novelraw Chapter 126 : Chapter 126
Chapter 126 : Chapter 126
Chapter 126: Dream? (2)
A dream is regret.
It can be a wish or a hypothesis, and sometimes it has no meaning at all.
To some, it was terrible or ominous, and in some cases, it was a completely different world.
‘I can't speak, and I can't move. I can think. That's it.’
In this dream, Harad was strictly in the position of an observer.
He could only see and hear; he was not a participant in the dream.
‘Is this a lucid dream?’
They say there are cases where you can move as if in reality.
Unfortunately, this dream didn't seem to be that kind.
Like any Mage, Harad was quite interested in dreams.
He had never experienced one, but he knew a certain amount about the phenomenon of dreaming.
‘But why me?’
Mages don't dream.
Because their essence is their Origin.
-I asked first.
But Harad was dreaming.
And a dream about his past life, at that.
-I asked what happens.
Grand Duke Elaine's voice was distinctly different from Ellen's.
It wasn't a matter of gender, but the power contained within it was different. Grand Duke Elaine was strong and arrogant.
It was a voice I missed.
-What do you mean, what happens. If you give birth, you give birth.
Harad, standing next to Grand Duke Elaine, said.
Harad didn't look at him.
It was himself from his past life. There was no reason to look.
Harad knew very well that this was an un-Mage-like act.
He was clearly excited and curious about this first-time dream, but he didn't look around.
It wasn't that the dream forced him.
He just didn't want to take his eyes off Grand Duke Elaine.
‘I want to punch him.’
Grand Duke Elaine was in her male form.
I might not know about Ellen, but I wanted to hit that Grand Duke.
…If only I could meet him.
-Of course, I would give birth. Do you think I would ask something like that?
-It has no effect on the mother. The Origin isn't some contagious disease.
-Not the mother.
Grand Duke Elaine raised her gaze at an angle.
Harad found the composition unfamiliar.
He was always in the position of looking down at that face.
Not looking at it from this far away.
-The mother doesn't matter. What about the child that is born?
-That would depend on the bloodline of the Mage man.
If exposed to magic for a long time, it changes.
The same went for bloodlines. The Aquins were an example of that.
-If it has been for generations, or if there have been frequent Mages, the probability of that man's child also being a Mage will be higher.
If coincidences overlap and there are many Mages in one's ancestry, the probability of that Mage's child also being a Mage increases.
-How much?
-I don't know that.
The Otherworld might know, but the continent doesn't.
It wasn't an environment to compile such statistics.
-Then go to the Otherworld and ask.
-Yes.
-This one's trying to run away. Get back to work.
-Tsk.
Guard Harad went back to looking at the documents.
Dreaming Harad could only see the back, but he had a rough idea of what they were.
This dream was a scene from my memories.
In fact, most moments spent with Elaine were like that.
-What happens if the man is the first Mage in his bloodline.
-Then well, it would be slim. Like other people.
-The child. Is he just a Mage? Are there no other disabilities?
-Probably so. I haven't heard anything like that.
Grand Duke Elaine nodded with a subtle expression.
-Is there anyone around you who is pregnant with a Mage's child?
-No.
-Then why did you ask?
-Curiosity. The curiosity that Mages like you are crazy about.
-Your Highness is not a Mage.
-So what.
The dream was a day of no particular significance.
A daily life I always experienced in my past life. A daily life that had disappeared for the regressed Harad…….
I saw the ceiling.
“Ah.”
My voice came out.
It seemed the phenomenon of dreaming began and ended suddenly.
‘Did Elaine dream of this every time?’
She dreamt of her past life.
I presumed that the dreams Elaine had would be similar to this.
Harad stared blankly at the ceiling.
Grand Duke Elaine's face was drawn there.
It was already vivid, but the dream made it even more so.
How much time had passed?
“……?”
A face that suddenly popped into my vision blocked Grand Duke Elaine's face.
It wasn't a face I wanted to see first thing in the morning.
“You're awake.”
It was Cassion.
As befitting someone with a tiny dot for an Origin, he seemed to have entered stealthily.
“To think you were lazing around. You're lazy, you are.”
“……What is it?”
“The Grand Heir ordered me to bring you. It's time for breakfast, but you're not there.”
Cassion said in a loud voice.
“Is that all?”
