Chapter 34.1: Bolero Street (1)

Night Demons liked to invade the dreams of humans.

Unlike reality, anything was possible within dreams. No matter how miserable your reality was, in your dreams, you could achieve whatever happiness you desired.

Even if you aren't able to eat anything right now, in your dreams, you were able to taste all of the world's delicacies. Even if you didn't have a penny in your pockets, in your dreams, you could live in a mansion full of gold and silver treasure. Whether it's dead family members, friends, or lovers, even if you couldn't meet them in reality, in your dreams, you could even make new memories with them.

You could do anything you wanted in your dreams.

Your dreams could be filled with eternal happiness and joy.

That was why they were called dreams.

Even among the demonfolk, the Night Demons were particularly nasty. They dug into the weak spots of the heart that their victims, as humans, could do nothing about. They showed humans things that they couldn't achieve in reality, things that were only possible in their dreams. By doing this, they created a false sense of happiness that they used to ensnare their victims.

Lovellian had mentioned the Queen of the Night Demons. In Eugene's previous life, she was one of the demons that Hamel had most wished to kill. That damned demonfolk had attacked Hamel and his colleagues several times during their journey through Helmuth.

The Night Demons who served the Queen had invaded their dreams whenever they got a chance and had forced Hamel to recall his greatest regrets — the family he had lost in a monster raid, his helplessness as he hadn't been able to do anything, and the constant feelings of rivalry and inferiority that marked his relationship with Vermouth. All of these ended up being highlighted in his dreams.

In his dreams, Hamel didn't lose his family. Instead, the young Hamel's innate talents had miraculously blossomed, allowing him to slaughter the monsters. His parents and the other villagers had celebrated Hamel as a hero.

In his dreams, Hamel was simply greater than Vermouth. No matter how hard he tried, Vermouth just could not defeat Hamel. 'It's because you're an idiot,' Hamel had mocked Vermouth.

In his dreams, Hamel had stood at the forefront of the subjugation effort. The thousands of people who had been lost in the process of crossing into Helmuth, all those who hadn't been able to keep up with the hero and his companions and had perished along the way without even leaving their names behind, none of them had died in his dream. Forging ahead, he had defeated all the threats that stood in their way, and Hamel managed to save all those countless lives.

Then he had finally defeated the last of the Demon Kings.

But only in his dreams.

'Something like that can't replace reality.'

Hamel—no, Eugene was bitterly aware of this fact.

No matter how sweet the dream that a Night Demon showed you, it could never become a reality. After waking up from the dream, the sweetness left over from this illusion was contrasted against reality and only bred bitter self-hatred.

Although you might find happiness from such a dream, this only made reality feel even more shitty. In order to change your shitty reality, the last thing that you needed to do was to dive back into your dreams.

You needed to tear the illusion apart. You needed to kill the Night Demon, who was trying to sway your heart by showing you such a damned illusion and eventually lead you into losing yourself in an empty dream.

Three hundred years had passed since then. The Demon Kings, the demonfolk, and the Night Demons had all changed over time.

Eugene could understand what Lovellian was trying to say. There was nothing particularly wrong with his words. He wanted Eward, who was crushed by his damning reality, to at least catch his breath in his dreams.

"I'm too old for this," Eugene muttered as he massaged his temples.

Although he might be able to understand, at the same time, he just couldn't understand. Because he knew the horror of the Night-Demons and the futility of the dreams that they showed. Eugene could not consider Eward's shameful conduct to be a light matter.

As long as Eward was addicted to the dreams, he would continue to turn away from reality. He would just end up becoming a fool.

Although he didn't hold any brotherly affection towards Eward, he had received a lot of favor from Gilead.

"'Old?' What are you talking about all of a sudden?" came a surprised question.

"I'm saying that your outfit is really old-fashioned," Eugene said as he turned his head to face the questioner.

He was currently sitting in one of the aerial carriages. Gargith was seated across from him. Though the inside of the carriage was quite spacious, Gargith, whose body was pointlessly large, had to hunch his shoulders slightly to fit inside.

"Why are you calling my clothes old-fashioned?" Gargith asked.

Eugene critiqued, "Isn't it because of those stupid-looking frills hanging off you. Who on earth dressed you in that outfit?"

"My mother picked my clothes, and she said that I looked very handsome in them."

"Now that I take a closer look, it really does look good on you. When you add frills to your looks, which are practically overflowing with ferocity, you look just like a wild beast hiding its fangs."

At these hastily amended words, Gargith smiled in happiness, "That's just what I thought."

Although Eugene desperately wanted to take back the words he had just uttered, Gargith's previous look of pitiful dismay had been painful to even look at. Gargith was currently wearing a formal suit with frills sewn onto its arms and chest. Although the scent of perfume thankfully covered up the smell of Gargith's body odor, it actually felt more disturbing when the smell of cologne was added to his already unusual appearance.

"...You don't need to put on any cologne," Eugene grudgingly allowed.

"Why not?" Gargith asked.

"With your looks, the smell of body odor feels more natural, and it suits you better than cologne."

"I had the same feeling as well."

Eugene turned his head to stare out the window once again.

It was the night of the full moon. The night when Bolero Street would finally open.

Eward had left the tower this morning. He had heard from Hera that Eward had said he was going out to buy some materials for magical experiments. Although Eugene didn't know if this excuse was true or not, there was no way that a guy who'd been staying in his room for all this time would just happen to go out on today of all days.

'Idiot,' Eugene scoffed as he looked at his reflection in the window.

His face and hair color had been altered. It was still too early for him to be able to use the high-level spell Polymorph, even if he had wanted to. However, he was able to use some lower-ranking spells to change his facial features and hair color.

Right now, Eugene had only learned spells up to the Second Circle. Although there had yet to be a reply to the letter of recommendation Lovellian had sent, he had decided to listen to Lovellian's advice. He might not be certain that an entry pass to Akron would be handed to him, but until he knew for sure, Eugene had decided to not learn any more spells.

Instead, Eugene went over the magic already stored in his head. He organized the First and Second Circle spells that he had learned from the introductory books on magic. He had gotten practice with substituting a Core for a Circle and had gotten more familiar with casting spells.

As a result, Eugene was able to cast any spell from the First and Second Circle, without difficulty. The spell he had currently cast on himself was also a Second Circle spell. It was a rudimentary transformation spell that could be disrupted even by a low-ranking dispel, but it was adequate for a place like Bolero Street.

Although it maintained tacit approval from the authorities, most of the business done on Bolero Street was still against the law.

Among those who came and went down Bolero Street, many chose to hide their identities. Since Polymorph was a high-ranking spell, it wasn't so easy to use, so most used rudimentary transformation spells. As such, dispelling the transformation magic cast on visitors to Bolero Street was strictly prohibited.

'Although that doesn't mean it's impossible to recognize someone by their looks,' Eugene noted.

Dispels weren't absolutely necessary to see the truth behind a disguise. High-level wizards could easily see through low-level magic. In the end, using such a spell in front of a powerful wizard was just like putting your hands over your eyes and playing dumb.

But isn't that still better than not doing anything at all?

As he flipped up the hood of his robe, Eugene opened the carriage's door. They had arrived at Bolero Street.