Fantasy Clock～Dream Ruler～

The moment he opened his eyes, Xia Yinci's bedroom ceiling was in his field of vision, but it seemed unreal.

I stretched out my hand hesitantly, and pinched the flesh of my arm hard.

"Hiss..."

Although I clenched my teeth because of the pain, it made me breathe a sigh of relief.

"Have I finally woken up?"

I rubbed my eyes quite moved, as if I had just passed a life-and-death situation.

However, I turned around, and the moment I was about to sit up, I was deeply shocked by the scene caught in my peripheral vision!

The girl with her eyes closed was hugging the purple circled pillow tightly, her long hair was scattered on the pillow, and she just lay beside me like this.

I blinked blankly, then immediately took a few steps back, trying to jump out of the bed in a panic, but accidentally tripped and fell off the bed to the ground, the loud sound made the sleeping Xia Yin Citan sat up.

"it hurts……"

I rubbed the back of my head in pain, looked at those confused pupils, pointed to Xia Yinci who was lying on the bed, and finally said what I had held back for a long time just now——

"Why are you sleeping next to me!!!"

Xia Yinci tilted her head, sat on the bed in a duck posture, and then showed a smile of unknown meaning.

Probably driven by this condescending situation, my eyes flickered when I looked at her, and it was difficult to lock on to the same point.

"If you don't do this, how can I let you enter my dream unscathed?"

His eyes were once again in focus. Her tone was very light, unlike Xia Yinci's style.

I looked towards her desk, and those strange books easily broke into view.

Except for Xia Yinci, it is impossible for anyone else to spread out all the books in such a random way, pile them on the table, and put on a serious expression, explaining forcefully:

"Turn all the books you need to the pages you need to read and put them on the table, so you don't have to spend time looking for books in the bookcase! From the results, I can save more time than you!!"

So, the girl in front of her is indeed Xia Yinci, but...

I looked at this strange girl strangely, as if I wanted to get to know her again.

Even though it was confirmed that she was Xia Yinci, she always felt that there was something different about her appearance, and I couldn't tell what was weird about it.

Perhaps it was because Xia Yinci was not the kind of girl who spoke without emotion.

"Is there anything you want to ask?"

Suddenly, Xia Yinci asked me coldly.

I didn't know how to answer for a while.

The air conditioner was turned on in the room at some point, and the cold floor stimulated the nerves in the legs.

Even so, the thin short sleeves were still sticky from sweat.

"I want to ask you too much!"

"Then pick the one you want to ask the most and ask first."

Her words made me stunned. The dream images in my mind couldn't be put together, they flashed in front of my eyes in fragments, but trying to recall, the unreasonably long dream I had just now, the kind of dream that wanted to torture people with a fear of heights to death, was absolutely meaningless. in my own style.

Besides, I didn't see anyone I was familiar with in my dream, and there were many scenery that I had never seen before.

"What did you mean when you said that your dream was...?"

"Only when two people sleep on the same bed can they enter each other's dreams."

Xia Yinci answered me with blurred eyes. After noticing my gaze, she raised her pretty face and looked at me with her head held high. I shook my head, as if trying to drive away words that would shake my worldview.

Xia Yinci must be the same as before, just talking nonsense that no one can understand, just a different tone of speaking...

I clearly want to think in the wrong direction, but I know better than anyone that Xia Yinci is serious now. This sense of contradiction made me unable to adapt, so I had to look in a certain direction in confusion, my eyes could not be focused, and the words that came out of my mouth became powerless.

"what are you talking about?"

"Three people, four people, even more interesting things will happen. It's just that people don't realize it. Pay too much attention to dreams, or forget them completely. It's too extreme. , is why we have been unable to find the truth.”

Her less-than-usual murmurs confused me again.

I tried to recall everything that happened in the clock world in the dream just now, but the memory of the dream became more and more blurred and distorted after waking up.

Obviously everything happened just now, but I can only remember what happened specifically, only sporadic fragments.

"'They are dreamers like me', 'the team of twelve rulers has not yet been assembled'..."

I uttered the incoherent words in my memory, and suddenly recalled the eyes I saw in my dream. The temperament she exudes is very similar to the girl in front of her in various aspects. The still unconscious brain suddenly got the answer——

"You...you are the girl number seven in the dream, right?"

From the first time we met till now, I have always felt that Xia Yinci, who doesn't speak up, has the charm of a girl. Especially the pair of smiling eyes under the hair on the forehead. The girl in the dream also had similar eyes.

However, if you ask me the decisive evidence, it is the way Xia Yinci looks at me now.

——It was exactly the same as the picture in the dream...!

