Energy Eater 3 (1)

I went up to the thirty-seventh floor to see Aunt Hyeryeong in her office, and found her, same as always, buried to the eyes in paperwork.

I walked in giving her a rough once-over for any sign she was unwell, and the moment she noticed me she looked up with a smile of welcome.

"Come in."

"Sorry about this morning. Making you work even on the weekend..."

"Not at all. I was already on my way in. Forgive me, but there's something I have to finish this morning, so please excuse me for staying seated."

Yikes. She works Saturdays too? Every time I saw her she was planted in that office, doing nothing but stare at documents. Did every adult have to live like that?

Spatial Perception showed me the office wing and both business-support buildings packed to the walls. The secretary noonas from earlier all seemed to be in as well.

"It's fine. I know how busy you are, Aunt. More importantly — did you eat?"

"I made do with a sandwich."

"...Does that even fill you up?"

"I prefer a light breakfast. And this is still a busy stretch. But what brings you by today? If it's about Ha Cheolsu..."

"You can handle that bastard however you like. Right now I'm just wandering around because I'm bored."

"Hehe. I doubt you'll find much entertainment in the office wing."

"It's surprisingly fascinating, hearing the rumors about me while I walk around."

For an instant her expression went cold, and her eyes flicked down toward the floor below. No question about it. Right now Aunt Hyeryeong was looking straight at the secretaries on the thirty-fifth.

I offered the noonas a silent prayer for their souls. She had already smoothed her face back into a smile.

"I'll speak to Director Kim and Director Ha in Business Support, so why don't you look around the warehouse? The sightseeing ought to be fun."

The warehouse? The place they stacked aberrant byproducts? Hmm. Not much of a tour, to my mind. Seeing a thing with your own eyes was different in the feel of it, sure — but if I wanted to look, I could do that perfectly well from where I sat.

Then, by chance, the Energy Eater came back to me. The one that had changed after eating my TP. They'd said its nature had shifted, that it had lost the traits of an Energy Eater, hadn't they?

Might as well ask what had become of it.

"I'll look at that later. More importantly — do you know what happened to the Energy Eater I caught at Iljasan, after that?"

"Ah... That child is probably going to die soon."

"Huh? Die? Why?"

She hummed, rummaged through a desk drawer, and held two sheets out to me.

"It'll be faster if you see for yourself."

I clicked my tongue when I saw it. A drop from a hundred kilograms to seventy-five and a drop from eight hundred grams to six hundred did not mean the same thing at all.

It already spent most of the day asleep, and trouble breathing and shock convulsions were coming on at regular intervals. Death looked like a matter of time. Aunt Hyeryeong hadn't said it was dying for nothing.

"Just like the footage you saw last time, it hasn't taken in a single bit of Phase Power since that day. The researchers concluded that it had changed — from an unstable constitution like an Energy Eater's, which has to ingest Phase Power regularly just to live, into one that can survive without eating it. Lately, though, they've reversed that claim."

"Reversed it how?"

"They think the energy it needs has changed. They tried forcing Phase Stones on it, but hold one too close and it flies into a rage and tries to bite. Feed it while it's asleep and it vomits everything up once it wakes. That seems to be why."

So it can only live by eating my Phase Power? I needed to see the thing before it died. Looking at it might clear up the parts of my Phase Power I still didn't understand.

"Could I see that Energy Eater? I'd like to, before it dies."

"Now? It may already be dead... I'll call. Give me a moment."

Aunt Hyeryeong lifted the receiver on her desk and dialed. I listened to the voice spilling out of it, and recognized Director Kim Moohul, the man I'd met at school before.

Director Kim Moohul had clearly been hoping I was about to hand him another gift. Aunt Hyeryeong told him there was no such thing and hung up cold.

"It had a somewhat dangerous spell last night, but it's stabilized now and asleep, they say. Most of the researchers have already given up. They're only waiting for the moment it dies, so they can log the final data. I was thinking we might go after lunch, around one. Would that be all right?"

