The Third Run in the Phase World

Dusk was settling in.

The water that had once climbed halfway up Breast Mountain was gone. Wherever it had vanished to, not a trace of moisture remained except for the flood still choking the valley below.

I'd returned on the seventeenth of last month, and today was the middle of May. Had all that water disappeared in barely a month?

I tried not to think about it. I made a point of looking around, of filling my eyes with anything else.

"F... fuck."

Back at the spot where I had returned on my second run, I dropped onto the dirt and dragged a trembling hand down my face. My breath came rough. When I looked at my hands and my chest, the front of my school uniform was blotched with that woman's blood and shreds of her brain. I stared at my shaking hands, then squeezed my eyes shut.

"Seoha..."

Franc gathered my head against her chest and held me there, but I felt nothing. No—what I felt was the bodyguard's head bursting open in front of me, the sensation of her collapsing into my arms, and it gouged a hole straight through my chest.

Ability users had closed to within a hundred meters. The other four, the older men and women alike, were surely all dead too.

Because of... me.

"No. Not because of me. Because of the bastards who sent assassins after me."

"That is right. I do not know who committed such a deed, but if it is Yeongeun, she will surely uncover who stands behind it."

I ground my teeth as I listened to Franc.

Just you wait. I will not let this go. Not ever.

The rage outweighed the terror of having been attacked, so I didn't tip into panic. I sat on a nearby rock and glared at empty air, and Franc's expression darkened as she spoke.

"The words I heard just before we entered were Russian."

"...Those bastards were East Asian, though. Masks on, bodies covered, and the faces under the masks were melted and sloughed like a leper's from the burns—but all seven of them, men and women, had the skin tone of East Asians on the rest of them. So isn't it more likely one of the East Asian countries is behind it?"

"Hmm. A great many peoples live in Russia as well..."

"Yeah, I guess. But those faces looked like they'd been deliberately seared with fire. The Russian they shouted at the end might've just been to throw people off."

Franc nodded quietly, as if the reasoning held. Either way, what mattered in the end was Yeongeun digging up whoever was behind it.

"...So no matter how we turn it, it comes down to Yeongeun uncovering the people in the background."

There was still a part of it I couldn't understand. There had been nearly thirty ability users. Had Yeongeun really failed to notice that many gathering? She'd said she always tracked the movements of high-ranking ability users.

Hearing my thoughts, Franc offered a bleak assessment.

"Stopping terrorists who have set their minds on slipping through is much like keeping mosquitoes out of a house."

"You mean it's that hard?"

"Yes. Even that mighty America once failed to stop a mere handful of terrorists, and suffered the fall of the Empire State Building for it."

"..."

I let out a small sigh and closed my eyes. This subject burned through too much willpower to keep chewing on. My eyes felt gritty. I rubbed them and changed the subject.

"Anyway, the Phase Stone vest Hwayeon gave me helped a lot. Without it, that third shot would've snapped my spine."

"After that, their fire concentrated upon your arms and legs. It is truly fortunate you were wearing the vest."

"Yeah. And I've been walking around deliberately switching Mana ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Mode on and off to train it, but from now on I'm keeping it on. All the time."

By then the world around me had gone pitch-dark, and looking out I realized Breast Mountain was taller than I'd thought. With Spatial Perception expanded to a radius of a kilometer and a half, I scanned the slopes, climbed back to the summit, and turned in a full circle. All I could see was a drowned expanse sinking into the dark.

It must have been underwater for a month, and yet not a single tree had died. No wonder the leaves hung in heavy clusters, so full of water they'd gush if you chewed them.

"The wind raccoon meat's turned into jerky."

I'd built a tripod out of branches and hung it up, meaning to drain the blood and roast it later. I picked up a stick and jabbed at the carcass. It had gone hard as a board and wouldn't budge. I gave it a sniff, but it was so bone-dry there wasn't even a smell. The color, though, looked like eating it would be a serious mistake, so I tossed it into the air and wiped it out with a Mana Bullet.

The wind raccoon hide had dried soft and fluffy. Seemed not a drop of rain had fallen since the rains stopped. I picked up the No-Head Mantis foreleg that had been lying beside it, gathered a heap of wood, and got the campfire going again. Then I lay down on the fur.

The smell of blood seeping from my uniform made my head ache, but I left it. I didn't want to forget what I was feeling.

A cloudless night sky was strewn thick with stars, and looking up at them pulled all sorts of thoughts loose. The strongest of them...

