—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: JayM
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
This was a terrible nightmare.
This damn black sphere seemed to contain all the nightmares connected to maintain the dream world, and other people’s nightmares were flowing into me against my will.
It was fortunate that none of the nightmares belonged to those I had contacted so far.
Lilac and Professor Cathy’s nightmares were also absent, so they must have woken up on their own.
Right, Lilac, it’s about time you did something. After all I’ve done for you.
However, only a few woke up on their own, and most people’s nightmares were becoming increasingly disturbing.
For example, Joo-ri’s nightmare initially just involved not being acknowledged by Cheon Yoo-hak, but as time passed, the content subtly changed.
It shifted to dreams where she was in Ga-eul’s position from the beginning of the semester, or dreams where Cheon Yoo-hak callously rejected her confession, calling her useless. The content became increasingly cruel.
Yoo-na and Ha-ni weren’t much different.
Yoo-na dreamt of Lilac rejecting her after finding out her true nature, saying he couldn’t accept a half-demon.
Ha-ni dreamt of her father lamenting that she wasn’t a boy.
All their dreams were becoming more disturbing.
Some dreamt of losing loved ones.
Some dreamt of failing to take revenge.
Some dreamt of being betrayed.
They weren’t exactly pleasant scenes.
But that wasn’t what I meant by a terrible nightmare.
Honestly, it might sound harsh, but watching other people’s nightmares was still bearable for me.
I was just watching, after all. I wasn’t experiencing them directly, so how threatening could they be?
I thought I might go crazy after seeing thousands of them, but perhaps because the human brain was more resilient than I thought, or perhaps because Saint’s Will was giving me some kind of buff, I was holding up.
Wait, but why was I holding up so well?
Then what was so terrible? It wasn’t the incoming nightmares, but the nightmare already within me.
A part of the nightmare that was emitting a terrible energy from beyond the barrier of noise had crossed over due to the Succubus Queen’s power.
But it was such a vicious nightmare that the Succubus Queen’s power, instead of making it worse, struggled and fled every time it touched the dream, as if in pain.
…What was it?
What was in there that caused such a reaction?
I felt the urge to escape this place as soon as possible and the need to confront it eventually at the same time.
“…I told you to have sweet dreams.”
Since watching other people’s dreams didn’t change anything, it seemed like confronting this was the right answer.
I reached out and touched my own nightmare.
It started with the memory of the day I met her in the orphanage after being abandoned by my mother and feeling alienated.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Ugeeeeeeeeeek…!!!!”
“Who’s a pathetic little runt? I was trying to help you because you looked so gloomy, and you’re talking like a little shit?”
…Ah, um, right. I remembered. I was smaller than other kids my age due to malnutrition, and as the price for my irresponsible cursing, I was put in a cobra clutch.
“You gangster’s wife…”
“Why are you bringing gangsters into this? Even gangsters have the right to choose, don’t they?”
The hellish cobra clutch finally ended when the watching kids started whispering.
“I’m letting you off easy, so stay on your knees, runt.”
“…Yes.”
The little devil beat up two more spectators and then turned her back to me.
“Hey, everyone here is like you. You’re not the only one who’s unhappy, so cheer up~”
…My face looked like this because you beat me up. I wanted to say that, but I couldn’t, knowing it would only trigger a merciless round two.
“And read the story I wrote.”
I couldn’t follow the conversation.
“Huh? You don’t want to?”
“Wow! That sounds fun!”
But I didn’t like being hurt…
I reluctantly opened what she claimed was a story, and a truly surreal content was written there.
-The rabbit and the turtle decided to have a race. The rabbit said:
“My dear turtle, my friend, I am faster than you on land, but you can swim faster in the sea. We excel in different areas, so why do you try to beat me even on land?”
“Being born in the sea is something I was given, not something I earned through effort. I never wished for such a thing. I felt certain that I was doing something worthwhile for the first time when I tried to run faster on land. So, I want to test this new skill I learned.”
“How arrogant. Not satisfied with what you have and encroaching on another’s domain. Truly arrogant. But if you insist.”
A race under the moon without spectators. The turtle was confident.
