Energy Eater III (4)

Rumors really are a frightening thing. All I had done was drag Choi Soohan in by the hair a single time, in front of the secretary ladies, and yet the story had swollen and spread this far.

This was not normal. Someone had meddled. I was sure of it. Sophia, or Adelberg, or Sophia Adelberg!

Judging by the women ability users sneaking glances at me, desperate to test whether the rumor was true, it had already saturated the whole of Grand Blue.

What was I supposed to do if it reached my sister and Mom......

I had a table to myself and was picking at snacks and cake I had never seen before, sunk deep in that worry, when the very source of it walked up and spoke.

"I'm back, Master."

"Eek! She called him her Master! Her Master! Did you hear that?!"

"Haaah~! So it was true?! It really was?!"

"I—I want to experience it too......"

......I was going to lose my mind. The moment Choi Soohan opened her mouth, a soundless uproar seemed to ripple outward in waves.

She was dressed in full-body tights armor, boots and long gloves plated with alloy, and a black short-sleeved coat. Hwayeon had mentioned the tights chain-armor she used to wear. This had to be it.

Was the short-sleeved coat because the tights armor laid every curve of her body bare? Her hair was neatly trimmed, twisted up, and fixed with a hair stick, and the result was so prim that no one would ever have guessed she was an extreme masochist sow......

"Right. Good work. Go and rest."

"Yes!"

The few men still lingering in the banquet hall, here, it seemed, to confirm the rumor, stared at me with bright, eager eyes, while the women turned this way glittering with an entirely different light.

The pretty girl heading back paid no mind to the gazes pouring over her and left the hall with a light step, looking perfectly spirited.

People followed Choi Soohan's retreating back, then turned to me again and began sending looks even hotter than before.

I couldn't endure the stares of the women ability users. Before I left, I glanced around for anyone I ought to greet...... and found Boss Park Jiwoong, Park Chorong from Time River, Team Leader Kim Ga-min, and a recovery ability user from Hwarang, all of them sparkling at me!

"......I'll be heading back as well."

"Master! One moment!"

"Yes?"

I had been about to leave when the recovery-ability woman caught hold of me. She was going to ask something...... I had a bad feeling.

"Miss Choi Soohan is only at the very threshold of D-Class, and yet for five days her restrained, razor-sharp conduct drew tremendous attention from men and women alike. How did a Choi Soohan like that come to call you her Mas...ter?!"

"......"

The bad feeling had been right.

I turned a troubled look on Franc, but she only wore a prim little expression that said This is entirely of Seoha's own making, and went on cutting a slice of cake and putting it in her mouth.

This wouldn't do. I had to revise the plan. At this rate, before the raid team was even newly formed, I was going to be suspected of moral rot! This was no time to worry about women bewitched by Mana Vision. I needed to worry about the company's image!

"......What's your name?"

"Chohee! It's a one-character name!"

Chohee, her ordinary bob neatly trimmed, flushed faintly and waited for my answer. The women at the other tables were no different, ears tilted this way, and even the people sharing her table had their attention fixed on me.

I spoke clearly, so that they would hear it too.

"Yes. Miss Chohee, do you remember what state Choi Soohan was in a month ago?"

"Uh......"

When she couldn't answer and glanced at the person beside her with a face that asked what this was about, I went on in a level voice. Faltering or stammering now would only weaken the effect.

"She was mentally broken to the point I wondered whether she might give up on living. Leave her like that and she looked likely to die in the Phase World, and she wasn't someone with no tie to me, so I put her through a rather severe course of mental discipline. In the process, she developed a tendency to depend on me."

"Th-then!"

"I know what sort of rumors are circulating. They're absurd. Even to my ear they're ridiculous beyond words. It would be better, I think, if you considered how those rumors would land on Choi Soohan, a woman just like you, and acted accordingly. What do you think?"

"......"

"I won't be taking any further questions that invade Choi Soohan's private life. Is there anything else?"

I hardened my face and spoke stiffly, as if to say I would permit nothing beyond this, and Chohee and the women around her flinched.

"If not, I'll be going. Boss Park Jiwoong, thank you for your work as well."

"Ah. Yes."

