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“Hmm~ So delicious~”

A thick pink mist enveloped the Marquis Territory.

Perched atop the inn’s roof, the Nightmare, Lilith, licked her lips.

On this night, when everyone was supposed to be asleep,

she alone basked in the moonlight, savoring her gourmet meal.

For her, a meal was not a material thing, but a semi-material one.

The prime examples being the emotions of others: fear, anger, sorrow, and more.

Currently, the pink mist blanketing the Marquis Territory was one of her abilities.

The efficacy of this mist was to force people into slumber while granting them dreams.

It wasn’t always the case that everyone slept at night.

There were soldiers on watch, couples enjoying themselves, and little children getting up to go to the bathroom.

For whatever reasons, there never existed a time when everyone was asleep simultaneously.

Moreover, dreams were always unruly.

You didn’t just dream what you wanted to; some days you’d have a pleasant dream filled with your ideals, while other days, you’d be shown the most horrifying scenes you dreaded.

All of it was variable.

In such a situation where everything was unpredictable, Lilith had to make humans fall asleep and dream.

Thus, she first learned the ability called Puppet.

It was aptly named, as it meant to control a human’s consciousness.

This was the true nature of the mist densely covering the Marquis Territory.

Functioning as a sleeping medicine while simultaneously facilitating dreams, it eliminated variables.

Additionally, those dreams were designed to always manifest as nightmares.

“Hmm~ There are quite a few decent humans around here~”

She could peek into the dreams of others.

Even now.

Peering into the nightmares of others, she was feeding on their negative emotions as her meal.

The nutrients varied depending on the intensity of the emotions felt by humans.

For instance, the sorrow of a child who fell while playing and scraped their knee, compared to the sorrow of an old man who lost his life companion—whose feelings would be more intense?

Unquestionably, the latter.

In that sense, there were many humans in this Marquis Territory who had quality nightmares.

Who dreamed what kind of nightmares? Why were they angry, sad, or scared?

Such things were beyond her concern.

She simply wished for them to be angrier, cry more, and be more afraid.

That was all.

“Humans are so weak.”

Why do they struggle so much over mere dreams that aren’t even reality?

However, those who could easily crumble over just dreams were what humans were.

Yet that was all Lilith could know.

Her abilities could be considered stronger than raw physical power.

It was as if she struck at the unguarded weak spots of her opponents by invading their subconscious.

“Well then, shall I go fulfill my purpose?”

She stood up and spread her wings.

Although she had wrapped the entire Marquis Territory with her Puppet ability, her original intent was a single party.

Lilith first intruded through the window of the room housing the Beastman woman.

A Beastman woman lying on her bed, weeping.

Lilith placed her hand on the woman’s forehead.

“Hoo… Such a nightmare. Your trauma seems to run deeper than I thought?”

Just peeking was satisfying enough to make her lips quiver with fullness.

“I’m looking forward to it? Cry more for me~”

With that, Lilith left the room and headed to the opposite one.

This time, it was a room housing a small silver-haired woman.

As before, Lilith placed her hand on the woman’s forehead and peeked into her dream.

“Oh? She’s a vampire? I heard they all died, but seems like I was mistaken.”

Not just any vampire, but a queen.

“What is she doing here?”

It was an unexpected variable, but since she was also having a fairly nice nightmare, it didn’t matter.

Lilith thought that things might finish smoothly this way.

And lastly.

Making her way to the adjacent room across the hall, Lilith spotted a black-haired man lying on the bed.

This time, she placed her hand not on his forehead but on his stomach.

To use one of her other abilities.

“Now, shall I dive in for the finish?”

Her other ability was simply to intervene in another person’s dream.

In other words, the ability to intrude into someone’s dream.

Aside from a few drawbacks, this was her most powerful ability.

The first problem was that since she had to directly intervene in the dream herself, she could only intervene in one person’s dream at a time unless she resorted to some sort of clone technique.

But even considering that, it remained an intimidating ability.

The most frightening aspect of this power was that if she killed her target in their dreams, it could lead to their mental collapse—a very terrifying prospect.

While they wouldn’t die in reality, upon waking, they’d be reduced to a state where they couldn’t find even a shred of reason; they would become a vegetable.

And so, her consciousness was pulled into the man’s nightmare.

*

Upon entering the dream, the emotion Lilith felt was not joy or pleasure, but curiosity.

What greeted her immediately was a pitch-black room.

No, to be precise, aside from a few beams of light, it was engulfed in darkness.

Of course, it was normal for nightmares to be dark and gloomy.

She had seen dreams of children trapped in rooms due to parental abuse before.

Lilith surveyed the room.

Desks, beds, and more. While she recognized the shapes, they looked vastly different than what she remembered.

The furnishings appeared far more elegant… that kind of vibe.

And the most suspicious items were the myriad colorful boxes glowing beneath the desk, and something resembling a white glowing box atop it.

These were objects she had never seen before; could it be that the person dreaming was some sort of dreamer?

For a moment of curiosity, she recalled her original purpose and began searching for the owner of this dream.

Having been momentarily distracted by the glowing boxes earlier, she soon noticed an individual sitting in a chair in front of them.

But something felt off.

The fact that there was only one person in this dream meant that the man seated there was the dream’s owner.

Yet he was clearly different from the man she had seen before entering.

His face was marred by dark circles, and he appeared weary.

The only resemblance was the hair color.

Color of his irises and the shape of his face—everything was different from the man she had just seen.

“…You. Who exactly are you?”

