Chapter 197: Finals 1
Chapter 197: Finals 1
No matter how much I leaned on my Dream Demon abilities to put on a handsome face,
a fist-thick stack of documents was never going to conjure up a cozy, romantic mood.
If I could pull that off, I would've renamed myself Sweet Casanova, not Lethargic Nightmare.
It could have gotten awkward, but luckily, Lee Ha-rin—hardcore Constellation otaku that she is—
had latched onto the idea that the stiffness was her fault, the result of her sloppy data.
Eheh-heh. With a sheepish little laugh, she crammed the papers back into her magic pouch
and steered the conversation squarely onto the upcoming sparring match.
"Then I'll submit it as-is and get it finalized."
"Sure."
Watching the embarrassment still faintly pinking her cheeks,
she hastily gathered up the snack dishes and bolted out the door.
I caught a glimpse of her head whipping around, lower lip caught briefly between her teeth.
From her perspective, she'd probably gotten carried away and broadcast her own dark history.
Anyone would react that way, having their cringey school-days records aired—
especially when they weren't unearthed by someone else, but proudly presented by their own hand.
To me, the material looked perfectly suitable for a professor's lecture slides,
but there was no stopping an otaku from holding herself to brutal standards.
The door clicked shut, and the room fell instantly silent.
Alone, I sat quietly, turning the Stone over in my palm.
'Her mana seems to be running low again... Is she not planning to tell me?'
There was only one Stone in my quarters: the nexus for the Dream City.
It felt strange, holding an entire imperial city and my Incarnation inside this tiny thing.
Setting that whimsy aside, the Stone did look a little dimmer than before—
fading like a light bulb nearing the end of its life.
It didn't take much pondering. It was simply running low on mana.
Even after I'd drenched Kim Ha-eun's system in mana last time, there had to be a limit.
No matter how vast a single person's reserves, could they really match a whole city?
No, flip it: the fact that one person's mana supply had kept a city running for over ten days was the impressive part.
'I like that she's obedient, but she's too passive.'
I'd felt it before—ever since her Origin got adjusted, Kim Ha-eun was excessively passive.
Even Lee Ha-rin, for all her restraint, kept creeping closer to me driven by her own desires,
even if those desires boiled down to three things: ogling Incarnations, ogling Constellations, and babysitting me.
Now that Ha-eun had a Dream Demon's body, she had every excuse to latch onto me daily, and it wouldn't be weird.
But no—she was fixated on expanding the Dream City, exactly as I'd ordered.
Had I not dragged her here today and fed her snacks, she'd be melting straight into the dreamscape by now.
So I needed to tweak things.
Obedience is great, but if it keeps generating inconvenient situations like this, we're missing the whole point.
I'd ordered her not to do anything rash for my convenience.
I closed my hand around the Stone and stirred my mana. A familiar sensation wrapped around me.
※
When my eyes opened, I was standing before the familiar fountain.
What, was this some kind of spawn point?
A surveillance drone veered toward me immediately.
[Constellation, you've arrived. Where shall I guide you?]
A laser fanned out from the drone's small lens and resolved into Kim Ha-eun's face.
It looked like the final form of all that augmented-reality tech I used to hear about in my last life.
Within the hologram, she sat in her usual office chair, hands briskly at work.
Watching her like that, you'd think she was the picture of a polished, professional career woman—
but in reality, she was a workaholic who couldn't be trusted to eat on time.
The fact that "eating" meant the Dream Demon essence I personally fed her was its own problem.
[A new subterranean zone has opened up, and the factory district is online now. Shall I guide you there?]
Androids with steel frames and round heads moved methodically, like laborers.
Drones buzzed overhead in place of pigeons, each trailing its own little holographic display.
Barely an hour ago, I'd been inspecting a shaman's tattoos on animal hides;
now I stood face-to-face with technology so advanced it felt like an understatement to call it cutting-edge.
"Anything worth seeing at the factory?"
[There are industrial-scale giant robots. Boring machines taller than two hundred meters, things like that.]
"Can't say I'm dying to see that. Just take me to the office."
[Sending a vehicle.]
The city had visibly sprawled since last time, and the roads had widened to match.
A black car rolled smoothly across the empty thoroughfare toward me.
With robots walking and drones flying, had the roads become solely the humans' domain?
The door opened on its own, revealing a bizarre interior—no driver, not even a driver's seat.
A refrigerator sat where the front seats should've been, and a TV screen replaced the instrument panel.
