Where Is This Place? (1)
Ugh... My stomach's churning, bloated and sour. I feel like I'm going to throw up.
I'd been sprawled on the ground. I pushed myself up, rubbing my belly against the nausea, and a wrongness in the air made me turn and look around.
"Huh? Where is this... Ah! Sis!!"
Under a darkened night sky, something hazy filled every direction. No moon, no stars—nothing but dark—so I switched on Mana Vision.
Sis. Where's Sis?
I whipped around, and thankfully she was collapsed right beside me. She lay on her side. I tried to check her color, but this world was starved of hue, and I couldn't read her face.
I wiped both hands on the hem of my school uniform, then touched her cheek and forehead. No fever. Nothing like that.
The way Franc had done with the unconscious Choi Soohan, I held a finger beneath Sis's nose. Her breath came steady and regular.
I put a hand to her neck... was it the carotid I was supposed to feel? Something fluttered under my fingers, and when I looked at her heart through Spatial Perception, it was thumping away hard. For now, at least, nothing seemed wrong with her body.
"Whew. Thank god."
...Huh?
Franc? The Soul Stone! The pendant! Where's the pendant?!
I groped at my neck and chest with both hands. Gone, of course! My heart dropped, and I spread Spatial Perception—and what the hell is this place?!
Beyond the monochrome plain, pale shapes closed in as if fog had settled, and my field of view was brutally narrow.
The important part was the ground. The island? The land Sis and I were standing on was floating inside the range of my Spatial Perception, and the whole island looked wrapped in cloudlike fog!
At the center, where we were, the thickness seemed to be roughly a kilometer, thinning the farther out you went—as if the earth itself had been scooped hollow and left hanging in the sky...!
Never mind that. Where is Franc's Soul Stone?!
I swept the surroundings with Spatial Perception, inch by inch, and the Soul Stone was nowhere. My heart cinched tight, as if it were being wrung.
Huff. Huff.
I clutched my chest, trying to soothe the pounding, and it did nothing. I turned Mana Sieve over slowly and drew my unconscious sister into my arms. Her warmth, soft and close, settled me a little.
A thought struck me, and I dug through my pockets. Nothing. No wallet, no phone, no pendant holding Franc's Soul Stone!
A curse climbed my throat. I bit my lip shut, steadied my breathing, and felt over Sis's body.
Same as me. Nothing on her but her clothes... She always wore the pendant I gave her, and that was gone too.
I pushed up her white suit jacket and checked her waist. Thankfully the emergency-ration belt was still fastened.
Hoo... Right. Swept up in Sis's forced summon, did everything I was carrying just drop to the floor? Franc's Soul Stone along with it—and once the stone left my body, I was separated from Franc too, wasn't I?
Hoo. Hoo.
The pendant, the Soul Stone—Franc would have grabbed it right away. Or Hwayeon would have. Don't panic.
Hoo... Then if I stay by Sis and keep her safe for fifteen days, we'll return. ...No. Even if I grant that Sis returns on her own.
What about me?
Do I have to find a Return Point? Or can I go back with her when she returns? But this is an island floating in the sky. When I looked just now, there wasn't a Return Point, was there?
The air felt thick with damp. I went over the island again, carefully. The cloud-shaped island, gently ridged, seemed to be about... seventy thousand square kilometers. So, what, roughly the size of Bugaksan behind Gyeongbokgung Palace?
The shape was mostly round, but chunks had broken away here and there, so it looked like a ragged bank of cloud. Grass grew thick over the whole island, and things that looked like flowers had sprung up everywhere in a wild scatter.
Trees stood sparse. The important thing was that there was no water.
Nn... This is bad. There's no way to secure moisture.
The trees dotted across the island were kinds I'd never seen. Their leaves weren't like the water-trees from my Phase World. They were flat, pinecone-shaped.
So getting water from the leaves was out. Something liquid was running through the trunks, though. Was that safe to drink?
There is such a thing as painted-maple sap...
