Evidence (2)

After I'd finished checking the contents of the storage device, I washed the sweat off clean in the shower.

I can dial my physical ability up and down by switching Mana Mode on and off, so I don't use it during conditioning. The result is that every workout leaves me soaked through, as if I'd bathed in my own sweat. The worst of it is the thing they call a burpee—under two seconds a rep, and pure misery. The first day, under Hwayeon's coaching, I did three hundred of them and ended up so wracked with full-body muscle pain I could barely move.

I came out washed and found Hwayeon and Youngeun sparring. The blows landed dry and sharp. Thup, thup-thwack. Thud. Smack.

"Your arms are slow. When you had Seoha pinned, your waist swayed like a willow—so why has it turned into a log? Are you saving those legs to boil into soup later? Take a hit there and your stance collapses. Your head is nothing but openings. Planning to catch another blow to the lower belly and start bleeding again?"

The criticism carried no feeling at all, and she beat Youngeun without a shred of mercy. It raised the hair on my arms. With me she hits only a little harder than a proper massage, but against Youngeun she shows no pity whatsoever and slams her around without restraint. I almost felt sorry for her.

"Seoha? Where are you looking?"

"Eek!"

I triggered Mana Mode—Acceleration on instinct and slipped aside by a hair, a split second before a dagger could bury itself in the back of my skull.

"Are you—are you trying to kill me?!"

"Oh my. I barely have any physical force, you know? And it's a dagger made of bone. The worst you'll get is a lump."

That dagger—or was it a short sword? No, a dagger, surely. Youngeun had commissioned it special: almost no edge, a blunt tip, a custom bone dagger weighing three hundred grams, made so I could practice with it. But that wasn't the point!

"People have feelings, you know! Who wouldn't jump out of their skin if a dagger came flying at the back of their head while they were looking the other way?!"

"It's fine. You'll get used to it!"

"What kind of—!"

"Talk is useless!"

"Eek!"

Franc closed in with the dagger and started attacking in earnest. I raised my own hard wooden dagger and tried to meet her. I did resist—but the moment that blade sheared viciously across my vision, or slipped in with a hiss beneath my chest or from outside my sight, my heart went cold. I flinched without meaning to and flicked Mana Mode—Acceleration on and off, and Franc's scolding cracked out at once.

"Don't look with Spatial Perception! You won't be training at all that way!"

"Don't demand that from an amateur when you're the expert!"

Acceleration kicking on is instinct. Instinct-level!

And even as I thought it, that snow-white bone dagger jabbed my side and was already gone. When had it gone in? When had it come out?

I charged, and Franc stepped quick and light, carrying the dagger diagonally out of my view—and then, somehow, it was coming in from the right and clipping my shoulder on the way past. Unbelievable. I was already holding Spatial Perception in check, and this was still too much. How does a dagger appear from the opposite side? Magic?

At the start, following her demands, I'd shut off Spatial Perception, shut off Acceleration, and sparred on Mana Mode alone. I was stabbed over a hundred times in a single minute. I couldn't even tell where or how. She took my back and jabbed my spine and my sides without pause. Seriously...

No—I'm in Mana Mode. That's Physical Reinforcement at D-Class, and I still can't keep up with Franc, whose body sits inside the range of an ordinary person? How does that make any sense?

"It isn't a question of speed, you know. It's reflexes, and how the body moves. What I'm using is Savage Moving Walk, an advanced technique handed down through the knight order—you read the opponent's movement, predict it, circle out of their sight, and attack without pause. An ordinary person who has never learned a martial art can't even answer it."

It was supposed to be dagger practice. Somewhere along the way it turned into a game: I chased, Franc ran, and she laughed bright and ringing while pecking me with the tip of the blade. Sometimes I was the one running and Franc the one chasing, stabbing as she came. The problem was that the moment I fled under Mana Mode—Acceleration, she took her own speed limiter off and flew, still pecking away.

"Come on! Who flies through the air and stabs people with a dagger?!"

"A wind-attribute ability user might use a dagger, you know?"

"They'd move the dagger with the wind! Who fights with one in both hands?!"

And so, for a solid hour, Franc chased me around the hall, teasing me to go on and dodge, while I scrambled to stay ahead of her with Spatial Perception and Mana Mode. That was the training.

"...I want to play with Seoha too."

I caught Youngeun's mutter mid-flight and looked over. Hwayeon had wrenched her into a knot and left her sprawled there as a chair. Her left leg was folded back behind her head, her left arm tucked under her right leg, her right leg wrapped behind her back beneath the armpit, and her right arm wedged in along the inside of her left leg—pinned flat beneath Hwayeon's hips. This did not look like a moment when Youngeun ought to be sparing me any attention.

