Episode 142 — Phase World, Third Run (5)
Twenty minutes of running, and my senses caught an elephant-uros buried in the landslide debris.
"Ah, an elephant-uros. It seems it is still alive."
"Yeah. It's got a phase stone, too."
The thing was buried twenty meters under our feet. There was no air down there — it shouldn't have been able to breathe — and yet it was still alive. Genuinely astonishing.
"Perfect. While we're at it, I ought to test what the mana laser can do."
Its phase power sat at 24,275, and the phase stone alone held 8,713. Not as high as the second-in-command, but still a serious level. If the mana laser worked on this one, it ought to work on Number Two as well.
I focused TP into my hand and fired the mana laser down through the debris. A colorless, transparent line lanced through with a clean thrust, piercing the elephant-uros's body — straight through the spine of its elephant half. The beam punched through the backbone and kept going, and the creature's muscles rippled and convulsed, writhing in pain. This time I swept the laser across its — her — torso, and wherever the beam touched, flesh parted without the slightest resistance.
"...Incredible."
Franc, watching beside me through spatial perception, let the praise slip out with her eyes shining. I, meanwhile, was cursing my own stupidity.
God. Why the hell had I been suffering through all those mana bullets? One casual scrape of the mana laser and they'd all have dropped dead.
I'd just confirmed it — whether because I'd become D-Class or simply because my phase power had grown, I couldn't say — but while the beam's thickness stayed the same, its reach had doubled, from a hundred meters to two hundred. Power seemed to fall off with distance, and yet with a consumption of a hundred per second, even the tip still vastly outclassed a mana bullet.
"This is why you've got to actually test your own abilities. If I'd known sooner, back when the elephant-uros were all bunched together, I could've just charged in, drawn mana lasers from both hands, and cut the lot of them down."
Franc heard my grumbling, smiled, and spoke.
"Even so, it is fortunate we know now. At this level, I believe it would have some effect even upon a high-rank variant."
"Right? You lock them up with electricity, and I dodge around and carve them apart with the mana laser."
Of course, I wasn't about to get careless. If it was a physical reinforcement type, it would be as fast as Yeongeun, or faster — and one slip would mean I was the one who died.
Hmm... I really should have asked Hwayeon more about the gap between mid-high grade and high grade.
The elephant-uros I'd sacrificed to the mana laser was still alive, twitching. One last test — spatial manipulation — and then I'd take its life. Using it at range would knock me out, so the test would have to be up close. I detonated several 10-TP mana bullets, digging out just enough soil for the thing to claw free. The mound began to heave and bulge as it tried to extrude itself. Then a hand punched up through the dirt, and it started shoving the earth aside with both arms, dragging itself out in a labor of agony.
...Up close, it looked uncomfortably human, and when the moment came I hesitated to go through with the experiment. Franc seemed to read it on me. She spoke, firm and cold.
"Seoha. That is an aberrant. A monster that has no need of mercy."
"Yeah. It's a monster."
The elephant-uros, its body a map of cuts and gashes, was hauling itself free while its guts trailed from the elephant half. The thing was the size of a decent two-story building, and the innards were no joke either. I watched from outside the pit. The moment it cleared the earth, it fixed its eyes on me, and a terrible hostility flared.
Its spine had been severed in two, so it couldn't put any strength into the lower body; it couldn't even crawl toward me. Instead it thrashed the elephant body's forelegs and both arms, snatched up a boulder buried nearby, and hurled it at me. I slipped the flying rock easily, and the elephant-uros snarled, its voice jumping a full octave.
"Paimkite Dievo prakeikimas!"
"That was language, right?"
"No. In the Phase World, all speech is said to translate of its own accord, so that it may be understood — and we cannot understand that, can we? Which is to say, that thing is simply a monster."
I glanced at Franc. None of her usual gentleness was in her now. The elephant-uros was still snatching up stones and gravel to throw, and I had no reason to stand still for a common stone-throw, so I kept sidestepping. When it ran out of things to hurl, it glared with eyes so bloodshot they looked ready to weep blood, and roared.
"Kugal neatleis jums!!"
I watched it start scooping up dirt and flinging that instead, then drew the mana laser and severed both its arms.
"kyaaaaahhh!!"
I'd steeled myself before I cut. Watching it thrash in agony while red blood sprayed from the stumps of both arms was, it turned out, not great for one's mental health. But to test close-range spatial manipulation I had to get in close, and leaving it any means of attack would be dangerous...
