Chapter 201: Finals 5
Chapter 201: Finals 5
How nice it would've been if the tournament had just chugged along as though nothing happened.
Leave the broadcast hijacking to the Academy, Han Ye-ji, and Kim Ha-eun,
and I could kick back, watch some TV, and laze around with my Incarnations. A peaceful life.
To anyone watching, a goal so pathetic it reeks of zero ambition or drive to improve.
But at least to a man who'd spent his days fighting radioactive monsters after a nuclear war,
calling that modest would've been laughable—it was a life goal so lofty the word "grandiose" barely covered it.
"Academy, awaken!"
"Awaken!!!"
In this world it's not "boys, be ambitious"—
it's girls, be ambitious. A domestic man? Sounds good to me.
I'd support my Incarnations, all in their early twenties, as they steadily grew and advanced,
living out my days at an easy, unhurried pace.
Then when each of their lifespans ran out one by one,
I'd call their souls into the dream world and keep them with me forever.
A flat, even life, with almost no peaks or valleys.
"Can't you just kick them out?"
"Probably not unless the Constellation himself steps in to handle it."
"I opened a window earlier, and one of them was prostrating herself sobbing. Said she was unspeakably sorry for putting him through such humiliation."
"...Yeah, not much we can do to drive them off, then."
I looked outside with Lee Ha-rin. Protesters had seized the parade ground—not a trace of peace and quiet anywhere.
Ironically, the security forces could only stand there red-faced, unable to even order them to disperse.
And why would they? The protesters had gathered precisely because of the guards' own incompetence. The guards had no leg to stand on.
Right after the Academy's internal broadcast got hijacked,
the administration handled everything by the book: treating the species-discriminatory remarks as classified, placing the media under embargo—
textbook, practically ideal, if you ignored the hijacking itself.
If you also ignored the irrational factor the Academy had never accounted for.
"So, who's the leaker?"
"The female cadet who was slamming her head into the flowerbed's garden stone and bleeding in front of the window earlier. She's the one."
"Ah...."
A fanatic who'd been grinding her teeth over how the Academy could possibly bury an incident in which a Constellation residing on its grounds had been insulted—
one single zealot, and she'd punched straight through the embargo request and broadcast censorship to spray the recording across the outside world.
The whole thing, unfiltered, including the part after Lee Ha-rin's magic pulse had fried the TV.
Fair-skinned whites are superior; the darker the skin, the lower the being.
Red hair and green eyes are noble; black hair and black eyes are proof of tainted blood.
Those tainted with beast blood rather than pure human lineage deserve extinction.
Elves and dwarves are no better than apes that happen to resemble humans.
A speech that was, word for word, the second coming of fantasy Hitler and eugenics.
Think Constellation otaku were going to sit still after hearing that?
"So. What are the protesters demanding?"
"Disciplinary action against the internal security forces, seizure-and-search measures against the builders of the defensive facilities, and—from what I've heard—formation of a continent-wide joint pursuit force."
"That part sounds surprisingly reasonable, though?"
"Which is exactly why the Academy can't make a peep about it."
Protesters who'd dropped their livelihoods and flocked here from every corner of the continent for fanatical reasons.
Yet the substance of their demands was utterly rational and measured.
Identify the cause of the repeated failures and make it public.
If the failure was man-made, punish it without exception.
Issue a formal apology to the insulted Constellation—that is, to me.
Hunt down, without fail, the Fallen Constellation guilty of racial and species discrimination and of desecrating the dead.
"Isn't all that just common sense, though?"
"Well... the thing is, Constellation, you've been taking things like phones and lodgings and miscellaneous goods, and you've been treating wounded soldiers almost for free. The stuff piling up in storage is just things other Constellations sent to save face, so materially, there's almost nothing the Academy actually gives you. The protesters are pressuring the Academy because they're afraid a merciful Constellation like you might just forgive everything and move on. Even if you do forgive them, the Academy still owes the public an apology—that sort of thing."
"But the Academy kids used a ton of gold and who-knows-what for the Descent Summoning Array—"
"The Academy bearing the cost of the ritual is a given."
Lee Ha-rin cut me off for the first time, flat and absolute.
From where I stood, the Descent had let me raise my Incarnations and live the Academy life comfortably, with no point cost and no magic drain.
But from where the Incarnations and the Academy stood, was hosting a Constellation itself a benefit and an honor?
Looking at these fanatics, yeah—having a Constellation in residence definitely seemed to carry political capital for the Academy.
A sort of Look how well the Academy attends to its Constellation and manages its own house.
"Even when a guild poaches a promising Incarnation, the guild covers the costs—who in the world demands that an invited guest foot the bill?"
"Put that way, I guess that does make sense."
"Not makes sense. It's basic common sense. Anyone who tried to demand something like that from a Constellation would get pelted with rocks."
My thin ears fluttered at the force in Lee Ha-rin's voice.
Having lived buried in a damp basement, I'd thought of the Academy as the people who'd set me up with a home,
but from this world's point of view—hadn't the Academy been the one to invite an honored guest?
