Chapter 94 Chapter 93 Dream
A mature man sits at the long table, with brown hair, a neat beard, and a slender figure—this is the benevolent lord, Bransy.
This man, who had always been polite, now exudes an air of authority without anger. He presses his hands firmly on the table, forcefully restraining his anger, and says:
“Chamberlain, you are too impulsive.”
The dark-skinned, one-eyed Chamberlain stands silently before Lord Bransy, enduring the reprimand.
Lord Bransy continues:
“I entrusted my most elite subordinates to you, the enemy fell into the trap in New Delhi, and yet you let them escape?”
Chamberlain replies:
“If it weren’t for New Delhi’s impulsiveness, the enemy would never have escaped from the dungeon.”
“Is that your excuse for leaving the enemy unarmed?”
“He is the brave George, the demon-slaying hero, not some random nobody picked up off the street.”
“Fine, I won’t say much more.” Lord Bransy continues to question sternly, “Why did you impose martial law on the entire city? You clearly know that Shalin City relies on this Rainbow Festival to turn its fortunes around. I can’t even hold my daughter’s funeral openly for fear of scaring away guests, and yet you, in order to catch two people, have closed the city gates and blocked the ports. My enemies will be happily sleepless tonight.”
Chamberlain raises his voice, “But that’s a demon-slaying hero, George! I could have caught him, but my men went missing in the hot zone. I suspect that big boss from the underground waterway is to blame.”
“Hero George is completely unimportant, not worth mentioning. You need to prioritize,” Lord Bransy stares at Chamberlain and says, “He is a paladin; what kind of storm can he stir in Shalin City? He could even be a potential collaborator. The Sanctuary won’t allow a madman named Shadow King to kill all the nobles, leaving chaos in his wake.”
“I want to investigate the boss, Florris. He must be hiding George.”
“I won’t allow it,” Lord Bransy says. “I know you just want to hang that fat man.”
“Yes, I would love to hang that dead fat man with my own hands,” Chamberlain replies. “For the sake of the Rainbow Festival, even the thieves from the underground waterway want to pull off a clean-up and become nobles. Otherwise, people will laugh at our nobles in Shalin City, saying they are all small thieves.”
“We need him.”
“Then we no longer need us old friends?”
“I have given you command of the strongest warriors. Yet you have disappointed me.”
“Warriors? I’d say a group of big orcs are smarter than them. Following orders? They are just a bunch of children,” Chamberlain comments bluntly.
“Chamberlain,” Lord Bransy says, “Is this you? Someone who pushes all the blame onto others, onto his subordinates, impulsive and irritable… a ‘warrior’?”
Chamberlain tightens his lips and after a long time finally says, “I will redeem myself.”
Lord Bransy sighs and says:
“I have no other options. Ever since that bastard Demon King Kima died, our slave trade volume has been declining, now down by half. The mages we support can’t do anything but slave contracts and keep asking me for money. To make up for the financial gap, I’ve increased the workload for the slave laborers by nearly half, and now many slaves are trying to escape. During this time, Florris’s contributions to Shalin City are obvious; if he hadn’t dominated the underground world, Shalin City wouldn’t be so stable.”
“Then he should continue hiding in the shadows; we haven’t skimped on paying him.”
“But we have no money,” Lord Bransy says. “I have no choice. He came to me demanding repayment, and even hinted that if I keep dallying, he won’t hunt down slave bandits, and refuse to provide us with information on slaves. He might even stir things up, and if he allies with Deepwater City, we’re done for. I can only allow him to attend the banquet to placate him.”
Chamberlain fell silent and said, “If we could find the Demon King’s treasury, we could get rid of him.”
“Coincidentally, I have reached an agreement with him.” Lord Bransy says, “As long as he can find and open the Demon King’s treasury in the maze, I will fulfill my promise. If he is slower than you, then he will no longer mention becoming a noble.”
“He won’t catch up to me.” Chamberlain’s gaze softens.
“I will give you all the search teams and that universal key,” Lord Bransy says. “Don’t let me down.”
“Thank you.”
“But if you fail this time…”
“I’ll hold my nose and watch him become a clown noble,” Chamberlain says just as the words leave his mouth.
“You nobles are all robbers and thieves. May your whole family die a terrible death.”
A crisp female voice echoes in the room.
It is indeed Jima, already deep in Chamberlain’s dream. Furious upon hearing their discussion about her “inheritance,” Jima hides behind the curtains in this spacious room. Although one doesn’t remain fully awake in dreams, it’s best to be cautious in a “stronger” golden dream.
Although Chamberlain should not have heard Jima’s voice, he seems to have caught something, turning his gaze toward her position.
Jima feels a pressure bearing down on her, the dream’s master sensing something is amiss. She quickly tucks her head back behind the curtain, trying to distort the dream and open a door in her back to escape the room, but as her palm touches the window behind her, she finds no change.
Heavy footsteps come from behind.
If discovered by Chamberlain, it won’t be easy to enter the dream next time.
