Episode 175: Merging Raid Teams (4)

The moment the princess caught sight of Hwayeon, she scurried over in quick little steps, introduced herself, and then — gazing up with bright, sparkling eyes — began to chatter away in a soft, impeccably polite voice. Hwayeon received her with a reasonable show of courtesy.

Seated on the reception sofa in the office, the princess talked with Hwayeon the entire time wearing such an unfailingly delighted face that a person might have mistaken Hwayeon, and not me, for the reason she had come.

Talked was generous. Whenever Hwayeon tossed out some light topic, the princess snatched it up and proceeded to open-source her personal file in full. How many were in her family, what her hobbies were, just how deeply she respected Hwayeon, and on and on.

Listening to her lay her whole life bare, I came to see that Hwayeon was both role model and idol to her. An ability user who could have lived at ease in the glow of her parents' prestige, and yet had walked out of her house and made her own fortune by her own strength — Hwayeon, who had cut through hardship and adversity to stand as the boss of a raid team. She truly respected her, she said.

A distant collateral line, but royalty all the same. Bound to fulfill her duties as royalty, the princess could not act as Hwayeon did, and watching her seemed to give her a kind of vicarious satisfaction.

I couldn't make sense of that, so I asked.

"How does that make any sense? A house is a house, and a person is a person. Sacrificing yourself for the glory of your house — that's supposed to be normal?"

"I have lived seventeen years with the majesty of my house at my back, enjoying its benefits, and so I cannot separate the house from myself. A house's prosperity is the blood and sweat of its people, gathered together. To have enjoyed wealth and glory to the full upon the foundation of their labor and sacrifice, and then to cast one's duty aside — that is something a noble must never do."

Noblesse oblige, was it?

"And I do not think of it as a sacrifice for the house. If the house prospers, it can make a great many people happy. Isn't a life lived toward that a good one as well?"

Honestly, it was a way of thinking I couldn't get my head around. Still, the princess's posture, at least, seemed worth learning from. That aside...

"Seventeen?"

"By Korean reckoning, that would make me eighteen. The same age as Sir Seoha."

That figure, and she was seventeen...? A body that would have my sister bursting into tears and falling to pieces if she ever saw it. I didn't feel like getting hauled in for insulting royalty, so I didn't look too closely, but it was a C-cup at the least.

No, no! What shocked me was that a seventeen-year-old could think like that. Does the position make the person, after all? If I lived as the boss of Grand Blue... would something in me change, too?

Having indulged that desire to her heart's content, the princess belatedly grew embarrassed. Flushed, she stole glances at me, then opened her mouth.

"The precise reason I came to Korea was in part to form a connection with Sir Seoha, but more accurately, I came because I wished to learn about Sir Seoha's spirit. Miss Evans... she is a spirit, is she not?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You may already know this, but about three months ago, an ability user in Britain captured a humanoid aberrant in the Phase World. That humanoid aberrant resembled an elf so closely that the famous word elf was attached to its name."

Three months ago? Ah — the ability user who went by the handle fallsexmachine?

"That ability user was caught trying to smuggle the elf out of the Phase World in secret and was indicted before the International Phase Tribunal, but by committing himself to the Ability User Alliance and surrendering every piece of information he had on the Phase World's humanoid aberrants, he was able to avoid punishment. On that basis, research into humanoid aberrants began..."

Through that ability user, she went on, the Ability User Alliance and Britain had captured the humanoid aberrants called elves from the Phase World and begun all manner of study, conversation included. And something about spirits had come to light. They had confirmed seven kinds: fire and wind, water and earth, light and darkness, and lightning.

"The Grokis Institute holds both doubts and a great deal of curiosity regarding Sir Seoha's spirit. From appearance to ability, everything about her differed from the spirits the elves described."

According to the princess, a spirit looked, quite literally, like a spiritual body made of its attribute. The forms varied by owner, but in general a fire spirit was a shape burning in empty air, wind a shape wrapped in transparent green wind, water had a whirlpool for a lower body, and earth was a doll molded out of soil.

In that context, the researchers who came across the information about me — word that had gradually leaked and spread after the third cycle — were said to have been badly shocked.

Going by what they'd been told, Franc was a lightning spirit. They must have wondered why she looked no different from a person.

"Of course, the parts about being unaffected by gravity, and about wielding lightning, were the same. But her appearance closely resembled a human being's. Above all, unlike passive spirits, they said it was astonishing that Sir Seoha's spirit spoke and acted just as a person would."

My expression hardened into something ugly, and the princess wore a face that said she didn't quite understand why. Hwayeon, who had been sitting in silence, opened her mouth in my place.

