Duke Yuma pondered seriously.
How could he help Hestia?
Just moments ago, it wasn’t just the three siblings who were shocked by the giant boar that appeared from above.
Yuma was also quite startled.
With that monster’s entrance, he thought this bright dream could very well turn into a nightmare.
But thankfully, Hestia swiftly sliced the boar in half, preventing such a thing from happening.
And from that incident, one thing became clear.
“Indeed, Hestia’s dream is a happy dream.”
The irony of a nightmare taking the form of an extremely happy world.
And that contradiction had a rather terrifying face.
Just as the Join Tribe’s Legolas explained, it looked like a happiness-infused nightmare far more dreadful than a mere nightmare.
Yuma deeply contemplated how to disrupt Hestia’s dream.
“I’m back!”
As Hestia got close to the village, she shouted brightly with a big smile.
No sooner had she finished speaking than the door to their house swung wide open.
“Hey, kids! Did you have a good trip?”
Kamerlen opened the door to reveal the three siblings.
And atop Kamerlen’s head, a man’s head appeared.
He was a burly man with fiery red fur, strikingly similar to Hestia.
“….”
The burly man wore a cheerful smile that contrasted sharply with his rugged, harsh-looking face.
Squeak!
It was a dazzling grin that revealed his sharp teeth.
“I’ve set the table. Come eat.”
It was Romanson, the father and head of the family.
At his words, Kailon and Peln raised their hands in turns.
“Sure.”
“Yes, Dad!”
Yuma watched the five family members chatting and enjoying their meal together.
It was just a family meal.
Yet, that scene didn’t come across as such a simple fact.
The nightmare taking the form of this moment meant that for Hestia, this moment had become special.
It was a sight she could no longer possess.
The reality of all this stirred complicated emotions within Yuma.
“Speaking of which.”
He realized he had never asked Hestia about her detailed family history.
After all, the cat-folk followed him with a mysterious amount of trust.
That was about the extent of his sentiments.
“Should I have asked at least once…?”
The fact that he knew nothing about Hestia’s past made him feel a sense of self-loathing.
Becoming a god didn’t dull his emotions.
Even while burdened with the grand title of God of War, Yuma’s identity was still human.
It was just that he hadn’t asked.
He simply hadn’t felt the need to know more about Hestia until now.
“Yum-yum!”
Duke Yuma stared at Hestia, who was fiercely tearing into fish with a stern expression.
How could he create a crack in Hestia’s perception of this world?
Yuma pondered this with a sense of guilt.
Hestia’s mental strength was on par with Cloney’s, but she lacked Cloney’s level of insight.
She simply didn’t have the ability to realize that this world was a dream.
Thus, unlike Cloney, who essentially accomplished nothing, Yuma was planning to cause some kind of anomaly.
‘It’s possible.’
Fortunately, he confirmed this possibility by communicating with Cloney when her nightmare ended.
His divine power could interfere with the [Nightmare] of the great god Morg.
This was possible because he had been in Cloney’s nightmare before.
As an entity with divinity, he could only observe and minimally interfere without causing the essence of the [Nightmare] to shake.
In this situation, he couldn’t convey speech or sound.
The degree of interference he could achieve was merely ‘recording.’
Simply inscribing letters on paper.
Yuma walked into Hestia’s room, or rather, he slipped through her door as if blending into the space.
Crackle…
A hand shape shimmered in mid-air.
Yuma’s divine power interfered with Morg’s nightmare, forming a shape of a hand.
A fountain pen floated above a blank sheet of paper.
Then the pen began to form letters on that paper.
He couldn’t write long sentences.
He didn’t have that much interference power.
And even if he wrote lengthy sentences, the truth wouldn’t register with Hestia at the moment.
He needed a core message that could shake her mind.
The best thing was to write down what Hestia needed to know right now and something that could awaken her.
Scratch scratch…
– It’s a dream. Awaken.
Scratch…
– Cloney, Brigitte, Ermel.
First were the current allies.
Precious people to Hestia right now.
A trigger to doubt that this world was a [Nightmare].
Hoping it would at least play this role.
– God of War Yuma.
He finished writing the letters to the very end.
Plop—
The fountain pen rolled off the desk.
Crackle…
The transparent shape of the hand soon dissipated into thin air, leaving a wisp.
Hestia, having finished her meal, walked into the room.
