Chapter 162: Afterstory (4)

Yeongeun's words set me trying, for a moment, to work out what they were after. As if I could.

"You couldn't get it out of Branch Director Kang Hyunwoo either?"

"This time, one of the senior committee members came and told me himself. That dull fellow doesn't know it either. He may have heard by now, I suppose."

I looked at Yeongeun, unable to make sense of what the Ability Users Association was doing, but she only stroked my head in silence. Franc and Hwayeon had each sunk into their own thoughts, and neither of them seemed to have a guess worth offering.

Watching that, Yeongeun turned to the two of them.

"How much do you love Seoha?"

"He is more precious to me than my own life," Franc said. "My heart will not change."

"Same here," said Hwayeon. "Seoha might as well be my entire world."

"Mm..." Yeongeun's voice was soft. "I came to know Seoha later than either of you, but I don't think my feelings for him fall short of yours. Comparing which heart weighs more doesn't even make sense, does it."

She smiled, rubbed her cheek against my head, and spoke again.

"I was worn out. I had meant to lay everything down and rest. But I changed my mind. I thought there ought to be at least one person with power standing beside our Seoha."

"Pardon?"

Franc already knew. She had heard it the first time she visited Yeongeun's mansion. Hwayeon, hearing it for the first time, stared at her in surprise. Yeongeun ignored that look, stroked my cheek, and went on in a gentle voice.

"So don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠forget that the three of us feel this way. When things get hard, you have to talk them over with us. All right?"

"Yeah."

At my answer she broke into a bright smile, kissed my cheek once, and went into the bathroom to wash.

She hadn't said it outright, but a warning that pointed meant she had some inkling. If she still wasn't telling me, she probably didn't think it reliable enough to be worth the telling.

Will she say it when the time comes?

I had my thoughts in some kind of order by the time she finished, and when she came out in nothing but a bathrobe, I spoke.

"You said the talk came out of the Precognition Department. It's only a simple forecast, but two hypotheses come to mind..."

"Two?"

"Hmm," Hwayeon said. "I'd like to hear what they are."

"The first is so thick with self-flattery I'm embarrassed to say it. They foresaw that I'm ridiculously gifted, that I'll become a ridiculously exceptional man, and they're getting their line in early."

"The second is the Supergiant Turtle. That turtle told me not to hate the aberrants. And the Precognition Department raised a motion to grant me special consideration, put it through meetings, and handed me privileges."

"So I thought they might have seen something like what the Supergiant Turtle saw through me."

The three of them, hearing the turtle brought up, wore a look of sudden recall — faces that said the thought had come too late. Hwayeon muttered, grave.

"The latter is certainly more credible than the former. If that's why they kept it secret, it holds together."

"The first is hardly without weight either, is it?" Franc said. "There is no telling how strong Seoha will become if a man who has reached C-Class climbs to B-Class, or to A-Class. They may simply be securing a connection in advance."

"That's not it."

Yeongeun, looking at it from the political side, rejected her.

"An exception's fallout grows more enormous the larger the body that grants it. To put it plainly, the free Phase World entry just bestowed on Seoha has Association branches in every country forwarding protests to headquarters. The protests from Russia, the United States, Britain, and Brazil — the nations holding A-Class ability users — are especially fierce."

"R-really?"

"Granting a privilege of that scale on raw power alone makes no sense," Yeongeun went on. "If he became A-Class and a truly peerless existence, perhaps. But Seoha's strength is currently estimated at the upper middle of A-Class, and at that level there are at least three people in the entire world. If the reason were political, they would have to give the same thing not only to Seoha but to those others. That they did not means there is some reason more important than that. Wouldn't you say?"

Hwayeon and Franc nodded at her reading.

"Then what we may infer," Franc said, "is that granting free entry to the Phase World must return a great benefit to the Ability Users Association."

"The Blue House takes the same view."

"It seems they looked on a future in which Seoha had grown tremendously strong, and bowed their heads..."

"Fraaanc? I understand wanting to see only the good in the Seoha you love, but you cannot do that now. You have to look with the most objective eye you can manage, and judge from there!"

"B-but it is the truth! Have either of you ever taken a High-Rank Variant when you were D-Class? If Seoha becomes A-Class, that means he could fight a Highest-Rank Variant and win!"

"Complicate it, and this matter branches without end," Hwayeon said, measured. "But the conclusion is as Franc says, is it not? Because Seoha's power exceeds imagination, they are greasing the wheels for a smoother relationship, in measure with how badly that first meeting went astray."

