The Expanding Vessel
The effect seemed to be working well.
The atmosphere had turned awkward. Im Hana and Lamia kept glancing at each other and clamping their mouths shut, and I—who was supposed to know nothing about the situation—had no choice but to fall silent myself, as if I had just noticed something was off between them.
But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether I even needed to be walking on eggshells like this. There was no clue that could possibly connect the me of reality to the me of the dream world. A slip of the tongue in the dream might have been different, but these two were not even allowed to speak there beyond the sound of their own breathing.
I was struck all over again by how thorough she was. I had simply moved according to the rules she had set, yet any chance that a careless word might expose my identity had already been sealed off at the source.
Im Hana I could understand—thanks to the Dark Elf skill her clumsy body had improved and her expression had brightened. Lamia, though, might decide the whole thing was some kind of incubus and start looking for a way to exorcise it.
That risk had always existed. The world was full of Awakened, and somewhere among them there had to be people with skills like purification or banishing. Im Hana’s personality, however, made her the last person who would ever volunteer that she was having lewd dreams every single night. If the side effects had been severe enough to wreck her real life she might have sought a remedy out of sheer survival instinct, but the advantages far outweighed the drawbacks, so she had no reason to dig.
Lamia’s case was murkier. She could easily start hunting for some form of exorcism just to free herself from the dreams. The problem was her actual profession: she was an idol. An idol who ended every night drenched in semen from erotic dreams? The moment that fact leaked, she would have to quit on the spot. Even without the pure-and-innocent image, that kind of revelation would annihilate an idol’s career.
Logically speaking, that was true. But people came in every flavor, and I had no idea what private pressures Lamia was under, so I could not simply assume she would reason the same way. Which meant that, for now, I needed to highlight the upsides of the Dark Elf skill.
Watching their faces carefully, I said, “I heard that’s an incredibly rare skill. Pretty amazing that two people I know both have the same one.”
“Y-yeah. What a coincidence, right?”
“Seriously. So strange.”
The replies came back so lifeless that an elementary-school kid reading a high-school literature textbook would have sounded more natural.
“Seems like a really good skill, though. I’m jealous. Mia-nim, did yours appear suddenly too?”
“Yeah. Well… suddenly.”
Lamia answered, then cautiously asked back, “But… you said it’s a good skill?”
“You know growth-type skills themselves are pretty uncommon, right?”
“Yes.”
“From what I can tell, the higher the level goes the more it boosts assassin and mage talent, and other skills start showing up too.”
I glanced at Im Hana, who was still hanging her head with a bright-red face. “Hana-unni was so clumsy and gloomy when she first started as an intern that I used to worry about her. Then somewhere along the way her movements got sharper and her whole vibe brightened up. I figured it had to be thanks to that skill.”
“W-when did I ever—”
“See? Before, you couldn’t even talk back; you just kept your head down. This is already a huge improvement.”
“…”
Im Hana only chewed her lip, unable to argue. Lamia watched her for a moment, then spoke in a small voice.
“It’s true… my body does feel a little better since the skill appeared.”
“Already noticeable?”
“It might just be my imagination.”
I left the skill talk there and switched topics. Dragging it out any longer would only backfire.
“What’s the company saying? You awakened, so I figured there’d be some special conversation.”
“Just… the usual.”
Oops. Clearly not a subject she wanted to discuss. Fair enough—you don’t spill industry gossip to someone you barely know.
So what else was safe?
Ah. This.
“The instructor praised you yesterday. Said you’re picking up energy control ridiculously fast.”
“Really?”
“From where I was standing you definitely have talent. Honestly, when I was teaching you yesterday I never expected you’d get the hang of it that quickly.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Just how many landmines were buried in ordinary conversation? The fact that none of us could show it on the surface only made things more exhausting.
Once work hours resumed I buried myself in office tasks, then headed downstairs in the afternoon to help with practical training.
“What? She left?”
“Agency schedule, apparently. Nothing we can do—she has a main job.”
“I see.”
“I’d like you to take someone else today, if that’s all right.”
“I don’t mind, but as you know my Dual Class problem means I’m not sure how much help I can be with close-combat types.”
“Just cover whatever you can. The physical side has its own instructor, so if you could just keep an eye on their energy work that would be enough.”
“Understood. I’ll do that.”
Apparently teaching Lamia yesterday had raised some strange expectations. The truth was Lamia simply had overflowing talent; it had nothing to do with my teaching. I would do as I was told, but I wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence myself.
“Whoa! So that’s how you do it! Thank you so much!”
“Ahaha… Don’t mention it.”
