Solid Snake (2)

On the way back to the encampment I saw what had to be the verification team's handiwork: snake aberrants lying dead in the ordinary fashion, heads crushed, or bodies hacked into pieces.

Had the Solid Snake been lording it over every serpent in the region? Whatever the reason, it looked as if every snake in the swamp had crawled up out of the muck.

Back in the tent, I took stock of myself and found I was caked in muddy water. The rain during the fight had rinsed some of the mud away, but sleeping like this was out of the question. I thought I'd spotted a shower area and considered going to wash, but Franc brought warm water and helped me clean up. She washed my hair and wiped my body down, then set about cleaning the Forceleather armor as well. I reached out to help. She blocked my hand and pushed it aside.

"Please rest, Seoha."

Even if I offered, she'd let it in one ear and out the other. I pouted, flopped down in nothing but my boxer briefs on the sleeping bag spread over the air mattress, and Franc giggled.

"Mr. Jung Seoha, are you there?"

Hm? I sensed beyond the tent and saw a Time River supporter in a raincoat, thermos in hand. Franc, having noticed her, peeled the flap open just a crack, stepped out, and took the thermos.

"It's warm cocoa. The President instructed me to bring it."

"Thank you for going out of your way."

"Ah, it's nothing! I'll be going, then!"

The young woman on the receiving end of Franc's smile flushed, flustered, and bolted.

"Heh. How terrifying must Franc's face be, for her to panic and run like that."

"What was that?"

I snickered at her pout, and Franc gave in and laughed. Then she opened the thermos and studied the contents with care.

"What are you doing?"

"Ah? It's nothing~."

With that she poured a little cocoa into the lid and tasted it. What was she doing? Ah. Could it be...

"Checking it for poison?"

"I don't mean that Yeongeun would do such a thing. I'm only checking, just in case, while I'm at it."

Finding nothing amiss, she took a mug from Hwayeon's bag, poured with a soft gurgle, and handed it to me. Hot and sweet, it went down into an empty stomach, and warmth seemed to unfurl from somewhere deep inside. It was good.

Franc, having wiped even the last of the moisture from the Forceleather armor, folded the used towel into the collection bin and spread my Forceleather jacket neatly in a corner to dry. She came and sat beside me. I lifted her, settled her between my legs, and slurped the cocoa with one hand while the other stroked her stomach.

"Honestly, Seoha."

Franc let out a soft hum, then slowly leaned her back against my chest and took my hand.

Hm? This isn't clothes. Right — she'd bolted out of sleep and never gotten dressed.

"You're not going to wear clothes?"

"Mm. No. If I'm wearing clothes, then even when I pass through a wall or turn invisible, only the clothes remain and catch, and people can see them. In the Phase World, I think it will be easier to make my clothes this way and go about like this."

"Whether you call this clothes or skin, if anyone touched it they'd know at once it isn't clothing."

"Yes. That's why I don't like other people coming close."

Aha. So that was why she glared so fiercely when the Branch Director tried to wedge himself between us.

Franc pouted, displeased that I was only asking questions instead of holding her closer. In a cotton shirt and pants that fell to her calves, she fidgeted with my hand as if asking to be touched more. Watching her, I thought she was just like a puppy.

I wanted to touch her breasts, and the valley between them, too. But my heart was pounding in a strange way just then, and if I did I would certainly lose my restraint and let the sadism show. Instead I rested my head on her shoulder, wound both arms around her waist, and held her tight. Franc seemed to like this as well. A satisfied look settled on her face.

A short while later Hwayeon and Yeongeun returned from putting the encampment in order. They wiped the rain from their bodies and opened a review of the assault.

"We let ourselves get far too soft," Hwayeon said. "Seoha tore the swamp up all day. We should have weighed the chance that an aberrant fit to be called the boss of that place would show itself."

"I never imagined the master of the swamp would change in four months. It was a territory where the swamp trolls and treants were locked in a power struggle, and to think the Solid Snake seized it in the meantime..."

"Aberrant ecology is a place where one trifling factor can change everything," Hwayeon went on. "Even if we'd investigated beforehand, this case couldn't have been helped. The Solid Snake's particular trait is that it's something like the natural enemy of swamp trolls and swamp treants. It must have put both groups down and taken the swamp."

"I'll reflect on it."

"I couldn't help Seoha either, because of the rain."

"No... I rushed in the moment I saw Franc under attack. That's why..."

Yeongeun heard the drowsiness in my voice, gave a small nod, and spoke.

"Our Seoha needs to grow a little colder. We'll mend that part slowly, from here on."

