Episode 139: Third Cycle in the Phase World (2)

Hmm. Did I push her too hard last night?

All through the night I had desperately held back the urge to finish inside Franc's womb, driving her without a moment's rest as she thrashed in pleasure, sending her up the peak of climax dozens of times over. Watching her collapse at last, skin flushed red from climax after climax, I had figured that since we'd already come this far I might as well charge the Soul Stone with Phase Power too—so I gripped the stone and poured TP into it. The moment the Soul Stone began to drink that TP down, Franc couldn't even scream. She writhed, her pupils rolling slowly up beneath her eyelids, and the sight of her hips bucking as she squirted in that state was so raw that some sadistic switch in me flipped with an audible click. Looking back, I can hardly believe myself.

Once that switch was thrown, I didn't stop feeding TP into the Soul Stone until she had squirted dozens of times and was gagging and croaking as if the breath were leaving her for good. The result is Franc as she is now, slung on my back, still nowhere near conscious.

Ahem. Strange, though. I can feel the density of her spirit body, and yet her weight is so close to nothing that I can't help wondering what the principle even is.

Just then an aberrant wandered into the range of my Spatial Perception.

A land penguin. About ninety centimeters tall—a Low-Rank Variant whose Phase Power had nearly climbed to Mid-Low Grade.

Perfect. Today's lunch is grilled penguin belly. The rich cut.

Pyek?!

With both of them open I surged at the waddling land penguin, and it let out a sound like air hissing from a punctured bladder and fled, its face twisted in... terror. Watching it flap its wings and bolt like a mad thing left me with an odd feeling. Weren't aberrants supposed to be unconditionally hostile toward ability users? And scared like that, it made me look like the villain.

A chase was more trouble than it was worth, so I tuned a Mana Bullet to detonate just ahead of it and let fly.

Boom! Pigyaak!

It burst exactly as calculated, and the shockwave caught the land penguin dead-on. The thing screamed and tumbled across the dirt, then sprang up and flapped off again—except, lucid or not, it was running straight at me.

If you're going to run, at least look where you're going.

The distance closed in an instant.

Ah. Our eyes met. Its gaze seemed to be asking why I was standing in front of it.

Why? Because you ran at me, that's why.

While it hesitated I closed to point-blank range, drew a Mana Laser from my fingertip, and swung it at the creature's neck.

"Thanks for the meal."

Thock.

I laid Franc down in a patch of sun, focused Mana Sieve into my fingers, split the land penguin's belly, scraped out the innards, and skinned it. Concentrate Phase Power in your hand and the thing is as good as a weapon—a little pressure from my fingers and the hide peeled away, meat separating cleanly from meat. Not as neat as a knife, of course, but I wasn't selling it, so who cared. I spread the pelt, laid Franc on top of it, cut a few branches of decent thickness, skewered the chunks, and got a campfire going.

I would have liked to rinse the meat. A shame there was no water nearby.

Roasting it over the fire, I checked the time on my Certifier. A little past eleven in the morning. I'd stopped charging the Soul Stone around three at dawn, when Franc had lost consciousness completely, and eight hours later she still hadn't come around. That worried me a little. Would a Healing Wave bring her back? It straightened out unsettled Phase Power, so it ought to have some effect on status ailments too...

Half to test whether Healing Touch worked the same way, I laid a hand on the smooth of Franc's lower belly and set the annual rings of my Phase Power resonating. Whether that was the cause or not, Franc—who had been flickering slowly—flared with a light about seven parts gold to three parts watery blue, and came back to herself in a rush.

"Aah...?"

I wiped my hand on the land penguin's fur and brushed her platinum hair back from her face. She looked up at me, dazed.

"Seoha? Where... are we?"

"On the way to Mount Elephant-Uros. It's been four hours since we left that tree hollow."

Franc smiled weakly at the name, then stiffened a little when she took in how close it was to noon. For a second I wondered if she was angry, and it scared me—but she smoothed her expression at once, sat up, and launched into a complaint.

"Haa. Sometimes you turn far too rough, Seoha."

"S-sorry. You and Hwayeon are both so beautiful that sometimes I just... can't hold back."

When I confessed what I really felt, Franc traced a hand lightly down her own smooth abdomen, studied me in silence, and then spoke.

