System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 321: Into the Waking Nightmare
Corin Tilly’s life was regular, as regular as any ordinary person’s.
In the mornings, she stayed in the hall, treating insomniacs introduced by acquaintances. At noon, she closed the doors, lay alone by the window of her second-floor bedroom, let the breeze stir her dark-red hair, and enjoyed tea, cakes, and lazy sunlight.
Then she would close her eyes in comfort and relax body and mind.
Afternoon tea was not merely a simple pleasure. It was her daily required lesson.
Because of her profession, Corin Tilly had come into contact with countless strange dreams from different patients, absurd ones, laughable ones, terrifying ones.
The pain, hunger, and beatings her patients endured in dreams, along with the nameless shadows buried deep in their hearts, were all reflected onto her.
Long exposure to these embodied negative emotions meant an oneiromancer’s mind and spirit were under enormous pressure at every waking moment.
Forced by necessity, she had to meditate every afternoon to regulate body and mind.
But the sudden knocking downstairs startled her awake.
Corin Tilly’s eyelid twitched. She turned her head and saw two unfamiliar faces appear not far below the window, one man strong and hard as a bear, and another handsome man who moved with the padded steps of a cat. In a few strides, they were standing before her door.
Looking down from above, she noticed a pair of dark-gold slit pupils.
The woman’s pretty face went pale.
“Damn it. Those ungrateful bastards take my protection money and do nothing.”
...
“Beautiful lady, are you exercising?” The young Witcher blocked the target trying to flee at the back of the house. She had her back to him, two long legs already over the railing of the second-floor balcony. Her agile movements hardly matched her graceful figure, and Roy’s teasing voice made her freeze.
A moment later, Corin Tilly simply gave up struggling and climbed back onto the balcony. As her floral dress shifted, a faint flash of sheer rose-red passed beneath it, giving the two men behind her quite a view.
Roy saw the woman clearly from the front.
She looked to be in her twenties, with wheat-colored skin, shoulder-length hair, and a mature, beautiful face. She dressed lightly, with a sorceress’s bold style, but wore no magically enhanced amulet around her neck, and the Chaotic Energy on her body was thin.
Corin Tilly
Gender: Female
Age: 25
Identity: Oneiromancer, through dreams, she perceives the past and future, filtering out most randomness and false signals to obtain reliable revelations.
The Scry information slightly surprised the Witcher. The oneiromancer’s magic was extremely thin. Her talent in sorcery was not much stronger than his own.
“Like a witch doctor, someone with a unique gift, but whose magical ability is a mule between donkey and horse.”
...
The woman nervously studied the Witcher, her face pale, her hoarse voice carrying a trace of fear. “Are you men of Lord Chappelle?”
“Chappelle?” Roy thought of that cold man wielding a Lamia Whip, and his expression turned thoughtful.
When the Witcher and Dandelion had passed Temple Isle, they had seen the head of the Eternal Fire Temple Guard, who was also Novigrad’s security officer.
He had vast reach, was cruel and merciless, and handled all “contraband” in Novigrad. He absolutely forbade any Magical Creatures banned by the Eternal Fire from appearing before the public eye.
Otherwise, that would be the Eternal Fire’s failure.
Chappelle’s cruel methods had always terrified every rat and villain in Novigrad. An oneiromancer who could not show herself in the light was no exception.
No wonder she feared him like a tiger.
Still, that man had now reached a tacit non-aggression understanding with the Witchers and the three bosses.
“Beautiful lady, I think you misunderstand.” Roy smiled apologetically. It seemed their uninvited arrival had truly frightened her. “We are not Chappelle’s lackeys, and we mean you no offense. We only want to ask for your help.”
...
In the first-floor hall, the oneiromancer was surrounded front and back by the Witcher and the mercenary.
“Finding someone through dreams, well, it’s not that I haven’t tried, but it isn’t easy.” Corin Tilly sat on a chair, shifting uneasily.
