Hwayeon's Story II
Saturday afternoon, word of the way I treated Hwarang's members must have reached my mother's ears. I was summoned before her.
And given a severe scolding.
"Open your heart to people a little more. And know this—there are times when you must show a smile you do not feel. That is simply how the world works."
"You were the one who taught me not to express my emotions."
"What this mother spoke of was honest feeling! I never once demanded a blank face that destroys your relations with others! Can you truly not even see the flaw in your own character—the flaw that has soured things between you and that good-natured Choi Soohan!"
"..."
"How vacant-headed must you be, that I am forced to hear from someone else's mouth that you are a fool who cannot even make a proper friend! Wretched child. Get out!"
"...I will take my leave."
I returned to my office with a bruised knot sitting hard in my chest, and found Miss Edelberg and Cha Soyoung on the sofa, talking.
"Is that so? Then you are British nobility, Miss Edelberg."
"No, no~ Not anymore, I am not~! That old fossil of the family got on my nerves, so I gave him a splendid slap and ran away, I did~! My name is probably already struck from the family register, yes it is~! Oh! Come in, come in, Hwayeon~!"
"Welcome, Hwayeon."
I answered shortly—Miss Edelberg beaming, bright and radiant, Cha Soyoung greeting me with a quiet smile—and took the empty place on the sofa.
The fine sofa swallowed me to the waist, and a sigh escaped at the feel of it.
"That is the face of someone who was scolded very hard by the President~."
"Sophia. If you put it so bluntly..."
......
"Hmm~? But I think a scolded child needs comfort, yes I do~?"
Again—!
Miss Edelberg threw her arms around me and rubbed her cheek against my face. I startled and pried her off by force. Cha Soyoung, who had been smiling quietly through it, opened her mouth.
"Is this because of the failure of the last expedition?"
"...Yes."
By my mistake, a single aberrant I had let slip brought a host of its kind and raided the temporary base. No one had died, fortunately, but the base was wrecked, and every Phase Stone we had gathered was written off as lost. The cause was my attitude toward Hwarang's cold, detached members. I had charged in recklessly without once asking the teammates around me for support. Afterward we tracked the raiders and put them down, and managed to make up part of the loss... but I could not help remembering the last thing Choi Soohan had thrown at me before she left.
Miss Edelberg and Cha Soyoung tried to comfort me. Tangled as I was, it did not reach.
"So that's what it was. It was hard, wasn't it?"
The next day was Sunday. Siha, whom I was able to meet in person for the first time in a long while, had grown even prettier. But my thoughts were a snarled skein, and I could not enjoy being with her.
...If it were Siha... wouldn't she be able to offer a way through this?
On that thin, self-serving impulse I laid my heart bare, and Siha gathered me in and comforted me.
"I keep thinking about the last thing Choi Soohan said before she left."
"That one, Hwayeon—you were in the wrong."
"..."
"You stake your life fighting in the Phase World, don't you? There isn't anything more dangerous than being unable to trust each other, is there?"
"..."
"You trust Miss Cha Soyoung and Miss Edelberg, right?"
"Mm."
"...!"
"The reason you can't trust your teammates—is it because they're Hwarang?"
Had I... been like that?
As Siha laid the problems out, calm and orderly, one after another, I could at last see clearly the feelings that had churned in me from the day I first entered Hwarang two years ago until, not long ago, I understood my mother's true purpose. At the same time the heaviness in my head, thick as fog, cleared.
"Have you figured out what you need to do?"
"Mm."
"Then all that's left is to do it."
"I know the problem now. So I have to fix it."
I was settling that resolve inside myself when Siha—wearing a smile that would have charmed even another woman—rummaged through her handbag and drew out her smartphone.
"Then I ought to give a gift to Hwayeon, who made such an admirable decision~. Hmm... look at this. Seoha started studying a little while ago..."
...!
In Siha's gallery was a photo of Seoha seated at a desk, studying! As she slid the screen, daily life flicked past—him smiling, him angry, him on the verge of tears, him making mischief like a little rascal!
"Ah...! W-wait... slowly. Turn them slowly."
My heart pounded at those plump, apricot-flushed cheeks. Aah, how could anyone be this adorable...
"He's in eighth grade now. A lot of those weird habits are gone, and he's gotten so much better behaved. Look—these chubby cheeks! Isn't he insanely cute?!"
I nodded without thinking, lost in the photos, and then Siha said something that snapped me awake.
"I've collected a lot of photos since that day. Four thousand seven hundred and twenty-one in all. You want them?"
"Yes. Yes!"