"You must only unleash your desire on me, on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hwayeon, and on Yeongeun. You must never lay a hand on a woman who isn't a Physical Reinforcement type. Promise me?"

"...I mean, I was in the wrong, I'll give you that. But if you're looking at me like some guy who'd just reach for any woman, that stings."

"That isn't what I mean. If you lose control and turn sadistic, an ordinary woman might lose her life. That's why I'm saying it."

"Th-that's it?"

At the sincerity on her face I nodded hard and swore I would never so much as turn my eyes toward another woman. Franc smiled faintly, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed my cheek.

"Yes. So you must live looking only at me, Hwayeon, and Yeongeun. We will accept anything you do."

"R-right."

Flustered by that gentle smile, I looked away and went back to roasting the land penguin.

I poured TP into Franc's spirit body and charged the Soul Stone whenever I could, and after three straight days of running the forest began to thin and Mount Elephant-Uros came into view. We were still more than a kilometer and a half out, and even so the mountain was so vast I couldn't get an accurate measure of the distance. Perspective itself felt broken.

Another day, and the trees were gone. A great plain opened before us, rolling like a quiet sea. The land ran all the way to the horizon without a mountain or a hill in sight—nothing but sky and earth—and Mount Elephant-Uros, thrust up in the middle of it, was nature's grandeur stated without any poetry at all. Honestly, I had never seen a plain this vast in my life.

"Incredible..."

The mountain was a lesson in what a high peak actually is. Its mark was a savage slope, as if some broken crag had been hammered deep into the ground, and smoke was billowing from the summit. If it was breathing out that much smoke, the place had to be hot—so why wasn't the eternal snow melting? Maybe they call it eternal snow because it refuses to melt.

Franc rose onto her toes, hands shading her brow, and studied the mountain. Then she came out with something shocking.

"Hmm~. If those wriggling things are ele...phant-uros, then just as you said, the mountain ought to be about four thousand meters high."

"...You can see that?"

"Yes. When I concentrate a little, I can just make them out. I can't distinguish their exact shapes, though."

What kind of monstrous eyesight was that? I'd heard that nomads on the Mongolian steppe sometimes had vision past 10.0—ten times a normal person's. Was it something like that? I widened my eyes and stared holes into the hazy mountain, but I couldn't make out so much as a wriggle, let alone tell a tree from a rock.

"More of them than before are carrying weapons... metal weapons. The ele, phant-urus."

I glared at Franc, who stumbled over the name every time she tried to say it, then smacked her on the rear. She let out a small yelp and covered herself.

"Kya!"

Anyway, the water trees were gone, and securing water had become the urgent thing. If we'd had so much as a canteen we could have filled it at a river and kept moving, but we didn't. A clean river was flowing off that way, so for now we would follow it.

The closer we drew to Mount Elephant-Uros, the denser the aberrants became. And yet, for some reason, they were almost all things I had already seen. Leopard Cats with slightly different patterns were the most common, then Buddy Chickens, large field mice, and Silver White Wolves, in that order. There were unfamiliar ones too, of course. Now and then a Tooth Bunny—rabbit-like, about seventy centimeters, with teeth that looked a good forty centimeters long—or a Caesar Beetle in red, green, blue, brown, and the like, had dug a burrow and hidden underground.

Most were Mid-Low Grade, with the occasional Mid Grade. The moment Spatial Perception picked one of those up, I sent a 10-TP Mana Bullet from a distance, and it vanished without so much as a squeak.

"Even Mid Grade goes down in one hit. At this rate I can't test the output."

"That's a problem..."

If we ran into a High Grade and the Mana Bullet failed to deliver its proper force, we would be in serious trouble. It was just me and Franc. I had to be that much more careful...

"Numbers aside, how is it not one of them has a Phase Stone?"

"How many are there?"

At her question I swept the surroundings with Spatial Perception.

"Seventy-four inside a kilometer and a half. All Mid-Low Rank Variants, and the number carrying a Phase Stone is zero. How can there not be a single one in seventy-four?"

On the way in I had blown apart five Mid-Rank Variants, and none of them had held a Phase Stone either. Were bearers always this rare?

I stopped, turned to Franc, and said,

"More importantly—if we're thinking about a retreat, I figure from here on we should clear out every aberrant as we advance. What do you think?"

