Chapter 92: Fate (1)
Darkness as black as pitch.
In the thick darkness that settled around me, I blinked quietly.
It was a sudden darkness, but I didn’t need any dark adaptation to see ahead.
I could understand what was there just by looking at it.
This place was not a space where the laws of the world applied.
A space of heterogeneity and aberration, an impossibility.
A dream.
A lucid dream that continued from the past had caught me again.
“Another dream like this?”
There were times when I had dreams that continued from the previous ones.
Even the past of the dream that I didn’t remember in reality came to mind vividly, and I often continued the dream.
The memory of the dream only continues clearly in the dream.
In reality, even the vivid dream disappears in an instant, except for some parts that impressed me.
A world that is like an illusion that cannot remain as an experience even though I experience it directly.
That’s why I wonder if we call this a dream.
“Estelle! Are you here?”
If it was a lucid dream that continued from the past, the elements that made up the dream would not be much different.
I called Estelle’s name, who always welcomed me.
But what came to my ears was only my own voice echoing from all sides.
She doesn’t show up even if I call her name.
It seemed that I had to find her myself.
It was a situation that was no different from before.
“It would be better to come out at once, but it’s going to be annoying.”
There might be a way to get out without meeting Estelle, but there was no reason to avoid her either.
After all, dreams are bound to wake up over time.
If you are familiar with dreams or have a false awakening, you may not be able to do so, but I was not one of those people.
It wouldn’t be bad to spend time in a dream until it wakes up on its own.
I decided and started walking to find Estelle.
Thud. Thud.
The clumsy footsteps echoed around me as I walked in the darkness.
“…”
Shapes were drawn every time I stepped into the darkness, and new light was added to the shape of the building.
Something new kept sprouting up in the space that was only darkness.
The moment when something is created from nothing was more amazing than I thought.
What would it look like if you played back the moment when you load game graphics slowly?
As the walk continued, the city around me was completed.
And at the end of the city that was created like that, there was a girl with a different atmosphere as always.
“You’re a little late today?”
Estelle.
A girl with a heterogeneous atmosphere who waits for me every time in a lucid dream.
Estelle’s eyes, surrounded by darkness as black as pitch, looked at me.
I felt it every time I faced her, but Estelle’s eyes were very unique.
Her eyes, which resembled black obsidian, had a depth that looked somewhat transcendent.
Maybe because she is a being that I face in a dream, she has a different atmosphere from ordinary people.
I waved my hand lightly toward Estelle and answered her question.
“I called you, but you didn’t come.”
“Did you call me?”
“Yeah. I called and waited. I thought you’d come if I called your name.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t move around here as I please. I just have to wait for you to come.”
Estelle said she couldn’t move on her own unless I came to her.
The existence in the dream is established by my observation.
That’s why she could move only when I recognized her.
To meet Estelle in a dream, I had to wander around until I saw her.
There was no reason to feel compassion for someone I met in a dream, but it reminded me of a fairy tale I saw when I was young.
“I remember reading a fairy tale before.”
“A princess trapped in a castle?”
“A scarecrow who is sad because he can’t move alone.”
“…A scarecrow. That’s an unexpected answer.”
I heard Estelle’s impression of my answer and walked with her through the city.
The footsteps of two people standing side by side echoed through the city.
It felt strange to walk around in a city where no one was there.
Was it creepy?
Or was it awkward?
It felt like looking at a city that had been destroyed for some reason.
“What game are you thinking of playing today?”
I asked Estelle about today’s game as we walked through the city.
Estelle always suggested games every time she met me.
She wouldn’t refuse to play games today either.
When I asked Estelle about today’s game, she answered with an excited face unlike usual.
“I have a pretty interesting proposal today.”
“An interesting proposal?”
“Do you like scary stories?”
“Scary stories?”
Scary stories.
I read ghost stories or something like that from time to time.
I also had a lot of memories of watching horror movies with my friends, testing our courage.
But I didn’t enjoy it very often.
Above all, I was the type who felt my heart sink when a ghost suddenly popped out.
But why are you asking me about scary stories?
I looked at Estelle with a suspicious expression.
And Estelle’s finger pointed to the wall of the movie theater.
“Shall we make it a bet that whoever screams first loses?”
On the wall that Estelle’s finger pointed to, there was a poster for a horror movie.
