Chapter 155: Connection 1
Chapter 155: Connection 1
Had anyone in this world ever been handed a criminal complaint form as a reward?
A sentence so bizarre it could only surface after a few drinks.
I scraped the whole thing out of my head — it would've been too stupid even for cheap comedy.
'So this is my life now: drafting a power-of-attorney for a lawsuit and calling it a reward.'
After the nuclear war, I fought radiation mutants, became the last survivor,
got dragged to some nicely flattened Earth somebody else made, turned into a Constellation,
had my species changed to Dream Demon, got friendly with elves and werewolves —
and the most absurd part of all of it is drafting a power-of-attorney for a defamation suit as a reward.
An event I never once imagined I'd live through.
I filed the hate-comment complaint, signed the power-of-attorney, and moved on.
The next person I was supposed to meet after the test subject bubbling away in its tank
was the one who should've received that power-of-attorney: my first Incarnation, Han Ye-ji.
I headed toward the Shooting Building, which had far lighter security than the Magic Building.
The chemical reagent smells faded out, replaced by the acrid bite of gunpowder in my nose.
A facility housing everything from live-fire ranges to beam-weapon ranges to shooting-simulator bays.
The science and tech level was roughly on par with my old world's,
yet somehow a few fields were running at full-on sci-fi empire scale.
Because this was a world where one person fired a musket while the person next to them fired a laser rifle.
A world where cowboys, murim martial artists, wizards, and espers stood shoulder to shoulder.
Then again, in a world where space battleships roamed around, it was easier on the brain not to worry about tech levels.
'Come to think of it, weren't they forming a surveillance team to stop her from escaping?'
The criminal who might have tried to escape was now a test subject in a tank,
so didn't that eliminate the whole reason Han Ye-ji's team needed a new surveillance squad?
As if to confirm the thought, Han Ye-ji's eyes were drooping when I met her in the hallway.
"You're here, Constellation."
That sullen look — she resembled a puppy whose toy had been taken away.
Made sense. She'd volunteered for the surveillance team because doing nothing but lazing around weighed on her,
and now the team she'd proactively put together had its work stolen out from under it and was unemployed.
Waking up in the morning, doing a little exercise, shooting at the range, then sleeping —
wasn't that the very picture of a rich layabout's life?
And even while living that life, money that felt excessive to her small-citizen sensibilities kept piling up in her account,
which meant she'd stare at the huge sum and feel even more burdened — a vicious cycle.
Han Ye-ji had been the breadwinner of her household since high school, working convenience-store shifts and living off subsidies,
so the anxious conviction that she had to work for every won she received kept surfacing.
The Academy did tack on a dignity-maintenance allowance to the money given to Incarnations,
but the compulsive need to produce results matching that amount wasn't so easy to shake.
Over ten years of it, from elementary-school age until now, past twenty.
A mindset built from most of a lifetime's experience — what could you do about it?
"Heading to the range again today?"
"Ah, yes! They asked me to test a new training program that just got updated."
At my question, her voice lifted a little and she laughed, heh-heh.
I'd sensed she was less down than I'd expected —
and there it was: she'd gotten her hands on some work.
The girl who didn't know how to spend money, who bought convenience-store potato chips as a luxury item
and rolled around watching game streams like a slob —
yet when it came to shooting and marksmanship, her talent ranked among the very best at the Academy.
"It's a facility for building pure shooting skill without talents or Authorities, so they asked me."
Han Ye-ji's talent was bonus strikes, not anything that helped with shooting per se.
But she'd still managed to post high-90s scores at the range on pure skill alone,
so maybe the Academy was taking a bit of an interest.
At any rate, with a request to fulfill and work to do, Han Ye-ji was chattering away brightly.
A thank-you bonus would probably land in her account under the pretext of testing,
but I didn't need to spell that out for her.
I didn't see Jeong Ah-rin or Namgung Hui — had they all scattered for individual training?
I walked down the corridor listening to her chatter about the shooting program.
Unlike the Magic Building, this one had far fewer people moving around — not a single person crossed our path.
Eventually I arrived at a familiar spot and opened the door to the training hall with the shooting programs.
What greeted me beyond the door was the smell of old paper and ink, filling my nose.
I took a seat at a tea table that had been set up separately; a cup of fragrant tea was waiting.
Literally only the fragrance was good — the taste was utterly flat.
"I didn't expect to meet an elf like this."
When it came to tea, my entire experience consisted of cold-brewing gifted Jeju honey-pear tea or rapeseed-blossom tea
in a 500ml water bottle, so
the taste wasn't harsh, and I ended up sipping the whole cup down.
"I also didn't think things would blow up this much."
Couldn't tell if the expensive tea had been brewed badly or if it was meant to be drunk for the aroma alone.
I ignored the woman muttering in front of me and finished the cup.
