A User's Deep Sleep Is a Serious Matter
The morning after I'd come to realize — without anyone telling me — just how the star system's automatic hunting, or rather automatic development, was progressing, and suffered a rather peculiar bout of culture shock.
“KYAAAAAH!”
“NO!!! STOP!!!”
“That's right, just like that! Thank you so much! You have to do all of it!”
“Just kill me instead, you bastards, AAAAARGH!!”
Deep underground, the spies were once again inhaling gukbap broth or TS potions through their nostrils today, while out on the surface the star system was developing in what could only be called perfect peace and tranquility.
Yet I, the de facto ruler of said star system, was living in a world where colossal warships flew about at faster-than-light speeds, cruising from one end of the galaxy to the other.
A world where Ilena could use cooling magic to prevent the underboob sweat that inevitably forms beneath her enormous mammaries from ever appearing in the first place — even going so far as to blend a faint floral fragrance into the chill.
And beyond that, a world overflowing with resort facilities of every description, and every imaginable piece of equipment designed to pamper the human body.
Nevertheless, the two massive horns on my head made lying on my side an absolute nightmare, as one might expect.
On top of that, my tail — which doubled as auxiliary arms — happened to sprout from just above my hip bone, so whenever I lay down flat, my lower back got propped up into the air, which was infuriating.
Up until now, my cheat-tier physique had let me get away with sleeping in grotesque, cat-like contortions without much trouble, but... that only went so far. Had I really pushed my luck this whole time, sleeping in twisted positions or simply flopping face-down night after night?
“Grrrgggh.”
“Did you sleep well, Doctor?”
“N-not at all... I must have slept wrong, because my neck is completely stiff...”
“Ah, so that's why you've been holding your head at that angle.”
Watching my neck — which had been perfectly fine until only yesterday — immediately start screaming “you are fucked, or at the very least cursed” the moment I woke up, I couldn't help but wonder if something had gone deeply wrong.
As it turned out, however, I was apparently not the only one suffering like this...
After Ilena gave me a chiropractic adjustment — producing a very satisfying crack-pop — and successfully restored my neck to its original state, she headed off to attend to her other duties.
With nothing pressing to do, I did what I always did: opened the gallery and checked the top-rated posts with the mindset of “so, what's today's hot drama, hmmmm?” — and there it was.
Now I finally get why animals in real life ALWAYS sleep face-down, goddamn lolololol
I just casually flop onto the bed like I did back when I was human, and about half the time I end up screaming because my tail gets bent wrong lolol
So now I sleep curled up, but the problem is our bodies aren't actually proper beast shapes, so it's hella exhausting
“Ah, so I wasn't the only one in agony!”
Sleeping in a standard Earth-style bed had been utterly miserable for me, thanks to the massive horns on my head and the tail-cum-auxiliary-arms-cum-tentacles fused with my body — none of which I had asked for.
And the real problem was that unless you'd miraculously sprouted your extra parts in a convenient location, the vast majority of users were apparently suffering in exactly the same way.
The moment I realized that countless users in the gallery shared my exact condition, I felt a strange surge of kinship wash over me.
Which, in a way, was only natural — whether someone was a veteran or a newbie, this was an experience none of us had ever gone through in our previous lives.
Until now I just gritted my teeth and slept like a king, smothering the discomfort under sheer exhaustion
But I think I'm finally hitting my limit
PLEASE share your pro tips with me, I'm begging
Take me, for instance — apart from my core, I'm just an amorphous liquid, so normally I just build myself a doll body and pilot it from inside. Problem solved.
When it's time to sleep, I simply shed the doll and go wriggling around inside my storage tank. Perfect solution, no complaints.
You people should cast off the shackles of flesh too. Go go.
“Man, everyone really is living in absolutely excruciating style.”
Users everywhere were equally vocal about their suffering, with only the tiny handful who'd rolled non-humanoid skins living in bliss — and for people who'd been plain old humans barely a few months ago, it seemed the world was throwing one unexpected problem after another at them. It was one of those situations that made you feel the universe was fundamentally unknowable.
Of course, while some users were writhing in agony, there were also those — Dr. Midori being the prime example — who insisted, “Works fine for me, no complaints here~.”
And since this directly affected their own bodies, unlike the usual gallery whining, everyone was genuinely hustling and hyping each other up, experimenting with new sleeping arrangements and adapting to reality in their own ways. Watching it all left me with a very peculiar feeling indeed.
Then, a little while into observing the users' struggles, Ilena arrived, saying she had an additional report to deliver. Without much thought, I looked her over and offhandedly remarked, “Must be nice, sleeping comfortably~.”
At that, Ilena froze for an instant, visibly flustered — until she finally worked out what I'd actually meant (nothing more than pure, innocent envy).
“Doctor? Might you... be having some difficulty with your sleeping arrangements?”
“Yeah, the horns and the tail — no wait, the auxiliary arms — keep twisting my posture into something grotesque every night.”
“...Th-the Doctor. Then couldn't you simply replace your bed with one optimized for your anatomy?”
“Huh?”
“Or you do often use that 'Ggomuli' creature of yours as a bed, don't you? If you lay on it, Ggomuli would automatically adjust itself to your body — shifting along with you whenever you turn over, just as Earth-humans toss in their sleep — so you'd have no trouble at all.”
“Huuuuh?”
Out of nowhere, in a way I'd never anticipated, she was suggesting that I simply lie down on Ggomuli's soft, squishy bio-tendril mattress, feed real-time data on the positions of my massive horns and bulky robot arms into it — and that if the mattress itself shifted in sync with my every toss and turn, there would be no problem whatsoever.
What made it even more convincing was that, while saying all this, Ilena wore an expression absolutely brimming with bewilderment, as if to say, “How on earth did you not know this?”
I thanked her for the profound inspiration she'd handed me, and came to a realization: starting tomorrow, I could finally sleep in a proper bed, courtesy of Ggomuli.
Needless to say, of course, the vast majority of users had no access to beings like Ggomuli, painstakingly crafted by my own hand and blood.
So when I posted the information about my real-time biofeedback living mattress to the gallery — well, let's just say the comment section promptly filled up with responses that were equal parts envy and half-sincere, seething hatred.