Chapter 181: Three Men Make a Tiger 6
Chapter 181: Three Men Make a Tiger 6
There wasn't much to the nameless bull's Origin.
Just a single house—hard to tell if it was a thatched hut or a log cabin—that blended right into nature.
I tried reinforcing the walls and pillars with magical power, almost like varnishing them.
<Hmm, it feels strange to be without hooves.>
"What now."
What I'd done to the Origin was minor, but the change that followed was enormous.
Quadrupedal locomotion had become bipedal, and he'd sprouted arms and hands.
Not that every part of him had turned human.
"A minotaur?"
<Hmm, I'd rather not be compared to such inferior monsters, though the resemblance is rather strong.>
The bull had become a bipedal creature still walking on hooves.
Loyal Fang was already decently tall,
but the bull-man form made the guy a good three heads taller at least.
Slap some armor on him and he'd be the spitting image of something out of the Maple Leaf stories I read as a kid.
Still bewildered by suddenly having fingers, he flexed those thick digits, wiggling them.
There was still fur on the backs of his hands—looking at his arms alone, you'd think gorilla, not human.
Still... when a bull transforms into something like a minotaur, is that actually a positive change?
As if reading my curiosity, Loyal Fang spoke up first.
"So, how's the body feel?"
<Yes, my magical power moves far more fluidly than before.>
As those thick fingers wiggled, a cluster of pure white light rippled at their tips.
Handling magical power seemed easier than handling his fingers.
The orb of magic frolicked between his digits, almost like calligraphy pen strokes.
If some minor side effects to his outward appearance came with it,
well, it still seemed like a net positive for his abilities.
I watched the solid expanse of the bull's back as he sprinted out into the meadow, eager to practice walking on two legs, and let the thought settle.
※
Word really does travel faster than feet.
"Academy says they need to limit participation—too many entrants."
"Already? Tell them to do whatever they want."
Man, woman, or animal—any of them can receive a blessing on their Origin through magical power.
I'd simply passed the word along to the Academy side handling the tournament.
How does it make sense that the flood of applicants hit within half a day, not even a full one?
I fixed Lee Ha-rin with a stare full of that question,
and she gave a small, knowing laugh and added more detail.
"Constellation, any incarnation aiming for a tournament of this scale will almost certainly have a manager."
"Manager?"
"Yes. Even independent streamers keep a manager and an editor—why wouldn't an incarnation? There are quite a few management firms that track Academy updates."
In a world where Constellations and incarnations were just part of daily life, of course there'd be a business for everything.
Makes sense. The money's real, so people would flock to it.
As her explanation went on, all I could do was nod.
Yeah, buying talents and items with points sounds great,
but not every incarnation can just rake in tens of thousands of points.
Even with me, every single point I've spent—
without burning any on myself—has gone straight to my incarnations, and still all we've got is a couple of items.
So the incarnations outside their Constellations' direct care, the self-sufficient ones,
convert leftover spare points into precious metals and gems and live large in the real world.
Better to cash out a steady several hundred million a year and live in comfort
than grind for decades hoarding a million points to buy some legendary holy sword.
"But precious-metal trading comes with an awful lot of headaches. Checking for alchemical counterfeits, for one—and points-bought metals come without certificates, so you have to get them certified. You think incarnations will put up with that hassle every time? They'd rather find a dedicated manager, pay them a salary, and have them handle the gold trades steady."
Maybe it was because this world had psychic powers and magic,
but even dealing in precious metals felt heavier, more tightly scrutinized.
Alchemists could create imperfect gold,
wizards could trick you into seeing scrap as bullion,
and espers could scramble your senses and mess with machinery.
Still, even with all that, incarnation management apparently paid well enough.
Check the Academy notifications every hour,
handle a precious-metal sale once every few months, and you could earn a working salary.
Plenty of people aimed their careers in that direction, it seemed.
"Honestly, a lot of people take incarnation management jobs hoping to catch a Constellation's eye by sticking close to an incarnation."
A world that's adapted to Constellations and incarnations over centuries.
Maybe that's why weird angles like this kept popping up where I never expected them.
Even so, filtering through them was the Academy's job, not mine.
