Several Stories (3)

Whether it was the deep kiss or something else, the flush on Hwayeon's face refused to fade.

I drew TP from my fingertips and dabbed it over her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eyes, and while she and Franc greeted each other I dropped onto the sofa and called Mom to tell her I'd be late again tonight.

The way she asked a second time made my skin crawl. It was the voice of some potbellied middle-aged man copping a feel. In that same insinuating tone she added, "Go get 'em, son!" I ignored her and hung up.

Mom only got strange when my love life was involved. Was she that desperate for a grandchild?

My eyes drifted toward Franc's and Hwayeon's lower bellies, and the instant I felt their gazes swinging back my way I yanked my own aside and asked Hwayeon a question.

"When I called earlier, your face looked a little dark. Was it that message you got at the madam's house?"

"Mm... yes. Just before you called, word came that her body had been transported."

"I see. Who was the Team Six member who died?"

"Not a combatant. A supporter. One of them broke the safety rules and wandered too far from base to gather, and an aberrant ambushed them. They're five months into stabilizing the ground around the base, so it's safer than the early days, relatively speaking — but the danger was still there..."

She let out a long sigh as she explained. Died for money, then. What a waste.

"In the Phase World, a single misjudgment costs a life all the time. Her family will receive the death benefit and the condolence money, but grief over losing your own isn't something money can thin. I can only imagine how hard they'll take the news..."

Her? At the word for a woman, Jung So-hee flashed through my mind — that girl who'd been like a rabbit.

Nah. It couldn't be her. Time River had no shortage of female supporters. I only knew the one, so my brain had jumped there on reflex.

"..."

"It isn't... Jung So-hee, is it?"

"You knew her?"

"F-for real? Miss Jung So-hee is dead?"

The blood that had been running hot from the kiss with Hwayeon went cold. Franc, listening, looked at me and drew her brows together in pity.

"Jung So-hee. H-Class elemental-type ability user. Her return ran late, and the teammates who went out searching found, first, a great quantity of blood and part of a corpse. They followed the trail and the bloodstains, and at the end of it lay her body, grievously mutilated, and a Low Lyger with its muzzle soaked red."

The small frame of that living-support ability user rose in front of my eyes — the one who had looked like a rabbit in the elevator.

She'd said she envied my ability, and when I, younger than she was, patted her head, she had gone shy and made that little auuu... that girl.

"..."

I lost whatever I'd meant to say and sat there with my eyes down, and Hwayeon asked Franc where I had met Jung So-hee.

"Last weekend, when I came with Lady Siha, we met in the elevator. She seemed a kind person. It is a pity it ended this way."

"So that's how it was..."

Hwayeon shifted over beside me and gathered my head against her chest. Franc stroked my back and laid her hand over mine.

Held in the warmth of their silence, I let out a quiet sigh.

We had met only once, and there was no real tie between us, but news that someone whose face I had seen and whose voice I had answered was dead left a far greater ripple than word of a stranger. Greater than I would have thought.

"That's only natural. Someone you know — family, a lover — matters more than the life or death of a person whose face you've never seen and whom you don't know at all. Of course they do."

"Isn't that... too selfish? When I first heard someone on Team Six had died, all I cared about was that your face had gone dark. Then the moment I heard it was someone I'd actually seen, even for a little while, my feelings changed..."

"So long as you don't become human garbage — the sort that rejoices in other people's pain and death, or hitches someone else's death to their own fame and profit — you're fine. Being shocked that an acquaintance has died is an entirely ordinary thing."

"..."

I buried my face in Hwayeon's full chest and rested there a while, and the mind that had been shaking seemed to settle.

Into that slightly sunken quiet, Hwayeon brought a few documents and spoke.

"The negotiations wrapped late last night. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The dispositions for Kang Woohyuk and Choi Soohan have been finalized."

"What kind?"

"Deputy Director Kang Woohyuk was demoted to Southeast Asia for negligent, incompetent supervision of a subordinate. He won't be posted to a single place. He'll tour the whole of Southeast Asia every year, and they've given him the region the Ability User Alliance avoids above all others on account of the crushing workload. Plus a fine of ten million dollars."

