Chapter 104. If It's in a Dream... (2)
Chapter 104. If It's in a Dream... (2)
The day would come when she'd find herself in a man's arms.......
It was something Berdia had never once imagined in her entire life.
She had devoted this body and heart to God and humanity. She had reminded herself, time and again, that the battlefield was the only place she was meant to go.
Her fate would be to meet her end on that field of war, or else to survive to the very end as a symbol who upheld humanity.......
And because her sense of mission burned so fiercely, she had never once doubted that she would never spend intimate hours bound to a member of the opposite sex like other women, never build a family.
As far as her own will was concerned, at least.
'To be... taken like this.......'
Gulp. Berdia swallowed hard as she stared at the guards who gazed back at her.
The cruelty gathering in their lecherous grins as they toyed with her stung with humiliation, but restrained as she was, a prisoner, resistance was surely impossible now.
Even if this situation was unjust and she could somehow resist by force, it wouldn't mean a thing.
This was a dream. Nothing that happened here would affect reality.
And everything that happened here would be known to her and her alone.
'E-even someone like me, in this way.......'
Yes. Truth be told, Berdia had always kept the possibility of a situation like this somewhere in the back of her mind.
She had given up life as a woman and abandoned all relations with the opposite sex, but conversely, if it came by someone else's will rather than her own.......
If she fell into a situation she could not defy and was violated by force — that was something that easily could happen in her life.
'To really, truly, be violated by a man....'
If that moment ever came, just how would she react?
Would she hold to her convictions to the bitter end? Or would all that endurance prove useless as she surrendered her body to them?
"I-I......."
She possessed enough moral awareness to know this was wrong.
But she had imagined it constantly. She had always been curious about it. The nights she spent conjuring such acts to soothe herself had increased dramatically over the past several months.
No matter how much she denied and denied it again, moment after moment struck her with the awareness that she was a woman.
'Just a little.'
If such a moment had come to her, even if only in a dream — if she allowed herself just a little, just a sliver of honesty toward her desires, then—
"......Ngh!"
Berdia bit down on her lip, endured the fierce temptation, and wrenched her eyes wide open, shouting at them.
"Do not drag me into your filthy lusts."
She put every ounce of strength into her throat.
To hide even the anxious dread that her own heart might be laid bare to them.
"Ho-oh. You say that when you're this soaked?"
"Say what you will. I am......."
She meant to keep her tone that rigid, but for just a moment — the briefest moment — her voice died away.
Because they were right. Her body was more sensitive now than it had ever been.
And on top of that, she'd been stopped just before her climax, so the maddening edge of frustration was inescapable.
Anything would do. She wanted to release this sensation immediately.
Even if a day came when she fell to her knees before the men in front of her, begging and pleading.
"I will never, ever submit!!"
Berdia shouted even louder to bury that precarious anticipation.
The guards who faced her let out low snickers and roughly reached their hands toward her.
"Looks like making her face her own lewd nature is a failure."
"Well, nothing for it then. We'll just have to torment her until she does."
-Riiip! Riiip!
The moment her clothes were torn and her bare skin was exposed, her body flinched, her back pressing harder against the wall, and then a guard seized Berdia's face and whispered softly.
"Let me ask you one thing. Are you a virgin, you bitch?"
"......And what if I am?"
"Heh-heh-heh! Now this is a treat! To think the day would come when I'd get to take the virginity of one of the Ten Greats!"
"Of course. I suppose no one's ever beaten her before, so she's never been violated this way. How does it feel, having your virginity taken by worthless prison guards like us?"
"Say whatever you want. I... hnn!"
The instant a rough moan broke from her lips, Berdia felt something make contact with her impossibly sensitive sex, and she began to turn her gaze downward, toward her lower body.
'A... male organ.'
Cast in shadow, but unmistakably the thing called by that name was touching her own flesh.
Was the reason its shape refused to solidify because she had never seen one directly? Because she had only ever guessed at its form through imagination?
'A man's... a man's thing is touching my body.......'
Whatever the case, if things stayed like this, that organ of his would be inserted into her body.
Into a hole that had never once permitted anything of another's to invade it.
'B-but it's a dream.'
And so, though she should by all rights be resisting desperately, Berdia merely swallowed and braced herself to endure whatever act would follow.
'Yes. After all, it's a dream.'
It was all right to accept it.
Just as she thought that and squeezed her eyes shut, a voice began to drift faintly into Berdia's ears.
"Are you truly looking forward to this?"
A voice different from the guards who had radiated cruelty.
Yes. It was unmistakably something that existed in her memory.
"Da......."
Reflexively, Berdia began to open her eyes.
What shone in her vision was the man she herself had conjured.
"Dave......?"
Dave.
The party porter Serika had brought along. And, even through the long period they'd been apart since, the man she had constantly kept in her thoughts.
"D-Dave? Why are you here... Ah!"
The instant the hand she reflexively tried to raise was pinned by his grasp.
Dave pushed his face forward and flashed Berdia, now thoroughly flustered, a darkly knowing smile.
"Heh heh. Miss Berdia. You cannot possibly imagine how long I have looked forward to this moment. Ever since that night I saw your lewd body at the drinking party......."
"W-wait. Dave, calm down. Let me explain the situation.... Aaah!?"
"You cannot possibly imagine how much I've wanted to violate this body."
"N-no. Stop. Sto...."