Yeah, the staff would probably scream as their workload magically ballooned,
but hey—nobody ordered them to do this. They cooked it up themselves, so they can deal.
"Anything else come in?"
"Well... some strange inquiries did arrive, but I don't think you need to concern yourself with them, Constellation."
At that, I lifted my eyes from my smartphone and looked right at Lee Ha-rin.
The girl who always delivered information precisely was dodging a topic for the first time.
She'd clearly wanted to bury it completely but couldn't bring herself to pretend it never happened—her regret was written all over her face.
She should've known that looking like that would only make me more curious.
I met her eyes as she bit her lip and opened my mouth.
"What is it?"
"You'll find it rather unpleasant. Shall I go on?"
She kept trying to deflect, even under my direct gaze and insistent prodding.
She'd never hesitated to be blunt even about the spicy cyber-ghosts on Seonghwa Gallery.
What in the world had her this reluctant? I was dying to know.
I gave a sharp nod—go on, spill it—
and she let out a heavy sigh and muttered, as if she were the one embarrassed, rushing the words out in a single breath to get it over with.
"Severalincarnationsareaskingwhether,iftheywin,theycantransfertheblessingtotheirmessenger."
"What does that mean?"
The unbroken rapid-fire babble made my head spin.
A messenger was one of those special pets I'd given my incarnations, creatures that could handle magical power.
And the news I'd passed to the Academy yesterday was that an animal incarnation had turned bipedal.
Animal, blessing, bipedal, furry—
The words jumbled in my head until one conclusion crystallized.
Transferring the enlightenment you'd gain yourself to your messenger—what exactly were they after?
"Ah, I'm asking just in case."
"Yes, Constellation."
"Is that... a common taste around here?"
"No, of course not."
She added a qualifier—no matter how libidinous a woman was,
only a tiny minority wanted to get pounded by a full-fur, and I shouldn't get the wrong idea about women.
Which, fair. Here in this world, full-furry other-races were real;
a woman's dream of getting railed by one could actually come true.
'But then, couldn't they just date a beastman?'
There were beastmen with human bodies and just animal ears poking up,
and others with hands, feet, tails, teeth, and pupils replaced by animal equivalents.
If you looked, you'd definitely find beastkin like Loyal Fang who were full-furry.
Was this some kind of Pygmalion thing? Hoping their own messenger would turn humanoid?
And more than one or two people had inquired about it, apparently.
If it'd been just one or two, Lee Ha-rin would've cut it off at her level.
"Well, most male beastkin aren't interested in interspecies relations. Maybe a beastman with minimal animal traits would, but the full-furry males those women with paraphilias want—they'll seek out a fellow beastkin partner. They almost never date a hairless human woman."
"That does track."
"Which means these are lurid individuals whose abnormal desires keep them from normal relationships, trying to use you, Constellation, to satisfy their own urges."
It was rare to see Lee Ha-rin's brow knit that tightly.
She hadn't looked this pissed since the malicious-comment sexual harassment.
Maybe she felt a certain disgust as a fellow woman.
I mean, if some bastard came pleading with me to turn my own dog Bboppi into a half-man-half-beast just so they could screw a bitch, I'd cut ties with them for life.
If the target was a messenger with human-level intelligence and cognition,
then maybe—
like those fantasy stories of elves and humans falling in love,
some kind of cross-species romance—you could stretch yourself to accept it.
'Still. Getting off on fur is a bit much.'
I can sympathize with getting turned on by tails and ears.
Getting excited by a full-furry ass and an animal dick,
well, that might be straying a wee bit off the human path.
No—if they'd just kept it as a private, secret desire, I'd have kept my mouth shut.
But they'd gone so far as to make formal inquiries to Academy incarnations. What a goddamn circus.
That line of thought sent a sudden, impulsive surge bubbling up in me.
Like the hunger that hits on a night you've exercised hard, eaten a light dinner,
and suddenly find yourself yanking open the fridge for no reason—
a reckless compulsion that muddles your head and moves your body on its own.
"So. Are those incarnations who inquired here at the Academy?"
"Yes, a few of them showed up, but—"
"I want to go see."
"...Excuse me?"
I suddenly very much wanted to see the dreams of those furries.