Listening to them, I frowned. On the chance that Hwayeon, a B-Class, or Yeongeun in her high seat might know something, I described the Supergiant Turtle in detail. Both of them shook their heads. Nothing came to mind.

"After I heard it last time, I looked into it on my own," Hwayeon said. "A being that enormous would have been known, one way or another. But no matter how I searched, there was no such story."

"Hmm. I ought to ask Kang Hyunwoo, or try another avenue. Even so, I think it best not to expect much."

"Huh? Why?"

"When Franc told the story of the past last time, she said she met five people. Four died, and one got out. Wasn't that it?"

"Yeah."

The first time I met Franc, back in the first cycle, the story that reached me was that all five had died. Later, when she explained, I heard that one had lived and four had died. I asked about the discrepancy, and Franc, watching my face, had said:

"I did explain it then as well, but Seoha..."

In the end, I was the one who had misheard.

Franc, hearing Yeongeun, nodded too.

"Then wouldn't that Black man who got out have been the master of that Phase World? But Seoha is the host of that Phase World now, isn't he?"

Oh. She was right. Franc caught it in the same instant, her eyes going round.

"That would mean the Black man died somewhere as well. And the baton passed to our Seoha. So — a Phase World that has gone through many hands. A Phase World full of aberrants no one has heard of, or seen. A Black man. A Black man..."

Yeongeun stopped, turned it over, and spoke again.

"Was it during my third consecutive term? I once heard a rumor that a peculiar ability user had appeared in southern Africa. Back then our national defense was so fucking pathetic— ahem, ahem!"

The instant the curse nearly escaped, she gave a cute little cough and glanced at me. She seemed bothered that she had almost sworn in front of me.

Ah. I think I finally understand the real reason Noona told me not to swear. She didn't want the person she loves putting filthy words in his mouth.

"Noona really hates it when I swear."

"Uh... yes?"

"I never knew why, until now. Watching Yeongeun almost curse, I understood how Noona felt. She hated the person she loves putting dirty words in his mouth."

At that, Yeongeun's face went red.

"A-ahem! I'll be careful from now on. Anyway! It was a time when I was paying very close attention to national defense, so I was gathering whatever information trickled in from abroad. A Black man with an unusual ability appeared in Africa, but people's envy pushed him out, and at some point the news of him simply stopped."

"His exact ability was never revealed. The rumors, though, said it ran on an entirely different track from the existing four types. Thinking of that — if someone awakened in the Phase World where Seoha is, the odds of gaining a special ability might be high. Don't you think?"

"That's a hypothesis too, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"It is. So if that hypothesis is true, the Phase World Seoha holds is likely to be as unique as his ability. Just look at Franc, simple as that. Phenomena you would never see in an ordinary Phase World would occur there, and precisely because they are such phenomena, I don't believe a search of the Association's database would turn up anything related. That's my thought."

"I see," Hwayeon said. "If that holds, the Precognition Department may have sensed an exceptional Seoha and be trying to build a symbiotic relationship — courtesies on their side, requests on his."

"Hmm. That one has a strong chance of being true as well, doesn't it?"

Even Franc was nodding through Hwayeon and Yeongeun's exchange. Listening myself, it was a plausible hypothesis.

...But my gut was warning me that the reason was nothing so pleasant to hear.

What is this feeling?

Above all, there was the vision I had seen on reaching C-Class in the third cycle. I felt, very strongly, that I must not speak of it even to the three young ladies, and so I still had not brought it up.

At some point all three had turned to look at me. My face must have gone too grim.

I scratched my head, laid it on the thigh of Yeongeun in her bathrobe, and said it.

Maybe the phrasing amused them. Hwayeon and Yeongeun snorted.

I'm sorry to be making a secret of it... but I have to hide it until I know the real reason.

"Be honest with me. When you first saw the Branch Director, you said that even a B-Class ability user couldn't beat you. How much of that was sincere?"

All three were fixed on me with serious faces, so I went on.

"If I use Spatial Manipulation, even Hwayeon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't dodge it. Someone on the Branch Director's level would probably die the moment it landed. After I came back in the third cycle, you heard everything that happened afterward from Franc and Hwayeon, right?"

"Mm."

"When I first saw the Branch Director, I felt no tension and no pressure at all. Even assuming a fight, set beside the Elephantros leader, I wasn't nervous by so much as the dirt under a nail."

The three young ladies looked at me with startled eyes.

