Chapter 60: Challenge
Chapter 60: Challenge
The shotgun's pump *chk-chk*ed back, and the Incarnation on the floor twitched, face planted in his own vomit.
People scrambled back through the glass doors in a blind panic.
I could feel it—Han Ye-ji's fury showed no sign of cooling, no matter how many she put down.
'This isn't just anger.'
Even witnessing her indirectly through the Authority—the Druid's World—her emotions bled through.
This wasn't my Dream Demon clone but the elf's Authority, filtered once over—and it still hit this hard. I couldn't make sense of it.
Let's be real. Waking up in the middle of the night isn't exactly a rare occurrence.
There was the time a drunk ajumma woke me up screeching, the time I set the alarm wrong.
Once, I rolled off the edge of the bed after a miserable night's sleep.
Over the last year and change, waking up at night a handful of times has been just part of life.
Which is exactly why this—this excessive rage—felt off.
Unnaturally emotional.
Among the people backing away, I spotted real criminal Incarnations mixed in with innocent civilians,
a few trying to use the crowd as cover to slip away.
But the second they tried anything—the moment they stepped past the glass doors—
a hail of rubber bullets smacked their backs and sent them crumpling to the pavement, or else the Suppression Team blocking the alleys scooped them up.
Three steps. Han Ye-ji, teeth clenched so hard they might crack, only needed three steps from the building's main entrance to open fire with rubber rounds.
Watching it, something nagged at me.
'How many shots has she fired?'
Even for a riot-grade rubber projectile launcher, a gun needs reloading.
But when I looked closer, her hand never dropped to the ammo belt at her waist.
Every time she racked the shotgun's pump back and forth—*chk-chk*, *chk-chk*—another rubber slug flew out with a *fwip*.
- How do I dismiss this?
- Let go of the tree and it'll dismiss. Grab hold again and I'll reconnect you.
Just like dismissing a clone, I closed my eyes and stirred the sensation of scattering my vision.
What came into view wasn't the chaos of a city center—it was the quiet of my studio apartment.
I bolted off the bed and dashed for the computer.
Not exactly a dignified image for a Constellation, but what can you do.
A short system notification flickered on the monitor.
[Incarnation Han Ye-ji awakens her first Authority]
[Authority Bloom: Trigger Happy]
I saw the line and searched the shop immediately.
A lower-tier Authority, living up to its name—an Authority for Incarnations who handle firearms in ranged combat.
Considered the most basic Authority, but also the most beloved.
Lets you pull the trigger with no ammunition. More precisely, the instant you pull the trigger, the bullet is created.
On-screen, among the squirming, shuffling clay-figures, only one had violet aura gathering at her fingertips.
That'd be Han Ye-ji manifesting the Authority. Fitting for a retainer of the Dream Demon—seemed like a method of pulling dream-bullets into reality.
So Talents are in Korean but Authorities are in English? The thought flickered past—it felt like some mass-produced budget RPG.
Still, however much the word "ordinary" got thrown around, Han Ye-ji was also a soul who hadn't bloomed any Talent.
A year of Incarnation and Constellation rubbing bodies—well, closer—and grinding out lucid-dream training; she could at least awaken one Authority.
Was it just like story cliché—rage as fuel to unlock a new Authority?
That the source of said rage was a ruined shot at sex was a little...
But what's more important to a twenty-year-old burning with youth?
I was mulling that over while spectating when the world suddenly spun.
Why did it feel like I was slipping into a lucid dream while the Druid's World was still active?
※
People boiled out like an insect nest hit with pesticide.
'Fucking hell, there's so many...'
I pumped and pulled the trigger on repeat, but just how many people had been packed into one big building?
It was chaos inside, and the number of people spilling outside was staggering.
Which meant just as many were trying to run.
'Why did it have to be today.'
I pulled the shotgun trigger on reflex and swallowed that small grumble.
Whenever I stand before my ever-gentle, all-embracing Constellation, I turn into a complete idiot—just stammering and blanking out.
The nerves make my brain and body go their separate ways, and then, with that benevolent smile, he guides me along.
That was the problem.
A whole year had passed; I should be a little used to it by now, but the moment I stand before that beautiful body, I feel infinitely small.
Leaving aside being his Incarnation—just as a woman, I want to show him a confident, impressive side of myself, but I can't. Damn it.
And tonight was supposed to be the first step toward that different side.
Maybe he wanted it too, because he didn't offer the usual guiding touch—just let me do as I wished,
watching with that benevolent, unreadable gaze.
If these bastards hadn't shown up, right now I'd be with my Constellation—
"I will fire if you do not withdraw."
"Ah, no, I-I have something urgent..."