A bet that whoever screams first loses.
It wasn’t a kind of confrontation I liked.
I didn’t have any hobbies to go see horror movies except to tease my friends.
“No, that’s…”
“Are you not confident?”
But after Estelle’s one word, I had no choice but to accept the proposal.
How dare you ask me if I’m not confident in front of a man?
I couldn’t tolerate such a thing.
If I have the pride of a man in my chest, I’m not afraid of horror movies or anything like that.
“Fine. Let’s go in.”
I accepted Estelle’s proposal and went straight into the movie theater.
It would be over soon.
How scary could a movie be in a dream?
Estelle would scream in no time if I wanted her to.
That was what I thought when I accepted the proposal.
But I soon regretted it.
The situation in the movie theater was very different from what I had in mind.
“This is interesting. They have these things here?”
“Hmm…”
First of all, the movie was too scary.
I barely managed to hold back my scream, but the movie was so vivid and stimulating, maybe because it was in a dream.
And the ghosts that popped out without warning were enough to make my liver cold.
They all looked grotesque and they came out periodically, so I couldn’t help but be surprised.
Even with the pride of a man boiling in my chest, I couldn’t completely suppress the horror of the movie.
“Isn’t it more immersive because there’s only two of us?”
What’s more, the problem was that there was no one else in the movie theater except us.
All the other seats were empty, and only Estelle and I were watching the movie.
The horror that came from the closed space was more than I imagined.
Every time something suddenly popped out, I felt like a scream would come out of my mouth.
But I had to endure and hold back.
To win the bet with Estelle who provoked me.
No matter how bizarre and grotesque the scene in front of me was, it was nothing but an illusion in a dream.
If I brainwashed myself and endured it, I could somehow hold back my scream.
“…It’s nothing.”
“Is that so?”
I pretended to be calm and talked to Estelle, and she tapped my hand with her cold fingers.
Every time her fingers touched my hand, I felt like the scream I was holding back would come out.
Even though she wanted me to scream, she looked like she didn’t care about the movie at all.
She looked mischievous as she pretended to be scared.
I snorted at her and asked.
“…Is that a scream?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold back and screamed.”
“Why didn’t you scream sooner?”
It was my loss that I had to watch the movie until the end.
I looked at her with that thought in mind, and Estelle pointed to the monster’s face on the screen with her hand.
The monster on the screen had been frozen since Estelle screamed.
She pointed at the monster with her hand and asked me in a playful voice.
“Wasn’t the movie more fun than you thought?”
Fun? What fun is there?
If you tell me to watch this movie again, I’ll scream and get out of here from the start.
It was such a shocking and bizarre movie.
But Estelle watched it with a smile until the end.
I resented her attitude and answered her.
“Next time, you can come in and watch it by yourself.”
“Why? I had fun watching it with you.”
“Sigh…”
It was a movie that was different from normal horror movies.
And she liked this kind of movie.
I sighed involuntarily at her taste that contrasted with her appearance.
Well, maybe it’s natural for weird people to appear in dreams.
“Then, what do you want to ask me today?”
As I got up from my seat, Estelle grabbed my arm and sat me down.
And she asked me about the question I wanted to ask her.
A formal scream, but she seemed to consider it as my victory anyway.
A question I wanted to ask Estelle?
I looked at her face and pondered, then asked her a simple and meaningless question.
“Why do you keep showing up in my dreams?”
I know it’s a meaningless question.
It’s just a random dream that Estelle appears in.
But still, I asked her for that reason anyway.
I didn’t care what answer she gave me.
And Estelle leaned closer to me and answered.
“Well… we have a very special relationship.”
“A special relationship?”
“If you call the choices that God has set for us destiny, then you can call this a fateful encounter too.”
What kind of nonsense is this?
I looked at Estelle with a blank expression, and the dream began to crumble down.
The scenery around me, including the movie theater, collapsed as it cracked.
It seemed that it was time to wake up from the dream.
I looked at Estelle waving her hand at me in the collapsing dream.
She said goodbye to me as she sent me off.
“Let’s watch a movie together next time.”
“What genre?”
“It was as thrilling as today’s story.”
I nodded quietly at Estelle’s story.
That memory was the last scene of this dream.
***
It had been two weeks since Peter returned to the cult with Pluto.
