Ch.5454. The Calm Before the Storm

I had been staying at the royal palace for several days, deeply engaged in research to create a Maek.

The kingdom’s Mages were certainly outstanding talents, producing results much faster than I had anticipated.

Due to the nature of being Mages, they had considerable intellectual curiosity toward the unknown, so without any need for urging, they were constantly stationed in the laboratory, working overtime as if it were routine.

Apart from the satisfaction of pioneering the unknown, King Orpheus’s promise to bestow a great reward if this matter was resolved also played a significant role in fueling their passion.

I too was holed up in the laboratory as much as possible, working alongside them.

It was a precious time where I could naturally absorb knowledge from these high-level Mages.

“How about we establish the concept like this for now?”

A massive mana-formed image of a Maek was floating in the center of the laboratory.

It had an elephant’s trunk, with a body thick and sturdy like a bear.

Its claws were impressively sharp like those of a tiger, and its eyes seemed to be searching for something with desire.

“Good. Let’s proceed with this.”

I nodded as it was almost perfectly similar to the concept of Maek that I knew.

This research wasn’t simply created through rational results alone.

The entire research team needed to grasp the same concept and move forward with the same monster in mind to create it.

At my response, several Mages cheered and began to resume their work.

Now we needed to enter into discussions to establish the detailed settings for a proper Maek.

How the trunk moves when searching for nightmares, how it eats dreams, what happens to the dreams it consumes, and so on.

Since this was literally no different from an act of creation, the Mages were tense yet couldn’t hide their excitement.

“Deus!”

Princess Elenoa Luden Griffin entered as the laboratory door opened. As she had done several times before, she strode over and looked at me with a slightly dissatisfied expression.

The Mages who were preparing for the meeting were familiar with this interruption and used the break to rub their tired eyes or sip coffee.

“Is this reality?”

I’ve learned quite a bit from hearing this question so many times.

Among those realizations, the strongest was about the princess’s areas of interest.

“Crong. The green dinosaur friend of the penguin I mentioned before.”

“Hmm? Isn’t the green dinosaur the Dooly you mentioned before?”

“It’s similar but different.”

I had told the princess about quite a range of information.

Starting with historical figures, I had also shared knowledge about difficult theories.

I had even mentioned tools used in everyday life on Earth and internet memes that were common there.

But in the end, what interested the princess most were none other than characters from animations.

In fact, when she demanded to know about characters rather than boring theories, as if ordering food, I was slightly annoyed.

“Similar but different? Come out for a moment! Let’s go so you can explain!”

Now I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was seeking me out not because of the nightmare, but simply because she was curious about new knowledge.

When I stood firmly in place with a reluctant expression, the princess slightly raised her voice and called out to the other Mages behind me.

“Everyone’s working hard. Take a break.”

“Yes, understood!”

They were quite obedient.

Having forcibly created a break time using her authority, the princess finally grabbed my wrist and began dragging me outside.

The place she took me to was the palace garden. Sitting on a bench in front of a flower bed in the vast garden, Elenoa handed me a notebook and pen.

“Draw it for me.”

I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened. The back pages of the notebook were already filled with various famous characters—from penguin-inspired characters to a perpetual five-year-old troublemaker, and a robot cat that pulls anything out of its pocket.

As I moved the pen with familiarity, the Dark Spiritmaster, who had been holding her breath beside me, whispered cautiously.

[The princess isn’t looking at the drawing, she’s just staring at you, you know?]

I know.

That’s why I wish she would just shut up.

At first, the princess would just glance at me occasionally, but now she was openly staring at me.

I suspected that asking me to draw characters was just an excuse.

“How are your nightmares these days?”

I naturally changed the subject while moving the pen. Princess Elenoa snapped back to attention and answered hastily.

“Ah? Oh, yes. Recently, thanks to Deus, I can easily recognize them. Actually, I know one more difference between reality and dreams, which helps me avoid being caught.”

“Hmm?”

Since she no longer needed to distinguish between reality and dreams through that method, the nightmare was also unable to find more differences between dreams and reality, resulting in a stalemate.

“Does it imitate me?”

“Yes, it imitates you. But it either repeats content I’ve already heard or says strange, jumbled things. Since it’s in my dream, those are naturally pieces of information I already know.”

Elenoa smiled brightly, looking pleased.

