Is the National Museum of Korea... Alive? (3)

...Kuu-gung...

The blast carried all the way here, nearly a kilometer off.

The Phase special exhibition hall I was watching through Spatial Perception was swallowed in a terrifying detonation, and still the acuity of that sense handed me the scene without a blur. The rectangular casket had been blown to splinters under the ability users' assault. As the pieces that had made it up crumbled and fell, I felt a dense mass of Phase Power drawing inward to a single point.

By raw quantity, the ability users held far more. Somehow, the vortex churning in the empty air felt infinitely worse.

"Kh—! It's coming out!"

The fire alarm screamed, and the ceiling sprinklers began to spray. Dust settled slowly, and through it a faint shadow—like tree-shade under the sun—started gathering into a single point. Shadow and Phase Power fused. The shadow deepened, and out of it came an aberrant shaped like a reaper, shedding a darkness dreadful even to look at, a scythe in one hand and a bone lantern in the other.

Phase Power, 21,666. A Mid-High Rank Variant. A ghost, so in practice High Grade?

"I-It's not a Soul Eater!! A Soul Reaper has emerged!!!"

"Damage dealers, scatter! Reinforcers, recover the victims!"

At Jeon Iltae's cry, half a scream, Mister Hwa snapped out orders, and the elemental ability users spread fast, taking formation with the Soul Reaper at the center. Five Physical Reinforcement users launched themselves like lightning, ripped sixteen people off the floor where they were stuck, and immediately hurled themselves up the stairs toward the surface. The instant those obstacles were gone—

"Fire!!"

With Mister Hwa's shout, the elemental users snapped the growth rings inside their bodies at full power and sent elemental rounds screaming at the Soul Reaper.

...Bbububung... Kugugugung...

Rrrumble...

"Ground's been shaking, blasts going off—did something happen?"

"An aberrant didn't show up somewhere, did it?"

"There was a siren a little while ago, too..."

Blasts audible even here set the cafe murmuring. Then one guest, eyes on a smartphone, cried out in a startled voice.

"Wait—! They're saying an aberrant appeared at the National Museum!"

"Hey, part-timer. Flip it to the news. The news!"

At the shout, the store TV switched over to a news channel.

As the bulletin ran, people startled and hurried out of the cafe.

Franc watched them go for a moment, then turned her eyes to me, bright with curiosity, and asked without a sound.

"Seoha? How does it stand?"

"A Mid-High Rank ghost aberrant showed up. It's a Soul Reaper."

"A-A Soul Reaper, you say?!"

The name startled her. She knew something about them, then.

"You know Soul Reapers?"

"It is a near raid-class aberrant, upon which physical force does not work in the slightest."

"...Of the thirty-seven gathered at the museum, two are Recovery users. Two are Detection. Eleven are Physical Reinforcement, and twenty-two are D- to E-Class elemental users. They'll take it down easy, right?"

"......"

Her failure to answer threw me.

"Th-They can't catch it?"

"I believe... they ought to be able to."

"So you're not sure."

Franc's face darkened. They could take it, maybe—but she was guessing there would be casualties.

Mister Hwa and his party, mottled with dirt and blast-soot, loosed a volley, then burst out of the museum and sprinted for Mirror Pond, calling in the ability users already drawing an encirclement.

"Assemble! Assemble, damn it!! You little bastards, you gonna get over here or not?!"

The five Alliance ability users who had searched the ground floor had already subdued the victims, recovered them, and escaped the museum ahead of the rest. Reaching Mirror Pond, Mister Hwa confirmed the others had gathered and began firing off orders.

"A Soul Reaper's out! Do not get hit by that scythe! Physical Reinforcement, Recovery, and Detection to the rear! Front rank, D! Middle rank, E! Formation A!"

With Mister Hwa joined to those five, all thirty-seven of the Alliance's ability users snapped into a U at his shout. The Physical Reinforcement users hauled five spears, each two meters long, out of the trailer and drove them into the ground behind themselves in a single line.

While the remaining five and the Recovery users hurried to treat civilians caught in the accident and load them into ambulances, the Soul Reaper merely floated, dazed, in the Phase special exhibition hall on the first basement floor.

A black sackcloth was pulled down over its head. Where a face should have been, there was no skull—only a darkness black as pitch. Bone hands came out from under the cloth. The right held a massive scythe that looked to run past four meters; the left gripped an antique lantern wrought of bone. There was nothing inside that lantern that could have fed a fire, and yet a cold blue flame was burning. I looked at it through Spatial Perception. That blue flame was a kind of Phase Power, too.