He worked hard. While the rabbit was lazy and didn’t hone his skills, he diligently practiced running on the unfamiliar land, so the gap between them must have narrowed.
He stood at the starting line.
The signal sounded, and the turtle ran.
A good start.
His body felt light as he dashed forward faster than usual, and the rabbit was nowhere in sight.
I can win.
“My dear turtle, is that all your effort amounts to?”
That thought shattered…
…the moment he heard the voice of the rabbit, who hadn’t even started yet.
Whoosh.
The rabbit stomped the ground.
The distance closed.
So this was what it was like when a creature born to run truly ran.
The finish line, which he thought was right in front of him, seemed so far away.
He thought it looked like the same one step, but the difference was immense.
He ran desperately, but something white flashed past him.
He thought he was close, but he wasn’t.
He thought he had narrowed the gap, but it was a gap he could never close.
“I also wouldn’t be able to beat you in the water. What we are born with, that is talent.”
The rabbit crossed the finish line.
There were no judges, no spectators. But the turtle had no choice but to admit defeat.
“Even I am just prey to the hawk that soars in the sky. There are domains. Each with their own…”
The end of the new rabbit and turtle story.-
“How was it? Fun, right?”
…No? It was shocking and terrifying.
There were too many difficult words. It was hard to read.
I didn’t even understand the moral of the story.
The plot was forced.
But if I said that, I would get beaten up.
Even so, I couldn’t help but say it.
As a reader, I had standards when it came to books.
“It’s not fun. It’s strange. And unnecessarily difficult. The turtle provoking the rabbit from the start doesn’t make him a good protagonist.”
“What…?”
I braced myself for the inevitable beating and closed my eyes, but the merciless pain didn’t come.
“…?”
“I see. So the protagonist seems rude. I should fix that. Do you read a lot? Other kids hate reading.”
“Yeah, I like it.”
“Then you have to read every story I write from now on! Promise!”
…Yes, that was our first meeting.
She was a strange girl who loved writing stories, but her perspective was so unique that she only wrote bizarre stories, whether novels or fairy tales.
My life in the orphanage didn’t exactly get better after meeting her…
Unfortunately, the two children were too powerless to change anything just by meeting.
But, well, it was bearable.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Kang Ha-ni stared blankly at her father, who was berating her.
Why weren’t you a boy?
She used to hate hearing those words.
The day she first heard them, she wanted to ask him if he thought she chose to be born a girl.
They would have had a big fight if her father hadn’t apologized for his slip of the tongue.
“A girl.”
She hated it.
She hated that the disciples, who used to treat her like a cute younger brother, started keeping their distance from her.
She hated the bras that no longer fit her because of her growing breasts.
She hated that the gazes of those she considered family and brothers subtly lingered on her chest or scanned her body.
She was annoyed by her body changing against her will.
She almost wanted to die when she lost a sparring match while relying solely on strength before awakening her talent.
No, losing was fine.
What was truly unbearable was his attitude afterward, as if she had done something wrong, and his subtly condescending gaze.
The sword was more elegant than that.
So, she challenged him again and beat him.
She compensated for the growing difference in strength with flexibility and speed, overwhelming her agitated opponent with technique.
She even beat down the others who tried to stop her with wooden swords.
And the day she defeated all of the disciples except the superhumans, she awakened as a superhuman, like her father.
At first, her father was happy.
His secret swordsmanship was meant for superhumans, so he seemed pleased to be able to pass it on to his blood relative and not just a disciple.
But he still seemed bothered by the fact that she was a girl, and he muttered with a sad face.
“Why did it have to be you, a girl?”
She hated that lament that sounded like a curse.
Perhaps that was why she agreed when her father made that absurd suggestion.
Finding a husband.
Yes, she hated it so much…
“But I don’t hate it now.”
She understood now.
That his lament contained concern for her.
She realized it because his eyes that day looked a bit like her friend’s eyes when he looked at her after she collapsed during a fight with a villain.
“It wasn’t that kind of look.”
So, she drew her sword.
There was nothing on her waist just now, but when she reached for it, a sword was there.