I told the awkwardly smiling Boss Park Jiwoong to rest easy and went home, and Franc looked at me with a peculiar eye.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Did you expect something like this would happen, Seoha?"

"No? Why?"

"You answered so smoothly that it was, how should I put it......"

"Did I sound like a con man?"

Franc couldn't find the phrase she wanted, and when I let out a short laugh she shook her head in denial.

"Most of the rumor is grounded in fact, but I can hardly just admit it. Do that, and it would damage the raid team's image."

"Mm. That is...... true."

"I was worried about exactly that, so the response came out naturally. Temporary or not, I'm the one slated to be Master, and I showed them my stance in person. Strange rumors shouldn't breed any further from here."

I was patting the backside of Franc, who tilted her head with a face that only half understood, when a call came in from Yeongeun.

"A lot of work?"

I had meant to soothe Yeongeun, who was sulking with a sulky little complaint laced with aegyo, apparently alone, when a laugh suddenly escaped me.

"Nothing. You're cute."

At being called cute, Yeongeun's lips twitched as she forced the laugh down, and the expression was so funny that I burst out laughing before I knew it.

"Haha. Hmm. Mm, perfect timing. Is Yoo Chae-rin doing well? I heard a little from Hwayeon, but it was fragmentary, so I can't tell whether she's all right or not."

"That good? If even you want her, she must be outstanding."

Re-education? What kind of re-education was that? More to the point, she had poached a talent from the Ability User Association. Wasn't the branch chief grumbling?

"Yeongeun...... you look like a villain boss."

Covering her mouth with the back of her hand and laughing a delighted hoho, Yeongeun gave off, just as Franc had said, the thick aura of a final villain boss.

"Heh. Anyway, Yoo Chae-rin tried to help me as well, so look after her and don't let her get hurt."

She winked as she said it, cute enough that I laughed all over again.

I fed the white fox, washed up, and finished getting ready for school on Monday, and before I knew it, it was time to sleep. Lying alone with Franc in the big bed felt strange. Ever since the ability verification had ended, we had always slept as three, or as four.

Lying as just the two of us for the first time in a long while left me in a strange mood, so I climbed on top of Franc, and her figure in the moonlight was like a goddess of beauty. My heart pounded.

"I love you, Franc."

"I love you too. Seoha."

I watched her face as a blush began to rise, then slowly undressed her.

In the morning I got up, put on my school uniform, and checked with Spatial Perception what Choi Soohan was doing. She was face-down on the bed in exactly the same posture as last night.

She was staying in a small rest room, no bigger than a studio apartment, on a lower floor of the office wing. I hadn't said a single word about coming to see her, but she seemed to have been waiting for a reward. She had stayed up all night waiting for my summons, and around morning she had collapsed face-down on the bed, utterly deflated.

......As I had discussed with Hwayeon before, I ought to send Choi Soohan to Grandpa Butler.

Before school I called Yeongeun to sound her out, and she said Grandpa Butler was too old to go on with a butler's work, and that this was perfect. She meant to use Choi Soohan as his successor.

She answered that she would contact Grandpa Butler, so once classes ended today I would have to drop Choi Soohan off at the mansion in Bangbae-dong.

Pulling on my uniform jacket, I looked at the white fox sprawled on a cushion, belly round and poking out after stuffing itself on fruit.

"This one still doesn't have a breeding permit, so I can't take it to school. Hey. Don't make trouble, and stay quiet until I get back. Understood?"

Kyung?

The little thing twitched the tiny black nose at the tip of its snow-white muzzle and looked up at me as if to ask where I was going.

I set a bowl of clean water down in front of it and dropped in 0.5 TP, and it started frantically lapping the water, which gave off a pale blue glow. Franc brought a slightly larger bowl, set it beside the fox, and poured premium dog food into it, and I said,

"I'm going to school and coming back. I'll be home around five, so eat this for lunch."

Kiiing......

"Once the breeding permit comes through, I'll take you around with me from then on, so don't be disappointed and just wait a few days."

Kyung!

When I got to school, Han Go-eun and her crew waved with bright faces. They seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened on Friday, which was a relief.

