Chapter 132: The Constellation's Power 4
Chapter 132: The Constellation's Power 4
The woman who'd been railing some guy in an Amazoness position, clutching his ankles as she pounded into him—
The bastard who'd had his face buried in white powder, putting on a public masturbation show in the middle of the room—
When magic power jabbed into the area around their hearts, they shook like mosquitoes hit with insecticide, twitching and spasming.
Same went for the woman beside me.
"H-hyaaak—"
"What the—what?"
None of them were core members of the organization that had built this place.
They were just customers out to enjoy their drugs. There was no way they had the nerve to put up a real fight.
Junkies weren't exactly packing the kind of mental fortitude needed to withstand a Dream Demon's magic power.
'More effective than I expected.'
A Dream Demon's magic power functioned like a kind of biochemical weapon.
Pump chlorine gas into a room and it doesn't matter if you're a gym-rat soldier benching 600 or some elite officer with a degree from a top university—everyone's lungs melt the same way.
There was exactly one way to overcome the pleasure a Dream Demon inflicted.
Sheer mental strength.
Didn't Shakyamuni sit beneath the Bodhi tree, looking upon the naked forms of Mara's three daughters, and persevere in his austerities, enduring their temptation? They don't tell that story for nothing.
It's a little different, but a Dream Demon's temptation works on the same principle.
The only way to withstand a demon's seduction—the kind that drowns you in pleasure and claws at your desires—isn't training your muscles or sharpening your intellect. It's mental strength, rooted in faith.
Obviously, the worthless bastards and bitches who'd thrown themselves into a drug-fueled orgy party were never going to hold out.
'Smooth sailing so far, but...'
Now what?
I'd subdued the ones who looked like the criminal outfit's clientele easily enough.
Plenty of them had no magic power whatsoever and were clearly just high off their supply—
Which meant there were non-Incarnation customers in the mix.
In other words, somewhere else, there were magic-using Incarnations who'd carved escape bolt-holes into the wasteland and warped this space with magic circles to manufacture drugs.
They'd be the real owners of this place.
The alchemy wing, hidden away far more tightly than anything up here.
They were probably over there, weren't they?
"J-just a liddle—"
"Ugh, fuck, you're so clingy."
Was it the favorability effect? Or just because they were Westerners?
I shoved the woman away—her cloying clinginess was genuinely unpleasant—and grabbed the ice pick off the table.
This bunch had been easy to put down since they were deep in a drug haze,
but heading for the alchemy wing would be a different story.
I wasn't worried about losing a fight.
I was worried about how annoying it'd be if they slipped out through an exit I didn't know about.
'Still, how did I end up here?'
I'd meant to strike preemptively before the Incinerating Tyrant could scramble his battleships.
Next thing I knew, I was cleaning out a drug ring in the Northern Continent.
Only one thing I could reasonably hope for.
Let the bastard I was tracking be somewhere in this hideout.
※
The grip of the ice pick settled snug in my palm.
Its short handle had a luxurious feel—probably some kind of luxury item.
Not that I'd had reason to use it yet.
A heavy reek of alcohol that didn't fit a respectable company.
What kind of firm got plastered in broad daylight?
There were probably a few more rooms like the one I'd seen earlier.
I'd run into a fair number of other guests, but—
"You lookin' at something?"
"No. Not at all."
Thanks to the woman pressed right up against my side, growling at anyone who looked my way,
any other women who'd been trying to approach me turned tail and fled.
The rooms were spacious and the clothing on display was immaculate.
Some kind of VIP lounge, maybe.
The woman appeared to be an Incarnation with enough clout in the Northern Continent that even the ones high off their skulls instinctively backed down around her.
Because of that, the odd pairing—a man carrying an ice pick and a woman stumbling along, drugged out of her mind—
moved wherever I pleased without anyone getting in our way.
"Mmn, the alchemy wing? Sure, I can show you that much."
The situation was suspiciously smooth,
aside from how annoyingly glued to my side she was.
'Did I go too heavy on the Charm?'
Instead of turning their brains to mush with crippling subservience,
I'd weighted the magic power more toward temptation than raw pleasure so they could still follow orders. This was the result.
The same way some teenage boy desperately puffs himself up and acts tough in front of a girl he likes,
this woman was frantically trying to sell herself to me at my side.
"Got some pretty useful types around here. Sisters from the V Zakone, Bratva out of Chepskaya. I can introduce you, if you want."
And that turned out to be incredibly useful.
Past women hauling suspicious briefcases,
men flaunting tattoos on their thighs and collarbones—
we threaded through corridors teeming with people like that, and she threw the door open with a slam.
"The hell?"
"This is the V Zakone sisters. The men with them are... just male whore bastards."
"Hm? That you, Kumarin? What brings you to this side?"
The people inside were much like the ones from before.
No naked bodies grinding together, at least,
but the room was packed: one guy gripping a pole and shucking his pants,
a circle of women watching, drinking, and getting high.
A little more subdued, but just as far over the line.
"What's the guy with you—did you bring him to share?"
Dim, murky lighting that didn't fit an office.
A tall pole planted dead-center in the room.
And a man in boxer briefs clinging to it.
The sheer absurdity of the scene made me hesitate a beat.
That was one beat too long.
Fwoosh—a wind that ruffled through hair whipped around the room.
"Shut. Your mouth."
"You crazy bitch?!"
The woman who'd been spewing filth at me went down, front teeth shattered.
Her companions jolted in alarm, hands flying to the pistols at their hips.
The panty-clad male prostitutes shrieked in terror and bolted.
The sight of those heavy, flopping things put me in an inexplicably foul mood.
'I really, really didn't want to see lace boxer briefs.'
The male equivalent of a woman's lace-trimmed slip—
lace boxer briefs so sheer you could see everything through them.