"Honestly, near or far, I don't think a B-Class ability user — not a High-Tier Variant — could be my match."

"The hidden arts ability users are supposed to have worry me a little. But if I use Spatial Manipulation first, they'll gag, spray blood, and drop where they stand. Won't they?"

They fell silent at that. Grown somehow gloomy and crestfallen, they muttered in voices thick with self-mockery.

"Maybe our Seoha has no need of my help from the side of power after all..."

"At least my lady's strength lies in another field, so her case is the better one. As for me... haah."

"Uuugh."

The more I watched, the more absurd it got. A moment ago they had asked me to think of them when things were hard, and now, the instant it occurred to them that they might be of no help to me, they were drowning in self-reproach.

Well. The talk seemed finished. Time to test the thing that actually mattered.

I reached out and stripped Yeongeun's bathrobe off in a single motion.

"Hweh?!"

Naked in a heartbeat, she startled and tried to cover her breasts and her sex. I didn't let her.

Mana Mode — Acceleration locked both her arms, and a pair of breasts — snow-white, taut, barely a handful — swayed into the open, nipples standing rigidly erect, laid utterly bare.

I put on a deliberately lecherous face and whispered into the ear of the finely trembling Yeongeun.

"Where was all this when you were pouncing on me like a beast of prey? And now you're shy as an eighteen-year-old virgin?"

"Haa..."

"Honestly, I do like this better than the blatantly lewd Yeongeun."

"Nnn..."

I left her there, snow-white and naked, fidgeting with the look of a woman who no longer knew what to do with herself. Franc and Hwayeon changed faces at once, shifted to the sofa opposite, and settled in to watch.

"Hee hee. Keep covering up and I'll think you're ashamed of an older body."

"My body isn't one bit different from that Hwayeon over there, you know?! Look!"

Provoked by my choice of words, Yeongeun sprang up with a flared face and struck a sexy pose like a model.

Yeah. Definitely the mature body of a woman in her late twenties. But then Hwayeon had the mature body of a woman in her early twenties, didn't she? Either way, it was a body worth looking at. I took my time admiring it, let the lecherous look go, smiled, and reached for her waist.

"You're right. Young and pretty. There's something I want to test on a Yeongeun like that. Come here."

Only then did she wear the look of someone who had been had. Her thighs crept together, and her pose began, quietly, to fall apart. I snorted and tightened the hand at her waist, pulling her in.

"Nngh..."

A faint moan slipped out of her as she sat on my knee. Mortified, it seemed, to be the only one of the four left stark naked, she buried her face in my shoulder.

Kneading that backside, I spoke so all of them could hear.

"Through the third cycle, I steadily injected TP into Franc's body. What I put in was absorbed into her spirit form and left no trace. But when it entered the Soul Stone, the TP inside the Soul Stone rose with it. From that, I could tell the TP still existed in Franc's flesh — it simply hadn't been converted into Phase Power. So what happens if I inject TP into an ability user like Yeongeun, whose growth has stopped at the limit of her aptitude?"

"W-what would happen...?"

I glanced up at her, echoing my last words in a trembling voice, and brought my hand down hard across her plump backside.

Smack!

"Ahn!"

"When I first met Yeongeun, her Phase Power was 1.76 million. While we made love, it climbed to 1.96 million. The same went for Hwayeon — a similar increase. Yeongeun is at 1.96 million now, so what if she took in only about 1.4 million more? If she grew into B-Class, couldn't she live a little longer?"

Hwayeon and Yeongeun stared as if the thought had never once occurred to them, and I understood why. In the moment of making love they had been too steeped in pleasure to think, and when the act was over their minds were bleached so clean that nothing remained.

"Yeongeun. When was the last time you measured your own Phase Power?"

"Over ten years ago... Just a moment."

She switched on her Certifier, measured it, and her eyes went wide.

"1.96... million."

"So I'm going to test it. All weekend long. And if I'm right, by Sunday afternoon Yeongeun might be able to step into B-Class as well. Until I've confirmed that, I mean to pour every bit of my TP into Yeongeun alone — so Franc, Hwayeon, watch over the two of us."

"Understood!"

"All ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right."

Yeongeun's eyes began to redden at the rims, as if she had remembered what passed inside the tent back during the verification.

"Aigoo. Why are you getting ready to cry? Be good. No crying."

I gathered her in the way one soothes a child and patted her snow-white bare bottom, light smack after light smack. Tears brimmed, the rims of her eyes reddened, color rose in her face, and she flinched with every pat. It was pretty fun to watch.

