Chapter 123: Nightmare (9)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 123: Nightmare (9)
It’s a hell of a nightmare.
This damn black sphere seemed to be harboring every nightmare connected to it just to maintain this dream world. Regardless of my will, the nightmares of others began to flow into me.
I suppose I should consider it a stroke of luck that I haven’t encountered the nightmares of those I’ve already made contact with.
Given that I don’t see the nightmares of Lilac or Professor Cathy, it seemed the two of them had succeeded in waking up on their own.
That’s right, Lilac. You should at least be able to do this much by now, considering how much I’ve done for you.
However, those who regained consciousness by themselves were a tiny minority. Most people’s nightmares were gradually becoming more provocative and intense.
For instance, in Ju Ri-ra’s case, it started as a simple dream of not being recognized by Cheon Yu-hak. But as time passed, the content shifted insidiously.
It turned into a dream where her position was swapped with Ga-eul’s from the beginning of the semester, or a dream where she finally confessed her feelings, unable to hold them back, only for Cheon Yu-hak to cast her aside, calling her useless. It grew more malicious by the second.
Lee Yu-na and Ha-ni weren’t much different.
Lee Yu-na dreamed of her identity being discovered, with Lilac rejecting her because he couldn’t tolerate a half-demon.
Ha-ni dreamed of her father lamenting, asking why she couldn’t have been born a man.
The way the dreams grew increasingly more stimulating was identical for everyone.
For some, it was a dream of losing someone precious.
For others, a dream of failing to get revenge.
For others still, a dream of being betrayed.
To put it mildly, these weren’t exactly pleasant scenes to witness.
Now, the reason I called this a “hell of a nightmare” wasn’t actually because of those things.
It might sound a bit cold, but while it was slightly annoying, watching other people’s nightmares was manageable. I wasn’t experiencing them firsthand; I was just a spectator. How threatening could a nightmare really be?
I thought I might go crazy if the number of people reached into the thousands, but the human brain is surprisingly resilient—or perhaps the Will of the Saint was giving me some kind of invisible buff. It was bearable.
Wait, why is this actually bearable?
If you were to ask what was truly so “hellish,” it wasn’t the nightmares flowing in from the outside, but the nightmare originally residing within me.
A portion of the nightmare that had been leaking foul energy from beyond the barrier of “Noise” had managed to cross over, thanks to the Succubus Queen’s power.
Yet, that nightmare must have been truly atrocious. Instead of the Succubus Queen’s power making the dream more malicious, it seemed busy struggling and fleeing in agony every time it touched that specific dream.
…What is it?
What could possibly be in there to cause such a reaction?
The thought that I needed to find a way out of here quickly and the thought that I had to confront this eventually crossed my mind at the same time.
“…I told you to have a ‘good’ nightmare, didn’t I?”
Since nothing was changing no matter how many other people’s dreams I watched, looking into this seemed to be the right answer.
I reached out and touched my own nightmare.
It began with the memory of the day I met her at the orphanage, back when I was wandering aimlessly after being abandoned by my mother.
* * *
“Ugh… Argh…!!!!”
“Who are you calling a loser, you pipsqueak? I was trying to help because you looked depressed, but you sure have a foul mouth, don’t you?”
…Ah, right. I remember now. Malnourished and shorter than my peers, I was subjected to a cobra twist as payment for an insult I couldn’t back up.
“You mob wife…”
“What’s your problem with mobs? Even gangsters have the freedom of choice, don’t they?”
Only after the surrounding kids started whispering did that hellish cobra twist finally end.
“I’m not letting you off easy, so stay on your knees, pipsqueak.”
“…Yes.”
The demon child beat up two more onlookers before returning to me.
“Hey, everyone here is just like you, okay? You’re not the only miserable one, so wipe that look off your face~”
…My face looks like this because you just beat me up? I wanted to say that, but the thought of a merciless second round starting kept my mouth shut.
“And read this fairy tale I wrote.”
I couldn’t keep up with the flow of the conversation.
“Huh? You don’t want to?”
“Wow! It looks so fun!”
But I really hated being in pain…
Reluctantly, I opened the thing she claimed was a fairy tale. The content was truly surreal.
— The Tortoise and the Hare decided to have a contest. The Hare said:
“Listen, Tortoise, my friend. I am faster than you on land, but you can swim faster in the sea. We each have different strengths, so why do you try to beat me even on land?”
