Entering D-Class (3)

My parents heard out the whole of it, and the recording I had made, then sent that unhinged couple—still clinging to me—back out the door and came into the living room.

Dad sat down on the sofa without the slightest change of expression and asked,

"You decided that was the best course?"

Mom's face had been thunderous from the moment she heard I had been slapped, but she was the lesser worry. What gnawed at me was my sister, looking so crestfallen.

"I'm too stupid to know which way of handling it is the best one. So I picked the simple, fast one."

"You mean deliberately leaking our address to that couple's child."

"You know that line you're always saying. The good don't come. Those who come aren't good."

"So you tested them."

"Yeah."

Dad stroked his clean-shaven chin, thought a moment, and said,

"Striking back at those with power by means of power is a fast and convenient method, I'll grant you that. But it's a shame. Had it been me, I would have recorded every word they spoke and every response they made, dug up their entire backgrounds, then used my connections to leak stories of illicit-filming crimes to the press and blown this affair up into something enormous. And once the public eye was fixed on voyeurism, if I had let this particular case slip out then, I would have succeeded in burying them completely in the eyes of society. After that, bring money and influence to bear and erase them as human beings..."

Mom and Sis, eyes growing wider and wider as they listened, suddenly shrieked.

"Dad!"

"Honey—!"

"Ahem. Your response may be satisfying in the moment, but as revenge it is still immatu—"

"You— honestly!"

Face furious, Mom smacked Dad hard across the back. I, by contrast, stared at him as if he were someone to revere.

Whoa. Dad was incredible. He showed nothing but weakness in front of Mom and Sis, and yet he really was something else. Done his way, I could have ruined them past any hope of recovery. I was sorely lacking. That had been a good lesson. Next time...!

"Seoha, you! Don't make that face like you just heard something useful! You are not to learn nasty things like that!"

"Son! You mustn't copy your father!"

"Seoha..."

Somehow Dad ended up looking a little wounded, but what was so extreme about it? All I would be doing was paying back what I had received, with a little interest on top. The women in this family were too softhearted. That was the problem.

Rubbing the spot where Mom had hit him, Dad cleared his throat and said,

"Ahem. In any case, those who commit crimes and spew abuse must pay the price. If the Alliance and Time River step in, they will pay it in full."

Still carefully avoiding the displeased glares of Mom and Sis, he turned to me.

"Those bastards are typical jackals—strong against the weak, weak against the strong. Had you forgiven them half-heartedly, their bullying would have produced many more victims afterward, so cutting them off at the root while you had the chance was the right action. I commend you."

"This man, I swear..."

"Dad. Please don't teach Seoha strange things."

A short while later, seven people from the Alliance and Time River came to our house. Those from the Alliance were there to hear the circumstances and assess whether an ability-user crime might be involved; those from Time River, to help move a lawsuit forward.

"We've received the case filing. This is the recording, I take it."

The young lawyer played the file, listened a moment to that pig of a brat and the scrawny, anchovy-thin woman squawking, then nodded and looked from me to Dad.

"The audio is clear, and thanks to your leaving the front door open, the CCTV caught excellent footage as well. This is more than sufficient as evidence. If you entrust the matter to us, we will do everything in our power to see they receive the heaviest possible sentence."

"Please see to it. And might I have one of your cards?"

"Of course."

Dad took the card from the young lawyer and said ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he would call again tomorrow. At that, the lawyer bowed his head and saw himself out.

Next, the investigator dispatched by the Alliance.

"The Precognition Department has declared that there was no foresight concerning this incident. That is to say, it was neither a crime targeting an ability user, nor a criminal act intended by one. And as a result of our investigation, we investigators also acknowledge that Mr. Jung Seoha is under no criminal suspicion."

It had been worth acting on purpose, having anticipated a situation like this.

"However, Mr. Jung Seoha's sarcasm and ridicule were a poor choice. This time it was recognized as legitimate self-defense, but even should a civilian's verbal abuse and insults anger you, I would advise that enduring it, and requesting mediation or filing a complaint through our Alliance, is the more advantageous course for your position."

"Yes. I'll do that from now on."

When I bowed politely to the investigator ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who had offered useful advice, the investigators too looked satisfied, bowed to me and my parents, and took their leave.

Mom went into the bathroom to wash, and Sis, her head aching, went to her room to rest, so Dad called me over.

"Leave the rest to me. Don't say anything about it to your mother and sister."

"Yeah. Smash them completely. No need to go easy, and if you need it, I'll ask Hwayeon to help too."

"Very well."

Fire caught even in the eyes of a father who cherished his family. That other family was done sleeping easy.

Past eleven, I had lain down to find sleep when Franc sprawled naked over me and spoke.

"You need not grow so vicious, Seoha."

"Huh? You're saying Dad's vicious?"

