Preparation (4)

First, I concentrate Phase Power at my fingertips. Then I work the Mana Sieve, draw in the faint Phase Power drifting through the air, and try to inject it—

—only it won't go in. The two refuse to blend, like oil and water.

Wondering what that's about, I look the Mana Bullet over with Spatial Perception. There's about a hundred in it. At the center, my own Phase Power sits packed into a ball, and wrapped around the outside is the Phase Power the Mana Sieve pulled in.

What is this.

I stare for a moment at the thin skin of Phase Power laid over the TP, then keep gathering Phase Power in its natural state with the Mana Sieve. I draw until the ratio of TP to Phase Power hits one to one, and what finishes forming isn't a colorless, transparent Mana Bullet at all. It's a bead glowing blue.

Not quite what I had in mind. Well, it gathered, so... good enough?

To test the power, I fire the blue-bead Mana Bullet a good distance off. It leaves my fingertip faster than a normal one, rips about three kilometers in a flash, and detonates.

KWA-AAAAANG!!!

The instant the blue orb bursts, a roar fit to split eardrums crashes down on me, and with the blast comes a monstrous gale.

"Whoa—?!"

Even in Mana Mode, a scorching wind thick with dirt slams through my body, hot enough that I can barely hold my ground. The earth heaves under the shock. I plant my feet wide and brace by force, and through Spatial Perception I see Franc—she'd been asleep—get swept away on the gale.

Ghk—?!

The wind suddenly reverses, sucking back toward where the blue orb burst, and I nearly pitch forward. I stagger, barely catch my balance, and lift my head—and something I cannot believe is happening right in front of my eyes.

A— a mushroom cloud?

With a low, rolling rumble, dirt surges into the sky and knits itself into a small mushroom cloud. I'm standing there blankly watching it when a heavy impact slams into my back.

"Seoha! It's an attack! You have to get clear!!"

Franc, who'd thrown herself over me, looks thoroughly rattled and lost. Jolted awake, no doubt, by the aftermath of my experiment. Heat still rolling off the air, I soothe her as she tugs at my arm.

"No. No, Franc. Calm down."

"You need to get your body— pardon?"

"I was just practicing Mana Bullets and ended up making a new technique. It isn't an attack, so calm down."

Seeing Franc looking even blanker than I feel snaps me back to myself by sheer reaction. She stares up at the mushroom cloud climbing into the sky with a vacant, dopey look, and I pinch her soft cheeks and stretch them the way you'd pull a rice cake, then turn back to the cloud.

That's the power of a hundred TP? I want to go look at where the new technique detonated, but dust is billowing up in thick clouds, the view is terrible, and the whole place is somehow packed with heat. I don't feel like getting any closer.

So I start to scan the area around ground zero with Spatial Perception—and somewhere a siren begins to blare, loud.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH...

Not a car. This is pouring out of enormous speakers, across the whole district.

"What is that sound? I've heard it roll through the neighborhood now and then."

"...Isn't this a red alert?"

"Huh? An emergency?"

In that instant, a young woman's voice spreads in every direction.

Ghk? What? An air-raid alert?

"Th-this is bad. I think it's because of the Mana Bullet I fired! Wh-what do I do? Should I just run?"

"Seoha? P-please calm yourself. There is no need to panic!"

"You're panicking too!"

The siren keeps ringing in my ears, and the words air-raid alert keep sounding, and as Franc and I fluster together, my heart starts leaning toward just running. Then a call comes in on the Certifier. I answer, and Yeongeun's stiff face—hair still mussed from sleep—rises in the hologram window.

"Uh? Th-that was me practicing a new skill and messing up the power control. The explosion got... really big."

I say it carefully, cowed and flustered under her hard expression, watching her face for a reaction. Yeongeun lets out a small sigh, looking utterly dumbfounded, then turns her head and starts issuing orders to someone.

Isn't she home right now? Is she on with several people at once?

Ah, the damage... Did anyone get hurt in that explosion just now? The impact felt like a missile going off. I can't get a word out, just fidgeting, and Yeongeun turns her gaze back, smiles faintly, and speaks.

"I... I'm sorry."

A small voice comes through from beyond the hologram. Yeongeun's head turns that way, and she gives a little nod.

...I don't know the details, but I have a feeling every bit of money I have left from what I earned during the verification is about to go into repairing this mess.

Yeongeun tells me a team will be heading there to assess the situation, so I shouldn't go anywhere and should wait a little, then hangs up. Right after that the siren stops, and before long soldiers and police show up, along with ability users in black suits. Even though it's early morning, Aunt Hyeryeong appears with seven staff and starts handling the people in black suits in my place.

