Chapter 97: Constellation, A Tiny Nightmare 1
Chapter 97: Constellation, A Tiny Nightmare 1
Han Ye-ji clung to me as if she'd do anything I asked.
Lee Ha-rin tried to take over the moment I lifted a finger.
Kim Ha-eun went to extremes, all under the guise of efficiency.
Even the Unfading Giant Tree—too mortified by what she'd done under the influence to contact me for a while—had come back.
Slow but thorough, she'd wrung out my essence, kissed me again,
showered with me under the vine-shower that streamed cool water—and only then seemed to sober up.
When she turned to me with a face on the verge of tears, trying to say something, I sealed her lips with mine and came straight back here. Her reaction had been intense enough that I figured I ought to give her at least a week to pull herself together.
I'd had four beautiful maidens, been loved and revered by them, and received their devoted service.
The physical pleasure and the soul-deep satisfaction were beyond words.
Yet the human heart is a fickle thing—lie down, and instantly you want to stretch out even more.
In my previous life, I had barely been able to meet beautiful women at all, and I treasured these ones—but sometimes I just wanted to laze around without a single thought in my head.
"Aaah, fuck. That hits the spot."
"This liquor's unusual. Got a woody scent I've never smelled before."
Sometimes a man needs to sprawl out in complete comfort, mind utterly blank.
Like spending a weekend in your underwear on the bed with a can of beer, killing time with zero purpose.
A place where you can slump onto the floor in a rumpled mess,
grab something jerky-like and chew on it, knock back a drink, and just exist without a care.
"Quit staring. I'm not fighting you."
That was exactly what Loyal Fang's Sanctum offered.
"A single spar in exchange for the liquor—how about it?"
"I'll just pay you in points, thanks."
He'd let off steam once already today, a proper all-out brawl,
and Loyal Fang didn't jump a man who'd told him no. He clicked his tongue, disappointed by my refusal.
When I asked him what the hell was so great about fighting, he shot back with then why are you always chasing sex?—and what exactly was I supposed to say to that?
I happened to be a Dream Demon who'd found a groove in the passive role, seducing women. The bastard was a werewolf who loved to fight. On what grounds was I supposed to argue?
I sipped brandy—or was it cognac?—in place of that pale nomadic tribe's liquor and chewed salon gossip like a drinking snack.
"Khah—if it'd been me, I'd have bolted in under five minutes. Dream Demons are a damn exhausting breed. Wrapping yourself in clattering ornaments and playing coy just to get a single mating in—how do you stand it?"
"Says the guy who pulls every stupid trick in the book just to land one fight."
There we were: me, performing ideal masculinity to fit a gender-reversed world,
and Loyal Fang, who'd rather die than bother with any of that, holed up in his Constellation's space in self-imposed isolation.
The guy hated being treated as a "male" in this world so much that instead of taking a human as his Incarnation, he'd made animals his familiars and earned his points that way. Had to respect the commitment, I supposed.
Though even he hadn't beaten loneliness and lust.
I sprawled sideways against the inside of his tent, chewing my way through a spread that was meat and more meat.
Dried meat, roast meat, boiled meat, blanched meat, meat roasted bone-in.
A wolf claiming carnivore's privilege—I grabbed whatever looked good and ate.
Sauce smeared across fingers and fur, food scraps tumbling under the table—a manners-free disaster zone.
Neither of us minded.
What held my interest was the salon talk, which had flowed out naturally.
And what snagged his interest out of all of it was the maids and butlers who'd served at the salon.
Manifestations of magic power that honestly looked indistinguishable from an Authority for pouring tea and an Authority for changing clothes.
That carried us into a verbal sparring match.
"No, I mean—maybe there is a talent like that, but who makes someone an Incarnation over just that?"
"You should've seen the estate—a huge garden that went on forever. Bet the guy spends more than half his point income on luxury. At that scale, hiring Incarnations like that as staff isn't exactly unthinkable."
Like men at a drinking session always do, the two of us started earnestly calculating the most useless things.
Whether a 100,000-point-cost maid Incarnation and her fellow servants drew salaries in points or cold hard cash, and similar idiocy.
Mid-conversation, something soft and warm launched itself into my arms.
"Gah—fuck! What the—?"
"Ah—my messengers. Thought I'd send some to your Incarnation. You liked that white fur last time, so I put a little work into it."
Nestled in my arms was a long-haired pup, almost like a Samoyed.
Come to think of it, I hadn't been this close to a living, breathing animal in so long that the whole thing felt surreal.
In the apocalypse, where there wasn't even enough food for humans and abandoning the elderly was routine, who the hell kept pets?
The only animals you saw were swarms of vicious rats that went after the wounded
and the cockroaches that had stubbornly endured.
The white puppy suddenly cradled in my arms started licking under my chin, and I startled hard—
at which the bastard, muzzle-fur still damp from his drink, cackled and laughed at me.
"Anyway—what's with the tiny body? Thought Dream Demons were supposed to look like Humes. You switch into that form and the little ones just pounce."