"Then I'll send them right away. Your email's still the same, right? Hang on."
To give me something this precious... Siha really was an angel. How was I ever going to repay a kindness like that...
"Gyaaah!"
"No!"
"Aaah!"
I shot upright from the cot at the screams and the aberrant's cry.
Leaving Cha Soyoung and Miss Edelberg rising behind me, I burst out of the barracks. Poles were collapsing on every side, and several tents had caught fire, lighting the dark camp bright as day. Through the gaps between the burning canvas I saw dozens of wallabies, two meters tall and dyed red by the firelight, looting the base and fighting Hwarang's ability users.
"Ah! Hwayeon!"
I heard Miss Edelberg cry out in alarm, but I was already running—toward a female ability user whose limbs had been broken, whose pants had been torn, who was being raped by a wallaby aberrant.
Ordinarily I would have left the woman where she was, used the wallaby aberrant's habits against it, and joined the main force first. So why was I...
Wallaby aberrants.
Ranked at the apex of the mid-upper grade, they used both hands like people. Vicious things: they abducted females of other species, broke their limbs to render them helpless, and made breeding livestock of them. Males they slaughtered without mercy and took as food, but females—of any kind—they were infamous for leaving alive. A lust-type aberrant.
Thought could wait. My body moved first.
"Haaah!"
Using Phase Power control, I smashed in a single blow the head of the wallaby aberrant driving its hideous genitals into the incapacitated woman's lower abdomen. A wet crack. A strangled kihit, then a shriek. Another of them, dragging a wailing, thrashing woman, startled and swung the woman in its grip.
"Aaaah!"
I slipped the obvious arc, drew the dagger planted in my thigh, and severed the wallaby's arm. I caught the falling woman and hurled her to Cha Soyoung, who was running up—and the ability user who had been unconscious while she was being violated, as well. The unconscious woman was bleeding from below far too heavily for a torn hymen alone to explain, but Miss Edelberg was right behind us. It would be fine.
"Kyaaah!"
A scream rose as I threw her. An instant later, from where the woman had flown, came a sound like a drum bursting, and a gust slammed into my back. Cha Soyoung's specialty—Air Cushion.
"Heal!!"
Reassured by the frail voice that followed, I cut the throat of the wallaby thrashing with its arm gone. Around me, more of them gathered, leaking a vicious light thick with lust. I entered a standoff with three, their bloodshot red eyes fixed on me.
There had been no trace of them when we searched near the encampment, so they had come on expedition from far away. The raid on the base would have been to secure breeding stock.
I will not let a single one of them leave alive.
"Hwayeon, it is dangerous, it is~!"
"I will clear from here! Miss Edelberg, Cha Soyoung—support!"
Right after, fire rounds and wind rounds poured in from behind and detonated, the wallabies' screams tangled through the blasts. Then three sets of feet planted themselves at my back, and voices spilled out.
"Hwayeon! What do you think you're doing, charging out alone!"
"Thank you for saving me!"
"There is no stopping our Hwayeon, there is not~."
One of them was the woman who had been dragged off, then. Recovered. Good.
The three that had been radiating extreme hostility and excitement in the standoff looked at our all-female group, raised their hideous members, and came on slowly, snorting hot breath.
"Going in!"
I held my breath and sprinted for the wide-open flank of the wallaby aberrant in the lead. As I closed, it lashed its long tail like a whip. I knocked the strike aside with my dagger, and while it screamed at the severed tail and left its guard gaping, I drove a showy back-spin kick into its chest. Bone cracked under my toes. I spun another half-turn and slammed a rotation-loaded kick into the wallaby's head.
Wallaby aberrants were known to favor bipedal prey—humans most of all. Flashy movement was another of their fascinations. To seize their attention I deliberately showed them a spinning kick with no substance behind it, and as expected two of them were bewitched and locked their eyes on me. Catching that, I battered the lead wallaby with showy footwork and waited for Cha Soyoung's signal. Thud after thud, a crunch, a crack of bone, a choked cry—
"Hwayeon!"
At her signal, the one I had been waiting for, I planted a foot on the head of the wallaby that had gone groggy and folded at the waist, leapt high, and shouted.
"Now!"
"Wind Blade!"
"Fire Bullet!"
Beneath my feet, three of Cha Soyoung's wind blades—cutting power pushed to the maximum—screamed past one after another, and two spheres of flame followed, burning crimson and trailing sparks. A shearing hiss, then a detonation. Of the two that had been fixed on me as I rose nearly five meters, one was cut apart by Wind Blade, scattering a scream, blood, and entrails. The other was swallowed by the fire the crimson spheres vomited, and rolled across the ground.
