I Can Hear the Saint’s Inner Thoughts

45 – The Secret of Astal Kaisa (4)

“Then, I hope you have a happy dream, Astal-nim. Forever!”

Right after that, Bellamora’s voice rang out, and my vision went black. A feeling of weightlessness, like my body was floating and swaying in water, washed over me in waves.

How much time passed like that? Slowly, I walked toward a space where warm light was seeping in, and a remarkably familiar place came into view.

A cool breeze sweeping through the open window, the warm feeling on my skin, children playing in a field of wheat bathed in golden light.

“No way…”

I couldn’t help but bite my lip at the sight before me. No matter how hard I tried to think about it, I couldn’t believe what was happening.

I remembered this scenery better than anyone.

No, I yearned for these memories more desperately than anyone.

This was my hometown. Mabilos Village, which had been wiped off the map by the Demon Lord’s invasion.

“Bellamora, you b*tch, you finally….”

I could only curse while thinking of the black-haired succubus. She had created such a vivid dream based on my memories.

“Are you trying to test me? I can break out of this dream right now…”

I immediately put my hand to my throat, trying to use magic to blow my own head off.

The simplest way to wake from this kind of nightmare is to kill yourself; the shock would wake you from the dream.

To do that, you need to first realize the disconnect from reality. Because there were cases of people confusing reality for a dream and killing themselves.

But,

‘…Have I always been this short?’

My view was lower than usual, and looking at my small, child-like limbs and hands, I was momentarily breathless.

It was as if I had truly gone back in time; the reflection in the mirror before me looked exactly like I did in my childhood.

‘The disconnect from reality… It’s almost non-existent in this dream.’

I pinched my cheek, feeling a tingling pain, and when I pulled my finger back, it didn’t bend completely.

Even though I knew it was a dream, my senses and memories kept getting jumbled, as if it were real.

This was different from the dream Bellamora showed me before.

Back then, all there was was Victoria suddenly confessing her love for me.

‘Actually, the time going back…’

That thought flickered in my mind for a split second.

That everything I’d experienced just now was a bad dream, and really, I’d just woken up in my bed back home.

A pleasant, warm scent of sunshine rising from the blanket and pillow, a place where a cool breeze blew through the swaying grass.

The delusion that this movie set wasn’t my real life began to creep up my body.

“…That can’t be.”

I bit my tongue hard, denying everything in front of me. The bitter taste of iron and a burning sensation barely brought me back to reality.

“My parents… they were killed by the Dullahan, one of the Four Heavenly Kings, a long time ago.”

My hands trembled as I grabbed my neck, layering a magic circle over it. As if my intellect and even my emotions had regressed to childhood, I was still hesitating to take my own life.

“…Oh my, you’re truly resolute, aren’t you? Even with a double layer of suggestion that you’ve become younger, I didn’t expect you to resist this much.”

Suddenly, a chilling voice began to echo from behind me.

“Bellamora…!!”

“No need to be regretful, Astal. Soon you’ll forget all the painful memories and sadness, and you’ll live here with me for eternity.”

Bellamora, appearing as a girl slightly taller than me, collided her magic circle with the one I had created.

Clink, clank, ka-pow!

A crisp sound of gears meshing rang out, and the self-destruct magic I had prepared was dispelled.

“Because, I’m going to make it so. Astal, from now on, I’m your childhood friend and lover, so… can I talk casually to you now?”

Bellamora, concealing the characteristic red eyes, fangs, and pointed ears of a succubus queen, mimicked an ordinary human girl.

Her smile was beautiful, but it felt alien, like an insect standing on two legs and speaking human words.

“That will never happen…!!”

Provoked by Bellamora, I immediately placed my hand on my chest, and attempted to overload my mana core to draw my sword again, but.

“Hehe, don’t make such a scary face! Astal! What would your auntie and uncle think if they saw you?”

“……?!”

Nothing happened.

Not even blood flowed from my eyes, nose, or mouth. It was as if the power to stimulate my heart was something that I no longer possessed.

“Did you have a bad dream? Your childhood friend came to wake you up especially today, didn’t she?”

“You b*stard… what the hell are you….”

I spat out curses, watching Bellamora cling to my arm, maintaining a warm attitude.

It must be a dream conjured from my childhood memories, with the suggestion that my current body is in the same condition as back then.

Originally, the best way to return to reality would be to commit suicide right now, but Bellamora kept fluttering her eyes, casting some kind of illusion on me.

“You’re saying bad things again. If you do that, I’m going to tell your aunt and uncle, you hear?”

“Ugh…. Shit….”

A voice sweet enough to melt your ears, a scent that would paralyze reason – I tried to resist the succubus’s manipulative tricks by holding my breath and closing my eyes.

At that moment,

“Astal, what was that noise just now? I heard a loud sound, so I came to see…”

“Did you have a fight with Bellamora or something?”

The firmly shut door rattled open, and I heard the sound of someone entering the room.

It was an unforgettable voice.

Something I thought I’d yearn for my whole life, never to reclaim,

Something that, if it appeared in a dream, would wake me up weeping.

“Father…. Mother…?”

My throat felt clogged, and my voice barely came out.

