Chapter – 01
The Constellation Gives Both Illness and Cure
‘Isn’t what the Constellation bestows similar to Korean divine possession?’
If an Awakener is unlucky, they meet a crazy Constellation.
There are even cases where a Constellation, like a stalker, directly intervenes in the Awakener’s life and pressures them into a contract.
How is that any different from divine possession?
Ah, I guess it’s different because it’s not passed down through generations. But in the 21st century, the era of the Great Gate, it’s pretty similar, isn’t it?
If you’re lucky, you could contract with a high-grade Constellation and thrive as an Awakener, but if you’re unlucky, you could be ruined in an instant, as if you’d been scammed in a jeonse contract fraud.
There were plenty of cases where you couldn’t get help in critical moments, or the sponsored items you received were useless weapons and gear. Some Constellations just interfered in everything, actually giving you debuffs instead.
So, I, who had somehow become an F-grade Awakener, resolved never to contract with a Constellation, no matter what.
‘Any Constellation that would come to an F-grade is probably all the same, right?’
But one of the common points mentioned by those who had suffered from contracts with Constellations.
They said the Constellation invaded their daily lives even when they didn’t want it, forcing them into a contract unwillingly.
And unfortunately, the Constellation that had come to me like a stalker seemed to be that kind.
Ding─!
The Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’ is requesting a contract. (new)
[Unread Message]
The Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’ is requesting a contract. (85,620 messages)
‘You crazy bastard!’
I let out an involuntary sigh as I unconsciously checked my status window during the company lunch break. I’d left them alone because deleting them was bothersome, and in just a week, they had piled up like that.
It had already been a month. Every time I saw the accumulating messages, like something an obsessive ex would do, my resolve grew stronger. I thought, this is exactly the kind of guy you should never accept.
The eternal regret was that I couldn’t report a Constellation to the police station.
Ding─!
The Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’ says, “Let’s see how far you can go.”
The title was terrible too. It was my fixed belief that among those who call themselves handsome, there’s hardly a single decent one.
As if it had read my mind, the Constellation suddenly went off the rails and started sending messages like this.
‘Fine, let’s see how far you can go, then.’
After a week of suffering from auditory hallucinations of the notification sound, I had no choice but to admit it.
‘I was too arrogant for a mere human…’
In the end, I reached a point where I needed psychiatric counseling, suffering from insomnia, neurasthenia, and panic symptoms.
First, I simply couldn’t sleep at night. When I lay down to sleep…
Ding─!
Ding─!
The Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’ is requesting a contract. (202,500,019 messages)
The note notification sound rang at exactly 10-second intervals until I got up.
I had been stalked by a sunbae from my university department before. Back then, I could at least block their number, but this was hopeless.
Moreover, this damn notification sound wouldn’t leave me alone even during my work life.
“So, that means…”
Ding!
“…what was the intention?”
Ding─!
The biggest reason I graduated early was for early employment.
This was the company I had struggled to hold onto for a year and a half after that. But because I couldn’t hear my boss and other employees due to the message notification sounds, it started affecting my work, and the atmosphere turned icy.
“Uh… Team Leader, could you say that one more time?”
“Ha. The color of that illustration…”
Ding!
“…who is it, you ask? More importantly, this…”
Ding, Ding─!
The Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’ is requesting a contract (9,000,793,224 messages)
“…would suit it better, I think.”
I had to get the work done somehow, so I calmly asked again.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Could you please…?”
“No, Eunsol. What’s wrong with you lately? Can’t you get your act together?”
This bastard Constellation didn’t directly harm me physically. It seemed like it only wanted to torment me just enough to push me to the edge, since I was the Awakener who needed to contract with it, so it had to preserve my body to some extent.
Driving me to the brink mentally. Threatening my livelihood and preventing me from sleeping.
Just that alone meant I was already miserably defeated in this war of attrition.
I was barely holding on, clinging to my pride.
I tried posting about my troubles in communities for victims of Constellations, but there was no real solution.
[Comments]
Ma’s Snack Shop: You.have.to.accept.being.dominated.by.your.environment… Think.of.it.as.being.bitten.by.a.tiger.
S-Class Butler: When it just gives unsolicited advice, seeing the status window makes me furious enough to spit fire, but when it occasionally drops a potion to show off, I feel grateful. Sometimes I wonder if I’m being conditioned like this.
˪Soso: Seriously lol If out of ten times it does one thing right lololololol
‘Accept it? Why? What do you know about this guy?’
What if I make the contract and it turns out to be a pervert who doesn’t provide proper support and just makes weird demands? Who’s going to take responsibility for that then?
‘I just want to live an ordinary life.’
But wait a minute. There was something I had overlooked.
“Uh, Mom. Why?”
I got a call from my mom, who I lived apart from, for the first time in a while.
-
Hey, Eunsol… Are you doing well these days…?
I felt a sense of foreboding from my mom’s very first words.
‘Something’s up.’
This was a valid intuition coming from the big data of life.
“Me? I’m fine.”
But I didn’t ask first. Why? This was also a response born from the big data of life, whether short or long.
-
Your brother… his new business isn’t doing well. He says he’s short on money.
As expected.
My ominous feeling was correct, but I pretended it was nothing.