"No! Father is a grown man, so it is only wisdom drawn from a life of experience. But you are still young, Seoha. If you hold such thoughts and go on accumulating such experiences, it will not be good for your heart. So you must forget that memory. You understand, yes?"

I reached out and laid a hand on the soft, yielding curve of Franc's backside—the very thing tempting me—and opened my mouth.

"Got it. From now on, if something like today happens, I'll hire other people to handle it."

At the talk of putting the work out to hire, Franc pouted, plainly displeased, but whether from the indecent play of my hand against her rear, she soon flushed, buried her face against my nape, and let a moan slip free.

"Haa, nnh..."

The mood wasn't bad, was it? Tracing Franc's garden with my index finger, I whispered small against her ear.

"I'm really sorry about today. I promised I wouldn't make you worry, and I went and did it again."

"...Hah. Aah—!"

"I'll try not to, from here on. But every time I slip, scold me sharp enough to knock me back to my senses. I'm asking you."

"Haaah. A-all right..."

Franc accepted the apology with the air of one who had no other choice. My heart felt lighter for it, and I filled my palm with the soft give of her backside—more than one hand could hold—spreading it, closing it, kneading and playing with it as I pleased.

The way Franc's petals and the hole of her rear gaped and puckered like a goldfish's mouth was amusing.

"Ahn. S-Seoha, please stop... haahn."

Franc's voice was growing sweeter. Time to stop playing with fire. Still, if I quit halfway she might sulk, so I ought to send her to heaven at least once.

I drew a little TP onto my fingers, smeared it over her clit, and pushed my index finger into her rear hole and stirred, and the reaction came at once.

"Hyk?! No...! Not there, nnh—!"

Feeling that rear hole bite down on my finger and refuse to let go, I rubbed her clit lightly with my other hand, and Franc's waist gradually arched, her backside lifting toward the sky. Drawing TP out in the tiniest increments, I kept stimulating the clit that had swollen out as if in a huff, and soon Franc sprayed her slick and a rush of squirt as she climbed to the peak of her climax.

"Nn—aaah!"

Franc stretched her toes rigid and trembled, then went slack all at once and rolled off of me. Lying beside me, her large breasts heaving as she panted, she soon turned a teary face up at me, eyes bright with moisture.

"Seoha, you are far too much of a pervert..."

I pressed a light kiss to the lips of that teary face. She puffed her cheeks to insist she was angry, but in the end she buried her face against my nape and smiled.

The bell rang, the last exam ended, and screams and sighs spilled from all over the classroom.

Because of that miserable incident the night before, I hadn't gotten any tutoring from Sis, and I had solved the short-answer and essay questions on nothing but the textbook and what I had heard in class. I had a feeling I had blown it.

"I think I bombed the essays."

"I think I bombed the essays~."

Huh? I turned, and there was Kang So-ra, who had said the exact same thing, sprawled flat on her desk and looking at me.

"You didn't get tutored by your sister, Seoha~?"

"Something not great happened yesterday. I couldn't study."

"What, did some preacher come banging on your door or what?"

Kim Chang-hyun asked it with a puzzled face, and I answered with nothing but a small sigh and a shake of my head.

As always, Han Go-eun's crew gathered around me, and from here and there in the classroom I heard it.

"I wanna get into the family toooo."

"To get into the Genius Family, don't you kinda have to come from a good house, or be rich, or be good at studying?"

I had only learned it recently myself, but Han Go-eun's whole crew were born with gold spoons in their mouths, every last one of them. On top of that they were easy on the eyes, and they studied well besides. I had seen Kang Ju-chan's parents before—they ran a pharmaceutical company—and Han Go-eun's were high-ranking civil servants at the vice-minister level. Kang So-ra's parents were landowners with several buildings in northern Seoul, and Su Yu-ri's were professors at Uihan University. Kim Chang-hyun's parents were senior officials in a sports federation, and Cho Min-ho's father, he had said, was president of a trading company. Well, our dad was, in his own modest way, director of a general hospital and an excellent doctor, but still. Tch. Even so, I was an ability user, so it roughly evened out.

"If it was someone like that, I would've just sent them away. I went over to the guy in the apartment across the way who'd been peeping at my sister doing yoga through an astronomical telescope and told him to cut it out, and..."

I hadn't even finished, and the girls started getting angry as if it were their own affair.

"Why didn't you call the police! Creeps like that belong in prison!"

Su Yu-ri, usually tiny as a rabbit and soft as any little herbivore, was rarely this angry. Kang So-ra took the thread from her.

"No need for that~. You just cut his dick off~."

The mood in the classroom—the boys' especially—went cold, and they edged away from Kang So-ra with goosebumps on their faces. A few of them even covered their dicks and shuffled back. What, you lot got something to feel guilty about...?