"Yes. I'll be amusing myself on the fortieth floor."

"Understood. I'll call when we're ready."

I waved to Aunt Hyeryeong, who answered with a soft-eyed smile, and headed up to the fortieth floor with the Energy Eater turning over in my mind.

The part that unsettled me most was the hypothesis that my Phase Power carried withdrawal, and the power to change a constitution — that if a creature didn't keep ingesting it, it would waste away like the Energy Eater and die.

If that hypothesis was true...

......

A medicine never has only good effects, and it never has only one. Follow that line of thought, and I couldn't very well treat my Phase Power as unconditionally good energy either.

All the more reason I had to see the Energy Eater.

Back in my office I sat down, switched on the Certifier, and searched for Energy Eaters. Nothing that caught my interest came up.

Most of it was the usual. An Energy Eater had shown up in some city. An Energy Eater had hit a Phase Stone power plant and shut it down, blacking out a whole region and running up tens of millions of dollars in damage. That sort of thing.

"Hmm..."

I thought it through again. There was something in my Phase Power that wasn't like anyone else's.

This morning's training made it plain. It was Phase Power all the same, and yet it wouldn't mix with the Phase Stones drifting in the air. And when I poured it into my lovers' bodies, they absorbed it straight as Phase Power. That, too.

The Energy Eater changed because it ate my TP. That much is certain.

For a moment I worried about my lovers, then shook the thought off. They'd swallowed plenty of the TP in my semen along with the semen itself, and nothing strange had happened when I rubbed TP on their eyes or got it on their skin. They'd be fine.

Whatever the truth was, I'd know it in three hours, once I met the Energy Eater.

I fiddled with the Certifier in my office, and the moment it hit noon I went upstairs and woke the two women sleeping soundly.

Yeongeun whined that she didn't want to get up, so I tormented her with a few smacks to the soft lower belly, so full of my seed it looked pregnant. Her H-switch flipped straight back on. She tried to pin me, and I stopped her with a knuckle to the head.

Saliva clicked in my throat at the lush body winding around me like a snake, but I had an appointment at one. It couldn't be helped. Once we started, an hour was the minimum.

As matter-of-fact as any other part of the day, Yeongeun and Franc emptied themselves of my seed and came out without any particular fuss, and the three of us ate lunch. I told them about the Energy Eater and asked Yeongeun whether she wanted to come.

"Mmm~. Given the position I hold, if I show up you won't be able to look around in peace, Seoha. So I'll just sleep a little longer."

"All right. Do that."

I patted the plump backside barely covered by a single pair of short shorts. Yeongeun gave me a foxlike smile, swayed her hips, and vanished into the room.

At one I took Aunt Hyeryeong's call. Franc and I went down to the underground garage, and there she was, waiting beside the red Ferrari we'd ridden in before.

"They still haven't dissected the Energy Eater?"

"They said the dissection can wait until after it dies, so the observation record came first."

On the way to the Ability Users Association building in Gangdong-gu, Aunt Hyeryeong and I talked about this and that. I was mostly the one listening, but it was a useful hour for learning how the company actually ran.

Then the Energy Eater came up. The joint ecological study by the government and the Ability Users Association — the one that had taken the creature off my hands — had gotten nowhere. It was marching in place.

It wasn't even an Energy Eater anymore, so what were they studying? They didn't know that, though. Nothing to be done.

When we arrived I looked up at the building, needling into the very top of the sky.

The first time I'd come to the Ability Users Association building, my Search range had been too short to take the whole of it in. The second time I'd been too focused on the second-round review to look.

Now I was sure the place had nothing that could sense my Spatial Perception, so I swept it from the lowest floor to the highest.

...Nothing special. Maybe the odd part was that a building that huge held not a single report — aside from the books, everything seemed to be stored on the computers. I wasn't sure ordinary was the word, but the layout reminded me of a raid-team building.

The only raid-team buildings I'd actually seen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠properly were Time River's and Grand Blue's.