I looked around again, slowly. A grassland, for now? Hundreds of trees, all apparently the same kind. The trunks were thin—most of them no thicker than Sis's waist. Height, about twenty meters.
The trees were so narrow, the branches so thin, that hiding up in one didn't look possible either.
Water was still the problem...
Fretting over how to get moisture, I traced the island's rim with Spatial Perception and found something like stairs. To the southeast, a small flight ran perfectly straight upward, as if a human hand had made it.
I widened Spatial Perception a little more. The stairs ran for roughly fifty meters, then connected to another island.
Whoa. But the width isn't even a meter, and there's no railing. If the wind kicks up, you slip sideways and it's a high-altitude drop, isn't it?
I gritted through the headache and pushed Spatial Perception out to a three-kilometer radius. At the end of the stairs, land was joined on—land that looked like nothing but a vertex jutting out.
The difference in height was about a hundred meters.
...This is no joke.
Whether that place was wider than this one, I couldn't tell. Even with Spatial Perception stretched to its limit, all I could see was the jutting point. Nothing of the rest. The top of those stairs seemed to run on as mostly flat ground too...
Once Sis wakes up, that should be our destination.
I looked down at her in my arms, eyes shut, whether she'd fainted or simply fallen asleep, and a sigh came out of me on its own.
Honestly, when I grabbed her, sick little delusions had sprouted thick and fast. What if this goes wrong? What if that feeling of being shoved aside means we get abandoned in a gap in spacetime, or crushed in it, and die? Landing in the same place, both of us in one piece, was a real relief.
God. I'm such a fucking idiot. If the area around Sis had felt anything like a Return Point, I should have been suspicious and looked into it. Instead I let my attention wander because she was busy, and ignored it because Hwayeon was in sight.
If Sis had been sucked into the Phase World somewhere I wasn't—if, by some chance, she never made it back...
I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself.
No wonder the air here felt wrong, a chill crawling under it. I had a hunch this wasn't the normal first entry everyone else gets to enjoy. It was a shitty place, like my Phase World.
I looked up at the sky and turned in a circle. Fog, or something like it, packed the air, so neither starlight nor moonlight reached us. It was pitch-dark.
No—jet-black dark, stuffed full of things like gray smoke. It raised the hairs on my neck.
I can read the surroundings with Spatial Perception, but if Sis had dropped here alone, how terrified would she have been?
For now I lifted her and moved us to a spot where the grass grew thick. Moisture had gathered on the blades into beads of water. Had it rained? I wandered a little, and there was nowhere fit to lay her down. The whole meadow was a water field. Set her there and her clothes would soak through.
Nn... Is this fog? No. An island floating in empty air—clouds?
In the end I went back to where we'd been, sat down, and drew an arm around her waist so she could lean on me and sleep easy.
Getting caught in Sis's forced summon and then forcing Spatial Perception wider had left my head throbbing, but this was the Phase World. Anything could happen. I had to keep watch.
Anything at Mid-High Rank Variant or below I could handle as an after-meal snack, but you never know, right? Who's to say a High-Rank Variant or a Peak-Rank Variant won't pop out of nowhere, the way they did in my Phase World.
...Ah. Found a way to get moisture.
Kill an aberrant and drink the blood. A little revolting, but better than dying of thirst.
I was worried, though, whether Sis would be able to drink aberrant blood.
She'd catch on fast that lasting fifteen days here without water was impossible. If staying alive meant drinking blood, she'd understand, and she'd drink it even if I had to make her.
So I'd guard her, endure the fifteen days, and we would get back alive. No matter what.
Like hell I was going to let Sis die in a place like this!!
The surroundings seemed to be brightening, so I checked the time on my Certifier. Twelve hours since entry. Nearly six in the morning.
...This is tedious.
Thanks to Mana Sieve the headache had faded quickly, but all I could see was that damned fog, or cloud, or whatever it was, blocking the view. I was bored out of my mind!
