Their Pandemonium (2)
Watching Hwayeon and Franc huff and puff with their faces flushed crimson, I swallowed a sigh. They were only carrying on like this because they both loved me — otherwise they wouldn't have spared me the attention they'd give a pebble in the road.
"Aaah! Fine! I've undone it! Now what do you intend to do?!"
"Hah. When I first heard about you from Seoha, I took you for nothing but a dignified knight...!"
Hwayeon seemed thoroughly shaken by the perfect nude body Franc had laid bare before her eyes. Then again, Franc had sighed with envy while looking at Hwayeon's own naked form, so as far as I could tell they were even.
"To think you were this much of a pervert! I was completely mistaken!"
"W-who are you calling a pervert?! I have no choice but to exist like this! And besides, Seoha and I are bound through the Soul Stone, so I couldn't leave his side even if I wanted to!"
Stung by the accusation, Franc fired back in a fury — then, as if a brilliant idea had just struck her, an exclamation mark all but popping over her head, she proudly gathered my head into her arms and made a show of it for Hwayeon.
"!!!!!"
My head sank halfway into those lush, heavy breasts. Hwayeon's eyes flew open as wide as they could possibly go, and she clenched her fists and trembled.
"And Seoha and I love each other this much!"
"Grrrgh!"
I had Mana Sieve running, if only a little, so the feel of Franc's breasts did register against my face — but caught in the middle of the two young women's quarrel, a dizziness swept over me as if my soul were about to slip its moorings.
I was swallowing another sigh on the inside when Hwayeon put on the classic look of someone who had taken the bait, and snarled.
"If you think you're the only one allowed to do that, you are sorely mistaken! I-I love Seoha too!"
In one motion she flung off her fleece top, then unhooked her bra without a moment's hesitation. Baring those delectable breasts, she strode over and cradled my face against her chest.
Whoooa!
"Ugh. How can anyone be so shameless...!"
"If you think you're the only one who can do this, Miss Evans, you are gravely mistaken!"
The two of them sandwiched my head between their breasts and locked into a staring contest, sparks all but crackling in the air between them.
Here I was, having the rare experience of my head buried in two pairs of ample breasts, and yet a sigh kept trying to get out of me. Caught between them and shuttling from heaven to hell and back, I could only watch as the quarrel climbed from bad to worse.
"And unlike you, I have a body of flesh and blood!"
"When my partner is Seoha, I can share contact no different from that of a living body!"
"Hah! I can even bear Seoha's chi—!"
A beep. A click.
"Boss. We're here..."
"Ah."
"Ah—."
...I'm screwed.
Sophia and Lee Hyeryeong, hand in hand and squealing. A boyish woman who looked as though her soul had left her. And last of all, my sister, wearing a face that called to mind the calm before a storm.
By any ordinary reading of the scene, the two of them had just caught Hwayeon with her top off, clutching me to her bare breasts, and they were making everything worse by chattering loud enough to crack plates. The source of that worsening was, without question, my sister.
Still talking, with no idea of the expression she wore behind them, Sophia and Lee Hyeryeong belatedly caught sight of her after she had slipped into Asura Mode. They clapped their mouths shut in shock and were driven out a moment later — the boyish young woman who had been standing quietly along with them. Driven out wasn't quite right. They had taken one look at my sister in that state, been frightened out of their wits, and fled.
Having chased the three of them outside, my sister quietly set the lock and bolted the door.
I had gone rigid, seeing her true nature with my own eyes for the first time, and she came toward us radiating the presence of an absolute ruler. She addressed Hwayeon, who had gone ashen and was shaking.
"Clothes first. Now!"
"O-okay!"
Every time Hwayeon trembled, those perfectly formed, magnificent breasts quivered, and the sight seemed to have grated on my sister enormously. At literally lightning speed Hwayeon snatched up the bra and fleece top she had flung aside, pulled them back on, and of her own accord dropped to her knees.
"...Go on. Explain. I distinctly said that excessive sexual contact with Seoha was forbidden until he came of age, and yet there you were, holding him in that state. Why."
My sister was smiling like a porcelain doll.
Her eyes, curved like crescent moons, were as pretty as a painting — but through Mana Vision, I could see it. Behind her head loomed the vicious shape of an Asura, three heads and six arms, and a killing intent redder than blood streamed down from it in rivulets.
