EP 1: The Strange Constellation Who Keeps Complaining (PT. 2.1)
Across the stars looming over the incarnations, several constellations cheered. There was always a certain type of audience member who saw a group of exhausted people shoved into a moral meat grinder and thought, finally, quality entertainment. Some people needed hobbies. Some people needed therapy. Some constellations needed a chair thrown at them. [Several constellations are excited by the sacrifice condition.] Kim Dokja’s lips pressed together, the movement so slight that most people would have missed it. Unfortunately for him, his companions had become very good at noticing when his face started doing suspiciously calm things. He barely spared the messages another glance. He refused to give the cheering bastards that much satisfaction. But he still saw them; he always did. [The constellation, ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon,’ says the scenario designer has terrible taste.] Han Sooyoung snorted so hard it almost became a laugh. “Right? Isn’t it boring when the scenarios get this predictable? Even Hyunsung could see this coming a mile away.” Lee Hyunsung, the man unfairly dragged into this comparison, looked up with a furrow between his brows. He had been standing half in front of the children and half in front of the nearest trembling civilians, which was very Lee Hyunsung of him. The insult reached him late. “I feel like that was rude,” he said. Han Sooyoung didn’t even glance away from the gate. “It was affectionate.” Lee Jihye snorted under her breath. “It was rude.” [The constellation, ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon,’ agrees with incarnation Han Sooyong.] There it was. See? Loyalty. Poor taste in dramatic presentation, yes, but loyalty all the same. The black flame dragon had his flaws, and several of them were loud, flaming, and embarrassingly adolescent. Still, he disliked rigged humiliation more than clean violence, which placed him above the cheering parasites currently salivating over the words living incarnation as the toll. A low heat rolled through the channel. [The constellation, ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire,’ is furious at the hidden condition.] [The constellation, ‘Prisoner of the Golden Headband,’ laughs at the dokkaebi’s cheap trick.] Now, one should be careful here. Sun Wukong was laughing, yes, but that didn’t mean he was enjoying the suffering. He was simply the sort of being who looked at a rigged game and immediately wanted to see someone flip the board, break the table, and possibly steal the host’s shoes on the way out. It was a different flavor of morality, and frankly, this scenario deserved any flavor that wasn’t glee at another’s suffering. Kim Dokja’s gaze returned to the toll gate. [The constellation, ‘Queen of the Darkest Spring,’ is watching the toll gate with narrowed eyes.] [The constellation, ‘Father of the Rich Night,’ dislikes the smell of this story.] [The constellation, ‘Secretive Plotter,’ is silently observing Incarnation Kim Dokja.] At that last message, Kim Dokja shifted on his feet. There were far more interesting things to watch, he thought. The gate. Yoo Joonghyuk. The dokkaebi. The screaming civilians, if one had a taste for obvious misery. The scenario wording, if one had a functional brain. This, of course, was utter nonsense. Who was more interesting than Kim Dokja? The man had the survival instincts of a cockroach, the self-preservation of wet paper, and the emotional availability of a locked file marked definitely not important. Naturally, anyone with sense would watch him.