A massive room with the height and width of a gymnasium.

The walls and ceiling are uniformly white, and the wall facing the corridor has two doors. Between the doors, which are spaced apart to the left and right, a row of large windows is lined up, allowing visibility from the hallway.

Inside, one hundred beds with a simple design are arranged neatly in a grid, ten rows by ten columns.

Many people are sleeping on the beds. There’s no consistency in age, and the gender ratio is about seventy percent male and thirty percent female.

Some beds are empty, but more than half are occupied.

Next to the beds where people are sleeping, women dressed in short black uniforms sit, placing a hand on each sleeper’s forehead and focusing their attention.

By a bed placed in a corner near the wall, someone is doing her job with crossed legs and the occasional yawn.

A shadow sneaks up behind this woman.

“Poe-san, you're on duty. Also, isn’t your uniform a bit too short?”

With black-rimmed glasses and a perfectly pressed uniform, she stood straight, holding a stack of documents in her hands.

Her outfit, Poesture, and manner of speech radiated seriousness.

“Yo, Rudron. A succubus is all about showing skin, you know?”

The woman called Poe, in contrast, had all the buttons at her chest undone, making no effort to hide her spilling cleavage, and casually swayed her body.

She had modified the original uniform, removing the sleeves and cutting the abdomen area drastically, resulting in a very revealing outfit.

Her bottom was low-rise shorts, but with such little fabric, her underwear peeked out a bit.

Her shoulder-length cherry blossom-colored hair was wavy and shiny despite its seemingly minimal care, bouncing softly with each movement.

Rudron stared enviously at Poe's ample chest and cherry-colored hair.

“You're as stiff as ever, Rudron. Medusa style, huh?”

“Why do you look so pleased with yourself like you made a clever joke? Honestly.”

As Rudron slumped her shoulders, the snakes growing from her head drooped along with her mood.

Poe was a succubus, a demon species that appeared in others’ dreams to seduce them and drain their life force.

Rudron had snakes in place of hair. Her ancestors had long ago transformed from humans into monsters. She possessed a petrifying gaze that could turn those who looked into her eyes to stone, and she currently wore a blindfold to prevent accidental activation.

“Hey, doesn’t wearing glasses over a blindfold make no sense?”

“It’s about how it feels.”

Rudron pushed up her glasses with her index finger and gave a small snort.

“More importantly, how is Number 79 doing?”

“He's having a happy dream~”

“I see.”

They both turned their gaze toward a man sleeping on a bed.

He had no particularly notable features, but his face wasn’t bad. He looked too old to be called a young man, yet too young to be called middle-aged—somewhere in between.

“Rudron, can you stop calling them by numbers already? They’re our charges. If we don’t use their names, it’s like they’re being excluded.”

“Poe-san, there’s no need to get close with test subjects.”

“So harsh~ But don’t you think it’s a little sad?”

With her free hand, Poe gently stroked the man’s hair.

“Sympathy? Hmph, he’s one of the same kind that killed our families—an otherworlder.”

“I know, I know... but he wasn’t directly involved, right? The real enemy is the Hero.”

Rudron neither denied nor affirmed her words, simply turning her face toward the man.

Though her eyes were hidden behind the blindfold, Poe could sense the glare of resentment directed at him.

“See, I handle dreams, and Rudron, you’re in charge of the games—well, the waking world, right?”

“That’s right.”

Poe, the succubus, was responsible for making the subjects experience dreams indistinguishable from reality, while Rudron managed the control jewels and surveillance.

Each guardian—the term used for these otherworlders—was required to have at least two caretakers.

“When you touch a guardian’s consciousness like this and manipulate their dreams, you naturally start to empathize. Don’t you feel the same, Rudron?”

“Well, to some extent... I do hope they live as long as possible, since we’ll be out of work if they die.”

The beds around them were all empty. Those had been occupied by guardians who were eliminated as of yesterday.

“Number 79... ahem, Kaname Katakami, he’s pretty sharp. He might make it far.”

Poe gave Rudron a slight glare, prompting a cough and a switch to using his name.

“Right? Kanakami-chi is working super hard. He’s even making steady progress with his party. Oh! I made plans to have tea with the caretakers of his teammates next time—wanna come?”

“No thank you. I’m not fond of succubus gatherings.”

Rudron declined without hesitation.

“Whoa, that’s species discrimination! Prejudice is bad, you know!”

Poe waved one hand like a child as she complained, while keeping the other hand on the man's forehead.

“Because all you ever talk about is graphic love stories and dirty jokes.”

“That’s what we live for!”

Rudron sighed deeply and held her head.

For succubi, sexuality was a matter of life and death. There's no shame in sexual acts or erotic talk.

“Ughhh, keeping the magic flowing all the time is sooo tiring. A long dream broadcast like this is my fir-st ti-me~.”

Though she said it playfully, her heavy eye bags couldn’t be concealed even by thick eye shadow.

“They’re distributing Potions full of nutrients and magic for free, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, yeah. Ahhhh, I live for this drink!”

On the desk beside the bed, several Poetions were placed.

She just added another empty bottle to the collection.

“Well, our job’s rough too, but still better than those on the front lines.”

“True. The field team also handles tricks and item placement to guide the guardians.”

It was thanks to the field team that Kaname conveniently found a signpost or leftover rations in the ruined town.

“But like... don’t you think it’s cruel to pretend to be incompetent and let themselves be killed? Even the goblins got called weird names like ‘Copplin’.”

Poe muttered with downcast eyes.

“The combat role is voluntary. They choose it themselves. Lady Helm has declared generous compensation for their families.”

The combat units ignored guardians even when they found them, and knowingly stepped into traps.

It was all for the sake of making the guardians believe it was just a game.

They acted incompetent, played the fool, and sacrificed themselves for the future of this country.

Rudron made an effort to think that way. At the very least, she prayed for the fallen, who died bravely.

“Poe, enough idle talk. Focus. If he realizes it’s a dream, the whole plan will fall apart.”

“Okaay. But you know, someone’s bound to figure it out one day, right?”

“If someone has keen insight and sharp instincts, they might realize it... perhaps soon.”

Rudron had heard that even Helm and the higher-ups were worried about that possibility.

The first to realize might be... she shook her head before finishing the thought.

“What’s wrong, Rudron? Your snakes are all wiggling like crazy.”

“It’s nothing. I’m going to take a break now.”

“Later~ Oh, and I’ll teach you how to have sexy dreams—”

Without waiting to hear the rest of her colleague’s sentence, Rudron left the room.