WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Surviving in the Magic Academy

Chapter 126

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Koite leaned far back and worked his mouth as if chewing over the dream of mine he had just eaten. A moment later, he let out a small burp.

After wiping his mouth, he scratched his head and looked at me. I could see a flicker of interest in his eyes.

“You really are strange. I didn’t think one dream would make me this full. Of course, considering how filthy it tastes, I doubt it’s only yours. There are too many anchors dropped in it.”

“Anchors, you mean?”

Anchors. What did that mean? I blinked quietly. Koite tapped his plump cheek and nodded. Then he gathered magical power in his finger and gently pressed it against the table.

“Yeah. Usually, a dream has one anchor dropped in it. For puppeteers, that anchor is especially clear. Like Professor Irian, was it? The way that Professor appeared in your dream. But you have far too many.”

The magical power from him lightly pressed down on the table. He tilted his head, then soon shrugged.

“It might mean something else is mixed into you. Well, I don’t know what that is yet. You’ll have to find the reason yourself. It’s your dream, after all.”

At those words, I lowered my head slightly. Just by seeing and eating my dream, he could tell this much? He certainly deserved to be called a dream demon.

I quietly placed a hand on my chest. An anchor. Was Professor having that kind of effect on me? I felt all over again how enormous my obsession had become. To think I was looking for Professor even in my dreams. I needed to do something about this.

“Of course, I can help a little. Like I just said, I think we just need to dig a bit deeper. So shall we continue that conversation from earlier? What do you think? Interested in buying a dream?”

As Koite said that, he leaned forward a little. Then he clasped his hands together and grinned wide enough to show his teeth. His eyes were still gleaming slyly.

What I had experienced just now was only a trial version of a dream. Even so, it had felt extremely real. If I could, I did want to experience a proper dream at least once. The problem was that I lacked points. By an absurd amount.

“Well, you’re short on points, aren’t you? If there’s really no other way, I don’t mind putting it on credit.”

Koite leaned back again and rested his swollen body against the chair. Facing him, I slowly did the math. Credit. How many points came in for me?

The tower paid me ten thousand points every month. That was the fee for renting out the mirror bugs. Aside from that, around another five thousand points came in from selling information or taking fees from things like tributes.

All together, I earned about fifteen thousand points a month. As the lectures settled into place, my supply of points had steadily increased like this. It was quite stable.

Even so, one hundred thousand points was still a heavy burden. I had expenses going out as quickly as income came in. Points always had a way of vanishing like that.

The ritual magic I had been working on right before coming here had swallowed several months’ worth of points by itself. Of course, it had all failed. So I needed to spend points on the next ritual right away too. Someone like me had no room to save.

Sitting there, I quietly stroked the teacup in front of me and smiled bitterly. Seeing me like that, Koite lightly scratched his nose.

After thinking for a moment, he rubbed his chin. Soon, he grinned and raised his thumb.

“Then there’s no helping it. I’ll have to apply the junior discount.”

I blinked at those words. A junior discount? Koite nodded and burped softly. A little magical power leaked from his mouth.

“Ugh, I’m full. I’ll make it cheap. I’ll cut about seventy percent off. Let’s go into your dream once.”

Seventy percent. That was practically giving it away. If I was having a dream worth one hundred thousand points, I would only have to pay thirty thousand. That much might be manageable somehow.

After calculating the points for a moment, my eyes sparkled. A junior discount! What moving words. Seeing me like that, Koite snorted. Then he lightly picked his nose.

“Well, I’m joking.”

He flicked his finger. The thing that shot out from his hand bounced into one corner of the room. As I stared blankly, Koite narrowed his eyes and patted his belly.

“What discount? Networking isn’t part of my creed. I already showed enough goodwill by letting you into a trial dream earlier. Normally, even dream exploration like that would easily cost fifty thousand points.”

“If I’d known your dream would be this weird, I wouldn’t have done it for free,” he grumbled, crossing his arms. Then he looked at me with a sullen face. His eyes looked cold, but they also moved in a complicated way, as if he was calculating something.

“I only did that because you said you came after hearing from Mauro. Providing convenience because you’re a fellow puppeteer is that person’s philosophy. I’m different. The closer the relationship, the more thoroughly points must be calculated.”

He lightly jerked his chin. Then a table drawer opened, and a sheet of paper slowly floated up from inside. After checking it, he placed it on the table.

“And you haven’t forgotten that one hundred thousand points is the base price, have you? Like I said earlier, it gets more expensive as options are added, so take a look.”

He held the paper out to me. I carefully accepted it and began looking over the contents. Mira leaned against me and checked it with me.

“Oh my, the prices are incredible.”

