Chapter 100: Constellation, A Tiny Mischief 1
Chapter 100: Constellation, A Tiny Mischief 1
When you live life as a solid 180-centimeter slab of muscle with a face like a hardened criminal, you rack up a few stories. After I bombed my college entrance exams the first time, some bullshit rumor spread that I'd beaten someone so badly I got held back a year.
Then, job-hunting, I left my document bag in a lecture hall. It was conspicuously heavy, so naturally word got around that I was carrying actual tools in there. My so-called friends chewed on that one as drinking fodder for years.
When the apocalypse hit, my rough face got even rougher. Survivor groups took one look at me and went on full alert so often it became routine. Drifting between camps, I got a lot of requests to just stand in the back holding a sashimi knife because of my vicious glare. Survivors literally weaponized my face for intimidation tactics during negotiations. And the worst part? It actually worked. A little baffling, honestly.
Anyway, words like "small," "cute," or "handsome" had no business in my life. I shot past 170 centimeters in middle school, broke 180 in high school, and before enlisting, a buddy dragged me to the gym where I packed on some real mass. The last time anyone probably called me "cute" was my grandmother back in elementary school.
So this whole situation is deeply unfamiliar.
"It's somehow... soft."
"It doesn't hurt, right?"
Sitting at the dining table, trying to eat the chocolate roll cake served for dessert, the commotion on either side of me wouldn't let up. That's because Kim Ha-eun was on my right and Lee Ha-rin on my left, both diligently fondling my pointy ears. Wasn't this my own fault for forgetting I wasn't just shorter but had actually turned into an elf?
Watching them stare at me so intently they moved their spoons maybe once a minute, curiosity practically bubbling over—I'd made the mistake of asking, "If you're that curious, want to touch them?"
"It doesn't hurt, but when exactly are you two planning to eat? The food's gone cold, looks like."
"I prefer my food cold originally."
"I've got a cat's tongue too, so cold is better."
Thankfully, the elves in this world weren't the ero-elf variety. A touch on the ear tip didn't trigger some breathy moan and a sudden tent pole. Though, the way their chests pressed flush against me as they stroked my cheeks and ears did divert a little blood flow.
"Even so, sit properly and eat."
"Yes, understood."
"Thank you for the meal."
"...I said eat, so stop staring?"
Still, their gazes stayed locked onto my ears and cheeks. I mean, when three people go to a diner, don't you normally sit one on one side and two on the other? Why are we all lined up in a row causing this scene? Watching my two Incarnations eat with their necks cranked sideways left me so dumbfounded I let out a heavy sigh. It was bad enough that my short male haircut couldn't hide the elf ears, making the stares from other people prickle painfully against my skin.
Or maybe this was a side effect of my Dream Demon rank increasing? Mentally, I'm still a 180-centimeter thug, so all this pinching, stroking, and squealing about how cute I am isn't exactly easy to adjust to. Even the old guys serving food in the cafeteria didn't realize I was a Constellation or notice my ears. They just kept piling on extra dessert, going on about how impressive it was that someone so small and young had become an Incarnation.
'Is this how beautiful women live?'
Once I saw the urge to serve and pure lust start creeping into my two Incarnations while I was just enjoying my sweets, I hightailed it back to the Temporary Sanctum. Fine, sure. They've probably dealt with their fair share of inconveniences in life because of their pretty faces, too. Thinking that, I retreated all the way back to my Constellation's Space and pulled up the viewing screen.
'What's Han Ye-ji up to?'
Messengers from other Constellations kept arriving at the Academy, so I'd been sending my Clone to Han Ye-ji less and less lately. Even if I did visit her in lucid dreams at night, I felt a little guilty. Vowing to treat my Incarnations equally and then leaving one of them as essentially just a sex partner when I only had three under contract felt a little wrong.
Last time, she'd been publicly humiliated by a banner ad for some GL novel called 'Our Dripping-Dripping Relationship' from an adult fiction site. What was she doing today?
Once I confirmed she wasn't on an afternoon deployment and was, once again, holed up in her room futzing around, I sent my Clone without hesitation. Come to think of it, is this the first time sending the Clone to Han Ye-ji since I got this elf body? The sneaky bed fun was from before the transformation.
The scent of the World Tree lingering in my nose vanished, replaced by the slightly stale, stuffy air of a room. The smell of a place long neglected because even cracking a window felt like too much work. On the outside, she looked like a lovely college girl, but her lifestyle was a carbon copy of my old self during summer break. Watching something on the computer at her desk, then flopping onto the bed to scroll on her smartphone, then springing up to sit in front of the TV only to return to bed within the hour. Her younger brother, home from school and maybe doing his homework, had shot her a look of pure contempt before locking his door. To shatter the monotony of her day, I once again sent my Clone straight into the covers of her bed.
※
Today, Han Ye-ji was watching a gaming livestream on her computer. If she'd been watching something like that 'Dripping-Dripping Relationship' stuff again, I could've teased her about it. I materialized my Clone silently behind her, but she didn't notice. I peered over her shoulder to see what was on the screen.
[Back, back, back! Don't look right now!]
[Are you telling me to look or not to look!]
[If you look now, there's definitely a ghost, ouch!]
