Iustus found himself unable to fall back to sleep, he would have wanted to see more of this dream but it was no use, he stood up from his bed and walked around the unfamiliar place.
It somewhat resembled the house where the strange man had taken him but it definitely didn't give off the same vibe and it was clearly smaller, no other floors and he quickly discovered every room.
Everything seemed fine and there was even some food, Iustus didn't hesitate to chomp down on it even if he would normally be against being so careless, it could have very well been poisoned after all but his usual thoughts didn't appear this time.
The young hero made his way outside, it seemed like the thick canopy of the trees prevent too much snow from piling up and it also seemed like someone had been buse shoveling some snow all around.
He looked around, somewhat seeing the large house in the distance.
He didn't move toward it however and instead took in a big huff of the cold air, this level of cold only slightly burned his lungs and helped him sort out his mind as he did his best to remember all of the aspects of the dream he had had.
It had been extremely realistic and he been fully conscious too, so it must have been a lucid dream, however, Iustus was fairly certain that this kind of dreams were supposed to be controllable, is true lucid dreaming a skill or something? He should have heard of this too then.
He hummed in wonder as he watched his cold breath scatter in front of him.
He was positive that the big devil had felt just like Wrath in the sense of their sinful energy and the rabbit beastman had felt like a virtue, Iustus had never actually encountered a true virtue so he couldn't differentiate between each of them but if that devil had been Wrath then he could assume that his opponent would have been Patience.
His virtuous energy was magnificient but Iustus couldn't ignore the sheer power and brutality he had felt from Wrath, in that sense, the devil and the sin he saw for real were quite different, while the power was the same and looked the same, it had given completely different vibes.
A booming power that screamed combat and destruction and an eerily calm, clean one.
The two felt like complete opposites but were somehow both the sin of wrath, Iustus shook his head, all of this thinking didn't amount to much.
'That man told me to observe virtues at work, didn't he? Is that part of it?' Iustus felt like the answer was definitely yes.
Determined, he did some exercise and training until he was as exhausted as possible before pretty much passing out on his bed.
Immediately, he was back to where he had started, the scene of the devil fighting many people at once, now, Iustus knew that the devil was holding back his powers, he wasn't using any of his powers as a sin at all, just his pure brawn.
Everything happened in the same way, in the end, the rabbit arrived and just as they were about to clash, Iustus was pushed out of the dream into reality.
It had amounted to nothing, he must have been doing something wrong, there was no way this was all there was to it, he couldn't have just had the exact same dream two times in a row.
He repeated the same actions as last time and then went on a small walk in the cold, it didn't particularily bother him but the dream was defintely bothering him, should he ask the weird man?
For some reason, Iustus felt a bit afraid of talking to him, even though he hadn't felt anything threatening to him, in fact, he didn't have any memories of him that could warrant such fear.
Too focused on the present, Iustus failed to notice the gaps in his memory and just kept on thinking about the dream and what he could do about it.
If he still didn't make any progress after a few more times, then he wouldn't have much of a choice but go talk to him as he was the one that had suggested this whole thing and most likely the one that had triggered this dream to appear.
Without noticing, he had wandered a bit too close to the large house but what took his attention was some small noises not so far from it, he would have said that it was coming from outside the walls that surrounded the house but he felt like they extended further than he believed.
The small house he was in was most likely in the man's domain or something like that after all.
Walking toward the sound of something brushing against something else, he saw a woman painting.
She was under a small roof and the snow all around had been cleared, her strokes were extremely precise, either sudden enough to make Iustus jump a bit the first time it happened or incredibly slow.
Surprisingly enough, she didn't seem very focused at all, she seemed to be daydreaming in spite of the very technical looking movements.
A bunch of blank canvas were scattered around, this must have been her first painting for the day.
She had incredibly long and messy brown hair, close to just dragging across the ground as she was sitting down, despite the cold she wasn't wearing anything too warm, a white shirt rolled up to her elbows and brown pants alongside a brown apron that was stained by a lot of paints.
Iustus being from a poor village in a poor country, wasn't quite used to seeing someone with some excess fat, even if it wasn't overbearing.
He had already been quite surprised by people with actually well trained bodies, being anything but skinny and barely fed had been impossible in his mind back then.
Not wanting to disturb, he walked at a distance but still took a peek at what she was painting, causing him to almost yell immediately.
'That's my dream!' he thought as he walked closer.
"Is something the matter?" spoke the woman as she turned around.
'Oh crap, she noticed me' he thought, he had been certain to have been very slick about him sneaking aorund.
"Hum, what are you painting?" he asked, being that she was so close to the large house, Iustus could only assumed that she lived there, it had been seemingly filled to the brim with women after all.
"That is 'First Fallen', depicting Patience defeating Wrath" she simply responded, turning back to continue.
"That's Wrath?" he wondered out loud.
"The former one yes"
"..."
"Hum, who are you by the way?" then asked Iustus, quite curious about that as well.
"I am Goya, one of Theli's spouses" she didn't even turned back anymore to answer.
"Theli?"
"The man that brought you here of course, Ithelisemou" she then continued on her painting, clearly not interested in speaking any further.
'Ithelisemou? What a weird name and did she say one of his spouses, are all of the people I saw there also his spouses?! Am I in a noble's care?' he rubbed his forehead off the sweat, the little peasant that he was had never done as much as seen someone of nobility, much less spoken and been invited in their home.
It was pretty harrowing for him to learn that he had casually spoken to a noble without even using any honorifics at all or bowing down.
Of course, he was completely wrong about this.