"Judgment is something you're born with. In that respect Seoha's judgment is good, so once ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he has just a little more experience, his skill will certainly grow."

"In this case, a large part of it was that the verification kept him from fighting in his own style. He ought to have opened the distance and struck first with something like a Mana Cannon, but the video record forced him into close combat..."

"That's true. Close-combat training as well, just in case..."

"There's a training ground, so then..."

"...rather than the training ground, in the mansion's bunker..."

"Classified..."

My head was a little fogged. I sat quietly watching the three lovers talk, and Hwayeon glanced my way, came over, and stroked my face. Her slightly cool hand against my cheek felt good.

"Sleepy? You've a bit of a fever, too. Your eyes have gone slack."

Have they.

"The objective, hunting a High-Rank Variant, is done. Tomorrow we wrap up in the morning and return in the afternoon, so there's nothing left for you to do. Sleep deep."

At her word I flopped back onto the sleeping bag. I saw the three women look down at my body, bare but for my underwear, and swallow — but somehow my head was too fogged to hold a thought. It had been a fight in the rain that mixed a snake calling an imugi to mind, that great serpent still short of dragonhood, with close combat: all three things I hated, rolled into one. And because of the rain, Franc hadn't even been able to help. While I was fighting I'd been too tense and keyed up to notice, but once the excitement cooled, the exhaustion came on fast.

"Then a house at the training ground..."

"With what we made this time..."

"A training ground right beside the house..."

I closed my eyes, and Franc's voice and Yeongeun's echoed at my ear as if down a long hall. Slowly, I felt my awareness sink.

I came awake to a sense of bustle and found the day already bright. I turned my head. The place beside me was empty, and over my body a blanket had been laid, and the sleeping bag over that, in neat order. I lifted a hand, rubbed my eyes, and sat up, and Franc, who had been by the cooking brazier, came flying in with something in her hands.

"You're awake? Please drink this, and sleep a little longer."

I took the hot cup of soup she held out. I was sitting there blankly, feeling the warmth in my hands, when she took the mug back, climbed up onto my thigh, and brought it to my lips.

"Mm... What time is it?"

"Ten. We're to return after lunch, so please sleep a little more."

So I'd slept eight hours. The warm soup brought a little of my mind back. I swept the bustling encampment with Spatial Perception. The rain had stopped. Ability users were packing aberrant byproducts into backpacks, or loading containers of something into special shipping crates — were those poison sacs? Hundreds of vessels, poison sacs floating in solution, were being stacked crate by crate, and the supporters were taking the tents down.

Yeongeun was where the Solid Snake was being broken apart. She directed earth-attribute ability users to pry the stones off its body, and water-attribute users to crush those stones with water, mix the rubble into mud, and form it into plates. I wondered why they were making plates of the things — expensive material, was it? — and looked closer. The mud plates were shot through with metal grains. So that was why they were hauling them.

Beside her, Hwayeon was cutting the Solid Snake's trunk with an enormous saw. A beauty sawing through a serpent as thick as her own torso with a saw of absurd size — the sight had a way of shattering the mood. Was that a girl crush, too?

I took the mug from Franc's hand, gulped the soup down in one go, and got to my feet.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather sleep a little more?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm up, so if I move around a bit the sleep will wear off. And I can't be in the way while the older supporters take the tent down."

Franc moved to dress me in the Forceleather armor, but I held out a hand and refused. They were only clothes. They weren't hard to put on, and I'd be getting into a bad habit. She pouted all the same, as if my dressing myself didn't sit well with her. I laughed under my breath at the cute look, reached out, and gave her lip a light pinch as I pulled the clothes on.

"I'm not some snot-nosed toddler of a year or two. Aren't you trying to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠look after me a bit too much?"

Franc had nothing to say to that. She only smiled, shy and soft.

I finished buckling on the Forceleather armor, belted the dagger Yeongeun had given me at my waist, and stepped out of the tent. Everyone working nearby looked at me, then hastily turned their eyes away and went back to what they were doing.

So it isn't always a gloomy place.

Not a scrap of ash-gray cloud remained in the sky after the rain. Only blue, and a sun shining hard and clear. Gazing at that brilliant sun, I suddenly remembered the ominous blood-red sun from the dream I'd had in my third cycle. Hmm... that one was too coincidental to write off as a nonsense dream. What was it? I shook my head and cast it off, and went to Yeongeun.

"Is our prince awake?"

I nodded to Yeongeun, who smiled brightly and waved, then trailed after her like a duckling, watching her move through the encampment and direct the withdrawal with practiced ease.

"Well, now. And this is only half a day's work."

