Chapter 54: Talent
Chapter 54: Talent
Can a kid who knows nothing about track and field grasp how incredible it is for someone to run 100 meters in 8 seconds?
You need knowledge to be awed. The ignorant aren't capable of even that much.
Comprehending anything exceptional demands a baseline of understanding.
By that measure, the woman in front of me didn't just surprise me — she left my jaw hanging open.
"Yes, look at your hands. Aren't you thirsty? A cold drink... yes, after a workout, a sports drink should be perfect."
Her gaze drifted, unfocused and dazed. Her fingers and toes fidgeted. Her arm lifted and lowered for no reason.
And yet, she had started reshaping my lucid dream on her own.
'Is this even possible?'
Lucid dreaming has levels.
I can manipulate Han Ye-ji's and Lee Ha-rin's lucid dreams,
but neither of them can enter mine.
Ever since I granted them the Lucid Dream Authority, hadn't I always been the one stepping into their dreams?
A Constellation may interfere with an Incarnation's dreams, but an Incarnation cannot interfere with a Constellation's.
Yet this Incarnation casually conjured a drink into her own hand.
"Yes, that drink really hit the spot. Aren't you hungry?"
A lemon-flavored sports drink — that iconic brand of ion beverage that springs to mind the instant anyone on the Eastern Continent thinks of sports drinks.
The cold bottle, beaded with condensation, materialized in her grip, and she stared at it blankly,
without even registering that she had summoned it herself.
Watching that, I whispered by her ear and redirected her thoughts.
"Don't you think the lighting's a little dim?"
The round fluorescent light on the ceiling instantly morphed into a massive square fixture and blazed pure white.
The modern black-and-white ceiling and wallpaper shifted to sky-blue walls with a white ceiling, transforming into a cozy home interior.
"Do you like the sofa's color? Personally, I prefer fabric over leather."
The black leather sofa became a beige fabric one, her hips sinking into it.
The table, the TV, the hardwood floor — everything flickered and changed the moment I spoke.
The forms were probably ones familiar to her.
The penthouse, once sleek and coldly luxurious, had turned into a warm, lived-in home before I knew it.
"So, will you contract with me?"
At the word contract, she finally gathered herself and looked at me.
Those violet eyes, like finely polished amethysts, at last focused clearly on my face.
Her small red lips trembled, then parted softly.
"A contract... me, an Incarnation?"
The world flipped and churned again.
Part of it was her own consciousness reeling from disorientation — but she was also actively encroaching on my dream.
I had spent a solid year practicing lucid-dream manipulation inside my two Incarnations' dreams. I had even received direct knowledge-transfer from the Incinerating Tyrant.
And a human who had been inside my dream world for less than an hour was seizing control from me.
'I've hit the goddamn jackpot.'
If I were the Incarnation, this might be the moment I'd throw my life away and start hunting for a different career. But I'm the Constellation.
If my Incarnation is this overflowing with talent, I'm the one who benefits.
Nobody's ever seen or heard how a truly powerful Dream Demon operates — so why not use this girl as my textbook?
"I'm... an Incarnation."
The home interior had vanished. A desolate wasteland stretched out before us.
Something about the scenery felt familiar — then I spotted the warships overhead, beginning their bombing runs.
The Incinerating Tyrant's elite troops.
Countless monsters approached from the horizon's edge,
but true to dream logic, the exaggerated warships erased them with grotesquely thick laser beams and bombardments.
With that savage, eardrum-shattering battlefield as the backdrop, a vast emotion surged from her.
She wanted to be an Incarnation.
More precisely, she wanted to be an Incarnation powerful enough to sweep away monsters the way the Incinerating Tyrant's forces did.
Through her own martial strength, political power, army-building — whatever means it took.
At her core burned one fierce desire: to personally, or indirectly, annihilate monsters.
"Right, well... it's time for you to wake up now."
Her slack, blissed-out expression made it clear she was drunk on monster-slaying inside the dream.
If I let this go on much longer, things might turn ugly, so I pulled her out of the lucid dream.
Even if she'd encroached on part of it, it was still my dream in the end.
Clap — my long, echoing applause cut through the battlefield's din and rang in her ears.
I still didn't even know her name.
Glancing at the nameless soon-to-be-Incarnation sitting dazed in the corner of the gym, I dismissed my clone and returned to my room.
I needed to use the shop function on this computer — to buy a contract and check her basic background information.
Name: Kim Ha-eun.
23 years old. Female.
[The Constellation, Lethargic Nightmare, presents you with a contract.]
"Uh, huhh?"
Still drunk on the lucid dream, apparently. She raised her hand slowly and poked at the empty air.
