Chapter 794: A Sweet Dream
When Roland opened his eyes, he felt the weight on his arm.
He tilted his head carefully. Anna lay on her side, her cheek pillowed on his arm, lips curved in the faint upward bow of a good dream.
Still here. He could still come back.
He slid his arm free with the patience of someone defusing something precious, sat up, and drew the quilt over her before leaving the room.
In the corridor, the guarding soldiers snapped upright and saluted. He waved them down without ceremony and went to the hall on the first floor.
Phyllis stood at the center of it, staring at her own hands.
She turned them over, pressed them together, and turned them again — still disbelieving the sensation in her fingers, the weight of her own palms against each other.
The first possibility, then. The Dream World remains under the control of his consciousness. When he wakes, the world stills — and what does not belong is expelled from it.
When she heard him, she looked up, pressed her lips together, and managed a smile. “Your Majesty. I woke from the dream.”
A God’s Punishment Witch who had endured centuries as an immortal soul — of course she would have considered staying. The Dreamland offered things her stone-and-spirit existence could not: sensation, taste, warmth, the simple reality of her own body. It would have been strange if the thought hadn’t crossed her mind.
That she had set it aside anyway — for the Taquila witches, for the Battle of Divine Will, for a hatred of demons that had outlasted her flesh — that still earned his admiration.
“We’re not finished yet,” Roland said, and smiled. “We’ve only completed half the test. We won’t know whether the result is reliable until we run it again. Come — let’s continue here.”
Phyllis blinked. “Won’t you return to your room?”
“That might wake Anna.” He shook his head and spoke a few words to one of the guards, who widened his eyes considerably before setting about following the order without complaint.
A quarter-hour later, the long table in the living room was covered with a soft layer of cushions and quilts.
Roland slept alone at its center, guarded by a ring of thoroughly bewildered soldiers. Phyllis waited in the hall with the others for the light.
Falling asleep again proved difficult. It always was, once wakefulness had reset him — and tonight of all nights, when the answer to a puzzle was waiting. He turned for several hours. Dawn was close by the time his mind finally let go.
The Dream World resumed at once.
Outside the window, neon lights still blinked against the dark. Inside, the ladder stood where they had left it, and Phyllis’s eyes cleared slowly from the dreamy opacity, then widened.
She looked down at Roland, then back at her hands, then at him again.
“Your Majesty — is this real? Or am I still dreaming?”
He couldn’t help but smile.
The answer didn’t matter much — not to her. Whether it was a dream or a true world, it was a world where she could feel things again. After hundreds of years of assuming a stone body so as to keep fighting, after the slow bleeding of cost against hope, she had finally been given back what she had given away.
What the answer was, was secondary to the fact that it was real enough.
They stayed only a short time.
Roland had assumed that she would want to go out immediately — to see more of the city, to try every restaurant she could locate. Instead, Phyllis knelt in front of him and asked permission to bring the news back to her companions. She promised that the Taquila survivors would remember his kindness, and would give him everything they had.
He did not respond immediately.
It wasn’t reluctance. He had no real objection to welcoming the Taquila witches — their potential as explorers and scholars in this world was considerable, and whatever happened after the Battle of Divine Will, they would need somewhere to go. But the practical questions were real: food, shelter, space. Zero was already suspicious of Phyllis; he could not convincingly claim that a hundred additional witches were distant relatives.
Zero was the other creator of this Dream World. He did not intend to involve her in any of this. The witches would need separate accommodations — an apartment building, perhaps — and the day-to-day cost of feeding that many people was not trivial.
After thinking through it, he decided: let the witches solve the practical problems themselves. He would open the door; they would walk through it on their own terms.
His silence had given Phyllis the wrong impression. She pressed her other knee to the floor, a gesture that the Taquila records reserved for moments of absolute petition — below even the ordinary salute — and begged him not to refuse her companions entry.
Roland tried to pull her up. She insisted.
When he finally explained what he had actually been thinking, she let out a long breath and sat back on her heels.
He could see the relief move through her like warmth through cold stone.
In the Dream World, God’s Punishment Witches would recover the full range of their powers — no longer brute-force warriors, but witches of varied and subtle abilities, none of them constrained by God’s Stones. With a group like that, the work of exploring and understanding this world could accelerate enormously. They could memorize and transcribe knowledge. They could study the nature of magic power using modern equipment. And even when the Battle of Divine Will was over, they would have a place.
After leaving the Dreamland, Phyllis didn’t wait for dawn. She bade him farewell before first light and set off for the Third Border City at a near run, something luminous moving in her expression.
Roland yawned and returned to his bedroom.
He slid back under the warm quilt and drew Anna against him. She stirred, opened unfocused eyes, and murmured: “Why did you wake so early?”
“I was in the Dream World,” he said, and kissed her forehead. “Something unexpected happened, and I couldn’t get back to sleep afterward.”
“Mm?” The sound of her breath was soft against his neck, slow as a feather turning. “Was it a sweet dream?”
“Of course.” He shifted to a more comfortable angle, let her rest her cheek on his arm again. “A sweet dream for everyone.”
Chapter 794: A Sweet Dream
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
When he opened his eyes, Roland sensed the weight on his arm.
Gently tilting his head, he saw Anna’s serenely sleeping face. She lay on her side, pillowing her head on his arm and slightly curling her lips. She seemed to be having a sweet dream.
Fortunately… he could still get out of the Dream World in this way.