It was a video of two women, bizarrely worked up, sharing one mouse and keyboard between them to play a game. As they babbled, they were playing a horror game by controlling it in reverse, either because they really didn't want to see the ghost or because of some viewer mission. An enemy burst out on their path, the screen flashing red with a hit marker. As an eerie sound played right behind them, the two just sat there flinching and wrenching the view around. Obviously, walking backwards through a dark, obstacle-packed hallway that's basically a maze while using reversed controls is impossible. At the repeated thwack! sounds and the screen going crimson, Han Ye-ji let out a snicker, mocking them. Taking my cue, I stretched my arms out from behind and wrapped her up tight.
She must have already sensed my presence and magic, because she didn't even flinch.
"Ah, Constell—oh?"
She'd predicted me standing behind her, but seeing a completely different appearance must have thrown her. Han Ye-ji's eyes went wide as she shot to her feet. Maybe because I'd gotten shorter and lighter, my body actually lifted clean off the ground with my arms still draped over her shoulders.
"Ah, uwaah, ack!"
Her foot snagged on the chair and her knee slammed into the desk. As I started to topple, a stumbling Han Ye-ji frantically hoisted me up, her panicked hands clamping down hard on my thighs and ass. She must've been too shocked to remember in the heat of the moment that this was a Clone and I felt no pain.
"Is it really that shocking?"
She jolted, yanking her hands off my ass to flail them awkwardly in the air. I cracked a smile at the sight.
"No, I mean, wouldn't most people be surprised to see an elf?"
Fair point. Even in a world with Constellations and Incarnations, how many elves could there really be? Just look at Loyal Fang, the werewolf, and me, the Dream Demon. If you rounded up every Constellation on the continent, ninety-nine percent of them were probably originally human. Muttering her excuse, Han Ye-ji crouched down on the floor, gently rubbing her knee.
"Hey! Keep it down! Why are you kicking the desk!"
A boy's irritated voice shouted from outside. Sure, there were two doors between the rooms, but you couldn't exactly hide the sound of a desk getting kicked.
"I almost fell!"
"Tripping over yourself in your own house? Are you stupid?"
"Ugh, that little brat has no manners."
The sibling exchange rang out loud and clear with two doors between them. When she'd been sick, they'd tiptoed around each other awkwardly. Now that she was healthy, their relationship had gotten downright boisterous. Hearing me laugh, Han Ye-ji's face flushed red.
"The kid got his stamina back and his temper came right along with it..."
"Seems fine to me."
She scratched the back of her head sheepishly, then righted her chair and sat back down at her desk. On the computer screen, the short-haired one of the duo had commandeered both the keyboard and mouse and was now playing the game in earnest. I'd wondered why she was at her desk instead of lying in bed watching the stream on her phone. A glance from behind revealed she had the broadcast minimized to a corner while she was logged into a payment site.
'I told her to spend some money, and it looks like she's genuinely using it on her hobbies.'
So that weird backwards-walking shared-keyboard spectacle was Han Ye-ji's doing. Feeling my eyes on her, she gave an awkward grin and asked me a question. She knew I'd often borrowed the TV or computer at her place.
"So, um, Constellation, would you like to request one too?"
Even she seemed to find the offer a bit weird, so as she let out another sheepish giggle, I burrowed right into her arms. It was a little cramped, but having a smaller body actually made this possible. I leaned my head back against her chest, bracing her chin with my shoulder as I played along with her suggestion.
"What exactly can you request?"
"Right, so in this game, you just keep walking down this hallway, okay? Then the viewers—"
Han Ye-ji's explanation was surprisingly easy to follow. The two streamers had already died about twice while I was listening. A horror game where you keep walking through a repeating space, and the background shifts subtly as you go. I'd seen similar types of games in my previous life. Basically, the farther you walk, the more eerie phenomena pop up to startle the player. You jump at the scares while collecting hints to escape. As I absorbed the explanation, thoroughly enjoying the softness pressing against the back of my head, Han Ye-ji finished talking and started clicking the mouse, loading up funds to sponsor a mission.
[Next! Isn't there a bigger mission coming up?]
[Hey, why are you the one demanding missions on my stream!]
[If I beat it, the prize is mine, isn't it?]
The chatter from the minimized broadcast caught my eye along with the viewer count at the bottom. 457k—did that mean 457,000 people? More popular than I'd thought. An idea suddenly sparked. Like Han Ye-ji suggested, should I stir up a little attention on that stream? Even just stories about me surfacing online had given my magic power a minor boost. Wasn't that exactly why I'd paraded around Han Ye-ji's workplace with coffee to drum up gossip? I wasn't sure if it was a Constellation trait or specifically a Dream Demon thing, but the more people knew about me, the easier my magic was to control.
I had zero interest in becoming a livestreaming Constellation, but causing a brief scare to become the talk of the internet? That had potential. The timing was perfect—these two were horror game specialists, and my Incarnation, Han Ye-ji, was a diehard fan dropping six-figure sums on mission fees. Both the justification and the payoff were solid.
"Ye-ji, want to submit a mission then?"
"A mission? Okay. What should I write?"
Han Ye-ji reached for the keyboard, still wrapped around me from behind.
"100,000 for clearing the game without getting scared."
"Clearing without getting scared, 100,000... Constellation?"
She giggled knowingly, already catching on to what I was planning.