"You speak rightly. Let us secure a path of retreat, and search for a Return Point while we do!"

"Deal!"

With Franc's approval secured, I fired a Mana Bullet at the nearest Leopard Cat hiding underground. Shot at an angle, the round bored into the earth, struck the cat in its burrow, and detonated, flipping the surrounding ground inside out.

"Oh. Penetration's higher than I thought. It even digs through dirt. All right—time to get serious!"

I loaded 1 TP into a Mana Bullet in each hand and hurled them without pause, erasing the hidden Mid-Low Rank Variants one after another—when suddenly every creature buried within a kilometer burst from the ground and ran.

"Ah! Where do you think you're—running off to!"

I flinched.

Uh... just now it sounded like Franc was about to say something she really shouldn't have...

She took to the air after the fleeing Mid-Low Rank Variants, hurling lightning without mercy, and I—unwilling to be outdone—locked onto them with Spatial Perception and rapid-fired Mana Bullets, melting the aberrants in the most literal sense. While we were cleaning house I found a Mid-Low Rank Variant carrying a Phase Stone of Phase Power 90. The output was low, so I sent a Mana Bullet as a test—and sure enough, the Phase Stone caught in the blast vanished without a trace. I'd heard other elemental rounds couldn't affect Phase Stones. My Mana Bullet was an irregular in more ways than one.

I would have to be careful from here on. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Erase a High-Rank Variant's Phase Stone, or a Peak-Rank Variant's, and I'd be throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars.

Two days of zigzagging, killing every aberrant that entered a three-kilometer swath as we moved. Since this third cycle had begun, the Mid-Low Rank Variants we'd brought down had climbed into four digits, and the TP I'd poured into Franc's spirit body had accumulated to something like three and a half million—when a change came over her.

I was still feeding TP into her spirit body when, all at once, she began to shine with a soft watery light and rise into the air.

"F-Franc?"

"Ah?"

I ran to her—she was staring at the white heat-haze pouring from her own body, utterly lost as to what was happening—and caught her by the ankle. I was afraid that if I let go, she would climb into that sky and vanish.

"A-are you all right? Gold light and water-light are just pouring out of you!"

"Ah, nngh—!"

I pulled her down into my arms to ask, and Franc suddenly curled in on herself and began to shake. Fear dropped through me like a stone. Had the TP I'd poured into her caused this? I couldn't keep still. The watery light spread, stronger and stronger, and her face twisted as if in pain, and it tore at me.

And then...

"Ah?! Ah!! Nngh, aaaah...!"

Wha—? A voice was coming out of F-Franc?!

"Ah... Aah. Aaaah. Ah... hhk."

A voice! I could hear Franc's voice! A tearful voice, testing itself with little aahs, as if she were clearing her throat!

Could it be?!

I twitched and released the Mana Sieve I'd been focusing through my body... and Franc was still clutched tight in my arms! Even with Mana Sieve undone, I could hold her waist!!

"Nnh... hhk."

Franc shed great round tears, looked down at her own body, then reached out and touched my face—my nose, my cheeks, my lips—before bursting into sobs and burying her face against my chest.

"Waaah! Seohaaa!!"

This couldn't be. Had the accumulated TP actually built her a body? I shut off Mana Vision, and Franc's beautiful form was still there, no different from when it had been on. I lost my words to a miracle that should not have been possible, but I didn't forget what I had to do. I tightened my arms and pulled the sobbing Franc hard against me.

"Franc..."

I had resolved to give her a body back. I had never thought the wish would come true this soon.

My eyes burned. I buried my face in the nape of her neck, forcing the tears back, and breathed in as much as I could of the apple scent rising from the Franc in my arms. She was a little heavier now. Holding her, drinking in an apple scent that seemed richer than before, I stroked her hair with one hand and patted her back with the other—and whether the feeling overwhelmed her all the more, she began to hiccup and cry in earnest, tears streaming down her face. Face a mess of them, she lifted both hands and looked up at my own tear-filled face, then broke down again, touching my features with exquisite care before pressing a deep kiss to my lips.

"Mmm..."

"Mm."

For a while we kissed with everything we had, and stood a long time simply holding each other.

When I finally sat the calmed Franc on my knee and looked at her face, she looked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back at me, eyes still full.

