CH 20

Chapter 20: Asher-sama at your service

“First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for receiving the sweets. Thank you. I heard from my servant that it was because of them that I woke up. “

“I’m glad to have been able to help.”

Asher-sama nods.

“But why did you come to me? And I didn’t even inform you of my whereabouts, yet you managed to find me here.”

The fact that I have been sleeping for a long time is a concern, but let’s first resolve this question.

Thinking that, I ask, and Asher answers as if it’s nothing.

“Miss Linea, someone who ate sweets made with the same sacred flower experienced an anomaly.”

“…!”

An anomaly?! That means.

“Did someone start having nightmares?”

When I ask, Asher turns a searching gaze towards me.

“Nightmares… I’m not sure if that’s the right word. More importantly, are your dreams really nightmares? I came to check that… and depending on the contents of the nightmare, I may have to erase it. I received these sweets from Lars for that purpose.”

Then he took a wooden box out of his pocket.

Asher opened the lid and revealed a confectionery flower inside.

A sugar confectionery flower that sparkled with glittering sugar powder and was golden in color.

Each of the five petals fluttered and created a soft curve like a camellia flower.

How delicious… As I remembered the sweetness I felt this morning and felt my saliva start to flow, I turned my gaze from the confectionery back to Asher-sama.

“If I eat this confectionery flower, does it mean I’ll wake up from a dream?”

“No, it cancels out the effect if you eat a dark-attribute confectionery before.”

“Cancels out the effect…”

“I thought I’d give it to you and was looking for where you were, but the you I found was still sleeping and suffering from a nightmare. In any case, it’s good that this confectionery was able to help.”

I inwardly tilt my head at Asher-sama’s words.

I didn’t eat the confectionery flower the day before yesterday when I fell asleep.

(But if I woke up with the confectionery flower that Asher-sama brought… does that mean it was the influence of the sacred flower mixed in the confectionery?)

I feel a little chill down my spine.

If I continue to eat the flower sweets I have, will I fall asleep?

“First, I will give you this. If there is no problem tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, it is fine, but use it if necessary.”

“I understand. Thank you very much.”

I received it obediently.

I think it is bad to fall asleep as expected.

“So what did the others dream about? Did they see something scary and get scared?”

When I ask that, Asher-sama answers with difficulty.

“I don’t want you to think I’m crazy when you hear this… No, even Lars. He just wants to study the sacred flower. In the process, only some strange things happen…”

I strike a punch to Asher-sama’s circuitous words.

When I waited for the next words, Asher-sama’s expression became one of utter dislike.

“Actually… the three people who ate the same sacred flower sweets… one of them is Lars-sama. It seems that he saw something that can only be thought of as a scene that may occur in the future.”

“The future…?”

I swallowed the words that I had almost said out loud.

Did someone else see the future too?! So the dream I saw was also some kind of prophecy of the future, wasn’t it!

And that’s why I understood Asher-sama’s words.

(…it’s definitely difficult to tell other people that you’ve seen the future!)

Usually, the people who use those words are either sleazy fortune-tellers or founders of new religions.

Basically, what they want is money.

Or… truly, people who have been affected by some strange magic and start talking about things that are impossible in reality…

Either way, they are no different from suspicious people.

Asher-sama probably prefaced this because he didn’t want to be seen as the same kind of person, and I hesitated to immediately agree.

(I don’t have the courage to shout, “I’m also a person whose head has gone crazy!” because, who knows, maybe they started talking about [seeing the future] as a way to make fun of me and belittle me…)

I know the possibility of that is very low, and I don’t think Asher-sama would go so far as to use expensive sweets just to do something like that.

But as someone who has constantly been ridiculed by those around me, it’s difficult for me to believe it right away.

At least, I need to confirm whether he really saw the future in his dream.

I say to Asher-sama, who is waiting for my reaction.

“If that’s about the future… how was it confirmed?”

“First of all, because it was a future in which the things seen in the dream could happen, and also because detailed dreams are often related to magic, Lars and the others concluded that it was something seen under the influence of magic.”

“And?”

At my urging, Asher-sama looks down a little.

“Lars’s dream wasn’t a nightmare. It was a dream about researching a new type of sacred flower… In that dream, he remembered in detail that this country was almost invaded by other countries, and that your father led those other countries.”

Lars-sama… saw a dream that’s in the same timeline as mine?!

I was about to scream again, but once again I managed to swallow my words just in time.

My stomach is starting to feel heavy…