Scarcely harmed by the elemental rounds that had struck it right after it emerged, the Soul Reaper began to rise, slow as something swimming through empty air. It seemed unable to pass through soil, so it drifted through the concrete walls and started flying, unhurried, toward where Mister Hwa and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠others waited. Soon, from the museum building beyond Mirror Pond, it passed through the glass cladding the museum's face and showed itself.

The scythe and the lantern pass through the walls, too...

Mister Hwa, in the middle of reporting the situation to the Ability User Alliance, confirmed the Soul Reaper had entered his sight, shut off his Certifier, and gave Yoo Chae-rin a tense look.

"Soul Reaper sighted! Prepare for combat!"

At Yoo Chae-rin's shout, the ability users aimed as one.

"Suppressing fire!"

Bundles of elemental rounds flew to pin its aggro, so it could not turn aside. But—

From where its face ought to have been, a plume of pure white breath spread, and then it swung the massive scythe on a diagonal. The incoming elemental rounds burst all at once, without so much as touching it.

Goosebumps. Was that thing really only a Mid-High Rank Variant? The zombie penguin I'd seen had been Mid Grade, sure, but was a single tier supposed to be this far apart?

I worried for Hwayeon, out on a raid to hunt a High-Rank Variant.

"Aggro confirmed!"

When Jeon Iltae, the Detection user posted at the very rear, shouted it, Yoo Chae-rin screamed with the veins standing out on her neck.

"All units! Volley fire! Commence!!"

Without a sound, orbs of flame, blades of wind, and clods of earth sharp as awls left the elemental users' hands, each one packed with all the Phase Power it could hold—and the Physical Reinforcement users in the rear rank poured TP into their spears...! and hurled them with everything they had, shoulders swelling.

What? You can load TP into a weapon, too?!

Nearly a thousand TP condensed in each spear, and they flew, shedding a brilliant watery light. The Soul Reaper swung its great scythe at the incoming assault, but this time it only sheared through a few elemental rounds. The rest struck home.

Pubung... bbububung... Bbeong...

I listened to the faint blasts from far off, eyes closed, and kept watching the fight.

Every spear the Physical Reinforcement users had thrown not only hit the Soul Reaper but punched clean through it, shattered the museum glass behind, and buried itself in the wall. More than the blast of the elemental rounds, it seemed the TP-charged spears thrown by lower D-Class Physical Reinforcement users had dealt the greater damage.

From the places the spears had pierced, black smoke... Huh? That was Phase Power, too? The black smoke leaked out, and soon what had spread through the air turned the color of clear water and bled into the atmosphere.

"Rear rank, hold! Middle rank, front rank! Continuous fire, 1.5-second delay, 100 TP!!"

Pung... pubung, pung-pung...

With every impact, the blue membrane—or something like a membrane—covering the Soul Reaper's body shuddered, then finally broke apart.

Whether the shock was stacking under the unbroken assault, the Soul Reaper let out a gloomy breath that raised the hair on my neck.

Ugh. I'm not even hearing it directly, and just watching is enough to give me a chill.

Hit, the Soul Reaper's speed surged, and it began to close on the ability users. It couldn't dodge the elemental rounds flying in fast, took every one of them, and flinched at the bursting explosions—but in less than five seconds the distance left had shrunk to fifty meters, and Yoo Chae-rin's shout tore out.

"Rear rank, throw!!"

The Physical Reinforcement users who had been waiting hurled their spears as one. The Soul Reaper, as if it had judged that going on like this was dangerous, fell back and swung its scythe—but it only managed to cut two. Six more punched through its body again. Even as that body thrashed and sprayed Phase Power in every direction, elemental rounds kept flying and striking it.

Mister Hwa alone wasn't firing, and I wondered what he was doing. Then I saw him condensing TP into his palm with everything he had. Of the 220,000 Phase Power he had left, 200,000 drew together. He braced his violently trembling right arm with his left, aimed at the Soul Reaper, and shouted through a great booming laugh.

"Krahahahaha! This is this body's ultimate art! Receive it! Azure Jade Blaze Cannon!"

At his cry, a vivid blue fireball burst from the round orb of watery light set in the center of the steel gauntlet and began to drift, slow, toward the faltering Soul Reaper.

Slow! Isn't it going to dodge?!

"Front rank, middle rank, full-power rapid fire! Rear rank, throw as one!!"

Yoo Chae-rin's orders changed at once. The ability users began firing elemental rounds as fast as they could, and the Physical Reinforcement users packed their spears full of TP and threw them, shining with watery light.