And as I fell, I drove my dagger into the head of the wallaby still staggering from the kick. The blade sank into the skull as if sucked down. I watched the thing drop, then shouted to Miss Edelberg, Cha Soyoung, and the woman from Team 4.
"We sweep the perimeter and find the rest! This expedition has a high ratio of female ability users. Someone has certainly been taken! By their nesting habits they will head for the mountain range—move that way!"
"Yes!"
I sprang up the earthen wall that marked the base's boundary and sharpened my sight. As expected: three female ability users, limbs broken, being hauled away by nine wallaby aberrants. One of them, mad with fear, was wailing, and a long tail whipped across her stomach. The impact made her vomit blood.
"Miss Edelberg, heal the wounded whenever you see an opening! Cha Soyoung, Miss Yeon Suji—support me!"
Cha Soyoung and Miss Edelberg would act to the full of their ability on a simple order. I gave the command, ran toward the wallabies, and shouted a kiai to drag their attention this way.
"Haaaaah!!"
Far off, two wallabies dragging two women turned toward me, snouts twitching as they took the measure of things. Of the four squabbling over a single woman, three broke into a run in my direction, heavy feet pounding. And toward those three, Cha Soyoung and Yeon Suji's combined technique activated.
"Whirlwind!"
"Fire Pool!"
Fire pooled across their path like water in a hollow, and a whirlwind rose out of it. A moment later a fire-tornado roared up and swallowed all three. One was taken by the tornado and guttered out. The other two, bodies slathered in flame, sprayed a vicious light and tried to charge Cha Soyoung, so I took them from behind—snapped one's neck, and severed the other's spine.
And then Miss Edelberg's slender cry reached me.
"Heal! Heal!! It is Bulk Heal, it is~!!"
The two being dragged received her healing and managed to fight back. They took new stabs and fresh breaks in the struggle, but they tore free and reached us.
"Th-thank you!"
"Hic. I was going to kill myself!"
"Talk later!"
Holding at bay the two wallabies about to go mad, I managed to link up with Cha Soyoung and Miss Edelberg—and saw that the last woman being dragged had reached Cha Soyoung as well.
"Heal! Heal, heal!"
The two injured ability users who had joined me were restored almost at once. But Miss Edelberg's color was failing. Her TP would bottom out soon.
Six mid-upper wallabies at once—but I was C-Class, and we had five elemental users and a ranged healer. We could do this.
"Cha Soyoung, take command!"
"Yes! Prepare your fastest abilities! On the opening strike, ready a volley!"
"Yes!"
I skirted the humming, burning tornado and ran at the three that remained, and the other six came bounding toward me as well. They were plainly minding Cha Soyoung and the five at my back. If the women struck now, the aggro would split—but Cha Soyoung would never make that mistake.
Their tails, thrust like spears, could punch through ten centimeters of steel. I slipped them by a finger's breadth, closed on the nearest, and drove a front kick into its side. A full-power shove. Its ribs crumbled, and it was flung toward Cha Soyoung. I rode the recoil and flew in among the remaining five. Blasts and impacts rolled behind me.
These were not High-Rank Variants, the sort that became true aberrants through abrupt change. Nor were they the aberrants famed for intellect. If the work was to endure, and to launch them—then this would do!
Detonations chained. The one that had dropped near the women with an entire side of ribs shattered, too hurt to move cleanly, was the first to burst apart and die. Meanwhile I trusted Miss Edelberg and attacked, accepting the wounds.
They came on in a driving rush. I beat aside the lead one's tail-thrust with my dagger again and opened its belly. Pale entrails spilled out, steaming. I blocked the next tail with my left arm, added my own charge to the force of the tail snapping back, closed as if in flight, and hooked the underside of its jaw. A crack. A choked grunt. Agony screamed through my left arm. I cut it off by will.
Glued to the one whose skull was rattling, leaving it dazed, I held the remaining four hesitating—and launched the dazed one toward Cha Soyoung with a kick at full power. By luck, another was caught in the same motion and tumbled with it.
"Now! Fire!!"
"Yes!!"
A concentrated barrage of elemental rounds fell on the two tangled and rolling, and cut their lives short. An instant later two charged me from opposite sides at once, and the last ran for Cha Soyoung—which was no different from suicide.
I gave the two every scrap of my attention. They must have finally taken me for a true threat. No more holding back, as before. They poured on attacks meant to kill.
"Love's Heal!!"