Mira covered her mouth with a surprised look and murmured. I was certain I was making a similar face. Several items were written on the paper.

Those items were neatly organized into a table. At the very top of the paper, the base price was set at one hundred thousand points. And there was not much one could do with that base price.

It only allowed a literal “one-night dream.” It was exactly what I had first thought of when I imagined this place: its work as an entertainment establishment. With only the basic dream, one could do nothing more than satisfy simple desires like that.

Then what did someone have to do to go beyond that basic dream? There was a very kind guideline for it. All kinds of options were written below.

Additional puppets, added symbols, background changes, and so on. All sorts of functions that let a person set up a dream to their taste were listed there. Below them were detailed explanations for each item too.

When I flowed magical power into it, it gently conveyed the meaning to me. Like that, I slowly grasped each item. One could change gender or face one’s past self. Each function was incredibly fascinating.

And as fascinating as they were, the prices were brutal. Even the “Black Sun,” the sun that had guided me in my dream just now, was a kind of option. Looking at that, I understood that Koite had shown me quite a bit of goodwill.

That Black Sun function alone cost thirty thousand points. If it had gone according to what was written on this paper, the price of the options alone would have easily reached fifty thousand points, just as he had said.

Adding the base price made it one hundred fifty thousand points. In other words, I needed a total of one hundred fifty thousand points to continue the dream from earlier. The more options were added, the higher the dream’s price rose. If every option was included, the number of digits would change completely.

As I looked at that price with so many zeroes attached, I once again realized that this place was on the 7th floor. I quietly looked around. The reception room where we sat was decorated brilliantly.

Magical power leaked from the paintings on the wall, and even from the light teacup placed in front of me. That meant they were quite valuable. When I paused like that, Koite lightly waved his hand.

“The dream from earlier might not be enough. So the course I recommend for you is this. Of course, the price will go up a bit more.”

Magical power faintly flowed from his hand and formed a pen. The pen approached the paper in my hand and began checking several items.

Things like guiding me into a deeper dream and allowing me to stay aware inside the dream. Every single one was ridiculously expensive. Koite grinned at me.

“What do you think? Like it? Don’t worry, I’m not ripping you off. You’ll be satisfied for every point you spend.”

He chuckled and withdrew the pen. Feeling uneasy, I looked down at the paper. To purchase all the items he had checked, I would need roughly four hundred thousand points.

One hundred thousand points was already burdensome, and this was even harder to handle. Four hundred thousand points. The weight of that number began to press down on me. Somehow, the light paper felt very heavy.

I remembered feeling the weight of points once before at the auction house. Like back then, this place was also located on the 7th floor of the city. The upper floors were still a world apart from me. Prices here went beyond imagination like this.

With a bitter smile, I put down the paper. Then I looked at Koite. He met my eyes and grinned again. His white teeth sparkled in the light.

I was hopelessly short on points. This was impossible for me right now. Koite was kindly teaching me my own limits like this. The greed lingering around his eyes was very clear.

He had already confirmed that I had no points. Then why was he explaining everything despite knowing that? I thought carefully about it.

Soon, I realized one thing. He wanted something from me badly enough to be this kind. Otherwise, there would have been no need to keep me here. He could have just thrown me out.

So I calmly waited for him to continue. Koite studied my face, then tilted his head slightly. He straightened up from the chair and spoke to me.

“Well, you seem to have noticed everything, so I guess there’s no need to say more. Normally, the standard approach is to pressure someone harder with points and squeeze them dry, but I don’t think you’ll fall for it. I did think you seemed pretty sharp from the moment I first saw you. Damn it, a guy like this should be at my side. The other puppet-loving bastards are hopeless.”

He lightly clicked his tongue and clapped his hands. Then the puppet waiting on one side of the room approached. It was the woman puppet from earlier. Still wearing the rabbit mask, she stood beside Koite.

When Koite held his hand out to her, she lightly twitched her rabbit ears. Then she pulled a bundle of papers from her chest. He placed it on the table. With his hand on top of it, he smacked his lips slightly.

“I don’t expect points from someone like you who stays on the lower floors. I expected you to be short on points, of course. So pay with something else instead. Then I’ll look into your dream.”

“What do I have to do?”

I glanced sideways at the bundle of papers and asked Koite. There had to be a reason he had brought that out. He probably had something to ask of me. This could be called a request, then.

I scratched my head slightly. Somehow, I felt as though I had been receiving quite a few of these requests lately. Tiena had done it, Mauro had done it, and now Koite in front of me was doing it too. All of them were puppeteers.

He stirred magical power and struck the bundle of papers with it. Following the wave of magical power, the bundle quickly bounced toward me. I calmly caught it and looked at Koite.

