Rest (1)

A raid… a raid sounded nice. But if I tried to enter the Phase World alone, my sister and the department-level officers would fight me tooth and nail. Which left me, for the moment, with exactly one thing worth doing: finding that bitch Sophia.

Before the ringleader of those Patriotic Subjects Society hardliners was dragged into court, I met the man myself and asked him a few things.

One. Why did you try to kill me?

The reason was just as Yeongeun had guessed. Before the museum incident, Sophia Adelberg had been feeding them reports on my ability—the range of Search—along with my potential for growth and my aptitude. Seeing no realistic chance of winning me over, they resolved to remove me.

What tipped them into that resolve was a simulation they ran on the data Sophia handed over. The figures came out roughly equal to a middling nation's entire annual budget.

Those twisted bastards figured a detection-type with no real combat power would be easy to kill. They learned the timing and location of my field trip from Sophia Adelberg, and it just so happened they had gotten their hands on the Soul Reaper's casket. They decided to use it.

With a few plants they had embedded in Korea, and the information those plants carried, they succeeded in delivering the Soul Reaper's casket to my field-trip site. On the day itself, once they confirmed I had arrived at the National Museum, they had one of the plants release the sealing device mounted on the casket.

Unsealed, the Soul Reaper's casket sensed the life force of hundreds of people nearby and began to wake. I caught the signs in time, and the kids and I fled the museum.

Sophia's report told them the casket plan had failed. Watching the situation turn around me, they decided they could not leave it as it was, and resolved to send assassins themselves.

After that, though, the guard detail around me grew—quietly at first, then not so quietly—and they started getting nervous. Then word reached them that I had built an enormous training ground in Shinchon-dong and often trained there. Immediately afterward, they drew up an assault plan and put it into motion.

Two. What possessed you to kill the prime minister and try to pin a poisoning on me?

Protests were about to erupt at home, and they were desperate to yank the public's eyes elsewhere. Then they learned that the late Japanese prime minister, Miyabi, meant to sell them out to Korea. Furious, and convinced their own lives would be in danger if things went on, they decided to shut his mouth and dump the crime on me.

From the way I had threatened the airspace over another nation's capital without a moment's hesitation, they were certain I was a hot-tempered brat who stopped at nothing. So they went through with it.

The idiots were stuffed full of a baseless faith that I would never actually drop a magic shell on a city of tens of millions.

At that part I wanted to ask whether the thing in his skull was a brain or a pile of shit, but I swallowed it and kept listening.

Three. How did you buy Sophia Adelberg?

The bitch's mother had belonged to Japan's Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, a woman with a gift for espionage. Eighty years ago, sent to Britain as reparations for the ability-user crisis, she was a physical-enhancement user.

She was only twenty at the time. Over the decades that followed, looks and ability won her the Adelberg family's recognition. She married the family head and succeeded in becoming the official wife of House Adelberg.

Of the children born afterward, Sophia Adelberg's unusual gift for affinity looked exceedingly well suited to their plans. So rather than some ordinary older physical-enhancement user, they pulled Sophia—brilliant with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠people—aside, raised her as a spy, and attached her to Hwayeon, the only daughter of Korea's current president.

The decision, they said, had begun with the thought that she might someday prove useful to their future…

When I asked where the bitch was, they only repeated that she had vanished the moment my sister and I entered the Phase World, and that they could not find her either. I asked the Branch Director whether he could at least tell me if Sophia Adelberg had entered the Phase World. Quite a while later, word came back that there was no entry record. And with it, this:

"In principle, this is information I cannot give you. I am disclosing it only as an exception, in light of the relationship between you and Sophia Adelberg, and of Sophia Adelberg's position. Do not labor under the delusion that I will grant every request you make."

I laid Healing Touch on the Branch Director—hollow-eyed, grumbling at me like a tsundere—and told him I understood exactly how he felt. He stared at me as if I were insane…

I confirmed with Spatial Perception that my sister and Aunt Hyeryeong had returned to their offices, then went back to my own, looked out the window, and sorted through my thoughts.

Calling me darling, darling when Hwayeon wasn't there, and darling, darling even when she was—maybe that had been groundwork. An attempt to drive a wedge between me and Hwayeon.

"Sophia Adelberg did try to force excessive contact with Seoha from the very beginning. After Yeongeun appeared, Yeongeun blocked her every single time."

"Her network was so wide it felt excessive. At first I just assumed she was a social butterfly who couldn't keep her nose out of anything. Now that we know what she is, I can't see it as anything but keeping friendly so she could gather intelligence."

