He fails

After a lengthy conversation with Ophelia about my two girlfriends, I eventually wake up without having seen Ralf in the dream. I rise from the bed with a strange scent in my nose and I look around, seeing Ralf sitting dejected in a chair. It looks like he failed, just like the others dream mages before him.

“My apologies, sir Darx.” The Priest tells me. “I was so certain Ralf was going to succeed. He truly is the best out there.”

I walk up to Ralf and want to ask him about any connection he might have discovered. But if I ask him so blatantly, the Priest might discover more than I am willing to share. So, I have to choose my words carefully.

“Was there perhaps anything else that you could discover?” I ask the cleric. “Something about an essence, a power level, perhaps a connection or some kind of source?”

Ralf raises his head and look at me. “I couldn’t find the dream. It’s like you were dreaming without a dream. There was just no dream for me to find. I searched until I ran out of all mana.”

Then it seems like this was indeed a complete failure. I tell Ralf that I am grateful for him making the attempt and that he shouldn’t feel bad about it.

“Have no fear, Darx.” The Priest interjects. “We knew beforehand that making contact with Imris herself would have been an incredibly difficult task. Mister Ralf shall be compensated as if he had succeeded.”

The Priest then walks with me to the exit where we see the festival in full swing. I am looking around for either Kiara or Amelia, but I don’t find them anywhere. I do however notice a lot of people staring. Several of the girls start to giggle as soon as I walk past them. They think that as soon as I have my back to them, I can’t hear them, but due to my sensitive ears I can hear them gossiping.

“I heard he that was cute, but I didn’t think this cute.”

“You think he has a girlfriend already?”

“Even if he has a girlfriend, I wouldn’t mind being with him on the side.”

Comments like what I just heard make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I just want to be happy with Kiara and Amelia. They are supposed to be somewhere here though. Where are they anyways?

The Priest stops at one of the stalls and asks me if I am hungry. He then gestures at the stall we are at and I notice it is a place food is being sold. The stall offers a choice between roasted meat on a stick or grilled meat between 2 slices of bread. I tell them I don’t have any money on me, but the stall owner is quick to let me take something for free. Well, at that point it would be rude to say no. The attempt at figuring out more about my dream made me a little hungry, so I might as well accept.

As I am eating the meat-bun, the Priest starts talking about Imris. It is better than him talking about me with so many people around. Though I can’t help but notice the crowd around us keeps getting thicker. Like people are coming but not going. Almost like I am getting trapped by a cage of people. Only far too late do I notice the Priest has stopped here because there is a street artist next to the food stall making drawings and has been staring at me while drawing the whole time I was eating the meat-bun.

As the Priest moves around the festival, his nuns and priests get the crowd to move aside so we can traverse the plaza. At times, I hope for Kiara to grow herself some wings, like she did to save me from the harpy village and swoop in to fly me out of here. But with so many church adventurers around, that would probably be a recipe for disaster. I am **** to continue entertaining the Priest and his followers until eventually natures comes calling and I whisper to the Priest that I have to use the bathroom. He then diverges his tour to a public bathroom where I can do my business.

As soon as I to small room’s door is closed though, a pair of hands come out of a nearby shadow and pull me through. Suddenly, I am in an alleyway, together with Kiara and Amelia.

“The fuck just happened?” I ask.

“Forgot about my skills?” Kiara asks. “[Shadow Teleportation]. I had to wait until you were close to a shadow and also out of sight of all your fans.

“Couldn’t you have waited until after I pooped?” I ask, which of course causes Amelia to snicker.

“No, I couldn’t.” Kiara responds. Then she waves her hand and suddenly I look like a girl, much to Amelia’s shock.

“Oh, great. And now it’s your [Glamor] skill?” I ask with a feminine voice.

“We have to get to the castle as quickly as possible and if you look like yourself you will be too recognizable.” Kiara replies. “Don’t worry, I turned your eyes blue. Now, let’s find a public privy for you to use.”

