Chapter 87: Constellation, Lethargic Nightmare 2
Chapter 87: Constellation, Lethargic Nightmare 2
Patients flooded in from every continent—east, west, south, and north.
The points had rolled in by the millions, enough to make me jolt, but I could feel just as plainly that I still had a long way to go.
Even the Unfading Giant Tree, right here and now, had to be pulling in far more than I was.
Looking after retired soldiers and former Incarnations was honorable work, certainly, but it didn't make for the kind of name that shook the world.
In my last life, had I ever once known the name of some veterans' welfare center director?
And honestly, next to a swordmaster who races across cloudtops and shears off mountain peaks,
or an emperor who commands a space battleship that sets whole continents ablaze,
a Constellation who treats mental illness does come off a touch... modest.
The old saying's right: you can't get full on the first spoonful.
'A first spoonful worth a million points. Nifty.'
Still, glancing at the violet pendant clinking lightly against my throat, I couldn't deny a certain warmth spread through my chest.
It was a little like gearing up in an RPG, slotting in one high-end piece after another.
Half a year ago I'd been pinching every point toward a hundred-thousand-point second contract,
and now I had a necklace worth over a million hanging around my neck.
Wearing something there still felt faintly wrong—first thing since my old dog tags—but for a one-point-two-million-point treasure, I could damn well endure it.
Besides, one-point-two million points hardly counted as anything special anymore.
Thinking those thoughts, I made my way toward the building where Kim Ha-eun and Lee Ha-rin had set up.
What I found was a sea of patients and their caretakers.
Retired soldiers mattered little either way, but among retired Incarnations, more often than not their Constellations hadn't reclaimed the Authorities granted to them.
You grow attached to your own Incarnation over time; stripping away every last Authority the moment they stop being useful would feel a bit off.
And it would smear your reputation as a Constellation besides.
Which explained the peculiar sight before me: for every Incarnation stricken with a mind-affliction, five or so attendants hovered around them.
Since no one could guess when or how one might turn violent, the Incarnations patrolling the Academy's interior had clustered heavily here as well.
"You've arrived, Constellation?"
[The Constellation, Thunder that Shakes the Clouds, worries for their Incarnation.]
[The Constellation, Unfaltering Explorer, feels curiosity toward the Dream Demon wandering the present world.]
[The Constellation, Racing Flame, marvels at the refined Clone.]
At the same moment, several Constellations sent messages to my duplicate body.
So the Unfading Giant Tree—an elf—wasn't particularly skilled with spirit-based Clone techniques, and it seemed other Constellations were similarly clumsy with Clones compared to her.
Call it a racial trait, if we're sticking to RPG comparisons.
Then again, if they could handle Clones as easily as I could, wouldn't they have spent their days wandering the continents and lighting up the internet just like me?
"Ah, more items arrived today as well."
Kim Ha-eun approached me from within the violet veil, where she had been dispersing the mist-wrought monsters.
The reason a sum as vast as a million points had dwindled into mere "a million points."
My connections to other Constellations.
I'd grown this hopelessly attached to three Incarnations after barely a single year of face-to-face contact—
"Racing Flame sent sacred icons of peace and repose. He said they absolutely must be placed in the dormitories where the patients are housed."
So how must a Constellation feel, watching an Incarnation of ten-plus years break in mind and soul?
When you've been agonizing with no means to heal them even with points—and then another Constellation shows up who can actually fix it?
Of course you'd come hauling gifts by the armload.
"Then place the icons in the dormitory wings. The rest of the offerings, hand them over to the Headmaster."
Living is living, wherever you go, and Constellations had begun lobbing a whole gift offensive at me for an equally wide spread of reasons.
Beyond those sacred icons Racing Flame sent for patient care, all sorts of other things were being delivered to the Academy.
Those Constellations had no real clue what a Dream Demon might want,
and I had trouble coming right out and asking for a specific gift myself,
so most of what arrived was earmarked for the Academy and its patients—but what did that matter?
The materials that had gone into building my personal Sanctum had been substantial, expensive goods; I could offset those costs with this influx.
And when the Academy grew prosperous, Lee Ha-rin and Kim Ha-eun grew prosperous right alongside it—hardly a bad outcome.
Getting greedy here and pocketing the Academy's share for myself would look pretty shabby anyway.
Wasn't the bulk of the work being handled by the Academy and Lee Ha-rin?
Kim Ha-eun and I merely lent a light touch with our magic when needed.
Besides—responding got awkward when the gift was aimed directly at me.
[The Constellation, Martial Epic that Sings of Romance, sends a gift to you, whose very heart is beautiful.]
Exhibit A. These bastards.
I could divide the gifts coming my way into three broad categories.
First: gifts sent to me as a "doctor."
Things like the sacred icons Racing Flame provided—items meant to help care for the patients.
The Unfading Giant Tree had sent over a whole batch of potted plants that eased mental stability,
and others had installed a miniature fountain that produced holy water in lieu of tap water.
Second: gifts sent to me as a "Constellation."
Valuables that could be used as offerings or converted into points.
From the pure sacrificial beasts sent by the hunters of the Southern Continent
to the various precious metals that arrived with instructions to use them on expanding and refurbishing the Temporary Sanctum—
I had no personal use for things like that, so I signed them over to the Academy Headmaster.
They served double duty: covering Sanctum construction costs and bribing him to look after my girls properly.
Finally, the third category. Gifts sent to me as a "man."
And these were damn awkward to figure out. Perfume and ties, handkerchiefs and bouquets, jeweled necklaces and rings.
None of them carried any magic; they were just pretty. Handing them off to the Academy felt trivial, and actually wearing them sounded like a chore.
that didn't mean I had any reason to refuse. Take what they give, convert it all to points, and move on.