"Congratulations, Franc."

"Mm. This is all thanks to you, Seoha."

Her voice felt soft and warm, like a breeze arriving on flower petals on a mild spring day.

Platinum hair blazing in the sunlight. A face that would not be ashamed to be called a god's masterpiece. A body as perfect as if the god of sculpture had shaped it by hand. And a voice like a blessing from nature itself. This was, quite simply—!

"You're complete."

"Pardon?"

"Franc, you're the most perfect creation a god ever shaped!"

"Hehe."

At my praise, happiness welled until it filled her face, and she nuzzled her head against my cheek. Every time her hair shifted, a soft apple scent tickled the tip of my nose.

"How's the body?"

The question held more than one meaning, and Franc smiled brightly and began to explain, one thing at a time.

"The world has color now. I can feel the wind brushing past my body. Your warmth as you hold me, your scent—they're making my heart flutter."

She raised both hands and cupped my cheeks, then set her forehead to mine and tickled my nose with the tip of her own.

"The softness of your cheeks under my hands... I can't put it into words. The warmth at your brow, and your nose tickling mine..."

Moisture rose again in those beautiful sky-blue eyes, and she couldn't finish. She pressed her lips lightly to the tip of my nose.

"I... I never even dreamed you were seeing a world with no color in it. That you weren't feeling any of it, either..."

Franc only smiled, bright and quiet.

"Then there's only one thing left to check."

"Yes."

As if she had been thinking the same thing, Franc nodded once and slipped into the Soul Stone. A beautiful radiance, gold mingled with watery blue, wrapped the air around us and was drawn into the stone.

And when she slipped back out, it had fallen to the 3.73 million I had charged in spare moments.

"Ah!"

"You felt it too?"

"Yes! The power surged all at once!"

I nodded and spoke.

"Just as you said. The Phase Power making up your body right now must be about 3.5 million. The moment you entered the Soul Stone, its Phase Power spiked to 7.23 million."

"Ah..."

"The TP I poured in was almost 3.5 million, so that tracks. But I still can't sense any Phase Power in your body itself. I don't know what that's about."

"Could it be that the TP you gave me, and the Phase Power gathered from the aberrants we killed, made this flesh?"

"That's the only guess I've got. Anyway, if the Soul Stone multiplies TP by three the way a Phase Stone does, I just need to charge it until its Phase Power hits seven million."

That way, even if Franc entered the Soul Stone, she wouldn't overflow its capacity.

She looked up at me with a joyful face, hands gathered at her chest, and her naked form was dazzling.

"You're going to need to wear clothes from now on. Even when it's only the two of us."

"Hehe. Is it all right if I wear clothes?"

"I don't want anyone else seeing you naked, not even by accident. And you need to drop the hobby of walking around undressed."

"Nnh! I-I have no such hobby!"

And then she was in a simple look: a pure-white one-piece that fell to her knees, and strap shoes. Even with a body, she could still alter her form. She checked the outfit, gave me a slightly mischievous smile, and caught the hem of the dress, lifting it all the way to her chest—

Cough!

A scrap of white cloth, not even a handful, shyly covered Franc's secret garden!

"What are you doing?!"

"Look. I made underwear, too."

"...That's what you were worrying about?"

"You like this sort of thing, don't you?"

Of course I did... Ahem. Strange, how showing it off like that felt lewder than simply going naked.

Aside from having a body, Franc had hardly changed. She could still enter the Soul Stone whenever and wherever she liked and appear again at my side, and her flight had only gotten faster—when she moved with intent, even I had trouble tracking her by eye. Her confidence had swelled, and she carried herself with a proud bearing. This must have been how she had looked in her days as a knight.

I felt as if I might fall for her all over again. A woman that proud and that beautiful, a girlfriend whose devotion was mine alone. My chest went hot.

"Hah!"

KRA-KOOM!!

Testing her power, Franc dropped a single bolt of lightning. The ground in a five-meter radius around the strike was scorched black, and the Buddy Chicken hiding beneath it was, quite literally, reduced to ash.

...That was a 100-TP lightning bolt? About the same force as my 10-TP Mana Bullet?

"Terrifying."

"What are you saying. With only this much, I couldn't even offer you my card."

