A Rainy Day (1)
Even through dinner, and long after the plates were cleared, my sister kept needling me with that nickname, until I finally snapped.
"Cut it out! You flat-chested fatty!"
I triggered Mana Mode acceleration and bolted for my room. She came growling after me. When the knob of my locked door refused to turn, she went to her own room and tried to come through the sliding door between us, so I planted a hand against it and held it shut.
She strained to force it open, then wore herself out and stood there panting. Irritation written all over her face, she hammered on the door and yelled.
"You come out here and I am not letting you off!"
"Heh! Threats like that don't scare me one bit anymore!"
We bickered back and forth — open it, no I won't — until she lost the contest of strength and finally gave up, tossing out the timeworn just you wait as she stomped off to the living room.
Hit me and I won't just sit there and take it either!
Franc, who had been watching our squabble with a smothered laugh, drifted out to the living room, took one look at my sulking sister, and came back to ask.
"Lady Siha appears to have looked into the matter of a training ground. Would it be all right if you did not ask her?"
"......She'll tell me eventually. Anyway, practicing my ability is going to be rough unless the place is seriously huge, and I have no idea how she plans to get her hands on that much land. There's the price of the land to think about, too."
"The basement of her home might serve......"
"That's cramped too. I'd need a diameter of at least two kilometers. And those walls, specially engineered as a countermeasure against Aberrants? I crumpled them like nothing with a measly 0.1 TP. Use a basement like that and the whole thing comes down and buries me alive."
"That is so."
"And building a training ground in a populated area is its own problem. If a Mana Bullet goes astray during practice and hits some passerby, it won't end at a mere tragedy."
I wanted to try imitating the Searing Flame Jade Uncle Hwa Joong-kang had used, and I wanted to pour TP into a weapon and throw it myself. More than anything, I wanted to attempt long-range healing — but I couldn't even practice, for fear another Mana Bullet would come flying out.
"Hehe. When the power is this great, such difficulties are bound to arise."
"Tell me about it. Anyway, I think I need to figure out why gold mixes with a watery sheen whenever you enter and leave the Soul Stone. I've got a rough guess, but it isn't certain, and that worries me. I'm curious what kind of effect it might have, too."
"The Soul Stone is not recharging, is it?"
"No. Same as before."
The reason a watery light bled in every time Franc went in and out — my guess was that her spirit form was absorbing the TP soaked into semen. There wasn't any other explanation.
Hmm...... The moment I turned over the idea of injecting TP into Franc's body whenever mine recovered, she gave a fine little shiver.
"Why are you shaking?"
"A-a chill came over me, all of a sudden......"
A prick of conscience made me turn my head, and I spoke again, almost like an excuse.
"It'd be nice if the TP that flows in when we make love recharged the Soul Stone."
"Uu."
......Huh? TP, flowing into her body?
"Ah!!"
Lightning cracked through my head.
"What if I inject a lot of TP into your spirit form — wouldn't other people be able to see you then? Right now it's gold with a faint watery tint mixed in, but if the amount increases, that watery light might turn blue. Blue light is visible to other people's eyes, so if that happens......!"
"Ah!"
It wouldn't be a means of giving Franc a body, but it was almost certainly one of the many branching paths that led toward that goal. My mind felt suddenly bright, and I was about to test it with her right then and there — when a single thought rose up and barred the way.
Watching Franc's expression grow stranger and stranger, I figured she'd landed on something similar.
"If all it does is make you visible, the downsides probably outweigh the upsides, don't they?"
"Yes."
Why did nothing ever go the way I wanted? Watching my step here, watching my step there......
Deflated, I tried to take Franc's hand without concentrating Mana Sieve into my palm, and my hand sank straight through her wrist.
"......"
A flicker of mischief took me, and I shoved my face into her chest. Franc flushed and drew back. At the sight of that I lunged, burying my face in her breasts, and she took off with a shriek, fleeing around the room.
The chase through the narrow bedroom ended in Franc's defeat. I applied the crime of fleeing and sank her with a tickle assault.
I looked up at her, limp and drifting in the air, and turned over the sensation of having touched her a moment ago without focusing Mana Sieve.
I'd wondered whether, if enough TP accumulated in her spirit form, other people might not only see her but touch her as well. I'd half-expected the resistance to have increased, but it wasn't much different from the first time I'd touched her. If I'd had an analysis ability I could have known for certain, but as far as I could tell, the resistance from when we first met and the resistance now — now that a watery light had begun to trickle through her — weren't meaningfully different.
How much TP had I poured into Franc's body so far? Today had been roughly six thousand, and the first time it had been about three thousand, hadn't it? Around two thousand at Breast Mountain, so the total came to something like ten thousand.
Hmm......
My phone blinked to say it was fully charged. I unplugged the charger and turned it on, and found spam mail and calls piled up.