During that time, Peter had been adapting to life in the cult, watching the eyes of the believers.
The apostles who had arrived with Peter had long disappeared somewhere, so Peter had to adapt alone in the cult.
Fortunately, it was not a difficult task for Peter to have a meal in the cult.
The cult’s officers who knew Peter’s face invited him to dinner every night.
Thanks to that, Peter was able to fill his stomach with a splendid feast every evening.
He still had to live by watching the eyes of the believers, but his quality of life was much higher than before.
“Where should I eat today?”
He could eat without working.
He had to move around as he pleased, but there was no one who forced him to work.
There was no believer who had the guts to order Peter, who was acquainted with the cult’s officers, to work.
Euteneia’s gaze, which had been monitoring Peter’s whereabouts, was also off him now.
As long as he spent time wandering around the cult all day, he could enjoy a comfortable bed with dinner every night.
It was like paradise for Peter, who used to be in charge of cooking and driving every day.
“Should I go back to Mr. James? No, it would be rude to visit him too often…”
Still, Peter felt uneasy while staying in the cult.
He himself was an outsider who had nothing to do with the cult.
He had some connection with Euteneia, but that did not prove his affiliation.
He was neither a believer of the evil god nor did he work under the orders of the cult.
The meals and beds he had in the cult were all thanks to someone’s kindness.
Staying here felt like sitting on a bed of nails for him.
“Peter, long time no see.”
As Peter sat on the bricks of the flower bed and wondered about dinner, someone approached him and spoke to him.
Peter turned his head and looked at the direction where the voice came from as he heard a familiar voice.
There stood a person he had known for a long time.
Archbishop Roan Hebris.
The only archbishop of the cult was standing there.
“Oh, oh… Archbishop, hello.”
“Haha, you don’t have to greet me like that.”
Peter greeted him politely as he met Roan after a long time.
Roan’s position in the cult, which had grown so much in no time, was no different from that of a king.
It was incomparable to his old position when he used to beg for bread.
Roan, who received everyone’s respect, was like a god to Peter now.
Peter could not act as casually as he used to with him.
Especially since there was a mark of a hero on Peter’s arm.
He had to look good to the high-ranking people of the cult in order to survive somehow after being exposed as a hero.
“Ah… yes…”
“I’m sorry to ask you this, but… have you awakened your miracle?”
“Huh? Miracle…?”
Peter tilted his head at Roan’s question about miracles.
He must have had the power of a hero since he had a mark on him.
But it seemed that Roan was not referring to the power of a hero when he said miracle.
As Peter looked at Roan with a puzzled expression, Roan clicked his tongue and patted Peter’s shoulder.
“It seems that you haven’t manifested your miracle yet.”
“Yes, yes…”
“That’s unfortunate. But if your faith grows, you will be able to awaken your miracle soon.”
“Yes?”
It turned out that Roan was trying to teach Peter about faith in the evil god.
Peter stepped back in confusion at Roan’s attitude.
But Roan did not care about him and followed him closely.
He grabbed Peter’s hand tightly and looked at him with an intense gaze.
“You have done a lot for the cult. You must have accumulated a lot of merit for the great one.”
“No, I…”
“You don’t have to be so humble. I believe that you can become a first-class believer if you are Peter.”
“A first-class believer…?”
First-class believer.
An unfamiliar word popped out of Roan’s mouth.
It seemed to refer to believers who had strong faith among the cult members.
It had nothing to do with Peter.
As Peter tried to say something in defense,
One of the believers next to Roan gave him a hint.
“Archbishop. It seems that it is time for your schedule.”
Roan let go of Peter’s hand with a regretful expression as he heard the believer’s words.
Phew.
Peter sighed inwardly as he got out of his grip.
He was finally freed from Roan’s sermon.
But Roan did not seem to let Peter go as he promised him the next time.
“I’m afraid I don’t have much time left. I have to go now.”
“Yes, yes. See you later…”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll send someone tonight. It would be nice to have a conversation over dinner.”
The problem was that the next time was tonight.
“Huh?”
“Well then…”
Roan finished his words and waved his hand at Peter as he walked away from his seat.
Peter stared blankly at Roan’s back.
He didn’t have to worry about dinner tonight.
An unexpected encounter was waiting for him in the evening.