Who in the world were horrifying garments like that even made for?
I let out a heavy sigh, and the woman called Kumarin next to me started fidgeting.
"Er, sweetie, I'm sorry? I've got a bit of a temper—"
"Ah, fuck. If you're gonna get high, do it without being a pain in the ass."
The woman pouring some kind of potion over her shattered jaw snarled.
Kumarin must've had a lot more pull than I'd figured;
even after crashing a drug party and caving someone's jaw in, nobody tried to jump her.
Made sense. The room I'd seen her in earlier had been bigger, more extravagant.
More men, more drugs, more depraved, filthy play going on.
I roused my magic power again as I thought it over.
My reserves had swelled to an almost frightening degree.
Pushing them to their limit today wouldn't be a bad idea.
"I'll collect on this debt, mark my— Why aren't you leaving?!"
I cut into the conversation, raising my power.
"Would you prefer I left?"
What I drew up this time wasn't threads of magic power, but a scent.
I imagined a humidifier belching dense clouds of vapor,
filling the room with fragrance like an air freshener.
A ratio of pleasure 2 to Charm 8, rather than the pleasure 4, Charm 6 from earlier.
"No, that's not what I—"
Was it because these Incarnations were lower-ranked?
I hadn't even punched magic straight into their hearts, but the reaction came faster.
Or maybe this was how a Dream Demon's power was always meant to be used.
"I wasn't angry at you, my good sir..."
"Who said you could eye him up, Vasili?"
A fight that had started with pistols and Authorities, with jaws getting shattered and blood flying,
had abruptly morphed into a catfight over one man.
The sight was so ridiculous I let out a helpless little laugh—
and the two women, apparently taking that laugh as a sign of affection, grinned stupidly back.
Along with the women behind them who'd been fingering their pistols.
Over a dozen people staring vacantly at me, beaming.
If not for the fact that a fair number of them actually had decent faces,
the scene would've felt like a frame ripped out of a horror movie.
"So? I believe I said I wanted to go to the alchemy wing."
"Kumarin, this idiot probably hasn't given the alchemy wing's location a single thought—busy groping the man's backside with her eyes. I'll guide you, gentleman."
"One more word out of you and it won't be your jaw that goes flying—it'll be those udders of yours, you fuckin' bitch."
"Witness this. Asked to guide the way, and she throws a tantrum."
The two women kept grumbling even as they opened the door.
The one who'd gotten her jaw wrecked, and the one who'd wrecked it—
side by side, they opened the door and moved to escort me.
Nobody in that room found the sight odd.
No, the women left behind only sent looks after us tinged with envy and jealousy.
'Damn effective.'
Was it because they'd become two mouths vying for attention?
The conversation had gotten considerably more useful.
Before, they'd only been bragging to make themselves look good;
now they were feeding me information they thought would help. Of course the quality improved.
"There's one between the 2nd and 3rd floors, one between the 5th and 7th, and one on the top floor."
"And you can only cross into the alchemy wing by heading straight down from the top floor to the basement."
"I'm in the middle of explaining."
"You're the one who always leaves out the critical details and ruins the operation—got anything to say?"
Their competitive snarling was noisy,
but at least they'd stopped casually linking arms or pawing at me, which made things physically more comfortable.
We took the freight elevator to the 7th floor.
Cut across the office, catching small nods of greeting,
walked right through, then took the stairs down to the 6th floor.
From the 6th floor, we boarded the staff elevator and rode it back up to the top, the 15th floor.
'No wonder nobody gets caught.'
I didn't know who'd designed this, but they were genuinely thorough.
Yes, the freight elevator and the staff elevator both functioned as access routes.
But unless you entered from the wasteland and passed through the underground parking and the offices,
you couldn't reach the top floor that connected to the alchemy wing.
...They'd probably bought off the regular office staff, too.
Not with orders like "transport this drug" or "kill that person," though.
Just: this is business-related. If you see a stranger come through, pretend you didn't.
They're not company people, but Incarnations pass in and out—ignore them.
That kind of buy-off was eminently doable.
"A bit of a hassle, but what can you do. Keeps the annoying ones from latching on."
"True enough. There's always some self-righteous newbie sniffing around."
Maybe I'd started to look bored, just walking without a word.
The two women had moved on to competitively flaunting their connections.
How chummy they were with the local police chief,
how they'd already opened lines of communication with the head of some Incarnation guild.
I listened to them brag and stepped back into the elevator.
'So even with Constellations around, you've still got corruption and political mafia.'
Made sense. I'd seen Constellations backing their Incarnations,
but how often did a Constellation with nothing better to do personally clean out a criminal organization?
When you could sit around being worshipped, living in cushy comfort,
who'd willingly go do the dirty, annoying work themselves?
Did the police commissioner and the superintendent general of public safety ever go undercover?
Ding— The elevator opened with a tone different from before.
"Stop right there."
And for the first time, someone stepped forward to stop me.
"You didn't win them over with just your looks—some kind of mental type. But that won't work here."
A brown-haired beauty in pristine white robes, research goggles pushed up on her head.
She looked like a scientist pulled straight out of some comic book.
A completely different image from the women in dresses and spaghetti straps,
drunk and drugged out of their minds.
No matter how I looked at her, she had to be from the alchemy wing.
I immediately stirred my magic power—
"I told you it's useless. Come along quietly, intruder."
She was right. I could feel something disrupting the Charm.
The two women beside me were staring blankly at the white-robed woman, their heads foggy now that the Charm had been thrown off.
The woman strode toward me with absolute confidence, right up until she stretched out her arm.
Meaning, until she closed the distance to where an arm could reach.
"If you come along quietly, we'll do this the easy— hyeok!"
Thunk.
The distance an arm could reach.