of caring much about whatever happened next.
Yes, that was certainly her intention.
'A rebel and her guards.'
Yet even knowing it was a dream, Berdia could not stop herself from repeatedly checking her own body and scanning her surroundings.
'A body held helpless... and men...'
A wave of déjà vu washed over her, as though she had experienced something like this before.
No, to be precise, no such experience of being restrained like this existed in her life.
She had merely imagined—only imagined—what it might be like if, by some one-in-a-million chance, a situation like this were ever to occur.
"Prisoner Berdia. Stand against this wall."
The guards finished their discussion and barked the order at her.
Their faces, which had been blank and expressionless until now, abruptly sharpened with a certain emotion as they closed in to intimidate her. Anticipation, you might call it.
Anticipation.
What on earth did these male guards expect to do with a female prisoner like her, now that a gap in the schedule had opened up before her execution?
"......"
"Do you intend to disobey orders?"
"...No. I will comply."
Whatever happened, it was a dream—there was no reason to resist.
Berdia did as they commanded and leaned her body against the wall. She wiped the cold sweat beading on her face.
Clink. The chains wrapped around her arms clattered with friction, snatching the guards' attention.
The moment her blue hair was swept aside, exposing the languid curve of her neck, the smirks sketched on their faces began to deepen.
"Heh. What's this? They made such a fuss about her being one of the Ten Strongest, but strip the armor off and she's just an ordinary wench, isn't she?"
"I thought she'd be all muscle, but now I see she's got a rather fine body. Looks like she'd be enjoyable to toy with."
The guards began appraising her body as she stood pinned against the wall.
A faint tremor ran through her at their sadistic remarks, and as the chains were pulled tighter, the contours of her figure beneath her clothes became even more pronounced.
Though she had always denied it before, cornered like this, she had no choice but to acknowledge her own womanhood.
"...Right now, I am nothing more than a prisoner. I am in no position to complain, no matter what is done to me."
Unwilling to show the tension coiling inside her, Berdia lifted her eyes sharply and declared her resolve.
"However, even cornered like this, I am a faithful servant of the God of War and a knight sworn to the royal house of Arhen. Whatever you do to me, my spirit shall never break."
Yes, even if this was a dream, she must not show a moment's weakness.
Having steeled herself, she faced them—and at that, they burst into lecherous laughter, closing the distance.
"Heh. Fine words."
"Well, won't it be entertaining to see how long that attitude holds up?"
Hands soaked in lust closed in on her. Looking down at them, Berdia felt a prickling anxiety, but she resolved to accept their touch without resistance.
'It's fine. This is nothing but a dream.'
Whatever happened here would be fine, she told herself.
"...Hngh."
But the moment those hands made contact with her body, a spasm ran through her, and an involuntary moan escaped her lips.
"Nngh... Ah!?"
A coarse sound tore from her throat, timed to the movement kneading her breasts. The instant she realized it, she clamped a hand over her mouth, but the noise had already escaped.
"Oh ho, what's this? You get off from being touched just like this?"
"Her nipples are already stiff as pegs. See?"
"W-Wait. Hold on a moment. Something is strange... Nngh!"
As if on cue, the instant the hand cupping her breast squeezed, something stiffly poked up.
Making a lie of her earlier protest, Berdia's eyes caught the sight of something peaking against the fabric covering her chest.
'Th-That can't be...'
Her eyes fixed on it. The guard squeezed harder.
As if unsatisfied with that alone, he slipped his hand inside her clothes and began kneading her bare flesh.
'There's no way this is happening. Why?'
Even if she was aware of what it was, this was unmistakably a dream—so why did every sensation feel so vividly real?
And it wasn't just the feeling of being touched. She was being stimulated so intensely, with her erogenous zones as the focus. Could a lucid dream truly affect a person like this?
"Haah, ngh, aaah..."
Berdia could not hide her bewilderment at the unexpected sensitivity.
Once she lost her composure and began moaning, her back pressed against the wall, the hands roaming her body grew rougher.
They slid unhindered beneath her clothes, relentlessly digging into every sensitive corner.
"St-Stop. Just a moment... Th-That place is... no... Nghk!"
A hand slipped beneath her lower garment and stroked down between her thighs. The texture it found there made her expression crumple violently.
It was infuriating and revolting, yet at the same time, a sensitivity beyond anything she'd felt when her breasts were fondled crashed through her body.
As if her body itself was begging for more.
"Ho ho, would you look at this? She's completely soaked."
"Beneath that prim and proper act, she's quite the lewd one. Keh heh."
"Nghk, nngh...!"
The guards mocked her as they raised their drenched fingers.
As they spread their fingers apart, her eyes caught the sight of the fluid from her sex stretching in sticky, threadlike strands.
Overwhelmed by the shame of it, Berdia bit her lip and turned her gaze away.
"D-Don't... don't waste time on pointless acts. Just kill me quickly."
"Haha~ Why the sudden rush? The execution ceremony's still a long way off, you know~"
"It'll happen when the time comes. So let's just take it nice and slow."
"Nghk, stop... Mmph!"
Without warning, the guard shoved the fingers slicked with her arousal into her mouth.
Her mouth blocked, Berdia gagged and reflexively shot a glare at the guard. But he only seemed to enjoy even that as he moved his fingers, scraping them around the inside of her mouth.
"Euh, ngh..."
The moment she was forced to taste the fluids from her own body, a shudder of revulsion born from sheer humiliation ran through her. Meanwhile, another guard slipped his fingers into her sex and began to stir them.
Into the deepest part of a body no one had ever touched, he thrust his hand with utter impunity.
"Mmgh! Mph!"
Unable to endure the stimulation, her body convulsed. Between the fingers stuffed into her mouth, hot breath burst out in ragged gasps.
'Wh-What is this...'
-Squelch, squelch.
Rough fingers swept across the surface of her sex, then focused on thrusting into one specific spot over and over.
The technique and the intensity were nothing like when she touched herself—and the pleasure they produced was on an entirely different level.
'I've... I've never felt anything like this...!'
The climb from building arousal to full-blown peak happened in an instant.
The shock was so violent that crackling jolts of electricity coursed through her body, locking up her muscles one by one.
'N-No. If I... go like this...'
Unable to shake off the sensation, Berdia squeezed her eyes shut. Even if her body was brought to climax by sheer physiological reflex, she vowed to suppress it as much as she possibly could.
"...Do you want to come?"
But the voice reached her ears the very instant she teetered on the edge.
At the same moment, Berdia realized that every caress against her body had stopped. Struggling to right her hazy mind, she stared back at him and asked.
"What...?"
What had this man just said?
For a moment, Berdia thought she had misheard. She turned her bleary gaze toward them.
As if relishing the sight of her in such a state, the guards wiggled their drenched fingers and swaggered.
"I said, if you want us to finish you off with our hands, you'll have to say so yourself."
"Th-That is...!"
"Just one word will do. Just one word—say you want us to make you come..."
A vivid sneer dripping with open malice.
"Say it with your own mouth, and we'll carve a pleasure into that body the likes of which you've never felt before."
Even though they had stopped, they held complete certainty that what came next would play out exactly as they intended.
After all, a woman who had felt this much from mere fleeting caresses could never refuse the chance for greater pleasure...
-Gulp.
Yes, in that moment Berdia was wavering.
No matter how much she tried to deny it outwardly, Berdia—and she alone—knew she could not deny that she had hesitated at those words.
'If it's a dream...'
Even though the sensations felt as vivid as reality.
'If it's just a dream, then... maybe just a little...'
All the more so in a secret place, where no one's eyes could ever reach.