"So you meant to invite Seoha to Britain and have Franc examined. Is that it?"

"That was the objective. But after watching the relationship between Sir Seoha and the lightning spirit over these two days, I judged it impossible. Sir Seoha cherishes his spirit far too much to permit such a thing."

There was nothing of a lie in the princess's smiling face. If that was an act, then she was a girl of unspeakable cunning.

Of course, I could offer that conclusion because I had watched her in my own way over those two days. In all that time I hadn't sensed so much as a hint of cunning, or of anything vicious.

"So?"

"This is all of it. I will surely be scolded by Her Majesty the Queen when I return, but I believe that by revealing my purpose and speaking the truth like this, what I came to do is finished."

As I spoke, the princess flinched and her shoulders trembled, and the triplets swallowed hard with tense faces and took their places behind her. I was wondering what had gotten into them when Franc wrapped her arms around my neck and stroked my head.

Ah. Right. Had my face gotten a little frightening?

Gone pale, the princess drew out a handkerchief, wiped the sweat from her brow, forced a smile, and said:

"Sir Seoha truly does get along well with his spirit. The best outcome is no longer possible, but I would still like to achieve the next best... Might I form a somewhat closer relationship with Sir Seoha?"

"That's up to you."

"If I could become friends with Sir Seoha, I would be very happy."

The princess looked at me with a bright, open smile.

Honestly, the fact that she'd tried to do something about Franc was a massive deduction. Even so, she had stated her purpose outright, and the part about not lying to me earned her a slight plus.

And thanks to the princess, I now knew Britain had its eye on Franc. I could set up defenses against that through Yeongeun.

Hah... this felt like tempering my patience in a place I hadn't expected.

Every time I called it back to mind — that they had meant to investigate Franc — black flame licked up from my heart and I wanted to smash the whole of it. Holding that down, I supposed, was forging patience whether I liked it or not.

I let out a small breath and spoke.

"There are a few things I'm curious about, regarding you. Mind telling me?"

As if delighted that I was showing interest for the first time, the princess broke into a sparkling smile and asked what I wanted to know.

"What kind of ability user are you?"

If she answered that honestly, I was prepared to open up to her a little from here on. If not? She could be on the same level as air.

"I am a rare-attribute ability user. Would you care to guess which attribute?"

"Light, then."

I answered without a moment's pause, and the princess stared at me in open astonishment. Hwayeon narrowed her eyes as well and slowly looked the princess over.

"Wow. How did you know? My ability is a secret from the public."

"You cut the options way down with your own mouth. A rare-attribute user, out of the seven."

It was only my hypothesis, but if I thought about aberrants whose attribute abilities showed in their outward appearance, wouldn't ability users be the same? Branch Director Kang Hyunwoo, a fire-attribute user, with his bristling red hair shot through with gray. Team 2 Leader ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Kim Ga-min, a wind-attribute user, the tips of her hair dyed green.

I didn't know why a hypothesis like that wasn't floating around the Certifier community, but nine times out of ten, it was probably right.

So a princess with pale blonde that seemed mixed with white would be either lightning or light — and the white ringed bands gathered near her heart gave off a strong feeling of light.

"Is that so? Sir Seoha is correct. I am a light-attribute ability user."

With that she closed her eyes and quietly raised her Phase Power, and a brilliant light that wasn't blinding poured out around her body.

So that was what the light attribute felt like? She wasn't even using much TP, and the light was that bright. Watching pure white radiance spill from her, I had the sudden sense that some halo filter had made her several times prettier.

I looked at the princess a moment longer, and the blue light of my Mana Sieve came to mind. I fiddled pointlessly with my bangs. My hair... there's no sign of it turning blue, is there?

Hwayeon put a question to the princess.

"Light — a truly rare attribute. As it is one I am encountering for the first time, I am curious about its power... If it would not be an imposition, might you broaden my understanding?"

"Compared to the ordinary four great attributes, it stands on the higher side, but among the three rare attributes its attack power is the lowest. In exchange, it can strike the widest area."

"Can you show us a demonstration? I'll show you my Mana Bullet, too."

If I simply asked her to show me, it would feel like I was taking on a debt, so I framed it as a trade — and she bit down on the offer at once.

"Yes! I was truly curious what Sir Seoha's Mana Bullet looks like."

Mana Bullet. That sounded a good deal slicker than the name I went around using...

With her permission, we moved to my training ground, right beside the administration building, to see her ability. Arriving there, the princess couldn't hide her admiration. She kept looking all around, then turned to me with a wide smile.