A middle-aged man who couldn't even meet my eyes, hemming and hawing.
But we were in the middle of a critical operation, so I couldn't afford to let sympathy let him pass.
An operation so critical I'd even given up my time with my Constellation to run out here.
"Th-that, no, it's nothing."
I raised the muzzle just slightly, and the man who'd been shoved forward as the group's spokesperson
scrambled back through the glass doors and started explaining to his companions.
Then again, what fault was it of those people?
It's all the smuggling ring's fault.
The rest of the operation was routine.
Inside, things appeared to be going smoothly—no calls for reinforcements—
and the ones who kicked the doors open and tried to bolt got shredded by the shotgun's stopping power, which had multiplied dozens of times over.
"Whoa, are you multiplying projectiles?"
"To be precise, they multiply in proportion to velocity. Do you have a muzzle-velocity Talent, by any chance?"
"Ah, yes. I have one that doubles projectile speed without adding physical force."
I made awkward small talk with the woman who was splitting her taser barbs and kept blasting the shotgun freely—*bang*, *bang*.
Left hand pumping, right index finger—*click*.
Pump and trigger, *chk-chk*, *click*, over and over, until a tiny itch pricked at the back of my mind, and the thought surfaced.
'Huh, I didn't reload?'
[Incarnation Han Ye-ji awakens her first Authority]
[Authority Bloom: Trigger Happy]
The message announcing the Authority bloom appeared at the edge of my vision, and in the same instant, the entire world turned black.
Simultaneously, a shout from behind me—my senior.
"Hey, Han Ye-ji!"
A yank at the nape of my neck, and the world spun.
My Constellation flashed through my mind, but then I saw Senior Jeong Ah-rin and Namgung Hui behind me, faces set in hard lines—definitely not a lucid dream.
"Wh-what's the situation?"
"No clue. Looks like most of our people got swallowed up, centered on the rooftop. With a range this big, did they have a Constellation's Incarnation body stashed in the building?"
The tall building and the bustling streets were gone. A dim, oppressive basement greeted us instead.
Old concrete walls, flickering lights, rusted metal pipes bolted to the wall hissing out an unpleasant *shhh-shhh*.
In front of a blood-red rusted door, Namgung Hui clenched her fist so hard her gloves creaked; a door opened with a long *screeeeak*, and—the exact same room.
"This is... yeah, feels like we're inside a Constellation's Authority."
Namgung Hui opened a door. My senior and I covered it, shotgun and taser raised.
But the identical rooms kept going, showing no sign of variation.
Same flickering lights, same pipes on the walls—every room a carbon copy.
"Ah, shit. Out of all the things to get caught in... is this an illusion-type?"
We walked and walked and walked, and then a feeling crept over me.
"Uh, I think it's not illusion-type—more like dream-phantasm type."
"What, you can feel it?"
That this place, too, was inside a dream.
I motioned Namgung Hui, who'd been about to open the next door, to step back, and laid my hand on the old doorknob.
Palm against the cold, metallic-smelling door, I felt a fluttering, a kind of pulse.
I called up the memory of summoning furniture and food in dreams and pushed with all my strength.
'Is that other Constellation from the Dream Demon clan too?'
The rusted door shrieked open—*screeeeak*—and then the sound cut off dead.
"So it is. Are we dreaming right now?"
"Slapping my cheek didn't wake me up..."
"You already tried that? You think an Authority wielded by an Incarnation or Constellation gets countered by a slap to the face?"
A dark corridor stretched ahead.
Not even flickering lights here—could barely see a few meters ahead.
We couldn't stay in that room, so we edged forward slowly, feeling the wall—
"...There's a body."
"Doesn't look like one of ours. Probably a smuggling ring Incarnation. Why'd they get killed?"
We found a corpse slumped against the wall.
The dark space, bodies tucked intermittently into corner alcoves—
my heart started beating a little faster, and my grip on the gun tightened.
I heard the other two swallow, tense.
Senses amplified by that tension, I caught a light footstep.
*Tap, tap*—
"Something's coming. Get ready."
We aimed our guns. Namgung Hui lowered her stance, poised like a beast about to lunge.
A single figure walking out of the darkness.
Seeing its unguarded posture, Namgung Hui kicked hard off the ground and drove a body tackle toward its waist.
"So you're here too?"
"W-wait!"
A textbook-perfect body tackle, like something out of a manual, then a light motion—pressing down the nape to redirect the momentum.
It was shocking enough that Namgung Hui got subdued with one hand and slammed head-first into the wall—the one who subdued her was even more shocking.
The moment I heard the voice, my stomach dropped—but the one who got hurt was Namgung Hui.
"C-Constellation?"