Terrifying. Perhaps because Spatial Perception was sounding a warning, it felt twice as frightening. If even I, who wasn't the one on the spot, was this scared, how terrified must Hwayeon have been? Trembling all the while, she began to stammer out a defense, fighting to survive.
"Th-that is. The reason I was doing that is because I fell for Miss Evans's provocation...!"
"F-fell for it?! I didn't do anything!"
Franc, who had been hiding behind me, started to shake with terror. How frightening must my sister be, for her to make excuses when she couldn't even be seen or heard?
"Explain."
"I-I got a buff from Seoha, so I could see Miss Evans. But I was startled to find her standing there naked, and..."
Having heard the short but essential account, my sister turned only her head, like a wooden marionette, and looked at me.
"Seoha?"
"Y-yeah?"
The instant her face turned toward me the killing intent vanished, but the Asura risen behind her poured out a presence more vicious still.
I-I'm scared too!
"Can you put that buff on me as well?"
"Y-you mustn't!"
...Franc. I'm sorry.
At my small nod she collapsed in despair, a queen cast aside by her king. An instant later she sprang up like a coil and knelt in the exact same posture at Hwayeon's side.
"Then you'll cast it on me?"
"A-all right. Close your eyes for a second."
I laid a light touch of TP on my sister, just as she'd asked, and cut the dose down considerably, just in case.
"Y-you can open your eyes now."
All three of us flinched.
When she opened her eyes, her pupils radiated a cold that was nothing short of absolute zero, and at the sight of it Hwayeon, Franc, and I swallowed at the same time. Cowed by that piercing gaze, I quietly edged aside, and without a word she stared at Franc where she knelt beside Hwayeon.
Under the blade of that look, Franc had frozen like a frog before a snake. My sister studied her, stiff and unmoving, from head to toe, then gave a light nod.
"I can certainly see why Hwayeon lost her self-control. Miss Evans, can you hear me? If you can, please nod."
She nodded, and nodded, and nodded.
"And of course we can speak as well? I've picked up a little lip-reading myself."
"Whaaat?!"
Huh? Wh-when?
That "a little" was nothing but courtesy. She'd mastered it perfectly, no question!
"So defend yourself from your own position, Miss Evans. In as much detail as you can."
"U-uuuh. Th-that is..."
Franc stumbled through the story in a rambling stammer, and the further it went, the more Hwayeon's complexion cycled from blue to white to yellow.
"So. In order to introduce Miss Evans to Hwayeon, Seoha cast a buff on Hwayeon's eyes. Having seen her as a result, Hwayeon was appalled to find Miss Evans nude, and was the first to take an aggressive tone. Correct?"
"Th-that's right."
Hwayeon admitted it with the face of someone who had swallowed rat poison.
"But on hearing that tone, Miss Evans lost her restraint and pressed that lump of fle— those breasts against Seoha's face."
She was about to say lump of flesh!
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
"And Hwayeon, having lost her reason at the sight, stripped off even her underwear and rubbed her breasts against Seoha's face."
"Y-yes!"
The two of them were so tense they trembled hard enough to shake their hair, and even in the middle of my own fear I found myself wanting to save them.
Right. If I don't help my own women, who will?
"Um, sis. This is my mistake. I should have looked into things a little more before putting the two of them face to face, but I was too careless..."
"What are you talking about. I know perfectly well it isn't your fault. I saw you frozen stiff, after all. Which means..."
She had been stroking my head with a gentle hand. Then she fixed Franc and Hwayeon with a terrifying glare, and a feral voice tore out of her.
......
Uh... uh?
It felt as though I'd... just been through something... terrifying.
My head was heavy, and my thoughts refused to turn. Forcing the memories up the way one forces a millstone to grind, I finally recalled my sister raging like a demon king and driving Hwayeon and Franc halfway to death with nothing but words. What came after that, I couldn't remember.
Looking to one side, I found Franc sprawled face-down and motionless, like someone who had died in a fall. On the other, Hwayeon sat slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, staring at nothing but the ceiling. And I was lying with my head in my sister's lap.
She had a hand resting on my forehead, her brow furrowed, and when she saw that my eyes were open she smoothed the crease away.
"You're awake?"
"Y-yeah..."
"Honestly, you're a problem too, Seoha. If Miss Evans is going to go around like that, you should have found some way to get clothes on her."
"I-I'm sorry."
The instant I sensed the nagging about to start, an apology jumped out of me without my meaning it to. They say instinct is faster than thought. It was true.