She lifted the strange piece of paper from the desk.
She lifted it up.
“…What is this?”
Her green eyes focused intently on the paper.
“A dream… wake up?”
Hestia tilted her head.
She still hadn’t grasped the meaning behind the note Yuma left.
“Did Mom or Dad leave a note and forget it?”
Hestia pulled out a notebook and stuck the mysterious paper inside.
It felt too unsettling to just throw it away.
After taking a nap, Hestia got up from her bed.
“Dream….”
As soon as she woke up, she mumbled the word “dream” and took out the notebook from the bookshelf.
The content Yuma wrote yesterday stirred faint ripples in Hestia’s mind.
The names written below it did the same.
Hestia decided to close the notebook and put it back on the shelf.
And then, she started another day.
Tap tap tap!
As soon as she stepped out of the room, her little sister Peln approached.
Peln clung to Hestia’s right leg with both arms and mumbled.
“Um… Sis.”
Feeling Peln’s adorable warmth on her leg made Hestia chuckle.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yep!”
Hestia’s day began to flow once again.
Yuma watched Hestia’s day unfold from a distance.
Hestia continued her peaceful daily life.
“I hate vegetables…”
“Look at what you’re eating, Sis!”
Helping her youngest sister overcome picky eating.
“Carlyon! Come here! Let’s stomp on the laundry together!”
“Oh, Sis.”
Stomping on the laundry barefoot with her second sister.
“Grip your sword properly again.”
Learning to wield a sword from her father.
Yuma could only watch this peaceful day unfold.
And he came to a conclusion.
It seemed the messages he wrote to Hestia yesterday weren’t enough to cause any disturbances in this world.
‘Perspective.’
Yuma contemplated ‘time.’
Not too far from the situation Cloney was experiencing was the name of a person.
This time, Yuma felt the need to write that name down.
The goal was to cause a ripple.
In Hestia’s dreams.
A day in a world called daily life passed by very quickly.
Squeak… squeak…
Yuma, cradling Peln who came whining about a nightmare, looked at Hestia as she fell back asleep.
An utterly ordinary day.
But still a day not to be overlooked.
‘…’
However, this is a
A nightmare that Hestia must wake up from.
Yuma took out the name from his mind and wrote it down in his notebook.
Hestia opened her eyes.
She noticed her younger sister, Peln, who had woken up before her, looking at something.
It was a piece of paper.
-Haruk.
“…Haruk?”
Peln blinked her green eyes and tilted her head.
Awakened by Peln’s movement, Hestia placed her hands on Peln’s shoulders.
Peln smiled brightly and looked up.
Then she spoke up.
“What’s ‘Haruk’? Is it a person’s name?”
Hestia slowly shook her head at Peln’s question.
“I don’t really know. You don’t know either, right?”
Peln nodded vigorously.
“Yeah!”
Is it really okay to be so confident about not knowing?
Hestia thought that and couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Peln was the first to leave Hestia’s room.
Left alone, Hestia gazed at the notepad on her desk once more.
“Ha…ruk.”
Hestia’s eyes widened.
As she called the name, an intense headache started.
Swish—
In an instant, the scenery around her changed dramatically.
The charmingly decorated room Hestia had now looked shattered and wrecked.
As if that weren’t enough, it was engulfed in flames.
Hestia’s nightmare world.
Since the landscape had changed in an instant, Duke Yuma also saw that scene.
Yuma frowned at the exact sight Hestia witnessed.
‘As expected.’
This was the past.
Hestia’s family.
And the peaceful days before a calamity struck the village.
“Ugh…!”
The headache became even worse.
Hestia staggered outside.
As her gaze landed on her mother, Camelene, Hestia couldn’t help but be shocked once again.
The image replayed of Camelene’s head being severed and rolling on the ground.
“Uuugh!”
Hestia vomited.
After a chaotic moment, the bright red illusion faded from her view.
Camelene’s neck was not severed.
“Hestia! Are you okay?”
Hestia looked at Camelene, who was staring at her with a worried expression, and nodded.
“…Yes, I’m fine.”
Hestia’s complexion had turned pale.
“Uh, how about lying down for a bit?”
At Camelene’s words, Hestia shook her head.
“No… I’ll just take a little walk.”
Hestia forced a smile to ease Camelene’s worries before stepping out of the house.