“Being born in the sea is something I naturally have, not something I earned through effort. I never asked for such a thing. Only when I strive to run fast on land do I finally feel certain that I am doing something valuable for the first time. Therefore, I wish to test this new skill I have learned.”
“How arrogant. To not be satisfied with what you have and to covet another’s domain. Truly arrogant. But if you wish it so, then let us do it.”
A race on a moonlit night with no audience. The Tortoise was confident.
He had put in the effort. While the Hare had spent his time lazily without honing his skills, the Tortoise had run desperately on the unfamiliar land. Surely, the gap had narrowed.
They stood at the starting line.
The signal sounded, and the Tortoise ran.
It was a good start.
His body, leaping forward faster than usual, felt light. The Hare was nowhere to be seen.
He could win.
“Tortoise, my friend. Is that all the result of your so-called effort?”
That thought was shattered.
It happened right after he heard the voice of the Hare, who hadn’t even started yet.
Boom.
The Hare kicked off the ground.
The distance closed instantly.
So this is what it looks like when a creature born to kick the earth runs in earnest.
The finish line, which he thought was right in front of him, felt so far away.
He thought their steps were the same, but the difference in a single stride was too extreme.
He ran desperately, but a white blur flashed past him.
He thought he had reached it, but he hadn’t.
He thought he had narrowed the gap, but it was a difference that could never be bridged in the first place.
“I, too, could never beat you in the water. What each of us is born with—that is talent.”
The Hare crossed the finish line.
There was no judge. There was no audience. But the Tortoise had no choice but to accept defeat.
“Even I am nothing more than prey to a kite flying in the sky. There are domains. Each has their own domain…”
The New Tortoise and the Hare. End. —
“How was it? Interesting, right?”
…No? It’s shocking and horrifying.
There are too many difficult words; it’s hard to read.
I don’t even know what the moral is.
The plot is forced.
But if I say that, I’ll get hit.
Still, I couldn’t stay silent. As a reader, there were parts of a book I couldn’t compromise on.
“It’s not fun. It’s weird. It’s unnecessarily difficult. And the Tortoise isn’t like a protagonist at all, starting a fight with the Hare in the first place.”
“Whaaat…?”
I’m going to get hit. I closed my eyes, resigning myself to the fate that was about to arrive, but no matter how much time passed, the merciless pain didn’t come.
“…?”
“I see. The protagonist does seem like a jerk. I should fix that. Have you read a lot of books? The other kids hate them.”
“Uh, yeah. I like them.”
“Then from now on, you read every fairy tale I write! Promise!”
…Yes, that was my first meeting with her.
She loved making up stories to an unusual degree, but her sense was so unique that she only wrote bizarre tales. Whether it was a novel or a fairy tale, she was a strange girl who would write anything as long as it was a story.
After meeting her, my life at the orphanage didn’t exactly get… brighter.
Regrettably, a pair of children was a combination far too powerless to change anything just by meeting.
Still, well. I suppose it was bearable in its own way.
* * *
Kang Ha-ni stared blankly at her father, who was hurling insults at her.
Why aren’t you a son?
In the past, those were words she truly hated to hear.
The first time she heard them, she wanted to snap back, asking if he thought she had chosen to be born a girl.
If her father hadn’t immediately apologized, saying it was a slip of the tongue, they probably would have had a massive fight.
“Because I’m a woman.”
She hated it.
She hated how the disciples, who used to dote on her like a younger brother when she was little, started keeping their distance.
She hated how her underwear no longer fit because of her growing chest.
She hated how, one day, the gazes of those she had lived with like brothers or family would subtly drift toward her chest or scan her body while pretending not to.
Her body was changing on its own when she didn’t want it to, and it was infuriating.
Before she awakened her talent, when she lost a sparring match to someone who simply pushed through with brute force, she almost wanted to die.
No, losing was fine.
It was his attitude afterward—acting as if she had done something wrong—and that subtly condescending look that was a truly unbearable kind of humiliation.
A sword is supposed to be more elegant than that.
So, she challenged him again and beat him down.
She filled the growing gap in physical strength with flexibility and speed, overwhelming her agitated opponent with technique.
She cut down all the other disciples who tried to stop her with her wooden sword.
And on the day she defeated every disciple except for the superhumans, she awakened as a superhuman like her father.
At first, her father was happy.
Since his secret sword technique was meant for superhumans, he seemed glad to be able to pass it on to his own flesh and blood rather than just a disciple.
Yet, the fact that she was a daughter still seemed to bother him, and he would often mutter with a sad face.
“Why did it have to be you, my daughter?”