"You can play at night, can't you?"

"What is this child even saying? What we do at night isn't play! It's making love!"

"..."

She snapped it out from that pretzel of a posture, and Hwayeon brought a fist down at once, pressing slow and steady into the bones of her lower back.

"Ow ow ow ow ow! I—I surrender! I surrender!"

"..."

"My spine is breeeaking!!"

"Aagh! Stop stabbing me!!"

Across the wide training hall, the only sounds were my screams and Youngeun's.

For some of us the session was suffering, and for others it was a delight. Then dinnertime came, and the old butler came down to fetch us.

"Dinner is ready."

Only then did Franc stop stabbing me, and Hwayeon rose from Youngeun's back, where she had been crushing her under her weight. Youngeun was still squirming, limbs tangled, when Hwayeon drove a hard kick into her rear. Both arms and both legs came undone, and she flopped face-down with a thud.

"Agh! Th-this is really too much, isn't it?! Be a little gentler with me!"

"Gentleness in a spar is poison. Go wash the sweat off."

With that, Hwayeon jabbed a foot between Youngeun's legs and walked off to the showers. Youngeun grumbled, picked herself up, and followed her in.

"Ugh. Soaked all over again... If you're going to do that, do it before I wash."

"Hehe. Next time, I will."

"I only meant to use a knife as a multi-purpose tool in the Phase World. I never meant to fight with one..."

It hadn't been entirely useless, though. A month of being stabbed tens of thousands of times, with Youngeun knocked sprawling thousands more beside me, and I was starting to get a feel for how a person comes in, and how to get out of the way when they do. Little by little it was showing in practice, too. Of Franc's ten stages of prediction, I could now somewhat slip the first, and every so often, catching her off guard, even the second.

Calling it stage one made the whole thing feel pathetic. They said that if Franc got serious, Youngeun could read about as far as stage four, and Hwayeon about stage six. And I was stuck at one.

I heaved sigh after sigh, tugging at the sweat-soaked collar of my training clothes and grumbling, and Franc slipped into my arms. As if to tell me to quit complaining, she brushed a light kiss against my lips, then went on kissing my face here and there, soft and endless.

She was beaming. Looking at that face, I couldn't even stay angry.

We all washed up and sat down, and the cook had laid the evening table with care. Tonight was a bibimbap of mountain greens, seasonal vegetables set neatly over the rice. I crowned it with chili paste red as blood, poured on a generous gleam of nutty perilla oil, and mixed hard until it came together vivid, red, and appetizing. The sharp heat of the paste and the toasted scent of the oil stabbed up my nose. I swallowed and shoveled in a mouthful. The pleasantly spicy paste flooded my mouth first, and as I chewed, crisp vegetables and separate grains of rice broke apart against my teeth with a texture that was frankly wonderful.

Franc, Hwayeon, and Youngeun weren't eating. They were just staring at my face. I blinked at them.

"You not eating?"

"Our Seoha eats with such obvious delight that I caught myself just watching."

"I think I understand why people watch eating shows."

"That's right. When Seoha has something delicious, he looks so happy eating it. Watch him and your own mood lifts with his."

They smiled, then each took a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spoon of chili paste, drowned it in perilla oil the way I had, and mixed with dedication. I worked through the mustard-leaf kimchi and the grilled meat skewers the cook had piled on for sides, drank the bean-sprout soup that belongs with bibimbap, and was mixing my second bowl when Franc, after a single bite, chewed, swallowed, and spoke.

"It's been nearly a month since the verification team's inspection ended. When do we enter the next Phase World?"

"Mmm. Rather than hunting ordinary High-Rank Variants, the priority is taking Peak-Rank Variants, so our Seoha can reach B-Class quickly. Money we have plenty of. There's no need to chase earnings right this moment. So the focus should be how safely, and how fast, we can bring a Peak-Rank Variant down, shouldn't it?"

"The merger of Time River and Hwarang begins in early July. From then we'll run simple subjugations to settle our teamwork, look into Peak-Rank Variants that are appropriate to hunt, match our hands and feet once more, and then attempt the raid."

"Ah. So Time River and Hwarang combining is fully decided?"

"Yes. We've settled on Time River absorbing Hwarang. Over the past month the settlement procedures for the teams that returned have been wrapping up, and Director Lee Hyeryeong has been handling the administrative work of both raid teams, with Siha helping. Most of the merger process is already finished."