There was no way she'd refuse, so she must've hit the Y button.
Her finger pressed firmly into the air, bending slightly — and a message popped up again.
[The contract between the Constellation, Lethargic Nightmare, and the Incarnation, Kim Ha-eun, has been established.]
At the same moment, a loud announcement echoed through the building.
- Attention, please. A new contract has been established on the 32nd floor, at the Basic Conditioning Center.
- The newly contracted Incarnation is requested to visit the 10th-floor office if she wishes to finalize the contract process.
- Once again, a new contract has been established on the 32nd floor, at the Basic Conditioning Center.
- The newly contracted Incarnation is requested to visit the 10th-floor office if she wishes to finalize the contract process.
The announcement, booming across every floor of the fitness center, swallowed even the workout music playing in the background.
People throughout the hundred-story building started buzzing like a kicked beehive.
"Whoa, an actual contract. So jealous."
"Talk about winning at life. They weren't wrong — Constellations really do notice you if you hang around where the people are."
"I thought a hundred-story gym was ridiculous, but the strategy actually works."
"You've gotta get noticed first. If it were up to me, I'd make the whole building's exterior flashy as hell."
"Wouldn't that just piss off the Constellations and make them ignore you if it's too tacky?"
Constellations tended to recruit talented people from military academies, sports universities, and swordsmanship dojos —
so this must be one of those mega-sized fitness centers specifically designed to exploit that fact.
It felt a little like falling for a marketing scheme, but I'd hit the jackpot, so I couldn't complain.
You know that feeling when you spot an obvious "buy 10, get 1 free" gacha and mutter "what a fucking scam" at the price tag,
but the moment you pull something good, you're suddenly calling it a steal?
Same deal. An obvious hustle, sure — but I'd snagged a top-tier Incarnation, so...
As I was mulling this over, Kim Ha-eun finally came back to her senses and trudged toward the elevator.
Every eye followed her.
Everyone else was still grinding through their brutal workout routines — the broadcast had barely ended, and she was the only one heading for the elevator.
"Is that her?"
"Dunno. Still jealous."
A woman whose shoulder muscles rivaled mine muttered under her breath,
while another woman whose thighs were about as thick as mine kept hammering her leg routine as she replied. The elevator descended, leaving the scene behind.
Inside, Kim Ha-eun fidgeted awkwardly with her fingers.
"I'm... I'm an Incarnation?"
[Lethargic Nightmare informs you that you are his third Incarnation.]
"C-Constellation?!"
She jolted and looked up at the elevator ceiling — the exact same reaction my other two had.
Did she instinctively know the Constellation was watching from above?
She didn't glance around; she looked straight at the ceiling.
Startled or not, the elevator sped toward the 10th floor.
Ding — the doors slid open. What greeted her wasn't workout equipment but rows upon rows of desks.
Fitting for the office floor of a hundred-story building — it rivaled a mid-sized corporate headquarters.
A man stepped out of the office to greet Kim Ha-eun with a smile.
"Welcome! What brings you here?"
"Ah, well... I just signed an Incarnation contract."
"Oh, the new contract! Manager!"
How had they found out about the contract in real time, though?
Was the gym manager an Incarnation too? I wondered this as I watched an enormous human emerge from the office.
The person who walked out was a towering woman — easily 190 centimeters.
Her long hair was wild and voluminous, more like a lion's mane than a woman's hairstyle.
Her hulking shoulders and the calves exposed below her shorts immediately brought the word "Amazoness" to mind.
The only reason you could tell she was a woman at all was that her chest and hips — possibly enhanced by some kind of pharmaceutical — retained feminine curves.
"Ohh, our honored customer! A contract — congratulations!"
Her voice was as huge as her frame, booming through the office. Kim Ha-eun, overwhelmed by the sheer volume and bulk, timidly extended her hand.
The handshake was so forceful you could hear the whoosh of air, but then she glided over to a nearby table
and slid some fluttering paperwork across it with a delicacy that didn't match her physique at all.
"First, write down your account for a full refund. And would you mind reading this? Just signing gets you 50 points. Adding a photo gets you 100. Do a personal training session with me and we'll do before-and-after shots — 500 points. What do you think?"
Watching Kim Ha-eun reel under the torrent of words, my curiosity got the better of me, and I projected a clone again.
She didn't even notice my clone settle beside her as she kept machine-gunning her sales pitch.
"No, I know this sounds like a raw deal. Yes, we're using you as a walking advertisement, and only offering 500 points does sting my conscience a little — but think of it this way: our center is where you met your Constellation. We forged a good connection here. What do you say, hmm?"
She really, really talked a lot.
