Chapter 201 - A Mirror Reflected in a Mirror (3)

4

-What?

Everything before my eyes turned white.

The monster made a startled sound inside my head—no, inside my mind. The dream demon, too, had realized that something unusual was happening.

-What are you doing...? Are you attempting to invade [our world]? Impossible. You should have no terminal through which to access us. How on earth...?

"Scared?"

I sneered. I felt the dream demon flinch. Although I currently had no mouth with which to convey laughter, my provocative intent and emotions reached it without difficulty.

-You insolent...!

"People tend to run their mouths when they're not confident. Oh, but you're a deer. Your tongue was long to begin with."

-Such arrogance from a creature living in the wretched material realm. We command the dreams of all creation. Even if you set foot here, do you imagine you could remain sane for a moment?

"So you're giving me permission to enter?"

-Come, if you dare!

Okay.

I smiled inwardly.

"I'll take that as your consent, valued customer."

My entirely white field of vision transformed.

My mind was overlaid upon the mind of the dream demons.

[Congratulations!]

[You are the first outsider to visit the Dream World.]

[You are the first to accomplish this achievement.]

[You have been awarded 3000 Race Points!]

And the world unfolding before my eyes was like nothing I had ever seen.

A pink sky.

A color that seemed capable of sweetening my mouth just by looking at it. It was as though some transcendent being had lovingly brought to life a sky colored by an adventurous child.

"...! Mmph!"

The pink invaded not only the sky but the inside of my consciousness. Inside my consciousness? No. I can't distinguish its inside from its outside. Right now, I am consciousness itself.

"Uh..."

My memories are rapidly receding.

The things that make up who I am. Every footprint Kim Gongja has left up to now is being erased. Like tracks on a sandy beach swept away by a single wave. Swiftly, pink-tinged waves erode the shores of my memory.

"-----"

Children's laughter comes from somewhere.

An auditory hallucination.

A visual hallucination.

Before I know it, the sky has turned yellow instead of pink. The colors of my mind turn yellow with it.

The sky turns blue. My consciousness, too, spoils blue.

"Hmm."

My existence was transparent, like water in an Erlenmeyer flask. Each time this world dropped in another bead of colorful paint, my water turned red, yellow, blue.

A world where one instant flickered into the next.

This was the place where the dream demons lived.

"This is, a little, dangerous."

My past vanishes. My memories fade.

With each piece of the past that disappears, my room to maneuver shrinks; with each memory that fades, my shadow grows fainter.

My consciousness is hazy, as though drugged.

Now all I can perceive is the present.

It felt as though the slightest lapse would cost me my sense of self.

'If I were alone, I'd have been helpless.'

But the self is not the only thing that makes up a person.

Growing anxious, I hurriedly shouted.

"—Rebirth of a Hundred Ghosts."

Suddenly, my shadow expanded.

[Activating skill.]

My shadow was black. Not a translucent shade, but pure black. A pitch darkness that permitted no other color spread in every direction in an instant.

SHAAAA—

Black devours the pink sky. Swallows the yellow. Even the blue.

My shadow became tens of thousands of fingers, clawing at this world's sky from its edges. Scratched by black nails, the sky bled in a riot of colors.

"What the fuck?"

Where the pink paint melted and ran down, my hundred ghosts borrowed little pieces of my memory, and thus the people who made up my existence appeared one by one.

"What kind of random clusterfuck is this?"

The Flame Emperor.

A handsome man with a ponytail looked irritably around him.

"..."

Hungry Ghost.

A girl with half her face concealed by a mask of animal bones looked up at the sky. An icy chill lay in her eyes. Hungry Ghost gazed down upon the world as though regarding some beast's corpse.

"No, I'll brew the tea again right away. I'm sorry, Your Grace! I'll approach this as though I've just been reborn and make certain the tea has a lovely aroma... Huh? Uh, what is this? Fuck? What's happening?"

Golden Silk Blossom.

A young woman in a maid's uniform raised her head with a dimwitted look. She was kneeling on the floor, prostrated with all five points of her body against the ground. Incidentally, Lady Golden Silk Blossom, Sylvia Evanail, was working as a maid in our ducal household.

'Raviel...'