One bad subordinate, and the man was going to run himself ragged. Literally. And a fine in the billions of won, on top of it.

"And the problem herself, Choi Soohan..."

Choi Soohan? Hwayeon broke off with a frown and went on in a voice that made plain none of this sat right with her.

"She's being dispatched to Time River."

"Huh? Coming to Time River counts as punishment?"

What was that supposed to be? My disbelief must have been written all over my face, because Hwayeon didn't smooth her frown as she continued.

"Ordinarily a mistake made in the course of duty gets papered over at the company level, but this incident was classified as grave. There was no intent, yet she failed to carry out her duties in good faith, and the judgment was that the resulting error could have done harm on a societal scale. Other causal threads tangled themselves in as well, and this is what came of it."

"So?"

"So they took your abilities as currently known, calculated twenty years of economic benefit, and assessed that sum as a special fine plus civil damages. The figure is 118 quadrillion, 32 trillion, 998 billion won. The split between fine and damages is roughly two to eight."

"...A hundred and eighteen quadrillion?"

It wasn't even money I had to pay, and the scale of the damages still nearly sent my brain out on leave.

"With the government and the Ability User Alliance stepping in, a trial date was set quickly, and the proceedings blew through like the wind. Choi Soohan's position was that she would accept whatever sentence came, so the result arrived early."

"Ah. So it actually went to trial."

"Yes. As of now, Choi Soohan is a criminal, no question. The term of repayment is indefinite. Because the fine cannot be discharged by the measure of that woman's — of Choi Soohan's ability, it was set as a convertible sentence. The place of labor is Time River. More precisely, under you. Once she has worked off a sufficient portion of the fine, she returns to her original post."

She had been about to say that bitch, glanced at me, and switched to the name. The business at Iljasan must have come back to her.

But a return? That seemed impossible. Twenty percent of 118 quadrillion was 23.6 quadrillion won — not a sum any ability user could repay. And it wasn't only the fine.

"Normally the period of detention is set by the amount, but a special statute was applied here and the term made indefinite. In other words, Choi Soohan will have to labor at Time River until she dies. She is no different from a modern slave."

The word slave left me blank. I shook it off, looked up at Hwayeon, and asked what was bothering me.

"Speaking of which — a hundred and eighteen quadrillion. What standard did they even use to come up with a number that insane?"

"Remember when I said the economic effect of your ability ran to hundreds of billions of TP? They applied that value as it stood."

...So she had been serious.

"You can sense Phase Power. With that, you can read an aberrant's Phase Power. Being able to read Phase Power means you can turn a standard of strength into numbers. That is something no one can do right now."

"So if you turn aberrants into numbers, combat gets safer?"

"Yes. Even the mere fact that the grades of aberrants still unknown to us could be systematized — the value of that is beyond words. As the saying goes, know the enemy and know yourself, and you need not fear a hundred battles. Once that information is compiled into data, deaths among ability users in the Phase World can be reduced exponentially. And beyond that..."

Listening to the cascade of worldwide value my ability was supposed to create, I could see how they had arrived at that insane figure for damages and fine.

Over the last few days, while Hwayeon was drilling it into me, I had learned that plenty of people died in vain in the Phase World because they couldn't gauge an aberrant's strength. If I systematized those grades into a database, deaths like that would drop enormously, and if the ability users who lived kept raiding, the economy would pick up. Something along those lines.

"Not only that. Your ability applies to the raids themselves. If a High-Rank Variant carries a Phase Stone, the stone alone is worth at least twenty-five billion won, and once you add a sixty percent premium and distribution margin it comes to forty billion. Take a Peak-Rank Variant and obtain its Phase Stone, and with an eighty percent distribution margin and premium the floor price becomes five hundred forty billion. And if you take an aberrant holding a Phase Stone of a million TP or more, that price is—"

"One trillion eight hundred billion won..."