No aberrants and no danger was a blessing, sure, but sitting here blankly for twelve hours was still mind-numbing!
Sis hadn't woken once in all that time. She was sleeping like a log.
Had she been that tired? I opened my eyes right away on my first entry, and this time too.
Watching her sleep with that peaceful face, a petty urge to wake her flickered through me. I let it go. The moment she opened her eyes she'd be in the Phase World, and the shock would hit her. Better to leave her.
Aaah, and what kind of fog is this thick, anyway? You could wander into it without a clue, step off the island's edge, and die in a fall. It wouldn't even be surprising. The fog was that dense.
Twelve hours of it, and my clothes were damp, and so were hers. Moisture had settled thick in our hair.
This really is cloud, isn't it?
The whole range of my Spatial Perception was veiled in fog, and the island was floating, so I couldn't suspect anything but cloud... Since where we were seemed to be an island in the sky, I'd call it cloud for now.
Sis was in a suit and skirt. A summer suit, apparently, because the fabric was thin.
The blouse was silk, and soaked through with damp it had gone sheer, underwear showing... If we stayed like this, wouldn't she catch a cold?
Of course, Phase Power was gathering in her heart a trickle at a time and spreading through her whole body, so she'd probably grow sturdier. Even so, lingering somewhere that makes you sick is a bad idea. I didn't even know whether my Healing Wave could cure illness.
Maybe I should have just carried her and moved... I'd ruled out making a fire, since that seemed dangerous for now...
I was turning over this and that when Sis's brows twitched and she started mumbling. Waking up?
I leaned my ear in. "It's wet... Nnh. What is this..." Something like that.
She lifted a hand toward her face, as if to wipe off the dew beaded there.
Her hand was soaked, and so were her clothes. She wouldn't wipe anything. She'd just smear water everywhere.
That sounded entertaining, so I looked down and watched. She raised one hand, rubbed at her face, and then her eyes flew open, as if her mind had snapped clear all at once.
"Eep—! What?! Water?"
She thrashed, spilled out of my arms, and sat bolt upright. Through half-lidded eyes she stared down at her own hands, then glanced around.
"...Huh? Wh-where is this?"
If you're up, look all the way around. She only checked front, left, and right.
She didn't notice me behind her. She crawled forward on all fours, saw the grass under her hands, and her face went blank with bewilderment.
She groped at the grass, then rose unsteadily. A little frightened, she turned in place and started looking for me, and for Mom and Dad.
"What... is this? Seoha? Mom? Dad!"
Moisture was gathering in her eyes. Half awake, she kept scanning the area. Leave her like that and she'd start crying.
"Nnh..."
"Not gonna look behind you?"
"Kyaa?!!"
All I'd done was speak, and the voice from behind startled her so badly she shrieked, toppled, and landed square on her rear.
...I can see her panties.
"Agh! Seohaaa!!"
She came at me half crawling, threw her arms around me where I sat, and let out a sigh of relief. She must have been badly startled. Her heart was hammering, the beat carried to my ear through a chest that barely existed.
"This... isn't a dream. Is this the Phase World?"
Whoa. She got her composure back in no time and grasped the situation in a flash. She couldn't hide the trembling, though. A little afraid, she took my hand and looked left and right.
"Yeah. Do you remember what happened?"
"Mm. In the underground parking garage, I was watching Hwayeon walk toward me, and then I think I blacked out. But why are you here? What happened to this place? Why is the fog so thick? And we should have entered around five in the afternoon, so why is it this bright?"
She poured the questions out with fear still on her face. I patted her shoulder lightly and told her to calm down.
"It's been a little over twelve hours since we came in. It's almost six now."
"How did you get in too, Seoha? Before I passed out, it felt like someone was coming closer. Was that you?"
"Yeah. That was me."
"...Wasn't the first forced summon supposed to take you in alone?"
"Well, I don't know about that either. I got a bad feeling off you... You were right there, getting forcibly summoned, and before I knew it I'd latched onto you. Next thing I knew, I was here."