I can feel fear in the way the soldiers and police look at me. In the eyes of the ability users whose affiliation I can't place, there's a question: what on earth did he do to set off a missile-level explosion?

A short while later, once the talking is done, they walk toward ground zero to inspect the site. They take in the enormous crater—about five hundred meters in radius, still hissing and boiling—and their faces go blank, as if their souls have left them. Aunt Hyeryeong must have coaxed them well enough. They glance at me with frightened faces, then troop off in a rush.

I watch them withdraw, then approach Aunt Hyeryeong. She turns to me and smiles, looking a little exasperated.

"In a little while, the internet's going to be plastered with articles about that explosion."

"...I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for! An incident like this will only raise public interest in Grand Blue, and we haven't even officially launched yet. In any case, 'amazing' doesn't begin to cover our Master. A blast on the level of a small tactical nuke—how did you do it?"

"I picked up a little hint during training and tried applying it, and the explosion suddenly got stronger... haha."

"I see."

I say it with an embarrassed smile, and Aunt Hyeryeong nods as if she understands, then starts laying out the damage in thorough detail.

The blue orb I fired carved a crater five hundred meters in radius into the training ground, threw up a mushroom cloud three kilometers high along with the shockwave, and on top of the tremor unleashed a gale. Fortunately, thanks to the training ground's outer wall—built high and thick—the primary damage stopped at wrecking my own grounds. The secondary damage from the seismic wave and shockwave, though, cracked buildings and roads under construction nearby, and the section of wall closest to the blast shattered. Its fragments flew into neighboring structures and brought down temporary buildings.

The one real mercy is that hardly anyone ever came near my training ground to begin with, so there were no casualties. Even so, the repair and restoration costs are going to come straight out of my pocket, which stings a little.

Well. Nobody getting hurt is what matters.

"...You're saying this is the power of a single attribute round from the Master?"

"Yes."

Aunt Hyeryeong doesn't seem able to believe a single Mana Bullet did all this. She blinks, then clicks her tongue as if it's a shame.

"This will be hard to use on a subjugation. With a skill range like this, one mistake and you'll hurt your own teammates."

"I'd have to spot an aberrant from far off and fire first. Or fight alone."

"Even so... at this level of power, the aberrant's corpse won't be intact, and then byproduct revenue drops sharply. As head of general affairs, I'm not fond of that."

Th-there was that problem, too...

Aunt Hyeryeong looks over the crater again, snaps a few photos with her phone, tells me to leave the cleanup to her, and heads back to the Grand Blue Building. I see her off, come back, and scratch my head as I look at the crater breathing out heat like a shimmer of haze.

I never dreamed that applying a casual idea would spit out power on the level of a missile armed with a nuclear warhead. Just coating a Mana Bullet in Phase Power, and this is the result. Somehow, my mood actually lifts a little.

"Looking at raw power alone, a Mana Bullet that spent a hundred TP seems stronger than a Mana Cannon of five thousand TP. What do you think, Franc?"

Franc, who'd been examining the traces of the blast from the air, answers while sending me a look of pure, yearning admiration.

"Do you see the rim of the crater?"

"Yeah. There's a bank of earth, like the soil got shoved outward."

"A Mana Cannon's crater doesn't have that. It leaves a mark as if a spoon simply scooped the ground out. Which means the technique you just created also carries strong physical force."

...Huh. It does.

"When a Mana Bullet hits an aberrant, if its resistance is high the shot runs along the skin and can't do much damage. This technique looks different. Even with resistance, it seems it would still deliver plenty of physical impact."

...It does!

Marveling at Franc's analysis, I gather 1 TP at my fingertips this time, coat it again in Phase Power with the Mana Sieve, and fire.

KWA-AAANG!!

"Whoa."

The ground jolts, and dirt explodes outward in a rough cloud. The range of 1 TP is about six meters, similar to a plain Mana Bullet, but the power feels like it utterly surpasses one. This time I gather 10 TP and fire, and a bigger blast than before goes off—about seventy-five meters across gets swept up. A hundred TP was a kilometer, so if I gauge power by how deep the ground gets gouged, the more TP, the more the power grows exponentially.

"Okay, this is pretty great."

The heavy blast reverberates in my chest, crimson flames surge up, and my heart pounds. Who was it that said an explosion is a man's romance? I'd been indifferent until now, but seeing it myself, the words hit home. A Mana Bullet this powerful, with efficiency this ridiculous!

