FFF-Tier System, SSS-Rank Wife-Chapter 39: One hell of a way to test a theory

"Do you think this is the right time to have us talk about what happened last night?"

I raised my eyes to Selia, only to then quickly turn them away.

For as much as I wanted to look at her directly and reveal just what I thought about her suggestion with an exhausted look on my face alone...

Now that we were sitting relatively close and the air between us relaxed somewhat, looking at her?

I almost shrugged at the mere thought of it.

It was fine while she was this divine being that I was bound never to understand, bound to perceive as something above mere human.

But the more I came to know her, the more we talked and interacted in general, the more I understood one simple truth - just like I was struggling in my current, new life with lack of system and all the other pieces of my circumstance... So was she.

Sure, her problems couldn’t be any more different from my problems, but that didn’t make her a different kind of a being. Regardless of her power, her problems, her goals, she was still... just a human.

And now that I looked at her through with this perspective in mind, her adorable face quickly grew to be too much for me to handle, lest I wanted to come off as a creep that just couldn’t stop staring right at her!

Which is why, rather than replying properly, I merely sighed and shook my head.

"When it comes to the topic of last night..." I allowed my voice to trail off as I searched for the right words to package my thoughts on the matter with. "It’s not like I don’t want to talk about it or would rather keep things secretive. Rather than that—"

I shook my head again.

"I just don’t really know what to think about it all myself." I shrugged my shoulders. "And if all I have is a bunch of random guesses based on nothing but my gut-feeling, I don’t feel like dropping all of those on you. Not when it’s just a bunch of idiotic drivel based on common sense that clearly doesn’t apply to this world."

For some reason, upon hearing all of that, Selia smiled.

Not with a teasing smirk, not with a smile of amusement but... with what looked like a genuine, natural and god damn soothing smile!

"And who are you to say that?" Even though her words were quite harsh, both Selia’s voice and the expression of her face remained soft, welcoming... and just like her smile - soothing. "How could I know that I wouldn’t be able to find some sense in those random guesses of yours?"

At this point, Selia leaned her head over her shoulder, allowing her long, slightly curly hair to cascade down her back, revealing not only her ear but also a long earring of hers.

Now that I’ve noticed it, it felt as if some sort of an illusion spell has broken, allowing me to see quite a few more decals on her fit following the exact same design. And just like her earring, Selia also sported a gem-based necklace, consisting of several gems that perfectly matched the color of her eyes, embroided in thin, layer of gold.

As a man, I never really cared about jewelry myself, seeing it as nothing more but expensive way for girls to feel prettier about themselves at the cost of pain to the man’s wallet.

But when it came to Selia?

With those pale-blue earrings and necklace, her entire persona gained just a few more bits of blue to it, making her seem all the more ephemeral, more than just human, almost as if she was a spirit... No, a fairy of some kind.

"You say that your common sense doesn’t apply to this world. But then," Selia’s full lips curved into a slightly deeper smile while a glint appeared in those beautiful, blue eyes of hers, "wouldn’t that make me the perfect candidate to see things in your guesses that you couldn’t?"

’Why is she so set on this topic?’ I asked myself while my throat voluntarily moved, gulping down in the face of such an overwhelming charm that radiated out of her.

Still, I didn’t exactly have the time to consider my options and Selia’s potential motivations, not with her suggestion already hanging in the air. And so, after breathing out a long, deep sigh...

"On that night, I had a weird dream," I admitted. "It started with an essence of what I was doing the days prior," I twisted my head and glanced right at Selia’s face, with my mood turning dark and sour enough for me to withstand the onslaught of her intense charm. "A dream where I did nothing but ran for my life, with constantly changing surroundings, no visible threat yet the foreboding sense of near doom constantly at the back of my head."

I looked away.

Just thinking about that part of the dream was enough for a cold chill to move up my spine.

In all honesty, the sense of dread I felt back in that dream was even greater than the fear and terror I felt when I’ve encountered that oversized panther, in the moment before Selia’s appearance saved me from its fangs and teeth.

"Then, I kind of woken up?" Once again, my voiced trailed off. This time, however, not to cut my sentence short, but to indicate just how little I’ve trusted in my own choice of words. "I mean, I was still asleep, but, at the same time... I wasn’t."

Off to the side, Selia shifted her head over her other shoulder. Her smile was now gone just like that glint in her eyes or the playful vibe that permeated her expression before.

Now, she was fully focused, catching every word I said with such intensity, it made it seem as if she was also reading my lips in addition to listening to my words.

’Is she worried some kind of hidden power would interfere with what I’m saying and what she’s hearing?’