"You're right… My first impression was simply that she was a good person…"

I agreed with Franc.

The Japan affair was over. I had promised to provide somatic-cell and blood samples from Miho and Hiarid, and I had questions for the Branch Director besides, so I took the two of them and went looking for Aunt Hyeryeong.

I told her about the conversation I'd had a few days earlier with Director-General Aran Shaker and a researcher named Altina Meldios, and said I meant to visit the Korean branch of the Ability User Association. She told me to use the Master-exclusive vehicle. That caught me a little off guard.

"My own car? That's a bit much…"

"Oh, honestly. You are, in name and in fact, Grand Blue's Master. When you move on official business, please use the dedicated vehicle—for the sake of dignity, if nothing else!"

"Ah… all right."

Aunt Hyeryeong looked ready to cry as she added that she had even hired a driver. I couldn't very well refuse, so I climbed into a blue Rolls-Royce Phantom driven by a sturdy man in his thirties and rode to the Association.

When we arrived and I stepped out, the driver bowed, said he would wait in the Association parking lot, and drove off.

Somehow I felt as if I were wearing clothes that didn't fit. My own outfit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was casual, and the moment I got out of a Rolls-Royce Phantom the people nearby stared with expressions that said, Who is that, getting out of a car that expensive with a beauty like her…?

Then Hiarid, who had been flying after us, descended at my side with Miho. Passersby stopped as one, eyes going wide, and pulled out their phones to photograph Hiarid and Miho.

"Oh—now I remember. Isn't that Grand Blue's Master?"

"Yeah! The angel and the six-tailed fox!"

For a moment I weighed the main gate, packed with people, against the entrance for high-rank ability users, then headed for the high-rank door. I was a high-rank ability user myself, and I had no desire to walk into a crowd and collect every stare in it.

Or was I already collecting them?

As I walked, Franc, Miho, and Hiarid followed, and behind them the pedestrians followed too, snapping photos without restraint.

Watching them photograph not me, but only Franc, Miho, and Hiarid, I remembered something from not long ago.

I finished the recollection and stepped through the entrance reserved for high-rank ability users and returnees. The pure-white hall I had first seen right after my own return opened before me.

I expected there still wouldn't be any users… but a shabby-looking adult, perhaps a returnee, was boarding an elevator with two Association staff. Extremely gaunt, and visibly on edge. Wounds showed here and there on the body.

When the elevator doors closed, Franc looked at me.

"A physical-enhancement awakening, and they made it back. They must have suffered a great deal."

"Yeah… I figured a physical-enhancement user would clear a first run pretty comfortably. Guess I was wrong."

I approached the pure-white information desk between the two elevators. The male attendant bowed with a smooth smile.

"Welcome, Master of Grand Blue. May I ask what brings you?"

He knew me? Well, if he was manning the first-floor desk, he would have the distinguishing traits of the country's high-rank ability users memorized.

"I came without an appointment. Would it be possible to see the Branch Director?"

"I'll confirm. Please wait a moment."

If he said no, I would simply stop by that woman Altina Meldios and turn around.

Maybe, while I was out, I should check the Wall of Space in the space that bastard Ha Cheolsu had gone into. And, since I was already moving, see whether Choi Soohan was being trained properly, and look in on the Shinchon-dong training ground.

Less than a minute after he asked me to wait, the attendant smiled and told me that if I went to the top floor, the Branch Director would be waiting.

I stood before an elevator with no call button, and the doors opened at once. We boarded the pure-white car, lapollis flowerpots hung along the walls, and it shot upward toward the top floor.

Curious about the lapollis flowers, Miho floated up and kept sniffing, drinking in the scent.

Ever since she had become a High-Rank Variant in the Phase World, Miho's curiosity had spiked. Show her a place or an object she had never seen and she would inspect it and try to touch it; put something flashy in front of her and she would lose her mind and chase it.

Even now a pleasant scent was coming off the lapollis, so she stuck her nose in and sniffed, then tried to tear off a petal and bring it to her mouth. I caught her by the scruff and pulled. She thrashed, then looked up at me.

"Miho. What did I tell you about when we go outside?"

"Ah, uh… M-Master, you said to ask before I touch anything…"

Her snow-white ears folded flat. She looked up at me carefully, the face of someone asking whether she was about to be scolded. I stroked her head, handed her over to Hiarid, and said:

"Hold her so she can't wander off."

"Yes, Lord of Heaven."

Looking like a koala clinging to a tree, Miho brightened as if relieved she wasn't being scolded, grabbed Hiarid's collar, and started looking around the inside of the elevator.

