Chapter 161: Contract 3
Chapter 161: Contract 3
I turned my back on the internet forums, which had become an absolute shitshow.
The next morning, after I'd buried myself in bed wanting nothing more than to sleep the entire day away, any hope of a refreshing wake-up was torpedoed by Lee Ha-rin. She walked up and thrust a stack of documents thicker than most encyclopedias straight at me.
"...What is this?"
"A broadcast revenue distribution contract."
Was I still not fully awake?
Maybe I was drifting in the shallows of my own unconscious.
But the mountain of paperwork under my nose was neither a dream nor some mana-wrought illusion.
"What is it, exactly?"
"It is a tribute from those Incarnations who were granted permission to broadcast, and who used your story, Constellation."
I'd practically dropped the formal speech without thinking, but Lee Ha-rin didn't so much as flinch, still holding out the papers with perfect poise.
One page, then another.
I skimmed through, flipping fast.
Hundreds of sheets, identical formats, only the names changed.
My life consists of summoning what I need and eating at the Academy dining hall. Money is pointless—unless I want a smartphone, a computer, or a TV. But considering outside perceptions and internal political dynamics, an Incarnation paying tribute to their Constellation carries more weight than you'd think. It's not as if the broadcasting Incarnations take a loss, either.
'There's a huge difference between just telling stories on a gossip show and telling stories you heard directly after paying me tribute.'
Thinking back to my previous life, the difference was stark. A broadcaster who tells celebrity anecdotes while holding an actual photo they took with the star, or while waving around a copy of a management company's contract—that generates far more buzz. Even after giving the Constellation a cut, the profit from selling the Constellation's name is still bigger.
In any case, I wasn't interested in scraps of paper.
While Lee Ha-rin took back the rejected documents and neatened the stack with a crisp tap, I pulled my smartphone over from the bedside with a thread of mana and logged onto the internet.
Well... how should I put this?
The internet was exactly as I'd imagined.
—Dad i'm gonna grow up to be a Constellation
—Lucky Star! Lucky Star! Lucky Star!
—Wait, aren't we the unlucky Constellations?
The comments section under an internet news article plastered on the portal's front page. Just yesterday, the top-voted comments were moldy old maxims like "with great power comes great responsibility."
—I've got a big chest too, why won't anyone make me an Incarnation?
—Lesgay...
—If you were a chick with a dick you'd have gotten one chance.
The entire online world was being overrun with unhinged comments, the whole thing starting to feel like the world right before the apocalypse. Excessive profanity and sex jokes got censored, but the new comments piled up faster than the old ones could be deleted. If this was the state of the most heavily moderated portal's news comments, what was happening on sites with zero censorship or any concept of netiquette, or on video platforms where livestreamers gathered?
Scrolling down, I spotted the broadcaster Han Ye-ji had been watching. Curiosity got the better of me and I hit play.
[Alright everyone, hello~. Lately, the hot issue is the personal info circulating about a fallen Constellation, right?]
I'd expected a quick "yes, we told you so~" before she moved on, but this broadcaster seemed to push solid content. The summary of the Heart of the Exiled Serpent situation was neatly laid out.
'The first-ever Constellation doxxing incident...? What the hell were those three thinking?'
When three Incarnations put their heads together and calmly said, "Let's just post it online so the public can recognize his face," I'd assumed other fallen Constellations got caught the same way. But according to the broadcaster's rundown, that wasn't it at all. The criminal Incarnations who contracted with the Fallen Constellation had their identities revealed—but information on the Fallen Constellation herself had never been leaked online.
Then again, fallen Constellations usually seduce their own Incarnations into committing crimes. They don't descend to the mortal world to personally commit rape the way a certain exiled snake did. Popping down no-cost for a joyride like that is something only a Dream Demon can pull off.
It was the first public exposure of a fallen Constellation's identity in human history. And to top it off, the one who exposed her was the very Constellation who'd been treating human souls at the Academy.
An internet witch hunt. Complete with immunity from being sued no matter how foul the language got. Every ingredient for a mob with torches and pitchforks was in the pot. The paradox of dragging someone through the mud—insulting, humiliating, tearing them down—being, somehow, a service to a Constellation.
The result was enough to make me question my own eyes.
First: the online press on the internet portal's main page. Every outlet you could call mainstream in this world had slapped the Heart of the Exiled Serpent's profile picture up like a banner headline. They at least kept some journalistic standards, no outright slurs—but they made sure to garnish the articles with the fact that a fallen Constellation had descended to sexually assault a man.