What the hell? Why was this working?
Unlike yesterday, the instructor had paired me with a tanker aspirant. In my own case I had basically freeloaded everything from aggro management to pure tanking, so I honestly had no idea what to teach. After a moment’s thought, though, I decided the single most important thing for a tanker was aggro control, and I tried to invent a way of using energy to pull every gaze in the vicinity onto yourself.
“So… the image is what matters, you’re saying.”
“Exactly. You plant the idea in the monsters’ heads that delicious prey is right here.”
“I’ll give it a shot!”
I gave the big man—apparently a former ssireum wrestler—a rough explanation and told him to work his energy while picturing his favorite food.
“Food that monsters like? What that would even taste like? I have no idea either. But I know my own favorite food. The feeling when you eat it, the smell rising off it. The important part isn’t recreating that feeling or smell exactly—it’s understanding the emotion you get when you run into that feeling and smell.”
It sounded vaguely profound, but in reality it was pure stream-of-consciousness nonsense. I had never once tried to pull aggro myself, so what was I supposed to say? The instructor wasn’t expecting miracles from me anyway, and without a skill the only known method was basically making a lot of noise. If it worked, great; if not, oh well. That was the spirit in which I had spoken.
And yet this ridiculous bulk of a man groaned and strained for half a day… then turned it into an actual skill.
F-rank Image Projection.
The rank was pitifully low, but the fact that he had manifested a skill in a single afternoon from a few vague sentences of mine was what mattered. Ranks could always rise with use.
“As expected. Beyond what I’d hoped for, Seha-ssi.”
“It was just his talent. I really didn’t do anything.”
“Is that so? Well, either way, you’ve been a tremendous help. I’m more convinced than ever that bringing you into the Association was the right call.”
“Ahaha…”
I was suddenly, profoundly tired in the soul.
When the afternoon shift ended I headed straight for the training room as always. Exhaustion was exhaustion, but with one more Covenant under my belt I needed to check how much my condition had improved.
“Hm?”
While I was summoning butterflies the usual way, a certain sensation brushed against me. Hard to put into words—more like the feeling that something was about to work.
I called out several butterflies and, just as I had told the tanker, began to form an image. The first thing that rose in my mind was a single keen blade.
And then, astonishingly, the butterflies gathered into one mass and a sword that looked exactly like the shape I had imagined settled in front of my eyes.
“Huh?”
Had the vessel finally filled?
I immediately began testing the basic techniques I had kept sealed until now, one by one. It wasn’t perfect—nowhere near perfect—but they worked. There was still a slight lag, yet I could now distinguish and use the ordinary skills of both Kunoichi and Succubus more or less as I envisioned them.
The remaining hitch meant real combat was still out of the question, but I felt a clear certainty: if I improved just a little more, I would break through the Dual Class wall for good.
Yesterday it hadn’t been like this. That meant making Lamia a Covenant had produced this large an effect.
“She really did have extraordinary talent.”
Even compared with the tanker I had taught today, Lamia’s gift stood out. Taking someone like that as a Covenant must have expanded my own vessel by the size of hers.
“There’s real possibility here.”
Not a bad development at all. It wasn’t as if only I was reaping benefits; both sides came out ahead. The nature of the relationship itself was a different story, of course, but that was only in dreams, not reality.
Rationalizing it that way, I stepped out of the training room and saw Im Hana pedaling hard on an indoor bike.
“Managing okay?”
“Yeah. This feels easier than running.”
Come to think of it, even athletes supposedly start rehab after an injury with indoor cycling. Take that for what it’s worth.
I was chatting with Im Hana when the training-center door swung open and someone staggered in, breathing hard.
“Huh? Mia-nim?”
She flinched at my voice, then lit up and hurried over.
“Hello, Instructor. You’re still here?”
“Yeah. Doing a little personal training.”
“Ah.”
Lamia recognized Im Hana working the bike beside me, hesitated a beat, then offered an awkward greeting.
“Hel…lo.”
“Hello…”
That was the entire conversation. The wall standing between the two of them was clearly not going to crumble anytime soon.
“What brings you here at this hour?”
“I skipped afternoon practice. Schedule finished, so I came to make up for it.”
“Ah.”
While we were talking, the Bald Instructor spotted Lamia from across the floor and started heading our way.
“I’ll be heading out, then.”
“Sure. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
I clocked out, went home, and pulled a can of beer from the fridge. Back before I awakened, one can had been just enough for a pleasant buzz; now it tasted like nothing more than a soft drink. That part was a little disappointing.
Grumbling to myself, I watched a bit of sports on TV, showered, and went to sleep.