Chapter 65: Incarnation, Kim Ha-eun
Chapter 65: Incarnation, Kim Ha-eun
A partial opening of the Origin.
Absorbing a fragment of Nightmare.
A boost in Dream Demon rank.
So many things had happened in a single night, and I'd picked up a new Authority to boot. Having grown far more accustomed to what it meant to be a Dream Demon, I could now sense my Incarnations with far greater clarity.
No wonder they treat us like gods.
Before the Origin opened, I could only sense surface-level things—joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, like and dislike. The kind of feelings that say, "I'm afraid of this," or "I like that," or "I hate that one." I'd been reading nothing but those superficial emotions. Now I could perceive their deeper desires, too.
Han Ye-ji didn't have much in the way of desire. To be precise, she'd lived her life without any real goal, simply going with the flow. The type who's good at doing what she's told but can't lead. If she hadn't become an Incarnation, she'd have found some ordinary job and spent her life doing as instructed while supporting her younger sibling. She had no dream she wanted to achieve. Her greatest desire was simply to obey me, her Constellation, well. Like a soldier who does as ordered, or a well-trained dog. What little desire she did have was just wanting to be helpful to the one who'd saved her sibling, turned her life around, and given her such sweet pleasure.
Lee Ha-rin and Kim Ha-eun, on the other hand, were masses of desire.
Lee Ha-rin's desire was focused on intellectual inquiry. She'd stepped directly into the world of Constellations and Incarnations that she'd only ever known through the internet, and thanks to her extreme talent, she'd found a direction. She'd throw herself into endless research with no reservations. Hadn't she already cut off contact with the few friends she had, not to mention her family, the moment she became an Incarnation and started her studies? Becoming an Incarnation didn't mean, to her, a path to financial or social success. She saw her new status purely as a means to gain knowledge about Incarnations and Constellations. A desire like "Now I can eat well and live easy~" didn't exist in her at all. Right now, Lee Ha-rin's greatest desire boiled down to questions like, "Can I view real-world research materials inside a lucid dream?"
And lastly, the Kim Ha-eun slumped over in the gym was the polar opposite of Lee Ha-rin. Maybe because a monster had killed her family, she craved power. It didn't matter what form it took—personal combat strength, political influence, an Incarnation's abilities, or power granted by a Constellation. Like a thirsty man who doesn't care if the water is hot or cold, her only wish was to get stronger, fast. She'd accepted the Incarnation contract not out of any yearning to be an Incarnation, but out of a hunger for power. To hunt monsters with her own hands, or to command a unit that hunted monsters at her feet. An intense, all-consuming will to kill the monsters invading this continent, whether directly or indirectly. Which made sense—it hadn't been a month since her family died, so of course her emotions would be at their most fierce and volatile.
Han Ye-ji had also lived as a sibling pair with no parents, but she'd been an orphan since she was very young, so she'd processed that loss differently.
Could this be dangerous?
Needless to say, Kim Ha-eun was the one who needed the most care. Her state was plain to see: before she'd even contracted with me, she'd been working out to the point of self-abuse, completely indifferent to the fact that her joints were breaking down. Dream Demon Authority be damned.
The thing is... how do I even comfort her?
The problem was that I had no idea how. My own life had been shaped by losing my family to a nuclear bomb, then watching the sole friend who survived the mutations get torn apart by a monster right in front of me. After that, I'd drifted through a small survivor group before we scattered fleeing monsters, then fractured during food shortages...
My emotions in this area are so blunted...
And so the only thing that came to mind, embarrassingly enough, was sex.
This wasn't some adult-manga logic about pickling your brain in pleasure. More like: since she was lost and reeling from losing her entire family overnight, I'd give her something to cling to—me. The bond between Incarnation and Constellation was often treated like that between a worshipper and a god, so maybe it could work.
With a "might as well give it a shot" sort of feeling, I slipped into the dreams of Kim Ha-eun, alone and limp in her empty house.
※
Along with the familiar sight of a spinning, whirling view, a thought suddenly surfaced.
I don't think I ever gave her the Lucid Dream Authority.
I'd been startled by how Kim Ha-eun had awakened the Authority on her own, and then without doing anything in particular, I'd naturally slid into her lucid dream. I could see her now, working out alone in a darkened gym. Did the Hope Usurper Authority encompass lucid dreaming?
Looking around, I recognized the place as the gym belonging to Beating Lionheart, but it was dim and murky, as if reflecting Kim Ha-eun's mental state. The ceiling lights had been reduced to less than half their usual number, and the few remaining bulbs had grown faint and hazy.