"Wow. Is all of this Sir Seoha's training ground? A training ground this wide, right in the middle of the city — with space like this, one could unleash an ability to one's heart's content!"

And the ability she gathered her strength and unfolded far exceeded anything I had expected. The moment she concentrated, a circle of light some two hundred meters across appeared three hundred meters ahead, and light began to pour down into it. An ability that, had it appeared in an age before science, would have been more than worthy of the name apostle of light.

"Not yet!"

Six strands of Phase Power, faintly visible through the light veiling her body, began to resonate, and TP poured from her and spread high into the sky.

I was a little surprised that it wasn't a method of firing the power off like a bullet, but of resonating. That was a lot like how a recovery ability triggered, wasn't it?

Hands spread to either side, eyes open and lifted to the sky, the princess kept losing TP from inside her body until some forty thousand in all had vanished. Then I thought I heard wind graze past my ear.

Was that even possible? I looked up at the sky, but I couldn't see any medium drawing the light in. I even checked with Spatial Perception, in case the TP was spread out somewhere — but the light was pouring from beyond 1.5 kilometers, so I couldn't tell, and the light itself felt like nothing but light.

As if she had read the thought off my face, Franc shot up into the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sky. I watched her pass beyond 1.5 kilometers in an instant and keep climbing without pause, then turned my gaze back to the circle of light, condensed 0.1 TP in my hand, and slowly sent it flying in.

The Mana Bullet I had fired drifted into the circle and took the baptism of light. Heading for the center, about halfway across, it burst with a fwoom.

I couldn't even begin to guess the power...

The ground where the pillar of light had formed was pitch-black, like the site of a wildfire. It was sinking little by little, too. It wasn't melting in the light, so what kind of phenomenon was this?

The circle of the pillar, which had held for about a minute, began to narrow, and two minutes after she had unleashed the ability it vanished completely.

"Hoo. How was it?"

Letting out a slight breath, the princess smiled softly and spoke while looking at me — no. Not at me. At Hwayeon, beside me.

The look in the princess's eyes as she watched Hwayeon was strangely heated. Like the expression Hwayeon wore when she looked at me, aroused... Was the princess a lesbian?

I watched her with that suspicion in mind, but she didn't notice my gaze. She had eyes only for Hwayeon, and they were hot.

"The range is remarkably wide. Judging by how the earth has been gouged, the power does not seem weak either."

At Hwayeon's praise the princess smiled as if delighted. It could have been the joy of being praised by someone she respected... but once the suspicion took hold, I suspected every last thing.

The triplets sent looks pleading for restraint, but the princess didn't notice those either.

"I have other abilities as well."

And with that she began blurting out every ability she ought to have kept hidden, if she could.

The attribute shot shaped like an arrow formed of light was about a hundred TP in quantity. The arrow of light flew all the way to where the circle had been, then exploded in midair and spread a sound like a triangle being rung. Perhaps because it was the light attribute, the explosion was an explosion of light as well, and the power was considerable — the ground in a radius of several meters was pounded and gouged by the shockwave.

Judging only by how the ground was torn up, it seemed about equal to a Mana Bullet in which I'd used roughly 2 TP. Two TP of mine was the same as an ordinary attribute user spending two hundred, so could I call this about twice as strong as an ordinary attribute user?

No. The range was so wide it couldn't even be compared to an ordinary attribute, so the effective damage had to be considered nearly ten times as high.

Hmm. Franc's lightning was roughly ten times stronger than an ordinary attribute user's, but its range was extremely narrow. There was also the difficulty of landing it after it activated — Franc herself had said that without Spatial Perception, her accuracy would fall below fifty percent.

In short, the lightning attribute had tremendous power, but low accuracy and an ordinary range. The light attribute's power was nothing special beside lightning, but its accuracy was high and its range extremely wide.

Hard to call either one superior. I grew curious about what the darkness attribute would be like.

All told, then — my Mana Bullet > lightning = light > fire = wind = water = earth?

At length the princess brought her hands together and fired a laser from her palms, and I found myself thinking that really was an optical weapon. Seeing it vaporize an entire mound of earth and erase the ground, it certainly wasn't weak.

And saying it was the last, she brought her hands together and began gathering TP in them. When the gathered TP reached about a hundred thousand, she thrust both hands forward with a short cry — and what flew from her hands was identical in form to Uncle Hwa Joong-kang's ultimate technique.

The round orb of light that shot from her palm drifted slowly forward, then at some point let out a thud, raised a thick pillar of light, scattered radiance in every direction, and vanished.