Youngeun dabbed the chili paste from the corner of her mouth with a napkin and smiled at Hwayeon, pleased with herself.

"Hehe. Won't Time River be a little small for our Seoha to run around in?"

"Then I'll ask you, madam. Does a raid team that actually suits Seoha even exist?"

Youngeun shut her mouth like a clam and stole a glance at me. Then, ignoring the question entirely, she turned and explained it to Franc.

"So this time, we're going to give our country a raid team inside the world top ten! That's why we decided to merge Time River and Hwarang. The bosses and the officers of both teams agreed they'd rather belong to a stronger one, and they're pushing the integration hard."

Hwayeon let out a short breath of a laugh at that indirect surrender, then smiled at me as I put away my third portion and spoke.

"The goal is to finish the basic integration before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your summer break, and once break starts, we begin the Peak-Rank Variant raids. The first will be a familiar one—the one-eyed giant, Hwarang's main target."

The one-eyed giant. The thing Hwayeon had hunted so hard on her way into B-Class. I glanced at Franc, and she happened to be looking at me. Our eyes met.

"A one-eyed giant averages between 1.1 and 1.5 million Phase Power, so in theory four of them would... It won't take long."

Huh? She'd stopped under Youngeun's look and swapped the rest of the sentence. Was there a listening device somewhere? I stuffed mustard-leaf kimchi and a skewer of meat into my mouth, chewed loud, and swept the room with Spatial Perception. Nothing snagged.

Franc agreed with the claim that it wouldn't take long.

"It's a raid team that can take one-eyed giants even without Seoha. If he holds them in check from the rear and just stacks the damage with Spatial Manipulation, they'll go down easily. Hehe. I'm looking forward to a month from now."

With that, Hwayeon and Youngeun turned their attention back to the meal. I started shoveling through the bibimbap still filling about half the big bowl.

The next day Youngeun was up at dawn, grooming herself and getting ready for work. Whether it was the effect of reaching B-Class or not, she looked noticeably fuller of energy than before, a smile across her whole face as she hummed. She seemed to be in an excellent mood. Dressed in a pure-white suit and ready to leave, she let out a small sigh, nestled into my arms, and whined.

"Starting today I'll be busy again, and I'll have less time to see our Seoha. I'm so sad."

"When the busy stretch is over I'll let you taste paradise again, so hang in there."

I patted her rear to cheer her up, fully expecting a fussy little protest—and instead she flushed red and fled the house as if she were running away.

I stood at the window and watched her cross the garden toward the tower garage. When she looked back I waved, and she lifted a hand in a small wave of her own.

"She seems shyer than she used to be."

"Her affection has hit maximum, that's all."

I murmured it while the limousine carrying her passed out through the main gate, and Franc answered hanging off my shoulder. Affection? This wasn't a game.

The word reminded me that not long ago Branch Director Kang Hyunwoo had given me the latest Certifier, and the latest phone, a Black Hole Edge SS4, as a gift. He'd laughed and openly called it a bribe, but who hands over a bribe in broad daylight at school? The new Certifier only added internet, photos, video, and audio recording, but I'd been meaning to buy one anyway, so I took it gladly. I asked whether I had to return the old one. He said there was no need, so I cleared the authentication, moved the settings and the stored data onto the new Certifier, and shoved the old one into a desk drawer.

I didn't particularly need the phone, so I gave it to Franc. After that she carried it everywhere, searching the internet for this and that and sometimes playing games, and bit by bit she started pulling out gamer slang. The "affection" just now was probably part of that. A pure, prim princess tossing around industry jargon felt a little off. At this rate she isn't going to turn into a full-blown fujoshi, is she?

Anyway, I was eating the sandwiches the cook had made for breakfast when I saw my sister's van passing through the main gate.

"Why is Noona here?"

"I called her."

"Huh?"

She parked in the surface lot, hurried into the house, greeted the old butler, and came straight to the dining room to find me. I checked the time. Seven-thirty. Her first Tuesday lecture was at eight-twenty, as I remembered it, and from here to Uihan University was nearly an hour. What about school? Why had she come all the way out here?

"Seoha!"

"Noona, what are you doing here?"

"I came to pick you up, obviously. Hello, Hwayeon, Miss Franc."

"Come in."

"Hello, Miss Siha."

I watched her trade brief greetings with the two of them, decided they'd manage fine without me, and pushed the untouched plate of sandwiches in front of her.

"Did you eat?"

"Thanks. I ate before I left. Hwayeon told me you take a taxi to school every morning. From now on I'll come by every morning and drive you, so quit the taxis. Going to school by taxi every day doesn't look right."