The Ability Users Association building stood 450 meters tall, eighty-nine floors. Sure enough, at the very top, Korean Branch Director Kang Hyunwoo was working in a space done up like a luxury home. Following the floors down, I found the Energy Eater I was looking for somewhere in the middle.

That would be the Association's Aberrant Research Institute.

The institute took up three floors. I'd expected animals penned for live experiments, dissection, analysis — but what showed itself was closer to an ordinary animal hospital. Space divided up like a normal office; people peering into things that looked like microscopes, writing documents beside them, turning over some tiny specimen I couldn't identify.

I rode the elevator up with Aunt Hyeryeong, and when we stepped out on the institute floor a middle-aged man I'd met over the Energy Eater was waiting.

"Welcome. It's been a while, Grand Blue Master."

"Hello."

Director Kim Moohul of the Korea Defense Research Institute — stout, a little shorter than me — greeted us like the master of the place, though this wasn't even his lab.

I took the hand he offered and shook it. He grinned, and then his eyes flashed as they landed on Franc beside me.

The look that sized Franc up as research material soured my mood a little. Aunt Hyeryeong stepped forward and warned him.

"Director Kim Moohul. Flandre is exceedingly precious to our Master. I trust you won't open your mouth without thinking."

"A-ahem. I didn't say anything. Come, come, this way. The white fox is in the secret room."

I know. The moment I'd stepped off the elevator, the skin-and-bones creature had jerked its head up, thrashing, and stared in my direction. I followed Director Kim Moohul down a winding stretch of corridor and stopped before an electronic door guarded by two G Class physical-reinforcement ability users.

He stood at the scanner and had his palm and retina read at the same time. We went through the opened door; the entrance sealed, and air began to build in the jets set into the walls.

Aunt Hyeryeong was in a skirt. I pressed it down with my hand, and she startled — then a rough wind burst from the walls, and she nodded and clutched the hem.

Strong wind blasted from all six sides and beat the dust off us. We stepped into a clean room lined with research equipment, and there in the space prepared at its center the caged white fox was squirming.

Against that pure white fur, the black eyes were so plainly glad to see me that I ended up smiling wryly in spite of myself.

"Hah. What's gotten into this thing?"

Director Kim Moohul stroked his chin and muttered that the suddenly thrashing fox was strange. One of the five researchers in the clean room came over and whispered to him.

"It's been like this for a while. I think it's reacting to that boy."

"Hey! A boy? That's the Master of Grand Blue. Watch your mouth!"

At the director's low bark the researcher stared at me, eyes wide, and the four others nearby startled and looked over as well.

I ignored their gazes and looked at the Energy Eater.

It was shut in a transparent case, the height adjusted so I could see it without bending down. Half of that cramped space — barely a few square meters — was taken up by a cushion that looked soft, and the creature lying on it was a wretched sight.

Not wretched from wounds. Wretched because it looked like leather pulled over bone. Horrifying, even so.

And still it kept struggling, trying to get to me, though it didn't even have the strength to cry — only a thin, rasping breath. Each time, the belly that jutted out, swollen with its organs, rose and fell in a pant.

When I drew close, it soon stopped thrashing and looked up at me.

"This guy's looking at me like, what took you so long?"

I turned to Franc, who had been watching beside me. She seemed to feel the same; she gave a small nod.

Kyung. Kyiiing. Keung.

The white fox let out a faint cry, then, spent, closed its eyes and buried its muzzle in the cushion.

Spatial Perception showed the Phase Power inside its body had fallen to nine. When I'd heard from Director Kim Moohul on April 14th, it had been eighty-nine. It must have stayed alive this long by burning the Phase Power in its own body.

Come to think of it, today was July 4th. Count the days from April 14th to now and it came out to exactly eighty. And the Phase Power in that body had dropped by exactly eighty.

One a day, then? If it hit zero, this thing would die too — so if I'd come nine days later, I would have missed it. Ah. Another one just dropped. Eight now.

While I was examining the fox, Director Kim Moohul came up beside me.

