Chapter 65 : Chapter 65
Volume 2, Chapter 34: Dream Mirror
Ilo had not been speaking nonsense. Not long after leaving, she brought over a small bowl of food.
It was a slightly goose-yellow, paste-like liquid, giving off a faint grain scent. Although it had no real flavor, it truly made Leticia feel much better.
Perhaps a large part of that was psychological, but after she finished eating, a warm feeling surged from her stomach and quickly radiated through her entire body, making her settle down in spite of herself.
It was also because of this that Leticia did not even know when she fell asleep.
“Mm...”
Leticia opened her eyes in a daze and looked around. For a moment, she clearly had not reacted to why she was standing atop a lake like a mirror of black light.
“This place is...”
Before she finished speaking, Leticia immediately realized. This was a dream, the world within a dream she had come to several times before. She did not know its cause or purpose, and could only treat it as a secret rendezvous spot for communication.
“Why did I suddenly end up in this place for no reason... Could it already be night...?”
Her mind was very clear now, unaffected by even the slightest trace of illness.
But of course. If illness could affect this surreal place too, that could only mean she was terminally ill and about to die, right?
According to the experience she had summarized from the previous times, one condition for this dream realm’s appearance was that it had to be at night, when Stano’s connection with her had been severed. The second condition was... all right, she had not summarized it.
After all, the times it appeared were too disorderly. There was no way to summarize anything from them.
But what she did know was that in this place, she would definitely see a certain annoying little brat.
“Ah... What the hell. It’s a bamboo pole.”
Sure enough, Leticia immediately heard that especially irritating voice.
When she turned back, she saw that kid. Although he could not be called a youth in fine clothes astride a spirited horse, he was at least bright and well-dressed. In any case, compared with Leticia, he was a young lad whose clothing was many times better.
Stano’s skin was still as dark as before. Mm, it even seemed to be deepening. She had no idea what he had been doing recently. However, as compensation for growing darker, his physique was also developing. The genes inherited from that father of his—Stano occasionally told Leticia about his family—were displaying their strength.
Although he was a bit short, he had become much sturdier.
“I haven’t seen you for a while, and you look even more awful than before.”
He had already grown used to this form of meeting face-to-face, so Stano did not look around. Instead, he walked over naturally and sized Leticia up from head to toe. “What happened? I remember you were still normal not long ago.”
Did her complexion look that bad?
For the moment, Leticia had no mind to mock Stano. She instinctively touched her own face. “Nothing happened. Rather, did something happen to you?”
She had long felt that something was wrong. This time, she could conveniently see whether she could draw out any information.
Although there was a ninety-nine percent chance that the information she obtained would be useless to her, well, knowing more things was never bad for herself.
“Me?”
Stano sat down carelessly on the icy ground and somewhat irritably scratched his hair. “Nothing. Didn’t I already tell you before? I just have some things going on recently.”
“Oh.”
Seeing his attitude, Leticia knew she could forget about getting any information from Stano in the short term.
As for why...
Could you expect someone in his “rebellious adolescence” to obediently listen to you?
Especially when this guy was not exactly brainless.
Leticia did not dwell on this too much. She also sat down and used her hand to touch the ground, which looked like a solidified mirror.
It was as smooth as marble flooring laid in modern society. No, compared with that material, this place was even more exquisite and extravagant, carrying a surreal sense of mystery and beauty.
If those rich people saw it, they would probably be immediately captivated, then become obsessed and want to take it for themselves.
However, they were destined never to see such a wondrous sight.
“Hey, Bamboo Pole.”
Suddenly, Stano spoke in a muffled voice. “Let me ask you a question... Tch, forget it. Asking you probably won’t get me some mysterious answer anyway. Even I can’t think of one, so how could you possibly answer? Forget it, forget it...”
She kept feeling that this damn brat looked down on her in all kinds of ways.
“Suit yourself.”
Leticia said indifferently, “If you don’t tell me, then you’re doomed to think uselessly about that question by yourself with no result. If you tell me, at least one more person can help you think about it. Ah, of course, someone like me definitely won’t be able to think of anything anyway, right?”
“All right, I get it!”
Stano forcefully scratched his hair. “What I actually wanted to ask is, if—I’m only saying if—you had a strange feeling around you, what would you do?”
“I think you’d better give a relatively specific example.”
Leticia glanced sideways at Stano. “There are many kinds of strange feelings, all right?”
“Fine. Then...”
Stano thought for a moment. “I feel like someone is following me.”
“...Huh?”
Leticia glanced at Stano somewhat strangely and asked, “Could you be too narcissistic?”
“Go, go, go play off to the side!”
After being mocked by Leticia to the point that he could not maintain even a noble tone, Stano wanted nothing more than to grab her by the neck. “Impossible! My feelings can’t be wrong!”
“That confident?”
“It was probably something that started a few days ago.”
Stano thought for a moment and said, “Since then, I’ve kept feeling that someone is watching me from the dark. It isn’t the servants at home. I can still be sure of that.”
“I’ll ask for now. Although I know your home is kind of a, uh, very nice place, how are its defenses?”
Leticia thought for a moment. “Look, take our village, for example. Although outsiders rarely come, people still come and go. Putting aside the friendly ones, ordinary spying isn’t uncommon either. Could it be that you’re sensing those?”
“No...”
Stano bit his nail. This was something he occasionally did when anxious. “If it were the gazes of outsiders, it would be impossible for my family not to sense it, and my father would be even less likely to make no move at all. Bamboo Pole, have you forgotten? I’m also a noble.”
“Oh my, how unfortunate. I almost really did forget...”
Leticia muttered softly, then, as if not letting Stano notice her mockery, connected back to the topic at lightning speed. “I know, I know. Then what you mean is that some strange person has appeared in your home. Either their technique is so superb that your family and guards can’t discover them, yet they’re a creep interested only in you, or someone among you, whether an insider or traitor, is paying close attention to you?”
“Uh... Pretty much.”
Perhaps he had not expected Leticia to summarize it so quickly. Stano froze for two seconds before nodding. “Mm, that’s it. That’s why I feel suspicious.”