Kang Ju-chan tried hard to steer the talk elsewhere and asked me, though his voice trembled a little.

"S-so, what happened?"

"An hour later his parents showed up and said things too foul to repeat."

"No way."

Han Go-eun, who had been covering her mouth in sheer disbelief, arched an eyebrow and asked,

"They did that without knowing you're an ability user?"

"Yeah. Cursing me was one thing, but they even told my sister to apologize with her body, so I called Time River's legal advisory team and contacted the Alliance too... Anyway, it was pretty bad."

When I relayed a piece of the abuse Sis had been made to hear, the boys and the girls alike went crimson with rage. Kim Chang-hyun stared blankly, mouth hanging open, then spat the words out as if he were chewing them.

"In...sane. You're telling me people that shameless still exist?"

"What do we do! Senior Siha must be so hurt, right? Is she all right?"

Seeing Han Go-eun rage and worry as if it were her own business, I folded my arms and answered.

"Sis isn't some flower raised in a greenhouse. She's fine now. Still, those people need to be made unable to live in Korea. I can take them cursing me. I can't take them cursing my parents or my sister."

"Export people like that and you'd owe an apology to the country that received them."

"Hmph~. People like that ought to be locked up in Alcatraz, period~."

The kids, soothing Kang So-ra—who had been saying terrifying things for a while now—gathered their leather bookbags and stood.

"Exams are over, so how about pizza or burgers? What do you think?"

"Oh, that sounds good. My treat today, so let's hit Pizza Hut!"

"You coming too, Seoha?"

"Mm... sure."

I didn't even feel like training today, and it was lunchtime now, so Hwayeon and Yeongeun would be working. Today I would hang around with the kids and then head home.

Eating pizza with them and idly talking in the cafeteria, I felt that foul mood ease a little.

After messing around a while and parting from them—my mood loosened now—I headed for the training ground, thinking I would practice Spatial Manipulation today after all.

The bodyguard hyungs and noonas trailing the taxi I rode in were clearly professionals. They followed quietly, neither conspicuous nor bothersome—the feel of people who had not been doing this work for just a day or two.

I arrived at the training ground around three in the afternoon, loosened up with a light run, activated Mana Sieve, and was practicing close-range Spatial Manipulation when it occurred to me that I still hadn't told Hwayeon about the pool.

We had agreed to go on Saturday, so I ought to tell her in advance and have her clear her schedule.

"Yeongeun would be disappointed, though."

When I mentioned that Han Go-eun, from my class, had invited me to the pool and asked whether she wanted to come along, Hwayeon's face flushed a little and she nodded.

"Will do. See you Saturday, then."

I ended the Certifier, lowered my arm, and sighed. As expected, Hwayeon was against bringing the madam too.

"I do feel a little bad."

"Next time, let's play just among ourselves. Yeongeun would like that better, too."

"You think so?"

"Yes. Yeongeun has a social standing, so she will mind the eyes of others."

Mm. That was true.

"If she is among children who idolize her, she will not be able to enjoy herself properly. She would have to wear a mask and keep her conduct perfectly proper, and that is a very tiring thing. More than anything, I think she would hate even more that she was with you, Seoha, and still could not play with you."

"Fair point. Anyway, long-range manipulation doesn't seem to be the type that spends TP as a percentage of the total, but close-range Spatial Manipulation reckons the cost as a percentage. I don't really get it."

"Could it be that close-range is not a percentage either, and simply costs 3,500?"

I sat down, reached out, and practiced close-range Spatial Manipulation, and I could confirm that each use made 3,500 TP—ten percent—vanish. Maybe, as Franc said, it wasn't ten percent at all, but a flat 3,500.

"Then I wonder how many times more long-range costs than close-range."

"Mmm~."

I lost track of time playing with Franc and practicing Spatial Manipulation, and little by little the sky began to darken.

"Once the Early Entry Permit comes through, I'll finally be able to operate as an ability user for real."

"Yes. I am truly looking forward to it."

"Me too. I wonder what the other Phase Worlds feel like. And if I climb to B-Class quickly, then I could also... Huh?"

Through Spatial Perception, I caught the guard hyungs and noonas who had been waiting on the cracked, unmaintained four-lane road breaking into a run toward me.

"What is the matter?"

"The bodyguard hyungs and noonas are running this way?"

"What?!"

Seeing the startled look on Franc's face, I suddenly remembered what Hwayeon had said about outside factors.

"I need to dodg—"

Eeeeeeeee—

"—ha! Seoha!!"

Huh? Why was the ground... Was I standing?

No, I had fallen—ugh!!

My head. My head hurt. Something, something had hit my head, I thought...

Tinnitus drowned out every other sound, and from the pain at my temple—or was it a headache, I couldn't tell—the world in front of my eyes swam.