"We compared the white fox against the Phase Power pattern provided by the Altzhagon Research Institute in the United States. The result is that we can no longer call it an Energy Eater. A second look with the identifier returned only one finding: a downgraded version of an aberrant."

"When we met three months ago, didn't you call the Energy Eater a hybrid type? And now it's a downgrade?"

"Hm? Ah — I only called it a hybrid because it was a basic detection type with one peculiarity: it absorbs Phase Power itself through its muzzle. I didn't mean a hybrid in your sense, Grand Blue Master. Not a Special Type, holding two kinds at once — physical reinforcement and detection."

Did he? True enough. Even then he'd said hybrid, not hybrid type.

"So what is this downgraded version?"

At the question, Director Kim Moohul stroked the stubble on his chin and looked at the creature.

"Ordinary aberrants generally keep the Phase Power they've taken into their bodies just as it is. Aberrants of mid-high rank and below do have to eat something and resupply energy if they mean to survive. But that is purely an act of maintaining ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the flesh. The Phase Power itself does not decrease. The white ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fox, as you can see, cannot maintain its body even with food, and the Phase Power itself is steadily declining."

With that he took out his phone, opened a small hologram window, and showed me a graph of the Energy Eater's Phase Power loss. Sure enough, it was marked as dropping by one every single day.

"We tried supplying Phase Stones to replenish its Phase Power, and we tried forcing them down its throat. Some physiological response, perhaps — it rejects the stones as well."

He took off his glasses, wiped them on his white coat, and went on.

"An Energy Eater cannot recover Phase Power on its own, and it consumes Phase Power on a regular cycle. On that point, this white fox still falls within the category of an Energy Eater. What sets it apart from an Energy Eater is that it cannot replenish Phase Power with Phase Stones."

"If its Phase Power hits zero, it dies?"

"Yes. That is why we have taken to calling a creature that cannot sustain its own survival a downgraded version."

So in eight days, this thing would die. If it was going to die anyway, I wanted to take it and look it over myself. Would they allow it?

"Could I take this one with me? If it's going to die regardless, I'd like to bring it home and examine it a little."

"What? Hmm. That's..."

Even I thought it was a pushy request, and sure enough Director Kim Moohul looked troubled. Still, the awkwardness on his face said a little persuasion might tip him.

"You said it isn't an Energy Eater anymore, right? Then it drops out of the state-designated harmful aberrant classification too, doesn't it? And if it's this glad to see me, it might even live if I'm the one feeding it. Rather than leaving it to die in eight days, wouldn't it be better if I took it and looked after it?"

Partway through I turned to Aunt Hyeryeong and put it to her. She rested her chin on her hand, thought a moment, and answered.

"I don't see a particular reason it couldn't be done. There are ability users who keep certain cute Lowest-Rank Variants and Low-Rank Variants. If it were still an Energy Eater it would have been difficult, but the white fox isn't one anymore, and it's on the verge of breathing its last... Request it from above, and they might allow it. Isn't that so, Director Kim?"

"Ahem! The white fox has never reacted like this before, so under the Grand Blue Master's hand it might even eat a Phase Stone. Hmm."

The director thought briefly, nodded, and spoke to my aunt.

"Authority over the white fox's disposition isn't mine. Why don't you speak with the Branch Director?"

"Shall we?"

"I'll come along and add my weight to the persuasion. So if — if this one should survive — might I ask you to allow us to collect blood and fur, even if only now and then?"

He kept glancing at me as he said it, so I answered in my aunt's place.

"That much isn't difficult."

"Thank you. And if the white fox dies, we will recover the carcass and dissect it. Please understand that as well."

Well, of course.

"Shall we go, Director Lee?"

"Let's, Director Kim."

Aunt Hyeryeong went off with Director Kim Moohul to discuss the transfer with the Branch Director, and I, under the researchers' curious stares, looked at the white fox panting out its shallow breaths.