He let out another small burp and glanced at Mira. Mira met his gaze and smiled lightly. After briefly looking her up and down, he nodded.

“As expected, she really is excellent. Do a job with me. As an extension of that business idea I mentioned before. Lend me your puppet for a while. And while we’re at it, I’ll borrow you too. I need a lot of hands.”

As he said that, he jerked his chin at the documents in front of me. It meant I should read them. I slowly turned the first page. Then I blinked.

It was a bundle of receipts. The dream items someone had purchased were listed out here. At the end, the total number of points was also shown. One million eight hundred thousand points. An unbelievable price.

After checking the various options attached below like notes, I glanced at Koite. He clasped his hands behind his head and sank into the chair. Then he made a slightly troubled expression.

“Normally, this wouldn’t be something I’d tell you. It was a reservation made three months ago, and there’s only one month left now. I thought I’d prepared enough, but a problem came up. I’m short on puppets. Puppets.”

Puppets? I looked around. There were many puppets in this room. Dozens of them, including the rabbit-eared one from earlier. Were even these not enough? After noticing my gaze, Koite lightly clicked his tongue.

He waved his hand. With that, the surrounding puppets quietly withdrew. Koite shrugged at me. Then he lightly waved his hand.

“Not puppets like these. I mean puppets with clear egos, like the one beside you. Originally, our shop’s aces were supposed to fill those spots. But a big problem came up.”

He lightly tapped the table. Then the rabbit puppet perked up her ears again. She slowly approached him and held out a crystal ball. Inside it, something shimmered like fog.

“This is a dream in progress right now. All the other puppets have been sent in here. But it still hasn’t been resolved. Damn it, my calculations were perfect. I can’t give up on it either, since it’s worth five million points. That bastard went and locked the dream shut.”

He lightly slapped the crystal ball with his palm and grumbled. A dream worth five million points. It was truly a dreamlike story. I glanced at Mira. The thing embedded in her body was worth about that much.

That frame contained power sturdy enough to endure at least a little of Mira’s strength. But a single dream was being sold for a similar price?

The bundle of papers in front of me was the same. One million eight hundred thousand points. It made the four hundred thousand points I needed feel like nothing. Koite grumbled for a while, glanced at Mira, then shifted his gaze to me.

“So I was wondering whether to cancel this reservation. Then, right on time, a useful guy who needs my help rolled in. I can’t let a strange coincidence like this slip away. So one month from now, handle this job with me. The dream must go on.”

He grinned at me. Then he rested his chin on one hand and began gently waving his plump fingers.

“Once the whole job is finished, I’ll cut down the price of your dream depending on how satisfied the customer is. I’ll give you some pay too. ...Damn it, if things hadn’t gone wrong, I wouldn’t be taking this kind of loss.”

He let out his inner thoughts like a grumble. Hearing that, I felt slightly relieved. It was because of the intention I felt from him. There were traces of impatience and desperation in it.

Koite had deliberately shown those emotions. By revealing them on purpose, he was trying to express trust in me. It was a very skillful method.

And that meant this was important to him. I could read that much, but my face merely stiffened awkwardly.

I did not know how this dream would unfold. I still had not properly grasped how this Dream Theater worked.

If I made a mistake and ruined that dream, I might have to compensate him for all those points. I shuddered slightly. But that was only worry.

I recalled the dream I had just had. The sight of Professor wandering around everywhere. That had been a fifty-thousand-point trial version. Then what would a dream with far more points invested in it look like?

I grew a little curious. Also, I needed his help to recall my dream again. I could watch this job and see whether these dreams would actually help me.

Of course, this was not only my problem. I glanced at Mira. From the look of things, Koite seemed to have his eye on her more than me. Her will mattered.

Luckily, Mira seemed to like this job very much. Her eyes sparkled as she lightly clapped her hands. Then she gently narrowed her eyes, fully showing her interest.

“Oh my, does that mean I’ll be entering someone else’s dream? I’ve wanted to try that.”

After saying that, she gently leaned against me. Then she lightly poked my side. When I glanced at her, I saw her nod slightly. It meant I should accept this job.

“Understood. Since sunbae is requesting it, how could I refuse? I will do my best.”

At that, Koite laughed loudly and nodded. Following his movement, the flesh under his chin shook lightly too.

“Hehe, this should be fun. I think it will help Evron too.”

Mira said that and placed her head against my chest. Then she continued in a whisper.

“So you must not forget my help, okay? I’ll leave this as a kind of debt.”

She smiled brightly. Facing her smile, I gave a bitter one of my own. A debt. What would she ask for later? A slight worry rose in me. But for now, I needed to do my best with the matter right in front of me.

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