Master of Dreams (EX)

It was just past two in the morning when I finally made it home after finishing the unloading.

The moment I closed the front door and kicked off my shoes, I sank to the floor where I stood.

“Ah…….”

My back felt like it was about to snap. My fingers wouldn't straighten all the way, and even through my gloves, my palms were scraped raw all over.

I'd hurled boxes all day today. How many, I had no idea — I gave up counting somewhere along the way. Could've been a thousand. Could've been two thousand.

Nobody cared anyway.

‘Thank you for your hard work.’

I didn't even get the most basic courtesy. What the crew leader said at the end was this: ‘Short-handed tomorrow, so come in if you can.’

If you can.

I didn't answer. Nobody looked at me on the walk home, either. Of course not — who spares a glance for a disheveled man in filthy work clothes, staggering down the street at two in the morning?

Made it home. A cramped studio apartment. I collapsed straight onto the floor.

I needed to shower. Needed to eat. But I couldn't summon the strength to lift my body, so I just turned on my phone.

A familiar face filled the screen.

The woman in the video was smiling. She was drenched in blood, one arm wrapped in bandages, but when she waved at the camera, flashes erupted from every direction. Reporters swarmed her, and across the street fans were chanting her name.

The comments piled on.

My scrolling finger stopped.

“……Must be nice.”

I envied the money, envied the power. Every time that woman stepped into a gate and came back out, she earned what I would never so much as touch in a lifetime.

And yet, strangely, that day it was the comments my eyes kept drifting back to.

Thank you for coming back alive. You've worked hard. You did well. Has she eaten? Don't get hurt.

I had spent thirteen hours today hurling boxes. Nobody wondered whether I'd eaten. Nobody even knew my palms were torn open — and even if they learned my back hurt, they wouldn't have cared much.

“I want to…….”

I opened my mouth, then snorted at myself. Pathetic. What was a twenty-six-year-old man doing, staring at someone else's comment section?

But I kept watching.

“Headpats.”

Saying it out loud made me feel even more pathetic.

“Ha….”

The more I thought about it, the more I envied her.

I wanted attention. When I accomplished something, I wanted someone to genuinely rejoice. I wanted them to say thank you, to say well done. I wanted to be needed.

And I wanted it not to be a lie.

I hated smiles given for money. Hated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠“well done” spoken out of fear, and flattery meant to curry favor — receiving that kind of thing meant nothing at all.

“I just want someone to genuinely be glad….”

I wanted someone to think they were lucky to have me, to be happy I'd helped, to smile when they saw my face.

“I want to be loved too.”

Only my voice echoed in the quiet room.

“I want attention too….”

I put the phone down. My eyelids were heavy.

And one last time, I made a wish that no one would ever hear.

“I want headpats too…….”

I closed my eyes.

That night, I didn't dream.

Or rather, I didn't think I was dreaming.

Something was watching me.

No eyes. No face. Not even a form. And yet I knew, with certainty, that it was watching — something far vaster than I was.

No — even “vast” wasn't the right word. In a place where distance and size and up and down held no meaning at all, something was looking at me.

And it asked:

It had no mouth. I heard no sound. And still, the meaning came through with perfect clarity.

I answered. I do.

[What is it you desire?]

Love. Attention. Praise.

Someone who sees what I have done and truly rejoices.

[Is that all?]

I thought for a moment. Then I added:

I hate lies.

Silence.

Something laughed. There was no sound of laughter — and yet it felt as though the world itself were laughing along with it.

I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling.

“…….”

Something was off. The ceiling was farther away than usual.

“Wha…?”

When I pushed myself up, the blanket slid right off me.

For a long while, I couldn't say a word. My hands were small — pale and soft, with wrists so slender it felt like they'd snap if I flexed them.

“What the hell.”

Even my voice was wrong. High and thin. I wrapped both hands around my throat.

“What is this.”

It was a little girl's voice.

I stretched my legs out to climb off the bed. My feet didn't reach the floor.

“……What the hell is this.”