Whenever I had a spare moment in class, I turned on the Certifier and looked into whether anyone had seen something like a vision when their class rose, but as expected, there was no one.

I also asked the princess and the triplets in passing, as if it were nothing, whether people saw visions of that sort when their class went up, and they said they had never heard of such a thing. Franc was no different.

"Seoha? You've been searching Alastor's Terrible Dark Castle quite often lately. Did you get some kind of hunch?"

"......"

The question came out of nowhere, and I failed to answer.

Franc, catching that something was off, crouched in front of me where I sat in a corner of the school rooftop garden and looked up with a worried face.

"Franc, your panties are showing."

I had tossed it out to change the subject, but of course it didn't work. She didn't even think of covering the snow-white string panties, the axe-mark crease on full display. She puffed her cheeks a little and reached out a pretty finger to pinch and tug at mine.

"Please tell me. I'm Seoha's Franc, and his alone, you know? No matter what happens, I at least will never leave your side."

Seeing her like this, I wanted to tell her. At the same time, the hunch that had come on so strongly kept the words shut in my throat.

Hey, hunch. Come on out. What am I supposed to do now? Am I allowed to tell her?

.......

Haa.

I pulled Franc hard around the waist, buried my face in her soft chest, and thought. Why shouldn't I tell my lovers about that vision? What happens if I do? How accurate had the hunch been up to now?

......I just won't say it.

The hunch had gone off often enough on things that hardly mattered. The moment I went to eat a snack, for instance, a feeling that I would regret it—I ate it, it was awful, and I regretted it; then Hwayeon brought top-grade lobster for dinner, and I regretted all over again that I had filled my stomach with garbage. Or a feeling, when I was bored and about to go out, that going out would bring bad luck—I ignored it, a sudden downpour hit, and I got soaked to the skin. It had triggered that way from time to time, but following the hunch had never turned out badly. Ignoring it had gone wrong more often.

Feeling the thin cloth of her summer uniform, I stroked along Franc's back.

"It's my hunch, but I can't tell you yet. It isn't that I don't trust you, Franc, or anything of the sort. I think this is something I have to worry through on my own."

"All right. Then when the time comes, you'll tell me, won't you?"

"Of course."

Franc looked at me, answering at once, with gentle eyes, and rubbed her cheek against the crown of my head.

The explanation had ended simply. She met my eyes for a moment, then sat on my knee, drew my head into an embrace, and said,

"We ought to look properly into that Alastor's Terrible Dark Castle. When Hwayeon comes back tomorrow, let's call Yeongeun as well and talk it over together."

"Hm?"

"You're bothered by the dream, aren't you, Seoha? I searched the internet on my phone too, and they say that the higher an ability user's class, the more their thoughts and their actions come into alignment. So if you've grown curious about the Dark Castle, I think confirming it matters."

Franc settled on that simple conclusion and stroked my head with a smiling face. I had hidden it because I felt I shouldn't speak of this, and seeing her understand me anyway made my chest feel as if a needle were pricking it, again and again.

"All right. Let's do that."

School ended. I parted from the kids and came home, and the white fox dashed over, tail swaying. It was only the second day, but it had put on a little flesh and already seemed to get around well enough on its own.

I set the fox on my shoulder and moved to my office in the Grand Blue Building, and Aunt Hye-ryeong came in with several documents, as if she had gotten word.

"Oh my. The white fox is starting to put on weight."

Stepping off the elevator, Aunt Hye-ryeong smiled faintly at the white fox, which sat daintily atop the lavish, wide executive desk and rolled its eyes at her.

"It eats so well I almost wonder whether the claim that it doesn't eat was a lie. Look at this. The belly's sticking out."

I took it by the waist with both hands and lifted it the way one lifts a cheer, and a white potbelly, stuffed full of fruit and poking out round, came into view.

"Hehe. It really does seem you and that child were bound by fate, Master. Here. The breeding permit for a Lowest-Rank Variant, issued by the World Phase Ability User Association."

I took what she handed me and opened it. It was an A4 sheet traced with a simple gold-foil pattern, and inside the pattern a short clause had been written.

"I only brought it on Saturday, and it's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already out. That's fast."

"Because the party in question is you, Master. And......"

