Chapter 78: Business 3
Chapter 78: Business 3
Dream Therapy for retired soldiers and Incarnations.
I expected it would have some kind of social impact.
But once again, I was forced to realize just how ignorant I was about this world.
It started out as nothing.
"Oh, ohhh! If this is possible, it will change the world!"
Nothing to me, anyway.
The day after I knocked Kim Ha-eun out with pleasure, I immediately sent a clone to the Academy. Lee Ha-rin had already established herself there. The fact that she kept introducing me to people who wanted to offer rituals suggested her magic instructor had a wide network. The old woman's demeanor was gentle and approachable, and I'd seen other instructors treat her with respect. She was always courteous to Lee Ha-rin, even when she was a rookie Incarnation, and offered all sorts of advice when Lee Ha-rin was struggling to find her talent, her confidence in tatters. Our connection was barely a year old, but that old magic instructor was the closest thing I'd seen to the image of a true teacher I carried in my head. She had the personality, the skill, the respect of her peers—exactly why I'd sought her out without a second thought. Maybe that was my mistake.
"Your new Incarnation hasn't formally enrolled in the Academy yet, correct?"
"She will soon."
"In that case, I'll prepare a special graduation exemption for her, just like we did for Miss Lee Ha-rin. We might even be able to establish an official collaboration with the Academy. Hmm... handling nightmares and providing tranquility? Done right, perhaps we could even integrate it with ritual magic. Miss Lee Ha-rin, what do you think? Any rough estimates?"
"Hmm, you're right. If it's just one person dreaming at a time, it gets a little inefficient. If we establish a shared dream foundation by requesting a portion of the Constellation's power... Ah, my Constellation? This project does have your approval, correct?"
Caught up in their own momentum, the two of them chattered away, and I understood none of it. The only answer I could give was a firm 'I approved this project, so I will help.' I'd assumed it was all ritual magic, so the conversation would be a fantastical exchange about mana or magic power. Instead, I got this.
"Then we'll use this as the base, and for this part, a slight variation based on paper 142-3?"
"No, paper 142-3 is fundamentally agricultural, symbolizing fertility, so it doesn't quite fit. Instead of that, what about selecting an invocation for the peaceful rest of warriors and hunters from the 77-series papers?"
"Then this goes here?"
"Yes, and for this part, we'll just need to call in one Runic Language mage."
Did she have entire academic papers just memorized in her head? How did she just know what 'paper 142' meant? The madness unfolding before me would have been incomprehensible to any liberal arts student—hell, any STEM student. Her hobby was memorizing Incarnation data, and her special talent was memorizing research papers? What kind of nonsense was that? She had a talent for ritual magic, sure, but I'd never given her a talent for memorizing papers.
I was still reeling from the terrifying spectacle when the conversation barreled forward. A robed mage arrived, summoned by a message, followed by someone in a suit. They whispered about more things I didn't understand, then the whole crowd moved. The magic instructor naturally opened the door and escorted me out first, so I just followed along, still completely lost.
'What the hell is going on?'
The Academy was so vast there were still plenty of places I hadn't visited. The hallway I walked down now was one of them. When I was looking after Han Ye-ji, she was a mere trainee, and my time with Lee Ha-rin had nothing to do with the magic research building, so I'd never set foot in this massive structure. The corridor was decorated more like a corporate lobby than an Academy building. A sudden swarm of mages first thing in the morning must not have been a common sight, because the agent waiting at the counter at the end of the hall looked slightly flustered as he stopped us.
"Good morning. May I ask the purpose of your visit?"
"We're here to see the President."
Lee Ha-rin's supervising magic instructor—a real social butterfly, it seemed—spoke with the security agent who'd blocked our path. The rest of the group was still clustered around Lee Ha-rin, murmuring over documents. I felt profoundly out of place, but the atmosphere didn't allow for a quiet exit, so I just stood awkwardly in the center of the group.
"What are your thoughts on this, Constellation?"
"I just trust my Incarnations and leave it to them."
"Constellation...!"
Just paying lip service.
But wait, didn't the magic instructor just mention something important?
※
And so, what began as a humble idea had snowballed into something colossal.
"Wait, what is this situation...?"
Kim Ha-eun, who had been packing her things to prepare for her Academy admission, was forcibly summoned via a magic circle into the heart of the Academy. She'd heard the explanation but hadn't understood a word of it, and now she fixed me with an intense stare, seeing as I was the only familiar face here. Stare all you want, kid. I can't explain it either. Because I have no damn clue!
'Is it really this big of a deal?'