I drew the mana laser again and cut away the forelegs as well.
"Teda nufudyti! Teda fudyti net mirti!"
"kuuuuh, huuuuh."
I ignored the eyes streaming hatred and the ragged breathing, and moved around to its back. It twisted its upper body and tried to bite me. The elephant half fused below its waist limited it to a mere contortion, and the teeth never reached me.
Suddenly curious how much of mana mode's strength would actually land on a mid-high rank variant, I drove a fist into the spine of the elephant-uros as it kept twisting, still trying to bite.
A dull impact. Its head snapped sideways, and it shuddered in pain.
"kyaaaah!!"
So at F-Class, without spending phase power, I was only at the level of a plain strike?
"Seoha?"
"Hm? Oh — I was wondering how strong my body gets with mana mode on, so I tested it."
Franc had flinched when I suddenly punched into the elephant-uros's back, but she nodded soon enough and suggested I test mana mode's physical enhancement stage by stage. Following her advice, I raised my physical ability to E-Class and drove my fist in. The bone at the point of impact snapped. At D-Class, the fist punched clean through the body.
"KYAAAahhh!!"
"...I kind of feel like we've become the villains."
Watching the elephant-uros scream until it felt like my ears would split left a sour taste in my mouth, but this was intelligence I needed if I wanted to stay alive. A world where you died if you didn't kill...
I pulled my hand free, rationalizing to myself, and the elephant-uros retched bloody foam, writhing. Had I punctured a lung? Worried my cruelty might have disappointed Franc, I checked her expression — but she was staring at the aberrant with a face so cold I almost wondered if this was the Franc I knew.
I offered no expression of my own. I set my hand on the lower body of the elephant-uros, still radiating killing intent, and triggered close-range spatial manipulation. The ripple that began where my palm met flesh suddenly spread across the entire lower half. The bones of the hindquarters powdered. The organs crushed in on themselves.
"Grrrraaaccckk!!"
"Ah? What just happened?"
"I don't know either. I just put my hand on it and used spatial manipulation, and this is what I got."
This was different from the pigeon tests at the training ground. Those carcasses had simply turned into lumps of meat — so why was the elephant-uros like this? The outside looked intact, but the inside of the lower half had been pulverized. I turned it over in my head and still couldn't find the reason. What was certain was that close-range spatial manipulation worked far better than I'd expected.
"Does it spread a set distance from the point of contact?"
"nu... fudyti..."
By then both the killing intent and the hostility had drained away. Blood spilling from nose and mouth, the elephant-uros turned toward me and opened its mouth with clouded eyes.
"Ir jfs mirti kugal..."
Kugal? That was the word it used earlier, when it was throwing dirt.
"You think Kugal is a name?"
"If it is a name, might it not belong to the chieftain of the elephant-uros, or to their leader?"
"So something like, Kugal won't forgive you?"
Franc nodded. I set my hand on the back of the dying elephant-uros and triggered spatial manipulation once more.
I split the dead elephant-uros's chest with the mana laser, and a thick, mud-like slurry of blood sprayed out. I recoiled and dodged. I'd only been trying to recover the phase stone, which had come through spatial manipulation intact, and nearly got a faceful of horror for my trouble. Aberrant or not, primitive as it looked, the upper body resembled a woman's — and a human-like hide turned into a skin stuffed with viscous liquid was bad for the psyche.
I sighed and scratched my head, and Franc, back to her usual gentle self, turned to me.
"What is the matter?"
"Hm? Ah, nothing. Just... a memory from the first run."
At the look on my face she said, "Ah," gave a bitter smile, and didn't ask further. I'd only brushed it off. If she'd pressed, I would've been in a tight spot myself.
I watched the thick red liquid glug and pour, then lengthened the cut with the mana laser. The slurry came faster — and in the rush of it, the phase stone was swept out. Wouldn't have to stick my hand in after all. Somehow the smell of blood felt... tempting. I turned away from it, pinched the water-blue phase stone out of the gore with only thumb and forefinger, dropped it into a snowbank, and rolled it until the blood washed off.
"Capacity's 8,713, so that's about 8.7 billion won? Money really does come easy."
"...If other ability users heard that, they would collapse from sheer disbelief."
"They would?"
I asked because I genuinely didn't get it, and Franc explained with a small laugh.
"Director Lee Hyeryeong explained it, did she not? If one discovers an aberrant settlement, or a place where they gather densely, during a survey, it is dangerous. With this many mid-high grades, Elephant-Uros Mountain would be designated an unconquerable zone unless one were a truly large raid team."