"I see. Because of me... Have you been watching over me all night since we got here?"
"Yeah."
She listened, then broke into a bright smile all over again, wrapped her arms around my neck, and stroked my head.
Kind of damp, though.
"Anyway, I think we're up in the sky. I looked around with Spatial Perception, and the ground's come up whole into the air. It's floating. And I think cloud is covering this entire island."
"No aberrants?"
"Nope. None. I watched all night. Nothing came near."
"Good. If there are no aberrants nearby, we just hold out for fifteen days like this and go back."
Hmm. Ever since she saw me, she hasn't looked shaken or scared, even in a situation like this. Does having me beside her steady her?
I don't want her panicking either, so that's a good sign.
"But there's a big problem."
"What problem?"
"There's nothing to drink. I went over this whole island carefully. Underground, aboveground—there isn't a drop of water anywhere."
She looked around, then spoke as if it were no problem at all.
"This fog is all cloud, isn't it? Our clothes are soaked enough already. Hang them up and set something like a bowl underneath, and we'll secure water."
As she said it, she ran her hands down her clothes and held them up, covered in beads of water.
"Is that safe to drink? If it's ordinary cloud, fine, but..."
"I don't know that either... Still, it's better than dying of thirst."
"Well, yeah, that's true. But if we stay long in a place this humid and soggy, you'll get sick before that happens. You're already shivering a little."
I pulled her in by the waist and held her tight, and water streamed from the clothes crushed between us.
I kept her close for a moment. Body heat warmed us by degrees, and I felt the trembling in her ease.
"That's true. But you said it's an island floating in the sky? Is there a mountain or a hill somewhere that sticks out of the cloud?"
"Nothing like that. Roughly at four o'clock there's a slope, like a path up onto another island."
"A slope...? Let's go that way. No, before that—shouldn't you sleep a little too, Seoha? You said you stood watch all night."
Worried about me, she lifted a hand and brushed my cheek. The moisture there felt sticky. I sighed inwardly and answered.
"How am I supposed to sleep in a place like this with you here alone? I can go a few days without sleep, and a short doze is enough. First, let's get out of this cloud."
"Mm."
Her shoes were calfskin, covering the instep, so walking around didn't look like it would be a problem. Good.
"Mom and Dad must be worried sick."
"They'll have realized I followed you in, so they won't worry too much. And no matter what it takes, I'm getting you back safe. Don't worry."
"...Okay!"
Franc, Hwayeon, and Yeongeun are strong. They'll be fine without me for a while. Good thing I fed that rascal Miho some TP.
I took Sis's hand and headed for the stairs at four o'clock. Twelve hundred meters above where we stood, I found a single Low-Rank Variant with a Phase Power of 61, circling.
It had flown in from the southeast. It looked almost exactly like an eagle. Wings spread wide, it was wheeling over the island, and from tip to tip those wings ran past five meters.
Ordinary eagles go past three meters, I hear, so maybe it isn't that big? Spatial Perception isn't warning me that it's spotted us, but it still gnaws at me.
Surely the aberrants that show up here aren't all flying types? Do I tell Sis about this or not?
I glanced back at her. Her face was all resolve and tension.
The uneasy look had lasted only right after she woke. Since then she'd been steady, and she'd even gotten a grip on her heart. Sis really is something. At that level, telling her so she can brace herself is the better call.
"Sis."
"Yeah?"
"Aberrant. Twelve hundred meters above our heads, in a spot with no cloud. It's flying."
"...What rank?"
"Low-Rank Variant, Phase Power 61, eagle form. I only see one right now, but given the terrain, I think there'll be a lot of flying aberrants."
"That figures."
As I thought, she doesn't look particularly shaken. I'm not about to fire a mana bullet at that thing, blow it apart, and draw attention on purpose either.
Matching her pace, I walked slowly toward the stairs. Before long the creature flew off to the southeast.
