Read Novel Full Chapter 596: Dream Walker
Chapter 596: Dream Walker
And so it continued.
Charlotte would want something dangerous and the Battle Angels would allow it, after some resistance.
Mika would protest, would argue, would point out every possible risk and danger, and his voice would be pushed aside like a leaf in a hurricane.
Then he would have no choice but to go with her, to protect her, to clean up the mess.
He was exhausted. He was frustrated. He was, at times, genuinely angry at the family for their inexplicable blindness when it came to Charlotte.
But he never blamed her.
Because he knew that Charlotte wasn’t doing any of this out of malice.
She wasn’t manipulating anyone deliberately. She wasn’t even aware of the effect she had on people.
She was simply a child who had been spoiled since birth and genuinely believed she could do anything in the world.
And in her defense, most of her desires were pure.
She never asked for anything truly wicked. Never wished harm on anyone. Never used her inexplicable influence to hurt or steal or deceive.
Her requests, however dangerous, were always innocent in intent.
She wanted to ride the big roller coaster because it looked fun.
She wanted to drive because it seemed exciting.
She wanted to explore the market because she was curious about the world.
There was, however, one exception.
Other girls.
—
Mika, despite his young age, had always been popular.
There was something about him—something beyond his unusual maturity and his quiet competence—that drew people in.
Girls his age would approach him in the park, wanting to play.
Older women would coo over him in the street, pinching his cheeks and calling him adorable.
He had a natural magnetism that he himself seemed completely unaware of.
Charlotte was very aware of it.
“Get away from him!”
The two girls who had been talking to Mika at the playground jumped back, their eyes wide with confusion.
They were just children, probably a year or two older than Charlotte, with pigtails and matching dresses and they had no idea what they’d done wrong.
“We were just—”
“He’s MINE!” Charlotte planted herself between Mika and the girls, her arms spread wide, her expression fierce. “Go away! Right now!”
The girls exchanged bewildered glances. Then, almost in unison, their expressions went slack.
They turned and walked away without another word, their movements stiff and mechanical, like puppets being guided by invisible strings.
“Charlotte.” Mika said, his voice heavy with exasperation. “We’ve talked about this.”
“They were flirting with you!”
“They were asking if I wanted to play on the swings. That’s not flirting. We’re children.”
“I don’t care! You’re my future husband, and no one else is allowed to talk to you!”
“I’m not your—” Mika stopped himself.
This was an argument he had lost a hundred times before.
“You can’t just chase away everyone who tries to be friends with me.”
“I can and I will!” Charlotte crossed her arms, her expression triumphant. “Did you see how fast they ran? They were so scared of me!”
“They weren’t scared. They were…” Mika trailed off.
He didn’t actually know what they were.
The way those girls had just…stopped. The way they’d walked away like their bodies weren’t entirely under their own control.
It was unsettling in a way he couldn’t quite articulate.
Charlotte, meanwhile, was preening. “I’m the scariest person in the whole world. No one will ever take you away from me.”
“Great. Wonderful. I’m so lucky.”
“You are! You’re the luckiest boy in the universe because you have me!”
—
The irony was that Charlotte’s influence didn’t work on her own sisters.
When it came to Mika, all bets were off.
If Charlotte tried to interrupt their time with Mika, they would round on her with a ferocity that made even the fearless princess take a step back.
“Mika is helping me with my fighting stance.” Astrid would say flatly. “Go away.”
“But I want to spend time with him!”
“Too bad. You’ve had him all morning. It’s my turn.”
“I’m the princess! I should get priority!”
“You’re not a princess, you’re a pest. Now leave before I practice on you.”
Charlotte would stamp her feet and throw tantrums and deploy her most devastating expressions, but her sisters were utterly immune.
Their love for Mika apparently burned bright enough to overwhelm even the passive mind control of a SSS-class blessing.
They would sooner fight Charlotte tooth and nail than surrender their time with him.
In a way, it was almost beautiful. Their devotion to him transcended even the supernatural charm that bent Battle Angels to Charlotte’s will.
They would give her anything else—toys, attention, the last slice of cake—but when it came to Mika, they drew a line that nothing could cross.
—
But for all the chaos of Charlotte’s waking hours, her true adventures began when she closed her eyes.
Her blessing, at its core, was not simply mind control.
That was merely its passive expression—the unconscious influence that seeped into the world around her.
Its active manifestation, the power she could deliberately wield was something else entirely.
Dream walking.
From the moment her blessing first awakened, Charlotte discovered that she could leave her own sleeping body behind and travel into the dreams of others.
She could wander from one consciousness to another, exploring the secret landscapes that people built in their sleep.
And Charlotte absolutely adored it.
Night after night, she would curl up in her bed, close her eyes, and let her consciousness drift away from her body.
The sensation was like floating on a warm current, being carried gently through a sea of stars.
One moment she would be in her own mind, and the next she would slip sideways into someone else’s dream, emerging into whatever strange and wonderful scenario their sleeping brain had constructed.
The variety was endless. The entertainment was constant.
—
One night, she found herself in the dream of an exhausted office worker.
A woman whose waking life was consumed by a black company that treated its employees like slaves.
Even in her dreams, the woman was still in her office, still drowning in paperwork, still being berated by her tyrannical boss.