"So, this one is...?"
"Yes. Please take good care of her."
That said, I didn't just take the offerings and pretend I hadn't noticed.
As a special gesture, I made a point of seeing to patients in person.
Kim Ha-eun was the one more skilled at wielding magical power.
But in a gender-reversed world, for a male Constellation to personally treat someone else's Incarnation—that was a mark of exceptionally high regard.
If someone sent a gift worth tens of thousands of points at minimum, I owed them at least that much sincerity.
With that in mind, I studied the blonde woman who entered with assistance.
Going by the name Martial Epic that Sings of Romance, she had the look of someone from the Western Continent.
※
Gentlemen in full finery loosened their own ties.
The colorful lengths of silk were bound with care to the armor ornaments of knights preparing to march.
It was a covert signal: return with honors, and I will loosen these clothes for you.
The knights' morale surged at the tender farewell delivered by beautiful men.
But while my comrades raised their lances brimming with confidence, my own chest lay heavy as stone.
Today, the armor wrapped around me felt like a coffin.
Thud, thud—with every step came the clatter of metal.
The gear was custom-forged and blessed by my Constellation, light as cloth,
yet the faint clinking and the ghost of its weight dragged at me like hands pulling me to the ocean floor.
'Something's wrong. Danger. This isn't... this isn't right...'
My heart pounded with foreboding.
I ought to have felt my chest swell at the sight of us marching out in full martial splendor, ought to have felt steady and reassured—
So why did I feel like a beast stampeding toward a cliff?
And that prickling sensation I'd been feeling all this while—what was it?
If we marched like this, every last one of us would die.
My pulse raced, my breathing turned ragged.
My vision narrowed; I faltered a moment, my breath catching so sharply I could barely draw it.
Dizzy, I clutched at my head, and suddenly someone was at my side supporting me.
At the same instant, a crisp, cool fragrance slipped into my nose and cleared my darkened sight.
"Ah—thank—you?"
"..."
Jet-black hair, rare on the Western Continent.
A face of perfect golden proportions, as if measured and carved by a sculptor's hand, kind eyes that held encouragement rather than worry.
Before I could ask who he was, I blinked and found a violet necktie neatly fastened around my shoulder pauldron.
'What...?'
I hadn't even grasped the situation before the thunder of hooves reached me.
I saw soldiers throwing the gates open, artillery troops preparing support fire.
The tang of gunpowder stung my nose, the boom of cannons rang in my ears, and my dear warhorse, ever at my side through battle, snorted fiercely—puh-rung, puh-rung.
Part of my memory appeared to have gone missing, but regardless, the gates were opening.
Once they did, I would have to ride out with my comrades and crush those loathsome monsters.
For a heartbeat a dark fantasy reared up from some corner of my chest—the gates opening, monsters flooding in before we could ready ourselves and butchering the soldiers—
but I felt it dissolve just as quickly, like a sugar cube melting into black tea.
A warm heat seeped through from beyond my armor.
The violet tie bound to my shoulder felt sturdier than anything in the world.
"For honor—!"
"For glory!"
I lowered my visor; my sight narrowed further.
Beside the still-shut gate, I spotted a soldier striking a dashing salute to see us off.
And I also saw the monster clawing its way through that gate. Beyond it, countless more would come flooding in,
and they would slaughter us—slaughter me—horribly.
A Nightmare I had relived again and again.
But this time was different.
"Push through—!"
I seized the reins and dug in my spurs.
The Constellation-blessed horse struck the earth till it rang.
The soldier whirling around in shock, the beast-like monster already opening its maw to tear off the arm still raised in salute,
the battle cries of my comrades who answered the sudden charge as one body—
The world slowed and narrowed again.
I watched as the monster that had meant to rip the soldier's arm free with its teeth was impaled on the tip of a cavalry spear and burst into a crushed smear of meat.
The magic-laden spearhead plowed through the gate pinned beneath the monster-wave and drove forward.
A scene utterly unlike the Nightmare I had always dreamed.
Hooves advanced over shredded corpses.
A few more beats of galloping, and the blessing bestowed by my Constellation swept us ahead faster than the wind.
The gentlemen who had tied their ties to us stood hand in hand and sang, offering glory to the Constellation.
The sweet-voiced hymn rang out and bound the monsters that dared to bare their fangs.
A strange heat, pulsing in time with my heart, pushed up from my throat and burst forth on its own.
"Hraaah—ahahahaha! Push, push, push through—!"
No one answered.
I heard only the innumerable hoofbeats following me at the vanguard.
Beyond my narrowed vision, hundreds, thousands of monsters were visible, but no fear could find its way into my chest.
A bizarre sense of fulfillment filled my heart alongside courage.
I spurred my horse on and punched through the monster-wave.
At the edge of that disorienting field of corpses lay a vast grassland, and at its far end, a pure white building.
Not once thinking to wheel my horse around, I sank into a trance and drove forward.
At some point, the hoofbeats of my comrades could no longer be heard.
Like breaking the surface of deep water, I steadied my ragged breathing and looked ahead.
There stood a man who had tied a handkerchief to me.
I moved to present my tie to that beautiful, softly smiling gentleman, to offer it together with my glory—
but what my fingertips touched was not the tie fastened to a steel pauldron.
"A-are you all right, senior?"
Soft infirmary robes, and a junior supporting me.
"What in the... what is this situation...?"
"You've come to your senses!"
Swoosh! They lunged in and pulled me into a hug, pressing my face into their chests.
I almost snapped at them, what the hell were they doing all rubbing up on each other like that,
but no strength came to the fist I tried to raise, and I had no choice but to go limp in their arms.
I wouldn't get an explanation of what had happened until several minutes of women pressing their bodies together had passed.
Would it have killed them to fill me in a little sooner?