In this unfamiliar place, standing before someone who wasn’t the dream’s owner,

posed a question Lilith spoke without realizing it.

And then.

Snip, snap.

A sound came from his neck, and he turned to look in Lilith’s direction.

Soon,

– Grin.

With a smile that seemed to split his face, his eyes reflected Lilith.

The moment she blinked in surprise.

“Hii, hiiii…!”

The man who had been sitting just a moment ago stood up.

Was it fear?

With each blink of her eyes, it felt like he was getting closer.

No, as it turned out, it wasn’t an illusion.

He was genuinely drawing nearer.

“Let’s have some fun together—”

“D-Don’t come any closer!!”

Lilith raised her hand.

To both alter the dream in her favor and to unleash magic.

However, nothing happened.

“W-What kind of mental strength…?”

This was the second problem with her ability to intervene in the nightmare.

Although she could alter the nightmare somewhat to her advantage, ultimately, the owner of the dream—the one dreaming—was the man himself.

In other words, that meant him.

As a result, she couldn’t perform beyond a certain degree of manipulation, and the stronger the mental fortitude of the dream’s owner was, the higher the chance that she could become trapped in the dream or get engulfed by the nightmare.

Lilith hadn’t considered this problem because, throughout her countless intrusions into the dreams of thousands of humans, she had never encountered one with such formidable mental strength.

That meant that Lilith, having entered the dream of this mentally strong man, was currently a weakling, unable to use magic or manipulate the nightmare.

“Haha… A newbie, huh? So lewd. Slurp. Drooling all over… hehehe.”

“Please, don’t come near me!!!”

*

-I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella.

From one of the boxes next to the shining box, a woman’s voice echoed out.

Shortly after, text filled her line of sight.

-YOU DIED.

How many times had it been already?

Lilith had no time to marvel at the unfamiliar item.

The reason was fatigue.

In the dream time, it had been three days.

72 hours.

4,320 minutes.

259,200 seconds.

That was the duration Lilith and the man beside her had been awake without rest.

Lilith had not been murdered or killed since then.

Thinking it was fortunate, she gradually realized that death would have been the better option as time went on.

The individual was spouting strange words she couldn’t comprehend, continuously saying something next to her.

Even though she hadn’t been listening, fatigue began piling up.

Moreover, he seemed to want something from her.

Operating the unfamiliar device to make the pictures in the box move, he provided her with unclear information at ten-second intervals.

“Damn it! Just run!!”

“Nyeh~!”

“That’s not it! You have to parry three times before you can strike back!”

“Y-Yes, four!!”

Unable to escape, having her strength reduced to that of an ordinary human, Lilith had no choice but to comply with his demands.

And gradually, she was able to infer some information from what he was saying.

This screen showcasing pictures wasn’t a magical tool but a machine, and she was currently playing a game.

But…

‘Why do humans engage in such games?!’

The man presumed to be her counterpart in the box was naked.

No, to be exact, he was dressed only in his underwear.

His skin wasn’t human; it was purple, and his face was distorted even more grotesquely than a goblin’s.

All he held was a small shield and a wooden stick.

The difficulty level was absurd, and she’d die with just one hit, and even her health was reduced to a mere fraction upon hitting back.

It made no sense.

Why was he doing this?

No, before that, what was the purpose of creating such a thing?

Was it crafted to torment someone?

Why? What benefit does one human gain by tormenting another?

It was filled with things her knowledge couldn’t comprehend.

What’s worse, the man next to her was only allowed to use special techniques that reflected the opponent’s attacks—not the simple method of just hitting.

When she had swung the bat at him without understanding what was happening, his gaze had been truly terrifying.

Those eyes looked as if they belonged to a seasoned warrior who had survived numerous battles.

Regardless, after that, she could only follow his instructions.

After three days of arduous efforts, her endeavors bore fruit.

“I-I did it…!”

The woman who had tortured her in the images fell to her knees and collapsed.

‘Finally, I can get out of here…!’

“Prepare quickly!”

“Huh…?”

She thought it was over, but it wasn’t.

The woman, who she believed had collapsed, began to bloom a red flower and flung her helmet off, soaring into the air along with her wings.

“The second phase begins! The second phase starts from the red Aeonia!”

Second phase?

What’s that?

She didn’t know such a thing.

Wasn’t it supposed to be over by now?

When she came to her senses, the box was full of blossoming red flowers.

-YOU DIED.

“Ah… I died. I have to start over. Now that I’ve seen the second phase, perhaps if I try just a little harder, I can wake up, right?”

From the beginning?

You mean, I have to do this from the start…?

“I-I don’t want to anymore…!”

No more!

In her desperation, a door appeared in the room that had none.

For a brief moment, an exit manifested due to her fervent wish.

Lilith rushed from her position toward the door.

And finally, when she opened the door and escaped, she found herself alongside the silver-haired Beastman woman and the vampire in the inn room she knew.

“P-Please, save me!!!!!!”

She begged them to rescue her.

It felt like she was going insane.

Being trapped in a dark room, repeating the same position and actions for three days was too much.

“No! I want to stop now! Just kill me instead!!!!!!”

If escape was impossible, then dying would be the better option.

“Did you break it, you perverted little thing?”

With a rough grip on her horn, she felt the touch of the voice she’d just been hearing.

“Kyaah! Kyaaaahhh!!!”

In the end, she missed her first and last opportunity to escape and got sucked back into the dream.

Thus, a day passed.

In reality, it was a day, but after a week in the dream, Lilith finally managed to break free from the nightmare.

 

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