Condense the TP, coat it in Phase Power with the Mana Sieve, and fire. Fire! Fire!! The training ground's already a wreck anyway. Who cares. Just blast away!!

I set them off for a long while, thundering away in high spirits, and my rate of fire gets faster and faster. At first it took over fifteen seconds just to loose one shot. Now I condense the TP and gather Phase Power at the same time, and I can fire one every three seconds.

Still, I only smeared Phase Power over the TP like a coating. I don't really understand how that produces power so many times stronger. I can only guess that when my Phase Power tries to burst while warping space, it mixes with pure Phase Power and some kind of reaction happens. A physicist observing the blast with Spatial Perception might figure out the cause, but then again, even my Mana Bullet warping space doesn't have an explanation.

I ponder the principle behind the blue orb's explosion for a moment, then give up thinking and start firing without rest, raising my proficiency with the newly developed technique.

"All right! This one's getting named Demon Bullet!"

I'd like to test Mana Laser and Mana Cannon the same way, but that seems like too much. Mana Laser, I could probably just fire into the sky. Mana Cannon, though... that might be less a tactical nuke and more a strategic one going off.

The southern section of the training ground is a complete mess, but Aunt Hyeryeong told me to leave the aftermath to her, so I won't worry about it!

"Man~ I should watch a lot more battle manga and anime from now on."

"...Pardon?"

Franc, who'd been watching the festival of explosions beside me, turns with a face that says she just heard something strange. It's such a cute expression that I reach out again, squish her rice-cake cheeks, and tug. She lets out a cute little "hnnghh," then shakes her head.

"A classic masterpiece manga I used to watch as a kid just happened to come to mind. I took a hint from it, practiced, and Demon Bullet popped out."

Right now I can only coat them, but later, if I twist them up like a cruller, maybe I'll be able to use a finishing move that sends aberrants on a one-way trip. If I did that with Mana Laser, I really think I could wreck them for good.

Mana Bullet is Demon Bullet. What about Mana Laser—Demon Slash? Slash Shot? Demon Slash Shot? Hmm... nothing that really lands. But Mana Cannon is Demon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Cannon. Demon Cannon it is!

A little too chuunibyou? Demon Bullet seems fine, but past Demon Cannon, Demon Slash Shot is a bit... I tell Franc what I've been thinking, and she looks at me the way you'd look at something pitiful.

...Once again, I realize my sense for names is a disaster.

"Demon Bullet and Demon Cannon are good. But rather than Demon Slash Shot, wouldn't Mana Ray be better?"

"As expected of the one who wields the Lightning of Judgment—what a sense for names!"

"Nnh—!"

Pleased that I'd scored one, I head home humming—or try to—when Phase Power suddenly starts registering from the several enormous craters I made, as if bursting out of empty air.

"Franc, it's an aberrant. Mid-Low Grade."

Its shape... just an ordinary mutt, except the size of a dire wolf. Phase Power around 130—on the low end even for Mid-Low Grade.

"An aberrant has finally appeared. Let us go, quickly."

I kick on Mana Mode - Acceleration at once and run like a shot. That's definitely the place I turned into a wasteland practicing Demon Bullet—how did it appear all of a sudden? Puzzled by an aberrant that looks like it sprang out of the ground from nowhere, I charge the cu— the mongrel that evolved into an aberrant in an instant, and the thing spots me too, startles, and tries to flee!

"Where do you think you're— hey!"

If you're an aberrant, act like one and charge an ability user! Where do you keep running off to!

It's a Mid-Low Rank Variant, so it can't outrun me in acceleration mode. Just before it clears a wall, I fire a Mana Laser and cut it in half at the waist. Blood and guts scatter through the air as the aberrant, severed around the middle, hits the ground with a dull thud—and still it isn't dead. It twitches and writhes, sending fear and dread my way.

I caught an aberrant that appeared in the city, so I should report it to the Ability User Association, right? I call the Association's emergency report center, and it connects before the ring even finishes once.

Huh? This is the same noona's voice who took my call during the museum incident.

"Hello. I'd like to report the appearance of a Mid-Low Rank Variant."

"Hold on! Noona, are you a robot by any chance?"

"No, it's just—you're saying it exactly the same as when I reported the museum. Not a single word different."

There's a beat of silence, like she's at a loss for words, then a small cough, and a slightly flustered voice comes through.

"Ah, I already caught that aberrant. I called to report it—what should I do?"

She coughs again and just transfers the call. A bit of classical music plays, and then a familiar man's voice comes on.