We walked about twenty minutes, and the stairlike slope drew near. I stretched only the range of Spatial Perception again, and the southeast island started to reveal itself...
An island shaped like a square face crumpled inward. Even so, it wouldn't all fit inside my Spatial Perception, so it had to be enormous. And a fairly high mountain rose at its center.
I pulled the range back to normal and sighed. What I'd thought were stairs was the place where a star-shaped island joined this cloud-shaped one.
I don't really understand what principle keeps them stuck together like that... Think too hard in the Phase World and you lose!
Sis had been silent for a while, wound tight with nerves, so I stroked her hand gently. She drew a deep breath and looked back at me.
"The island we're on is cloud-shaped, and it's just big enough that my Spatial Perception can barely take in the whole of it. The place connected to those stairs looks like a star-shaped island. There's a big mountain jutting up in the middle, and I expect it's larger than the one we're on."
"A mountain... If it's a mountain, did the aberrant you saw fly in from there?"
"Probably, right? A Low Grade thing, flying around the sky with no caution at all. Looking at that, maybe there are no avian aberrants above Low-Rank."
"Mm. Then there'll be animals that eagle aberrant hunts. Or Lowest-Rank Variants."
She said it, then firmed her expression a little and spoke again.
"Maybe there's another island, even wider than the one you described."
"Why do you think that?"
Her words were framed as a guess, but her face was certain. An island bigger than that?
"Eagles are scavengers by nature. Birds that live on carcasses. The territory one of them claims runs well over a hundred square kilometers. If this island is about the size of Namsan, that's only around seven square kilometers. Way too small."
"Is it? But that's an aberrant. How do we know it kept its traits from when it was an eagle?"
"The higher an aberrant's rank, the more its behavior diverges from its original ecology. Which means a Low-Rank Variant should still strongly retain the traits it had as an eagle."
"...Where did you see something like that?"
"Hm? There was something in a lecture about avian and aberrant ecology. I just happened to see it."
She remembers something she just happened to see, that clearly? Geniuses, I swear.
"Then there's no way that eagle aberrant is the only one, so there's a good chance you're right and a bigger island exists."
"Yeah... But it's also possible its feeding behavior changed when it rose from Lowest-Rank to Low-Rank, so we should keep that in mind too."
"Got it. Do you know that eagle aberrant's name?"
"Ugh. The species names and scientific names scholars stick on them are so annoying. It's easier on the stomach to just call them by their traits!"
She burst out all at once. I stared, startled, and she caught herself with an oh no face, managed her expression, and snuck a glance at me.
"...You know scientific names are only coined in Latin, right?"
Scientific names are only in Latin? Then the scientific name of the Long-snouted Lean Wolf isn't long mouth skinny wolf?
"It was?"
"Yeah. So an eagle is Aquila chrysaetos, but the international body that registers and manages scientific names calls them something else just because they're aberrants. The names given by the aberrant-research scholars of the IWO, the Ability User Association, are things like long wind ride eagle. In English notation they mark the leading trait in one or two words, then attach the species name at the end."
Ah. So that's why the last word comes out as wolf, or rabbit, fox, mantis.
"Can't they just combine them into one?"
"That's what I'm saying! The two sides play their little power games and make everyone else suffer! Think about the people who actually have to memorize the things! Britain and America and the international bodies, all of them...!"
Whatever careless question I'd tossed had stabbed straight into her sore spot. She poured words out without a pause, face furious, then went "Grrrr—!" and clenched both fists until she shook.
"Hoo. Hoo. So lately even ability users got sick of it and started just sticking 'aberrant' on the end of the trait name. You remember that too, Seoha."
"Y-yeah. Got it."
Well, they treat the most numerous as the base species and call the derived odd forms subspecies or variants, so this way is easier for me too.
After getting thoroughly worked up and then calming down, Sis flushed a little and kept sneaking looks at me. Because she'd snapped in front of me?
Anyway, the stairs to the next island are right in front of us.