For crying out loud. She'd just made her own trip to school twice as long because of me? She reached for a bacon sandwich off the plate I'd slid over, caught the look on my face, and waved a hand lightly.

"I'm on break. I've got plenty of time. Don't worry about it."

Huh? Oh. Right. University students would already be on vacation.

While I ate, my sister, Franc, and Hwayeon chattered away in a three-way gossip that never once broke. I have no idea how they had that much to say. I checked the clock, saw it was time to leave, and stood, and my sister and Hwayeon stood with me. She saw Hwayeon off to work first, then took my hand with a look of open wonder.

"Hwayeon's expressions have gotten so much richer. That old cold air is mostly gone, hasn't it?"

"You think?"

I climbed into the passenger seat. Once she'd confirmed Franc was in the back, my sister buckled in, started the engine, and murmured.

"They say a woman in love changes with every night that passes..."

"It's all thanks to Seoha. Seeing him every single day melted that chill."

At Franc's words, my sister wore a faint, bitter smile, something complicated in it.

"That's true of you too, Franc. The first time around you used to wear this lonely, solitary look sometimes, and you gave off such a grown-up air. These days you seem like a mischievous kid. You dress yourself up like a princess, so you're incredibly cute."

"Th-that's... auuu."

Caught in a soft spot by what I'd said, Franc covered her face with both hands, embarrassed.

We pulled up in front of the school and got out, and my sister waved at me.

"Study hard."

"Even if I study hard my grades don't go up, so I'm just going to coast."

"A student has to do a student's duty!"

"Yeah, yeah."

She was bringing it up because of the test scores, of course. The results of the exam we'd taken in May had come in, and my report card was sitting there in C's and B's.

"Isn't that pretty good...?"

Franc only said it because she'd never seen what the others scored. Even the kids in our class who don't study at all and are aiming for an athletics track still pull about two A's out of ten subjects. And me...

Better not to say it.

Crossing the schoolyard, I could feel full summer in the weather. It was still morning, and the sun on my short-sleeved uniform already stung. I picked up the pace, and once I was inside the building the chatter rose from every side—most of it about the Seon Ara sex scandal. The thing had more reach than I'd expected. It had stayed a topic for a full week.

Yesterday, or maybe the day before, it had come out that the man in the sex video with Seon Ara was the legitimate heir of the country's second- or third-largest conglomerate, and after that it was all legal battles and more legal battles. Nobody was talking about anything else. Listening as I headed for the classroom, I noticed the man himself barely came up. It was Seon Ara this, Seon Ara that, I never thought the boss of Ashban would do something like that. Why is it that when a sex-video scandal spreads, the woman is the only one who loses?

I walked into the classroom, waved back at the greetings tossed my way, and sat. Kim Chang-hyun turned around.

"You here?"

"Yeah."

I answered short and looked around. Every kid in class had their face in a phone, and every conversation was Seon Ara.

"This Seon Ara scandal is really dragging on."

"That's because they keep tossing fresh kindling on it. It almost looks like somebody's keeping the spark alive on purpose."

"On purpose?"

"It's what governments before President Yu Youngeun were good at, isn't it? Blowing up some sensational celebrity mess instead of politics, just to drag everybody's eyes the other way."

I was still tilting my head at that when Su Yu-ri and Han Go-eun came up from behind with Kang Ju-chan and greeted me.

"Seoha, hi! Hello to you too, Franc!"

I waved at Su Yu-ri's bright greeting, and she laughed and caught my waving hand to shake it back. Why was this kid so full of energy? Han Go-eun swept her hair back from the side of her face and started looking at me with a lingering, suggestive gaze.

"Seoha, your body keeps looking better. Are you working out or something?"

"Working out... I'm working out like I'm trying to die."

Ever tried ten sets of fifty burpees in eighteen minutes? The pitch-black ceiling turns yellow. I swear it.

I muttered it with vacant eyes. Only Kim Chang-hyun showed any curiosity about the workout. Han Go-eun asked something else.

"Do you know anything about the Seon Ara scandal?"

So that had been the point. The others must have been curious too, because they crowded in around me.

"We're not even on the same raid team. You think I'd know the private life of a boss from that whole other scene? More to the point, how did this scandal even start, for everyone to be this worked up?"

"Well, you... don't seem like you'd care about that sort of thing."

Han Go-eun murmured it, glanced at Franc standing quietly beside me, and blushed.

"And Seoha's dating the Time River boss, right? Ashban's boss is pretty, but she couldn't beat Franc."

