Chapter 58: Seed
Chapter 58: Seed
The timing was so absurdly perfect it almost felt like a setup.
'Who gets a phone call the exact second their hand lands on someone's panties?'
Mere moments after the alarm went off—his hand still on the elastic, about to tug—her furious little brother stormed in and planted a kick square in his chest.
Watching the dream-world shatter around her while that frozen expression of bewilderment hung on her face... gods, it was pitiful.
Like a puppy staring at its overturned food bowl, watching its whole universe collapse.
'The Protector's still up... so I guess I can't punch through?'
I was dying to know what kind of call-up she'd been hit with, but with no way to observe, the frustration just gnawed at me.
Kicked out of the lucid dream, my view snapped back to the clay figurines.
One was lashing another—twisted and grotesque, like a whip—
probably the brother "helping" Han Ye-ji snap out of it with a few good smacks to the back of the head.
'So that just leaves Lee Ha-rin.'
Han Ye-ji had vanished beyond the city's Protector,
and Kim Ha-eun was out cold from the backlash of her first contract and Authority. By process of elimination, Lee Ha-rin was all I had.
Thanks to the World Tree branch, my stamina was through the roof and sleep refused to come—but honestly?
Lee Ha-rin was boring.
Not that I was playing favorites, or that she lacked merit as an Incarnation, or that she wasn't attractive.
It was just that, lately, she'd been spending a solid twelve hours out of every twenty-four doing nothing but fiddling with magic circles.
Lee Ha-rin had her timetable locked down tight, as if determined to follow my "eight hours of sleep, take care of your health" order to the letter.
Watching her routine left me speechless.
Wake at six, morning exercise and shower by seven. After that, ritual magic research straight through—only pausing for lunch and dinner.
Eight to noon, one to six, seven to ten.
Not a single distraction. Twelve hours of pure research. Where's the entertainment in watching that?
Descending would just feel like I was getting in her way.
Somehow or other, she'd even coordinated with her magic instructor and submitted her findings as a short essay
to earn academy credits.
If Han Ye-ji was average and Kim Ha-eun a genius, Lee Ha-rin was the gifted type who genuinely enjoyed the grind.
For a former Constellation otaku like her, this wasn't work or study—she was just immersed in a twelve-hour-a-day hobby.
Her parents back on the Eastern Continent had grown worried enough to contact the Academy; she was that far gone.
Even during her three daily meal breaks, she'd sneak glances at Constellation-related web browsing. Enough said.
Would dropping in outside of mealtime or break hours just be a bother?
I was mulling it over when something brushed the back of my neck.
I flinched and spun around—nothing there. Just a slip of paper fluttering lazily to the floor.
"Ah, fuck, you scared the shit out of me."
I might be getting used to a peaceful world, but reactions like that don't seem to fade.
My hand, which had instinctively gone to the dagger hilt at my hip, clenched once pointlessly before I bent to pick up the note.
Nobody around to see, and still—embarrassing to overreact that hard.
- How've you been? This is my first try at advanced spirit arts, so keeping it stable is exhausting.
A cute letter in rounded handwriting, asking after me. Word from the Unfading Giant Tree.
- Hey, there's a Protector up over Jeong Ah-rin's city. Any idea what's going on?
- I hear they're rooting out a crime syndicate tangled up with a Constellation.
- Oh yeah? I thought things had quieted down lately. Guess they're crawling out again.
- Lately? Something happened before?
Bored out of my mind, I answered gladly, happy just to have someone to talk to.
History lessons were a dull, endless slog,
but stories tangled up with Constellation and Incarnation powers felt more like reading fantasy novels than history.
I'm a fantasy creature myself now, sure, but hearing other people's stories still lands differently, somehow.
- I don't remember the other continents very well, but on the Eastern Continent... one big incident, about 35, maybe 36 years ago.
Thirty-five years—roughly my entire lifespan. To an elf, did that qualify as "lately"?
The oddest little details kept hitting me as fascinating. This time, what arrived wasn't a slip but a whole sheet of paper, winging through the air.
- The most recent Eastern Continent case involving a Fallen Constellation was...
She must've sensed my curiosity.
A page crammed with handwriting, rounded characters stretching sideways into a slant in her hurry to get it all down.
Errors scratched out with hasty lines—the sight tugged a fond smile onto my face.
