Vampire Princess Guide in Progress - Volume 1 Chapter 65

Chapter 65: Dream of Reality

***

As her injuries healed, Cross completely regained consciousness.

Earlier, while being treated in the church, she had only softly called out Tilia’s name before falling back asleep. In her memory, she only recalled Tilia’s extremely anxious expression and the sound of her voice calling her name.

She knew that she must have caused trouble for Miss Tilia.

Cross quickly recalled the scenes before she lost consciousness.

She had been roasting fish over a campfire in the ice cave camp, waiting for Tilia to return from her patrol, when someone came to their camp. They were players marked with red arrows above their heads, which immediately put her on high alert.

Regarding red-named players, she had heard about them on the first day of the game, they were enemies more dangerous than monsters.

At first, those red-named players threatened her to hand over all her currency and items.

If it had just been money and items, faced with such overwhelming odds, Cross might have hesitated and considered compromising temporarily by giving them the things, to buy herself some time.

But then they went too far and set their sights on her magic staff.

This Forest Deer King’s Staff was a precious weapon that she and Tilia had obtained after arduously hunting a hidden BOSS in the second floor forest area. It was also a critical component of her combat power, there was no way she could hand it over.

So the red-named players immediately attacked her. After an intense battle, she was ultimately no match for those guys and fell to the ground. Her staff was stolen, and she felt pain throughout her entire body.

Even after being seriously injured, she didn’t want to submit.

Even though she had fallen to the ground, her knees scraped against the ground several times as she tried to support herself again to fight those hateful fellows to the death, amidst their piercing laughter. But finally, she was kicked forcefully to the ground and had no strength left to stand up again.

Later, in her hazy consciousness, she seemed to see Tilia’s figure rushing back…

“Everything is fine now. You don’t need to think about what happened before. Rest well, I’ll stay with you.” Tilia gently placed her hand on Cross’s hand, softly squeezing it in reassurance.

Cross turned her face toward Tilia, her expression wooden at first, but soon her eyebrows curved into a smile.

“Mm.” She nodded slightly, then stared blankly at the ceiling, and said thoughtfully: “Hey, Tilia, do you know? I feel like I had a really long dream. I dreamed about some strange and interesting things.”

“A dream?” Tilia asked, “What interesting dream?”

“I think I dreamed about things happening in the real world.”

Cross recalled and continued: “In the dream, Tilia and I were good friends, like best friends who had known each other for a long time. We were shopping together at the mall, buying clothes and picking out dresses, chatting and laughing.”

“Tilia even affectionately called me by my real-world name, even though you shouldn’t know my name. Then we were also classmates at the same university, and there was Tilia’s sister… Huh? Does Miss Tilia have a sister? Maybe I mixed things up in my dream. It should be Nolan. Dreams really aren’t reliable, they jumble all sorts of fragmented things together.”

“Anyway, Tilia and her sister were also going to school together, wearing cute and fresh sailor uniforms and short skirts, and were admired campus beauties. You two would often play around and bicker, showing a harmonious sisterly relationship. And when I came to take you away, your sister would secretly get jealous, it was so cute…”

Cross looked at the ceiling, recounting the scenes from her dream. Finding it interesting, she wanted to try hard to remember it, as dream details are quickly forgotten. She wanted to share it with Tilia while she still remembered it clearly.

She hadn’t dreamed for a long time, at least not since coming to this game world.

Although it was indeed a nonsensical dream.

Like some beautiful fantasy one might have before dying.

But listening to this seemingly completely unrelated dream from Cross’s mouth, Tilia, sitting beside her, had her pupils trembling violently.

“Going to school with a sister…” she murmured softly.

“Mmm. Does Tilia have a sister? Nolan seems to have a cute sister in real life, that’s probably why he’s so eager to beat this game, right? If his sister is alone and helpless in reality, Nolan might not say it out loud, but he must be very worried inside.”

