Chapter 78 - Dreaming a White Dream
I had a dream after a long time.
Perhaps it was because of all that had accumulated over time.
Or maybe due to extreme stress.
A dream full of flesh-colored tones.
The fact that the people around me had familiar faces gave me a bit of guilt.
But even greater was the feeling of blasphemy and thrill it brought.
“Master! Grrrr-woof-woof kyaoooh!”
Starting with Lumi, who unlike her usual self, was wagging her tail in a different way, flapping it energetically with hearts popping in her eyes.
“Hoho, finally this day has come.”
Elise, who was sending me seductive smiles with half-closed eyes while flicking her tongue.
“Th-this is so blasphemous…!”
Yohena, covering her reddened cheeks with both hands, yet unable to take her sparkling eyes away from my lower body as she peeked through her fingers.
“Mother, are you watching? Your daughter finally…”
And even Saha, who was drenched in water, looking up at the sky and offering a solemn prayer.
Hmm.
If heaven exists, wouldn’t it be this place?
Of course, seeing Tinya and Neb’s eyes peering from the bedside with bright, curious gazes made me feel somewhat guilty again.
But I’m not so ordinary that I would refuse a meal laid out before me.
“Grrrr, I can’t hold back anymore…!”
I immediately jumped up from the bed.
Jumped up…?
I wanted to jump up, but my body wouldn’t listen.
It was as if someone had tied me up tight, preventing me from moving at all. There was no strength in my body, and there was a heavy sensation as if a rock was pressing down on me.
Among all my bodily organs, the only one functioning properly was my extremely angry little precious boy.
“Then, I’ll start…”
Arachne’s languid voice came from somewhere near my head, beyond my field of vision.
And.
“Urgh…”
As I felt all strength leaving my body, my consciousness started spinning.
“Ughh…!”
With a terribly stiff sensation weighing down my entire body, I finally woke up from sleep.
Well, that figures…
I shuddered at the sensation of my whole body being unable to move, as if I were still experiencing sleep paralysis.
After all the chase drama throughout the early morning, and then holding a strategy meeting after returning, it was natural to feel tired.
But.
The moment I forced my unwilling eyelids open and returned from the dream world to reality.
“…?”
I witnessed it.
Myself, completely wrapped in the threads spun by Arachne.
What is this?
Betrayal?
Had she finally decided to use me as prey…?
Dawn.
After a very heated debate with raised voices, the heroes were able to reach an agreement.
One.
We will respect the Revelator’s autonomous will as much as possible.
To reach this agreement, there was a fierce debate between the “Marriage by Capture” faction represented by Saha and Renatel, and the “Pure Love” faction represented by Yohena and Elise.
But in the end, the righteous Pure Love faction that advocated fairness rather than pouncing first and receiving seed struck more of a chord with the “Other” factions.
It was a precious result achieved through the logical annihilation by the alliance of the Saint and the Witch.
Of course, Tinya’s decisive statement:
“Then, wouldn’t Master die?”
A clear rebuke stemming from concern for the master with his weak vitality below that of a hero, also helped determine the general consensus.
Two.
We will grant priority “access rights” according to past contributions.
This agreement was reached more smoothly than expected, because although it was clearly disadvantageous to latecomers, the latecomers themselves didn’t express much dissatisfaction.
In Arachne’s case, she claimed “I’m happy as long as I’m fed,” advocating for truly pure and innocent mukbang love.
Renatel tried to say something “kyup” but lost her right to speak when Lumi immediately went “kyang” and she responded with “king.”
As for Neb.
“I’m a crime.”
“Huh?”
“You too, girl.”
She threw out a very cynical remark and, using the “water ghost” strategy, dragged Tinya along to declare an early surrender in the first night rights competition.
Three.
Other matters of agreement shall be determined by the internal emergency committee.
Since everyone knew well that if the heroes fought each other with genuine emotions, this old guild house would collapse completely.
Everyone agreed with the grand cause of building perpetual peace for the future era by establishing a consensus.
However.
Since agreement did not immediately lead to sincere trust, the conclusion that a surveillance system was needed to prevent someone from having bad intentions and committing deviations was also easily reached.