“Yesterday, Miss Ellen told you to apologize to me again in the morning. I'm sorry.”
Cassion apologized coolly, like a Northerner.
“It's fine. I was just trying to test the waters with what I said.”
Cassion moved his face away.
Harad got up.
If it were up to me, I'd want to lie down more, but Elaine was waiting.
“Hey, Cassion. I had a dream.”
“It's a good thing to have goals.”
“Not that kind of dream, the kind you have when you sleep.”
“……?”
Cassion's expression turned strange.
“Did you get hit in the head by His Highness the Grand Duke yesterday?”
* * *
There are many reasons why Ellen comes to find me.
She wants to go to the Boundary, she's hungry, or she wants to drink.
‘Or she's bored.’
But the reasons why Elaine comes to find me are set.
“I had a dream. Last night.”
Elaine said, stabbing a piece of meat with her fork.
Harad's eyes lit up. He had had a dream too.
“What kind of dream was it?”
“It was a silly dream.”
Though she said that, her tone wasn't disappointed.
“In the dream, I, as the Grand Duke, was asking you about a Mage's child.”
“You mean if a Mage's child is also a Mage?”
“How did you know?”
“……When you ask a Mage about their child, that's usually the question.”
“Right. I suppose so.”
Elaine nodded her head.
Then she said with a laugh.
“In my dream, you and I are very close.”
Harad couldn't laugh.
‘We had the same dream.’
It wasn't just any dream. It was a dream caused by a stimulus.
When stimulated, Elaine dreams of her past life's memories.
And Harad had dreamt that together with her last night.
‘Why?’
It was a phenomenon he was experiencing for the first time.
‘What has changed?’
There were no clues.
I had given her a stimulus as I always had, and Elaine had simply had a dream.
There was no reason for the regressed Harad to dream of his past life.
“And I had one more. Before this dream.”
Elaine added then.
Her fork dug into the innocent meat. It looked like she was organizing her thoughts.
“It was when I was out on a subjugation. It was a snowy mountain.”
Elaine spoke haltingly.
“I don't know if you know, but I don't sleep during subjugations. My body is such that I don't have to.”
Even if the soldiers rested, Elaine didn't.
Because the more she did so, the less the burden on the soldiers. Harad nodded his head. Elaine had been like that since her past life.
“My condition at the time wasn't bad. On the contrary, it was good. I was injured, but not severely.”
At that, Harad tilted his head.
Injured? That Elaine, in a mere snowy mountain subjugation?
“The Magical Beast was stronger than I thought. I had a hard time.”
A hard time?
“I was in the middle of fighting when I had a dream. It was strange. I was definitely awake.”
“…….”
“I was moving, swinging my sword, but I heard a voice. It was definitely my voice. The voice of myself as the Grand Duke that I saw in my dreams.”
Elaine emphasized that it was a dream where she only heard a voice.
“That's not how you wield Innate Strength. That's what I, as the Grand Duke, said.”
It felt like something had exploded in my head.
Harad finally realized.
It wasn't a snowy mountain, nor a Magical Beast.
Elaine was now talking about the dream she had when she was Ellen.
When she was fighting Avery Aquins, Ellen had a dream.
“She said I had to do it my way. But I shouldn't try to understand or think about it.”
“…….”
“Then a time will come when I'll naturally want to cut, and I'll be able to cut.”
Back then.
Ellen hadn't awakened her Innate Strength through Harad's advice.
She had awakened it through a dream, through her future self.
“So it got cut. That strong Magical Beast, I mean.”
Elaine seemed slightly excited.
It was as if she still couldn't forget the feel of it in her hand.
It must have been that thrilling.
“I see.”
Harad said as calmly as he could.
However, he couldn't deny that he was as excited as Elaine.
It wasn't a snowy mountain, but the Boundary.
It wasn't a Magical Beast, but Avery Aquins.
To be precise, his manifested river.
‘She had a dream without falling asleep.’
It was a phenomenon I was experiencing for the first time.
It was probably the reason why Harad had a dream.
‘The restriction of the regression. No, it must be the effect. The effect has deepened.’
Until now, Elaine had had quite a few dreams.
Because of that, she had moved on to the next stage.
She had started to have dreams even in reality.
‘But it's not completely like that. Last night, she had a dream through sleep.’
Either she hasn't had enough dreams to move on to the next stage completely.