I was slowly working my way through her handwritten Fallen Constellation lore, reading it like a wiki article, when another little note plopped down beside me.
Left hand holding the engrossing story, right hand reaching to pick up what had fallen.
- If you're bored, wanna watch my kids run an operation together?
The Protector was blocking me, so what was she talking about? But then it hit me.
She'd racked up centuries of experience and points I couldn't dream of as a first-year Constellation—
maybe she had a way to punch through a Protector?
The thoughts of vote-bots, reflect hacks, and super-admin panels from some game in my past life that popped into my head? Definitely not a coincidence.
- You've got a way to get through a Protector?
- The Protector's a defense program that blocks Constellations from observing a city from above. But if you descend into an Incarnation and borrow their eyes, it should work.
They'd said it blocked city observation, so I'd wondered why my clone had vanished—then I got it right away.
Come to think of it, the clone didn't even manifest unnecessary senses, and a solid punch was enough to reverse-summon the fragile thing...
Too flimsy, maybe, to even withstand the Protector's mana wave.
Thinking that way, I really did need to get stronger,
but without a novel-style level-up system, there wasn't much to be done.
The only path to becoming a stronger Constellation was earning points, and what way was there to suddenly lay hands on a huge windfall?
Not like there's a points lottery. Just steady saving.
Hell, instead of a lottery, I snagged Kim Ha-eun—can't I just call that a jackpot...?
- Was that too sudden? It's fine if you don't want to.
- No, I just got startled because I've never shared senses with an Incarnation before.
My thoughts had wandered, and when my replies stopped, a flustered little note popped in like a nervous nudge. I answered.
Why all the fuss over just borrowing an Incarnation's eyes to watch something together?
But considering she'd spent over a hundred years as a Constellation with no one to talk to... I could kind of understand.
I'd only spent a few years alone in that bunker and nearly lost my mind.
I'd seriously weighed whether it'd be better to die infected but still get to meet other people again.
Never thought I'd find myself comparing loneliness against radiation poisoning.
- I'm curious, yeah. How do we do this?
- Come under the World Tree branch?
I headed for the section of World Tree branch beckoning like a waving hand.
It struck me as strange how accustomed I'd grown to the massive branch cutting through the room like a light fixture.
Then again, lucid dreams were probably weirder than a giant branch.
A round fruit swelled at the branch's tip.
Tear-drop shaped with a pointed end, like an almond, but the color was unusual.
Fluorescent, or maybe glowing pale green.
Closer to an exaggerated, comic-book emerald green.
Translucent and glittering, it was too pretty to be a seed—it looked more like a tear-drop gemstone.
- Eat it.
It didn't feel like candy but like biting into a glass ornament as I popped the seed into my mouth, only for it to dissolve before I could even chew.
Letters surfaced at the edge of my vision.
[Constellation, Lethargic Nightmare, learns Authority: Druid's World]
[Yes / No]
Druid's World—an odd one.
Did the Unfading Giant Tree get a 90% discount on these skills too, the way I got 90% off dream-related techniques?
Given I was just a freeloader, asking how many points it'd cost would probably just give me heartburn, so I quietly pressed Yes.
If a Dream Demon technique surfaced in the mind like suddenly remembering last night's dream,
this druidic technique felt more like a seed sprouting.
Meaning: I could feel the seed sliding down my throat and into my stomach, tingly and ticklish, like swallowing something hot.
'This is fine, right?'
The seed, which had been squirming gently as if tickling my insides, gradually spread warmth through my body.
Like drinking cocoa in a cozy room on a midwinter's day, the heat radiated from my core until my whole body felt languid.
It wasn't unpleasant, but the completely novel sensation set my heart racing a little.
'Anyway—druid, not elf, huh?'
I didn't know much about druids beyond the RPG class that turns into bears and owls,
so at least it was a conversation-starter. But now, what was I supposed to do with it?
"Can y-ou, he-ar me?"
"Gah! What the fuck?"
I was sitting on the bed, savoring the drowsy warmth, when a clear voice rang right against my ear.
No—the voice was coming from the furniture, from the headboard against my back.
"Touch the wood and close your eyes—"
The unprecedented situation of my bed's wooden frame talking to me nearly sent me tumbling off the mattress,
but I caught myself once I realized, belatedly, that the voice belonged to the Unfading Giant Tree. I managed to steady my startled heart.
No matter how I looked at it, getting used to this fantasy world was going to take a while longer.