...Is this guy a robot too?

"Hello? A Mid-Low Rank Variant showed up at my training ground, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was trying to cross into the city streets, so I killed it first and then called."

Hmm. What is he trying to confirm? Now that I think about it, they seem to detect roughly where aberrants are. Do they use some kind of special radar, too? If they do, why couldn't they detect the attackers who ambushed me before?

Hmm. Maybe they only detect the clumped Phase Power unique to aberrants. An ability user's Phase Power has all sorts of patterns, but an aberrant's stays in a clump until it enters combat.

"I do."

He sounds oddly flustered.

"How did you know an aberrant had appeared?"

"But this time, you only knew because I told you, didn't you?"

So they can only detect aberrants. If an ability user uses an ability, they wouldn't know unless someone reports it and they investigate the scene. Maybe they really do only detect an aberrant's clumped Phase Power. But is it okay for him to just tell me this?

"Thank you for telling me. I just wait until the recovery team arrives, then I can go, right?"

"All right. Take care."

I shut off the Certifier, turn to Franc, and tell her what I've been thinking. She nods as well.

"Just looking at the Energy Eater incident at Iljasan last time, it seems that way. If an aberrant is within range, it would keep sending out an alarm, wouldn't it? But seeing that they couldn't accurately detect when its position changed, perhaps the system is quite passive..."

"Science keeps advancing, so they'll build a proper detection system before long."

The words are barely out when I see the Association's corpse recovery vehicle coming from far off. On the way home I try to reason out why an aberrant suddenly popped out of thin air, but I can't figure it out. Which is only natural. If someone with no expertise like me could figure it out at a glance, the specialists in this field would have found it long ago.

When I step inside, it's past eight in the morning. And Yeongeun is asleep again. Did she go back to sleep after talking to me? She's sprawled on the sofa in nothing but a sleeveless shirt and pink dolphin shorts. I fetch a blanket, cover her, and take a quick shower. Then Franc and I head down to the thirty-ninth floor, and the rich smell of doenjang—fermented soybean paste—hits me full in the face.

"Whoa. One whiff of doenjang and I feel like my stomach's stuck to my spine."

"Son, come on in!"

"Good morning!" Sis calls.

"Oh, good morning. Did you and Mom sleep well?"

"Mm. A siren suddenly went off while I was sleeping and startled me awake. A civil defense drill early on a Saturday morning—that's too much."

Ugh. That one lands. She didn't hear the explosion?

I watch Franc go into the kitchen to help Mom and Sis with breakfast, then, still in my sleepwear, I find Dad in the study and ask.

"Dad, you said you were going to Britain at the end of August for an academic conference, right? When exactly do you leave? How long is the conference?"

"They sent word the schedule changed. Departure is August 16th, planned for one week."

The sixteenth. The schedule... I said that right after vacation I'd go raid a Peak-Rank aberrant with the raiders from Time River and Hwarang, so if it lines up, this might work.

"Can I come with you then?"

Dad lowers his newspaper, looks at me, and speaks with a serious face.

"You're the Master of Grand Blue, aren't you. I don't think you should leave the country carelessly."

"Yeah. But there's something I want to see in the British royal archives. I've got something before then, but if the schedule works, I want to go to Britain with you."

"And the British royal family said they'd show it to you?"

"Well, at school..."

I briefly explain that Lydia came to study abroad and what happened in the meantime, then tell him, more or less, that I plan to coax Lydia into getting me permission to see it.

"You're a person of special interest to the state, so there's a good chance even your departure overseas will be managed. If there's something you want to see, request it through the government. Matters like that are better handled officially, so you don't invite misunderstanding."

"Hmm... Okay."

"Good."

Over breakfast, when I tell them I've grown stronger again, Mom is overjoyed, and Sis teases me—stronger already, what are you, a monster? Dad advises that the stronger I become, the more I should guard against getting drunk on myself, and cultivate my inner self so pride never makes me look down on others. Cause and effect, he says, are never far away.

A family that warms the heart really is the best.

After eating I loll around the living room, and when Sis starts teasing me I overpower her and show her tickle hell. Furious, she starts swinging cushions wildly, and I flee up to the fortieth floor in a hurry.

Speaking of strength, it occurs to me—aside from Spatial Perception, every one of my abilities, all of them, seems focused on killing, breaking, or tormenting. This morning alone proves it. Other attributes have plenty of parts that subtly help in daily life. Even if they aren't much use in reality, in a place like the Phase World, cut off from science, the attributes of fire, water, wind, and earth are enormously helpful. Even lightning, at the very least, can light the dark.