One of those physical measures was:
To have a guard role who would manage Ark’s “safety” from a neutral position in exchange for receiving a portion of the snacks that fall to the heroes’ share.
“I. Hungry. Food.”
Arachne, armed with a white whip and wearing an indifferent expression, smoothly unwound her threads that were tightly wrapped around Ark’s body.
“What, in the world…”
Ark, who had awakened in a fantastically abrupt manner, had a dumbfounded expression.
Of course.
“Food.”
“Yes… I’m sorry…”
He soothed Rene, who was growling (actually 99% similar to) like a pet dog Poppy that had missed breakfast.
Even at that point.
Ark couldn’t imagine that this would be repeated every morning.
It might be somewhat fortunate that it wouldn’t take long for the deadlock between predators eyeing their prey to be completely resolved.
After putting a temporary closure notice on Celestia’s general store, we prepared for all-out war.
The situation wasn’t mellow enough to just sing “Let’s do business, let’s make a living, another cheerful day today.”
After a good night’s sleep, the blood finally started circulating to my head, and I felt that I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night due to frustration unless I embedded a meteorite into the heads of those despicable lizards.
With no business ethics at all.
How dare they strike first?
This is a completely different issue from when Enya kidnapped me.
That was already predetermined in the scenario.
This was them interfering by distorting the flow of the scenario I knew.
“Therefore, I will brief you on the dinosaur extinction plan.”
Gathering the heroes, I explained the plan for conquering the 23rd floor, mobilizing all my game knowledge to the fullest.
Due to the twisted scenario, there might be incorrect details, but I had blocked as many variables as possible so that the field commander could judge and resolve them well at their discretion.
“Therefore, Renatel is the leader of Team 2. Everyone, applause!”
Clap clap clap!
“Aha, ahaha…”
Renatel smiled awkwardly, feeling shy.
I should have done this from the beginning.
Unlike our ragtag group of heroes, Renatel was already a super-high-school-level, no, a super-hero-level resistance fighter who had led her own group against powerful authorities.
Although her means of struggle were said to be childish, there must have been excellent leadership supporting her ability to grow her forces without being subjugated.
“And for the remaining Team 2, there’s Yohena, Saha, Rene, and Ari. So we’ll go with a total of five people.”
Seeing the Saint’s cheeks rapidly swell with displeasure, I hastily added an explanation.
“Neb is also an excellent healer, though not as good as Yohena. So I think Yohena can deal with more variables.”
“Ehik, hit.”
I suppressed the rebellion of the foolish Saint whose mouth corners twitched foolishly at just a single word of praise.
“…You know without me saying, right?”
“Ahem.”
“Hehe…”
I added another spoonful of authority to Renatel by giving a meaningful look to Saha and Ari, who statistically had the highest accident rates.
I could self-evaluate that this would prevent complications from impulsive actions as much as possible.
…Now what remained.
Was to properly discipline our Team 1, which had to resume from where we left off yesterday.
“No grabbing collars, no biting anything, no nyah-nyah punches at flying objects, no purring at strangers…”
“Nyaaaa…”
“Myang…”
After implanting these basic nagging reminders.
As research material, give me your sperm.
Suddenly remembering that line from yesterday—
While chewing over the statement of the mad scientist who coveted missiles from my Dynamic Armstrong Multi-Launch Rocket Launcher.
I ran one last mental simulation on how to naturally avoid that situation without the heroes going wild.
As a result.
That simulation was completely meaningless.
“You’re back. Are you ready to cooperate?”
Ryu-a, who was speaking while lazily leaning back in the same chair as yesterday, appeared before me.
“Hoho, of course? Here it is!”
A beaker containing a white liquid with a strange viscosity flew from behind me and landed precisely in Ryu-a’s hands.
While my language center was paralyzed and my brain circuits were overloaded.
Pop—
Ryu-a, who had opened the beaker lid, immediately sniffed it.
“Hmm. Interesting. Were you already in that kind of relationship?”
Ryu-a, with a slightly excited face, attached an authentic certification mark and tucked it into her bosom.
What was that reaction?
What did I just see?
What happened?
Creeak, creeak, as my neck turned unnaturally, I looked at Elise.
“Hohoho.”
Elise was only showing the same seductive smile she always showed me.
No.
What was that, really…?