Under the mindless downpour of elemental rounds and thrown spears, the Soul Reaper could neither flee nor advance. It was seized by a rigidity, able only to flinch. In the middle of that, its TP fell to 10,000. Did taking damage reduce TP? Then if it reached zero, would it be annihilated?

Riding that suppressing fire, the instant Mister Hwa's Azure Jade Blaze Cannon touched the Soul Reaper—

KUUUUUUNG!!

A blast loud enough to carry clearly even into the cafe erupted, and a pillar of blue flame swallowed the Soul Reaper whole.

Flailing inside the roaring column of fire, the Soul Reaper burned fiercely, then scattered watery Phase Power in every direction, dropped the lantern and the scythe, and was gone.

"Hmm. So that's the might of a technique worth 200,000 TP."

"Two hundred thousand... What became of it?"

At the talk of spending, in a single attack, a sum several times my entire Phase Power, Franc let out a small sigh and asked.

"The moment the old man's technique touched the Soul Reaper, a scorching pillar of fire appeared and melted it in one breath. It only had about 10,000 Phase Power left. Once it was annihilated, the lantern and scythe it had been holding dropped."

And to Franc, who stood with both hands clasped tight, watching my face, I explained everything I had seen, from the start.

The ability users confirmed the annihilation and broke into noisy laughter, while the E-Class among them walked toward the place where the Soul Reaper had vanished.

Trying to absorb the Phase Power?

"Haaah. Korea is remarkable. To subdue a Soul Reaper with three D-Class elemental ability users, a host of E-Class, and eight D-Class Physical Reinforcement users."

"Is that impressive?"

Franc, admiration on her face, gave a small nod.

"A Soul Reaper once appeared in Britain as well. Then, too, it manifested in the very heart of a city, and the loss of life was dreadful."

"What were the ability users even doing?"

"I only heard the tale afterward, but it is said that one struck by a Soul Reaper's scythe dies and becomes a wraith. The initial response failed, the wraiths multiplied in great numbers, and as a result..."

"So that's why he said never get hit by the scythe. If they hadn't stopped it, something as horrific as back then would have happened here."

If a victim of the Soul Reaper's scythe becomes a wraith, then anyone killed by a wraith becomes an evil spirit—or, at a low chance, another wraith of the same kind. Appear in a major city and fail to answer it at the start... horrifying just to imagine.

"What makes the Soul Reaper frightening is that contagion. Even should it be set alongside a High-Rank Variant, its true substance is Mid-High Grade. Thirty-three people followed orders in perfect unison, and so this result is, in a sense, only to be expected. I believe this is part of why Korea could become a great power."

"Why? If you belong to a group, following orders is the obvious thing, isn't it?"

"Ability users of strong individuality dislike being organized in the manner of an army. Those of particularly fierce pride dislike receiving orders from anyone at all. I am told it is common for such persons to remain unaffiliated with any raid team for that very reason. And yet Korea's ability users are organized just so, like a military..."

Hmm. There was a part of that I didn't quite follow... Well. If she was saying our country was something special, it wasn't worth picking over.

Hwa Joong-kang and Yoo Chae-rin, having stopped the Soul Reaper with hardly a loss, were talking with a sharp-featured D-Class man called Maeng Jinho.

"Is that true? That you were able to prepare thanks to Blue Genius?"

"It was because of the information Blue Genius provided that we could identify it as a soul-type beforehand. And the Soul Reaper's casket was where he indicated. At first we believed it to be a Soul Eater... Hoo. In any case, had it not been for him, a hasty search would have cost a great many lives."

"Damn, that's something. They said the detection range was 450 meters—so it really was true."

Maeng Jinho cracked his knuckles in admiration, and Mister Hwa folded arms as thick as Yoo Chae-rin's waist and laughed, kuhuhuh.

"Kuhuhuh. Damn shame, it is. If he'd come into the Alliance Special Task Force, there'd be nothing left to wish for."

"Rumors already abound that the boss of Time River has him firmly in her grasp. Approach him, and given his temperament, you would only earn his dislike."

Yoo Chae-rin reined Mister Hwa in, calm as ever. At that, Maeng Jinho showed his curiosity.

"What I heard was that the Ice Queen had melted, though?"

"According to a reliable source, they have known one another since they were young—childhood friends—and not long ago they were even caught enjoying a secret tryst in the office."

"...As a fellow man, that is an incredibly enviable story."

S-Sophiaaaaa—!!

"A real shame, that. Come to think of it, I heard a rumor the President's after Blue Genius too. That one true as well?"

