Vacation (3)

Lunch at home with my sister, Franc, and Hwayeon, and then coffee while I sat through their chatter — and still the feeling kept nagging at me that I'd forgotten something.

I turned it over, and the moment my eyes landed on Miho asleep between my legs, it came back.

"I'm going into the Phase World."

"......Whose Phase World?"

"Mine."

Hwayeon frowned at once, and my sister's face soured with her. Only Franc smiled, calm as still water, and came to sit behind me, slipping her arms around my waist.

"The founding ceremony is right around the corner. I can hardly agree to you stepping away."

"The Master of Grand Blue, leaving his post alone? I can't agree to that either."

"What? So I'm supposed to sit at the top of the building and mind the seat every single day?" I scowled at the pair of them.

"Once the founding ceremony's over, the raid team goes into proper operation, right? After that I won't have any spare time, and I need to find a Return Point and move somewhere suitable."

"Why do you need to move?"

Franc answered my sister for me.

"Where Seoha is now, a great rain falls every six months. That rain forms a vast lake more than ten meters deep and holds the water at that level for about two months. He wants to move somewhere safe before it comes."

My sister frowned at the explanation, ran the dates in her head, and sighed. Should I be adding that one to the tally? It didn't seem aimed at me, at least.

"You'll only move, and then come back. Won't you?"

"That's the first objective."

"There's a second?"

"The second is to inject TP into aberrants and check whether their state changes."

The two of them stared at me as if I'd said something incomprehensible. Did she not remember her own words?

"You said it yourself, noona. If their Phase Power is low and they take in my TP, their nature might change."

"Ah."

Only then did my sister, Hwayeon, and Franc look down at Miho, nestled between my knees.

"Eeong?"

Eyes gathering on her, Miho pricked her ears as if to ask what was going on, her snow-white tail swaying. I stroked the warm, plump curve of her back, and the little thing licked her tiny nose once, flopped onto her back, caught my hand in her front paws, and started kicking at it with her hind legs, a rapid tat-tat-tat.

"So I'll catch a few, run the experiment, and come right back. While I'm at it, I want to see what happens to the Space Wall I've left spread in reality once I enter the Phase World."

My sister turned her teacup in her fingers, displeased, but resigned. Hwayeon, by contrast, glared at hers as if she meant to split it, then lifted her head with the air of someone who had decided.

"Then I'm coming with you."

"Huh? Don't you have a mountain of work?"

"I can ask Hyeryeong to cover it."

Wow. A grown woman pawning her own work off on someone else. This time Hwayeon looked from me to Franc and back with a face that would not be refused, and spoke with finality.

"Seoha's Phase World has the Imoogi, and dangers of another kind entirely......"

She broke off, lowered her head, and let the silence hang.

Put that honestly, there was nothing I could say. My sister murmured to herself.

"I want to see it too......"

Then she sighed as if there was no helping it and slumped forward onto the table.

"Hwayeon's being that honest — I can hardly tell her not to go. I'll speak to Aunt Hyeryeong. You have to come back as quickly as you can, all right?"

"Yeah. It'll only take a day or two."

At the promise of one night and two days, my sister tipped the rest of her tea straight down her throat, stood, stretched, and headed back to the office wing to work.

Once I was sure the elevator had carried her all the way down, I switched on my Certifier and called Yeongeun to tell her. And sure enough.

Yeongeun put on a solemn face, moved off to what looked like some room, then dropped into a crouch and burst into wailing sobs.

"I'm doing it because loafing around in reality feels wrong. Honestly, even if I stay here there's nothing for me to do, so I might as well handle something like this."

"Yeongeun. This isn't a trip for fun."

"It's a short entry of a day or two at most. It won't take long."

When Franc and Hwayeon tried to soothe her, Yeongeun pouted, wearing a look that said she would not let us go unless we granted this, and spoke with grim resolve.

The look she leveled at Franc and Hwayeon was blazing. Refuse, and she looked ready to come after us.

I went to Aunt Hyeryeong and told her I'd be stepping into the Phase World for a little while. She pulled out the schedule, nodded, and asked me not to go past five days.

"An inspector from Phase Ability User Association headquarters is scheduled to verify Hiarid's rearing permit in person after the founding ceremony. Until then, they've asked that you refrain from using Hiarid at your own discretion. And......"

Hmm. She isn't saying no.

I nodded at the Association's willingness to cooperate, and Aunt Hyeryeong rummaged through a drawer and held up a document.

"The unrestricted Phase World entry permit is due to come down that same day, so this entry will have to be made from the Association building."