Apparently, she'd been summoned right in the middle of a thorough dressing-down from our duchess.

I'm happy to see that you're enjoying life, my love.

"Where are we?"

"Look over there. The sky is a rather peculiar color."

"Far too uncanny to be paradise. Good grief. Our young master certainly picks interesting places to wander!"

"Oh my..."

The Four Demon Lords.

The Demonic Cult's elite appeared, their ink-black robes fluttering. The Four Demon Lords marveled at the otherworldly scenery. By the time the hems of their robes had fluttered once, twice, the summoning of a thousand-strong Demonic Cult force was complete as well.

"Whew."

At last, I let out a sigh.

A place that could receive my breath had been established here.

"It's been a while, everyone."

The hundred ghosts turned to me. I looked at them. As our gazes crossed, my receding past returned. My memories became clear. The outline of my existence grew more distinct.

To the Flame Emperor, I am an enemy.

To Hungry Ghost, I am a liege.

To Golden Silk Blossom, I am her romantic rival's man.

To the cultists, I am the Young Cult Leader.

My vengeance, duty, love, responsibility. All of it was held in the eyes of the hundred ghosts. Just as I had made them hundred ghosts who could be reborn, they had made me the Kim Gongja I was today.

As long as they are here for me, I will not disappear.

"It's good to see you all. Except for that one chimpanzee over there swearing his head off."

"Huh? You talking about me?"

Yoo Suha scowled.

"Well, asshole, you dragged me out while I was working. You expect me to be polite?"

He wore a brown apron with [Café Planetarium] written on it. Yoo Suha worked part-time at the café run by the Librarian, and together with Kim Yul, he was making an enormous contribution to attracting customers.

Both Yoo Suha and Kim Yul had ponytails.

One was a lout who punctuated every sentence with profanity. The other was the silent, aloof city type. Even their hair colors made a matched black-and-white pair. No wonder the regulars bought Americanos every day until they were addicted to caffeine.

"What am I, some mobile barber service that comes whenever you call? Ha, a little shit your age, and nothing but bad manners. It's bad enough I never even made E-rank while I was alive, and now I'm dead and still cleaning up after some brat..."

"Go dance over there."

"Fuck!"

While Yoo Suha performed a hip-hop dance off to one side, I explained the situation to the hundred ghosts.

"Ooh, a race that parasitizes dreams. How interesting."

After hearing my story, Lady Golden Silk Blossom stroked her chin. Her experience as the celebrated 'flower of imperial high society' hadn't vanished; even in a maid's uniform, she shone with noble grace.

"Then this is a dream within a dream... A dream dreamed by succubi who live in dreams? It's similar to being encroached upon by a constellation. Isn't it romantic? I think it's romantic, butler."

"I'm not your butler. I'm the duchess's wife."

"Oh, don't fret over trifles, butler. You'll go bald that way. I can see an aura of baldness around you! I can feel it. Ah, I see it. I can see it! The Duchess of Ivansia sighing as she strokes the crown of her bald butler's head..."

"Right, you go dance over there too."

"Fuck!"

While Golden Silk Blossom demonstrated her waltz beside Yoo Suha, the remaining sane people discussed a plan.

"As that blonde maid pointed out, the dream demons' characteristics seem similar to those of constellations," Hungry Ghost said.

"To classify them, they are not combat-type constellations but special-type constellations. The sort that distorts phenomena by imposing its own ideas upon reality. ... Such beings cannot be overcome with force."

"Meaning they make up the rules however they please."

"Precisely, my liege."

CLACK.

Hungry Ghost adjusted her skull mask.

"Dreams have always been both recreations of experience and realizations of wishes. The act of dwelling on the past or feeling one's way toward the future. Of these, I believe the latter is what Your Lordship should focus upon. If you fulfill their wishes more satisfactorily than the dreams the dream demons have created, you will naturally be able to repel this world..."

At that moment, Hungry Ghost fell silent.

Bewilderment appeared in eyes that seemed as though they would remain indifferent in any season.

And Hungry Ghost wasn't the only one taken aback.

-Ahahaha! Tell me who I am!

CRACK.

A young woman appeared in the distance, riding in a magnificent four-horse carriage. Except it wasn't horses pulling it, but people. Scantily clad people. The young woman gleefully swung her whip at them.