"Yes. Add the aberrant's byproducts and you're close to two trillion. An ordinary upper-tier raid team takes, combined, about a hundred High Grade and Superior-tier aberrants a year. Simple arithmetic: if, with your help, they took a thousand Peak-Rank Variants, or a hundred thousand High-Rank Variants, that value alone exceeds two quadrillion. On top of that, everyone is keeping quiet about it, but they believe that if your ability evolves you will be able to detect even the aberrants that carry Phase Stones. Then, instead of killing everything in sight the way they do now, they could hunt only the ones with stones, dig Phase-Power-imbued artifacts out of ruins and dungeons, clear the dungeons people call labyrinths, and—"

"Artifacts?"

"I'll explain that part later. Anyway — from the new abilities you would gain growing all the way to B-Class, through the expectations I just described — this is the minimum expected value our government and the Alliance derived. Of course, what they calculated is a figure with no ground under it. The way I see it, your ability sits at a level where value can't even be assigned."

At the sight of me scratching my head, Hwayeon let out a small sigh.

"So you may as well think of Choi Soohan as never leaving Time River for the rest of her life."

A hundred and eighteen quadrillion. Even if you had ten of her working like oxen, they couldn't pay it off. I had asked them to run her hard, and her whole life had been mortgaged in the most spectacular way.

"Why did Choi Soohan even do it?"

That was what I wanted to know. She had been at the hospital beside the Ability User Alliance building. All she had to do was spare a moment and tell me. She hadn't, and the thing had blown up this big. Thanks to her, a bunch of people had been put out, and she had wrecked her own life.

"By rights she should have come to the hospital while you were there and told you, but she said she forgot. After that the Energy Eater appeared, the situation snagged, she forgot entirely, and only when she heard you had entered the Phase World did the memory come back. That's what she testified."

...I had nothing to say.

"Then does she become a raider of Time River, and stand on the front line?"

Franc seemed curious what position Choi Soohan would be given. At the question, Hwayeon knit her brows with the delicacy of someone presented with a dish she could neither swallow nor spit out.

"As I said before, Choi Soohan's growth stopped at the very threshold of D-Class, so we cannot commit her to dangerous work such as subjugations or raids where Mid-High Rank Variants appear. And posting her as a guard around Seoha is out of the question, if only for the matter of retaliation."

"But Seoha is strong, is he not?"

"The Seoha known to the world is a detection-type ability user, is he not."

"Ah — that is so."

"For that reason she will take part, without rest, in ordinary subjugations of Mid-Rank Variants. Combat against Mid-Rank Variants is generally freer of formation."

"Is that so... I cannot say it strikes me as an efficient punishment. If the despair deepens, she may make some desperate choice."

"That can't be helped. This is the first case of its kind since the Ability User Alliance was founded, and Seoha's position is anything but ordinary. Frankly, I doubt the Alliance levied a fine they expected to collect in full."

"...Then the punishment falls on Choi Soohan alone, and the Alliance bears no responsibility?"

"No. The fine Choi Soohan must pay will be paid by the Ability User Alliance in her stead — even if she is placed in a position where she cannot pay it. However colossal a collective the Alliance may be, moving money on the order of quadrillions of won will be an enormous burden."

Hwayeon and Franc were talking money, but honestly I wasn't interested. Better to assume I would never see the damages from one side of it, and though they said a portion of that twenty-three-quadrillion-won fine would be passed along to me, it would come in little bits by the quarter. I would make more charging Phase Stones and selling them myself.

What did occur to me was simple curiosity. How must Choi Soohan feel right now, with her life dropped into the pit?

"Where is Choi Soohan? Has she reached the building?"

"She'll be formally assigned tomorrow. Anyway, let's leave those two there. And on the off chance a Certifier is destroyed — did you hear anything about that from your case officer?"

Apparently Hwayeon disliked having Choi Soohan as a topic. Had they clashed a few more times since that day and gotten even worse?

"No?"

"That man... haah. If a Certifier breaks, the moment you have any time at all, reporting it to the nearest Ability User Alliance comes before everything else. If it's confirmed that you entered the next Phase World without receiving a Certifier, a worldwide wanted notice goes out on you at once, as a special-grade criminal."