"I thought the free-entry authorization had already been granted? That's why slipping into noona's forced summon wasn't a problem."

"It was granted, yes. But that was only the Association extending a courtesy. If they're being accommodating, shouldn't we meet them halfway, so neither side has to lose face?"

The way they handled things didn't entirely make sense to me, but it wasn't difficult. I'd do as asked.

"Understood. And once I enter the Phase World, the Space Wall I've set up might disappear, so I'm going to have Hiarid standing by there. The Branch Chief already agreed to that, so please take temporary command of Hiarid together with my sister."

"Yes."

"Hiarid. Until I get back, follow Aunt Hyeryeong's orders."

Oh, right.

"Aunt Hyeryeong, your husband isn't back from America yet?"

"No. He received treatment for his illness a few days ago, and it seems to have helped, so he decided to rest a while before coming home."

I congratulated her — glad, even for a slight effect — and told her that once her husband returned I'd try a recovery on him myself, though I couldn't promise it would work. For a moment she couldn't speak. Her eyes reddened, and she bowed her head.

"Thank you."

Franc, Hwayeon, Miho, and I took Hiarid to the Association building and sent the Branch Chief a message laying out the situation. He came shooting down from the top floor in an instant, like a fox with its tail on fire.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He stared hard at Hiarid, then knitted his brow and grumbled at me.

"I don't know if I'm doing the right thing...... If a High-Tier Variant runs wild in reality, the word catastrophe won't even begin to cover it."

"If you can't trust yourself, trust me. The power that tamed a High-Tier Variant."

He said nothing.

I'd taken all kinds of looks in my life, but never the one reserved for a cult leader.

"Once I enter and the Space Wall vanishes, wait inside the room, and the instant he comes out, beat him to death. Even if you're hurt, even if you die, that one has to die. No exceptions."

If the Space Wall held, she was to return to the Grand Blue Building, follow Director Lee Hyeryeong, and obey her orders. I'd already told her that.

I was giving Hiarid her orders in front of Ha Cheolsu's room, where the amber Space Wall stood, and the Branch Chief, who had followed us and watched from start to finish, still looked uneasy.

"As long as no one lays a hand on Hiarid, she won't run wild. If anyone tries something with her just because I'm not here, they'll get a taste of a High-Tier Variant's light-bolt, so please keep other people well away."

"My worry lies elsewhere, though......"

The type who goes out and buys worries he doesn't need. Hiarid isn't going to break free of my brainwashing. I don't have solid proof, but my gut says so, and that's enough for me.

After that we went down to the first floor of the Association building and went through the formal entry procedure.

Entering the Phase World was very simple. You took out your Certifier at the entry desk on the first floor, verified your identity, and went in through a small entry room on the second floor. That was the whole of it.

Before that, Hwayeon said she had preparations to make. At the consumables display of the ability-user shop in the basement, she bought a small backpack, packed daily necessities and a first-aid kit into it, and filled the rest with compressed drinking packs.

"What's a compressed drinking pack?"

"A water-supply pack you use when there's no water-attribute ability user. One pack, and you don't need to drink water all day."

This little round cylinder was essential gear for a small party?

The drinking pack fit in one hand, about ten centimeters long, and its soft give reminded me of the feel of Hwayeon's chest. I kneaded it and glanced around. Ability users from G Class up to about E-Class, out shopping for daily goods, were murmuring among themselves as they looked at us.

Our gear did stand out, mine and Hwayeon's. Or rather, Hwayeon seemed to draw more eyes than I did. What I had on was leather armor that looked expensive, but it was black, so it didn't catch the light, and plenty of people nearby wore something similar. Hwayeon, though, was in the tights armor by Paul Dict that I'd seen at the last ability verification, layered with a blue Force Leather armor set.

Most ability users wore mass-produced gear. She was in a full set that was obviously custom-made at a glance. Of course they stared. And Franc was floating in the air beside us.

I looked down at the Force Leather I was wearing — jacket, pants, and long boots, all one set. They said it was a luxury piece, expensive but worth the price, but honestly, someone like me who barely gets anything out of gear couldn't tell if it was any good. Hwayeon and Yeongeun had bought it and told me to wear it, so I was wearing it.

I fiddled with the Extrema-something dagger at my waist and looked around the shop, but nothing was particularly remarkable. A lot like an outdoor camping store, if anything. I patted the head of Miho, who had taken an interest in a fire steel, and went over to Hwayeon as she finished paying.

Backpack on her shoulders, Hwayeon looked at Franc — pretty in a dress and platform sandals, floating in the air — then at her own heavy kit, and let out a small sigh.