With Miss Edelberg's cry, the left arm that had been pierced and half torn open began to knit, and moved with something like freedom.
With this, I can manage.
I blocked and slipped tails whipped like lashes and shot like spears, and claws swung keen, and I bought time. In the gaps I struck their legs to kill their speed, and with a half-crushed dagger I cut the tendons in their tails and held—until Cha Soyoung's call came from behind.
"We can take one!"
"Going!"
I dodged a tail shot out like a spear, charged straight in, and sent the thing flying with a full-power flying kick. As if they had been waiting, a sheaf of elemental rounds followed, and the one flung wide burst apart and died.
"Hngh, this is the last one~! Heal!!"
Miss Edelberg's healing arrived, and the wounds across my body began to close. At the feeling of worms crawling through the cuts, I set my molars and charged the last one left. Into the gap its swinging tail opened, I planted fists, kicks, and the dagger that had done its work. Then I set my aim on the head of the wallaby frozen by the impact, rose in a sergeant jump, and drove a soccer kick with everything I had. The head burst like a watermelon.
Shards of its brain had spattered my face and body. Revolting. I wiped them off with my hand and shouted.
"We return to the base!"
"Yes!!"
I hauled Miss Edelberg, reeling from emptied TP, onto my back and ran for the main position, where the fight was still going.
Afterward I circled the base and read the ground, but there was no sign of anyone having been dragged away. Once I confirmed that, I moved straight to the fighting inside the camp. This place, too, was finished. More than forty wallabies lay dead, torn open or burst, and the lanes between the tents were a litter of corpses.
"Yoo Hwayeon!"
Boss Park Jiwoong must have been looking for me. He came running, face drained white, and let out a great sigh.
"Th-thank goodness. I thought the wallabies had carried you off."
"I could not rejoin you. I was rescuing the female ability users who had been taken."
"Hm?! We confirmed five were taken. How many did you bring back?"
"Five. One had lost consciousness, so I hid her in a nearby supply tent."
"Oh! Vice-Captain Park Gamchan!"
Boss Park Jiwoong promptly called Vice-Captain Park Gamchan, had him confirm the women I had rescued and check the headcount, then called off the forming of a pursuit team. There were many wounded, but no dead. Given the wallabies' nature, secondary harm was the usual outcome whenever a female ability user was taken—but we had prevented even that. A surprise assault, successfully held off.
I finished the aftermath with Boss Park Jiwoong and Vice-Captain Park Gamchan, and was returning to my personal tent near dawn when five women blocked my path.
"Thank you for saving us."
"Thank you."
"We're grateful."
They were the female ability users who had been dragged off. Receiving their thanks, I felt something sprout in my chest, and I could not meet their eyes.
"...It was my duty."
"But if you hadn't saved us while taking those injuries yourself, there's no telling what would have been done to us in that time. Those things... haah. When they had me, limbs broken, and I saw that horrible thing, I truly thought of biting my tongue and dying."
The woman who looked to be in her late thirties was the one who had taken a tail to the abdomen and vomited blood. She swept a hand over her chest, face still blue-pale. But the woman who looked young—though she was certainly past twenty—was beaming at me.
"I'm going to be your fan from now on, Miss Hwayeon!"
If treating me like an idol kept it from becoming trauma, then that was fine as well. The five bowed to me once more in thanks and turned back.
The woman who had been raped... she was not among them. That bothered me.
"Hehe~. Hwayeon has grown, and that makes me happy, it does~!"
"I am glad as well."
"Wh-what are you saying."
I shot the question back without thinking, at Miss Edelberg and Cha Soyoung, who had appeared behind me without warning.
"If this had been a few days ago, I believe you would have joined the fighting inside the base rather than rescue your comrades."
"That is right~. You would have said, 'Those who were caught are at fault! A rescue team will be formed the moment the battle ends, so we hold the base first!' You would have said that, yes~."
Miss Edelberg, her accent still faintly off, imitated me in a strange voice—whether to tease me, I could not tell.
"Remarkable. A very cute voice, and extremely similar to Hwayeon's."
...?!
"Hehe~ I set a recorder down and practiced very hard, I did~!"
"Ugh..."
"Ah! You are being shy, you are~! You are cute, you are~!"
"S-Sophia, learn Korean properly first!"
"Aaah~?! You finally called me by my name, you did~! I am happy, I am!!"
"Heh."
"Kh."
Seeing Cha Soyoung smile like a gentle older sister, and Miss Edelberg so genuinely delighted, Siha's face flickered over the both of them. I could not even bring myself to be angry. I only sighed.