She added that hunting creatures of this caliber would require raiders in units of at least a hundred, and that once direct and indirect labor were counted, splitting 8.7 billion won would not leave even a million won apiece — not even a thousand dollars. In the end, it meant I was alone, with no preparation costs, and so a profit of that size stayed in my pocket.
"It is only possible because it is you, Seoha, of course."
"Meaning I'm amazing, right?"
"Hehe. Yes."
I gave the blood a rough wash, pocketed the stone, and stood. The phase power the elephant-uros had released in death flowed beautifully, wrapping Franc's body. Water-blue phase power enfolding pale Franc — it was so mystical I caught myself thinking how wonderful it would be if I could capture the scene in a photograph.
...A photograph?
I pulled my smartphone from my pocket, switched it to the camera, and framed her — and there she was on the screen, no different from a living person! A spirit, showing up in a photograph. How was that possible? The phase power, of course, didn't appear on the display, but Franc herself came through clear as day. Moved, I pressed the shutter. At the click, she turned toward me.
"A photograph?"
"Yeah."
"...To think my image could be held by a camera. How strange."
"Means you're half human, half spirit now, I guess?"
I answered with a smile, and Franc beamed and pulled my arm into an embrace. Whether she had taken all the phase power she could absorb, what remained embroidered the air like fireflies on a midsummer night, then slowly vanished. Dissolved into the void, most likely.
"Let's move, then."
"Yes."
We climbed out of the pit and started toward Elephant-Uros Mountain. Dead elephant-uros registered here and there in the debris, but I ignored them all. No phase stones, and nothing left to test. I timed our return to the mountainside entrance of their den for when my TP had fully recovered. Inside the entrance buried by the landslide, the elephant-uros had piled up torches and were digging at the earth with their weapons.
Their only entrance was sealed, so the air wouldn't circulate — but the burrow itself was wide and deep, which meant a large store of it. And they were tough enough to survive tens of minutes buried in debris. They'd break through before they suffocated.
And... why did the bad imaginings always have to come true?
"That Number Two bastard's become a high-rank variant."
Franc said nothing.
Number Two stood behind the dozens of elephant-uros digging out the soil, swinging a metal spear some ten-odd meters long and shouting something or other. Compared to before, its body had grown — only slightly, but grown — and its skin had shifted from a rough tawny brown to a dark crimson. Originally its phase power had been 24,922, with a phase stone of 23,001 in its heart. Now there was no phase stone, and its phase power alone had risen to 25,000. Worse, it had been glancing my way for a while, sizing me up. No doubt it had pinpointed me by sensing phase power.
Wondering why it had suddenly become high grade, I swept the inside of that anthill of a burrow with spatial perception. Off in an isolated spot, thirteen elephant-uros lay dead with their hearts torn out. A magnificent piece of trash, living right down to my expectations. Evolving by killing its own kind.
"Vile. The worst of any aberrant I have yet seen. Trash like that must never be left alive."
"No phase stone, either. Nothing worth taking. Let's blow it away with a mana cannon."
"Yes. The second-in-command is trash that has no need of a knight's mercy."
A few mid-grade phase stones had dropped while I was killing the hundreds of elephant-uros. Whether they'd been caught in my mana-bullet blasts and destroyed, or that Number Two bastard had recovered them, I didn't know. Either way, within a 1.5-kilometer radius, the only phase stone was the one I carried. So I could fire the mana cannon without hesitation. And as luck would have it, nearly four hundred elephant-uros had gathered near the blocked entrance — waiting to burst out the moment it opened, maybe. If this went well, I could sweep them all at once. If I wanted to be ready for a chieftain that might be lurking somewhere, wiping out the small fry too was the right call.
Even as we pulled back, Number Two kept barking harshly, driving the elephant-uros to dig. Were the earth-attribute ones all dead? With an earth attribute they could have dug far more easily, and yet here they were, stupidly gouging at the ground with skewer-like weapons. Not my problem.
Bracing for the shockwave, I retreated four kilometers, then extended my hand toward where the den's entrance ought to be. It was well outside my spatial perception, but a mana round's trajectory was close enough to a straight line that it didn't matter. I began condensing TP in my right palm and setting it spinning. The energy compressed with frightening force, and my arm started to tremble, little by little.