Most of them were texts and calls from Mom and my sister. Checking the timestamps, every single one had arrived while I was inside the Phase World on my first run.
Reading through the messages the two of them had sent, I felt all over again, keenly, just how worried they must have been, and the bridge of my nose stung a little.
"They must have worried a great deal."
"Yeah. Oh — when I go to school on Monday, I should thank Kang So-ra and Han Go-eun."
Or should I resent them instead? If I'd just been caught and dragged off to Iljasan, I never would have gotten into that mess with the Madam.
Feeling the gloom trying to creep back in, I snatched Franc's waist without warning as she drifted carelessly close and tickled her, and she shrieked and tried to flee again.
"Hah... huff. But why did you take out the phone?"
"I just don't like the feeling of turning on the Certifier where there are a lot of people. Once I'm an adult it won't matter, but at school, or anywhere crowded, a phone seems better."
When I'd received the Certifier and set it up, I'd linked it to my phone number, so calls and texts all came through on the Certifier as well — but since I could talk on the phone too, I ought to carry it from now on.
I confirmed the phone was fully charged, set it on the nightstand, and turned on the Certifier to check a few things.
"Let's see...... ability, training, location."
Is training in the woods fine, then? But my sister said I had to report it.
"Good heavens. Men......"
Franc seemed more offended by the caliber of the comments than by the post itself.
Looking through the other posts, most of them were people tearing their hair out over horrific fines — they'd accidentally killed an animal while training somewhere remote, or a fire had broken out mid-practice. I dug a little deeper into how the Alliance even knew an animal had been killed, and it seemed most cases came down to reports from local residents.
The ability users who built practice yards and training grounds were mostly attribute users, and anyone without that kind of money seemed to do their training in the woods. Or in deserts and wastelands. If all they were doing was training, a physical-enhancement user could simply subdue whatever came at them and slip away, and recovery or detection users had no reason to go into the woods at all.
Was it because of one protection law after another that people in this country had to build a training ground and practice only there? The land was narrow and the population dense. Maybe that was why they'd gone with a reporting system.
Wandering the Certifier's community and just looking around turned out to be more fun than I'd expected, and I forgot my original purpose and started opening whatever posts had eye-catching titles, indiscriminately.
In the process I learned, by chance — and of course, I supposed — that attacking a Return Point makes the Return Point disappear. If I'd fought thoughtlessly near one on the last day of my second run, I would have had to go hunting for a new one.
While I was looking up this Peacetermer thing Hwayeon had told me about when she founded Time River, my name came up as a related search. I tapped it, and that awful nickname of mine jumped out at me from everywhere.
"Nnngh......"
Maybe because I'd been all over the media, my name seemed to be sitting right at the center of the conversation.
......Hm? The Soul Reaper that appeared at the museum was in a weakened state? Its true nature only shows after it's stolen the souls of hundreds of people?
"Soul. So the more souls it collects, the higher its intelligence climbs, and the stronger it gets."
"I see...... Perhaps the Soul Reaper's box began to stir because the students had gathered."
"I don't know whether to call that lucky or unlucky......"
If I had fled and the kids hadn't followed after me, there might have been a horrific sacrifice like the one in Britain, just as Franc said.
Nothing else particularly interested me, and with my class still low there was plenty of information barred behind access restrictions, so I simply turned the Certifier off.
"Hmm. It's the weekend starting tomorrow. Should I slip out of Seoul and sneak into some woods? I want to practice that finishing move Uncle Hwa Joong-kang showed off, too."
"I do not think that a very good idea. With attention gathered upon you as it is now, should you leave your place and enter the mountains, those who grow suspicious will not, I believe, number merely one or two."
"Mmm. You're probably right."
If there was ever a moment I could understand how an animal feels, shut in a cage only a little bigger than itself, this was it.
I held Franc in my arms and quietly gazed at her pretty face. She gazed back, then flushed slightly and nestled deeper into my embrace.
I woke to a sour, unsettled feeling and a lurching in my chest. The moment my eyes opened, the unpleasant sensation sharpened, cinching my mind tight.
Frowning, I drew the curtain. Rain was coming down in a dreary drizzle from a leaden sky.
I stared blankly at the rather fierce streaks of it, and the heaving in my chest grew stronger — then, what?!
Phase Power suddenly writhed of its own accord and tried to spread outward. I watched, wondering what it was doing, and when the space around me began to ripple I startled and crushed it down with Mana Sieve.
I broke into a cold sweat and waited. The rippling space vanished as if it had never been, and the seething Phase Power settled back to its usual calm.
Th-that had genuinely scared me. If I got dragged into the Phase World this time, there'd be absolutely no getting out of it.
I was wiping the sweat from my forehead when Franc, perhaps woken by me, looked up with sleep-heavy eyes.
"Seoha......? What is the matter?"