We quickly walk away from the Cathedral and find ourselves a privy for me to use and just in time too. Gosh, that almost felt better then sex. After that, we finally continue on our way to the castle. Only when we get there does Kiara finally stop using her [Glamor] and I am turned back to my normal self.

After announcing our presence at the castle gates, we are led inside. We are guided to Harold’s office and by the looks of it, he is a little disappointed in us.

“Darx.” Harold says as he looks at us from behind his desk. “I had expected you here earlier.”

“I know, sir. It’s the Church. They kind of kept me busy.” I say as an excuse.

“I already know the Church had been hogging your time.” Harold says. “What I would like to know is why you were there to begin with.”

I remember that way back after my awakening, I pondered telling Harold about my dreams, but I eventually chose against it, because I feared who would think of me as crazy. I guess I can now only explain my reasons for being at the Cathedral by coming clean to him.

I start by telling Harold about the dream I’ve been having and how I didn’t tell him before because I worried he’d consider me crazy. But when the Priest told me, at my first meeting with him, that he was willing to do anything, I figured it might be a good way to get him to find books on dreams like the one I have about Ophelia and that I could then read those books and discover how to save her myself. Though, instead of finding books for me to read, the Church went a step beyond and went straight for a dream mage. Something I didn’t have a lot of faith in as dream mages have already tried before and failed, just like this one again.

“I can see why you would be worried about people’s opinions on this.” Harold answers. “It is a strange story, and back then you had only met me for the first time.” He then stands up and walks to me with an air of comfort. “I don’t blame you for keeping this story from me back then. Though I would have preferred it if you told me about it sometime later.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” I apologize. “I didn’t think it would matter this much.”

“Now then. Off to business. Follow me.” Harold says, and walks me and my girlfriends out of his office. As we are walking through the castle’s corridors, Harold walks next to me and says, “Darx, what is your opinion about the demons?”

“Oh, well. I don’t know much about them.” I say hesitantly. “Mostly rumors that they are getting ready to invade us.” Then I remember the story about the princess of Calamity and tell Harold about it.

“Yes, demons can indeed be dangerous. Very much so.” Harold then tells me. “All of them have their rank awakened at birth, and none of them are below D rank.”

“T-they don’t have E ranks?” I ask.

“Not only that, they also don’t have none-ranks or unranked people.” Harold specifies. “But more dangerously, they already know who their S ranks are going to be and start giving them proper training at a very young age. Then at age 12, they come to learn what skills and class they have. That is when specified training happens. They also live many years longer than humans. So, as you can see, a demon S-rank can be quite dangerous.”

“I guess that is why 500 years ago we needed an alliance to defeat them, right?” Amelia asks.

“Correct.” Harold tells her as he stops at a door. “But even though they have leaders that are dangerous, that doesn’t necessarily mean all demons are bad. Take the beast-kind for example. Many of their people live in our kingdom. The Kedamono brigade is a good example of them, and Mizuki, the elementalist, was born and raised in Riledo. Was even thought by Aelbrecht herself at one point.”

I remember Kiara telling us about Mizuki. She was an S-rank fox type beast-kind who ended up living in the beast-kind kingdom as some kind of diplomat to smoothen relations between our two kingdoms.

“But as you might have heard, the leaders of the beast-kind nation has been experiencing some animosity towards us.” Harold continues. “There is no such thing as a people where everyone thinks the same way. And that brings us at the reason why I brought you here.”

Harold then opens the door and walks inside the room in front of us. I follow, with Kiara and Amelia right behind me and see something that shocks me. In this room are several people. There are Lilith and Wendy, who I already know. I notice Wendy’s leg is still wrapped up with a splint and bandages. Also Zhoron. The S-rank who works as the queen’s personal body guard and the Royal Guard’s guild master. All of them are gathered around a bed and in this bed lies a woman with red skin, large horns coming out of her head, and black bat-like wings.

Amelia, who seems a little less stunned then me, asks “What is a demon doing here?”

“This woman is named Livia.” Harold says. “And she is the mother of your friend, Lillith.”