But something in the dreamscape shifted, and suddenly the woman snapped. She stood up, slapped her boss across the face, and let out a laugh of pure, manic liberation.
Then she stripped off her clothes and began running through the office while everything behind her exploded in dramatic fireballs.
Charlotte watched the chaos unfold with wide-eyed delight.
The explosions were particularly impressive—clearly this woman had a lot of pent-up stress.
—
Another night, she wandered into the dream of a middle-aged farmer.
But this was no ordinary farm.
The animals in the barnyard all had human faces!
The faces of the farmer’s family members.
His wife was a cow, chewing placidly. His son was a sheep, bleating pathetically. His father-in-law was a pig, wallowing happily in mud.
The farmer himself walked among them with a contented smile, scattering feed and humming a tuneless song.
Charlotte found this dream both hilarious and deeply unsettling.
She wasn’t sure what it said about the farmer’s subconscious, but she was fairly certain she didn’t want to know.
—
A young man’s dream told the story of his romantic life—a saga of heartbreak and revenge.
He would meet a beautiful girl, fall deeply in love, and then watch helplessly as she left him for a more successful rival.
But then he would rise from the ashes, become fabulously wealthy, and win an even more beautiful wife.
Only for that wife to leave him too. The cycle repeated endlessly, each iteration more dramatic than the last.
Charlotte watched several cycles before she started giggling uncontrollably.
The man’s subconscious was basically a soap opera, and she was here for every melodramatic moment.
—
But her favorite dreams were the wholesome ones.
Like the elderly grandmother who lived far away from her grandchildren.
In her dreams, she was surrounded by them. A dozen little ones climbing into her lap, tugging at her skirts, demanding stories and cookies and kisses.
The love radiating from her sleeping mind was so warm, so pure, that Charlotte would often linger in this dream longer than any other.
It reminded her of her own family, of the way her mothers and aunts looked at her when they thought she wasn’t paying attention.
—
Through these nocturnal explorations, Charlotte learned more about human nature than any book could have taught her.
She saw people’s secret fears and hidden desires.
She witnessed their traumas and their triumphs.
She understood, perhaps better than anyone, that every person carried within them a vast, complex inner world that no one else could see.
And yet, for all the countless dreams she visited, the ones she returned to most often were those of her own family.
—
Every night, Charlotte would drift toward the familiar minds of her mother, her aunts, her sisters.
She wanted to know them in a way that waking conversation could never reveal.
And what she found was Mika.
Always Mika.
In dream after dream, across all five Battle Angels and all four sisters, Mika was there.
He was the star. The center. The axis around which every subconscious narrative revolved.
—
In one recurring dream, Astrid and Mika were no longer human at all.
They had transformed into fox spirits with multiple tails fanning out behind them like cascades of silk.
They played together in meadows, chasing each other through the underbrush, curling up together in cozy dens.
And they had children—tiny foxee with Mika’s dark fur and Astrid’s eyes, who tumbled and played and cuddled with their parents in great, warm piles.
Charlotte watched these dreams with a mixture of fascination and something that might have been jealousy.
—
In another recurring dream, Astrid was much older, a grown woman, while Mika remained a child.
She would dote on him endlessly, pulling him onto her lap, cuddling him like a beloved pet.
“Open wide, Mika~” Astrid would coo in her dream.
“I can feed myself!”
“But I want to feed you. You’re so cute when you’re embarrassed.”
“But I’m not that little anymore!” dream-Mika would protest.
“You’ll always be little to me, little brother. Now open wide—here comes the airship!”
And she would make zooming noises while feeding him his food, completely ignoring his attempts at dignity.
‘She really can’t let go of being the big sister.’ Charlotte mused. ‘Even in her dreams.’
—
Anya’s dreams had changed over time.
When they were younger, her dreamscapes had been as gentle and timid as the girl herself.
She and Mika would float through endless skies on cotton-candy clouds. They would explore vast, magical libraries where the books came alive and the shelves stretched into infinity.
They would have quiet, peaceful adventures that reflected Anya’s introverted nature.
But after the incident, the wholesome dreams became much more sadistic and violent.
Mika and Anya would have sadistic smiles on their faces as they went on a hunt for certain people, tearing them apart.
Or there were dreams where Mika was bound up, and Anya played mischievous, playful pranks on him, showing off a sadistic side that Charlotte really didn’t understand.
Those dreams made Charlotte uncomfortable, so she tried to avoid them.
—
The daughter of the Maiden of War, the wild one in the family who was more beast than human had very different dreams.
Mika was always there, but never as a lover or a companion.
He was prey and she was predator.
Her dreams were endless chases through forests and mountains and ruined cities, with Mika fleeing desperately while she pursued with savage glee.
“I’m going to catch you!”
She would howl, her form shifting between human and various animals—wolf, bear, great hunting cat.
“And when I do, I’m going to—”
Whatever she was going to do, the dream usually shifted before it happened.
But the intent was clear: she wanted to dominate him, defeat him, prove herself superior.
But it made sense.
Back then, the daughter of the War Maiden was the only one who did not like Mika at all, for her own reasons.
She treated him as her enemy. So even in her dreams, she had the same idea.
—
But the strangest dreams of the sisters belonged to the daughter of the Maiden of Fate.
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