Chapter 139: Dreamland 4
Chapter 139: Dreamland 4
A spacious living room lay beyond the old-fashioned wooden door.
The deep-pile rug, the low table set with refreshments, the ornate chandelier,
the expensive stereo speakers that had never been used, the enormous TV—
the space was as lavish and welcoming as ever.
...if you ignored the people kneeling on that rug.
What the hell is this, seriously.
Violet and gold hair spilled beautifully across the floor at my feet.
Because Kim Ha-eun, apparently feeling competitive, had knelt right next to the blond man.
No, why you?
Before I could sort through my confusion, the man drew something from inside his jacket.
A rolled scroll. Another letter from The Incinerating Tyrant.
Now-familiar knowledge burrowed into my skull, a sensation I was getting used to.
Delivering a message and knowledge simultaneously—
I could only marvel at what future civilizations were capable of.
I set aside the Dream Demon knowledge tickling my brain
and looked down at the man kneeling before me.
A member of The Incinerating Tyrant's personal guard,
indulged to the point of launching a fleet over the death of his own blood kin.
Which is not to say he outranked a Constellation—never.
But nor was he a man who had any reason to kneel and plead before anyone.
Not before the Tyrant he served, and certainly not before some unrelated Constellation.
Not completely unrelated, I guess.
This was about avenging his murdered sister, most likely.
The tangle of rage, resentment, and killing intent scraped against my skin.
The concentration of emotion was so thick it felt like pressing seawater to my lips.
Even so, I had no hobby of being bowed to by men. I wanted him to say his piece and leave.
He'd already delivered the letter. What else was he fishing around for inside that uniform shirt?
I watched the fumbling with a slightly uncharitable eye.
Kim Ha-eun's presence, wordlessly prostrating herself beside him for no reason, was starting to grate on me.
"...What is this?"
"An item His Majesty bestowed upon me."
Every extraneous thought evaporated the moment I saw the object in front of me.
A golden radiance shimmered with an almost unnatural clarity.
Not that he'd pulled a gold bar out of his jacket.
"That isn't what I asked."
"And it is also the tribute I offer to you, Constellation."
The thing looked like a worthless rock.
A lumpy piece of gravel that could fit snugly in a closed fist.
If not for the staggering quantity of mana radiating from within it,
I'd have kicked it aside on the street without a second glance.
Tribute, was it.
His family is dead, yet he comes to me bearing tribute...
Those eyes, and this gesture.
A pattern I'd seen plenty of times among people who had lost loved ones.
As if realizing I'd caught on, he bowed his head again.
Forehead to the floor, the rock lifted in both upturned hands.
His voice, methodically explaining, was calm—
but it bled an indescribable chaos of emotion.
"I was informed that you exercised an Authority in a city on the Northern Continent, Constellation."
"News travels fast."
It hadn't even been thirty minutes since I'd moved my avatar.
A space fleet after all. Did they carry satellites around with them?
But my attention was snagged by the golden stone.
Every time the light pulsed within it, like a heartbeat,
I felt a prickle against my skin.
It was clearly small enough to fit into a palm,
yet it stirred the same feeling I'd had standing before that space battleship.
I still wasn't fully accustomed to things like killing intent and mana,
but a presence this immense was impossible to miss.
That golden rock was something unbelievably dangerous and significant.
"What His Majesty requested of you was the punishment of the Constellation who dared to dishonor him."
"And?"
"If that is the case, I wish to receive custody of the incarnation's person."
Having a conversation with someone whose forehead was pressed to the floor was a novel experience.
Novel like a particularly bracing mint, or a crisp cucumber—refreshing but odd.
Why was I even doing this—
But when I came back to myself, I realized my gaze was locked onto that stone.
I was like a mutt losing its mind over a slab of meat,
except I knew with every fiber of my being that this stone couldn't be compared to mere meat.
Which meant there was only one reaction I could show.
And he damn well knew it.
"Fine. Start by explaining what that object is. And sit down—talking like this is uncomfortable."
"Thank you for forgiving my discourtesy."
He rose and seated himself across the table.
...Should I just leave Kim Ha-eun where she was, still face-down? An explanation of the stone was more urgent.
※
True to its sci-fi setting, the space empire was home to a multitude of species.
Cyborgs who had replaced organs with machinery, alien races from various planetary systems.