I hopped down, and my line of sight dropped to an absurd height. The fridge was huge. The desk was huge. Even the door handle looked taller than it should.

Scamper.

I bolted for the bathroom. The mirror above the sink showed nothing but the top of my head.

“You've got to be kidding me.”

I rose onto my tiptoes. My forehead came into view. I pushed a little harder.

Streeeeetch.

My eyebrows appeared.

“No.”

This was suffocating.

The moment I thought that — something fluttered behind my back.

Flap.

My body rose into the air.

“……?”

Flap-flap. My toes left the floor, and my line of sight climbed little by little. The face in the mirror revealed itself in full.

A young girl. Third grade of elementary school, fourth at a generous stretch.

Black hair, skin white as snow, enormous eyes. And between the strands of her hair, two small horns poked out.

Behind my back were black wings, flapping desperately like a fledgling that hadn't learned to fly yet. My gaze traveled slowly downward — a slender black tail swayed behind my waist, its tip shaped like a heart.

“…….”

I looked at the mirror. The girl in the mirror looked back. The wings flapped. The tail swayed.

“A succubus.”

One look told you. Denying it would have been stranger than believing it.

I hovered in midair and thought for a while. Last night, after finishing the unloading and watching that awakener video, I had thought: I want to be praised. I want to be loved. I want headpats.

That part I could follow. But then.

“Why a succubus?”

It wasn't unrelated, exactly — but it was weird. Really weird.

And yet, surprisingly, I wasn't as flustered as I probably should have been. This was already a world with awakeners. A world where people breathed fire, cleaved space apart, and raised the dead. A healthy man turning overnight into a succubus girl about elementary-school age was….

“No, it's still weird.”

I sighed. Then I said the first thing that absolutely had to be said.

“Status window.”

The air split open.

For a moment, I was speechless. Status windows were supposed to appear as light, I'd heard — something like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a hologram, a blue window with white lettering. What appeared before my eyes was a little different.

For one thing, one side of it had rotted black. White letters floated through the darkness, as if something had scraped away the surface of the world to expose what lay beneath.

I rubbed my eyes.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

“EX?”

S, SS, and once in a great while SSS. Even I, who had seen every rank of awakener paraded across the news and the internet, had never once seen an EX.

I opened the details.

“……That's awfully grand.”

But the most important part was missing.

“So what can I actually do?”

The letters wavered. Moments later, a new line formed.

“……?”

That was a strange line. I was dreaming? This was reality.

I looked behind me. The studio apartment, the bed, the desk, the work clothes I'd flung off yesterday — all of it exactly as reality had left it. I looked at the window again. There was another skill below it.

I looked down at my small hands. Then back at the status window.

Beings you pat.

“…….”

I opened my mouth, quietly.

“I am—”

The window didn't answer.

“—the one who gives the headpats?”

Silence.

“No.”

This was important. A very important matter.

“I said I wanted to receive them.”

My wings flapped hard. Whoosh. Whoosh. My body drifted closer to the ceiling.

“Why am I the one giving?”

I was angry. Genuinely. What kind of wish-granting thing mishears a wish like that?

Just then, new letters surfaced on the status window.

I froze.

“Correct what?”

[The grievance.]

The answer came far too naturally. I stared at the status window for a moment, then said:

“It should be me getting the praise.”

The letters vanished.

And then, exactly once — the world blinked. It wasn't a light switching off and on. The world truly ceased, for a single instant. The walls, the floor, my own body. Everything vanished, leaving nothing but a pitch-black void.

In that darkness, white letters floated up.

And then I was back in the studio apartment.

“…….”

For a long while, I couldn't say anything.

The skill had changed.

I slowly curled the corners of my mouth upward.

“This is more like it.”

I liked it. A lot.

That was when I noticed something strange — a hollow feeling inside my stomach. It wasn't the hunger of a skipped meal. It felt like something deep inside my body was completely empty.

A number floated up on one corner of the status window.

“So I really do have to earn praise.”

Someone had to genuinely rejoice because of me. Thank me. Tell me I'd done well. Forcing it didn't count, and neither did deception.

