Chapter 13: Nightmare
Chapter 13: Nightmare
Some things only hit you after you wake up—completely invisible while you're still in the dream. Like replaying an argument in bed long after it's over, kicking the blankets because you've finally thought of the perfect comeback.
Dreams work exactly the same way.
Those grotesque feet, two-toed like hooves. Ankles thicker than my own torso. Legs bulging with veins and ropey muscle. A waist so huge three grown men couldn't have wrapped their arms around it. A creature straight out of an exaggerated cartoon—and it ran without making a sound? Really?
That something that size could match my pace, and that I could sprint all-out for over ten minutes without tiring—that was strange too. Once you accept it's a dream, it makes a certain kind of sense. That's just how the rules work here.
A maze game where you evade a monster that runs at exactly your speed.
If the monster were faster, there'd be zones or tricks somewhere to shake it off—but that didn't seem to be the case. It felt less like it was hunting by sound and more like it locked on the moment it made eye contact.
I pulled a cold soda from the fridge. Melon-flavored, unfortunately—I drank about half and tossed the rest, but the chill sliding down my throat snapped me awake.
So. Theoretically, I can wander around without getting caught by the monster.
What still unnerved me was its muttering. The thing was flat beneath the tattered cloth draping its lower body. It looked at me, mumbled something like "a male?" and then gave chase. If that horror game Han Ye-ji glimpsed was actually a 19+ title... ugh.
I'd rather get torn apart and wake up.
It was a little embarrassing—a Dream Demon, caught in a nightmare—but nobody else knew, so I let it go. Not exactly dignified: a fish drowning. I needed to get the hang of this Dream Demon business, and soon.
On my screen, Han Ye-ji was getting ready for morning training, apparently remembering nothing except dozing off while nestled against me. She'd passed basic conditioning, but to complete combat training she'd have to maintain that level of fitness.
I watched her stretch—light clothes, summer heat, completely unguarded—then flicked my eyes away from the display.
[Points Available: 1,000pt / Fragment of Nightmare: 1 EA]
The shop list was sporting that "N" indicator again. Every time I did something it swelled a little more—I couldn't honestly claim I had it memorized anymore. Becoming Lethargic Nightmare nearly doubled it, and now it had ballooned again.
One thing was clear, though: I needed another 2,000pt.
I was starting to think I should've bought Sweet Lucid Dream for myself instead of for her—and then invited Han Ye-ji into my dream every night. That way I could pass her Dream Demon essence through sex, and freely hunt for Fragments of Nightmare inside a dream-within-a-dream.
Honestly, napping twice a day to collect fragments sounded a lot more productive than staring at Han Ye-ji around the clock.
[Lethargic Nightmare advises taking it easy.]
"Yes, my Constellation. The instructors are giving me a one-week grace period anyway, so I should think about it more. Though I do have to audit Basic Magic Theory and Basic Marksmanship along with Basic Weaponry during that week."
Han Ye-ji said this after finishing several laps around the training grounds, falling in with the mixed crowd of instructors and students on their self-paced morning run.
Fair enough. It's a decision that shapes the rest of your life—choosing without a taste test would be rough.
Morning meant a quick wash, then the dining hall, already swarming with people. The building was massive, so the cafeteria was split across several halls, yet somehow every seat was packed—as if they'd built it for an entirely different head count.
Amid the bustle, a few figures moved oddly.
Han Ye-ji, tray in hand, agonized between spicy stir-fried pork and bulgogi, oblivious—but I, scanning the room, could hear her name whispered distinctly above the din.
Had news of her session with the instructors already spread?
[Lethargic Nightmare urges you to chew your breakfast thoroughly.]
She was piling meat onto her tray the way a healthy high-school girl should. I sent the chat message—don't choke—and panned the view. Several people were pointing at her. Not unkindly. Just... indicating. That's her.
Three girls sitting at her table while she happily debated between meat dishes. Two young men passing by, hunting for empty seats. A mixed-gender table next to hers, once they'd settled in to eat. All of them murmuring Han Ye-ji's name.
"A full-blown celebrity, huh."
Some eyes were jealous, some curious. Hostility and goodwill alike washed over her—whether drowned out by the dining hall's noise or just her natural obliviousness, Han Ye-ji never seemed to notice.