"Franc."

"Yes?"

She had been sitting beside me, watching the constellations, and she turned.

"What if we hold out a little longer on this third run?"

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Like, until I hit C-Class."

Franc looked at me with worry in her eyes, then clasped my hand tight.

"To reach C-Class, one must slay a High-Rank Variant. From High-Rank Variants onward, it is a matter of raids. It would be dangerous, would it not?"

She wasn't telling me not to do it just because it was dangerous. Franc must have felt the need to grow stronger too.

"I don't think we're short on firepower. And I've got Mana Mode, and Healing Wave. You're here too, aren't you? Franc, who wields lightning—rare even among elemental ability users."

A faint blush rose on her face, and she simply gazed at me in silence.

"If you cover me with lightning, it'll be a huge help. I'll charge the Soul Stone with TP and back you as much as I can. ...You'll help me, right?"

"If you have thought it through to that extent, then of course I must aid you. Hehe. Hwayeon and Yeongeun will be terribly jealous of me, will they not?"

"Huh? Why?"

"Because I shall have you all to myself until then, shall I not?"

I pulled the faintly smiling Franc into a tight embrace.

"When we get back, I'll just hold the two of them so hard they can't get a word out."

Watching her smile, content in my arms, I made up my mind. Even if I found a Return Point, I wouldn't leave for a while.

The next day I took the claw sword not as a weapon but as a tool, and draped the wind raccoon pelt around my shoulders like a cloak. Thanks to it, last night had been warm. It would do well enough as a blanket on the nights ahead.

"Let's find some aberrants. I want to check how the ability training actually turned out."

Before I picked a fight with a High-Rank Variant, I needed to verify my abilities across the board. The training so far had focused on whatever paid off fastest, so a full review was overdue.

"I am not certain any aberrants remain. You slew nearly all of them on the second run..."

Just as Franc feared, I circled Breast Mountain looking for them and found nothing—not an aberrant, not even an animal. Unlike the view from the summit, the ground underfoot was a little soggy. Had the water only just dried?

Wandering the slopes with Franc, I ranked what I actually needed to do.

This time I had the school uniform, and the new high-grade ration belt, so I didn't have to obsess over food. Water trees were plentiful, so water wouldn't be hard to come by, and there was no Highest-Rank Variant on my heels. I wouldn't have to swim, and leaving late... might be a small problem.

My family worrying weighed on me, but Hwayeon would soothe them. She and Yeongeun were both strong-hearted; they'd be all right. Above all, they knew my abilities in detail, so they wouldn't fret too much. I was uneasy that the ones who'd attacked me might go after my family, but on that point I decided to trust Hwayeon and Yeongeun.

Last of all, I decided to test the Mana Cannon. From the summit of Breast Mountain I fired one modeled on Uncle Hwa Joong-kang's finishing move, down into the valley, at a crevasse-like cliff where a torrent was rushing.

And I learned that Franc had been telling the truth when she said I might well have died.

Rrrumble. Krrrrsh.

A fist-sized black mass of TP spun with a dreadful force, and the instant it touched the cliff there was a flash—one whole side of the rock face sheared away and came down under the impact. House-sized boulders plunged into the water and set the current spinning into whirlpools. I swallowed, throat clicking, and Franc, watching beside me, murmured in a dazed voice.

"Had you fired the Mana Cannon into the sky, then by the next day, I imagine, every one of your abilities would have been laid bare..."

"...Yeah. Probably."

Having confirmed even that grim finishing move, I felt a confidence I had no real basis for—that I could take a High-Rank Variant too. More than anything, I had Spatial Manipulation if things went bad. I'd have to test its power once I found another aberrant.

East might mean running into the imoogi, so with Franc's help I headed west, searching for Return Points as I went. The ones I found, I marked on the Authenticator's mapping tool. No telling when I'd need them.

Crossing a forest locked in silence—no animal, no birdcall, not a single insect—I privately thought it was a relief that all that water had drained away. Water wasn't a worry. There were water-tree leaves that, once they hit the stomach, didn't so much digest as break apart, and meals could be handled with the ration belt for now.

Even water that barely wet the soles of my feet left me somehow unable to settle. If there'd been enough that I had to swim... ahem.

Maybe Dad really was right, and these were the early symptoms of PTSD.

When I told Franc the truth and asked her to hold me, she started clinging to my back the whole way, setting her heavy breasts on my shoulders like a pillow.