A voice that tickled her ear and the light, preparatory caresses that accompanied it. That alone was enough — her body, already so agonizingly sensitive from before, felt as though it might climax all over again.
But Berdia forced herself to focus on quelling her psychological turmoil rather than those sensations.
'Th-this can't... this above all things.......'
Any other man, perhaps she could bear it. But of all people, wasn't this the very man she had been so conscious of?
She had reasoned it was fine to surrender even her chastity since it was only a dream, but Dave was a different matter. She had comforted herself with fantasies of him all this time, so even in a dream, merely facing him was enough to make guilt writhe inside her to an unbearable degree.
"Don't worry. It only hurts the first time."
Ignoring her emotional state, Dave positioned himself to push his member into her slick, wet sex.
Her pupils shook the moment she stared at it. Then, unable to endure the breath rising inside her, Berdia's body began to stiffen rigidly.
"P-please. No. This is.... I'm.... I'm not mentally prepared yet...."
"Please do enjoy your time with me to the fullest."
The gentle voice — and the instant the glans parted the cleft of her sex and began to push inside.
"Uhh‥...."
In sync with it, the power she had kept suppressed all this time burst free, and her body was engulfed in radiance.
"Uu, kyaaaaaaaaaaa!!"
And then the scream she could no longer contain tore from her mouth — and in that moment, everything around her was caught in the light and shattered into fragments.
And then.......
****
"Hahh!!"
Berdia gasped violently and jerked herself upright in bed.
She clutched at her own throat, breathing hard, and stared down at her sweat-soaked body as she repeated the ragged gulps of air.
"I'm... back."
Yes. The moment she awoke, everything that had existed until then vanished before her eyes.
The chains, the guards, even the image of him about to violate her.......
Even her torn clothes were now restored upon her, and the sensations of her over-sensitized body had returned to their original state.
"Yes. As expected, it was a dream......."
Even if it had been a lucid dream, it was nothing more than an illusion.
She tried to think that and let out a breath of relief, but Berdia became aware of a strange dissonance in her senses.
The moment her gaze followed that sense and shifted sideways—
There, floating softly in the air of her chamber, was something with pale skin.
Wings sprouting from its back, horns jutting from its head, and a pointed tail — all characteristics of what was commonly called the demonic race.
Among them, the fact that it hovered without its feet touching the ground suggested it belonged to the race called nightmare demons. But no matter how adept that race was at erasing its presence, it should not have been able to evade the eyes of one blessed by the War God.
"U-uhh... um. Hello?"
The nightmare demon looked at her and quietly offered a greeting.
And seeing her, Berdia realized exactly why she had just experienced that lucid dream.
Yes. It was the meddling of this wretched little brat.
"Well, the truth is, I was following my master's orders. I stopped by briefly to scout."
"Scout, you say."
"Yes. Scouting. Um, and then... I got a bit playful. Th-that is......."
"......."
"......I'll, um, I'll just be leaving now."
The nightmare demon fluttered her wings and prepared to exit through the room's window.
-Fwoosh!
In that instant, her path was sealed flawlessly by light that materialized out of thin air, and that light expanded to fill the entire room.
A barrier of light.
The authority of the War God whom Berdia served had, in this moment, manifested in answer to her will.
"As a rule, entering an enemy camp is free — but leaving it is not."
And then a sword made of light formed in her empty hand.
Her god-blessed blade possessed the power to purge all unclean energies that existed in this world.
No matter that a nightmare demon had no physical form — before this light, it could not be free.
"O Lord, I now send one pitiful lamb to your side."
"Kyaaaaaaaaaa!!"
Through the flash that filled the room in the dead of night, a horrifying scream rang out.
And then.....
***
And the next day.
Berdia left the royal castle where she was staying in the early dawn and headed to an open clearing on the mountain behind it, taking a moment to draw deep breaths.
It was to do some light exercise, to free herself from the stifled feeling left by the previous day's events.
'A lapse on my part. To not even notice a nightmare demon entering my bedchamber, no matter that I was asleep.'
Did that mean she had let herself grow that mentally lax? Now that she thought about it, by now spending every night alone pleasuring herself had become almost routine.
It was a secret she could never share with anyone, but if things grew this severe, there could come a time when she let it show outwardly without even realizing it.
'...It might be pent-up frustration.'
No matter how strong her will, there were physiological limits.
But she was sick of being made aware of her own womanhood in this form. With that thought, Berdia took deep, heavy breaths to clear her mind and lightly began to ready her body.
"How lovely. To come for a walk on the back mountain and run into such a welcome face."
Someone approached her that very moment.
Berdia flinched and drew inward, then turned her gaze — and the man standing on the path she had taken smiled and offered his greeting.
"Devoting yourself to training from the early morning, I see? A diligence befitting one of the Ten Greats, as expected."
"......Your Majesty?"
Arhen Alensia.
The young sovereign of the Arhen Kingdom was, from Berdia's standpoint, the liege lord to whom she had sworn fealty.
After requesting his guardian knight's leave, he closed the distance between himself and Berdia and extended one of the two wooden swords he carried.
"Since we meet like this in private, and fate has brought us together — would you mind looking over my swordsmanship for a while?"
"......If that is your command."
Without reluctance, Berdia accepted the wooden sword he had brought.
Whatever the case, she wanted to clear away her idle thoughts right now.