Survival Strategy for Weak Territories! ~ My Territory Will Be Destroyed No Matter How Many Times It Is Repeated. How Can This Be Saved? ~ - Chapter 1

Second Run, Nightmare

“ARGHH!?…….Ah, a, a dream?”

A large army attacked and the territory was destroyed.

Although it felt so real to him, the place he found himself in after jumping up from his sleep was his own bedroom.

“…..Haah, what a foreboding dream.”

While placing his hand on his forehead, Klein gets up and sighs.

Perhaps fatigue has finally caught up to him from 4 years of pushing himself to govern the territory after he succeeded his father at the age of 14.

He must have been pretty tired to see that kind of dream.

While he was stretching and thinking about such a thing, he soon felt discomfort from his surroundings.

“…..eh? Something looks off.”

What’s looking off?

When he swept his eyes around the room to find the sources of his discomfort, the first thing he noticed was the placement of the furniture.

Their arrangement was different from before.

There’s an office desk that should have been replaced a few years ago inside his room.

“…….did I buy another of the same design?

Even while he’s still drowsy, he doesn’t remember rearranging his room.

He doesn’t remember buying new furniture either.

Moreover, when he tried to trace his memory, his head was filled with the scene of slaughter that felt all too real.

Recalling such a thing, he was assaulted by a slight headache and nausea.

“Ugh, just by remembering it…….still, it was just a bad dream so my body is alright.”

To try thinking about something else, Klein focuses his mind on detecting the other sources of his discomfort.

The next thing he noticed was that his body is strangely lighter.

The stiffness in his shoulders which stemmed from his daily desk work has disappeared like it was never there in the first place.

“I guess I’ve gotten healthier from my daily workout routine in the field huh. Well, it’s a good thing.”

When he tried to get out of bed while muttering such a thing.

Klein finally found the biggest source of his discomfort.

Rather than saying that he found it, it’s the very scene he’s looking at right now.

It’s pretty obvious when he stands up.

His line of sight was about one head lower than what he was accustomed to.

“Eh, Oi, Oi, wait a minute…….”

When Klein looks at his legs, he feels like they are a little shorter than he remembers them.

He hurriedly took a look at himself in the mirror and what he saw reflecting on it was unbelievable.

“Is, isn’t this me when I was a child!?”

He’s not exactly a child but——from his appearance, it looks like he’s around 14 – 15 years old.

He suddenly had a growth spurt when he hit 16 so compared to yesterday…….his field of view is certainly lower.

When he looks around the room after realizing that he has become younger, he noticed that the furniture layout of his room was certainly like this until a few years ago.

“Wh, what the hell is going on!?”

“Klein-sama, is there something wrong!?”

The door was knocked on and his maid, Marie, jumped into the room before Klein answered.

She has come to give her lord the wake-up call as usual but her lord is behaving strangely while having a bewildered expression on his face.

“Eh, ah, yeah. No, it’s nothing.”

“Is that so? Then I’m relieved……..”

When Klein looked back at Marie, the image of her being killed by someone inside his dream overlapped—–but that was just a dream.

Forcibly switching his thoughts, Klein focuses on the maid in front of him instead.

“It’s okay. I was having a nightmare.”

While still looking puzzled, Marie entered the room and placed a new water jug on the bedside table.

It is the Asgard house’s precept to drink a glass of water every morning, and today is the same.

However, Klein was confused by this—–all too normal morning routine.

“….. I wonder which one is the reality.”

Was it only a nightmare that his territory was destroyed?

Or perhaps this is a happy dream shown to him in his final moment?

While his mind is wondering which of the two is the reality, both still feel very real to him.

“Am I really awake?”

When he tried pinching his cheek, all he could feel was pain.

And after he drinks a glass of water from the jug Marie brought, he was completely awake.

There was no dream-like haziness lingering in his mind anymore.

“Thinking about it now, that dream looked very real though.”

Even while saying so, when he tries remembering more about it……he found the memory of his future.

Although there are many vague parts about it because his head is not working right yet, Klein generally recalls the upcoming changes and what will happen in the future.

“Alright, let’s calm down first.”

Klein, who has lived a turbulent life in his own way, tried thinking about his circumstances in a realistic way.

For example, if his current surroundings are real and he was just having a nightmare that his territory was destroyed then he doesn’t have to worry about it.

If it’s like that then the matter would conclude with that he has had a scary dream.

Conversely, if he’s currently dreaming then he should enjoy it with all his might.

If that hellish scene was a reality then it should be okay to be happy inside a dream.

That’s what he thought.

“But, if….I’m wrong.”

If neither of his hypotheses is true.

Suppose that some force is at work and he somehow went back in time like in a fairy tale.

——if Klein does nothing, his territory will be destroyed in a few short years.

His current surroundings and the image of the future overlapped inside his mind.

Both are real…….he can’t help but think so.

And if he is correct, he has gone back in time. In other words, it’s possible that he might have gotten himself in a time slip.

“That’s right….. Marie, can you bring me the newspapers?”

“This is unusual, I have never known that Klein-sama is interested in such a thing.”

The newspaper mainly only features the matters at the royal capital which Klein rarely visits.

That’s why he usually doesn’t give them much thought and throws them away after reading the article on their front page.

“Well, it’s good to read them once in a while right?”

“Certainly. I will bring it right away.”

When Klein told her that he wants to read the newspapers, Marie left the room while muttering something like [This is rare].

However, this is a serious matter for Klein.

Since he still can’t wrap his head around his situation, he thought that he should gather as much information as possible.

“If that was only a dream…….no, it would be nice if I’m just being overly anxious about this.”

Klein murmured and looked out from his bedroom window.

Then after seeing his people living in peace without worrying about a thing today as well——he heaves a deep sigh.