Those in a similar situation to me will understand. This is an inescapable cycle of life. The very essence of an invisible bond of blood.
That’s why I ran away to a university in a different region to physically escape my family, and after getting a job far from home, it had been quite a while since I’d seen them.
But that damn money could be demanded anytime, regardless of distance.
Still, they say time is the teacher of life.
As I got older, I was waiting for the right time to break free from that family.
It seemed like that time was now.
“Again? I have a stalker coming after me these days, my life is hard too. So don’t contact me. I don’t have any money to give to you or my brother now.”
-
You… you’re an working adult, and you say such things because you don’t want to give even a little money to your struggling brother? Do you think you’re the only one having a hard time? Are you really my child? How can you say that so easily?
“That’s right. You gave birth to me, Mom. But why don’t you treasure me like you do my brother? Why am I…”
-
Eunsol, Mom… haah… Mom needs surgery. It’s thyroid cancer.
“What?”
For a moment, my resolve felt meaningless as my heart began to race wildly.
Simultaneously, the moment I remembered the debt under my name, a sense of devastation began to wash over me like a massive tidal wave. That devastation rubbed the salt of self-reproach into my wounds.
‘Despite it being a matter of family health, I’m worrying about debt first.’
-
Eunsol, can you send the Awakener support allowance this month too? And… can’t you quit your company now and go full-time as a Hunter? You said that Hunters with good credit, regardless of grade, get loans supported by the government with a 1.7% interest rate. Your dad is having a hard time lately too… and your brother is struggling. You know. Everyone’s having a hard time because of the Gates lately. Mom needs surgery, but your brother’s situation is difficult…
“…Tell my brother to sell his house. He has the officetel you bought him when he got a job.”
Even though he quit that company after a year and made a big fuss about starting his own business.
Even as I said it, I didn’t think my mom would tell my brother to sell his house. Just like it had always been.
-
How can you say such things? Your brother is already having a hard time; how bad would he feel if he had to sell his house too?
As expected. Mom took my brother’s side. I couldn’t take it anymore and fought back.
“I’m having a hard time too! I’m holding on well even though I never got any support!”
-
What can we do if your brother can’t manage that?! And, are you saying Mom and Dad never supported you? Letting you live at home, feeding you, all that was…
I felt like dinner was about to come back up.
I left the phone aside, sat at my desk, held my head, and began to be swept away by the misery of reality.
Even if I transferred money for my mom’s surgery, it was a problem.
That money would surely go to my brother, who claimed his business was struggling. Mom would probably postpone it, saying she could have the surgery later. I knew without seeing it. Everything I had given for my mom so far had gone to my brother.
‘And then she’ll ask me for the surgery money again.’
Is this a cycle I can never escape?
At that moment, a small status window appeared, as if to refute it.
Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’: Lie
“…W-wait a second. Mom.”
I didn’t trust the Constellation that had been tormenting me for over a month. But that one word made my mind snap to attention, and I cut my mom off.
“Mom, what stage of thyroid cancer did they say?”
-
Huh? …Stage 3, they said.
Soon, the status window repeatedly popped up.
Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’: That’s a lie
Thump thump.
My heart started racing wildly for a different reason.
Stay calm. I don’t trust the stalker Constellation, but I don’t trust my family either. I decided not to trust them, remember?
“When… is the surgery?”
-
I haven’t scheduled it yet.
“Call me again once you have a date.”
I hung up without asking or questioning further.
Soon after, persistent calls started coming in from my mom again. I couldn’t contain the boiling anger inside me; I jumped up spasmodically.
Leaving my phone behind, I slipped on my slippers haphazardly and ran out of my studio. Because I felt stifled.
I’d rather drown and die.
So, I unconsciously ran towards the stream near my studio.
…Ding! Ding!
Ding!
Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I stopped running not long after I started, conditioned by the notification sound.
At that moment, the pent-up anger inside me exploded, and I screamed at the top of my lungs, regardless of the place or time.
“XX, you son of a bitch! What the hell are you?! What do you want from me?!”
The Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’ is requesting a contract. (9,000,795,833 messages)
“If you want a contract, pay the contract fee! The code of the martial world has hit rock bottom in this Gate era. I can’t contract for free!”
The Constellation ‘The Versatile Handsome God’ sends an upfront payment lavishly, just as it desired!
Will you accept the sponsorship?
Yes / No
‘…What?’
I froze for a moment, completely taken aback by the unexpected message.
The late hour in the studio apartment neighborhood, the pitch-black darkness, the stinky sewer smell, the sparse light from other people’s windows.
And nothing but the status window in front of me.
My hands trembled uncontrollably as I looked at the sponsorship gift displayed in the status window.
Gift: Essence of the Black Dragon Gailyard (S) ×10
Gift: Burning Heart of the Black Dragon Gailyard (S) ×1
S-grade items, it said.
‘That’s way too lavish.’
I couldn’t believe it, so I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. S-grade? Even A-grade items cost tens of millions of won on the exchange. But S-grade?
Since I had never even entered a Gate, this was my first time owning an item at all.
This time, it might be real. A small voice whispered in my heart.
‘This time, I might really be able to escape that filthy household.’
The bastard who gave me a mental illness had instantly become my savior.