"I-is this pleasant?"

"It's the best?!"

The soft give of Franc's breasts against my skin was deeply satisfying. Whenever boredom struck I'd toy with her nipples, and while that did nothing to settle me, I found myself thinking I didn't much care what became of the PTSD.

Drawing on Mana Mode kept permanently active, I moved through the dense forest for four days at a jogging pace. For the first two I saw no living thing but plants. From the third day, small birds and insects began to show, and now aberrants were appearing one by one as well—a sign that the animals and aberrants that had fled the great flood were coming back.

"Oh?! A land crab!"

Delighted by the shape caught in my Spatial Perception, I ran for it. The grade was only a Low-Rank Variant, but the thing was a top-shelf ingredient that drove even gourmets half-mad. Something like seventy-five dollars for ten grams of the meat, wasn't it?

I hadn't run far before I had the crab aberrant in my own eyes—about the size of a five-year-old—and I pointed at it and shouted to Franc.

"Go, Franc! One Million Volts!"

"Hah!!"

Bzzzt—crack!

Franc shot off like an arrow and roasted the crab, a thing the size of a five-year-old digging at the base of a tree and eating the roots, with electricity gathered in both hands. Then she turned to me as I caught up.

"But what is One Million Volts?"

"Oh, there used to be a game called Pocket Monsters, and it's the name of a move used by this incredibly cute golden animal in it."

"A cute animal? Then I am your pet, am I not? Hehe."

Watching her smile coyly and hug my arm, I suddenly pictured her with a tail-shaped plug seated in her rear and a cat-ear headband on, acting cute.

...The best, right? I'll have to try that at least once someday.

Anyway, I carried the crab to dry ground and set up. A mouthwatering smell drifted from inside the reddish roasted shell, and I swallowed hard. All I'd eaten for four days was emergency rations off the belt and water-tree leaves, so the hunger gnawed even harder. The Lowest-Rank Variant I'd run into before the crab had been charred black by Franc's lightning, because she hadn't yet gotten a feel for how much was enough.

I cut a branch into makeshift chopsticks and pried off the red carapace. With a sharp crack the shell came free, and through the rising steam a packed mass of white meat seized my eyes. A clean, subtly savory aroma brushed the tip of my nose.

"Whoa... I have to get a picture of this and brag to my sister!"

I snapped one with the Authenticator and asked Franc.

"How's your body? Feel anything different?"

It was only the day before yesterday that I'd noticed. When an aberrant died, if Franc's spirit form was nearby, Phase Power gathered into it. Phase Power had welled up in soft billows from the remains of the aberrant she'd charred black, and I'd seen some of it sink into her spirit form where she hovered close by. Nothing like that had happened at Breast Mountain on the second run, so I'd been a little thrown when she suddenly started taking Phase Power into her spirit.

"Hmm. I believe the might of my electricity is growing, little by little."

"The Soul Stone's Phase Power hasn't increased at all, but the output's rising... interesting."

Then a thought made me tilt my head. On the first day I'd worn the Phase Stone vest, I'd been leaking Phase Power all over the place. Had Franc absorbed it then, too?

"Seoha? Please take your meal first. It is best eaten while warm."

"Mm."

I lifted a bite, and a thick piece of white meat—nearly king crab—rose on the chopsticks, steaming. Time to see.

"...Whoa. This is incredible! It's on a completely different level from the king crab I've had before!"

"Oh, truly? Hehe. Please, eat your fill!"

"Yeah. I heard this stuff is an insanely expensive ingredient... It would've been even better if I could eat it with you, Franc."

"Simply watching you eat with such relish fills me."

Is Franc my mom too? I laughed on the inside and gave myself over to what the crab was doing in my mouth.

The rich, distinctive aroma and flavor of the meat, melting as if it meant to, spread into every corner. I was eating it, and I still wanted to eat it. Was this what that felt like? I broke open a leg a little thinner than my forearm, scooped out the meat, and dipped a fist-sized piece of pearly flesh into the fresh, bittersweet tomalley. While I ate, I let Mana Vision bloom in my eyes and looked at Franc.

Hmm. The color was definitely coming back to life, little by little. I couldn't tell whether that was from steadily injecting TP, or from the Phase Power she'd taken off the aberrants.

