Chapter 89: Nightmare!
Yotsuya Miko realized something was wrong.
Although she herself was awake right now and understood that she was inside a dream, that had only happened after Sensei appeared from the bench.
On top of that, he could actually carry out a series of active questions and answers inside her dream.
So Miko, sensing something was off, asked him whether he was something she had imagined.
Luke did not hurry to answer her question. Instead, he closed his eyes and imagined the two of them wearing clothes.
But nothing changed.
He opened his eyes again and realized that even after imagining it, the dream had not changed like before.
Was it because Miko had felt the brightness of the streetlights and the surrounding temperature could change, while wearing clothes inside the bath was "abnormal"?
Forget it. This was fine.
Since he could not do it himself, there was no need to ask Miko to do it either.
After all, now that he knew this dream might not be a simple nightmare, letting Miko act carelessly might cause problems.
Giving up on the idea of putting on clothes, Luke looked at Miko and confirmed again.
"You're sure this scene has no problems and is safe, right? Also, how long can it last before entering the next scene?"
"Y-yes. Here, I've never encountered danger."
Miko recalled and answered his question.
"It will last until the water completely turns muddy. Only then will it enter the next scene. The next scene is in the bedroom… and it will be dangerous."
Then there was still plenty of time. They did not need to be so rushed.
This safe dream scene might be Miko's self-protection.
When having a nightmare, people usually only simulated themselves, dangerous scenes, and things they feared. So in order to protect oneself, the subconscious would generally create a safe zone to guard the dreamer.
Touching the still-clear water, Luke could feel a completely different mental sensation from the street earlier.
He nodded lightly and answered Miko's previous question.
"Although having me answer inside your dream doesn't have much reference value, I really do exist. After you wake up, send me a message in reality to confirm it."
"But… Sensei, every time I woke up before, I forgot what happened in this dream. I'm afraid that when I wake up this time, I'll still forget everything about it."
Miko explained.
She did not know whether waking from this lucid-dream state would be different from before and let her remember these events in reality.
"In that case…"
Luke pondered for a moment and began thinking.
Meanwhile, his hand—no longer under his own control—began to move as if guided by the dream itself. His palm found a smooth, soft spot, and he subconsciously gave it a gentle squeeze.
Smooth... and so soft.
"S-Sensei..." Miko whispered, her body tensing up.
"Sorry!"
Luke quickly wrestled control of his hand back.
While inside someone else's dream, the moment he let his guard down, he would lose control of his body.
He told Miko his idea.
"Then if you don't contact me yourself before noon, I'll send you a message. That should work."
"In short, for now, just treat me as real."
Although he felt that with Miko's current level of awareness, she probably would not forget the dream, he still made a backup plan for her just in case.
"Mm."
At this moment, she already felt that Sensei was probably a real existence, so Miko answered while shifting her body. The stream cascaded down her back, sliding over her buttocks before pooling back into the bathtub.
It had to be said, though Miko looked slender, she felt much softer to the touch than her appearance suggested. Her stomach and thighs were delightfully plump and squishy.
At home, Luke often found himself kneading the thighs of his maids or rubbing their stomachs... Not for any lewd reason, but simply because it was fun. Mikasa and Annie enjoyed it too, finding the sensation relaxing.
Still, their bodies just didn't feel as soft and satisfying as Miko's.
Miko quickly waded to the other side of the tub and sank back into the water. She sat on the tiled ledge, hugging her knees to her chest and burying her face against them, using her arms and legs to shield herself from view.
'Even in a dream, I'm still so embarrassed... Why did I have to use that Dream Ritual?' Miko sighed inwardly, peeking at her sensei from behind her knees.
"So, how many scenes are left after this?"
Luke asked Miko.
"One more."
Miko murmured softly, raising her head from between her knees and still watching him.
Although she had not yet confirmed his identity through reality, her heart was already leaning toward the idea that this Sensei was the real Sensei, a genuine existence who had descended into her dream through some unknown method.
She did not know why she would have this kind of dream.