I quickly discarded that thought. Even if it that true, then such an issue reached so far beyond my realm of means to deal with, there was absolutely no point for me to even bother with it.

"I was still asleep, but with my mind clear and awareness that I was within a dream. Yet, the very moment I regained my clarity, that sense of doom along with the pressing need to keep running for my life... They’ve all vanished along with pretty much everything else, the sight of my surroundings included, leaving me in just an empty space with nothing around but that weird feeling that I was missing something."

I breathed out again, this time with a weird sense of relief.

Even though I never really planned to hide that dream away if asked about, it just so happen that the conversation went in such direction I ended up staying silent about it before.

I couldn’t exactly bring it up, not when I still pretended I failed to notice Selia ended up using my hand for a...

My eyes widened.

"Wait a second..." I’ve muttered, lowering my head and even closing my eyes as I focused on the feeling that exploded in my head.

’I’ve already noticed how it was only in that inn that I’ve got this weird dream. How it didn’t happen back at the camp. What I couldn’t figure out, though, was the difference between the two and thus a possible reason for that weird dream!’

"You’ve noticed something, didn’t you?"

With how keenly Selia observed my face, it was no wonder she noticed my sudden focus right away.

She didn’t press me to reveal my thoughts, though, merely mentioned the fact just to make me aware that... well, she was aware that something happened.

"Well..." Even after opening up about everything else, when I opened up my mouth to reveal what I just potentially figured out, I suddenly found myself unable to make a sound.

For how I was to tell Selia, a literal sainted and a fairy-like beauty, that the missing link between a night of no weird dreams and a night with one was likely... physical proximity? Direct contact? Or maybe even some degree of intimacy?

Seeing my hesitation, Selia ended up pouting, showing yet another adorable side of herself that I didn’t get to adore before.

"Didn’t I tell you?" she remarked with the pout still on her lips, "who is there to say I won’t be able to help you solve it?" she asked only to raise her arms and lock them on her chest before pinning her eyes into my face. "But I really won’t be able to help if you won’t tell me what it is that you think you’ve figured out!"

Pressed, I opened up my mouth again... But once again, to no avail.

Only once I’ve looked away and even went as far as to hide my face in my hands did I manage to restore my voice and use it to oblige Selia’s request.

"I’ve already noticed before how I didn’t have that kind of a dream back when we camped out. And I thought really long and hard about it, but the only difference between my night back in that jungle and the night in the inn, the difference that I could see being the reason behind that weird dream..."

Just as I’ve reached the crux of the matter, the topic of Selia taking over my hand and then using it for a pillow, my voice went out again.

’What a damned coward I am...’ I thought, silently chastising my own lack of self-confidence in my thoughts.

"Me taking over your hand, isn’t it?"

Seeing how I wasn’t able to voice it out, Selia smiled lightly before shaking her head. "And believe me or not," she muttered as she leaned back and then pulled her chin up, as if to look at the stairs - if only there were any on the sky in the smack-dab middle of the day.

For a moment she remained just like this, a frozen-still statue of an otherwordly fairy, stuck in her contemplation over the true nature of the most basic of things.

Then, her breathing suddenly stopped, her eyes twitching a little.

And just like her keen observation allowed her to spot a moment of realization in me, with how I’ve been observing her, I could tell that she’s realized something. Yet, rather than opening up about it, she stuffed whatever thought she had deep down into her soul, turning back with a perfectly normal look on her face as if nothing ever happened at all.

"Either way, there’s a real possibility that me holding your hand was the reason. And if that’s the case, that would imply the root of that weird dream of yours to be... physical contact? Or maybe something slightly else?" she muttered, acting as if she was trying to figure it all out while not hiding any sort of clues at all.

Which could be a perfect truth, with her jolt from before being completely unrelated to the topic of our conversation at all.

But who was there to tell if that was the case, if not Selia herself? And seeing how she acted, she clearly had no intention of revealing the truth on the matter.

Which is why, when she suddenly pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them while leaning over her own knees and half-hiding her face in her knees only to then give me a playful look, I could feel yet another cold chill move up my spine.

"Then, would you like to test it out?" she asked, only to roll her legs forth, leading her knees to struck the ground as she went from embracing her knees to sitting down on her heels. She then grabbed the edge of her light skirt before pulling it up just a little bit, just enough to expose roughly half of her soft, perfectly plump thighs.

"There’s no way you’ve rested well enough with dreams as awful as the one you described." Her eyes switched over to the smoking kiln right next to us, "And since all we need to do now is sit tight and wait," she looked back, smiled and then pointed at her thighs with her hand, "how about taking a nap, right here on my lap?"