-Come now! Hurry!

-Y-you are the brightest moon in the Empire, Her Majesty Empress Sylvia Evanail, revered by all the people!

-Ah, how sweet to hear! But your voices are rather feeble. A little more anguish. Praise me in voices that sound a little more like a wet rag being wrung out!

-Ah, merciful and beautiful Empress...!

-A little more!

It was Golden Silk Blossom.

More precisely, it was a dream figure who looked exactly like her.

"..."

"..."

Hmm.

We turned our heads and stared off to one side.

There, Golden Silk Blossom, still wearing her maid's uniform, was enthusiastically showing off her waltzing skills.

"Th-that's not me! It's a false illusion! Fabrications and propaganda from the ignorant masses!"

"No... But this is a world of dreams. In other words, [that] is your dream..."

"How offensive, butler! I'll sue you in an imperial court!"

"Half the nobles serving as judges in those courts receive patronage from our House Ivansia. You know that, right...?"

"Damn it! This is why I hate people in power!"

Golden Silk Blossom performed a triple axel in her maid's uniform.

Beside her, Golden Silk Blossom's dream... that is, the fragment manifested by the dream demons, laughed 'Ahahaha!' and whipped the people harnessed to the carriage with crack after crack.

Truly a world within a dream.

It was confusing as fuck.

"Ah."

Hungry Ghost belatedly collected herself and murmured.

"Um... It appears that our dreams have begun to be reflected here as well."

"Seems that way."

"This is another realm, my liege. The longer you remain, the more your original common sense will be warped and your knowledge distorted. Only by finding this world's core and resolving matters as quickly as possible can you keep your wits... minimize the damage."

She had probably meant to say, 'Only then can you keep from losing your mind.' I wholeheartedly agreed.

"Where would the core be? Any guesses?"

"Location has little meaning in a place like this. Direction is not what matters; sequence and order are."

"Hmm."

"To draw an analogy with the games commonly enjoyed in Your Lordship's world, this is linear rather than a sandbox. If you endure the dreams unfolding before you one by one, perhaps eventually... you will reach the [first dream] dreamed by the dream demons... Ah, that is... what I... think..."

There was a reason Hungry Ghost began stumbling over her words toward the end.

-Mr. Yoo Suha, here is the signature cocktail you ordered.

-Hmm, doesn't taste that good, does it? I could get this at a neighborhood bar.

-My apologies. For sullying your refined palate, I deserve to die a hundred, a thousand times.

-No, well. No need to go that far.

-Just as I expected of you, Mr. Yoo Suha... They say the riper the rice, the lower it bows, but surely there is not even room for a grain of rice in your heart.

-Hey, hey. You're exaggerating, man.

-My apologies. I inadvertently spoke my true feelings...

-Well, if that's how you really feel, I suppose there's no helping it.

The Yoo Suha manifested in the dream world wore a tank top and sweatpants.

Around him, an endless stream of gentlemen in suits gathered.

-Mr. Yoo Suha, this is a watch our brand is preparing to release. If you would place this shabby piece of trash upon your noble wrist, it would be a true honor for us benighted folk.

-Huh? It's not great. Well, I'll wear it out of consideration for your effort. But I'll toss it after two days.

-We will remember those two days for the next thousand years.

-Mr. Yoo Suha, we have assembled the Tower's most famous chefs to prepare a full-course meal. If your oral cavity might derive even the slightest enjoyment from this cuisine...

-Ah, you're really fucking noisy. Bring it over.

-To think you would tell me I am noisy... I am deeply moved.

Far in the distance, the sky glowed pink upon pink.

Silently, we looked at the 'real' Yoo Suha.

He wore the expression of someone whose swallowed phlegm had somehow come back up onto his tongue.

"What, fuck. You think you're all clean?"

"... My liege," Hungry Ghost said.

Her eyes, visible beyond her skull mask, were serious.

They said she did not want to be lumped together with those creatures as one of the hundred ghosts.

"Your humble servant beseeches you: if you intend to take someone into your service, please exercise wisdom and screen them, then screen them again, before accepting them."

For some reason, I felt apologetic.