Could that dream ritual really be real?
Could the photo required for the ritual also be replaced by a phone photo?
Wasn't that ritual way too sloppy?
The thought of him lifting her skirt and exposing her underwear last week still made her squirm in bed with embarrassment.
As she thought this, Miko's hand subconsciously stroked her lower abdomen, still feeling the phantom sensation of his fingers kneading her flesh.
'Well, I guess I don't need to worry about him lifting my skirt anymore... since he's seen everything already.'
Miko raised her head and said to him, "Sensei, I'll tell you about the last scene of the dream first."
"Mm, okay."
Luke immediately nodded.
Miko inhaled and looked at him, then began speaking quietly.
"The next scene is in my bedroom."
"I'll be sleeping beside the bed, and next to my bed, there will be a black shadow. It keeps staring at us."
"The you from my previous dreams would become blurry under its gaze until you disappeared."
"After you disappeared, if I didn't stare at it, it would move closer to my bed."
"If I kept looking at it, I would wake up safely…"
"If I didn't look at it, a lot of curses and screams would come from beside my ear, and then I would wake up. The next time I slept, I'd find that it had moved closer to my bed."
Hearing her explanation, two thoughts instantly flashed through Luke's mind.
There was a ghost involved.
Or someone was causing trouble.
An evil spirit related to dreams?
No. If it were an evil spirit, Kasumizuki and Shibuya Jun, who were watching Miko and Niguredo together, could not possibly have missed it.
In that case, the most likely possibility was cultists causing trouble.
Remembering the cultist who had followed Miura Yumiko before, he began suspecting the cultists.
Then what was their purpose in manipulating Miko's dream?
Luke frowned and thought.
The dream fell silent. Miko's hand gently stirred the water, raising ripple after ripple.
"Haa. I'm not thinking about it anymore."
Luke stopped thinking.
No matter how many ideas he had right now, they were useless. Before the people causing trouble exposed their purpose, none of it had meaning.
In short, even if those people were making handicrafts inside Miko's dream, he could not let them succeed.
After the dream ended, he would go discuss this with Kasumizuki and the others.
"I'll make a decision after seeing the rest of your nightmare. For the next few days, remember to tell me before you sleep. I'll follow you into your dream."
Luke said that to Miko.
"Mm."
Miko answered in a muffled voice.
He did not continue asking about more details. In any case, he would soon see what happened in the dream for himself.
However, looking at Miko shrinking fearfully in the corner like a puppy brought to an unfamiliar place, he asked curiously, "By the way, how did you get my photo? Didn't the dream ritual need a photo?"
Miko hurriedly said, "I took it on the train that day… I-I was going to use it as a charm against evil… I'm sorry."
"Looks like my photo isn't very effective at warding off evil."
Luke said that casually.
In his heart, however, he was thinking about something.
Could a dream ritual be completed even by using a phone photo?
Also, since the dream ritual might be real…
Did that mean the other content in Horror Manga Special might also be real?
For example, the slit-mouthed woman on the cover.
He remembered that the content about the slit-mouthed woman contained accurate descriptions of real-world locations.
So he made up his mind to go take a look when he had time.
It had been a long time since he had cut down evil spirits.
Luke looked at the bathwater, which had been clear enough to see the bottom before.
Now, it was slowly turning black.
It did not make him wait long. The water, which had already begun changing, turned murkier and murkier at avalanche speed.
The scene shifted again.
Just as Miko had said, he and Miko appeared together in a bedroom.
Inside the pitch-black room, Luke suddenly opened his eyes.
He quickly looked around. The room was dark, and outside the window, a full moon hung high in the sky. However, only a little moonlight could enter through that glass.
Relying on that faint moonlight, he still managed to see the room's situation clearly.
It was a simple room that suited a young girl.
But…
He did not find the evil spirit Miko had mentioned, the black shadow that would stand beside the bed and keep staring at it.
What was going on?
Although he could feel the malice drifting through the air, faint curses and mutters also seemed to appear and disappear beside his ears.