[Shall I take you straight there? No side tours?]
"Yeah. I came to see you."
[...Yes.]
Kim Ha-eun's face flickered onto the front screen in place of the drone.
I gave her a halfhearted answer and, curiosity getting the better of me, popped open the minifridge.
Ignoring what was clearly a premium bottled water, I fished out a pale green glass bottle.
'Ah, fuck me. It's cider.'
Even in a hyper-futuristic city run by androids and drones,
the pinnacle of beverage innovation was still carbonated lemon-lime soda?
From before the nukes, to the flat continent, and now in a dream city—
it was almost depressing that fizzy drinks all tasted basically the same.
I hadn't expected the cucumber- or red-bean-flavored oddities I'd only seen online in my last life,
but I'd hoped for something unusual. A cocktail-inspired flavor, like Blue Hawaii or mojito lime...
[Is something wrong with the beverage?]
"Nope."
It tasted familiar, not bad.
I sank into the car seat—plush as my sofa back in the Sanctum—and sipped.
Come to think of it, we were moving pretty fast, and yet there wasn't a single rattle.
Not even a faint engine hum. It felt like sitting in a theater seat and watching the scenery scroll past.
The car eased to a gentle stop just as I emptied the bottle.
The destination, naturally, was the building housing Kim Ha-eun's office.
Even more drones and androids than before swarmed around, moving with a sense of purpose.
"What's the deal with all these androids?"
I headed straight for the office, swung the door open, and lobbed the question inside.
She swept a few holographic documents aside with a swipe and turned toward me.
Dressed in a women's formal suit, seated behind a huge executive desk like she was truly running the city,
she looked every bit the gorgeous CEO.
"How do I put this city...? It has robots, but it feels closer to a medieval-fantasy caste system."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean those robots are all a laborer class, basically. No idea why they were built to look human, though."
That started to click into place.
The robots that insisted on walking right into buildings
could basically be seen as office workers commuting to their companies every morning.
Robots that finished charging in their residential blocks and streamed out in formation to offices, factories, the city's underground.
Just as humans rested after clocking out, they'd undergo charging and maintenance before heading back to their worksites.
Watching them, the Roman Empire from my last life suddenly came to mind.
A small human population got to linger in the city like nobility, existing purely to consume,
while humanoid robots labored in the city purely to produce—like slaves.
'Is this... more knowledge the Tyrant slipped me?'
I still didn't know why he'd handed me this city, but he'd certainly packed it with meticulous know-how.
Though it only surfaced when I interacted with it, like some game quest triggering a lore dump.
As we talked and I settled into the office chair,
a small question planted itself in my head.
'Now that I think of it... why did The Incinerating Tyrant give me this?'
With enough mana, this was a city that could run its factories and all.
Considering my ability as a Dream Demon to pull objects out of dreams,
I could directly use anything this city produced.
From the perspective of someone actively running a military, wouldn't it make more sense
to just ask me to recharge the city's mana and pay me some other way, rather than handing me the whole thing?
Then again, how am I supposed to read the mind of a man driven half-mad by the grief of losing his wife?
Still, no malice there—just payments that were way, way too generous.
"Anyway, those robots move around just like people, maintaining the city and playing their roles."
"Roles?"
"They go out and extract the resources needed for city upkeep. Actually, I rushed here because of the newly upgraded facilities."
She tapped the hologram a few times, and a door slid open. A single robot walked in,
holding a silver case with the solemn formality of a chef serving haute cuisine.
Did that mean whatever was inside was equally precious?
Ha-eun caught my gaze and spoke up.
"When the underground tier finished upgrading this time, a mine just... popped up out of nowhere."
"...A mine?"
Minutes ago, I'd been watching a tournament at the Academy.
Why was I now getting briefed on mining operations?
A sarcastic quip flickered through my thoughts and faded.
"Yes, a mine. So I wrung out every drop of mana I could, prioritized upgrading it first, and sent the robots in—"
Clack. The robot's hands swept the lid off the case.
Nestled inside was a pale violet Magic Stone.
I'd seen plenty of Magic Stones in this fantasy world, but this one was different.
Just the pale violet color was enough to tell me exactly what I was looking at.
"Dream Demon mana."
"Yes, Dream Demon Magic Stones have appeared. With a few more upgrades, I think the city can become fully self-sufficient."
I hadn't even known something like that could exist, but more importantly...
I really want to crack open The Incinerating Tyrant's skull and see what's in there.