Or she dreams in a different format only at specific moments.
‘The stimulus is abundant, but it's not a situation where she can fall asleep. In those cases, does the dream come out in a different format?’
It wasn't something I could know now.
This was the first case.
But either way, it was clear that the effect of the regression on Elaine had deepened.
And that influence was passed on to Harad.
It was a natural phenomenon, if you think about it.
Elaine and Harad are connected.
Because the regression pebble originally belonged to Grand Duke Elaine.
That magical item maintained its effect through Elaine's blood. Harad had eaten it instead.
‘Then what about me? From now on, will we always dream together?’
This too, I couldn't be sure of.
‘It's a phenomenon I haven't heard of.’
Either Elaine of my past life didn't say it, or she didn't know.
‘It must be the latter.’
There's no way she would have just passed over such an important clue.
That Grand Duke might look ignorant on the outside, but she was smarter than she looked.
“What do you think?”
Elaine asked then.
She already knew that the dream was related to Harad.
“Is it a bad thing? It feels like the dream has penetrated me more deeply.”
Indeed, Elaine was sharp.
Penetrated. An accurate expression. Elaine was aware that the dream had come to have more of an influence on her.
“Do you dislike it?”
“I welcome it. Because I will definitely uncover what this dream is. I'm glad that the object of my investigation has gotten closer.”
The dream. And Harad's secret.
Elaine was determined to find out, no matter what.
“I'm asking for your thoughts. How does it sound to you, who is related to this magic?”
Elaine called the dream magic.
She was indeed moving forward.
“From that standpoint, it's a good phenomenon.”
“And the details are a secret? Ah. Ellen said so. That you have a lot of secrets.”
“That's right.”
Harad smiled.
As mysteriously as possible.
“……Can I hit you?”
“Not yet.”
Harad was holding back on that too.
Until Elaine regains her past life.
* * *
What if she dismisses it as a dream until the end?
I had had that worry before.
Grand Duke Elaine had advised me to reveal the secret that she was a woman.
It was advice that became pointless as I got along with Ellen.
Because a path to being found out through Ellen had opened.
‘It was a needless worry.’
There's no way she would dismiss it as a dream until the end.
Harad gained that conviction.
The more she dreams, the darker her past life will become.
The regression pebble. That bizarre magical item would surely color that young Elaine with her past life.
‘Elaine is already sufficiently aware of the dream.’
The effect of the regression will deepen the more she dreams.
‘So it's a matter of me doing my job well.’
I just have to keep doing what I've been doing.
It felt like finding a signpost in a deep forest with no exit.
The deepened effect of the regression was telling me that the direction I was going was right.
“By any chance.”
Elaine said in a whisper.
Her face was very serious.
“Am I not a Mage?”
“……?”
“The dream is my Origin.”
What kind of nonsense is this now.
“How could that be.”
Harad, who had been getting his hopes up for nothing, let out a sigh.
Elaine became ignorant when it was really important.
“It was a joke. I thought it probably wasn't either.”
Elaine, who said that, looked disappointed.
It seemed her deduction had been serious.
“It's difficult.”
“…….”
“Well, it's a shame. I'll think about it more. I'll probably find out more as I dream.”
However, her direction was right.
Just like Harad, Elaine was going in the direction she needed to go.
“Ah. And your new status has come out. It's an escort knight, no less. No. It would be an escort Mage.”
Harad's eyes widened.
In his past life, he had been Elaine's escort knight.
It was something that happened 9 years later. When Elaine became the Grand Duke.
“But the salary hasn't been decided yet. The owner is quite a villain. She said she would meet you in person to decide.”
The corners of Elaine's eyes curved.
The money wasn't really important.
What was important was the position by Elaine's side.
I became her escort 9 years earlier than in my past life.
It was a clear reward of the regression.
“How much is it.”
But Harad played along with Elaine's prank.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Didn't I become the Grand Heir's escort?”
“Hmm? Oh. You have higher self-esteem than I thought.”
“……?”
“I am the Grand Heir. You are a hostage. Don't we not match in class.”
Is he crazy?
“The one you have to escort is not me, the Grand Heir. It's Ellen.”
“What?”
“Congratulations. From today, you are Ellen's escort Mage.”
Elaine grinned.
“Wait a moment. I'll go get your owner right away.”
Her face said she was dying to tease me right away.