After hearing the Witcher’s explanation, she was certain they were not Chappelle’s men.
But this mutant with inhuman traits still brought her an unusual pressure, even stronger than the few veterans with postwar trauma she had treated before.
He won’t kill me just because he dislikes a word, will he? Corin Tilly’s gaze slid away from the Witcher’s slightly pointed ears, and she drew a deep breath.
“If you can succeed, the reward will certainly satisfy you.” Roy pressed further, taking out a pouch and tossing it onto the table before her.
Two hundred crowns, from Todd’s savings.
Clink, clink. The pleasant sound of coins rang out.
Corin Tilly tucked back the hair at her temples. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the money pouch, and at that moment she decisively forgot her fear.
Most of the patients she received were poor laboring folk from the bottom rungs, and they brought her little reward. On top of that, every month she had to hand Butcher Clive a considerable sum in hush money and protection money.
Her days had never been easy.
Nor did she dare deal with Novigrad’s wealthy.
Security Officer Chappelle preferred sleepless rich folk to pray and donate to the Eternal Fire, not waste coin on superstitious oneiromancy at her place.
The Tilly family had always known its limits, and that was how it had survived in Novigrad.
The money before her could greatly improve her life.
It would let her buy fine clothes like a normal woman. She had not bought new clothes in two months. For a lady who loved beauty, that was an unbearable torment.
Corin Tilly still hesitated.
“I’ll do my best, but I can’t guarantee anything. You must know oneiromancy is not omnipotent. It has many restrictions ... at the very least, you need some connection to the target you seek, prior contact, or some sort of bond. The deeper, the better. Otherwise, there is nowhere to begin.”
Todd said, “The missing girl is my own daughter. The same blood flows in our bodies. Is that bond strong enough?”
Corin Tilly pondered for a moment, then seized the money pouch and let it slide into the deep valley before her chest. Then she swept her gaze over the two men. “What are we waiting for, then? I need to be alone with Master Todd. A quiet environment, suitable for shaping dreams.”
Two minutes later.
The bedroom door was tightly shut. The Witcher left outside muttered to himself.
“Can she successfully find Aisha?” Roy stroked his chin, pacing slowly.
The next moment, a gust of wind passed. The Witcher instantly pressed himself against the wooden door like a gecko and put his ear to it.
Todd sat on the bed. The oneiromancer sat in the chair by the bed, her warm palm enclosing his hand with just the right pressure. Her slender fingers slid over his knuckles, as if massaging him.
A faint melancholy entered the mercenary’s eyes. A warm scene like this, familiar yet distant, belonged to more than ten years ago.
When he was beside his gentle, virtuous wife, Corin.
The woman he had failed.
“Breathe deeply. Relax...” Corin Tilly gazed into the man’s sorrowful, guilty eyes and dimmed the light further, making it softer.
“I will guide you. First, we must establish a mental connection. I will ask questions. You must answer, and you must answer honestly, from the heart.”
Todd breathed deeply, suppressed the resistance in his chest, and lowered the mental defenses built by his long mercenary life. It took him roughly five minutes to adjust.
“All right.”
“Describe a memory of Aisha. I need the strongest and most complete memory, something about her. If you truly don’t have one, you may describe what you heard from others, the deepest impression you have of her.”
The man’s gaze drifted far away, memories churning in his mind.
“My Aisha was born in Novigrad. On the day she was born, the sun in the sky...”
“The day she first learned to walk, she called my name in that unclear little voice...”
A quarter hour passed in slow narration, and the man’s eyes quietly reddened.
“Control your emotions. Do not sink into grief.” Corin’s face did not change. Her palm tapped lightly against the man’s forehead. “Now you must lie down. Relax your whole body. Hold my hand. Speak about Aisha. What do you think happened to her? Why did she disappear? Where should she be now?”
As she asked, the oneiromancer lit a burner of incense by the bed.
White smoke with the scent of grass spread through the room.
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