The maximum condensation I'd confirmed, firing for practice from the summit of Breast Mountain, was about 10,000 TP for now. In my heart I wanted to pack in 30,000 — as much as I could manage without passing out — but I wouldn't be able to withstand the rotational force, and I'd blow myself up. Even so, 10,000 TP, by simple calculation, should put out power comparable to a million TP from another elemental-type ability user. More than enough to blow away the gathered elephant-uros. I couldn't quite picture Number Two dying to this attack. Still, I believed it would take a grievous wound.
Once the 10,000 TP had finished accumulating, something like a colorless, transparent sphere began spinning in my hand. Franc must have confirmed it through spatial perception. She caught my arm and adjusted the angle.
"One moment. If you fire as you are, you will miss. A little more this way... Yes. If you release it like this, it should do."
"Thanks. Here goes. Mana Cannon!"
I held my right arm and released the elemental-type phase power pattern I'd drawn to its limit through the Mana Sieve. A sound like a snapped zither string rang in my ears, and the mana cannon left my hand, streaking like a shot toward the rough location of the den's entrance. Honestly, it was too dark to see a thing. A second passed with no reaction, and just as I started to worry I'd missed—
"It has struck."
Franc's whisper came, and with it a blast verging on subsonic tore straight through my body.
Kuu-gu-gu-gu-gung...
All I could hear was a rough roar and a faint tremor. But if I could feel the vibration from four kilometers away, the power had to be more than enough.
"Let us go!"
"Yeah!"
I triggered mana mode and ran after Franc, already flying ahead, toward Elephant-Uros Mountain. As the distance closed, the mountain's outline emerged from the dark, and centered on where the den had been, a massive crater began to show — as if a meteor had struck.
"Holy— a crater? How strong was that?"
"I cannot gauge the power precisely, but judging by the area alone, it is on the level of a backpack nuke. And if anything, the force would be stronger, not weaker."
A... backpack nuke?
Franc's assessment left me slack-jawed. A 10,000-TP mana cannon was nuclear-weapon class...? I snapped out of it and raised mana mode's TP consumption, running faster. Maybe Number Two was dead too. If it really was, I had to arrive before its phase power dispersed!
Panting, I reached the half-slumped crater, and at its center I saw water-blue phase power gathered in a mass, swaying this way and that. A crater like something scooped out by a kilometer-wide ice cream scoop. Holes dotted it here and there — the tunnels of the elephant-uros den, by the look of them. I raced down the slope, sweeping spatial perception across the whole area, but I couldn't find a single living elephant-uros. Had Number Two been caught in the mana cannon and died as well?
I swallowed, hard, at a mana cannon that could vaporize even a high-rank variant. And long-range spatial manipulation, which could erase even a mana cannon like this... what even was that?
I approached the phase power pooled like a pond floating in midair, and a portion of it began to be drawn toward me. Number Two really was dead. Absorbing phase power released by a dead aberrant, rather than drawing it from a phase stone, felt like a glass of water drunk when you were desperately thirsty — quietly soaking through the body. Different, too, from absorbing the phase power the giant Franc had scattered during the first run.
That sweet sensation faded before long. Smacking my lips at the loss, I checked how much my phase power had grown.
What? 40,041?
Forty-one was the natural increase since I'd entered the Phase World, so... 5,000?
"Why did it only go up by this much? Where'd the other 20,000 go?"
Dumbfounded, I waved my hands through the still-gathered clumps of water-blue phase power, but the energy only shoved aside wherever my hands moved. It wouldn't absorb into my body. 25,000, and I'd gotten 5,000 — so when you killed an aberrant, you could only absorb 20 percent of the phase power it had held? And if you joined a raid, that 20 percent got split by the number of participants?
Come to think of it, I'd only absorbed 20 percent of the phase power flowing from phase stones, too. I remembered the ability users from the alliance that had taken down the Soul Reaper at the National Museum, swarming in a pack.
"Son of a bitch."
What kind of system was that? You suffered to kill the thing and only got a measly 20 percent share?
I was about to explode at the absurdity when I remembered how I'd absorbed the phase power leaking from phase stones. What if? I spun the Mana Sieve hard and flailed both arms through the mass of phase power — and a portion of the energy, wavering like mist, began flowing into my body again!
"That's it!"
I kept the Mana Sieve turning through my whole body, and the phase power rode me fiercely, spinning round and round as it poured in without end — until, at some point, it cut off clean. I checked my phase power. 60,007.
Hmm. Number Two was exactly 25,000, so if I'd absorbed all of it I should be at 60,041. The missing 34 must have dissipated in the meantime.