He carefully pulled his arm out and sat up. After covering the quilt for Anna, he quietly left the room.
When he walked downstairs, the soldiers guarding at the corridor hurriedly stood up and saluted him one after another.
He waved his hand to indicate that they could do away with formalities and went to the hall on the first floor.
Then he saw Phyllis.
She was standing in the center of the hall with a look of loss on her face. She bent her head and looked repeatedly at her clenched hands as if she was still amazed at the moment when her body regained its senses.
It seemed the answer was the former one.
The Dream World was still under the control of his consciousness.
When he woke up, the world would come to a standstill, while the outsiders would be expelled from it.
“Your Majesty, I…” When she saw Roland, she pursed her lips to force a smile and said, “I woke up from the dream.”
Apparently, the God’s Punishment Witch had thought of staying in the Dreamland for a split second. She originally had no other choice but to transform into an immortal soul so as to keep fighting with the demons. But the price she paid became increasingly expensive as time went by. It was not surprising that she would change her mind in the face of a new world.
But she eventually suppressed her desire, either due to the Taquila witches, or her hatred of the demons, or both. Whatever the reason was, Roland was full of admiration for her self-discipline.
“We’re not certain yet,” he smiled and replied, “we’ve just finished half of the test. We can’t know whether it’s an occasional or certain result after the integration of light beams until the end of the test. Let’s continue here.”
Phyllis was a little surprised, asking, “Won’t you go back to your bedroom?”
“That may wake Anna up,” Roland shook his head and replied. “Anyway, there’s heating in the castle and sleeping in the living room is the same.” He said a few words to a guard, who widened his eyes in surprise but still faithfully executed Roland’s order.
Half a quarter later, the long table in the living room was spread with a layer of soft cushion and quilt.
In this way, the living room was tightly guarded by a group of completely confused soldiers while Roland was sleeping in it alone. Phyllis, as well as the others, stayed in the hall, waiting for the emergence of the light beam.
He had to admit that it was really difficult to fall asleep after he woke up, especially when it was time to reveal the answer to the puzzle.
Roland tossed and turned for several hours until he finally fell asleep at dawn.
The new world instantly recovered operation.
To his surprise, in the Dreamland it was not the early morning of the next day. Outside the window, the neon lights were still flashing. The ladder was still at the bedside. Phyllis’s eyes became clear little by little. She suddenly awoke from her dreamy state, bent her head and looked at Roland in disbelief.
“Your Majesty, is… is this true? Am I dreaming?”
He could not help smiling.
The answer was self-evident.
Whether it was a dream or a real world, it might not matter for this God’s Punishment Witch.
What was important was that she finally got her compensation after assuming the pain and responsibility for hundreds of years.
…
This time, they only stayed in the Dream World for a short period of time.
Roland had thought that she would eagerly go out and hang around. He did not expect that she would get down on one knee and plead with him to allow her to share the news with her other companions. She promised that the Taquila survivors would remember his kindness forever and would make every effort to serve him.
In the face of this plea, Roland did not respond immediately as usual.
He was not reluctant to welcome the Taquila witches, but he did not know how to feed so many people. More importantly, Zero had already been suspicious of Phyllis, and he could not claim that these additional 100 witches were all his distant relatives.
Roland would never want to get the little girl, the second creator of the Dream World, involved in these things. If she sensed any problem of this world, he could not predict what would happen. Just to be on the safe side, the Taquila witches could not stay at his home.
Then he would need a place for the witches to live, for example, an entire apartment building. And the daily expenses such as food and drinks would also be a heavy burden for him.
After thinking about it for a while, Roland finally decided to let the witches solve this problem by themselves.
His temporary silence probably made Phyllis misunderstand him. She bit her lip and bent the other leg, kneeled down and begged again. This gesture, which was only employed when ordinary people met the dominator of the Union, had gone beyond the ordinary salute of Taquila witches. Roland tried to pull her up, but she insisted. She begged him not to refuse her companions’ entry into the new world.
At this time he finally realized what she was thinking, and explained his plan to her, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. After hearing his explanation, Phyllis let out a long breath of relief.
In fact, for Roland, accepting Taquila survivors was not a difficult choice as she had thought.
In the Dream World, they would no longer be a group of God’s Punishment warriors who had brutal force, but they would be witches of various types of magic power that were not limited by the God’s Stone of Retaliation.
With the help of such a group of people, the means and efficiency of exploring the Dream World could be greatly improved. And they could also help him to memorize and copy the knowledge. In the long run, they might also learn various kinds of knowledge and use modern equipment to study the essence of magic power. Of course, the most important point was that even after the Battle of Divine Will ended, the Taquila witches could still find a place to live in the new world.
After leaving the Dreamland, Phyllis could not wait until dawn before she bade farewell to Roland and rushed to the Third Border City in exhilaration.
Roland yawned and went back to his bedroom.
He climbed into the warm quilt and hugged Anna in his arms again. She also opened her bleary eyes and vaguely murmured, “Why did you wake up so early?”
“Well, I hung around in the Dream World,” he said as he kissed her on her forehead. “I ran into something unexpected, and then I couldn’t fall asleep again.”
“Oh?” The girl’s breath was like a soft feather gently sliding along his neck. “Was it a sweet dream?”
“Of course.” Roland changed into a more comfortable posture and let her pillow on his arm again, “It’s a sweet dream for everyone.”