Argh. I could die of how cringe this is! A name that digs straight into my dark history! Who the hell came up with Blue Genius? I ever meet them, they're not walking away from it!

"It is likely true. I have heard that our branch chief is salivating over him as well."

"Huh. Even that guy? I'll grant a 450-meter detection range is outstanding, now that I've seen it myself—but is it really enough to have the higher-ups drooling?"

"You look only at the present, Captain. They are looking at the future. A difference in perspective."

"Kuhm—!"

At that single remark, Mister Hwa looked sheepish. He glanced around at the wreck a brief fight had made of the place and sighed.

"Anyway, I'm going to go tear into those moron bastards in the Inspection Division and find out how the hell they did their jobs, letting a Soul Reaper's casket get in this far. Right! We bagged one, so let's get back, you lot!!"

At Mister Hwa's shout, the ability users moved toward the trailer in good order... and around the Ability User Alliance's trailer, I could see some forty others gathered, in varied dress and with varied Phase Power.

Who were they? The one with the highest Phase Power was a C-Class Physical Reinforcement user at around 700,000, a man who was, quite literally, what people mean by a pretty boy. He threw a fierce look at Mister Hwa as the old man passed, and Mister Hwa answered that look with a savage grin as he climbed onto the trailer. The pretty boy let out a deep sigh, then gestured to the gathered ability users that it was time to go back.

Must have been ability users sent over from a raid team nearby.

Watching them pull out, I drank my steamed milk—stone cold by now—in a single swallow, ate the untouched slice of cake in one go, and left the cafe.

When the ironclad rhinoceros aberrant had charged, several civilians in its path had been badly hurt. Fortunately, thanks to the two Recovery users on site, they hadn't died... but somehow I felt the reason they couldn't get clear had something to do with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me, and it left me in a sour mood.

If, when I ran, I had warned the ordinary visitors too, and we'd gotten clear together...

The guilt was guilt. From the middle of the fight, though, a strange feeling had kept lingering. Taking as my last look the sight of restricted-access tape being wrapped all the way around the National Museum of Korea—as if they meant to close the place for a while—I pulled my attention away and flagged down a passing taxi.

"Time River Building in Yeouido, please."

"You got it."

Listening to the engine, I closed my eyes and tried to find the source of that strange feeling I'd had, watching the Soul Reaper and the ability users fighting it.

Well. The conclusion came at once.

It was a kind of sourness born from wanting to be recognized. I wanted to show this outstanding ability of mine off to the whole neighborhood, and I couldn't, and the stress of hiding it away—piling up whether I noticed or not—must have broken the surface when it got the chance. The bumbling Soul Reaper, too stupid even to run, just standing there and taking hits, had something to do with it. So did the fact that ability users holding ten times my Phase Power, or sixty, were far weaker than I had imagined. That poured oil on the feeling.

Taken all together, the way the ability users fought had struck me as weak. I'd seen two of Mister Hwa's abilities, and sure enough, set against the TP they consumed, the power seemed somehow pathetic. The TP-charged spears had surprised me badly—but what surprised me was that you could charge a weapon with TP at all. Set against how much TP they spent, the power was a little...

The finisher Mister Hwa used at the end was certainly something. Objectively, though, my Mana Bullet at 100 TP was stronger. The delay, too. He'd concentrated for a dozen seconds and more to loose that finisher. I could whip one out in a second and a half.

The Soul Reaper was the same. It had stirred the fear sitting in a human being's instincts, and at the end it had shown a sudden, sharp speed—but if elemental rounds are coming in on a line or an arc, you step left or right. Why fall back? And with advantages like that, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠speed and the ability to fight in the air, the only thing it managed to do was stand in for a target board.

If you're taking damage, shouldn't you dodge first? Was it stupid because it was a ghost, and ghosts don't have brains?

Then there was the order Yoo Chae-rin had spat out in English, midway. Fire on a 1.5-second delay, spending 100 TP. Those elemental rounds, a hundred TP apiece, hadn't even matched 0.1 TP of my Mana Bullet.

If it had been my Mana Bullet. If it had been my Mana Laser. If it had been my ability.

If I had been standing there.

Wouldn't I have put that Soul Reaper down more easily than those thirty-three?

The longer I thought, the more wretched I felt—why did I have to hide what I could do and live like a goddamn idiot?—but I remembered my situation soon enough, and settled myself.

I want to get strong. Soon. Strong enough that I don't have to read the moods of greedy people in power. Strong enough to use my ability as I please, and live as I please.