She hated that curse-like lamentation so much.
Perhaps that was why she agreed to follow his ridiculous proposal.
Finding a husband.
Yes, she had hated it so much…
“But now, I don’t entirely hate it.”
She knew now.
That her father’s lamentations had been laced with a gaze of worry for her.
She was able to realize this because she noticed that her father’s eyes that day somewhat resembled those of the friend who had looked at her after she collapsed while fighting a villain.
“His eyes weren’t like yours.”
So, she drew her sword.
There had been nothing at her waist until a moment ago, but when she reached for it, the sword was there.
Her father wasn’t someone who just spat out resentment like a parrot.
Therefore, this was an illusion.
She circulated her mana.
There was no need to conserve it as much as before.
Her father, who had been repeating the same words like a broken toy, and the disciples, who were even more eyesores than in reality, all vanished.
Her mother stood before the door.
“You will regret today’s decision.”
This must be a fake, too.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to give an answer.
“Yes, I did regret it. I didn’t think I was the type to fall in love.”
She didn’t need to pretend to be tough or mimic a man’s way of speaking like she usually did.
“But I still don’t curse it. Maybe the reason I could get close to So-hyun was because of this stupid disguise.”
Her mother’s phantom also began to fade.
“I’ll bring home a son-in-law soon. He might not be perfect, and Father might be disappointed.”
She threw herself toward the exit.
“But he’s the person I like.”
A slash.
Following the swung sword, the imperfect world was cleaved in two.
* * *
Right, even if I had gained one friend, life was still hell.
Food poisoning broke out after we ate curry made with poorly managed ingredients, and the orphanage director would throw whatever he could get his hands on at us whenever he was in a foul mood.
I believe it was around this time that I lost all faith in humanity.
Though, I suppose I did get a bit closer to the others around the time we all started getting beaten equally by the director.
After all, when you trip while trying to dodge a go board thrown by the director and spend time badmouthing him together, a certain bond is bound to form.
Our lives changed slightly…
From the day a young teacher, who introduced herself as “Cathy,” arrived.
It wasn’t her real name; she said she wanted to go by “Candy,” but something went wrong with the application, and her name tag came back saying “Cathy.”
Her real name… I’ve forgotten it. Honestly, I can’t even remember her face.
The smiling face in my dream was blurry.
“I’ve lived receiving love, so I’ve come to give that love back!”
However, I still clearly remembered that smile.
She, who laughed energetically and played with us, was like the sun itself.
Ah, for the record, she was also my first love.
If you can call the feelings of a child “love,” that is.
She said she had a younger brother but lost him in an accident, and she treated us as if we were her own siblings.
When the director threw a fit over something stupid, she would stand in his way for us, and thanks to her contributions, our food improved a little.
Very occasionally—about once a week—we even got snacks.
It was only much later that I learned those were all bought with her own money.
“Ha-neul, why do you always have such a grumpy face? It’s ruining your cute face.”
She knelt down to match my eye level.
It was a small gesture, but since I had never experienced an adult like that at the time, I found it incredibly strange.
It felt as if this person was truly trying to look me straight in the eye.
So, back then, I foolishly thought:
Maybe this person could replace my mother.
Well, in the end, that was a delusion.
“Ha-neul, let’s smile! They say smiling when things are hard is what makes you top-tier!”
She was someone easily influenced by phrases she read in books.
“Don’t try to do everything alone. You have to learn to lean on those around you. You’re all friends!”
She was also someone who could say cringeworthy things without hesitation.
“I think Ha-neul will be very handsome when he grows up. What a shame. If I were just ten years younger, I would have reserved you.”
Ah, and she was also someone who teased me quite a bit.
‘Cringey? Ha-neul, “cringey” means it’s a good thing. It’s better to be cringey than to be too embarrassed to express yourself!’
‘Kids are supposed to grow up fighting!’
‘Picky eater? You’ll grow out of that when you’re an adult! I couldn’t eat bell peppers when I was little either!’
Anyway, like that.
By the time we were in elementary school, she had become an irreplaceable friend and mentor to us.
That is why.
Is that why I cried so hard when she died in an accident?
People die so pointlessly.
Even if they are good people, even if they are close to me, if they are exposed to malice and caught up in a crime, they die absurdly easily.
“…She promised.”
She promised she would stay by our side until we graduated from elementary and middle school and saw what we all became.
She promised she would watch over us until the end so that none of us would go astray. But she died just before I entered middle school.
“Liar.”
I believe it was after her death that I began to clumsily imitate her.