"Special-grade means..."

I swallowed before I meant to.

"Once a Certifier enters the Phase World, the link between headquarters' server and the Certifier is cut, so Alliance headquarters can tell at once whether the person who went in filed a report. Even if a Certifier is damaged, unless it is burned completely to ash a damage signal is sent to the server room at headquarters, so tricks like slipping into the Phase World in that gap are exposed quickly. If your Certifier is damaged, above all else, make it your first priority to visit or call the nearest Ability User Alliance and report it."

"Got it."

"You in particular would do well not to think about the Phase World. Not even to call it to mind. What happened to you is an extremely rare case, even by the standard of the whole world. A minor went into the Phase World without so much as a word of warning from his case officer."

"..."

"This was the first time someone was drawn in by a compound of conditions, so Alliance headquarters dispatched a member of the Central Deliberation Committee to set a precedent, and they even fixed an absurd fine. Your detection ability is so outstanding that the government couldn't stand by either. They stepped in and negotiated again and again with the working staff at headquarters. Trace it back, and Deputy Director Kang Woohyuk and Choi Soohan are the first victims of your Mana Sieve. If you had been an ordinary ability user, none of this would have happened."

Hearing that it was because of me didn't sit well. Mr. Kang, especially, had only been doing his job, and thanks to one rotten subordinate he was suddenly booked for a concert tour of developing countries.

Franc must have read my face. She reached out, stroked my cheek, and spoke.

"Do not trouble yourself too much. You are the victim, Seoha, not the one who did harm. A victim has no need to worry over the offender."

"Yeah. Thanks."

But think of it another way. Even if Choi Soohan had told me, wouldn't the Mana Sieve have sucked me in at least once? Then it was thanks to her not telling me that this could be passed over simply, without turning into a real problem. I had even been able to guess why I had crossed into the Phase World.

Looked at like that, some of the responsibility was mine.

I glanced at Hwayeon. Her expression said she fully intended to run Choi Soohan into the ground. ...So I told the two of them what I was thinking.

"Hmm. One could see it that way."

"Yes. Had Choi Soohan explained it all, clever and complete, Seoha would have been an animal caught helpless in a snare."

"Understood. I had meant to work her without rest until she was at death's door, but I'll go a little easy."

I was curious just how far a little went... but I decided not to ask. Hwayeon would handle it.

"And as for your own disposition — the seven-month suspension has been voided."

"Huh? For real?"

"Yes. At yesterday's trial, Deputy Director Kang volunteered that it was all his own fault, and thanks to that a great deal of the punishment you were to receive was reduced. Alliance headquarters accepted it at once, glad they wouldn't be digging an emotional trench with you."

"Something about it feels off."

"It means their expectations of you are that great."

Hrm. In all sorts of ways, the moment I turned nineteen and counted as an adult was something I looked forward to and feared.

The number-one woman behind that anticipation opened her mouth with a serious face.

"And since it was proven you had no intent, the fine you were to pay was adjusted from a criminal fine to an administrative penalty, and that penalty was reset at the full amount of the provisional contract deposit. It dropped from five hundred billion won, the full formal deposit, to five billion, the provisional one."

"Oh. And here I thought I was stuck with a criminal fine and a line through the family register."

"Thanks to Deputy Director Kang taking the blame. And Mother's reaction is more unsettled than I expected. By rights it wouldn't have been strange if she had already approached you... still no word?"

Woman number two picked up the thread.

"I saw no sign of the President approaching Seoha."

I was a little displeased that the madam treated me like an expensive resource, but she had set herself against the Ability User Alliance in Hwayeon's place and shielded me, so... Then again, thinking about it, I also didn't like that she had abused Hwayeon when she was young.

"Don't worry. There is absolutely no chance I'll go to Hwarang. I already don't like that she abused you when you were little — and she treats me like an expensive resource."

Hearing that, Hwayeon looked a little moved, with another look mixed in that said this wasn't quite it.

"Hm? Is there something I'm getting wrong?"

"...Never mind."