She pursed her lips tightly as if she was enduring something, and suddenly she let out a sigh of relief as if she had decided on something, her lips hadn't recovered their color from the force just now.

"Anyway, you sit next to me first. It's my fault that I didn't explain it to you~ But I hope you can understand me too."

For some unknown reason, what she exudes is a kind of calm. mild. But it feels like an unusual person.

She looked into my eyes, not letting me lose my gaze.

I stood up with my mind full of doubts, and tried to stand up carefully. I always feel that a random movement of her will make me fall back to the ground in fear.

Probably also noticed my nervousness, her frowning eyebrows relaxed, revealing a reassuring smile.

"Me. I didn't call you to my house just to make you have a lucid dream."

The twelve people who stood on the clock just now appeared in their minds, with different images, weird and very real. Their indistinct appearances flashed before my eyes one by one.

And the madman who, among the dreamers, seems to play the fatuous king.

"You came to me just to get together those twelve messy people?"

"Hmm...Actually, I've always had lucid dreams~"

So, what she said after school, about being interested in lucid dreams, are all lies, right?

You said that just to lead me to her house and let me experience the dream just now?

"The you just now did run into my dream to dream, but I didn't go into your dream, but acted as the reviewer."

"Inspector?"

"When you realize that you are dreaming and successfully dominate the dream, it means that you have passed the audit and are recognized by the dream as a "dominant" who can participate in the game of dominators. At this time, the door leading to the cracks in the dream Open."

I tried to chew on the meaning of her words.

She came to me to get the 12 on her clock.

My physique may just meet the requirements of the ruler.

Based on these, she invited me to join this strange game without my consent.

I raised my eyebrows and asked her passionately, "What if I don't succeed?"

She smiled as a matter of course: "Then you will wake up soon... Then I won't say anything to you."

Offensive tone and attitude.

I didn't have any intention to play this kind of unknown game with her, and I couldn't simply accept her words, and I was inexplicably angry at her unexplained concealment beforehand.

After all, she didn't take my opinion into consideration at all.

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to play such an inexplicable game!"

I stood up without hesitation, and just as I was about to walk out of the room, Xia Yinci suddenly grabbed my arm.

"no……"

"What else do you want to do? You promised to let me go if you had a lucid dream."

I turned around, only to find that Xia Yinci's face was full of embarrassment, and she said with great reluctance:

"No... because... when you were dreaming just now..."

"Um?"

"Oh! You raped me while you were asleep just now!"

"Wh... what? Violation?! Hey, what do you mean!"

My cheeks suddenly became hot, and I looked at her puzzled and extremely shy.

The moment his eyes swept over her white thighs, a hazy memory suddenly appeared in front of him. In the scene of the amusement park, I remember feeling a comfortable coolness when I swam ashore...

Ah... Could it be! ?

Those are not tiles on the wall of the pool, but——

My dry lips cracked in a moment of haste. I moistened my dry lips quickly and swallowed.

"Hey! Where are you looking!"

Xia Yinci's coquettishness made me quickly turn my gaze from her thighs back to her flushed pretty face.

"Wait a minute! Sister, I swear this was an accident! Don't be angry!"

"Then how do you want to compensate me?"

I didn't answer her right away, but hesitated for a while.

"Compensation is fine, but I won't play this game with you."

"But you can't quit now~"

After all, Xia Yinci put on an unquestionable look and looked at me with her head held high.

"It would be very annoying to me."

I put on a bluntly bored expression, and stared at the girl in front of me irritatedly. But she just glanced at it and easily ignored it.

"You can quit if you want. But if we can't make up 12 people, we will all be punished including you who quit."

"Even so, I don't want to help you."

Even though I knew in my heart that I had no way out, I still didn't want to agree to her easily. Whatever her reasons, this behavior really disgusts me. I hate being forced to do anything, it makes me angry no matter who pushes me.

But Xia Yinci smiled, moved towards me, clasped his hands together as a gesture of please.

"Just think of it as doing me a favor~ If you are willing to help, I can treat the thing you did when you were young as if it never happened, and write it off~ From now on, I will never mention it again~"

The hair touched the skin again, and the heart was shaken again.

She looked straight into my eyes and I looked back into hers.

As if her eyes were portals to the past.

"You brought out the past, are you trying to put pressure on me and threaten me?"

The girl smiled but didn't answer. Probably because I understand that once I move out of this matter, I must be at fault.

But I have no impression of what she said at all, and I never remember any excessive things I did to her. I don't know when it started, not only Xia Yinci, but even her parents sometimes mentioned something related to this incident.

I've asked them several times what exactly happened, but no one has ever answered me.