Feeling the warmth that had started at the tip of my tongue spread through my stomach.
"So, I have a favor to ask."
A beauty with sharp, upswept eyes.
That arrogant face — was this what they called a villain's face?
She looked like the type who'd throw water in someone's face in a drama.
The woman, who'd been leaning back in her chair at the boss's desk,
planted her elbows on the desk and turned her face toward me.
Elbows on the desk, chin resting on her hands, she opened her mouth again.
Seeing that smug self-confidence made me actually want to grant the favor.
"My Incarnation you took to the Academy. Give her back."
"Mmm..."
But wanting to grant it and actually granting it were two different things.
I could see the future all too clearly if I handed her back.
"No. I mean, I can't."
"What? Wait, what...?"
The first thing that came to mind was that Imperial Guard.
The one who'd been delighted at the mention of extracting brains and sulked when told there'd be no extraction.
The lunatic who'd snapped a picture of her submerged in the tank's liquid and headed back.
The Incinerating Tyrant might be interested in the Heart of the Exiled Serpent,
but what his Imperial Guard wanted was to personally wreck the Incarnation, not the Constellation.
Dealing with a man clingy enough to follow all the way to the Academy was a hassle.
And he wasn't the only one — wizards had latched on too, and more than just one or two.
The alchemists, once they finished their research, said even a corpse would do...
No — even just part of the corpse. The wizards who wanted a piece to take home.
"Why?"
From the Incinerating Tyrant's Imperial Guard to Academy personnel to the Magic Society —
if I released the captured Incarnation without cause, they'd all come swarming.
How would I explain it to that countless crowd?
And I couldn't be bothered to just forcibly shut them up with Constellation authority, either.
"I just... don't want to deal with that much work."
The warmth in my stomach made me drowsy and languid.
Still, it felt like I ought to answer properly, so I forced my mouth open.
"I've made up my mind to live an easy life. Why should I touch a hassle like that."
The warmth that had traveled from the tip of my tongue into my stomach.
That warmth spread through my whole body like a stove.
The way drowsiness washes over you on the subway or a bus —
it was getting a little hard to hold my head up.
I tapped my cheeks, stretched my arms,
but it was hard to shake off the heat cocooning my body.
Maybe my old apocalypse-style hibernation habit — just sleep whenever drowsy to save energy —
had become too ingrained.
"A problem that can be solved just by giving an order — why is it a hassle?"
She shot up from the desk and demanded, argumentatively.
Irritation was plastered all over her face; she clearly couldn't accept it.
"Because not giving the order is even easier..."
Her complexion cycled from red to blue and back again, unable to process it.
See, that's why she really did look like a drama villain.
Would a splash of water to the face wake me up?
Then she drew a deep breath
and came out from behind the desk toward me to try and persuade me.
"No, you're a Constellation. What hassle could you possibly have? You just give the order, I'm telling you."
"I'd have to make people accept—"
"That's what I'm saying! There's no reason to make them accept anything. Why is someone who's a Constellation even bothering to explain things one by one to underlings?"
The voice murmuring persistently in my ear made my thoughts go tangled.
A sticky woman's hand stroking the back of my hand.
The tea, the saucers, the tea-set on the table.
The sensation of fingers creeping softly along my lower back.
A thin fork that looked barely a handspan long.
The pale back of a hand laid defenselessly on the table.
"Please, just give the or— Aaaaaagh!"
"Ah. Not this, then."
A fork meant for picking up tea snacks, apparently, so I could feel it catch on the bones of her hand.
Ignoring the blood on the tines, I yanked it out and struck down again.
This time, the target wasn't her howling hand but my own.
Some mutants used gas to make you groggy before they ate you.
The irony of self-harming to stay alive — I'd been through plenty of that already.
A burning, searing pain, like touching fire, drove out the languor that had been consuming my body.
"Crazy, you crazy bastard — fuck!"
Clutching her hand and howling, she gritted her teeth and lunged at me.
The teapot, grabbed in her bloodied hand and swung clumsily, came for my head.
The speed was sluggish — that little pain must've sapped her strength.
I ducked to dodge it, lunged forward, and stretched out both hands.
In a barehanded fight, aiming for the eyes is easiest, so —
I hooked my index and middle fingers and raked them across her eyelids.
"You've never been in a real fight, have you?"
"My eyes — my eyes!"
Then the woman thrashing on the floor — the Heart of the Exiled Serpent — vanished.
What was in front of my eyes wasn't the Heart of the Exiled Serpent clutching her face and writhing on the ground,
but Han Ye-ji's face, looking at me after finishing a round of shooting.
"Uh, Constellation? Is something wrong?"
"Nah. Nothing."
The back of my hand throbbed, but no fork marks remained.
That fact said exactly one thing.
The Heart of the Exiled Serpent was also a Dream Demon — a Dream Walker.