"Ah. I almost went in for the third run."
"What?!"
Franc shot upright in alarm, touched my cheek, looked me over from head to toe, then glanced around.
"I'm fine now. I'm keeping the Phase Power under control with Mana Sieve."
"How did you come so near to being taken?"
"I woke up with this uneasy feeling, looked out the window, saw it was raining, and suddenly the Phase Power moved and tried to force an entry into the Phase World. I really do have to be careful."
"Ah......"
Franc swept a hand over her chest with the look of someone who had just lost ten years off her life, then saw the cold sweat on my brow and reached out to wipe it — but her hand passed helplessly through my head.
"Ah......"
I pulled her close, aching at the sight of her grieving over a body that couldn't even wipe away sweat, and went into the bathroom to wash.
Franc came in with me and tried to help me shower, so I concentrated Mana Sieve into both hands, pushed at her back, and sent her out of the bathroom.
"B-but—"
"When I move out on my own, you can do it then! Right now it backfires!!"
Only then did Franc see my cock standing rigid and insistent. Her face went scarlet, and she fled the bathroom.
......Looking at the thing standing at full mast, I remembered the Madam pouncing on me yesterday, and a small shudder ran through me.
My sister was sitting slumped in front of her door in pink teddy-bear pajamas. Fortunately she seemed to have forgotten yesterday's ugly words; she greeted me, still thick with sleep, as I came out of the shower.
"Morning...... Did you sleep okay......?"
"Yeah. Morning to you too."
"Mmm...... Haaahm."
She covered her mouth, yawned, and disappeared into the bathroom. I came out to the living room, confirmed that Dad and Mom were getting up in the master bedroom, and turned on the TV.
The morning news was still going on about what had happened at the museum yesterday.
"Is it an overreaction to feel like the Madam had a hand in this?"
"The Madam? Hmm. Do you think she means to spread your name widely and make you a public figure?"
"She said several countries were showing interest in me, so maybe she figured that if she put my face and name all over the nation this way, it'd be harder for them to pull anything shady."
Once again I remembered what she had said yesterday — that she would support me from behind.
Ugh.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
A call came in on the Certifier. The number was one I'd never seen, but beneath it was stamped the mark of the Ability User Alliance — which meant the other party was calling from a Certifier as well.
Unknown Number
Ability User Alliance
An ability user contacting me? Who could that be? Puzzled, I connected the call, and Hwayeon's face rose in the hologram window. Was she back already?!
"Did you sleep well, my Seoha?"
......! It wasn't Hwayeon. It was the Madam!
Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, and I thought she looked exactly like Hwayeon as I shoved my guard up to maximum — and then she said something completely off.
"Mmm. Is Auntie all right? You don't have to worry so much~."
Ah. She'd seen me light up, thinking it was Hwayeon at first, and misunderstood. Watching the Madam bask happily inside that misunderstanding, my chest tightened for an entirely different reason.
I switched the call to silent, went back to my room, and looked at her face again. It gleamed as if oiled, vivid and alive, so much so that it was like looking at Hwayeon.
No — her expression was brighter and richer than Hwayeon's, a beauty entirely different from hers. Not that the awkward, easily flustered Hwayeon was unattractive, but......
The Madam was in a slightly disheveled bathrobe. I'd wondered if she'd just washed, but her hair was dry, so that didn't seem to be it. She'd probably tidied her face and hair the moment she woke and called right away.
"Yes......"
"Auntie only just woke up, and sleeping nearly fourteen hours is the first time in decades — I was shocked!"
She spoke with a face that said she was genuinely delighted, smiling brightly, and it was intensely uncomfortable. She didn't seem to care in the slightest about what I'd told her yesterday — that I couldn't accept her.
"But when I woke up and my Seoha wasn't beside me, I was sad!"
"I didn't know when you'd wake, so I just left."
I'd been about to say I was sorry, then didn't. I hadn't done anything wrong, and apologizing felt strange.
"It would have been nice if we'd slept side by side. Anyway, it was my Seoha who looked after Auntie, wasn't it?"
She waited for an answer with sparkling, almost girlish eyes, and there was no sense at all that her feelings were hurt, which left me a little bewildered.
"Yes......"
"Hehe. So, was Auntie's place here to your liking?"
Let me correct that! She was looking at me with the eyes of a woman in her thirties burning with lust!
She smiled wide and drew her shoulders in slightly, and the bathrobe slipped, catching just barely on the swell of her heavy breasts. Just like that she drew her knees apart into an M, the robe fell open, and the Madam's sex was laid bare exactly as nature had made it.
Ugh. I had no idea what to say, and it was morning. Franc, who had been watching the screen with me, had gone stiff-faced as well......