"I envy you, Franc."

"And I envy you, Hwayeon."

Does Hwayeon want to wear pretty clothes too? She always seemed to chase practicality in what she wore. When did her taste change?

She had a sword belt at her waist with a longsword sheathed on it, a set of throwing daggers strapped to her thigh, and all manner of gear loaded onto her gauntlets. Practicality, plain and simple. Seeing her shoulder the backpack as well, I told her to hand it over, that I'd carry it. Hwayeon shook her head and refused.

"You're a long-range special combatant. Luggage like this is better carried by me, a close-range Physical Reinforcement type. It fits the position."

Faced with that firmness, I had no choice but to back down.

"If you're ready, shall we go in?"

"Yes."

We finished the registration, and I took Franc, Hwayeon, and Miho into the Phase World for the fourth time. Entering entirely of my own will — this was the first.

The moment we went in, my insides seemed to float up, and an itch spread through my whole body until I could hardly stand it. I scratched hard at my side and looked around.

Blue sky in every direction. A vast continent spread beneath my feet. And Hwayeon and I, falling.

The rough wind hammered at my ears. I was about to sigh when I saw Hwayeon, gone the color of ash, flailing her arms and legs as she fought to reach me.

"Seoha!!"

"Seoha?!"

Franc was dropping at the same speed, her face aghast, lost in a panic with no idea what to do.

Sudden ultra-high-altitude skydiving. The assessment can wait. First, put out the fire.

I caught Hwayeon around the waist as she came in close, pulled her against me, and shouted over the wind roaring like thunder in my ears.

"Hwayeon!! Hold Miho and curl into a ball! No matter what happens, don't straighten out!"

"What?! Ah, all right!"

"Franc, stay with us!"

"Y-yes!"

As if saving her questions for later, Hwayeon did exactly as I said, drawing her knees to her chest, wrapping both arms around them, and tucking her head down. I pried Miho off my neck — she was clinging to it, terrified — stuffed her into Hwayeon's arms, and held the balled-up Hwayeon against me. Then I kicked on Mana Mode - Acceleration, used the quickened thought to calculate how to shape the Space Wall so the impact would be least, and hardened my body as much as I could.

I had to distribute Phase Power carefully to form the Wall. The angle mattered too. One mistake and we'd slam straight in, or Hwayeon's body would touch the amber Space Wall and something horrific would happen.

As the ground rushed closer I drew a breath and, matching our fall, raised a vast slide in the shape of a gently bending arch.

The instant our bodies struck the head of it, a thud slammed through me, and then we were shooting down at a terrifying speed.

"Waaaaah~~!"

"Nngh!"

Th-the speed was way faster than I'd thought.

In the space of a gasp, the end of the three-hundred-meter slide was on us. I threw out a huge, long plate of space ahead of it in a fan, the slope climbing toward the far edge, like a skateboard practice ramp.

The moment the plate took shape, the slide ended. We shot unchecked across the fan, and the acceleration carried us up the incline and flung us into the sky. At the apex of that rise, when our speed died completely, I snapped a small amber Space Wall into place beneath our feet and stood on it.

"Whew."

"Nn......"

Sensing that we'd stopped, Hwayeon let out a faint groan and tried to move.

"Hey, hey. Don't move. Move and you'll fall."

About to uncurl, Hwayeon flinched at my words and went rigid again. She glanced at the ground, shuddered, and sighed. I turned my head and looked down as well, and a land like a spread green carpet met my eyes. And a region that looked as if someone had drawn lines across it with a gray marker.

"At this height, we're probably around twelve kilometers up."

I muttered it while watching the scraps of cloud drifting below us, and Hwayeon, held in my arms and looking down with me, asked in disbelief.

"How did this happen? How can a starting point be in the sky?"

"Noona's first-entry starting point must not have been her Phase World. It was mine."

"I— I was so worried."

Franc, her face drained white, had her arms around me and was trembling. She must have thought we were going to fall and die.

"I was a little startled too. But with the Space Wall, dying from a fall won't happen. I'd even practiced making them ahead of time, in case we ever fell out of the sky."

I shaped the Space Wall into a staircase with railings and walked down as I spoke, and Franc's trembling quickly subsided. She'd realized there was no reason we'd die from the fall.

Anyway.

"Franc."

"Yes?"

"This has to be the sky over the region where Mount Elephantros is, doesn't it?"

"Yes. That gray stretch looks like a place where ash from an eruption has piled up."