“It seems unable to say fresh, never-before-heard things like Deus does.”

After roughly sketching Crong, I handed the notebook to her.

Princess Elenoa looked at Crong and smiled brightly, showing her approval.

“I really like this one.”

Seeing the princess enjoying it more than usual, I offered my own hypothesis.

“The creature doesn’t share everything with Your Highness.”

If it could hear all thoughts and words, there would be no need to gradually identify differences between reality and dreams through dreams in the first place.

“It’s also ignorant. It doesn’t even grasp the basic framework of the world.”

Notably, it didn’t recreate scents and mana in dreams.

It was unaware of such basic but invisible aspects.

“Its creativity is also quite lacking. It can imitate but cannot recreate anything on its own through that imitation.”

“Hmm.”

Princess Elenoa wore a somewhat displeased expression, but I continued speaking.

“It must be getting anxious now. So it will easily reveal its desires. What do you think? Have you noticed any patterns in its goals or behaviors?”

“Hmm.”

Crossing her arms and pondering for a moment, Elenoa thought hard before cautiously offering an opinion.

“It likes to imitate me. Whether it’s following etiquette, mimicking how I speak to people around me, or my walking style.”

“……”

[It’s obviously planning to become Elenoa.]

I agree with the Dark Spiritmaster’s opinion.

But.

Something felt different.

It was true that it wanted to become Elenoa, but there seemed to be some crucial difference.

Anyway, now I was certain.

‘The Elenoa I met in the game had already had her body taken.’

There was a similar yet distinct difference between the Princess Elenoa I was seeing now and the Princess Elenoa in the game.

Since Elenoa didn’t seem to want to discuss this topic, I naturally changed the subject.

“Are you still having trouble sleeping?”

“I’ve gotten used to it now. Thanks to that, I can study continuously without rest, so it’s not so bad.”

There were slight shadows under her eyes as she said this. But when she glanced at me, she smiled as if to say not to worry.

“It’s fortunate, right? When I return to Robern Academy, I won’t need to catch up on the curriculum. With such thorough preparation, I might even rank first this time?”

“……”

“As a princess, I can’t embarrassingly be at the bottom of the rankings.”

I didn’t bother to answer.

I didn’t particularly care, but it seemed that academic performance was included among the royal duties she felt obligated to fulfill.

“And Deus. Are you not going to keep your promise to me?”

“……”

Promise?

When I looked at her wondering what promise she was referring to, Elenoa pouted.

“I’m talking about the code. You promised that if you saw me first, you’d say it before I had to ask.”

This seemed to be the reason for her displeased demeanor all this time.

“Your Highness has been the one seeking me out every time.”

So naturally, I never had the opportunity to speak first. When I pointed this out, the princess crossed her arms and grumbled that I had a point.

“Tch, and I had prepared a response too.”

“…Sigh.”

Seeing her cheeks puffed out in annoyance, I wondered if this was really the princess I knew.

The protagonist Aria Rius was problematically more mature than her game counterpart, while Elenoa, one of the bosses, was problematically childish.

I began to speak about something I thought the princess would enjoy.

“There’s something called magical girls. It’s about ordinary girls who meet animals with special powers and transform into fancy dresses to defeat evil.”

“…!”

Before she could ask, I volunteered the information first. With a slight glance suggesting this was what she wanted, Elenoa cleared her throat.

Then she proudly delivered the line she had prepared.

“This is definitely reality!”

“…Was that all you wanted to say?”

“Yes! I wanted to declare it with certainty myself, not have Deus do it.”

Pleased with herself, Elenoa immediately pushed the notebook back toward me.

“But magical girls? What’s that? It sounds really fun!”

I had mentioned it because it seemed like something the princess would enjoy. Having only watched TV at my grandmother’s house as a child, I was familiar with magical girls.

Honestly, it wasn’t my preference, but I did like that they defeated villains.

Magical girls often fought against ghost-like entities, and I felt a kind of vicarious satisfaction through that.

“Explain it to me!”

“…I can’t give you detailed information.”

It was a childhood memory.

I started explaining what I vaguely remembered.

Elenoa was jumping around excitedly saying how fun it sounded, when suddenly she looked at me and asked,

“By the way, Deus, do you like this kind of thing?”

“……”

I regretted bringing it up.