Jima calms herself, silently muttering, “You can’t see me, can’t see me…”
But she feels the pressure on her increasing, as if to expel her from this dream.
A hand grabs the curtain and yanks it open—it’s the one-eyed Chamberlain. His single eye shoots a strange glance through Jima, scanning the area as if she were just a gust of air.
Jima waves her hand in front of him; Chamberlain doesn’t react, turning to leave, while Lord Bransy at the long table remains motionless in his seat. He doesn’t say goodbye, not a single word.
This is quite illogical, but dreams have no logic.
Jima silently breathes a sigh of relief.
As expected of me, I am indeed a former Demon King; even a copper could enter a golden dream.
Just then, she feels a wave of fatigue wash over her mind, a desperate urge to collapse onto the bed and sleep. The dream around her shatters, the entire room flickering and constantly shifting into other scenes.
The dream is slipping out of control. Hiding just now exhausted too much magic…
This is a sign of losing control, a sign of excessive use of extraordinary abilities.
Jima uses her last bit of energy; she raises a hand and waves it, creating an oval, deep blue hole ahead, along with a dreamscape that is only black and white.
She steps into the dream, her head suddenly pounding, exhaustion engulfing her. Her heart races while feeling its beats grow faint; she gasps, her heart weakly thumping against her chest.
It feels like she’s about to die suddenly. This sensation is familiar, as if she has returned to the days of overworked night shifts.
Hold on a little longer, I need to go back.
The surroundings transform into Chamberlain’s bedroom. Jima pushes open the window, lifts her feet, and weakly tumbles out, heading toward the ground. Gazing at the approaching lawn, Jima yearns to lie on the soft grass and sleep; her eyes grow heavy, her eyelids about to close.
Am I jumping off a building?
She suddenly panics, swiftly spreading her wings, her nose brushing the grass. In this dream, she lifts off gracefully into the air. While pinching her cheek to wake her exhausted nerves, she heads toward her sleeping place.
Walking in a dream requires magic. A dream lacking in magic will backfire. Symptoms include extreme fatigue. Jima is uncertain about what would happen if she fell asleep in the dream; she only vaguely feels that it would be terrifying.
The buildings below recede rapidly as Jima pinches her face, feeling no pain; her eyelids just flutter, her nerves relaxing. Suddenly, the scenery before her blurs, she closes her eyes, and falls from the dream’s sky, asleep.
No longer forcing herself to stay awake; this feeling of comfortably falling asleep is truly delightful.
Just before losing consciousness, Jima thinks.
The comforting darkness lasts for an unknown time.
Until a familiar male voice sounds.
“Jima, Jima, wake up, don’t pretend to be asleep!”
It is George’s voice, but with more anger than before.
Jima inexplicably feels a pang of fear, overwhelmed by the sensation that her transformation secret has been revealed and broadcast on paper everywhere. She opens her eyes to see George, his face flushed with anger.
He holds the fake treasury key in his hand, almost shouting at her:
“Jima! This is fake! In front of a hundred people, I shouted something about Ultraman transforming, and now they all think I’m crazy! Where is the real one? Tell me!”
“I’d rather die than tell you!”
“Alright,” George replies coldly, “I’ll just have to kill you.”
After saying this, George pulls out a massive sword from somewhere, the blade pointed at Jima’s chest, right where the hero stabbed the Demon King that day. Jima’s chest aches slightly.
But she just grits her teeth.
George asks again, “Not only did you deceive me, did you? Tell me! Was the matter of four hundred pounds your doing? If you don’t want to be stabbed, then speak.”
Jima, afraid, says, “No, it wasn’t.”
“Liar!”
The point of the sword presses ever so slightly into her chest.
Jima, frightened, hurries to say, “Yes, yes! I entered her dream and arranged a wonderful dream for her. Ninety percent of the content was indecent. You are the male lead, and you acted in a film with plenty of fight scenes. And you wore very little.”
George’s gaze suddenly sharpens more than the sword’s edge.
Jima quickly adds, “Alright, you wore nothing at all.”
George’s face turns purplish-red as he almost squeezes the words out through his teeth:
“What was your purpose in doing this?”
“It was fun.”
“Liar!”
Jima stammers, and under George’s repeated threats, she anxiously closes her eyes and, in shame, shouts:
“I wanted to seduce you!”
Whoosh!
Jima, startled, suddenly opens her eyes and sits up in bed.
“Jima, did you have a nightmare again?”
A voice much gentler than before comes.
Jima jumps in surprise, springing up from the bed, clutching the thin blanket, looking at George while huddling.
“Jima, it’s me.”
Seeing his friendly expression, Jima realizes that she just had a nightmare.
“Jima, what’s wrong?”
“I had a really scary nightmare,” Jima sighs in relief, recalling the moment in the dream when she shouted those words, sending shivers down her spine.
She adds:
“It was so terrifying that even now, just thinking about it makes me want to die.”