The reason I was turning it over was that Franc, in her spirit state, was accepting the Phase Power of Lowest Grade aberrants. Taking in some Phase Power wasn't incomprehensible—she'd been an awakened ability user herself—but the medium doing the absorbing was her spirit form, not the Soul Stone. And when I looked at that spirit form with Spatial Perception, there was no Phase Power in it at all.

Where had the absorbed Phase Power gone? And the TP I'd injected?

...Whatever. If it's good, that's enough.

I shrugged, scooped crab meat up with the wooden chopsticks, and wolfed it down, then spoke to Franc, who was watching me with a contented mother's smile.

"If this keeps up, I think it's basically confirmed Franc's going to become visible to other people too. And materialize. So let's hold out here as long as we can, build my Phase Power, and gather some for you as well."

"Yes!"

I scraped the meat of the land crab aberrant—a good forty kilograms in all—down to the bottom and set the chopsticks aside. Shell and the parts you couldn't eat accounted for thirty-three of those forty, and what you could actually eat was only about seven. A shame. I felt like I could have eaten twice that.

Then again, at seventy-five dollars for ten grams, seven kilos came to over fifty thousand. Fifty thousand dollars for a single meal. The most extravagant meal of my life.

Franc gazed at the skeleton and the bony remains, almost no meat left, and marveled, then spoke to me in a regretful tone.

"It is a shame. It would have been lovely if your Mana Sieve could absorb the Phase Power scattered by aberrants beneath your grade as well. It is regrettable that it obeys the basic conditions of absorption."

"I suppose that's just how the world works."

Having watched me draw Phase Power in with Mana Sieve, Franc had wanted to see whether I could take it from lower-grade aberrants too. I'd already guessed I couldn't. I'd gotten a rough sense of it the day I took Franc and Hwayeon's first times together, while I was absorbing the Phase Power out of the Phase Stone vest. If I could kill aberrants of a lower grade than mine and take their Phase Power, then I should also have been able to absorb the Phase Power diffused through the air with Mana Sieve.

Showing her would be better than a hundred words, so I'd worked Mana Sieve near the aberrant she'd reduced to charcoal. As expected, the Phase Power drawn to it only flowed over my skin before dispersing back into the air. I hadn't expected anything, so I wasn't disappointed, but Franc clearly had. She'd looked visibly regretful then, and seeing her now, she'd been even more disappointed than I'd thought.

I disposed of the crab remains with a Mana Bullet, found a clean pool, washed my hands, and rinsed my mouth with a water-tree leaf.

"Franc, come here."

I sat on a dry, flat stretch and called her, and she flew over obediently and settled on my thigh. I set a hand on the slender waist that came softly into my arms, drew out TP, and began injecting it directly into her spirit form.

"Hhh... nnh. Haaau..."

This was what I'd been trying every hour since entering on the third run. Pouring my TP straight into Franc's spirit form so it would accumulate there. TP injected this way didn't store in the Soul Stone, and not even a single point of Phase Power remained in the spirit form either—but the changes kept coming. As I'd said, color was being laid over her grayish-white spirit, and sensation was appearing even without concentrating Mana Sieve. I'd worried that as the TP condensed, her body might start glowing blue, and I couldn't have been more relieved that it didn't.

Through Mana Vision, Franc looked no different from a person. If the color filled in properly like this, the naked eye wouldn't be able to tell whether she was a spirit or human. And if contact became possible at that level, we could go on dates like an ordinary couple... heheh.

Whenever my TP filled, I injected half of it—17,500—into her spirit form, and when it filled again after fifty minutes I injected more, and over four days the TP I'd poured into her alone had passed a million. I didn't know how much more it would take, but I meant to keep injecting the whole time we were in the Phase World. TP recovered at one percent a minute here anyway, so there was no real burden.

I set thoughts of her body aside for the moment, thought of school, and muttered.

"If it takes too long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to reach C-Class, I might fall short on attendance and get held back. Fortunately the exams are already over, at least."

"Haaau... Y-Yeongeun will see to that... haah..."

Franc let out sigh after sigh, as if she were getting a pleasant massage.

"Right? I've got a concubine with real power, so I might as well get a taste of that power myself while I'm at it."

Anyway, the more TP I injected into the spirit form, the stronger the electricity got. Lightning? Hmm. It was a little muddled. Maybe I ought to settle on one name.

...Lightning bolts. I'll call them lightning bolts. The power of the bolts seemed to be climbing steadily. Roasting that land crab electrically earlier had used a mere 10 TP, so it was definitely strong. An F-Class elemental ability user supposedly needed about five effective hits with standard-issue 50-TP attribute rounds to bring down a Low-Rank Variant.

