Chapter 203: The Terror Live 2
Chapter 203: The Terror Live 2
Some inventions and discoveries have saved lives by the hundred million.
Take nitrogen fertilizer.
Utilitarians have long pointed out that while humanity multiplies without limit, the food supply does not, and it was common wisdom that this would inevitably drive us to destroy one another through famine. Before nitrogen fertilizer was developed, the planet's carrying capacity was pegged at around 3.3 billion.
Then there's the ABO blood group system. Back when a failed post-surgical transfusion was dismissed as mere bad luck, the discovery and classification of blood types is estimated to have saved roughly 1.1 billion lives.
A passage from a tattered science magazine I'd read in the corner of some basement shelter flitted unbidden through my head.
Why now?
'Didn't think I'd ever land in that category.'
By converting Dream Demon mana into a magic-circle format, the Academy was now searching for a way to heal souls without requiring the Dream Demon's presence. So far I'd simply hosed the problem with raw mana and not thought much of it, but apparently Lee Ha-rin and the mages had been burying themselves in the lab every day working on exactly that.
Somehow, without entirely meaning to, I'd turned into one of those epoch-making figures who save a hundred million lives.
No wonder the public reception was more intense than I'd anticipated. I hadn't realized it was on this scale.
'I figured I was just a slightly oversized charity hospital.'
And that, was precisely why those bastards were targeting me.
Doomsday-cultist sons of bitches. Same breed as in my last life.
Utter bastards who convulse at the sight of any Constellation or Incarnation that tries to help humanity.
"Eighty years ago there was an incident where the Northern Continent's front line was pushed back severely. It wasn't an external disaster. The problem arose from within."
"Right—no matter which dimension you're in, these pricks are worse than useless."
"That is correct. They believed the one who created this world desires talent to bloom through tribulation. That humanity belongs in hardship, not comfort."
In my last life, plenty of lunatics had pickled their brains in Nuka-Cola. Folk who insisted merging with the flesh-mass monsters that spawned mutants was humanity's future. Bastards who opened shelter doors and lured mutants in with noise, light, and ultrasonic waves.
It stood to reason the same breed existed in this world too. Monsters had been invading the continent from the moment its history began. Tribulation-worshipping nutjobs were bound to crop up alongside the talented.
"The atrocity they committed was beyond horrific. They forcibly bridged the rear cities and the northern front with spatial magic."
"So then—"
The Northern Constellations came to mind.
The strategy of a lunatic who trusted in The Incinerating Tyrant's fire support and pushed forward high on combat stimulants. The North was precisely where stimulants fell into a gray zone—neither legal nor explicitly banned for Incarnations.
The East had murim warriors running wild like an oriental fantasy. The West had knights, mages, and priests straight out of a fantasy film. The South was crawling with espers, shamans, and ability users. The North, by comparison, gave off the strong impression of a patchwork army of gun-crazed maniacs.
So what happens when monsters appear inside a city?
"Exactly. You cannot call in an orbital bombardment from a space battleship. What those bitches wanted was most likely for the Tyrant to simply delete the city from the map, but..."
He was willing to raze a small town but not a major city. He left the capital alone. For a moment I wondered if I was supposed to call that reasonable.
Then an unexpected question caught me off guard.
"Do you know why they set their sights on the North?"
"Because Northern Incarnations are the worst at urban warfare?"
"Those women are not that rational."
"Then?"
"Because The Incinerating Tyrant is the only one who adopted a method of distributing points to others."
The Incinerating Tyrant gave rookie Constellations a lift onto his battleships and funneled points to their new Incarnations.
Hadn't I benefited from that early on—harvesting points from that very battleship to buy multiple Incarnation contracts, starting with Han Ye-ji, then Lee Ha-rin and Kim Ha-eun?
He claimed it was for his own reputation and point income, but I understood the truth now. The points earned from reputation alone couldn't even buy the engine room of a battleship. I became enormously famous when I got tangled up with the Heart of the Exiled Serpent, and the points I got for it were a pittance.
Which meant the Tyrant's events were purely for boosting fresh Constellations. Providing a warship ride was a form of newbie welfare—a helping hand tucked inside the sleeve.
"So that means?"
"Yes. It is highly likely this incident was also the work of remnant doomsday cultists from that era."
"But that Constellation...?"
"The redhead is almost certainly a figurehead attached to the Fallen Constellation."