Well, a little wasteful not to have taken all 25,000, but I could let that much slide.
Huh? But why wasn't Franc coming over? She was just standing there.
"Fraaanc? What are you doing over there?!"
Franc, floating at the crater's rim, only approached once I shouted and waved.
"What were you doing over there?"
"I was waiting until you had absorbed the phase power, Seoha. Have you taken it all?"
"Huh? Yeah. Most of the 25,000. Oh — were you waiting because you were afraid you'd absorb the high-rank variant's phase power along with me?"
"Yes. It would not do for me to stand beside you and take the phase power that ought to be yours."
Damn. She'd been thinking about that?
"Hey, what are you talking about? If you get stronger, I get stronger too. From now on—"
"No! I am only taking my place as your backup — the position of Save the King. Everything must put you first, Seoha!"
Whoa.
"Th-that's a line from the British national anthem, isn't it? God Save the King, or Queen..."
"That is correct. But to knights, it also means the sword and shield that protect one's liege. There are separate titles, such as Defender or Royal Guard, yet I have the will to protect you, Seoha!"
She seemed worked up, and yet her face was utterly firm. I had a feeling that if I refused, sermon hour would begin.
"R-right. Got it."
"You understand, yes? Everything must put you first. The phase power released when an aberrant is slain — you must absorb all of it that you are able, Seoha, and only afterward may I receive what remains. So we shall continue in this manner."
"All right."
It was the first time I'd seen Franc's heart as a knight since the cliff in the first run.
At any rate, the phase power spread by the hundreds of remaining mid-grade and mid-high grade elephant-uros was slowly drawn into Franc as she came near. I watched closely, and sure enough, not all of it went into her. Only a portion was absorbed, and then it stopped. When we'd killed mid-low grades or low grades, most of the released phase power had seemed to go to Franc — but maybe it hadn't been absorbed at all. Maybe there simply hadn't been enough of it, and it had scattered into the air. With this much phase power, and watching carefully, I could tell for certain. Of what had pooled here, Franc had taken only about 20 percent.
She noticed I was thinking something over and kept her mouth shut so as not to interrupt, waiting quietly. I took her hand.
"Franc?"
"Yes?"
"When you kill an aberrant, do you know how the phase power absorption works? How much you take, and how it's split with other people?"
At the question she looked puzzled, then shook her head slightly.
"Would you not be the only one who knows that, Seoha? Other people do not possess spatial perception."
"That's not right. Otherwise, how would they have ranked aberrants by phase power? Use the Certifier's phase-power measurement and you can tell how much was absorbed, so the smart ones would've worked out the formula in no time."
"Ah... th-that is true."
Franc flushed, cheeks going pink, embarrassed to have been wrong.
"Hmm. Earlier I only absorbed about 20 percent of the pooled phase power, and just now you did too... So you really can only take phase power equal to 20 percent of the aberrant you killed?"
"But your phase power is over 60,000 now, Seoha. Before, it was around 35,000, was it not?"
"Ah, at first I only managed 5,000. But when I did it the same way I absorb phase power from a phase stone, I took in the remaining 20,000 too."
"Oh! So it can be used in that manner as well!?"
I gave an awkward smile and nodded at Franc, who was marveling without a shred of restraint.
Anyway, I found myself newly respectful of ability users. They'd go around in groups of three or four at the small end, dozens at the large, splitting everything n ways, hoarding mouse-droppings of power to climb the classes. Even a peak-rank variant topped out at 3.49 million phase power. Twenty percent of that was 700,000, and a typical peak-rank raid was said to run about forty people, so one person could absorb 17,500. And that was the maximum. At the minimum, it was only 1,500. Gathering scraps like that, how many lifetimes would it take to hit 3.5 million and become B-Class?
Franc clapped her hands lightly.
"Your phase power is already 60,000, Seoha, so if you gather 240,000 more, you will ascend to C-Class!"
"I suppose. 240,000 feels a bit distant, though."
"Not at all. Now that you know the mana cannon works even on high-rank variants, if you are fortunate enough to find and hunt a high-rank variant possessing 260,000 or more phase power, you will become C-Class in a single stroke."
"...Huh. You're right?"
It felt a little too much like getting something for nothing, but I needed to get strong fast. Who was I to quibble?
Come on. Dig in, find the son of a bitch who ambushed me, and crush him.
...And get revenge for the bodyguard hyungs and noonas who died because of me.