Chapter 12 – A Witch’s Dream
I had a dream.
I was already dreaming that Emperor Eckardt was feeding me medicine mouth-to-mouth, but then, within that dream, I fell asleep and started having another dream.
Goodness, dreaming inside a dream? What a complicated thing to do.
But then an unexpected person appeared in this new dream—a young Emperor Eckardt—so I figured this kind of absurdity was just par for the course in dreams.
Emperor Eckardt looked about ten years old. He was very young, but his features were already extraordinarily perfect. Ah, handsome people are handsome even when they’re little, I thought, strangely impressed.
However, that peaceful impression didn’t last long.
A swarm of adults appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the young Eckardt, and pinned him to the floor.
The adults shouted something, and young Eckardt, pressed against the floor, lifted his head and retorted fiercely.
Whatever the situation, for a group of grown adults to surround and pin down a single boy was outrageous. Just as I was feeling indignant, one of the adults drew a sword with a smooth motion, and I gasped.
“Stop it!”
I let out a sharp cry, but it seemed no one could hear me. The adult with the sword didn’t hesitate; he drove the blade into the nape of the pinned boy’s neck.
Fresh blood sprayed everywhere. Young Eckardt’s body stiffened in shock, and then he slumped lifelessly onto the floor.
Blood began to gush from the neck of the fallen boy.
“Oh my god! We need to treat him, quickly!”
I knew this was just a dream. And even if it wasn’t, the current Emperor Eckardt is a grown man, so I knew he had survived this.
But the feeling that I had to save him compelled me to run to the boy’s side.
It seemed no one could hear or see me. The adults ignored my presence nearby, released the boy, and stood up.
Then, the boy who seemed to have lost consciousness lifted his head and shouted to the empty air.
“Witch! Save me!”
It was a scream that sounded like he was literally coughing up blood, a wish so desperate that if there were a Witch in this world, she would surely want to answer it.
And even though I’m not a Witch—or at least, even if I am, I’m incomplete—I answered young Eckardt’s voice.
“I will save you!”
Strangely, the voice that came out of me was lisped and childish.
Surprised, I looked down at myself. My proportions were clearly wrong; I had become small, like a child.
It seemed my body had changed to match young Eckardt’s age.
Even for a dream, isn’t this incoherent?
Despite thinking that, I frantically reached out and pressed both hands against the nape of his neck.
Blood was still gushing from his neck, and I just wanted to stop the bleeding, even a little.
Then, young Eckardt’s body twitched. He reached his hands behind his neck and placed them over mine.
“…The Witch’s blessing…”
Following his ecstatic whisper, the pulse in his neck began to beat so strongly it was clearly visible.
While I was wondering what was happening, after a while, young Eckardt released my hands. He turned to look at me, and I gasped in surprise because his eyes, which had been black until then, had turned gold.
I was so stunned that I repeated the same words I had said in my earlier dream.
“…They look like stars. How beautiful.”
Young Eckardt gasped as if he had received words of immense value, and bowed his head politely like a loyal knight.
“Witch. I offered you my neck. The power of life and death over me is now yours.”
“Eh?”
Young Eckardt’s hair fell forward as he bowed, exposing the nape of his neck.
I looked reflexively and saw that the wound where the sword had pierced him was gone. Instead, a stylish mark I had never seen before was engraved there.
The moment the mark was revealed, the adults around us widened their eyes in shock. In the next instant, they all fell to their knees on the spot, showing their submission to the boy.
Ah, I don’t really understand, but Eckardt seems to be okay now, I thought, reaching out to touch his neck.
I intended to check on the injury, but perhaps it tickled, because young Eckardt jumped.
“Witch… please give me your magic.”
He lost a lot of blood, so maybe he wants a magic transfer to recover his strength? I nodded.
I tried to pour all my magic into the neck I was touching… but perhaps because my body was small, I couldn’t transfer very much.
Hmm, since it’s a dream, it would have felt better to just dump a huge amount of magic without being stingy.
But when young Eckardt lifted his face, he had an enraptured expression, so I figured if he was satisfied with that tiny bit, then that was fine.
“See you later, Your Majesty Eckardt.”
Relieved that the boy who was nearly killed was now energetic, I accidentally used my usual way of addressing him. His eyes widened in surprise.
“Your Majesty? …Will I become the Emperor?”
“Yes.”
And you will make me your consort. Though, while hating me very much.
It felt tactless to tell the young him that, so I swallowed the words and smiled.
“See you.”
“Witch, will I be able to meet you again?”
“Let’s see… If you are a just Emperor, perhaps we will meet again.”
After all, I’m only marrying into the Zaldein Empire because Emperor Eckardt accepted a marriage with a human he hates to avoid war with my country.
Hearing my words, young Eckardt placed a hand over his heart and bowed respectfully.
“In that case, I promise my Witch that I will become a magnificent Emperor.”
“Don’t push yourself too hard.”
The moment I waved my hand saying that, I vanished from before them. Or rather, it seemed I woke up from the dream at that moment, and my eyes snapped open.
I knew dreams didn’t always make sense, but that one was particularly chaotic.
As I smiled wryly at the thought, my body froze. A handsome man, the very embodiment of perfection, was sleeping next to me. Or to be more precise, I was being embraced by a shirtless handsome man.
“Eh, no way. Being hugged by such a handsome man… this must be a dream too. How many layers of dreams am I seeing?”
To dream within a dream, and then wake up only to still be dreaming.
But as expected of a dream. Being hugged by a shirtless handsome man is a thrilling experience I’ve never had in reality. But this is a little too stimulating, I thought, trying to escape from the arms holding me. The shirtless handsome man opened his eyes, and his exasperated voice rang out.
“Are you delirious from the fever? …I’d like to believe that statement was only because of the fever.”
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