Franc was right. Centered on Mount Elephantros — or what I suspected was Mount Elephantros — white smoke puffing up in soft bursts, a vast sweep from the north around to the east, forty-five degrees of it, was dyed gray all the way to the horizon.

"Walking down would take all day. I'm making another slide. Touch the Space Wall and your body disintegrates, so don't. Miho, you behave too."

"Kkiung!"

"Yes!"

"Understood."

A slide tens of kilometers long was too much to raise all at once, so we rested here and there and slid down at speed, and Hwayeon muttered as if she could hardly believe it.

"It feels like a water-park slide."

"Having fun?"

"Heh."

No real answer — just that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠small laugh. I held her a little tighter and slid toward the ground at nearly 130 kilometers an hour.

Once we reached the ground I set Hwayeon down and rubbed my backside. Seven minutes of nothing but sliding, and though my body was actually fine, it felt as if my rear had been ground to pulp. Miho climbed Hwayeon's body up to her shoulder, then hopped onto mine.

I stroked the purring creature's back and looked around.

My Phase World, entered again after two months, had lost all its fresh grassland and forest. Only an ash-gray wasteland remained. This had definitely been a lush green wood, and now it was a world of gray. I reached out and touched a nearby bush, and it went to powder with a soft puff, gray dust scattering.

"Kkiung."

Miho wrinkled her face at the drifting ash, crept closer, wrapped herself around my neck like a living fox stole, and buried her nose in her own tail.

"Then explain how we appeared in the sky."

Franc, who had been glancing around, came up beside me as if she wanted the explanation too.

"When noona got swept into the Phase World, I forced my way in. I felt something pushing me out then, and I focused the Mana Sieve and held on by force."

"And the place you arrived was the Floating Sky Islands?"

"Yeah. But the sky islands were on a completely different level from other ability users' first-entry sites."

"Sky. Islands. A sealed space. A place where everything exists, from the lowest aberrants to Highest-Rank Variants......"

Hwayeon's expression turned grave as she looked at me.

"Whether it was the Mana Sieve, or the two of you overlapping, Siha was folded into your Phase World, Seoha, instead of the place she was meant to go. So when Siha enters, she'll appear somewhere similar to you."

"And fall. Anyway, when noona goes in, I'm going in with her. If she really was folded into my Phase World, she'll appear up in that sky. If not, she'll go wherever she was originally supposed to."

"Somehow I don't think she'll end up somewhere else."

I nodded at Franc's guess.

"Same here. So let's finish what we came to do, quickly, and get out. Noona probably won't come in during that time, but there's always a what-if."

"Mm."

"Yes."

"Kyang!"

Does this little Miho understand the whole conversation and answer? I tickled the muzzle of the creature who had barked with perfect timing and started walking, and Hwayeon hesitated a moment, then quietly reached out and took my empty hand.

She looked elsewhere, only her fingers fidgeting, and I thought it rather cute. I squeezed her hand, and she turned to me with an awkward smile. Seeing that, Franc sidled over and linked her arm with mine.

Truly adorable lovers.

"Then let's head back toward Mount Elephantros. There was no ash to the west of it, so the aberrants should be over that way."

"Use this first."

Hwayeon took a dust mask shaped like a pilot's mask from the first-aid kit, handed it to me, and put one on herself. Franc took out a handkerchief, wet it, and wrapped it around Miho's muzzle.

"You should wear one too, Franc."

"I'm all right. I've materialized, but I don't actually have a physical body."

"Is that so?"

"Uuung! Aaong."

The moment the damp cloth covered her muzzle, Miho shook her head hard and tried to pull the handkerchief off with her front paws. I gripped her muzzle tight.

"Breathing in volcanic ash won't do you any good, so even if it's stuffy, bear it until I say it's okay. Take it off and no TP for you."

"Kkiiing......"

We started running, and the ash kicking up behind us was no joke. Good thing we'd put the masks on. Miho saw the powder rising behind us like a dust cloud and clung even tighter to my neck.

We'd been running a while when I suddenly thought of the mermaids I'd met at the lake.

"Before we go, let's stop by the lake."

"The lake? You mean where you met the mermaids?"

"Yeah. I told them to run when I saw the volcano going, but thinking about it, there's nowhere they could run with bodies like that. I hope they didn't die."

"They're aberrants. Wouldn't it be all right to leave them to die? I don't see why you need to go out of your way to worry about them, Seoha."

Franc said it as if she didn't understand, looking to Hwayeon running beside her for agreement, and Hwayeon seemed to feel the same. She'd raised an eyebrow slightly too.

