Chapter 36: Special Lecture
Chapter 36: Special Lecture
The Incarnation Academy covered a far broader range of subjects than I'd expected.
Things that Han Ye-ji, who had rushed through her credits to graduate and find work fast, and I, her Constellation, never knew.
I learned about them through Lee Ha-rin.
Non-credit special lectures that taught Incarnations all manner of things.
As was only natural, Lee Ha-rin, a hardcore Constellation and Incarnation otaku, had her eyes blazing as she picked out the special lectures and came to me for approval.
I wasn't mean enough to forbid her hobbies, and I was curious myself, so I gave permission right away.
If I hadn't, she probably would've slammed her head into the floor again.
The titles and syllabi alone contained a lot of interesting material.
I'd assumed non-credit electives meant dusty old world history courses on Constellations and Incarnations.
The first thing that caught my eye was 'Rational Consumption Life.'
Incarnations can emerge from any social class because they are chosen by Constellations.
The most famous anecdote introduced was about an orphan girl from the slums whose talent was recognized, earning her an annual income in the hundreds of billions.
Thinking of Han Ye-ji makes that easy to understand.
The currency units changed with the world, but socially, being an Incarnation is a high-income profession.
I got a visceral sense of it watching Han Ye-ji cry over her bankbook when she got her first paycheck.
To Han Ye-ji, who'd never spent more than 50,000 won on her own clothes, hundreds of units of currency were now deposited into her account every month.
Where is she supposed to spend it? People who've eaten meat know how to eat it well, and people who've had money know how to spend it.
Incarnations who head to the continent's outer edges to hunt giant monsters, rather than staying inland,
could literally earn a regular office worker's annual salary on a weekly basis.
The first time a big sum comes in, they change houses, pay off debts, buy a car.
But what about after that? The same money comes in next week. And the week after that?
So there were lectures on consumption methods for suddenly wealthy Incarnations to help the economic cycle, and lectures on fashion, makeup, and beauty methods to maintain dignity.
Lectures sharing information on Constellations, and things like Global Incarnation Studies, which taught the power distribution and cultural differences of Constellations across the continents.
Lee Ha-rin, otaku that she was, signed up for every single special lecture related to Constellations and Incarnations with fire in her eyes.
While sweeping up the Academy's various special lectures with her formidable information network, Lee Ha-rin
brought me a huge piece of intel that seemed like it would be profitable for me as well.
It wasn't something she intended to use as a bargaining chip if I refused permission—
more like information she was offering up as a kind of tribute.
A document bearing the grandiose title, 'The Incinerating Tyrant's Authority-and-Incarnation Joint Large-Scale Subjugation Demonstration.'
The document, reeking of military official paperwork at a glance, had nothing much in it.
Just an application form with only the date, time, and assembly point.
The sun was still high in the sky, but I didn't hesitate to draw Lee Ha-rin into my dream.
"Your timing is great, my Constellation! I think if you apply together with your First Incarnation, it'll work out."
"I'd be grateful if you started by explaining what it is."
As she entered the dream, her face flushed red for a moment and she stood dazed, maybe recalling our heated night together,
but she immediately shook the document and rushed over to me.
Thinking she looked just like a big dog, I stroked her head, and she quietly bowed her head.
"So, it's an event where the 'The Incinerating Tyrant,' who commands the most Incarnations on the Northern Continent, lets people observe him purifying the outer regions."
"Do you know why he does such a thing?"
"I learned it's because of points. The Incinerating Tyrant's Authority is so powerful that its consumption cost is huge, so he gathers other Incarnations to cover it."
Hearing that, I thought The Incinerating Tyrant was using his head pretty cleverly.
A Constellation receives points proportional to their Incarnation's exploits.
And measuring those exploits probably includes the name value spreading across the continent.
If news of it reached even a soft Constellation with only two Incarnations tucked away in the Eastern Continent, far from the Northern Continent, he must be securing an immense amount of points.
"Because his Authority is vast and powerful, it requires killing an incredible number of monsters, so it isn't an annual event. I heard the last observation was three years ago, so it's about time. They say he sometimes runs a deficit, but he keeps it going as a dignity maintenance cost to show the majesty of an emperor."
Once I'd heard that explanation, I sent Lee Ha-rin out of the dream and called in Han Ye-ji.
She happened to be resting in the office after her patrol, so there was no need to waste time.
[Constellation Lethargic Nightmare recommends taking a brief nap.]
"Senior! I'm going to pop into the break room for a bit!"
"Yeah, ah... is it a summons? Got it. But please be back before your next shift."
On the screen, Han Ye-ji darted into the break room and flopped onto the sofa, while her senior and junior watched as if it were a fascinating sight.
It was because both of them had contracted with Constellations of considerable scale and had never experienced such direct communication.
She grumbled about even these trivial details, so she probably didn't hold on to much stress.