I didn't know why, but Hwayeon, slipping past the question, pressed gently on the back of my head until my face was buried in the valley of her breasts.

...Soft silk against my cheek, and between those warm, yielding, enormous breasts, my arms around a waist that was slender and yet strong and smooth — this place felt like heaven.

I sneakily fondled that soft waist and felt along her pelvis and her hips. She flinched and trembled, and still said what she had come to say.

"Your two case officers are to be disciplined, so the underage ability users in their charge have been reassigned to other officers. You, however, will be taken on directly by me and by Mother."

"Yeah? Is that all right? I'm your boyfriend."

As I kept feeling her here and there, the neatly arranged hem of the blouse crept up bit by bit, until a gap opened where a hand could slip inside.

"Yes. Until January of next ye—ear, act like an ordinary stu—ah, student!"

I put my hand through that gap and felt Hwayeon's bare skin, and the softness was bewitching past any word for it. When I slowly shifted my hand onto her back, muscle that was soft and yet firm came through beneath the skin.

"Th-that's... nngh. Why, if you can, mapmaking, or. Terrain reading, that sort of — training! You should take some of th—aah!"

I had been feeling with one hand, and the taste of it got to me, so I slid the other inside her clothes as well and started tracing the curves of her side and her back. Hwayeon twitched, leaking a strange sound through her nose, and kept explaining — which only excited me more.

But why wasn't she stopping me? I had thought she would go red and scold me to quit if I touched her like this.

I was diligently roaming the smooth softness of her back, savoring the bare skin under my hands, and the bra strap bothered me. It felt like a bridge of steel and concrete laid across a natural valley.

Let's see... was this the hook?

The little hooked piece joining those thin straps didn't sit right with me, so I checked the structure with Spatial Perception, tugged the strap, and undid it.

With a soft tok, Hwayeon's magnificent breasts surged and settled onto my shoulder.

"?!"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

O-oh. That mochi-soft give stood out even more!

Hwayeon's face went stark red, but she didn't push my hand away. She only stroked my back and the back of my head. Was this a green light?

Her guard stat was way too low!

Against the crown of my head I felt her breath, a little rough now, carrying that plum scent. My face was taking in those full breasts and my hands were happily tracing her spine and her shoulder blades, and through Spatial Perception I could see her and Franc exchanging a look.

"M-Miss Evans, what do you do at a time like this?"

"Th-that is — I simply—!"

"If we remain like this, the stages may keep climbing. From the way he is feeling along my back, the sorrow seems to have eased somewhat, but—!"

"Seoha's health is poor just now! Would it not be better to stop him, even if we must f-force it?!"

"Th... that is so, and yet it is a bodily fatigue, so if I hold him, might the tension not rather come undone? The books — the books say a man feels a psychological calm when he is held in a woman's arms... And Seoha, especially, is mentally worn just now, so..."

"Ah, that may be. But if Lady Siha learns of this, what reaction she might show..."

"...What if we kept it a secret? Seoha is clever and wise. I do not think he would reveal it on purpose."

"That is true. Lady Siha worries for Seoha's health as well, so even should we be found out, could we not persuade her that it was for the sake of settling his mind? Above all, Lady Siha has a promise with Seoha, so I do not believe she would fly into a rage."

The two of them were talking, and as I eavesdropped by reading their lips my heart beat harder and the anticipation swelled.

Maybe I really could. Maybe today was the day I lost it?!

I stretched my arms a little more boldly and pulled Hwayeon's upper body tight against me, and a fantastic, yielding softness clung to my fingertips. Th-this was the side of her breast?!

Savoring that with my fingertips, I nuzzled my face into her cleavage and started undoing the buttons down the front of the silk blouse with my mouth.

Hwayeon, who had been flinching and trembling, spoke to Franc with a flushed face, as if she could not bear it any longer.

"And — mm. No. I... I cannot hold on any longer either. I am sorry, Miss Evans."

"I-it is all right! And Hwayeon — will you not call me comfortably, by my name?"

"I-I will. I hope you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will call me comfortably as well, Franc."

That was permission, right?! I just got a yes, didn't I?!