But confirming that my abilities are focused solely on destruction makes me feel, somehow, like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a person born to destroy.

Nngh. I thought puberty ended years ago—is there still some sensitivity left? I'm getting sentimental for no reason.

I go to the master bedroom, and Yeongeun is still wandering dreamland. Whatever good dream she's having, she's grinning, going mhehehe, fiddling with her hands, drunk on happiness.

"Hwaaaah... Seoha, I'll rest a little longer too...?"

"Yeah."

I want to tell her not to sleep and to play with me, but after breakfast my eyes are starting to droop again, and I can't bring myself to say it. Franc, lying beside Yeongeun, is soon fast asleep with a soft snore. I pull a thin blanket over the two of them and step out to the living room.

...Nothing to do. Games aren't interesting, there's no homework, and exams are over. I turn on the TV and nothing catches my interest, so I decide to head over to my office in the administrative wing. Better to learn about the company there than kill time doing nothing.

From the thirty-sixth floor of the administrative wing up, the offices of Time River's core executives are gathered. Because of that, a regular elevator only goes as far as the thirty-fifth—the assistant floor, the secretaries' floor—and from the thirty-sixth on, you have to pass through the secretaries' floor and take a private elevator.

So when I get off on the thirty-fifth and walk between the secretaries sitting behind their partitions, the reactions split in two. One side doesn't know who I am and looks puzzled. The other recognizes me and startles. The ones who startle are even trembling, and I can tell the image that spread from my disciplining of Choi Soohan has grown even more vicious.

As for the ones who don't know me—why... Ah. My hairstyle is different, so they didn't catch on. Franc, who's always with me, isn't at my side either, which probably encourages the mistake.

"Hello. What brings you here?"

I'm fiddling with my hair when a secretary I've never seen approaches and addresses me with a polite face and posture—and Hwayeon's secretaries start staring at the one who approached me with looks of horror and pity.

If they look at me like I'm some villain, even I'd get my feelings hurt...

More than that, I've never seen this one's face, or those others'. Secretaries for Boss Park Jiwoong and Department Head Ha Yucheol, maybe? What do I even say? Do I introduce myself, with my own mouth, as the provisional Master?

I'm hesitating, somehow embarrassed to introduce myself, when Hwayeon's secretaries—somewhere my line of sight doesn't reach—mouth words at the bob-cut secretary in front of me. Did their effort, repeating my name over and over, get through? The bob-cut secretary's face goes pale, as if she's seen a ghost.

If I talk at length here she might actually faint, so I smile, meaning she shouldn't be scared, and speak.

"May I pass?"

"Ah... I-I'm sorry for the... intrusion."

I pass the secretary, who retreats as stiff as a doll, and step onto the elevator—and the other secretaries drag the bob-cut one into a corner and whisper in her ear.

"Ms. Jeon Jiyeong! Th-that's the Demon Master! Didn't you see the notice with the warnings?!"

"I-I never thought the one who beats women and drops whoever he hits into a hell of pleasure would be so young..."

"You mustn't judge by looks alone! He makes even a physical enhancement user leak her fluids in pleasure until her jeans are soaked through—if you catch the Demon Master's eye the wrong way, you're finished! If it happens to you, Ms. Jeon Jiyeong, you might spray love-juices like a fountain and die of dehydration!"

"Eek!"

"B-but how much pleasure would it take to get like that?"

"The rumors say it feels like swinging between heaven and hell..."

Listening in on the secretaries' murmuring with Spatial Perception, I get the sense the rumors are spreading in an increasingly strange direction. For instance: my hands are no different from a drug, and if you keep getting hit you reach an unbearable climax and die of pleasure. Or if I take a dislike to you, you're dragged off to some deserted warehouse, wail under a heavy rod, and die of pleasure. Or if you're marked, you're tied to a bed and ravished until you die, and you die of pleasure...

...Why are they all stories about dying? More than that—what is this. Every one of these rumors is based on fact. Where did they come from?

I turn my head toward the secretaries at the continuing stream of shocking stories, and they quickly spin around and pretend to work.

...Anyway, if rumors like that are going around, women won't approach me... My reputation becoming an absolute disaster is a little sad, but I force some comfort on myself—it's for the best—and head up to the office.

Ugh. Thank god Franc isn't here. I never dreamed the rumors would spread like that. I absolutely must not turn on Mana Vision in front of women.

But why do I have the feeling it's already too late...