If I made the world rankings' top ten, could I live without watching anyone else's face?

Rankings, thinking about it, probably weren't a matter of one person's martial strength alone. They were the whole of a thing—connections, authority, money, the means to call force down—set out together as one. For proof, I'd crossed Seoul enough times by now that it felt like I'd cut the city back and forth, and in all that time I had not seen a single person with more Phase Power than Hwayeon. And yet Hwayeon was third ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in Korea's individual rankings. The one in first—I'd confirmed it not long ago—was the boss of Azure Palace, whose Phase Power was lower than hers.

The boss of Azure Palace was a healer. And the boss of Korea's number-one raid team. So it was certain. Rankings did not look at an individual's martial power alone.

...

I was trying to let the tangle in my chest settle, eyes closed, when Franc began to fidget beside me. I reached out and took her restless hand, lightly, so she'd know it was all right.

Right. Just wait seven months. Once I could enter the Phase World properly, that was when it would start.

If I got the chance later, I ought to try imitating that finisher Mister Hwa had shown me. I had a feeling I could copy that, too. All he'd done was cram a mass of TP into his hand, spin it as hard as he could, and fire. It shouldn't be hard.

Before long the taxi reached Yeouido Station. I got out and swept my eyes over the Time River Building.

I'd come so I wouldn't make liars of the kids who'd covered for me with an excuse... but scanning from the twentieth floor straight down to the first, the only person I knew was Director Lee Hyeryeong.

...Hm?

A glass display case that hadn't been there last time took up one part of the first-floor hall. The moment I saw what was inside, my mind snapped clear, as if someone had upended ice water over my head.

A desire to show off. A hunger for recognition. How had I thought something so stupid? Die, and none of it was any use...

I stared at that part of the first floor, then headed for a flower shop I could see through Spatial Perception.

"Franc? I'm fine. I got a little unsettled, watching the Soul Reaper fight the Alliance ability users. That's all. And the people who couldn't get out have been weighing on me."

"That is not your fault, Seoha. It was a thing that occurred not long after you yourself had noticed."

"The truth is, from the first moment I saw the museum, there was a sensation that nagged at me. I didn't know what the problem was, so I ignored it. From now on I should trust my senses more."

Because I knew now that the sensation hadn't been hypersensitivity. It had been a faint warning from Spatial Perception.

I arrived at a flower shop about the size of a large restaurant. One delivery motorcycle sat out front, but the parking looked built for seven. Were the other six out on runs?

Let's see...

Business must have been doing well. I took in the sign and stepped slowly inside, and a gracefully aged woman in her sixties, clearly the owner, came walking out.

"My, a young customer. Have you come to buy flowers to give someone as a gift?"

Written down, the words only asked whether I'd come to buy flowers for a person. Her face and her tone asked whether I'd come to buy them for someone I liked.

Whoa. I hadn't known tone could shift a meaning that far.

Her voice was lovely, and looking at her face, she must have been a tremendous beauty when she was young. Before I knew it, a line of flattery slipped out.

"Wow. I bet you were ridiculously pretty when you were young."

"Oh my, hohoho. Thank you, young man. But young ladies like that sort of talk even better."

She smiled with real grace, covering her mouth with one hand as she laughed, and I found myself hoping Hwayeon would have a look like this when she grew old.

Better if she never grew old at all.

"Well then, what flower would you like? A flower for someone you love must be a rose, of course. A white rose, for purity. A pink rose, for happy love and for vows. A red rose, for passion, for joy, for beauty."

"...Don't you have a flower for someone who's gone far away?"

At that, her face stiffened slightly. With a pitying look, she walked to the refrigerated display that took up an entire wall and began picking white chrysanthemums, blooming shyly, one blossom and then another, trimming them and gathering them together.

"I don't really know the proper etiquette. They've already left us, and I didn't want to go empty-handed, so..."

"Hoho. A white chrysanthemum carries many meanings, but in the Eastern teaching of the Five Elements, white signifies the west. The west is not only where the sun goes down. They call it the Western Pure Land, the world of ultimate bliss, and so the flower also bears a prayer that the departed be reborn into paradise."

Smiling quietly, she wrapped seven white chrysanthemums in paper white as snow and held them out to me.

"Coming to buy white chrysanthemums on your way to pay respects—that alone means you know etiquette enough."

I paid by card and left the shop, and the flower-shop grandmother saw me off with a quiet smile.

"She really aged with such grace."

"Yes. Even to my eyes, she was a grandmother like a flower."

Watching her through Spatial Perception, I turned my steps toward the Time River Building.