The door of the dream Lee Ha-rin had exited opened, and Han Ye-ji walked in.
They were the same, both of them standing there blankly for the first few seconds upon entering a dream.
I waved the document Lee Ha-rin had created and left in the dream in front of her dazed face.
"Ah, Constellation, do you have something for me?"
"Will you look at this document for me?"
A small sigh escaped me when I saw Han Ye-ji only notice the paper in front of her, not my face.
Lee Ha-rin's the same way, but Han Ye-ji is pretty blindly devoted too.
Though, come to think of it, there's hardly anyone in this world who isn't blindly devoted to Constellations.
"The Northern Continent, The Incinerating Tyrant... Wow, now that you mention it, this thing existed!"
"You know about it?"
"Yes. It gets broadcast like crazy on TV as a special feature. Back in middle school, if you didn't know about this, you got treated like a, well, a spy. Teachers would put it on if they had spare time, and if you didn't watch, they'd half-jokingly tease you for being a traitor to humanity."
As Han Ye-ji said that, she frowned slightly and summoned a large TV.
It was big and thick, and seeing how sloppily it was installed in the corner of the ceiling, maybe it was the TV from her school.
She's gotten pretty good at handling lucid dreams, too.
Unlike Lee Ha-rin, who thought of lucid dreaming as a Constellation-granted Authority and tried not to abuse it,
Han Ye-ji believed that since it was an Authority I gave her, she should use it freely and get as used to it as possible.
Maybe because she'd been a bit stressed after getting her job, she'd used it inside her lucid dreams
to play games, read comics, or create a resort to laze around in.
Perhaps because of that, the video she showed me had sharp quality and no lag.
A top-quality video that clashed with the old TV it played on hurt my eyes.
'Fucking hell, isn't this gap just obscene?'
The Emperor from an SF future universe, The Incinerating Tyrant.
This Constellation, mainly active on the Northern Continent, was the man who had led the war against the alien forces invading the Human Alliance to victory.
A great hero who had exterminated alien lifeforms numbering in the trillions—not just millions—
but was forced by the fallout to flee to the edge of the universe in search of a new planet.
The man who wandered the cosmos seeking a habitable planet to lead humanity in place of the dead Empress,
and ended up as the last human inside a cryostasis pod.
And, the first Constellation.
Maybe because Constellations are souls and have no lifespan, or maybe he endured by the power of future science,
the army of the Constellation who had guarded the continent for hundreds of years stood arrayed.
Not on the ground, but high up in the empty sky.
'About how much would all that cost?'
People wrapped head to toe in mechanical suits you'd only see in movies clutched the cannons mounted on the aircraft and fired indiscriminately.
On the other hand, there were also people firing bizarre laser cannons in disciplined stances.
"No way, is that..."
"Yes, the people manning the Vulcan cannons there are the observers. Under the pretext of providing support for Constellations walking the same path."
The Emperor was indeed an Emperor.
No, honestly, it made me wonder if he should be called an enlightened ruler rather than a Tyrant.
Monsters packed so densely you couldn't see the dirt.
There were giant beasts, plants, and insects, plus weirdly squirming tentacles and grotesque abominations.
White and black masses of flesh of every color squirmed on the earth like an insect colony
before being torn to shreds by the baptism of gunfire pouring down from high in the sky.
Occasionally, winged things shot upward,
but those creatures were suppressed by the Tyrant's Incarnations wearing more advanced suits and couldn't even get close.
A vast plain, easily the size of dozens of cities, and the monsters that filled and tangled across it
were scattering, shattered to pieces beneath the flames.
Right, if they broadcast something like this and you didn't know it, you'd practically be a traitor to humanity or a spy.
The scenes on the screen were packed full of what you'd crudely call pure, undiluted dopamine spectacle.
Soldiers equipped with slick mechanical suits and jetpacks for short-range flight.
Terrifying bombardments and beam weapons hammering down from above.
Even elite Incarnations countering the monster swarms taking flight.
What's more, I couldn't even begin to calculate how many points you could earn if you got invited to fire those autocannons.
Suppressing a small monster that occasionally breaks through a cordon and flees inland
or a rogue Incarnation who's lost it and gone on a rampage nets around 10,000 points.
But if you killed monsters dozens of times that size, by the hundreds or thousands?
It was literally an act of charity for Constellations without a foundation.
And the scarier part was that aircraft-summoning skill. If they were still running a deficit after slaughtering thousands of monsters,
just how many points did it consume to sweep away city-sized swarms and broadcast it to every continent, yet still take a loss?
After seeing Han Ye-ji off as she was forced awake by her deployment time after lingering in the dream,
I furtively searched for the Authority on the computer.
I immediately regretted it after seeing the purchase cost had ten zeros attached
and required separate summoning and maintenance costs, but still.
Really, the Constellations living in other worlds were on a whole different level.