“But he should relax. His sister must have friends she can rely on and can take care of herself. Maybe he should be more concerned about himself, going alone to challenge the second floor BOSS in the middle of the night, isn’t that more dangerous?”

Tilia’s expression clearly moved for a moment, then she showed a relieved smile.

Yes, hopefully the time in the game is different from the real world. Ideally, it would be like waking up after a nap. Once they wake up, they’d return to reality, having just experienced a long dream.

“My name is Lan Xingyao,” Cross suddenly said.

“Huh?”

“My real name, hehe.” Cross reported her name somewhat shyly, “Just an ordinary female college student. If we can return to reality someday, I’d like to be good friends with Tilia.”

Ah, speaking of being a college student.

Before logging into the game, she had been saying she would send some university materials to a junior student.

But then she got trapped in the game, and naturally couldn’t reply anymore.

That junior student must have been puzzled afterward. She hoped the junior would understand her somewhat unreliable senior, who was now frantically fighting monsters and leveling up in a game world.

As for her name, Cross didn’t know why she suddenly wanted to tell Tilia.

Perhaps it was because of this near-death experience, fearing she might not have another chance to say it, or perhaps it was inspired by the dream she had.

Although Tilia was already accustomed to the unspoken rule of not mentioning real names in the game, but… who could truly call this an ordinary online game now? They had become genuine friends who had shared hardships.

“You’re Miss Lan, who’s so petite that people might mistake you for a middle or elementary school student? I’ll remember that. When we get back to reality, I’ll come find you.”

“Hey! Why are you saying the same thing as Nolan!”

Cross complained. Is that really what everyone thinks!?

But, the promise was made.

When they successfully complete the game, they would find each other in the real world and become good friends again.

Afterwards, Tilia went on to narrate everything that had happened while Cross was unconscious, how she met the interesting and enthusiastic players of the Silly Group Friends Guild, and how they rushed to bring her back to the city for treatment, and so on.

This also answered Cross’s initial question.

They were now in the main city area of Ice Snow City, and this was the residence that Tilia had purchased.

She had opened house sharing for Cross, so she could freely enter this house from now on, and could also use the game’s construction interface to build and decorate the residence, it was like a home system within the game.

Some PVX players who specialized in construction could even create home blueprints for sale.

“Did Tilia apply something on me? It feels cool and comfortable on my body now.”

“Yes. I bought some healing ointment from the pharmacy in town. It can quickly heal your wounds without leaving any scars.” Tilia showed her hand, which was stained with green liquid, as she explained.

Cross made an understanding “Oh~” sound, though she didn’t seem to fully comprehend.

Then she asked, “Were you just trying to apply the ointment on me? When I woke up, I saw you making strange movements and expressions. What happened?”

“Because… I wanted to apply the ointment to the wound on your chest area as well.”

“I see. Then my bra must be in the way. Wait a moment…”

Cross said while painfully moving her hand to her back, then with a click, the entire white bra came loose and hung halfway on her shoulders. She carelessly tossed it beside her pillow.

But when she looked at Tilia, she found Tilia’s gaze suddenly frozen, then darting around not knowing where to rest.

“Eh? Isn’t… isn’t that what you meant?”

Cross, seeing Tilia’s slightly flushed face, hadn’t thought much of it since they were both girls, but now she also became embarrassed and instinctively covered her completely bare upper body with her hands.

But, but she had also seen Miss Tilia before, so this should make them even, right!?

“S-sorry, I’ll finish quickly.”

Tilia turned her face away trying not to look, while pouring some more ointment into her palm and carefully extending her hand.

When her fingertips touched Cross’s skin, Cross suddenly let out a soft “Ah!” and immediately pulled the blanket up with a blushing face, completely hiding herself under the covers with only half her head visible.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” Tilia froze again, feeling like she was sitting on pins and needles.

“Tilia… touched a strange place.” Cross’s delicate body trembled slightly as she murmured with a red face from under the covers. “I-I’m very sensitive. Maybe you should face me instead, after all, we’re both girls…”