"Madam, I—"
"Oh my! You can treat me the way you did yesterday and this auntie is perfectly fine~. Auntie's lower mouth is a little loose, so it seems it wasn't to my Seoha's liking. Starting today I'll work hard at my Kegels and make it fit my Seoha just right, so you'll hold me again later, won't you?"
......She remembered all of it, apparently. Fortunately she didn't seem angry, but her eyes flashed like a predator's with prey in front of it, and it was frightening.
"......"
Thoughts of Hwayeon, of what I had done with the Madam, and of the reaction she was showing me now all piled together, and my chest grew heavy. She had been caressing herself; seeing my expression, she smiled bitterly, straightened her clothes, and opened her mouth.
"Does my Seoha remember what this auntie said at the end?"
Not the moans or the whimpers, surely? N-not the meat pocket, either. Then was it the part about living while looking only at me?
"You mean about living while looking only at me?"
It must have been the right answer. The Madam smiled gently and nodded.
"But I lo—"
"Hwayeon's already been eaten up by my Seoha, hasn't she?"
......!
"It would have been around Tuesday night."
Ah, damn. The words had caught me off guard and I'd reacted! No! Hwayeon was going to get arrested!!
"Don't worry~. Auntie has no intention of punishing her daughter. I only brought it up back then to keep my Seoha from running away, you know?"
......The Madam seemed to be standing over my head.
"Seoha really does like Hwayeon, I see. This auntie looks exactly the same as Hwayeon, though......"
"The face may be the same. What's inside can't be."
At the firm words, the Madam's face showed pleasure, and hurt, and regret all at once. Somehow it felt as if the curtain of her ever-shifting expressions had lifted a little.
"Hehe. If my Seoha had fallen for Auntie completely, might you have liked her a little less?"
"The truth is, I like you an insane amount, Madam."
"......"
Tch. Didn't work.
The Madam sat blank for a moment, then flushed quickly, wrapped both arms around herself as if embarrassed, squirmed, and said:
"I-if you confess so suddenly, Auntie isn't mentally prepared—"
"It's obvious it didn't work, you know?!"
"Hehehe. As expected of Blue Genius! A status worthy of the bearer of the All-Seeing Eye!"
"Grrraaah!"
The human who coined that nickname is hereby designated my number-two target for elimination!!
"......"
"......"
For a while neither the Madam nor I said anything, only looking into each other's eyes. Her gaze was fairly complicated, but this much I could tell.
It was the look of someone who could not give up on me — and could not give up on Hwayeon either. Did she think it possible for a mother and daughter to love one man and share him? On the surface she had seemed composed, and I couldn't tell what she was thinking. Was there some plan in there?
I took the hand of Franc, who had been listening expressionlessly beside me, and she turned to look at me. Our eyes met. I gave a small nod, and Franc let the blankness go and lifted her brows slightly.
"My Seoha can't give up on Hwayeon, can he?"
"I can't."
"All right~. Do be sure to remember what this auntie said at the end, won't you?"
Aah. I really didn't get it anymore. Why was it that facing the Madam and talking to her felt like talking to a bright, lively Hwayeon?
Remembering how she'd teased me a moment ago, I spat the words out in a fit of spite.
"The meat pocket?"
"......! A-ah, honestly! That's not—"
"I know. It was an experience I couldn't forget if I tried, so I absolutely won't."
"A-aigoo. You mustn't tease Auntie......"
"A woman who took thrust after thrust from a boy who hasn't even lived a quarter as long as she has, screaming her head off — and that woman is the President the whole nation praises as the picture of virtue. How am I supposed to forget that? Shame I didn't take pictures."
"......!"
Payback for her cutting me off earlier.
The Madam flushed at my words and knit her brows. It wasn't anger. It was the expression of a lower belly tingling. And behind the hologram, I could see Franc mouthing something at me.
"Please keep her from approaching Hwayeon, for the time being."
I didn't know what this was about, but I decided to follow her lead.
"Madam?"
"Y-yes?"
"You will protect me. For certain?"
"Of course. Even if I have to mobilize every means Auntie possesses, I'll protect my Seoha."
Seeing the Madam's resolute expression, I knew that what she had said yesterday had been entirely sincere.
"I'll trust you. And."
"Mm."
"Until I tell you myself, don't reveal what happened yesterday in front of Hwayeon. If you go and reveal it on your own......"
"......"
My expression right now was probably past blank and into something like a sheet of ice. The Madam seemed to feel it too; the sound of her swallowing came through from beyond the hologram.
If I said it like this, how far would the Madam — far smarter and sharper than I was — be able to read it? Something else in my tone seemed to reach her. I watched puzzlement spread across her face.
"I'll hang up, then. Have a good weekend."
"Ah! W-wait......"
I could see her trying to say something, but I deliberately ended the Certifier. I didn't know what she'd meant to say, and I didn't want to talk anymore.
I sighed and flopped back onto the bed.