"Like this, I think it was like this..."
Maybe it was a side effect of the Hope Usurper Authority, but she was maintaining a form so polished even a workout layman like me could see it. That made sense—Beating Lionheart's contractor had wanted to show off every one of his favorite exercises and use Kim Ha-eun as a fitness model. I couldn't tell if it was from extreme mental unease or just because she was dreaming, but the sight of her back as she kept muttering to herself wasn't a pleasant one.
I conjured up an outfit fit for a gym, and instead of coffee, a chicken-breast salad and an ion drink materialized in my hands as I stepped forward.
"Why not take it a little easier?"
"Aack!"
Our second meeting was not what you'd call romantic. Caught off-guard by my voice, Kim Ha-eun had been fussing with a dumbbell and dropped the metal weight—thump—right onto her knee. If this were reality, her knee would've been a disaster. Yet even through the shock, her lucid dream only flickered slightly, holding its shape without issue.
And here Lee Ha-rin's lucid dreams shattered the moment our eyes met...
In dreams, even a scream came across less as pain and more as sheer panic.
"Oh dear, did I startle you?"
"Y-yes... my Constellation?"
Her face had gone briefly pale from the dream of a ten-kilo hunk of metal dropping on her knee, but now it flushed a deep red. It was visibly rising like water set on an electric range—a steamy, hissing blush—even under the dim lights. The more Kim Ha-eun stared blankly at me, the brighter the lighting became.
Thankfully, she isn't totally consumed by revenge.
Yes, her emotions were running wild, she was being buffeted by desires she didn't know how to handle—but she wasn't so lost in vengeance that she'd gone blind to everything else. I knew because she was reacting to me.
"I, uh... your clothes..."
"I thought they suited the setting. Don't you agree?"
It was a look the muscle-obsessed fitness freaks of my past life often sported: shorts that stopped above the knee and a sleeveless tee with sides cut so deep they showed off the ribs. For a moment I almost felt I'd blend in better with the gym equipment than Kim Ha-eun would, my bare arms revealing the muscle in my forearms.
To rile up Kim Ha-eun, whose head was in chaos and swept by a storm of desires, I stood before her and lightly tugged up the hem of my top. The thin fabric stretched over my shoulders, exposing the side of my firm pectorals. Seducing a woman with my pecs—wasn't this the promised land for gym rats?
"Huh. Most of the people at the gym you were in dressed a lot like this."
"Well, that... that was the men's-only floor, wasn't it?"
Her gaze was riveted to the part of my chest that was teasingly revealed. The stare was so sharp, I imagined if it had any physical force at all, my top half would've already been stripped bare.
"Is there really any need to stand on ceremony between Constellation and Incarnation? And besides, this is a dream."
I took a step closer. Before she could open her mouth, her eyes still locked on my chest, I continued.
"And to become stronger, a Dream Demon needs to excel at things other than training in dreams."
I transformed the exercise machine Kim Ha-eun had been perched on into a plush bed. That I felt slightly more resistance here than in the dreams of Han Ye-ji or Lee Ha-rin probably meant Kim Ha-eun had firm control over her own lucid dreams.
Another step closer, and I caught a pleasant scent mingling a woman's fragrance with a faint trace of sweat.
Violet hair, snow-white skin, a bust as large as any Westerner's, a slender waist, wide hips, and pale purple eyes. Her body had changed, reacting to my magical power, becoming closer to that of a Dream Demon. If I had to categorize her, she was like something out of fantasy—a half-blood.
"Would a fish practice swimming? Does a lion gnaw on logs to train its bite strength? A Dream Demon has a Dream Demon's way. You must know that your body itself has changed."
I brushed a hand over her hot, sweat-damp shoulder. At that sensation, Kim Ha-eun flinched, then suddenly lunged at me, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me down onto the bed. Being tackled so fiercely had a charm of its own. Her violet eyes deepened in color, looking like gems holding a blazing fire.
"Then... can I really get stronger?"
Through that intense gaze, a desperate, frantic emotion poured into me like madness. My heart tingled and grew warm; the corners of my mouth lifted of their own accord. I felt so buoyant it almost surprised me—I hadn't known my own voice could sound this excited.
"Of course. Why would I lie to my own Incarnation?"
A woman with a body more voluptuous than any Western porn star was panting roughly, yearning for me, clinging. What she wanted was a little different from the usual, but what did it matter? The female form clutching and embracing me was this soft.
"So, go ahead. Do whatever you wish."
With a rough huff of breath, she tore my sleeveless tee apart.