Among them existed a species that entered the dreams of others, reading memories and stealing emotions.
Naturally, those were the Dream Walkers known as Dream Demons.
I skipped past the explanations about Dream Walkers and the empire itself.
His description kept threatening to veer into crazed-length eulogies about devotion to a mad emperor,
but once I stripped out all the rhetoric built on fealty,
I understood why The Incinerating Tyrant treated me so well.
"So, basically—he's nurturing me because Dream Walkers are too useful to ignore."
The emperor, who had earned points to the point of nausea,
had begun spending vast sums of points to purchase items from his past life.
He'd brought forth the flagship he once commanded, bought back the luxuries left in the imperial palace,
and had ultimately summoned even the treasures from the imperial storehouse that had burned to ashes.
And that storehouse contained artifacts from various species—
and I was the only person around who could use the belongings of Dream Demons, of Dream Walkers.
Dwarves, a species of mechanical engineering, could be found in this world too.
Beastkin and elves existed, and cyborgs could presumably be built.
But no Dream Demons.
Most Dream Demons never emerged from their own dreams,
so no matter how high and mighty the emperor, he had zero Dream Walkers at his disposal.
Except me.
handing over knowledge, information, and treasures like this
wasn't cost-effective just to turn me into a useful subordinate.
The Tyrant's personal guard and incarnation would never say it aloud,
but another reason was plainly there.
So I've become endgame content for an old-timer.
To put it bluntly, a trophy for mental masturbation.
The fact that he'd recreated his past life's space battleship in its exact form was proof enough.
His wife dead, his empire destroyed, humanity exterminated—
he'd drifted through a dark, freezing cosmos and withered away into death,
and still he summoned that very flagship back.
If it were me, no matter the point profit,
I couldn't bring myself to crawl back down into the basement of my past life.
But The Incinerating Tyrant was drunk on his former memories.
The way he built a personal guard instead of relying solely on incarnations, summoned a space battleship,
and lived aboard that warship instead of in a sanctum—it transformed my suspicion into certainty.
None of that was bad for me.
To speak plainly, wasn't I in the position of a newbie getting power-leveled by a guild leader?
So long as I succeeded in the quests he gave me on the side, rare rewards just materialized.
"So this is a core that Dream Walkers used to create their own worlds, then?"
What surfaced in my mind was the memory of creating
that pure-white werewolf woman for Loyal Fang.
Even crafting a single permanent clone body had been a whole ordeal.
I'd wondered how anyone could materialize and permanently maintain an entire world—
and it turned out they used something like an externally mounted battery for it.
Similar to how mages could cast spells
or socket magic stones when drawing a magic circle, it felt like.
I could use my own magic power to dream, sure,
but I could also store a dream inside this core for later.
"Yes. In terms of output alone, this precious thing can operate roughly three battleships. It was designated a strategic material in its own right. With something of this caliber, dare I ask that you grant my request?"
"Fine. Capture that man on the Northern Continent and I'll hand him over to you. But only after The Incinerating Tyrant's task is resolved first."
"Understood. I'm well aware of what must take priority."
A gaze steeped in killing intent and anticipation was fixed on me.
That captured assassin was unlikely to die gently.
Not my concern, naturally.
I had no taste for a grown man's blazing stare, so I gave a curt nod and shooed him off.
Stopping him before he could press his head to the floor again—
and pulling up Kim Ha-eun, who was still face-down.
Once again, I caught her by the wrist.
She wobbled; her legs must have gone numb from staying prostrate throughout the whole conversation.
I had no idea why she felt a competitive urge over bowing her head to the floor.
With the warm stone—no, the core of a Dreamland—in one hand,
I led Kim Ha-eun by the other toward the bedroom.
"So I've got a new task."
"Yes, Constellation. Shall I tidy up the living room in the meantime?"
"Lie down with me."
When you acquire an item, you try it out right away.
I guided her by the wrist until we reached the bed.
Flustered but feigning helpless compliance, she settled in beside me.
She hesitated at the thought of lying down together as if we were sharing a casual nap,
but the flush creeping up both cheeks was unmistakable.
According to the knowledge The Incinerating Tyrant had sent,
the method of using this core was remarkably simple.
Hold it in your hand and have a lucid dream.
Like moving files between a computer and a USB drive.
The world whirled, and beside me, Kim Ha-eun let out a faint, feverish moan.