The most important black shadow was gone.
Had something happened?
Luke withdrew his gaze and felt his neck itch slightly, as if thin, soft threads were tangled around it.
Tiny sounds.
A trembling blanket.
Lying on the bed, Luke gently lifted the blanket covering him.
A miserable-looking face rose from his chest, revealing a pale expression to him.
Mm. It was Miko.
Her scattered hair fell around his body, and both hands were clenched tightly.
Although she had already prepared herself, the moment she entered this scene with clear awareness for the first time, the feelings from experiencing this dream before wrapped around her like maggots clinging to bone.
Fear seeped deep into her marrow, making her body tremble uncontrollably.
"S-Sensei, I'm scared."
Yotsuya Miko said shakily, not daring to crawl out from under the blanket.
After leaving the bath and entering the bedroom, she vaguely felt as if countless pairs of eyes were peering into her dream.
Even hiding under the blanket and clinging close to him could not block out that spreading malice.
"It's fine."
Luke did not say much. He directly moved out from under Miko and, using the faint moonlight, found the room's light switch.
Light illuminated the entire room.
For a moment, the previous malice and foolish mutterings seemed to disperse quite a lot.
He stared closely to the left and right, trying to find some traces in the room.
The closet.
The windowsill.
Under the desk.
The mirror.
But to his surprise, there was absolutely nothing in this room.
It was as if what Miko had described and what he had felt were all abnormal hallucinations that had never existed.
After circling the room several times, Luke stopped on the oval brown carpet and thought about the possible situations.
Maybe after Miko woke up inside the dream, she had consciously avoided the nightmare from occurring.
Or perhaps after he entered the dream through an item, he had disrupted it.
It was also possible that the mastermind sensed the change and gave up on today's action.
Luke turned his head and looked at Miko.
Following his silent actions, as the malicious atmosphere and foolish mutterings slowly disappeared, Miko gradually poked her head out from the blanket.
The black shadow beside the bed was gone?
She looked in surprise at the place where Sensei was standing.
But immediately after, she panicked again.
"S-Sensei, what I told you before was true! That black shadow definitely existed before—"
Luke swept his gaze over the surroundings, which were still normal, then looked back at Miko.
"Something might have happened, but not seeing an evil spirit is definitely the best outcome."
He nodded lightly.
"In that case, let's end the dream here. I'll leave after you dissolve the dream."
Miko let out a breath of relief.
As long as Sensei had not misunderstood, that was fine.
"Then how should I dissolve the dream?"
She asked.
...
"Onee-chan, wake up. It's almost noon already! Mom told you to come eat."
Looking at his sister, who struggled to open her eyelids, Yotsuya Kyousuke let go in confusion.
"Mm~"
Miko closed her eyes again in exhaustion and grabbed the blanket, covering half her face.
As her mind cleared, she started to recall the dream—walking the streets with her teacher, bathing with him, lying in bed with him... and doing push-ups until she was about to die.
Mm. In order to end the dream, she had done push-ups in the dream for a very long time, then reentered a dreamless sleep.
According to Sensei, this would help her learn to control her dreams.
"What's wrong?"
Yotsuya Kyousuke looked at his sister in confusion.
"I had a nightmare."
Miko covered her mouth with the blanket and muttered softly.
"A nightmare? What kind of nightmare?"
"Push-ups…"
"Eh? Push-ups?"
Yotsuya Kyousuke looked at his sister, who had recently become very strange.
"Do push-ups count as a nightmare too?"
"Mm."
Miko thought about what had happened in the dream and gave a heavy "mm."
So the nightmares she had forgotten these past few days were this?
Dreaming of Sensei was even scarier than dreaming of evil spirits…
Looking at his sister, who had closed her eyes again, Yotsuya Kyousuke hesitated for a moment, then carefully spoke.
"Onee-chan, lately…"
"Mm?"
Miko opened her eyes and looked at her little brother beside the bed in confusion.
"You seem like you've gotten a little dumb recently."
…
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