"Right, right. Franc is sooo pretty."

"Hehe. Thank you."

From Su Yu-ri's line onward, the girls squealed and fell into conversation with Franc. I watched them and sighed on the inside. Lucky they only thought of Franc ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as a spirit. If they knew how deep things were between her and me, it would be chaos.

The desk beside me creaked. I turned and found Kang So-ra still plastered to it, her body twisted into that bizarre shape.

A posture like that is terrible for your back. Why does she keep doing it?

"Kang So-ra. Stay like that and your whole spine is going to bend."

"Hmph. If a spine bent from thiiis much, I'd already be a hunchback by nooow."

Ha. She doesn't believe me. She flicked her tongue and went on hmph-ing, and I looked at her while I gathered a faint thread of Mana Sieve into my throat, then spoke again.

"You know what my ability is? I can see it bending, clear as day. How am I supposed to ignore that?"

My voice rippled, just slightly. Kang So-ra looked at me with an uneasy face, then quietly straightened up.

Han Go-eun had been chattering with Franc for a while. She glanced at Kang So-ra, now sitting in a posture straight out of a textbook, and turned back to me.

"Still, I never thought Miss Seon Ara would do something like that. Improper relations with a minor thirteen years younger!"

"Hey, hey. By that logic the Time River boss is in improper relations with a minor too. It's only a two-year gap, but Seoha isn't an adult yet either, right?"

Pretty sure what I'm doing is more improper than Seon Ara.

I thought of Youngeun and Hwayeon and let out a short laugh at Kim Chang-hyun's line, and Han Go-eun panicked, flapping both hands.

"N-no! That's not—! Seoha is... it's not like that, right?"

"Well, both families have signed off on it, so you can drop the word 'improper.'"

She'd been flustered, but at that her face brightened—and then she growled and whipped around on Kim Chang-hyun.

"See! I told you it wasn't like that!"

"If it's not, then it's not. Why are you—ow ow! Don't pinch! Don't poke!"

She didn't care for him talking back. Her eyebrows shot up, and she started pinching, poking, and twisting his arm, his side, his back, while he blocked her with both hands. Kang Ju-chan watched the two of them with a grin, then said, "Oh, right," and spoke up.

"Did you hear? A transfer student with some incredible status is coming tomorrow."

"Huh? An incredible status?"

Su Yu-ri tilted her head, plainly lost, and Cho Min-ho, who had only been smiling quietly until then, said he knew something.

"They say a princess of the British royal family is transferring in. I happened to overhear the teachers yesterday."

"Why would a British princess come to our school? Britain has plenty of famous high schools."

Su Yu-ri blinked at him. Kang So-ra looked at me with a face that asked why anyone would bother with something so obvious, and drawled.

"Why do you thiiink? Our school's got one person who's a hot topic all over the wooorld."

"Whoa. So even the British royal family is angling for a little something with Seoha?"

Kim Chang-hyun, who had been getting pinched without a break, snatched both of Han Go-eun's wrists and threw the question at Kang So-ra. Both her arms caught, Han Go-eun lit up with fury and started pecking his shin with her indoor shoe.

And I'll say it again: our indoor shoes are white combat boots. Getting jabbed with those hurts like hell.

"That's how it iiis, right? Must be nice, being popuuular."

"No way. She's probably here for some school exchange or something."

I answered Kang So-ra, who was smiling as if she were waiting on a particular answer, with a perfectly flat face. On the off chance the princess really had come to start something with me, there was no way Youngeun would have failed to catch it. A princess of Britain—still a great power, still among the major nations—coming to study in our country, and no report going up to Youngeun, who was both the president and the chair of our school's board? Not a chance. And if the point was getting close to me? She would have given me a word long before now. Nothing had been said through today, which meant it wasn't that. Look—Franc was shaking her head too. She'd never heard of it either.

My lack of any particular reaction left Kang So-ra looking bored.

"Ah! Stop kicking already!"

"Then let go of my hands first!"

"If I let go, you'll just pinch me again!"

"Let go first, and then talk!"

Honestly. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Do these two grow a thorn in their mouths if they don't have a lovers' spat once a day? I watched them bickering as if they couldn't live without each other, snorted, and said it.

"That's why I keep telling you to take the marital fight home."

"It's not a marital fight!"

The two of them protested my jab as if they'd timed it together. The others started giggling, and Han Go-eun, her face gone bright red, kicked Kim Chang-hyun's shin even harder. He looked at me with open resentment, the face of a man asking why I was fanning a house that was already on fire.