I clutched my spinning head and tried to get up, only for my legs to give out beneath me. In the instant I sank down, something grazed past my hair. Right after, an agony that made me wonder if this was what being kicked by a horse's hind hoof felt like slammed into my waist.

Whump.

"Guhk!"

I couldn't—breathe...! Ghhk!

As I sprawled again, Franc's mouth gaping open and shut came into view. A sni...per... a sniper?!

"Seoha! It is a sniper! You must hide behind the mound of earth!"

The news that someone far off was aiming at me snapped my mind clear. Forcing myself to ignore the pain in my head and my waist, I threw my body toward the mound Franc was pointing at.

The moment I tumbled over and over and ducked behind the earthen mound, a fierce pak! crack! rang out—something punching into the dirt—and the mound shuddered.

"Ghk! That hurts like a bitch!"

"East—the sniper is to the east!"

"East?"

Franc's face was furious, her eyes full of tears, and rage surged up in me to match. Realizing that if Mana Mode hadn't been active because I was training, that first shot would have burst my head and nearly killed me, the rage doubled.

Who the hell? Why was someone sniping me? I had never even brought harm to anyone who didn't deserve it. And gunfire, this close to the capital?!

With my back to the east, hidden against the earthen mound, no more bullets came. The back of my head hurt and felt wet; when I felt it, blood came away on my hand, and Franc's face twisted into something frightening.

"Eee—!"

She was about to lift into the air and fly toward the low mountain visible to the east when I felt things that had no business being here approaching at the outer edge of my Spatial Perception, and I hurriedly stopped her.

"Wait! Seven ability users are coming from the east! Their killing intent is no joke!"

"Ability users?! They ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠came fully set on targeting you!"

Every one of them was a D-Class with Phase Power over 200,000. Three Physical Reinforcement, three Elemental, one analysis-type.

At the information I gave her, the expression drained from Franc's face until it was perfectly blank.

"Seoha. When they arrive, I will attack."

...She meant she was going to kill them, didn't she? Even in a situation like this, I wasn't good-natured enough to worry about their lives.

"If you can spare one or two, spare them. We'll take them alive and ask who ordered it."

I said it while treating my split head and the waist screaming with pain, using Healing Touch.

Honestly, I had thought they might approach to win me over, or something of the sort. To go straight for the kill—unforgivable. Wipe about half of them off the face of the world and leave two or three alive, and Yeongeun would look into the rest.

While I stoked that cold fury, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠five guard hyungs and noonas reached me.

Thank god the sniper hadn't aimed at those five.

"Are you all right?! Were you hurt anywhere...?"

I had treated the wounds, but seeing the blood plastered thick over my nape and my hands, the bodyguard in his thirties who looked to be the leader shut his mouth.

"I think it's a sniper. If I move, it feels like a bullet will come flying right away. And seven ability users are running straight toward us from the road outside the training ground."

"An organized attack, then."

"I don't remember doing anything bad enough to be attacked for. Where could the order have come from?"

"Before any of that, you must get yourself to safety."

A sharp, poking sensation stabbed at my left wrist. I turned on the Certifier, and Yeongeun's furious face appeared.

"What? Sorry? Out of nowhere, what are you—"

I was staring blankly at Yeongeun, who was shouting with a desperate face, when the five bodyguards nodded, drew pistols from inside their coats, and scattered in every direction.

In that span, the seven ability users who had been running from the direction of the city closed to within three hundred meters. From the murderous way they came on, it was easy to tell that killing me was the goal.

Because I wasn't reacting, Yeongeun's face crumpled further, as if she were about to burst into tears.

"All right. I'll leave what comes after to you."

If I revealed every one of my abilities, I might be able to strike a gap and kill them. But Yeongeun knew all of my abilities, and if even she was saying this, it might truly be dangerous.

More than that, I had no confidence in a close fight. Let even one C-Class or D-Class Physical Reinforcement user get in close, and klutz that I was, I wouldn't be able to put up a resistance.

The instant the attackers, having closed the distance, came charging over the mound, the guard hyungs and noonas opened fire.

At the banging of the gunshots, the Physical Reinforcement users stepped to the front and stopped the bullets. Seeing that, I immediately called up the Supergiant Turtle and wished, hard, to enter the Phase World.

In that instant.

"Черт! Стоп!"

A sound I couldn't make sense of.

With a dull, wet impact, the head of the female bodyguard pressed against my side burst, and white bone, brain matter, and an eyeball sprayed in every direction.

The spine that had shot upward as the head vanished dangled, and from the cross-section blood fountained.

The stiffened body, slowly—the body that had lost its head, sluggishly collapsing into my arms—the sight burned itself into my retinas.

Blood spraying from the neck where the head had been soaked my face. My body.

And then the space around me snarled, tangled—

I stepped into the third round.