"Hahk. Th-that is... enough. S-Seohaa! Please stop!"

Oops. I'd poured in too much while my mind wandered.

Injecting TP into the spirit form put her in a mild state of arousal—not as much as pouring it into the Soul Stone, but still. The more I injected, the further Franc slid from arousal into heat, so I usually stopped at a level she could endure, the way I meant to now. Seeing her half-collapsed on the grass in her flushed naked body, panting, I swallowed hard. I let out a small sigh of regret and waited for the excitement to settle.

"Haaau..."

"Calmed down?"

At my words she squirmed a little, then nodded with a reddened face. I swallowed again at the sight. But this was the Phase World. Anything could happen. I had to be careful.

Between Franc and Hwayeon, who'd hand over anything I asked—liver, gallbladder, and all—if I so much as pressed them, my patience kept eroding. I needed to restrain myself before I turned into a wretched man. Restraint.

I'd also decided to stop scanning the body of every woman I met. I'd already been cutting back, little by little, on peeping at the naked bodies of women I didn't know, but the decisive turn had been the day I smashed the family of that loser creep who'd been peeping on my sister. Thinking back, right after I returned I'd gone around stealing looks at every woman I met like a dog in full heat, spouting nonsense about a man's romance. I wasn't in any position to curse that creep. The only thing I had over him was a perfect crime no one would ever catch me at.

"..."

The problem was Franc. Even while I injected TP into her every day, I hadn't held her, using the Phase World as the excuse, and I could see her lust building. Even now she was looking up at me with heated eyes.

"Sorry for making this hard on you."

She flinched at the apology, shook her head with a flushed face, then stole a light kiss from my lips.

"It is all right. This much is not difficult in the least."

Contrary to her words, a sultry heat seemed to linger at the corners of her eyes. At this rate the lewd-Franc switch was going to flip soon. Worrying.

"Hm? Smoke?"

Once Franc had settled, we were moving west again when, where the forest thinned a little, I caught a thread of smoke stitching the blue sky vertically between the trees. I'd thought it was a cloud, but after shifting this way and that to check, it definitely wasn't.

"I shall go up and look."

She lifted off and flew above the trees, and in less than a minute she came back down, pointing south-southwest to tell me there was an active volcano.

"An active volcano?"

"Yes. The smoke was rising from that place."

"A mountain... there might be ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠aberrants there."

"It is not certain, but if that is the mountain I remember, there will be aberrants."

I tilted my head at the uncertainty.

"You're not sure?"

"The mountain I know was merely a mountain. And it was long ago, besides... It may have been dormant, and erupted not long past."

Hearing that, I activated Mana Mode - Acceleration, kicked off, and scrambled about thirty meters up the largest water tree nearby. In the old days I'd have grunted and spent ten minutes hauling myself up, and the difference from two months ago put me in a slightly better mood.

From the top of the tree I looked around, and just as Franc had said, a mountain was puffing smoke to the south-southwest. But if a mountain looked that hazy on a clear, cloudless day like today, it was an extremely long way off. I spoke while looking at Franc, floating right beside me.

"What kind of aberrants were on the mountain you remember?"

"Aberrants with the lower body of an elephant and the upper body of a human. From the waist upward, they are exactly as people. Below that, they are identical to an elephant from the neck down. They knew the use of tools, and there were individuals who could wield elemental abilities—a tribal aberrant species. Their bulk was as great as an African elephant's."

An elephant version of a centaur. A species that hadn't even been in the aberrant encyclopedia I'd looked through on the Authenticator.

"Hmm. Never seen them in the encyclopedia either."

I turned my eyes back toward the mountain and strained to make it out. Smoke was bubbling up from a sunken hollow at the summit, and from there down about a third of the slope, perennial snow lay piled. The mountain was quite tall.

Hmm...

"Perennial snow usually starts around three thousand meters above sea level, doesn't it? Going by that, that mountain's about four thousand five hundred meters high?"

"I only went there when I was an aberrant myself, so I do not rightly know the height..."

I could see something like trees on the snow-covered slopes as well as the bare ones. But there were patches of yellowish-brown here and there. Did that mean they were logging? And if they logged, that meant building houses, or using fire.

I climbed down a reasonable way from the crown, perched on a branch, and asked Franc.