My sister, on the very verge of launching into her lecture, heard it, narrowed her eyes at me, and nodded.
"Miss Evans's condition isn't something you intended, so I won't nag. But you'll need to make an effort as well, and find a way for her to go about clothed."
"Mm."
I answered with the face of a man spared, and she shot me a refined glare. When I sat up to escape that look, she set about waking the other two.
"Hwayeon, pull yourself together. Miss Evans, you as well."
She took Hwayeon by the shoulders and shook her, then clapped toward Franc, and the two of them twitched their way back to themselves. Focus began to return to Hwayeon's eyes, which had been clouded as if her soul had left, and Franc wrinkled her brows and pushed herself upright in a daze.
"Ugh..."
"M-my head hurts..."
My sister looked at them, set a hand smartly on her hip, and spoke.
"I'll bring the three of them in, so sit up properly and compose yourselves."
"O-okay."
"Yes."
At her instruction Hwayeon straightened her disordered clothes and smoothed her slightly mussed hair. Franc drifted over at once, sat down beside me, and rested her head on my shoulder. Both of them looked thoroughly out of it. A little worried, I took their hands.
"You two all right? Franc, you said your head hurts — is there anything wrong with your spirit body?"
At that, Hwayeon turned to look at her. Perhaps what had just happened had come back; Franc's face had gone pale and she was shivering, a fragile sight that tugged at me.
"I'm all right. The middle of it is hazy, but... ugh. Lady Siha is terrifying..."
"Siha is scary when she's angry..."
Huh? Did that exchange just land? How?
They looked at each other with expressions full of fellow feeling, and then they spoke.
"I'm sorry. I was so startled by your appearance, Miss Evans, that I lost my reason and was discourteous."
"Not at all. I should have spoken through Seoha beforehand and asked your understanding, but my thinking was short. I'm the one who ought to apologize."
"I'll look for a way for you to be properly dressed, Miss Franc."
"I'd be grateful. I'll do my best as well."
...Are they communicating, or aren't they?
I was glad a sense of camaraderie seemed to have formed between them, but for the cause of it to be my sister's wrath left me a little bewildered. Still, it was a hundred times better than the pandemonium they'd raised earlier.
A short while later my sister returned with Lee Hyeryeong, Sophia, and the woman I took to be Cha Soyoung. All three were looking at me and Hwayeon with faces plainly full of curiosity. Seeing them approach the sofa, I rose, and my sister announced she would fetch drinks and vanished toward the refrigerator. In her place, Hwayeon made the introductions.
"You've already greeted Director Lee Hyeryeong and Vice-Captain Sophia, so I'll skip those. This is Vice-Captain Cha Soyoung. She's like a father to the ability users of Time River."
"A pleasure to meet you. I am Cha Soyoung, in command of Teams 1, 4, 6, 7, and 10 of the Special Operations Division. I look forward to working with you."
When she met my eyes, the corners of hers twitched, and then she quickly settled her face into calm and bowed. Startled that she would bow so readily to someone so much younger, I bowed as well.
"I'm Jung Seoha. I'm a high school senior, and I'm Siha's younger brother. She's right over there."
I hadn't had anything in particular to say about myself, so I'd dragged my sister into it, and Cha Soyoung offered nothing but a faint smile.
She had a body so firm and springy it was hard to believe she was an elemental type, and she wore a short cut with long bangs swept back behind her ears. Paired with a cold impression quite unlike Hwayeon's air, it carried exactly the composure Hwayeon had described. She certainly looked like someone you could trust. Sophia, by comparison...
"May I introduce myself again too~?"
"Huh? Is there more to the introduction?"
"I feel like I was too polite earlier~ I want to show you my relaxed side!"
"...It's fine. What I saw earlier was already a very relaxed look."
When I pointed that out, Sophia — who had been saying something entirely off the mark — grumbled with a girlish expression that didn't suit her age.
"Aaah~. I started all wrong. I was supposed to show a mature, affectionate side first, and then an innocent one after, so I could hit you with the gap appeal~."
What was she even talking about. More than that, her speech was remarkably natural. Had three years been enough for her to get comfortable with Korean?
Lee Hyeryeong and Cha Soyoung let out a quiet snort of laughter at the sulking, and Hwayeon gestured for them to sit.
"I called you so we might have dinner together, and so you could grow closer to Seoha, who will be one of Time River's core members from here on. Is that all right?"