I thought for a moment.

“Kind of picky, isn't it.”

But I didn't dislike it. No — I actually liked it. Because I hated fake praise too.

Which meant the method was simple. Find someone who wanted help. Help them. If they rejoiced sincerely, I got what I wanted.

Clean and neat.

“But still.”

I looked at the status window again. What was that, earlier? Correcting? I said I didn't like something, and the skill changed.

That shouldn't have been possible. Awakener skills didn't work like that — at least, not as far as I knew.

I tried an experiment.

“I wish this room were a little bigger.”

I waited. Nothing happened. Instead, a status window appeared.

“……So some things don't work.”

A little disappointing. But the window didn't disappear right away.

“……Lucid dream?”

I looked around. A small studio apartment — the home I'd lived in for four years. Outside the window, a car drove past. I could hear someone climbing the stairs.

All of it was reality. And yet the status window kept repeating the same thing.

[You are the Master of Dreams.] [Everything that exists within a dream belongs to you.]

I closed the window.

“Well, fine.”

I didn't need to understand it right this second. There was something more important.

I flew over to the mirror. A small, adorable girl — the kind anyone would want to scoop up and protect. Horns on her head, wings on her back, a tail trailing behind.

“If I go out like this, someone reports me on the spot.”

I wish the horns were gone.

I thought it. And they vanished. The wings and the tail followed, one after the other.

I looked at the girl in the mirror, now completely ordinary.

“……Convenient.”

Then a question occurred to me. Had they vanished because I willed it — or had they simply never been there at all? I touched the head that, seconds ago, had sprouted horns. Not a trace remained.

A photo would have settled it. Thinking that, I picked up my phone.

The screen lit up. On the lock screen was a photo taken yesterday — a snapshot a friend had snapped as a joke, at the unloading site.

I stared at it, and my eyes went wide.

I was in the photo.

Or rather, the current me was. In the middle of the worksite, among the stacked boxes, a tiny girl in work clothes stood there.

“……What is this.”

I opened the gallery. Selfies. Group photos. Old pictures going back years — every single one the same. The twenty-six-year-old man in those photos was nowhere. In his place stood the current me.

The status window appeared, quiet as a whisper.

I stared at that line for a long time.

So I hadn't turned into a succubus. The world was changing, retroactively, to make it as if I had always been one.

Even grasping that, strangely, I wasn't afraid. Instead, a different thought came first.

“Then what about my ID?”

I checked right away. The resident registration card in the drawer was gone.

“Ah.”

That was a problem. I thought for a moment.

“I still need an ID, though.”

[……]

A moment later, a small card appeared in the drawer. I picked it up. The photo showed the girl I'd just seen in the mirror — it was me. My name and address were unchanged. What had changed was the photo, the sex, and… the date of birth?

“……I'm ten?”

Then who unloaded all those boxes? And what happened to the rest of my life up to this point?

I thought for a while. Ten years old. By every measure imaginable, this was going to become inconvenient.

“Give my age back.”

I looked down at the ID again. The card's material, the hologram, the issuing authority — flawless.

“I suppose there's no helping it for now.”

The moment I accepted it, as if it had only been waiting for that, a tiny line appeared on the status window.

I looked down at the card. And I laughed.

“Well. It is convenient.”

I didn't yet know what I could do with this power, or how far I could change things. But there was no particular need to rush.

I had no desire to save the world. I didn't want to pass judgment on villains, and I had no ambition of becoming a good person either. Whether someone was good or bad was none of my business.

If someone begged me for help and truly meant it, I might help — murderer, con artist, saint, it made no difference to me. Conversely, if someone tried to use me, or deceive me, or kept pestering me after I'd said no, then I saw no reason to put up with it.

I smiled at the mirror.

“If it's a dream, I can just erase it. Right?”

The me in the mirror smiled, one beat late.

I blinked. Everything was back to normal.

Just my imagination, right?

Grrrowl.

My stomach growled.

“……Let's start with food.”

Or rather, with praise.

I opened the front door. And for the very first time, I walked out into my dream.