Chapter 23: Development
Chapter 23: Development
A large white-furred dog, and a palm-sized cockroach that fluttered noisily through the air.
An elderly clown in simple makeup, and a serial killer in a ridiculous mask.
And a gay porn star in a bikini skinnier than a finger.
'What the hell do I even do with these.'
I hadn't even thought about taking the Dream Elixir yet, so there was no chance I was going to get creative and do anything with those.
And even if I could send them into the real world around Han Ye-ji, they wouldn't actually help.
Letting the dog loose would just scare her. Would flashing a clown or a killer for a few seconds really improve her marksmanship?
I summoned them often only because I could feel my summoning duration lengthen the more I practiced. That was all.
Not that I had any desire to summon a masked killer or a scruffy old clown in this tiny studio apartment.
I had no hobby of summoning cockroaches either, obviously.
I only summoned the big white dog and the visually appealing porn star, gradually extending how long I could keep them around.
The first time I summoned anything, I managed a palm-sized chihuahua for about three seconds and that was it.
From there it kept growing until I could hold the big dog for about an hour, and the porn star for twenty minutes.
Was it proportional to mass?
If so, I could probably keep the cockroach going almost around the clock.
I'd summoned it exactly once—to mess with some bastard who was jealous that Han Ye-ji was my first Incarnation and talked shit behind her back.
Barely five minutes, not even close to a full day, and it was a cockroach cut in half that I dropped onto a lunch tray, so I still don't know my real max.
Honestly, why would I want to time a cockroach for twenty-four hours?
Summoning practice wasn't all I did.
More importantly, my monthly point income had reliably jumped from 1,000pt to 5,000pt, so I could afford more Basic Authorities.
I bought the upgrade I'd been mulling over back when I purchased the Dream Interpretation manual, along with Nightmare Handling.
Items under 10,000 points did not change anything dramatically.
The shop now had search and sort functions, and I could summon other people's nightmares for longer.
That's why I'd gone from seconds to minutes with nightmare summoning.
What I gained came with losses too.
Winter passed, and Han Ye-ji was gradually shedding her high-school part-timer look to take on the bearing of a disciplined, seasoned sniper.
On the outside, anyway.
"Good work."
"My Constellation..."
Maybe because I'd been barging into Han Ye-ji's dreams for over half a year, giving her everything she asked for while she trained the Dream Demon's abilities—as the days went on, it felt less like simple pampering and more like dependence.
She'd passed most of her exams within two or three months, so with graduation not far off, her daily routine was fixed.
Wake up, stretch, marksmanship in the morning, and close-quarters combat for criminal subjugation in the afternoon.
Because of that, Han Ye-ji, who'd once done nothing but fire a tranquilizer gun, was now lugging around a whole arsenal like some hyper-advanced FPS character.
On top of the tranq gun, she was handling a grenade launcher that fired rubber rounds for stopping criminals, plus a taser and a gas gun.
"I still didn't get a perfect score today. I really want to manage it at least once before I graduate."
Her marksmanship had grown smoothly, and even as the difficulty kept climbing, her average score sat at 98, with an astonishing record of zero friendly fire incidents.
"There's still plenty of time. You'll do it."
"Hehe, I knew you'd say that."
Still, when I saw her stick right beside me and rub her cheek against me, I couldn't shake the thought that she was less a woman and more a girl—a child, really.
Not in a physical sense, but in her mental state.
Had she been starved for affection because she had no parents?
The extent of my understanding of human psychology was this: the first time you kill someone, you get mentally cornered—if you can't overcome it, you kill yourself. If you do, you survive.
That was about as deep as my knowledge went.
I didn't know any grand theories about the psychological changes an eldest daughter raised without parents since childhood undergoes when she finally finds someone to lean on.
"My marksmanship instructor gave me a few pieces of practical advice. Real survival combat really is different from holosims."
"Yeah, now that you've been through the real thing, you'll do even better."
I echoed her words and patted her shoulder.
I'd heard a thousand times from drunk, piss-poor philosophers that people aren't one-dimensional, that they're multifaceted, but I never imagined she'd turn out this multifaceted.
Her fine hair caught between my fingers, rustled softly, and slipped away through the gaps.
I kept stroking it, like trying to scoop water with one hand, never really holding any of it.
Her hair had grown quite long and kept getting tousled, but she just leaned her head even more against me.
We'd already been intimate, so I'd thought, what's the big deal? But comparing the beginning to now, the difference was night and day.
Han Ye-ji used to dream often about sitting across from me in a café, drinking coffee, sharing a meal—now she stuck so close she didn't want to let go.