"Even rapid-firing, I can only alternate hands and shoot every second and a half. You can drop them one after another without limit, or fire them from your hands. That makes me that much safer. Honestly? It's reassuring."

"Oh, you. Hehehe."

Whether my praise pleased her, Franc covered her cheek with her left hand as if embarrassed, and the instant she flicked her right hand through the empty air—

KRARRRRRRUMBLE!! CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!!

All forty-seven Mid-Low Rank Variants within five hundred meters were fried by the bundle of lightning that fell out of the sky.

...The thought rose unbidden that I had better not get cocky. From now on, I should listen when Franc talks.

Hm? Oh. Wait. Now that I think about it...

"Franc? How did you just do that?"

"Which part do you mean?"

"You dropped exactly one bolt on each of the forty-seven aberrants within five hundred meters. That can't have been chance."

"Oh my. Hmm~?"

Franc realized what she had done and startled, then closed her eyes, drew her brows together, and pressed both index fingers gently to her temples.

"Ah! This is... your Spatial Perception?"

"...F-for real? You can use my Spatial Perception now too?"

I stared, eyes wide, at Franc, who was still concentrating.

"Yes! I can't see as far as you can, but it seems I can use it too!"

With that she broke into a brilliant smile and threw ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her arms around my neck. I was flustered by how overjoyed she was when she spoke, voice bright with excitement.

"It was just as Dr. Woo of the Ability User Association said!"

Dr. Woo? Dr. Woo Mingu? What had that old man said... Ah!

"So this is what he meant, about a treasured object taking on its owner's ability?"

"Yes!"

Artifactization. Now I remembered. Old man Woo Mingu had said my ability might seep in and turn the thing into an artifact. But I'd only been carrying it on me for about two months. Had it been affected when I drove Mana Sieve at full tilt? Or was it because I'd poured TP into it?

Either way...

"Whoa. Then aren't you stronger than me? Spatial Perception, a lightning attribute, and you can fly."

I said it half as a joke, grinning, and Franc smiled softly and shook her head.

"That could never be. I can only see about five hundred meters around me, and more than anything, without you I can't do a thing."

"But if we stay together longer, you might be able to use my Spatial Manipulation or Mana Sieve too, right? Then you'd be able to gather Phase Power on your own. Can you sense Phase Power, by any chance?"

"Yes! This is... your Phase Power, isn't it? Is an amount like this 35,000?"

She extended a slender, pretty finger and poked my chest.

"Yeah. That's right. Incredible. Enough that I'm looking forward to the days ahead."

"Hehe. I'll apply myself even harder from now on, so I can live up to your expectations!"

Watching Franc clench her tiny fists and make that vow, I was as happy as it was possible to be. My grin was in danger of ascending to heaven on its own, so I kneaded my cheeks for all I was worth.

I hadn't known a proper sense of weight could feel this good.

Even as we traveled, Franc kept finding playful excuses to touch me, and every time—the soft brush of her skin, the slight press of her chest against my back when she clung on, the apple scent drifting off her—it set my heart racing past anything I could endure. Once my Phase Power had fully recovered, I took her by the waist and poured TP in, and I could see blue light flowing in beneath her skin and spreading through her whole body. There had been no effect like that before. Was this because she had a body now?

"Mmm... The—the rapture is even stronger."

...The flush on her face as she said it made my heart pound on its own. Before, her floating platinum hair and the sway of her chest had felt a little unnatural, as if she were underwater. Now that she had mass, even the smallest motion came across as perfectly natural, and I felt myself falling for her all over again.

In the end I couldn't hold back. I slipped a hand under Franc's skirt and felt between her thighs.

"Ahn~."

Oof. That coquettish little hum through her nose, and my heart lurched, and my third leg began to stir and stretch. I drew aside the thin scrap of cloth covering her petals, and the sensation of a shell just beginning to part came through my fingertips. Like a master potter appreciating the form of his work by touch, I traced every part of Franc's shell, and she quietly parted her thighs and closed her eyes, breathing in soft, shaky little sighs. She looked as if she were savoring my hand.

Hoo. This is as far as it goes. There are aberrants around... I pulled my hand away with real regret, and Franc rose from my thigh wearing much the same expression.

"Sh-shall we head out? We've rested plenty."

"Y-yes."