An ultra-long-distance teleportation magic circle, normally kept inactive to prevent external invasion. Activation required the simultaneous approval of the Academy President and ten board members, or fifteen instructors with equivalent authority. From the description alone, it was hardly something to be used lightly. Yet they'd huddled together, had a quick meeting, and then a dozen-odd people had stormed in. The magic instructor spread the documents she'd been carrying onto the table. Then, alongside Lee Ha-rin, she launched into a fervent explanation. The targets of their persuasion were the President, the summoned board members and senior faculty, and me.
'The impact here is... way bigger than I thought.'
Looking at the simplified, presentation-friendly materials instead of the complex documents, I finally understood why this was happening. To put it simply, it was because of my own complacency and the biases I'd carried over from my old world. Treating retired soldiers. The phrase alone sounded like social welfare. The treated soldiers would be able to live out their daily lives in happiness, right? All four continents were at war, so there'd never be a shortage of patients. I'd rake in points, Kim Ha-eun would get massively stronger, and everyone would be happy. My thinking had stopped exactly there.
"Theoretical calculations indicate we could enhance the Eastern Continent's overall military strength by approximately 16.8 percent. And that's a minimum figure, one that doesn't account for the various circumstances and variables that arise during the offering ritual itself, nor does it include the treatment of retired Incarnations."
"Hmph. That's the minimum figure, you say?"
"Yes, that calculation is based on a scenario without any mandatory condition for treated soldiers to return to the front lines. It also excludes the positive ripple effect on the front lines once mental immunity is established, and the variable elements of Incarnations who may experience a growth in their own abilities as a result."
Lee Ha-rin delivered the presentation like a seasoned office worker. She stood among people in suits and uniforms in her own shabby clothes, but no one paid that minor detail any mind. Everyone was reeling from the shock of the data. Even Kim Ha-eun, the person at the center of it all.
'Minimum 16 percent?'
This was a world where four continents with a combined population of a hundred billion were locked in a constant war. The front lines ebbed and flowed endlessly; humanity wasn't wiped out, but the casualties had to be in the tens of millions at least, barely kept in check by Incarnation abilities healing the wounded. And now, a single Incarnation was being credited with boosting an entire continent's military strength by 16 percent. A minimum of 16 percent. If that was the floor, then 20 percent wasn't an unreasonable target. One person doing the work of 0.2 of a continental army. Anyone with a hat-rack for a brain might just shrug and accept it. But even as clueless as I was, this figure floored me. Because what I'd witnessed last year was still burned vividly into my memory. Weren't monsters like the Incinerating Tyrant also part of that continental army? There was a monstrously powerful Constellation on each of the four continents, and this figure was a 20 percent increase including them? Sure, the Incinerating Tyrant's fleet probably wasn't literally 100 percent of his continent's military power. But it was still a way to think about it. If you boosted the whole by 20 percent, you'd be turbo-charging the Incinerating Tyrant by 20 percent too, wouldn't you? The space battleships filling the sky, the machine soldiers on board raining laser fire onto the ground. I'd seen that sight with my own eyes. And we were talking about adding twenty percent—hell, sixteen percent—to that?
"For the sake of social welfare, and for humanity itself, this is something we absolutely must do."
I was still spaced out, idly fiddling with the snacks on the table, while they huddled and whispered among themselves. If it was going to be like this, why did they even drag me along? Swept up in the atmosphere and sitting dumbly in the conference room, I watched Lee Ha-rin and Kim Ha-eun sidle up to either side of me.
"Uh... hello?"
"Yes, hello."
They greeted each other, their expressions painfully awkward. Strip everything else away, and these two were just an otaku and a bookworm. Socializing clearly wasn't their strong suit. I was watching them with that thought when, as if on cue, they both turned to me with pleading 'help me' eyes.
'Well, they are my East and West pillars.'
After the stilted greeting, the two women sat on either side of me in total silence. The atmosphere felt like someone had to say something, and I was about to open my mouth first. If Lee Ha-rin hadn't mustered up the courage to bash her way into a conversation before I could. Yeah, 'bash' was the word for it—that wasn't a conversation starter.
"So, Miss Kim Ha-eun... your ability is...?"
"Ah, well...?"
They started talking after Kim Ha-eun carefully gauged my expression and gave a small nod. I'd been ready to happily spectate some friendly bonding between my Incarnations, but something felt off. The thought that this barely qualified as a conversation kept poking at my brain.
"Well, first, the Hope Usurper—"
"Ah, that ability?!"
I shut my eyes for a moment, watching the rampaging otaku corner the obliging civilian who answered her every question. I probably should've intervened, but I was too drained to bother. My brain had been demanding a strike ever since things kept happening way outside my common sense. Even as a clone, my sugar felt low, so I popped a snack from the table into my mouth and swallowed it whole.
Fuck. Not sweet. Salt biscuits.