Maybe facing each other wasn't close enough, because now she absolutely had to be holding my hand at minimum.
Even when I let go for whatever reason, she'd pretend she didn't mind, but the dream world would start trembling at the edges.
That meant her mental strength was wearing down...
'Just because I don't hold her hand she starts to crack that fast...?'
The frustration of failing marksmanship drills ten times in a row without finding her own flaw, and the disappointment of me not holding her hand—these two things hurt her about equally. How was that even possible?
How could that be?
Had I been too soft with her?
Well, what could I do.
If a pretty high school girl wraps her whole body around my arm, leans on me, and acts spoiled, what man would kick her away for no reason?
At least, not unless he's gay or a eunuch.
Just looking at her now, as she leaned in like she wanted me to stroke her head, her chest was pressing right into mine.
Maybe because gender roles were reversed, she was even more defenseless.
In this world, a woman's breasts really didn't mean much.
They loaded all sorts of meaning onto a man's broad chest, yet a woman's large breasts carried no special significance.
At best, they were thought of as nothing more than a body part for breastfeeding after pregnancy.
just as some men got aroused by women's ankles or the nape of their necks, there were men who got aroused by breasts, but that seemed like a minority taste.
In that sense, given my reversed sense of modesty, wasn't I the ultimate pervert?
I got off on women's breasts, on the fine hair at the nape of their pale necks, on slim waists, firm butts, and long, graceful legs—all of it.
Who could dare say those soft breasts squishing this way and that under a thin layer of clothing meant nothing?
When I stopped stroking her hair and lowered my arm, Han Ye-ji immediately snagged my arm.
She clung to my right arm with both of hers like she was hanging from a pole.
My hand naturally drifted toward her thigh.
No matter how genders were reversed, this part was the same.
Han Ye-ji subtly twisted her thighs and flinched.
By now, it was a familiar, even endearing sight.
Uneasy as I might have been about her dependence, I wasn't about to kick over a loaded dinner table.
I moved my wrist and gently stroked her thigh with the back of my hand.
Her shirt and pants were so thin that the feel of her soft, yielding flesh came through more vividly than the cloth.
"Mm... My Constellation, I'm sorry."
"You're always apologizing. It's about time you got used to this."
Even so, I wasn't the one taking the lead.
Because I, too, was getting used to this world's image of women.
Still holding my forearm, Han Ye-ji began slowly rocking her hips back and forth.
With my hand clamped between her thighs.
Between those warm thighs, I gradually began to feel a slick dampness.
Maybe she'd imagined us lounging comfortably on the living room sofa, because both she and I were in thin sleepwear, nothing like proper underwear.
The soft feel of her against my forearm, the plush pressure on the back of my hand and palm from both sides—naturally, the blood started flowing south.
That thick outline pressed against my right thigh, pushing against my pants.
"Ahh, your scent, my Constellation..."
It felt like she might be developing some weird new fetish, but no, surely not.
She never reached for my cock.
She just fixed her bloodshot eyes on my crotch and ground her hips against the couch harder.
Now my fingertips clearly felt not the thin cotton of her pants but a soaked scrap of fabric.
Was she getting a corrupt, guilty thrill from using her Constellation as a masturbation tool?
I didn't know how people in this world viewed Constellations, or what direction female desire tilted, so all I could do was guess.
Han Ye-ji's body tilted further, and she buried her face into my armpit, still clinging to my arm.
For a moment I worried I really stank, so I brought my face to my other armpit—thankfully, no strong odor.
After rubbing her thighs together for a long while, she seemed to hit a light climax; her hips jerked and her thigh muscles relaxed. I gently curled my freed palm.
My whole palm registered the soaked cotton pants and the plump flesh twitching beyond them.
When I caught her mound in a pinching grip, Han Ye-ji let out a sharp squeak and buried her face in my chest, shaking her head side to side.
I knew she didn't truly dislike it, so my hand didn't stop.
"Hic— I'm— I'm already cummi—ing..."
She pressed her face into me like she wanted to crush it, and squeezed my arm so tight it hurt.
By now the wet cotton was meaningless.
While I patted her trembling back, she'd shakily shifted her legs and kicked them off herself.
Once the thin scrap of cloth that had been in the way was gone, my fingers slid between her legs like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"There, there... Still not enough? It's okay."
"Ahh... I'm— I'm going to— again...!"
I pushed my fingers deep into the slick, fluttering cleft still not recovered from her shallow pleasure.
Into her inner flesh, still so helplessly soft despite months of intimacy.
She let go of my arm and rubbed her cheek against my cock trapped beneath my shorts; I brought her to climax again and again.
Until my fingers were swollen to bursting.