Having opened with something that carried weight, Aunt Hye-ryeong hardened her face slightly and held another document out in front of me.

"And this?"

I spread open a binder dozens of pages thick.

"Along with the formal complaints, and because of Department Head Ha Yucheol's strong request, Grand Blue also recorded the reports and the statements of damage from the shop owners harmed at the mall and drafted an accusation. The damages alone come to tens of millions of won, and the complainants number thirty-two. Of course, people saying they will file are still appearing even now."

Looking through the contents, it truly felt hopeless. Even if he served his sentence and walked out of prison, I ought to bury him in debt so he could never live an ordinary life again, and see to it that he never stepped off a shrimp boat or an Okhotsk crab boat for the rest of his days.

By any means necessary.

"Accordingly, the Time River legal team plans to begin filing the direct complaints and the accusation starting next Monday. As for the filing costs......"

Listening to Aunt Hye-ryeong's report while I looked over the papers, I remembered what Yeongeun had told me the night before.

Her face was faintly flushed, as if anger were rising. I glanced at her once, lowered my eyes to the documents, and spoke.

"Department Head Ha Yucheol is a tiger of a man. I can't understand how a son like this was born to him."

"I know. If the boy had taken after even half of Department Head Ha, he wouldn't be like this...... Aigoo."

She sighed, frowning slightly as if she thought the same, and still didn't seem to have caught what I was driving at.

"The way I see it, this bastard Ha Cheolsu and Department Head Ha Yucheol don't look alike at all. What do you think, Aunt Hye-ryeong?"

"......?"

"Well, he might take strongly after his mother's side...... When I saw him standing with Department Head Ha Yucheol on Friday, you wouldn't even have known they were father and son."

"......Shall we look into it?"

Only then did she catch on. Her eyes flashed, and when I smiled at her sidelong, Aunt Hye-ryeong grinned back at me. Her face said she hadn't thought I would come up with something like this.

"What did I just say?"

She looked at me for a moment as if this were rather sudden, then smiled and took the documents from my hand.

"I can't quite remember either. My memory seems to be slipping a little these days."

"Dear me. I ought to see that you get some food that's good for the memory."

"If you do, I'll accept it with thanks. I'll be going, then."

"Yes. Thank you for the work."

When Aunt Hye-ryeong, eyes gleaming, disappeared into the elevator, I looked up at Franc, who had been standing beside me.

"I feel as if I just made more work for her, and I don't know why she's so pleased."

"Perhaps because, if Ha Cheolsu isn't Department Head Ha Yucheol's own son, she thinks his burden will lighten a great deal?"

"You think so? From the character of Department Head Ha Yucheol that I've watched through Spatial Perception these past few days, even if the boy isn't his child, I think he would still take him in his arms."

Franc had nothing to say to that, and closed her mouth.

I was checking again with Spatial Perception to see what Choi Soohan was up to when word came from Yeongeun that she couldn't leave work today either.

I told the whining Yeongeun that I loved her, and to eat properly so she wouldn't wear herself out, and she was tremendously happy.

I left the white fox at home, whimpering because it didn't want to be apart from me, slipped past people's eyes, and went to find Choi Soohan.

When I opened her door and stepped in, Choi Soohan, who had been training her muscles in a black short-sleeved shirt and denim shorts, brightened, flew to me, and dropped into a deep bow.

"Welcome, Master!"

Then she knelt, set both hands on the floor, and started looking up at me with sparkling eyes.

Breasts on a crater-class scale, a match for my sister's, had considerably undercut her feminine charm, so she seemed to be compensating with her hair and her face, switching to long straight hair and putting on a little makeup to bring her womanliness to bear.

"Right. You behaved yourself in Team 1, I assume?"

"Yes! I would never let a flaw fall on Master's reputa—ahn."

The sentence was going to run long, so I caught Choi Soohan's cheek and pinched it, and the corners of her eyes shivered as she made a delighted face.

"Too long. Keep it short."

"Yes! I did my best!"

"Good. I'll give you a reward. Bring that, and stick your hips out."

The moment I finished, she whipped a long, rectangular, weighty box out from under the bed, took the cane that had been inside, and offered it to me respectfully with both hands.