"Hnn. Th-then don't make me cry— ah!"

"Hee hee. Shall I start, then?"

Through the two hands at her waist, I began pushing TP into her body. Blue light spilled from my hands, sank into her belly, then spun in circles around her heart and spread through her whole frame.

"Mmm."

"What a wondrous sight..."

Franc and Hwayeon stared, eyes round, as Yeongeun's body dyed itself blue and the light dwindled little by little.

Yeongeun, by contrast, had flinched when the TP first entered, and after that her body trembled by degrees. Her face reddened. Her breath grew rough. Just like Franc, she was going into heat.

"Yeongeun."

"Nn..."

"Yeongeun?"

"Nngh?!"

I couldn't tell what she was feeling inside, but she was half out of her mind. When I called again, only then did she startle and look down at me.

"I'm going to put more in, and faster. Ready yourself."

"Mm!"

Seeing her bite down on her lip with a flushed face, I raised tenfold what had been going in at ten TP a second.

"Ahaaahn..."

In that instant her eyes flew wide. Her waist snapped straight, and a moan spilled out, too aching and too thrilled to hold.

Strange. She seems more excited than Franc. Because she has a real body?

Bluer light than before spread along her Phase Power, whirling like a vortex. It brightened and dimmed with the curves of her body, and I thought the sight of her pouring out that light was exceedingly beautiful.

But at a hundred TP a second, raising it by three hundred thousand would take fifty minutes. Should I push it in a little faster?

"Ahhhaaahn...!"

The more TP entered, the more she hunched her shoulders and flinched, arching until her spine seemed ready to fold, panting.

After I had put two hundred thousand TP into her over ten minutes, she went very languid, leaned into me, and let out ragged breaths.

Her petals had ripened completely and were soaking my thigh with her slick, and in Hwayeon's eyes as she watched, envy was rising.

"When I received TP, the feeling was one of intense thrill and arousal," Franc said. "It seems Yeongeun is the same. And her Phase Power is climbing at a rapid pace."

"Is that so? I should like to feel what that is like as well."

"Hehe. If Yeongeun rises to B-Class, he will do the same for you, Hwayeon."

"I look forward to it."

I set their talk aside — casual as people watching a fire from the far bank — and checked the Phase Power inside Yeongeun's body. Sure enough, the two hundred thousand TP I had injected had raised it by exactly that much.

So it works. Not only the TP carried in semen, but a direct injection like this.

"Congratulations. You've reached 2.16 million TP."

Blue light poured from her whole body. Eyes closed, breathing hard, she seemed lost in ecstasy.

"Nn. Aaaah... Has it already been twenty minutes...? I... I wish it could just go on like this..."

"It feels that good?"

"Mm... Making love with Seoha is like a roller coaster. The feeling shoots up and plunges down. But this... this is like a carousel. The pleasure just goes on and on..."

That good? Now I want to feel it myself.

But my TP ran dry soon enough, and her Phase Power came to rest at 2.21 million.

"Aah, what a shame. But you'll do it again once a hundred minutes pass, won't you?"

"In the real world it takes about a thousand minutes for my TP to fill back up. You'll have to endure until— ah?!"

"Then love me until then!"

She had already pushed me down onto the sofa. White breasts swaying, Yeongeun climbed atop me, eyes alight as if she could not bear another moment.

Her whole body had flushed pink and glistened with sweat, her thighs soaked through as if honey had overflowed. I stared up at her in a daze. Beside us, Franc and Hwayeon grumbled.

"Yeongeun. Isn't this a little too blatant?"

"You monopolized Seoha for twenty minutes. I consider that too much."

"But! The two of you have been with Seoha ever since the verification team came back! Do you know how lonely I was, working alone at the Blue House!"

"...That is true."

"Haah."

"Then tonight, I'm monopolizing Seoha all by myself! And tomorrow and the day after, the four of us play together. How about it?"

"Fine."

"Understood. However—"

Hwayeon opened her mouth with a slightly dissatisfied look — a look that seemed, somehow, deliberately put on, and a little awkward.

Yeongeun seemed to feel it too, and her expression went faintly uneasy, but Hwayeon paid that no mind.

"We shall be watching from right beside you as well."

"...Do as you like."

In the instant of that reluctant yes, Hwayeon smiled a wicked smile and stroked what she had hidden behind her back.

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠riding crop.

...I had forgotten about that.