Her father wasn’t just a parrot who repeated the same lament over and over.
So, this was an illusion.
She circulated her magical power.
There was no need to conserve it like before.
Her father, who was repeating the same words like a broken toy, and the disciples, who looked even more repulsive than in reality, disappeared.
Her mother was standing at the door.
“You will regret today’s decision.”
This must be fake too.
But it was okay to answer, right?
“Yes, I regretted it. I never thought I would fall in love.”
There was no need to pretend to be strong and imitate a man’s voice like usual.
“But I still don’t curse it. Maybe I was able to become close with So-hyun because of this foolish disguise.”
The illusion of her mother also began to fade.
“I’ll bring him home soon. He might not be perfect, and you might be disappointed, Father.”
She threw herself towards the entrance.
“Because he’s the one I love.”
Slash.
The imperfect world was bisected along the path of her swung sword.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Well, even with a friend, life was still hell.
I got food poisoning from curry made with poorly managed ingredients, and the orphanage director threw whatever he could get his hands on at us when he was in a bad mood.
I think I lost all faith in humanity around this time.
At least I became somewhat close to the other kids after we started getting beaten up equally by the director.
Well, you’d develop some camaraderie after dodging a Go board thrown by the director and gossiping together.
Our lives changed slightly…
…when a young teacher who introduced herself as ‘Cathy’ arrived.
It wasn’t her real name. She said she was planning to use the name ‘Candy,’ but there was a mistake on her name tag.
Her real name… I forgot. Honestly, I couldn’t even remember her face.
Her smiling face in the dream was blurry.
“I lived while receiving love, so I came here to return that love!”
But I clearly remembered that smile.
She was like the sun, cheerfully smiling and playing with us.
Ah, she was also my first love.
If a child’s love could be called love.
She said she had a younger brother, but she lost him in an accident, so she treated us like her own siblings.
She protected us when the director got angry, and thanks to her contributions, the food improved slightly.
We even got snacks once a week.
I learned later that she bought them with her own money.
“Ha-neul, why do you always have such a sullen face? You have such a cute face too.”
She knelt down and made eye contact with me.
It was a small gesture, but I had never experienced an adult doing that before, so it was fascinating.
It felt like she was truly making an effort to see me.
So, I foolishly thought back then…
Perhaps she could replace my mother.
Well, it was merely a delusion.
“Ha-neul, let’s smile! They say smiling when you’re tired makes you a winner!”
She was easily influenced by cheesy lines from books.
“Don’t try to do everything alone. You should rely on others. We’re all friends here!”
She was also good at saying embarrassing things.
“Ha-neul, you’ll probably be handsome when you grow up. Too bad, I would have reserved you if I were ten years younger.”
Ah, and she also liked to tease me.
‘Cheesy? Ha-neul, cheesy is a good thing. It’s better than being too embarrassed to express yourself!’
‘Kids grow up by fighting!’
‘Picky eater? You’ll grow out of it! I couldn’t eat bell peppers when I was young!’
And so on.
By the time we were in elementary school, she had become an irreplaceable friend and teacher to us.
That was probably why…
…I cried so much when she died in an accident.
People died so easily.
Even good people, even those close to me, could die absurdly easily if exposed to malice or caught up in a crime.
“…We made a promise.”
She promised to stay by our side until we graduated from elementary and middle school and saw what we became.
She promised to watch over us and make sure none of us went astray. But she died right before we started middle school.
“Liar.”
I think I started imitating her after she died.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
T/N – And so ends the mass release. Honestly, I feel a bit unsatisfied with ending it right here. Can’t be helped though, the arc is longer than I expected. Good thing I’m posting tomorrow per my regular schedule, huh?
Also, is that the author friend I spy? Figures that she would be a bully. Still, her rabbit and turtle story is really on brand with how the original story was written.
Then there’s this Teacher Cathy. She really seems to be the base model of Professor Cathy. She even has a brother who died in an accident.
Lastly, go best girl Ha-ni. Fighting~! 😂
If you find any mistakes, feel free to point them out in the comments.
Bros life fucking sucks 😭😭😭😭😭😭