That wooden box looked like a byproduct of an aberrant as well, and she had gone out of her way to obtain even a box to keep the cane in...... Incredible.

I sighed inwardly, and the instant I picked up the cane, Choi Soohan once again flung off her shorts and her panties at the same time.

Damn it! I had missed the moment to stop her again!

Whatever. But why wasn't the bed an ordinary bed? It was a stone bed. Choi Soohan flopped onto it in a flash and looked up at me with a face pounding, heaving, and brimming with expectation.

......She must have switched to a hard stone bed because she wanted the impact to be greater...... She had really gone all out.

I opened the refrigerator, brought a water bottle, and splashed it across Choi Soohan's backside. The taut rear soaked through and turned moist in an instant.

I had no taste for anything like SM, but because of Choi Soohan I had looked into it a little. In the old days, they say, water was splashed during a caning so that the women's intimate parts would not show. In SM play, it is to make the blow cling. In practice, striking with water on the hand hurts and stings more than striking bare skin.

"Aaah, Master. Master......"

I ordered Choi Soohan, whose hips trembled slightly at the touch of the cold water, to count each stroke and offer her thanks. I had heard that stimulating the mind this way made it even better, and it seemed to be true. A spring began to bead and well from the valley between her legs.

At any rate, when I brought the cane down on the wet backside, a chilling crack rang out. Seeing her bite down a moan—"Hhhp!"—and tremble, it seemed a single stroke had already driven her to climax.

Franc made a dumbfounded face, as if to say that she herself was not on that level.

"O-one. I g-give thanks for your gra—ace, aaahn!"

The rest is omitted.

Struck ten times, climaxing ten times, and spraying her slick in pulses, Choi Soohan wore the very face of a bitch in heat and lay there whimpering.

I caught the dog collar around her neck and pulled, slapping her cheeks, and every time a cheek was struck she poured out a generous gush.

"Pull yourself together. There's somewhere we need to go, so wash, put on a suit, and come down to the first floor."

"Yes...... heeng."

While Choi Soohan went in to wash, I checked the surroundings with Spatial Perception and, in a gap when no one was around, hurried down to the first floor.

"Ah...... I really need to find some other method. This kind of play is seriously not it."

"Is that so? Then what about neglect play?"

"No, I don't want anything like SM play anymore......"

"No. Not that. You would simply watch, Seoha, and have her whip her own body. Then, once she was thoroughly aroused, you would finish her with a single stroke each time."

"......You aren't proposing something you want done to you, are you?"

"I-it isn't!"

Like hell it wasn't. Aaah...... what was I supposed to do with this perverted young lady. I was turning over whether she had ended up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like this because of me when Choi Soohan, not even ten minutes later, came bursting out, glanced around, found me at once, and took her place behind me with a serious face.

Without a word I caught a taxi and headed for the mansion in Bangbae-dong, and puzzlement gradually spread through Choi Soohan's eyes. She knew Yeongeun's house as well, so she seemed curious why we were going this way.

When we got out of the taxi and stood before the mansion, Choi Soohan's anxiety hit its peak. She fidgeted and sneaked glances at me. I didn't give her a look, and said quietly,

"From now on, you are to learn everything to do with a butler's work under Grandpa Butler. Once I judge that you have learned it to perfection, I will entrust you with the butler's post at the mansion I build later, so that you can remain at my side. You can do it well, can't you?"

"......Yes!"

The face full of anxiety flipped in an instant into joy and happiness, and she bent deep at the waist.

When we went inside, Grandpa Butler welcomed me, saying he had been waiting.

"Grandpa Butler, you know Choi Soohan, yes? Choi Soohan, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you know Grandpa Butler?"

"Hohoho...... I never imagined that wild girl would have become such a proper young lady."

"I-it's been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a while, Grandpa Butler."

The old man nodded lightly at Choi Soohan's greeting, then bent at the waist in a courteous posture and said,

"I heard from the young lady. I will educate her so that she may become a perfect butler."

"I'll be counting on you. Choi Soohan? Follow Grandpa Butler's words well."

"Yes, sir!"

And with that, was Choi Soohan's matter settled?