When you host an honored guest, nobody says "airfare and hotel are not included."
"Anyway, the protesters aren't spreading anything outside the Academy, and most of their demands fall within the bounds of common sense, so the security forces can't really move against them."
"Still, wouldn't the guards be able to subdue them?"
"The guards are the number-one reason security collapsed in the first place. Several team leaders have already submitted resignations, saying it's all their fault. They're just held in limbo because nobody knows exactly where the Academy's defensive net was breached. Once the picture's clear, two or three team leaders will be out of uniform. The rest are grinding their teeth while they tail Ha-eun's drones."
Fair enough. These were people who prized honor and pride so highly they wouldn't even deal with one another—Constellations.
Incarnations colored by their Constellations' influence wouldn't be much different.
※
Absurdly enough, the tournament started up just fine.
On the grounds that a protest held for a Constellation's honor couldn't very well obstruct the event that very Constellation had organized.
A woman who'd had veins bulging in her neck five minutes ago now sat in the spectator stands clutching a popcorn bucket.
The crowd was far larger than during the preliminaries, and the cheers were louder, hotter.
Because the same people who'd been chanting protest slogans were now massed together chanting cheers.
Like someone whose head had spun 365 degrees and now looked only 5 degrees off-kilter—in practice, just plain crooked.
Wasn't this what people meant by elaborately insane?
'Can't tell if I should call this cold-blooded or just crazy.'
As I thought that and let the heat of the crowd wash over my skin, an enormous number of gazes converged on me.
I'd spaced on replacing the TV Lee Ha-rin's magic had shattered yesterday, so I'd come down to the arena—
and feeling the stares of the men scattered among the spectators, I wondered if I'd made a mistake showing my face.
The gaze of men who genuinely liked me, a man,
the way a female fan genuinely adores a girl-group idol.
The fervor of those looks was quietly oppressive, so I tossed a remark sideways at Lee Ha-rin.
"...Having fun?"
"Hehe, of course I am."
She sat there beaming, the tournament bracket she'd drawn up in her hands.
If we'd taken seats in the VIP section—the one with barricades and ID checks—instead of here in the Academy staff section, I'd have been buried in handshake requests by now.
I could see a pack of male fan-club members looking my way and snorting steam.
Past Me had chosen to stay with Lee Ha-rin instead of slipping into the VIP seats just to ask what drinks the Academy was serving, and right now I could've kissed him.
"If you would grant me one bout!"
"Huh—may this be an honorable duel!"
According to the bracket Lee Ha-rin had put together, a fire sorcerer and a murim-in who practiced throwing-weapon techniques now faced each other.
The contrast between them: a woman in black leather and a compact gas mask that covered only her mouth,
and a woman in green silk robes, her long straight hair cascading loose.
What the two had in common were figures that their clinging clothes laid bare.
The skintight black leather suit that emphasized her sexiness, obviously,
but also the thin silk robes that clung to her waistline every time she moved—also a pleasure to look at.
inside this arena, I was the only one appreciating that sight.
"Gra—"
Spectators, brimming with excitement, waving their arms and shouting.
Beastkin guards standing in the aisles, scanning their surroundings.
A thick, viscous sensation spreading over my skin like lotion, even without consciously raising magic power.
"—na—"
Then, as my eyelids dipped for a moment, a sticky feeling pressed in.
Not the heat of excitement and fervor—something ice-cold.
A chill running down my spine, goosebumps crawling up my forearms, my heart hammering.
"—de!"
My eyelids lifted, and the arena's scene filled my eyes again.
An Incarnation in the VIP section who must've thought we'd made eye contact, offering a silent bow.
Male spectators in the seats beside her looking my way and waving their hands wildly.
A perfectly ordinary scene. Not a single suspicious or unusual thing to be found.
But I moved on instinct before my eyelids were even fully open.
Magic power flaring like ignited fuel, my heart pounding like an engine.
'Shield. Barrier. Dome. Bunker—'
What surfaced in my mind was the rusted iron door of the basement. The door of the shelter that had never once opened, until the moment I'd come to this world.
Before Lee Ha-rin could even turn toward me at the sudden appearance of the huge iron door,
a thunderous boom—and the door crumpled and shattered.
"The match is—northwest gate, thiiirteen, gate breach!"
A commentator with eyes gone round, tracking someone's back with a filming drone.
Incarnations flaring magic power from every corner of the stands and surging toward the northwest gate.
Even Lee Ha-rin, stepping in front of me in alarm, asking what was happening.
Before I could take in the sight and open my mouth, I felt my body crumbling.
The body constructed on the surface through the ritual—it couldn't endure the magic drain and was collapsing.
Which meant I wouldn't be able to send my avatar back down to the Academy until my magic recovered.
'More importantly, how the hell do I calm her down?'
Lee Ha-rin, clutching my avatar as it scattered into dust in her arms.
And from her eye, a single drop of bloody tears falling.
That was the last sight I saw at the Academy.
So the next time I opened my eyes atop the bed in the one-room,
I was too terrified to even look at the screen—that was the kind of sight it had been.