The two men and women, unable to hide their surprise as they looked at me, they were the ones who, on my 10th birthday, during that catastrophe,

tried to fight the demon army with farming tools, no weapons, just to protect their child, so reckless.

The ones I had to see with their heads brutally pulled off, their necks sliced, their brown hair rolling in the mud.

“…Are you… alive?”

Claude Kaisaross and Celine Kaisaross.

My parents who had been dead for so long.

They were the reason I survived the village raid, and the reason I felt an indelible guilt.

The moment I had to place flowers on a gravestone with nothing buried beneath it because I couldn’t even recover their corpses, flashed through my mind.

The memory of searching through the ashes and wildflowers in the burned-down village to find the cosmos that my mother loved came rushing back.

“Oh my, our son. Are you crying now?”

“…Did you have some kind of bad dream?”

But now, it was different from back then.

They were alive.

They were breathing.

I could almost hear their faint heartbeats.

In an instant, I completely forgot that this was a dream, as a searing sensation began to bloom in my eyes.

“Yes….”

Hands clenched tight, teeth gritted hard.

I even wished it was a dream, one I’d never wake from.

But I couldn’t.

From now on, I had to save everyone. I had to protect the things I held dear.

This was a hallucination. Inside Bellamora’s phantasm. In the end, even my parents standing before me were nothing more than fakes.

Ultimately, I had to abandon these people and leave.

“…It feels like I had a really, really bad dream.”

I said, wiping away the tears welling in my eyes with my hand.

Was it because my mind had weakened along with my body becoming younger?

I didn’t want to cry, I needed to show them a cool image, but the fact that tears kept threatening to spill was strange.

“You must have been very startled….”

“We’re here, so you don’t have to worry.”

Gently, my parents pulled me into a hug, patting my back.

“……”

It was the warmth of my parents’ embrace that I hadn’t felt in so long. Not the stench of vile blood and the chill of a cold corpse, but the genuine warmth of living people.

I slowly raised my hands to their backs for a moment.

My hands were small and fragile now. Not the bloodstained, calloused hands that killed monsters and demons in the Demon Realm.

As I felt this incongruity, I remained embraced by my parents for a long while.

“It’s said that a tragedy is more dramatic when there’s hope beforehand. Astar. You should realize by now, right? How much I was doing you a favor!”

Bellamora, who had been watching this scene from the side, grinned, opening her mouth wide as if everything had been her plan from the beginning.

“…You’d change your tune too, if you had to taste your parents and village being violated thousands of times.”

*Snap!*

With a crisp snap of her fingers, my vision shifted again, and I began to see a burning village and people bleeding before my eyes.

“Flail all you want. I’ll pull you out after your mind has crumbled to the point where you can’t distinguish between dreams and reality. If you still want to escape my movie, I’ll make sure you can’t.”

With Bellamora’s ear-splitting laughter, the past I never wanted to experience again began to repeat.

* * *

Victoria, witnessing Bellamora’s sudden disappearance from the cinema and Astar sleeping soundly beside her, realized the gravity of the situation.

“Astar-nim…!?”

“Ughhh….”

He let out a painful moan, covered in cold sweat. He was shaking his head with a frown, and anyone could see that he was having a terribly painful nightmare.

“Get up! You’re trapped in Bellamora’s dreamscape…!”

Victoria grabbed Astal’s shoulders, shaking him, trying to wake him, but it seemed to have little effect.

She stomped her foot at the lack of progress, and the thought even started to cross her mind that she might need to use her miracle to save Astal.

‘What do I do…?! I was clearly told not to use my miracle before…’

Victoria couldn’t even guess how many parts of his body would have to turn into flowers to pull him from Bellamora’s dreamscape.

To prevent her from overusing it, Astal had repeatedly told her to never use her miracle and to save it.

Even if she removed one flower a day, it would still take years, her condition was that serious.

– [My daughter, Victoria.]

At that moment, a familiar voice echoed in Victoria’s head.

‘Heavenly Deity…!!’

Whether Victoria’s prayer had reached the heavens, or the Heavenly Deity had contacted her to deliver a divine revelation.

An emotional Victoria even felt like crying a little.

Last time, the Forbidden Archive hadn’t told her anything, but they still showed up in a situation like this.

– [If you wish to enter Bellamora’s dreamscape, kiss Astal Kaisaros.]

The gracious Heavenly Deity had told Victoria a revelation that was shocking to anyone who heard it.

“Huh…? What, what kind of outrageous nonsense is that?!”

Victoria was so dumbfounded that she even opened her eyes, even though her beloved was suffering while trapped in a dreamscape.

“Now is not the time for jokes…!”

How could they make a joke about kissing? She was starting to regret believing in the Heavenly Deity for the first time.

But,

– [It is not a joke, Victoria. If you want to save him, this is the only way.]

Heavenly Deity Lumina was speaking in a tone that was more serious and thoughtful than ever.

– [When have I ever lied to you? I don’t recall ever doing so.]

“Th, that’s true, but….”

No matter how much Victoria blushed and shouted, the Heavenly Deity’s position didn’t change.

– [Also, the tongue has to be involved. Not a light kiss, you need a deep one, so you can connect with his soul.]

As if they had seen through Victoria’s trick of trying to give a quick peck first, the Heavenly Deity was recommending a deep kiss, with tongues, between Astal and her.