The Hwarang Boss could only click his tongue at a haul that would have filled two tents meant for twenty-four. Half of it was snake scale, along with containers holding particular parts like specimens, boxes of vessels packed with poison sacs, and heaps of bone. The other half was the stone that had clung to the Solid Snake, ground up, mixed into mud, and formed into plates — and the body itself, gutted and chopped into sections, trunk and all.

Yoo Chae-rin and three people I didn't know were moving back and forth among the byproducts, checking the count again. I went over.

"Hello, Chae-rin noona. Have you been well?"

"...Yes. I have been well. You, Mr. Jung Seoha... did not seem to be."

"Hehehe."

I'd spoken to her without reserve, and Yoo Chae-rin of the boyish cut looked briefly flustered, then smoothed her expression and bowed.

"There must be something good in the Solid Snake's stones? You're taking every last one of them."

"There is. The proportion of rare metals is extremely high. And it would be more accurate to regard them as secondary scales than as stone."

So the metal grains I'd seen really had been the point. And they weren't rocks so much as something like scales, which was why it was a Solid Snake and not a Rock Snake.

Honestly, yesterday's fight with the Solid Snake had not been a fight I liked. I hadn't known the rain would interfere even with the Spatial Barrier, and I hadn't been able to use Spatial Manipulation under so many eyes. I'd set off a Healing Wave as well, and only afterward did it occur to me that even my recovery ability might have been exposed.

Reflect. Learn from it.

I was nudging the Solid Snake's halved head — eyes gouged out — with my foot when Yeongeun came over and spoke to the Hwarang Boss.

"If we're to take all the byproducts, everything we brought in the way of food and disposables will have to be left behind. Put the list of what's being left into a document and submit it to the government. Pass it to the Branch Director and the Time River Boss as well."

"Understood."

In front of a crowd she gave him his title, but when it was just the two of them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she dropped the formal speech, it seemed. The Hwarang Boss headed for the Alliance tent to relay the word. Yeongeun turned to me, smiled, stroked my head once, and went off to the meeting tent.

The withdrawal was finished quickly. Lunch was a banquet of snake meat, and then ability users and supporters alike shouldered the maximum load each of them could carry and moved toward the Return Point. They buried every daily necessity and all the food underground. I thought it a waste, but they said it couldn't be helped if the more valuable byproducts were to be secured. Before we set out I left Hwa Joong-kang and the other adults behind — shedding tears over the waste — and erased the uneaten snake meat with a Mana Bullet. The food was vacuum-sealed, so it could be dug up and reused later, and it wouldn't draw aberrants. That meat was different.

After an hour's march the verification team reached the Return Point and began its own check, confirming no one had been left behind. I approached where the Time River people had gathered, and Sophia saw me, wore a slightly awkward look, and waved. Kim Ga-min, Team 2 Leader, and Yoo Min-hee, Team 3 Leader, wore much the same expression. Was it because they'd seen me fight yesterday? They used to come up and tease me without a second thought, and now they were hedging. I didn't like it. I went to Sophia and tossed her a joke.

"Why the face of a puppy that desperately needs to pee?"

"...You are Darling, aren't youuu?"

"I'm not. So tell me why I'm Sophia's darling."

I pulled her ear with a slightly angry look, and she went "Hweeee!" with the face of someone who had bitten into a sour green plum.

"I-it's not my darling! The Boss! The Boss's darling!! Darling, for short!!"

"Don't shorten it like that! People will get the wrong idea!"

I let go of her ear and raised my voice, and Sophia smiled, shy and pleased, and opened her mouth.

"That's what I was ai— hwak?!"

I flicked her forehead lightning-fast. She clutched it, sank down, and started groaning. ...But you, Choi Soohan. Why is your face flushing?

Perhaps because my manner hadn't changed from before, Kim Ga-min finally let the stiffness out of her face, smiled naturally, and spoke in a voice thick with an envy she couldn't hide.

"The way you looked at dawn was so impressive I couldn't bring myself to speak to you lightly. Even to the point that Sophia unnie was shy."

"Haha. I am a little cool and amazing, aren't I."

I praised myself as a joke, and Kim Ga-min let out a soft puff of laughter and shook her head.

"Even 'amazing' falls short, you know?"

"A man has to keep a few secrets if he's going to be cool, right? Hiding them was a little tiring. Hoh hoh hoh."

I made a show of sweeping the hair at my temple aside, and Yoo Min-hee, who had heard me, turned her head and pulled a blech face. Too mean!

"Miss Flandre?"

