Chapter 108: The Constellation's Work 3
Chapter 108: The Constellation's Work 3
I always knew putting things off would bite me in the ass someday, but I did it anyway.
I'm not a planner by nature. I'm not the diligent type.
Sure, being a lazy slacker who holed up in a bunker earned me a second life as a Constellation, but still.
Once I confirmed the culprit had left the Academy and watched the Incinerating Tyrant's fleet zip off, I left the temporary Sanctum and returned to my personal Constellation's space.
"All right, how many of these do I have to eat?"
Waiting for me: a pile of Nightmare Fragments glittering on the wooden table.
Over a hundred palm-sized shards stacked up—the sheer mass of them was oppressive. Even after a few branches of the World Tree coiled around some to carry them off, there were still enough left to fill a whole basket.
'Am I seriously supposed to chew all of these one by one?'
Kim Ha-eun could extract Nightmare Fragments, but she couldn't digest them.
I could digest them, but I couldn't process them in bulk.
I'd been stockpiling these for the day my mana control got good enough that I wouldn't have to chew them with my actual teeth.
Not every patient produced a single Fragment. The intensity of a nightmare varied so much it was hard to pin down a daily yield.
Still, I hadn't expected the pile to break a hundred this quickly.
I reached out, grabbed a Fragment, and bit down. A cool, crisp surge of magic spread through my mouth. The problem was, I had about a hundred and thirty more palm-sized pieces to swallow.
'Should've just eaten these every day...'
Why did this feel exactly like the childhood agony of putting off vacation homework until the last possible day?
With the exact energy of someone grinding through overdue assignments, I stared at the screen and kept chewing, one piece after another. If only they had a taste—sweet, sour, anything. They only left a mint-cool sensation before vanishing, so it felt like chewing toothpaste, over and over.
If they dissolved softly on the tongue, that'd be one thing, but they were as hard as slush-ice or glass shards. Some of them took multiple crunches.
'My jaw hurts...'
Chewing with my real body, not a clone, left my jaw numb. Sure, an elf's body was tougher than a human's, but after grinding Fragments around a thousand times, my temporomandibular joint was throbbing.
Still, the payoff was there—my mana flow was noticeably faster now. Specifically, the speed at which I could pull objects out of nightmares had gone up.
So it felt like Constellation fame and points leveled up my mana-handling experience, while the Nightmare Fragments leveled up my experience as a Dream Demon. I hadn't noticed a difference after a stingy dozen or so, but after swallowing over a hundred, the pattern was clear.
I was massaging my aching jaw with my fingers when a branch of the World Tree slipped quietly down in front of my eyes. Then, from the very tip of the branch, a little blue spirit popped out.
It looked like a miniature doll version of the Unfading Giant Tree herself.
"Hello. Can you hear my voice?"
"Yeah, I can hear you just fine."
Last time the form hadn't held together at all; this time she could hold a conversation. I gazed at the spirit while thinking that. Looking into its eyes felt like staring at little glass beads. As I zoned out a little, the spirit fidgeted and spoke up again.
"Um, are you all right?"
It drifted toward me, fluttering on the air like a petal caught in a breeze, and gently stroked my forehead. Had the discomfort I'd been feeling inside been that obvious, or was she just unusually perceptive? I didn't think I could pretend nothing was wrong and ask her why she was asking.
"No, I'm a little worried."
A murder happened right next to my Sanctum—how could I not be worried?
If it'd been a crime aimed at a Constellation, if they were targeting me, I wouldn't have any reason to worry. But it was clearly a crime targeting an Incarnation, and my heart thumped with an almost nauseating unease. No matter how talented they were, my Incarnations were barely entering their second year. Of course I was going to worry.
Han Ye-ji, a high school girl who'd been terrified of fighting monsters.
Lee Ha-rin, who'd lived an utterly ordinary life with her parents.
Kim Ha-eun, who'd never thrown a punch before she lost her parents.
Good with a tranquilizer gun. Skilled at ritual magic. Gifted at wielding Dream Demon mana. None of that matters—people die easily. A chunk of concrete, a piece of rebar, even the slender fingers of a woman can kill a person.
"I thought my kids were somewhere safe..."
Hubris.
And complacency.
I'd gotten so drunk on peace and women that I'd been wandering around like a grinning idiot. Even when a way to get stronger was right in front of my eyes, I'd put it off because chewing was annoying.
Sure, I'd suffered in a shit-fuck world, but the thought that I'd gone too soft letting myself rest pricked at a corner of my chest.