What. Uncle Hwa Joong-kang had proclaimed it like it was his own finishing move, and it turned out just anyone could use the thing? Hwayeon, as if surprised, lit up and applauded.

"Overall, compared to an ordinary attribute, the power appears to be roughly double. The range is difficult even to measure. A splendid ability, and splendid control."

Of course, that was a courtesy, to save the princess's face. Hwayeon had seen my Mana Bullet and my Mana Laser. There was no way that much would surprise her. Her eyes had been genuinely startled, though, at the first circle of light and at the final pillar. Had she seen what my Mana Cannon could do, even those would have left her cold.

The princess seemed to feel otherwise. The delight at Hwayeon's reaction was plain on her face.

Heh. She let out a small laugh and shrugged at me, as if preening — well? How's my skill?

Laughable.

No, more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that — why was she linking arms with Hwayeon? I watched her smug face a moment, then looked at the place where she had first poured the circle of light.

At that scale, shockwave included, would firing a four-hundred-TP Mana Bullet do it? I was running the numbers in my head when her smug voice reached me.

"If we are to compare, should you not use the secret technique you have been hiding, Sir Seoha? My secret technique, Angel Halo, is a wide-area attack with a maximum diameter of eight hundred meters. Just now I held it to a two-hundred-meter range, to spare my reserves..."

Left hand set on my hip, in an arrogant posture, I gave my finger a light flick and sent a four-hundred-TP Mana Bullet into the center of the circle of light. Angel Halo, was it?

"Hm. My control over the output is still lacking."

The mouths of the princess and the triplets fell open.

"Wh-what... was that? I didn't see anything. What happened...?"

"You haven't heard about my ability? Anyway, there won't be a second time."

Next I drew out the Mana Riser I had raised against Solid Snake and wiped away every line the princess had drawn, then hurled a Mana Cannon — its power cut to the minimum — into the traces of that last pillar of light, the one that was supposed to be her finishing move.

Something hit the ground behind me.

I turned. The princess had sunk onto the bare earth, staring at the Mana Cannon with a face like she might start to drool.

Seeing her looking as if she might faint somehow improved my mood. A different kind of pleasure from the one I felt tumbling around with my lovers.

Just then Franc, who had gone up into the sky, came down. She looked from the slumped princess to me and back, then quietly took her place at my side. Hwayeon, wearing a wry smile the princess and the triplets couldn't see, took the princess's arm, helped her to her feet, and said:

"Shall we head back, then."

As we started toward where the car was parked, the princess came running, unsteady on her feet, caught my hand, and asked:

"W-wait a moment! Sir Seoha, what just happened? Did you use a secret technique?"

"Something that happened because I used my ability. Not a secret technique, either."

"I see."

Still holding my hand, pulled along after me, she turned a look of disbelief toward the modest little crater that had opened behind us.

"If the ability that left that mark is not a secret technique, then what in the world is one..."

Well... thinking about it, the Angel Halo the princess had shown was, quite literally, an ability that deserved to be called a secret technique. It consumed about forty thousand TP, and yet its range and power were of an order that couldn't even be compared to the condensed attribute shot of a hundred thousand TP she had shown at the end.

Then what was mine? The Mana Cannon was simply something I condensed and fired. The Mana Bullet, the Mana Laser, the Riser — those were the same method other attribute users employed.

At first I had thought Spatial Manipulation was my secret technique. But seeing how the princess had gathered her focus and unfolded it in order to unleash Angel Halo, my Spatial Manipulation felt lacking somewhere.

Riding back in Hwayeon's car, I turned the question over and over, and still couldn't find an answer.

The princess, having tossed me one piece of homework, wore a regretful but satisfied expression — she had something to report now, no doubt — gave Hwayeon and me a slight bow, and turned to go.

From two hundred meters up I watched her climb into a Rolls-Royce Phantom on the ground below and depart, stroking my chin. Was the princess really a lesbian? I'd heard the sexual diversions of so-called royalty ran pretty far out. Maybe that was why.

As I sat there questioning her orientation, Franc sighed and spoke.

"I cannot fathom what the royal family means by sending so young a princess."

"There will be more than one thing they are angling for. Adult considerations as well, I should think."

"Now that I think of it, a strange woman approached us when we were leaving school. Seoha said something to this effect..."

Having heard what had happened after school, Hwayeon looked at me with pride.

"As expected."

"The power of observation and of thought that pierces to the essence is essential in a leader who is to guide a group. Seoha manifests it as a matter of course."

It was past embarrassing — I thought hives might break out all down my back. This much was the sort of association any reasonably educated kid would make, and she was building me up far too much.