Kim Ga-min pretended not to have heard me and spoke to Franc, standing at my side. She had seemed to want to talk since yesterday, and at last she did. Honestly, it had been a little pitiful how Franc stuck only to me. She had a body now. She could broaden her ties with the people around her. If some bastard of a man came sniffing around I'd smash him flat, of course, but getting along with the women and having fun together would be good.

Once Kim Ga-min had started a conversation, Sophia and Yoo Min-hee came over to Franc as well and girl talk began. I was watching that with satisfaction when an attribute-type supporter edged up, hesitating, and spoke.

"Um, excuse me..."

"Yes?"

A gentle-looking woman. A face I didn't know. Who?

"Th-thank you for placing chrysanthemums in front of So-hee. Thanks to you, Mr. Jung Seoha, So-hee was able to receive so many flowers."

"...Are you a friend of Miss So-hee?"

"Yes. A friend I made after joining Time River..."

Remembering Jung So-hee, she wilted a little.

"It was only a moment... but we did speak. Miss Jung So-hee seemed like a kind person, so I'm sure she's gone to heaven."

"Th-thank you... I, I wanted to say thank you... so, I'm sorry."

Whatever she was sorry for, she sniffled and kept bowing, then went back to where she had been. I was watching her go when Sophia came up from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠behind and looked up at me with a sly face.

"Ooh~? Is the Onion Prince laying the groundwork for a harem, hmm~?"

"She says she's a friend of Miss Jung So-hee. I placed chrysanthemums in front of her memorial portrait, and she saw that and came to thank me."

"Uh... ah. Seon-a was best friends with Miss So-hee. ...I-I'm sorry."

Thoroughly flustered, she drooped the corners of her eyes, and I smiled.

"It's nothing. Hwayeon will hand down the punishment, so I'll just let it go."

"Eek?! I'm sorry! Please forgive me just this once!!"

She made a tearful face and tried to cling to my arm. I caught her head and held her off, and then her pale face went white all at once, and she began to inch backward.

"Sophia, do you have an interest in our Seoha~?"

I turned. Yeongeun was looking at Sophia with cold eyes and only the slightest smile on her lips. That look must have seemed like the reaper to Sophia. A drop of cold sweat ran down, and Sophia forced a bashful smile.

"S-since he's going to be the top of our Time River, j-just for the sake of camaraderie...!"

"Mm. Camaraderie's nice, is it? Then let's build some camaraderie with this ajumma later, too!"

"Eeee!"

Sophia, deathly white to the last and wearing an I'm doomed face, got a glare for her trouble. Yeongeun looked around and called them into formation.

"Take your positions for the return! Branch Director Kang Hyunwoo! Hwarang Boss Park Jiwoong! Time River Boss Yoo Hwayeon!"

As when they had entered, Hwayeon stood at the center. Yeongeun confirmed the verification team settled into a spiderweb formation, and called out again.

Having given them another return point against the chance of disaster, she signaled Hwayeon. Hwayeon set her hand on the Return Point and invoked a Phase Power operation technique.

"Returning!"

The mass of light under Hwayeon's palm grew larger and began to shine, and soon a pure white light burst forth as space began to change. The instant space changed and we returned to reality, I drove Spatial Perception to its limit against the one chance in ten thousand of a threat. Nothing of the sort occurred. The glare faded. I opened my eyes, and the security personnel were still manning the barricades, standing at set intervals.

As we returned, reporters poured from the broadcast vans and flashes went off without pause. The broadcast cameras seemed to be spinning nonstop, taking in every bit of how we looked. Barely a day and a few hours had passed, and yet somehow the Branch Director looked more tired than I did, and I was the one who had actually fought.

"Mr. Jung Seoha."

"Yes."

"I will apologize for the rudeness I committed on the day we first met. I will do my utmost so that friendly relations with the Alliance may be maintained going forward, and I ask for your goodwill."

"...I'll be counting on you as well."

Having finished that polite greeting, the Branch Director turned and walked off with the members of the Ability User Alliance. Behind him, Hwa Joong-kang and Yoo Chae-rin came up grinning, eyes sparkling.

"Uahaha. What a remarkable boy. Thanks to you I got a proper good feed to build the body up! If there's a chance, I'd like to head out with you once more!"

Hwa Joong-kang still laughed heartily, clapped my shoulder, and followed after the Branch Director. Yoo Chae-rin gazed at me for a moment with emotionless eyes, then spoke.

"Thank you. For the museum."

"It was nothing."

With that she stuck close as if merely brushing past, and from inside her chest — no, no, not from inside her chest, from the pocket at her chest! — she passed me a storage device about as thick and long as a finger, hidden from anyone else's eyes, and whispered fast.

Huh?

Feeling the storage device in my palm, I blankly watched Yoo Chae-rin's retreating back.