Depressing thoughts don't help you survive.
None of my kids got hurt, so it's fine. To keep myself from spiraling into an endless loop of self-loathing, I forcibly redirected my attention. To the spirit fluttering in front of me.
"So, what brings you here?"
I glanced at the screen. The sun was already starting to set. I'd zoned out chewing Fragments and checking my mana, and the hours had just vanished.
※
A wooden table with a faint forest scent. Warm tea sending up a sweet, fragrant steam. An assortment of refreshments, nutty and just a little bitter. A space that felt peaceful no matter when I visited, filled with plants so abundant that my elf body immediately went slack and languid.
'How did I even end up here?'
No—before I even got to that—the sensation against my cheek was impossibly soft.
"It's all right. Everything's all right."
A gentle voice cooed at me like it was trying to melt my ears, and at the same time, a hand slowly stroked my hair. Before I knew it, I was resting my head on her lap, my cheek and scalp being softly petted. All my sharp new resolve—about not being lazy and training seriously now that all the Nightmare Fragments were consumed—melted into nothing.
'Maybe this is a form of Dream Demon training?'
I felt like I'd meant to try crafting a clone for Loyal Fang, but honestly, how could any of that matter right now? She pressed gently at the side of my neck, guiding my head onto her thigh, and I decided nothing in the world was more important than this. Let the tea on the table go cold for all I cared.
"Everyone's clumsy at first. And most Constellations let themselves be lulled by comfort and rest for a long time in the beginning. You're not the only one."
Honestly, this wasn't the kind of thing that warranted this much comfort.
How many regrets had I gathered from the day the world ended, before I ever got a chance to be a good son to my parents? The one friend I had left in the world, dragged off by a creature, and I couldn't save him. The time a petty squabble turned into murder and our survivor group fell apart. My first kill, my first creature kill, watching everyone I knew die one by one—
And still, I lived.
Maybe it was because I had a tough-guy mentality to match my gristly face and big frame. The psychosis that withered people in isolation never really touched me. I'd felt mentally on edge at times, sure, but I'd never hallucinated, worshipped a creature, or turned to self-harm and cannibalism.
But my body was so heavy with languor I couldn't even ease the Unfading Giant Tree's concern. Maybe she'd also been left behind in a world with only young boys and girls—was that why? She picked out exactly the words I needed to hear, soothing me in a soft, lilting murmur, and I felt a childish urge to lean on her rise up on its own.
During our first time together, she couldn't even meet my eyes; I'd braced myself for weeks of awkwardness. but she must have sensed something, because here she was, rushing over to take care of me.
'No. When that kind of shitstorm goes down at the Academy, everyone's going to know.'
How many Constellations had been watching? How many civilians had witnessed a space battleship blot out the sun as it headed for the Academy? Naturally, the agricultural and druidic Constellation—the Unfading Giant Tree—would know too. After all, I was the only Constellation who'd descended onto the Academy itself.
"So, what actually happened?"
"An Incarnation died. Right near my Sanctum."
Maybe because it had been less than a day since everything kicked off, she didn't seem to have the full story either. Every time I tried to discreetly lift my head, her fingers pressed softly against my forehead, so I gave up and started explaining everything from this position.
"Truly? That's the reason someone killed an Incarnation?"
"Yeah. Honestly, I didn't want to believe it either, but what can you do. That's why the Incinerating Tyrant came to the Academy himself."
"He came in person? Not a messenger?"
"So I heard. The ship that came to the Academy was the flagship. I saw the personal guard swarming around instead of messengers. I wondered why they made such a huge show of it, but it looks like the victim was family to one of the guards."
Unlike me, who'd grown numb to death, the Unfading Giant Tree didn't seem to want to make small talk about dead people. Her eyes slid gently shut, and I felt the pat-pat of her hand slow. I hurriedly changed the subject.
"Anyway, about last time—"
Did she catch on immediately that "last time" could only mean our first time together? The hand stroking my hair stopped, and with soft but firm finality, she covered my eyelids.
"Hey...?"
"Don't... don't talk about that..."
If I opened my eyes right now and read her emotions, the color would definitely be a soft pink flush. I could brush her hand away with a little force, but that would probably make her genuinely sulk, so I kept my mouth shut.
"Honestly. I'm the older one here, and you just tease me."
With my eyes covered, I felt her other hand slip quietly downward.
Along with a sweet, heated sigh.