A thick wolf-paw lifted the tent flap, revealing all manner of animals circling nearby.
Not hunting—circling the tent like dogs or cats who'd spotted a new toy,
looping round and round me. Were elves friendly with animals as well as plants?
"I don't fully understand it myself."
A dog just a bit too large to call a medium breed thumped its tail furiously in my arms. Thump-thump-thump-thump.
Thrilled about something, it kept jabbing its damp nose all over my chest.
With my body shrunken like this, I felt like I'd been packed in fur.
Right. Ever since that first night with the Unfading Giant Tree, my clone and my real body had both defaulted to the form of an elf boy.
I'd become fixed—outside of entering someone else's lucid dream, my body no longer shifted even when other people or Constellations were around.
Which meant even that fight-crazed Loyal Fang didn't just lunge at me out of nowhere anymore.
If I stepped into his dreams, I'd probably transform into some gargantuan muscleman who could deadlift 900 pounds,
but who in their right mind would jump into a bloody brawl like that for someone else's amusement?
Sidestepping the Furry Ones who were creeping in against the backdrop of the sprawling plains,
I slipped out of Loyal Fang's space.
※
After my body turned small, my Incarnations' reactions shifted—quite a bit, actually.
If anything, I was faintly relieved: instead of lust, what surged up toward this childish form was protection and worship.
Though, thinking back—what was the deal with those two who'd stared at me so hungrily at the salon?
Had they come from a world where child marriage still existed?
Maybe Constellations didn't pay much mind to bodily age,
or maybe they just had a thing for young boys—in any case, I set those two aside.
"Allow me to carry you."
"...I'll walk on my own two feet. Put me down."
The fuss felt, perhaps, a little excessive.
Sure, I had jet-black hair and soft-pale skin that contrasted with it,
plus that particular elven beauty—but was this reaction not a bit much?
True, a strapping 180-centimeter man walking alone
probably landed differently than a 150-centimeter boy glancing around.
But did that really justify carrying me all the way from the Academy's temporary Sanctum to the patients' ward?
"Ah... I worried your legs might hurt."
"I'm perfectly capable of walking this far."
I could manage a softer tone of voice; that much I'd grant her.
But that was not the same thing as agreeing to be toted around in a girl's arms like a doll.
She wasn't even giving me a piggyback—she wanted to carry me out front, in both arms, the way you'd lift a big stuffed toy. Who in their right mind would say yes to that?
Setting aside the fact that magic-enhanced muscles had hoisted me effortlessly despite the unstable position,
did she genuinely believe this was the respect owed to a Constellation?
Maybe meeting me in reality instead of in dreams had her too worked up to contain herself.
Lee Ha-rin's arms had been warm, at least. The moment I slipped free and walked the Academy grounds, eyes converged.
As if to prove Lee Ha-rin wasn't the only one reacting to a cute boy's body, gazes snapped toward me immediately.
Han Ye-ji and Kim Ha-eun's reactions aside, people's eyes changed in an instant.
The looks aimed at a tall, handsome man and the looks aimed at a small, adorable boy were bound to differ.
Emotions from Academy instructors, passing cadets, and patients' guardians surged in like a tide.
Thankfully, a tide where the lust component was kept extremely low.
'More efficient than I thought.'
In marketing, the three things that grab human attention were supposedly beautiful women, children, and animals.
Here, it'd probably be beautiful men and children instead.
Maybe that explained it—I could feel all kinds of desire whipping up around me and prickling against my senses, protective instinct prominent among them.
At this rate, I'd probably grow about 1.5 times faster than usual just by walking around.
A Dream Demon's whole deal was stimulating people's desires and unconscious minds.
A torrent of magic power that simply couldn't compare to the days I'd wandered Han Ye-ji's office carrying coffee while authentication posts went up online.
"There you are."
I was ambling toward the Academy shop, soaking in magic power and stares, when Kim Ha-eun approached from a distance.
Along with a violent mana veil that instantly flattened the torrent around me into a gentle brook.
"Hm. Special visitors again today?"
With every step she took toward me,
the deep violet mana barrier—unfurled like an enormous theater curtain—retreated bit by bit.
Beyond that blackout-curtain mana veil, something terrible writhed,
but I had zero desire to verify what it was and turned my eyes straight back to Kim Ha-eun.
Fighting fantasy monsters really gave a whole different sense of scale to Nightmares, huh.
"Yes. Knights of the Martial Epic that Sings of Romance—they came previously as patients."
"I said I'll walk."
Kim Ha-eun, like Lee Ha-rin before her, knelt smoothly in front of me
and tried to slide her arm behind my knees to lift me—so I tapped her forehead and pushed her back.
Did the people of this continent share some cultural taste for carrying around 150-centimeter boys?
This body could handle magic power, clone or not.
It was at least sturdier and had better stamina than your average adult man—no, adult woman.
Even if my stride had shortened and I had to take more steps, I was hardly incapable of moving around the Academy.
Far ahead, I spotted the knights—uniformed as ever, hands resting on the hilts of their practice swords at their waists, waiting for me.