It's always perfunctory, just telling me that I owe Xia Yinci.

"How do you decide?"

Why do you show such a desperate look when you ask what happened to you?

Did you cry at that time? why are you crying

I can't find an answer. Because the memory only stays at this level.

Over time, I also began to wonder, did that kind of thing really happen?

"I really don't remember...what I did."

Xia Yinci raised the corners of her mouth, and for some reason, seeing her force herself to smile, she couldn't help but feel an unknown fire in her heart.

But the object of anger is not her, but me who can't think of anything.

"Hey, what did I do? If something really happened, you... tell me!"

She looked at me quietly, unmoved by it.

I looked into those eyes, frowned, and scratched my hair impatiently.

"The phenomenon of ghost pressing on the bed that you experienced is because you have the ability of lucid dreaming, but you can't control it freely. If you can fully control lucid dreaming, you will be able to get rid of the troubles of ghost pressing on the bed."

The girl changed the subject, and this time she didn't answer the question directly.

"Why do you have to change the topic every time you talk about this matter. If you force me, I would rather not solve this problem."

"Hey, do you know what the punishment for our failure is? I won't have the right to dream independently in the future."

"Anyway, it's just a dream. I don't understand. Lucid dreams are useless except for self-satisfaction, right?"

I shrugged. This kind of thing doesn't matter at all to me.

"I would like to correct two things for you. First, many scientists are lucid dreamers. Einstein is a typical example. He often used dreams to set up experimental conditions and complete ideal experiments, so he actually sleeps a long time a day. "

This kind of partial knowledge again.

"Second, under normal circumstances, the dreams we have at night are created by the subconscious mind based on our memories and are protected by the subconscious mind. Losing the right to dream independently means that dreams are no longer controlled and protected by the subconscious mind."

"so what?"

"That is to say, you lost your dreams. If the situation is better, you will never dream again, but losing your dreams may cause symptoms such as memory loss, and you may become an idiot."

Idiotization is a better situation? How terrible is the worst case scenario?

"If the situation is worse, after you fall asleep, your consciousness will drift to a world that no one knows. It may be someone else's dream. Think about what you experienced in my dream just now."

Chased by a gigantic monster and almost killed by it. Being targeted by a strange woman, he almost died on a roller coaster.

"And when you wake up is out of your control, so you may never wake up again."

"Does it mean that if I fall asleep one day, I may never wake up again?"

"Yeah~ So I'll ask you again, do you still want to quit? If you help me, you may not have to go through this kind of thing, and I can also write off the previous things. If you don't help me...then just figure it out .”

She looked at me directly, without any intention of dodging, as if pushing me into the water was a matter of course. I just wanted to angrily reject her threat, and felt that it was not too much to lose my temper with her, but I saw a trace of sadness flickering in her eyes.

"Please, trust me... If you continue to delay, it will only lead to a worse result. Only this way has a way out..."

Those were words spoken in a trembling voice. Although I didn't understand what it meant, and I didn't even know if these words came from Xia Yinci's mouth... But I really fell into doubts because of these words.

Regarding the childhood incident, even if I don't remember it happening, it is still real.

I am not qualified to ignore it, and amnesia does not constitute a reason for my lack of responsibility.

It may be my punishment to forget what happened, and one day in the future I will recall what happened at that time.

...

"never mind……"

Even though I was unwilling to accept this ending, I still had no choice but to compromise.

"Since I can't quit, I'll accompany you."

The pleading in Xia Yinci's pupils finally faded, and the sadness in her eyes was replaced by a smile.

"Then, please teach me more from now on~"

The girl stretched out her hand to me, with a very serious expression on her face, as if I would never regret it after shaking hands.

"Don't be so anxious, I still have something to say."

The girl froze for a moment, then slowly lowered her hand.

"I don't need you to write off the past. Instead, at the end of this game, you have to tell me what happened... I want to know what it is that I forgot, and that's my condition. "

I looked directly at her, Xia Yinci's eyes flashed hesitation for some reason, she bit her lip lightly, as if she was considering my words.

"Can't you agree when it's your turn?"

"That's not the case!"

Xia Yinci hurriedly turned her eyes back to me. After staring at me for a long time, she let go of her canine teeth biting her lower lip, and nodded her head lightly as she agreed to my condition.

Facing the girl who finally compromised with me, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Then, it's agreed."

＊＊＊

After that, I asked Xia Yinci about the dream world.

Now that you have decided to participate in this game, you should take it a little more seriously.

Well, like a certain Sword Art Online's Akihiko Kayaba said——

"Although this is a game, it is not a joke."