I had too many things I wanted to test, but impatience doesn't make time move faster. Could I fall asleep inside Han Ye-ji's lucid dream and reach that nightmare realm? If I bought the 3,000pt lucid dream for myself, could I pull someone else in? Questions I needed to answer, things I wanted to try.
I was still sorting through it all when Han Ye-ji finished eating and headed for the training grounds.
The heat must have been brutal. The women had stripped down to sports bras, clustered around training dummies the same as yesterday. Watching a crowd of slender, toned bodies swing wooden swords while showing off their physiques stirred the uneasy feeling of watching an AV production.
Academy rules supposedly banned improper fraternization, but who ever controlled their heart with regulations? It didn't help that every Constellation had apparently, like me, picked their Incarnations from the better-looking candidates—everyone here was above average and flaunting it.
Being in Basic Weaponry meant they'd cleared Basic Conditioning. The women all had narrow waists and abs that ranged from defined to rock-solid; the men mostly had broad shoulders and visibly trained arms. And since the men were suffering in the heat too, they'd swapped thick gym uniforms for thin shirts.
Lecherous stares slid toward the cling of fabric outlining every contour of a man's chest. To me it looked like an uncomfortable prelude to a nipple show, but the women of this world watched slack-jawed, eyes fixed as if hypnotized.
The men weren't any better. Between shorts and sports bras, the women's confident display of muscle was on full view—and the men kept their gazes bashfully downcast, playing demure while their eyeballs swiveled shamelessly.
Abs as a sex-appeal signal, not chest. That was a new one. Men sold pectorals and crotches; women sold abs. Why abs? Stamina?
I had let my mind wander too far when my attention snapped back to Han Ye-ji, now positioned before a practice dummy. The instructor—a model of the fierce-girl archetype—had arrived with an armload of weapons.
"Still haven't decided, have you? Commendable caution! So for the next week, we'll find the weapon that fits you. Sometimes a weapon doesn't grab you at first—then your hands get used to it, and suddenly it's all you want."
The rest of the day made me feel progressively worse for Han Ye-ji.
Right up until lunch, the instructor kept her locked in one-on-one focus, drilling her through so many weapons her hands blistered. It went way beyond sword, spear, and mace. A kukri with its curved blade. A deeply hooked saber that looked like it belonged to a turbaned warrior. A katana, a glaive—every imaginable edged weapon, from thin fencing blades to massive swords meant for crushing, not cutting.
By the time the jealous gazes she'd drawn from other Incarnations finally softened into sympathy, she'd been silently swinging whatever the instructor, practically glued to her side, shoved into her hands. Over and over.
Exhausted, she ate lunch. In the afternoon, off to a shooting range she hadn't been scheduled for.
Same intensity, but she looked more at ease. All she had to do was grip a heavy mounted machine gun locked onto a safety rig and pull the trigger—for "testing purposes." Explosive rounds that burst with a shockwave on impact. Large-caliber HP rounds meant to stop a monster's charge. High-explosive rounds for breaching the hide of a giant beast. Everything from fingertip-sized cartridges to shells as thick as a man's forearm, fired until she'd had her fill, while people who looked like researchers sprinted around, breathlessly recording data.
Was the novelty of firing a gun making her happy, or did she have a genuine knack for it? Either way, she definitely looked happier than swinging weapons under the blazing sun. Should I just nudge her toward Gunner?
After dinner she squeezed in one more session—this time with a magic-studies instructor, in a restricted special laboratory where cadets weren't normally allowed. There, she tore scrolls and shattered gleaming magic stones against monsters captured for research.
"Hm, interesting. It doesn't double the area of effect—it stacks the effect on a target within the radius. Not quite 200% efficacy, but depending on handling, power output reaches about 170%... If the effect isn't tied to the medium—parchment, crystal, whatever—so long as the contained magic is offensive in nature..."
"Can I go now?"
"Yes, you're dismissed. A personal suggestion: firearms might suit you rather well. Ordinarily I'd recommend magic, but at two stacks with 170% efficiency, if your trait grows further, the efficiency could actually decline."
Han Ye-ji trudged away from the frank instructor, steps wobbling. They'd promised her a one-week grace period, and those bastards had held her over ten hours straight from Monday morning into the night—no wonder she was wrecked.
Which left me with a question: what would help her recover more—having sex with me in a dream, or sleeping inside a dream?