"You two seem to be forgetting the second reason we came into the Phase World~ What are you thinking about, that you forgot the second objective? It's not that, is it? It isn't, right?"

I narrowed my eyes and gave Hwayeon and Franc, running on my right, a meaningful look. Both of them cleared their throats and avoided my gaze.

"......They're Mid-Rank Variants, sure, but they aren't hostile, and they understand what we say. I figured if I talked to them right, I might coax them into the TP injection experiment."

"Then couldn't you test it on Hiarid?"

"Hiarid's Phase Power is already close to Highest Tier. She originally had 2.2 million, and I fed her about five hundred thousand while hypnotizing her, so she's at 2.7 million."

"She hasn't formed a Phase Stone yet, but it's still a thorny prospect."

"Yeah. What if she evolves into Highest Tier and the hypnosis breaks? Killing her would be a waste."

Franc and Hwayeon nodded, as if they agreed it would be a waste. Hwayeon looked at Miho wrapped around my neck.

"A change in traits is certain, at least."

"Right. Miho was originally an Energy Eater with a Phase Power of 72, but eating a little over twenty-three percent of her original Phase Power in TP wiped out the Energy Eater trait."

Miho tilted her head at the sound of her name, unable to follow the complicated talk, then opened her muzzle to yawn. The handkerchief kept it from opening, and she whimpered and twisted, uncomfortable. I soothed her and changed direction toward the lake.

"About seventy kilometers straight from here and you'll hit the lake."

Then I started making footholds in the air and unfolding an Air Tread. Better to practice laying Space Walls while I ran than to just run. By now, the time it took to lay a Wall almost exactly the size of my foot, step on it, and recover it the moment I lifted my foot was less than a second. Put another way, the Space Wall lingered for one second. Cutting that time lag down as far as it would go was the goal.

Air-walking still looks incredible no matter how many times I see it. Running while kicking off empty air — now that's a sight!

"Wow! Seoha, you're amazing!"

Franc had seen me stand on a Space Wall before, but she hadn't imagined I could run through the air like this, and her eyes were wide. Hwayeon looked impressed that even this was possible. On the night of the twenty-third, the day I returned from the Phase World, I'd explained the new ability in front of everyone, but seeing this kind of application in practice, they looked astonished.

"Seoha. Aren't flat footholds too simple? What if you set them on a diagonal, like a sprinter's starting blocks?"

"Oho?"

I followed her advice and set them at a diagonal so they'd take my force the way starting blocks do in a hundred-meter dash, and my speed picked up. Running fast at fifty centimeters off the ground, dodging dead fallen trees left and right and jumping as I went, even this alone felt like decent training. Hwayeon, running beside me, gave a pretty smile and matched my pace.

Once I started building speed like that, even Hwayeon and Franc, who could run faster than I could, matched me, and we covered the seventy kilometers faster than I'd expected.

Running flat out under the sweltering sun, sweat streamed down my forehead. Hwayeon was the same. She wiped a little sweat from her brow and unzipped the Force Leather jacket she'd had done up to her neck, down to the middle of her chest.

Whoa. Look at that pale cleavage.

Running hard enough to sweat had loosened the slight stuffiness, and my chest felt clear. It would have been even better without this billowing gray ash.

"A lake wide enough to see the horizon. Impressive."

"I'll look from the sky for any ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mermaids."

"Yeah, I'm going up to look too."

Hwayeon was silent. She hesitated, as if she wanted to see as well, so I took the bag, slung it over my shoulder, and lifted her in a princess carry. Her face flushed.

I made footholds up to about a kilometer, and the whole of the lake came into view at once.

The lake looked like...... well, a lake. It looked like a lake.

At its widest, measuring the length that fell within my Spatial Perception, it seemed to exceed twenty kilometers. Big enough, maybe, to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠swallow all of Seoul on the far side of the Han.

"The lake looks dead too."

"It does......"

Franc nodded at Hwayeon's words, flew out over the water for a quick sweep, then came back up.

"I don't see a single fish. They all seem dead...... Ah!"

"Did you find something?"

"Over there, at six o'clock on the lake, there are beings that look like people at the water's edge!"

Franc's eyes really are something. She can see that from over thirteen kilometers away.

"Good heavens. You can see that from more than ten kilometers away?"

"My eyesight is a little good."

"......That hardly seems like a little."

I shaped the Space Wall into a slide and we rode it down in a long swoop. Hwayeon, who had been talking with Franc, startled and threw her arms around my neck. The weightlessness of a sudden drop seemed enough to weaken even a B-Class's knees.

I held her tight and headed for the far shore of the lake.