"Since they're the elephant version of a centaur, let's just call them elephantauruses. Do you remember anything about how they live?"

"Hehe. Elephantaurus—what a peculiar name. Ah! No, no, it is nothing!"

When I moved to deliver a tickling punishment for mocking my sense of names, she shook her head in a hurry and corrected herself.

"They mostly traveled in twos and threes, and as I recall, they moved in teams of three—two of Physical Reinforcement, one elemental. At the time their numbers were around three hundred, but at some point they fled so swiftly that I caught only about half."

"You didn't go hunt them regularly?"

"Of course. My instincts burned with rage, and I tried both open assault and ambush, but from a certain point, whenever I appeared, a few of the strong ones would bar my way while the rest fled, so I did not catch many. Even when I loosed a roar, they would falter and sway for a moment, then flee at once. And so, in the end, I gave up and never set foot that way again."

"If they withstood your Fear, that means they're Mid-Low Grade at minimum."

"Yes. And most of the elemental types loosed fire-attribute rounds. Occasionally there were individuals who shot wind or earth, but I never saw one that shot water. For weapons, they used many clubs fashioned from logs, and the stronger ones seemed to wield stone axes or metal arms."

I thought for a moment, then nodded.

"All right. Let's head for that mountain. If it's dangerous, we run."

"If a strong aberrant should appear, might I not freeze it with a lightning bolt while you fire the Mana Cannon?"

"Drawing that conclusion now feels premature. Let's verify first."

"Mm. Yes."

The rest I'd confirm once we got close. Then, off toward the active volcano.

That night I found an enormous tree more than seven meters across, bored a hole into its midsection with a minimal-output Mana Bullet, and spent the night inside. Honestly, I'd worried the shockwave might snap the trunk clean in half, but though it shook fairly hard, it was that thick—and I'd fired at minimum power—so it held. The room that resulted was a circle two meters across, which wasn't comfortable, so I came out of the hole and started breaking off branches.

I activated Mana Mode - Acceleration and leaping from branch to branch... I couldn't pull off any acrobatics like that. I scurried around instead, cutting branches heavy with leaves, piled them thick on the floor of the hole, and spread the wind raccoon pelt over them. Quite cozy. Cozy enough that I thought, if it were only a matter of enduring, I could stay here a long time.

"Looks like I'll rest easy tonight."

"A sleeping place such as this, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠born of a single simple gesture—how splendid."

"Feels like just the other day I was spending hours hollowing out a trunk with a horn awl and a claw spear. Makes me realize all over again how much abilities matter."

"Hehe."

Franc came over to where I lay and offered me her lap as a pillow. I looked up at her.

"Starting tomorrow, we'll run fast to where the elephantauruses are..."

"Pfft!"

...

I stopped talking and looked quietly up at Franc. She turned her eyes away with deliberate effort and began to feign interest in something else.

I gathered Mana Sieve into both hands, snatched her around the waist quick as lightning, toppled her, and climbed on. She let out a shriek and flailed in surprise.

"Fraaanc?"

"Eep, y-yes?"

"You laughed at me again just now, didn't you?"

"N-no."

I looked down at her, laughing without a sound, and Franc squirmed in my arms, trying to hide the fluster and feign normalcy as she looked up.

"Sure seemed like you were laughing."

"It is a misunderstanding."

"Really?"

"Truly!"

"...Fine. According to a method of trial handed down from ancient times, if you pass my test, I'll believe that claim."

"Very well. What manner of test is it?"

This girl was going to deny it to the end. Fine—then I'd give her a real test. Honestly, Franc constantly giving off that sultry air was a problem, and if I kept looking at her like that I wouldn't be able to hold my own desire down either. Bearing one strong surge was manageable. Desire that came in waves, short and long, over and over—that was genuinely hard to endure. A safety point had conveniently appeared, so I'd take the chance to settle Franc's lust.

"It's simple. You take my TP in through your p— your pussy, and if you don't get aroused, your claim is true. If you do, it's a lie. A simple test."

"Y-yes?!"

"It's a method that was popular in medieval Europe. Don't you know it? Sink in the water and you're human; float, and you're a witch. That sort of thing."

"That is witch hunting!"

"What's witch hunting? I'm too dumb to know about that. All right then, shall we begin?"

"Ah, aah?! A moment, please! Seo... haht?! Aaaahn—!"

Beneath the full moon, Franc's plaintive moans rang out, and a night meant for adults passed.