To change the subject, I asked Franc.

"How was it earlier? When the princess used Angel Halo."

"Ah. When I rose into the sky, I found the place where the light was gathering."

She said the Phase Power had gathered like a magnifying glass, refracting the light and focusing it to a single point.

A magnifying glass. Then had that pillar of light been pure solar heat, concentrated? Hard to say so — I hadn't felt much in the way of heat.

Then my thoughts reached the Phase Power of the princess and the triplets. D-Class at seventeen. Had the princess and the triplets received Early Entry Permits as well?

Which would mean the triplets were children of some distinguished house, too. The princess was a princess, so of course she had the royal family's certification. The triplets wouldn't have anything like that.

While I was lost in thought, Franc, who had been trading this and that small talk with Hwayeon, said she wanted to see the place that would become my home, and so we came down to the floor with the skybridge connected to the residential building.

That floor, perhaps because of the foot traffic, had been furnished as a rest area. We came out of a floor of small shops, a coffee shop, and the like, crossed the skybridge, and boarded the elevator of the residential building... and above the thirty-fifth floor, there were no buttons?

When Hwayeon set her palm to the guide panel on the elevator's right wall, numbers appeared in the space beside it, and when she pressed four and zero the elevator began to move.

From the thirty-sixth floor up, it seemed, you could only travel by fingerprint.

As we rose toward the fortieth, Franc and Hwayeon's whispers reached me.

"Isn't it obvious?" Hwayeon murmured. "She means to seduce Seoha with her body."

"Ugh. I want to deny that it isn't so, but I cannot deny it... Where has the dignity of the royal house of the British Empire gone..."

"...Does Franc hold any loyalty toward the British royal family?"

"I could not say that I have none. But to me, Seoha is what matters most. Of that, I am certain."

"Then that is enough. Seoha has been quiet for some time, though."

I'd fallen silent because I was thinking about secret techniques, and Hwayeon, as if that bothered her, whispered softly to Franc.

"He has had less to say since he heard the talk of secret techniques."

The moment Franc finished, I turned to the two of them.

"What even is a secret technique? Until I heard the princess out, I thought mine were the Mana Cannon, or Spatial Manipulation, or the Spatial Barrier. But after seeing her Angel Halo, I don't think that's it."

We reached the fortieth floor as I asked, and the elevator doors opened.

"Let's get off first."

I stepped out with Hwayeon, who had my hand held tight, and saw a translucent wall fitted with a touch-activated automatic door blocking every side. A moment later a measured wind poured from the ceiling, swept over my body, and was sucked down into a groove in the floor.

"...What is this?"

"At the entrance to the penthouse, they have installed an air shower room like this."

"Hell of a pricey duster."

As I was settling my slightly tousled hair, Hwayeon set her hand on the touch panel and opened the door. Inside, the penthouse came into view, laid out overall in a U.

In the center was a large living room sunken in the middle, and at each end, left and right, one large room adjoining the terrace. At the tips of the U, it seemed, a slightly smaller room was attached to each side, and right beside the entrance there were stairs, by which a person could go up to the roof. On that roof was a helipad. Mine, apparently.

The kitchen was joined to the living room, and it was packed with cooking equipment so fine the apartment kitchen couldn't begin to compare. The large room on the left had a bathroom and a dressing room attached; the large room opposite had a toilet. Beyond it, a passage leading into the smaller room was visible.

The place was full of windows overall. It would be viciously cold in winter like this... well, the heating would take care of it. With so many windows, the view alone was spectacular.

Come to think of it, from the office building the glass had all looked black, but from in here I could see everything. A one-way mirror?

All told, terrace included, it looked to be about 6,400 square feet, of which the terrace alone claimed 2,100. I opened the living room's quadruple windows and stepped out onto the terrace, and a sliver of my training ground was just visible past the mountain.

Feeling the open view and a cool wind sweep over me, I leaned to the railing and looked down. People were as small as ants.

"The view really is something. I think I get why people want to live up high."

"Isn't it? The floors below don't even have a balcony like this, so all you feel is how bleak an apartment can be."

"Well, next to the room you used to have, this one's cramped. Can't be helped. A whole twentieth floor to yourself, one open room of nearly eleven thousand square feet, empty as a drum, not a stick of furniture in it."

At my point, Hwayeon smiled faintly and linked her arm through mine. Franc, who had been watching from the side, took my free arm as well.

"So — what is a secret technique, exactly?"

Sorry to break in while ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we were soaking in the moment. I just couldn't hold it any longer.