The Constellation & Incarnation Gallery, where chaos had been raging since last night, had now saved a photo of the Heart of the Exiled Serpent as its main logo, right next to the site name. They'd also hung a giant subtitle beneath it: "The Rape Constellation," on the grounds that related threads now occupied 80% of the board.
And more than half the trending videos on video sites were plastered with episodes about the Fallen Constellation and the Academy—
'...Even if I asked them to take it down, they wouldn't, would they?'
A site resembling the old wiki from my past life already had a freshly spawned entry sitting there bold as day:
[Constellation/Lethargic Nightmare/Fallen Constellation Doxxing Incident]
And on top of that, the latest editor was Dpwl8849. Wasn't that just Ye-ji8849?
'Still, it'd be awkward to walk up to Han Ye-ji mid-morning workout and ask, Hey Ye-ji, did you just doxx me on the internet?'
But with all this uproar, most people—especially the young nightlife crowd—had probably seen that face by now. My only real concern was what the Heart of the Exiled Serpent might gain from all this notoriety: points. Yet even that wasn't much of a problem. Points come like a salary. Not a steady trickle in real time, but a lump settlement at the start of the month, delivered in the Sanctum. Having lost his promising contracted Incarnation, he was now stuck waiting until next month for a payout. There was nothing the Heart of the Exiled Serpent could do.
"In that case, Constellation, shall I prepare breakfast?"
Lee Ha-rin had been waiting quietly beside me the whole time I stared at my phone.
Mm. Forget breakfast—first, I needed to get something moving with the Academy.
"Breakfast can wait. Could you call someone from the Academy for me?"
"Yes, shall I summon the Magic Society, including the alchemists? Or would you prefer to convene the Chancellor and the Board of Directors?"
"Call the Board."
※
Obviously, no matter how much hell breaks loose on the internet, the real-world Heart of the Exiled Serpent running loose still hasn't been caught. His face is getting plastered everywhere, he's become the target of a lifetime's worth of dad jokes and sex jokes, but it's not as if insults can directly damage a Dream Demon's clone. So the message I asked the Academy to relay was the final play to actually catch the bastard and crush him. If this doesn't work, I honestly have no clue what will.
At that point, wouldn't my only option be to ask the Incinerating Tyrant to deploy a space battleship for real-time surveillance of all four continents?
"I—Is that truly what you mean, Constellation?"
"I didn't call you here to crack jokes."
The Academy Chancellor was sweating bullets. Gone was the polished, seasoned matron I'd seen before; in her place was a doddering old woman questioning her own hearing as if age had finally caught up with it.
"Ah, well, this old woman has no standing to question how you use your personal assets, Constellation, but still...."
Dabbing her forehead with a handkerchief, her eyes darted furtively. Not at me—at Lee Ha-rin standing behind me. Wondering what this was about, I turned my head toward Lee Ha-rin as well.
"Constellation, shall we review the warehouse inventory?"
Without missing a beat, Lee Ha-rin handed me a few sheets of paper. They listed precious metals—gold, silver—and all the other items still registered under my name in storage.
"Excluding rare monster byproducts from the Southern Continent or rare metals from the Western Continent, the remaining assets are valued at—by continental standardization—"
"Irrelevant. Put it all up."
A strained wheeze, as if someone's breath had caught in their throat. One of the chancellor's attendants had apparently choked; he was hacking and gasping for air.
The solution I put on the table was simple brute force. Place a bounty on the Heart of the Exiled Serpent's Clone. With this many Constellations and Incarnations across the continents, someone out there must have a talent for capturing a mana-based life form.
The junk in that warehouse was never much use to me anyway. By continental standards, the sum was staggering—enough to make you a major property owner in the capital region and then some—but what good is liquid cash to a Constellation mooching off the Academy? If my Incarnations were destitute and drowning in debt, sure, I'd use it to bail them out. But Han Ye-ji nearly passed out from an allowance so big she couldn't even spend it on potato chips; Lee Ha-rin pulls research budgets straight from the Academy; and Kim Ha-eun is so absorbed in running a dream-city that she's half-abandoned reality.
To a Dream Demon, hard currency has all the value of a low-level boss drop collecting dust in the corner of a max-level veteran's inventory. Plus, it's not won or dollars, so it doesn't even feel real.
"Announce it in the Academy's name. Whoever brings me the fallen Constellation's Clone, intact, gets my entire warehouse. And if they're interested, tell them I'll throw in sweet dreams as a bonus."
Once again, I heard that sound of someone's breath leaving their body.
There's almost no problem money can't fix. If it doesn't fix it, you weren't offering enough. How far can a fugitive really run with a bounty on his head worth hundreds of billions?