The World Is Mine For The Taking

"I..."

I couldn't immediately figure out what to say.

My mind felt strangely empty and completely scattered at the same time, which was probably because the dream had been so incredibly vivid that it had felt completely real while I was experiencing it.

The strangest part was that the moment I woke up, everything I had seen began disappearing from my memory.

It was almost like trying to hold water in my hands, because the harder I tried to remember what had happened, the faster everything seemed to slip away.

"Nothing," I finally said while trying to steady my breathing. "I think I just had a nightmare."

"A nightmare?"

Kaori looked genuinely surprised by my answer, as though she hadn't expected me to say something like that at all.

"That's a little unusual," she said. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that you've had a nightmare before."

She looked at me for another moment before her expression softened with concern.

"Do you want me to prepare some chocolate milk for you?"

"You are going to make chocolate milk?"

I stared at her for a moment, partly because I hadn't expected that question and partly because chocolate milk seemed like a strangely specific solution to waking up from a nightmare.

"Well, it's actually getting kind of embarrassing to keep letting Maya-san and Amon-san make chocolate milk for us," Kaori explained. "They're also the ones who keep preparing breakfast for us in general, and I feel bad about making them do all of that every morning."

She scratched her cheek awkwardly before continuing.

"So I asked them if I could start doing it myself. They seemed like they wanted to keep doing it because we're guests here, but Leon told them that it was fine."

"I see..."

That actually made sense when I thought about it.

I suppose it really was becoming a little embarrassing to let them prepare breakfast for us almost every day, especially when we weren't exactly staying here as ordinary guests.

In fact, if anything, we were the ones bothering Leon by constantly asking him to train us.

We had come here asking him for help, and he had still allowed us to stay here while everyone around him continued taking care of us.

Letting them prepare breakfast for us every morning made me feel like we were taking advantage of their kindness a little too much.

Still, despite thinking about that, I couldn't completely get my thoughts out of the gutter.

For some reason, my mind kept returning to that strange dream.

I knew it had been a dream, and yet the emotions I had experienced inside it felt far too real for me to simply dismiss.

I remembered the feeling of being terrified.

I remembered the feeling of seeing someone lying on the ground.

I remembered the feeling of seeing someone kneeling in front of that enormous creature.

I remembered explosions.

I remembered the feeling that something horrible was approaching.

Yet whenever I tried to put the entire dream together, everything became blurry.

It was almost like my memories had been erased the moment I woke up.

The harder I tried to remember what had happened, the more the details seemed to disappear from my mind.

I could tell that the dream had contained something important, even though I couldn't explain why I felt that way.

Maybe it was simply because of how realistic everything had seemed.

Maybe my mind had just decided to throw together a bunch of strange things after everything that had happened recently.

Still, something about it bothered me.

I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen something that I was supposed to remember.

Something important.

Something that might matter later.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried to reach for those memories, they remained just outside my grasp.

***

Leon's POV

I woke up feeling as fresh as ever, stretching my arms and legs as I finally got myself out of bed after what had been a surprisingly restful night.

Unfortunately, when I stood up, I accidentally dragged the blankets off Erica, Bella, and Latifa, the three women I had shared a rather eventful night with only a few hours earlier.

I immediately pulled the covers back over them, making sure they were properly covered again before quietly making my way toward the bathroom, where I washed myself and took a little time to properly wake myself up.

Once I finished washing up, I left the room and soon found Amon waiting outside, already looking like she had been busy gathering information while I was still asleep.

"Good morning, Master," she greeted me politely.

"Good morning, Amon," I replied as I looked in her direction. "What is the current state of affairs?"

At the moment, Amon had been keeping track of everything happening around the world, gathering information from various sources and monitoring any major developments that could potentially affect us.

"It seems that the Mermaid Kingdom has also sensed the disruption happening on the surface, so they've started becoming much more active," she explained. "They're gathering information about the war, and it appears that they already understand they could become a target as well. Because of that, nearly half of the Great Ocean is currently being guarded by mermaids."

"That certainly explains why things around the ocean have been getting quieter lately," I muttered while considering what she had just told me.

"More importantly, most of the Great Ocean has become blocked and inaccessible to traders and merchants," Amon continued. "Since several important trade routes have been closed, a large number of trading companies have already started suffering significant losses because of the disruption."

"I see," I replied.

"More than that, approximately fifty percent of all trade can no longer be properly distributed because of the war," she continued. "Because of this disruption, the major trading companies are becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation, and some of them have already started using their wealth to accumulate large amounts of military equipment and firepower for a potential counterattack."

She paused briefly, apparently checking some additional information on her tablet before continuing with her report.

"It may only be a matter of time before the Mermaid Kingdom itself becomes involved in an actual state of war."

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