"Of course it is!"
"How could I possibly miss this? I'd have come even if it meant setting my work aside."
"It's fine."
The women nodded. My sister brought the drinks, handed them around, and sat down beside me, and my mood lifted all at once.
She and Hwayeon sat on either side of me; across from me sat Lee Hyeryeong, Cha Soyoung, and Sophia; and Franc was clinging to my back. The only man in a gathering of beauties dazzling enough to snap one's eyes wide open — I felt exactly like the protagonist of a harem novel. All the more so because the six of them each had a charm of her own.
Franc was, quite literally, a young woman as bright and radiant as the sun. Hwayeon, if I had to find a comparison, was a golden full moon. Cha Soyoung was as fresh and pure as a forget-me-not, and Sophia gave off the warmth of a sunflower. Strangely, though, Lee Hyeryeong alone felt like a burden.
Why was that? Just to look at, she had the mature air of a rose in full bloom. And that same Lee Hyeryeong suddenly spoke, the swell of her feeling written plain on her face.
"Ahh. I'm truly delighted."
??
Puzzled, I watched her lace her fingers together in rapture, and then something came to me and I conceded the point in private. She had been like this about me since last time, hadn't she.
Cha Soyoung, who had been gazing steadily at me all the while, gave a small nod.
"Because the ability user Time River has most been lacking — the one we need most desperately — has appeared. Welcoming Mr. Jung Seoha is something to do with open arms."
"That's right! The finest physical reinforcement ability user in the country, and elemental and recovery ability users you could count on two hands. And on top of that, a detection ability user who may become the best in the nation — no, in the world! Ahh, at last, a Time River complete enough to deserve the word perfect!"
Embarrassed by the passionate outburst, I scratched at the back of my head, and Sophia turned to me with curiosity all over her face.
"Can you really detect any being that possesses Phase Power within 450 meters? With no increase or decrease from environmental factors?"
At the question, Cha Soyoung and Lee Hyeryeong turned curious looks on me as well.
I considered for a moment how much I ought to tell these three, but that was a choice for my sister or Hwayeon to make. For now I decided to confirm only as far as what was already known outside, and I reached for Cha Soyoung and Sophia Adelberg through Spatial Perception.
Let's see. The Cha Soyoung in front of me was supposed to be a dual-attribute user of fire and wind, wasn't she? Looking closely, I found seven growth rings, stained red and green. Aberrants wore their attributes on the outside, but ability users seemed to have the color of their Phase Power dyed into them. Two red rings and five green — her wind would be the stronger attribute, then. So was I water-hued? No, blue. Either way it fell in the blue family, which ought to make it a water attribute.
Cha Soyoung was an ability user of 3.32 million Phase Power, hers shaped into five irregular tree-ring bands. An elemental type, and yet she must have kept up her physical training, for fine muscle packed her whole body the way it would a woman who fought mixed martial arts. Perhaps because of it her chest seemed a little smaller, which was a shame — but she was a beauty on whom a height of 170 centimeters sat without the slightest awkwardness.
Sophia, slender by comparison, was a standard Western beauty to whom the word delicate truly belonged. A heavenly young lady a little short of 160 centimeters, without a trace of anything one could call muscle; mischievous jade-green eyes and long golden hair with a soft wave to it gave her a fresh purity and an imp's charm at once. A unique beauty.
If I gave them the Phase Power I'd seen with my own eyes, down to the figure, would it startle them?
"Vice-Captain Cha Soyoung seems to be around 3.3 million, and Miss Sophia is a little over 3.4 million."
"Huh?"
"Hm."
The two of them flinched at the same moment.
Then, as if putting on a demonstration, I dropped my gaze toward the lower floors and spoke of the four ability users, each around the one-million mark, who had been inside my detection range since earlier.
"I can see four women inside the building."
"Ehh~? If you mean women, there are over three hundred in this building right now!"
The surprise lasted only a moment. Sophia put on a look that said she could have managed that much herself, so I finished the thought.
"Going by their Phase Power: about 900,000, 1,000,000, 1,100,000, and 1,300,000. All four of them are elemental types. As for how they look..."
When I described the four women's features, everyone but Franc was startled. Their faces said they hadn't known I could sense in such detail. Feeling, through Spatial Perception, the corner of Franc's mouth give a twitch, I turned to Sophia.