It made sense. Could an Incarnation created right after first arriving on the continent seriously breach the Academy? Even the Heart of the Serpent, sporting a magical trait as broken as perfect stealth, had needed years.
Lunatic doomsday cultists were still out there—true believers that humanity grows only through suffering. Eighty years ago they'd opened portals in rear cities and called in monster armies to spite the Tyrant. Now, eighty years later, I was the thorn in their eye because I was healing soldiers.
I was curing mental contamination in both retired and active-duty troops without a hitch, which rendered spirit-type monsters like banshees and specters toothless. Military casualties dropped. The front line held firm. The rear grew safer. From a doomsday cultist's point of view, there couldn't be a more obnoxious piece of shit stopping the apocalypse so easily, so simply.
Just as with nitrogen fertilizer or blood typing, I had completely neutralized mental contamination.
'I've basically become the Number One Constellation Preventing the End, voted by doomsday cultists. Something like that.'
there was also the small matter that I made a far softer target than The Incinerating Tyrant. Assassinate the emperor who commands a fleet of space battleships, or lob a bomb at the Academy—which would you pick? Even if I put myself in their shoes, the choice was obvious.
Infiltrate a heavily fortified island. Or infiltrate a space cruiser flying somewhere beyond the atmosphere. If someone put a knife to their throat and made them choose, about 140 out of 100 would pick the island.
Svetlana finished her explanation and moistened her throat with tea that was still wisping steam. She let her eyes fall shut as if savoring the taste. I watched her and this time opened my mouth first.
"So—that wasn't the entirety of The Incinerating Tyrant's message to me, was it."
"Heh. What makes you think so?"
"Because that gentleman doesn't work inefficiently. There's no way he'd send someone of your caliber just to say 'be careful.'"
"Well. That's a fascinating assessment. No one has ever described the Tyrant that way before."
Strip away the "planet-burning maniac slaughterer" framing, and The Incinerating Tyrant was, in truth, a surprisingly supportive and shrewd man. This was a gender-reversed world, after all—even as Emperor, he'd been the domestic spouse who supported the Empress from behind the scenes.
Look at the incident where a killer touched the Imperial Guard at the Academy and fled, and a Fallen Constellation who'd picked a fight with him was subdued. The Tyrant's entire contribution was sending a single Incarnation—my own, the victim. Everything else was driving his battleship to the Academy for a brief, showy Descent in front of the continent, and later giving me a dream-city entry crystal as a reward.
Even that magic crystal ended up embedding itself in Kim Ha-eun's heart, which strongly suggested the reward came with strings attached.
A war hero whose name goes into textbooks and whose statue gets erected in the square. There was no way he'd send a figure like that as a mere messenger—that was my read, and I appeared to have gotten it mostly right.
"Yes. Everything up to now was merely an explanation of the incident. It is time I made you a proposal, Constellation."
The wrinkled fingers that had been idly toying with her teacup slowly stilled.
The quiet, composed old woman at the table, leisurely savoring the fragrance of her tea—the impression she gave shifted entirely when her lowered eyelids rose again. Her clouded pupils glowed red, and now she resembled not a tranquil grandmother but a soldier hounded by nightmare. A woman who could not leave a finished war behind, chewing and re-chewing hatred until it was pulp.
"You currently hold four Incarnations, Constellation. Furthermore, your power base exists almost entirely within the Academy, and you have offered goods to the continent's Incarnations in exchange for their labors."
"Right. And?"
The old woman's lined mouth curled upward. It was a smile that didn't feel like a smile.
"How about making use of us this time? We may be old, but we are not yet rusted."
"A long way from rusted. Though the bitch's joints sound like they're already there."
"Want me to grease that head of yours?"
Voices came out of nowhere. At the same instant, an acrid smell prickled my nose—the heavy, clinging scent of gunpowder, the kind you only smell on an army firing range. My Incarnations, who had been spectating from the side, jolted to their feet at the sudden gravelly voices. I raised my head and glanced over. Figures were already standing behind Svetlana.
Worn fatigues. Frayed fur caps. A bloodstained, tattered banner. Old faces covered by scars and eyepatches.
"So if I act as bait and draw them out...?"
"Would you be willing to trust these old-timers?"
Veterans with faces I hadn't seen among the protesters, with mana signatures I hadn't encountered before. And they'd walked right into my room—past the guards—carrying guns. I couldn't speak for the rest, but their infiltration skills had definitely not rusted.
"The skills look solid. I'll trust you."
Even so—had this goddamned Academy been breached again?