A dozen or so minutes later Aunt Hyeryeong came back with word from Branch Director Kang Hyunwoo. If the white fox caused any trouble, the fault would be entirely mine.

"So long as it isn't attacking people or wrecking national infrastructure, those aren't points you need to worry about much. The white fox will be living in the Master's penthouse anyway. And on the off chance it survives, they asked for a promise that at least once every six months we would report to the Ability Users Association whether it's still alive, and cooperate with their investigation. I accepted."

She told me while glancing at a notepad. A dozen-odd items were written on it.

Most of the lines had been struck through. Only two items were checked — responsibility if the white fox ran wild, and a survival report once every six months.

She must have negotiated in the meantime and refused every strange clause. Among the struck lines were demands that I submit a written record of its growth every time the white fox grew, that I share with the Association any profit that came of it, and that I cough back up the Energy Eater capture bounty I'd been paid.

Anyway — handling all of that in a mere dozen minutes. Aunt Hyeryeong's negotiating really was something to click your tongue at.

I was starting to see why Team Leader Chae Hoon of the Ability Users Association had frowned at the news that Aunt Hyeryeong would be stepping in as the working-level lead.

"Guess I'd better keep a firm grip on the leash. There's nothing in there about me having to spit back the capture bounty I received, is there?"

"They did bring up giving it back, but that was a capture bounty, plain and simple. Compensation you received for helping catch it, yes? Returning that doesn't make sense. It goes against common sense, too."

Somehow I could picture the Branch Director's face, scowling as he drew line after line through demands that had been shot down. No — I didn't have to picture it. Up on the top floor, the Branch Director's face really was puckered, as if he'd bitten into an unripe persimmon.

I'd done nothing but crack the whip. I ought to offer at least one carrot. What would do...

"This morning a Mid-Low Rank Variant spawned on its own in my training ground, and I disposed of it. Is there any kind of bounty for that?"

"Ah! The training ground in Shinchon-dong... Hmm. A naturally occurring Mid-Low Rank Variant should come with a bounty that isn't small."

"Then let's give them that instead. He's the Korean Branch Director, when all's said and done. Taking nothing but the gains and conceding nothing ourselves feels a little... much, doesn't it?"

Aunt Hyeryeong listened, then smiled wryly and nodded.

"Now that you mention it, you're right. Talking with the Branch Director, my professional instincts must have slipped out without my noticing."

"As for how it's delivered — Hyeryeong... Director, I'll leave that to you."

"I'll see to it."

The moment ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠our conversation ended, Director Kim Moohul approached as if he'd been waiting.

"I have a strong feeling this one will be perfectly fine once it's with the Grand Blue Master. If it recovers its health, I'd very much like to ask you to let us stu—"

"Director Kim Moohul! Are you lobbying the Master directly right now?!"

"Wh-what?! No, that's not—"

"Not what? What isn't it? We already set an examination once every six months as the condition, didn't we? If asking for more research on top of that isn't lobbying, then what is it?!"

Aunt Hyeryeong had seen Director Kim Moohul try to skip over her and appeal to me directly, and her eyes lit like a tigress whose territory had been invaded. She tore into him in a rat-tat barrage.

I tapped the case, signaling a researcher who was staring blankly at the director as he sweated and tried to explain himself. The man came to, went to the computer beside the case, and started working something. With a soft hiss of escaping air, the outer wall of the case began to sink slowly into the floor.

The case was opening, but the white fox still didn't move, muzzle buried in the cushion. At last it opened fully. I reached for the skeletal white fox and gathered it into my arms, and it opened its eyes weakly and lifted its head to look up at me.

Then, as if its strength had run out, it dropped its head again.

Better get home and try feeding it a little TP.

I soothed Aunt Hyeryeong, who was thoroughly bristling, and Director Kim Moohul wiped the cold sweat from his brow with the look of a man who had just survived, thanking me. I said goodbye to him and left the lab.

Out of the lab and into the elevator, the white fox finally pricked its ears, opened its eyes a crack, and began to look quietly around.