"Will this do as confirmation?"
"Just one more! You said the range was 450 meters, so 450 meters east of here shouldn't reach! Azure Palace's building is in there, you know? What's the highest Phase Power in that place?!"
Azure Palace? The number-one raid team in the country? In the direction she had pointed, at about 320 meters, there was a healing-type man with 7.54 million Phase Power. Aah. Was that her rival?
Another 700 meters or so to the northwest and there was a physical reinforcement user at around 6.4 million, but the distance overshot by a wide margin, so it wouldn't be that one. I deliberately turned my head as if I were looking that way, and searched out the highest Phase Power inside a full kilometer.
Mm. As expected, Hwayeon's was the highest.
"7.54 million is the highest."
"I knew it! They either hit a jackpot, or they caught a Crystal Eater!"
Huh? What was she on about all of a sudden? Lee Hyeryeong let out a sigh, but Sophia, excited by what I'd said, clenched a fist and swung it up and down as if she couldn't stand it. When I tilted my head, Lee Hyeryeong explained.
"The person you sensed is probably the boss of Azure Palace. His name is Han Jimin — the number-one healing ability user in the country. He's Sophia's self-proclaimed rival."
Ah, right. Lee Hyeryeong had said before that Azure Palace's boss was a healing ability user, hadn't she?
"He is not a rival! He's a detestable, hopeless lump of a man with not a future to his name!"
Listening to the anger thick in her voice, I examined him once more through Spatial Perception, in detail. His Phase Power pattern resembled Sophia's, but the clustered portions sat only in his torso, and that was different. Aside from a single cluster near her heart, Sophia's were spread entirely through her limbs.
"But a jackpot? What's a Crystal Eater? Is it like an Energy Eater?"
The answer came from Hwayeon, in the seat beside me. She caught my left hand, set it on her own thigh, and spoke while toying with my fingers.
"The creature called an Energy Eater in reality is called a Crystal Eater when it shows up in the Phase World. Succeed in putting one down, and you gain an enormous rise in Phase Power. The ability user who made that known is Amanda Siegfried — currently A-Class, fourth in the world, and first among elemental types."
"Hmm."
"She described her first encounter with one this way. 'The instant I came face to face with a palm-sized turtle shining with water-light, I felt a horrific pressure of Phase Power, nothing like its cute looks.' And she said that before she knew it, she had called a lightning bolt down at full output."
Between taking in the story and the warm, soft feel against the back of my hand and my palm, I could barely keep my wits about me.
"And in that instant an enormous quantity of Phase Power — a truly enormous quantity — spread out from the turtle. She said the amount she absorbed, as much of it as she was able to take in, came to five million."
"Five million?! You mean that turtle's Phase Power was twenty-five million?"
And if it was water-light, that was the color of Phase Power, wasn't it? No — it might simply have been a water-attribute turtle.
"I'll explain what came next! She went and told that story on a live network broadcast, and the moment it got out, the ability-user community dumped insults on her — a blonde airhead with nothing but a big chest! The people who knew had been keeping it hushed, and instead of going through the government she showed up on an ordinary variety show, jiggling those sagging lumps of flesh while she showed off, and— mmph-mmph-mmbl!"
Cha Soyoung pulled the flailing, excited Sophia into her arms and patted her back until she settled. As she did, she spoke to me quietly, as if asking me to understand.
"She isn't like this normally. I think hearing about Azure Palace's boss was a shock."
Her voice, low and gentle, wasn't quite Hwayeon's, but it was pleasant to listen to. At the words Azure Palace's boss, Sophia started to thrash again — and cracked her shin against the corner of the table hard enough to sound a solid thud.
"Owwww!!!"
Watching her tremble with tears welling in her eyes, I felt a pointless laugh threatening to slip out. She really was a young woman who didn't act her age.
"Huuu, it huuurts."
Wearing a face on the verge of tears, Sophia healed the mark stamped so clearly into her shin, and only a single cluster of Phase Power in her palm sent out a ripple. The TP it consumed was a trace amount.
Hmm. Raise a ripple from just one cluster, and the TP cost dropped as well, did it? I wondered if I could set only a part of mine vibrating.
I was watching the cluster move inside her hand when Hwayeon laced her fingers through mine.
"Crystal Eaters aren't split into grades, but if you insisted on placing them, they'd be Phase-grade. And the jackpot is something you've experienced yourself."
"Huh? I have?"