"Seoha. You came to see the Branch Director because of Sophia, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I don't know if he'll help, but I'm going to ask Branch Director hyung first. If not, I'll have to go turn Britain upside down."

At the mention of stirring up Britain, Franc's face turned troubled. She caught my arm, drew herself against me, and asked carefully:

"Once you have caught Sophia Adelberg, what do you intend to do with her?"

"Honestly, I haven't decided. But she betrayed Hwayeon and hurt her, so first I catch her and beat her down. Before that, I'll pull her tongue out a few times."

I muttered about using Healing Touch or Healing Wave and yanking that tongue out a few dozen times. Miho trembled faintly and buried her face in the deep cleft of Hiarid's breasts.

Remembering when I'd threatened her before?

We reached the top floor and the elevator opened onto a space that was an entire floor of office.

The floor was finished in epoxy, in the vintage construction lately in fashion, and reflected like a mirror. The walls were gray concrete, and the ceiling—more than twenty meters up—had been left exposed. The whole space was gray.

Sunlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling glass and mixed gray with white into a strange atmosphere. An office that stirred a man's sensibilities.

I approached the Branch Director, seated in a swivel chair and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked at me with a tired face.

"Welcome. What is it?"

"I came to grant Miss Altina Meldios's request. Before that, there's something I wanted to ask you, hyung."

"Ah. You came earlier than I expected. Shall we talk on the way down to the lab?"

The moment we arrived we were in an elevator again, heading down. I asked whether there was any way to find Sophia Adelberg. The Branch Director murmured, "That story keeps coming up…," and shook his head.

"Impossible. Tracking a location through a Certifier is illegal among illegals."

"But Sophia's a criminal."

"Industrial espionage is certainly a crime under ordinary statute. But that is ordinary law. Sophia Adelberg did not, at the least, use her ability in the commission of a crime, so the Ability User Association cannot cooperate in her arrest."

"…"

"I know what you are thinking. She used a recovery ability to secure her network, so was that not a diversion of her ability?"

"From the way you put it, the IWO didn't define that as illegal."

"Correct. And so I cannot provide the information."

"Because of the Ability User Protection Act?"

"You know it well."

Honestly… should I admire the lack of flexibility, or call it suffocating? The thought must have shown on my face, because the Branch Director let out a small sigh and spoke.

"The Certifier signal of an ordinary ability user does nothing more than distinguish whether they are in reality or not. The location tracking you want is at a level that is impossible. And as you said, under the Ability User Protection Act, the protection of an ability user's privacy is extremely high."

"But that woman is a criminal. She stole information about me, and she even conspired in murder…"

"You are repeating what I already said. To explain it another way, the evidence is insufficient. Suspicion is ample, but there is no proof that Sophia Adelberg acted deliberately, is there?"

"…I heard it was the Ability User Association that introduced that woman to Hwayeon through the buddy system."

I narrowed my eyes at the Branch Director. He wore the expression of a man whose stomach ulcer was flaring, rubbed his solar plexus, and sighed heavily.

"I was suspicious of that point myself and investigated it directly, but it was coincidence stacked on coincidence. More than that—do you imagine you could sue your family or your friends for invasion of privacy simply because they tell other people ordinary stories about you? And even if you sued, do you have anything that would prove it? I trust you do not think a record at the level of a misdemeanor is enough to issue a wanted order."

I was still wearing a thoroughly dissatisfied face, so the Branch Director shook his head as if to say absolutely not, and spoke again.

"In any case, unless the crime is considerably serious, the Association cannot help you hunt an ability user. Telling you a few days ago whether Sophia Adelberg was in reality or in the Phase World fell under the lowest tier of information protection. I told you only by applying a few exception clauses."

"Tch. So it really won't work."

"…"

Maybe I ought to gather people I could put on investigative work like this and make a department. Section chief, or some title along those lines.

Following the Branch Director, we arrived at the laboratory inside the Association building, the one I had visited once before. Miho seemed to remember the lab. She frowned, then looked at me with a slightly frightened face.

"Master. Why did we come here? Are you going to abandon me?"

"Why would I abandon you. Don't think that."

"Okay!"

"I did come to draw a little of your blood, though."

"Ugh…"

I was stroking Miho, cheeks puffed in a sulk, when Altina Meldios came pounding over from far off, face lit with excitement, then leapt and dove at Hiarid and Miho.

Not an exaggeration. She actually jumped and flew.

"Hiarid, dodge."

"Yes."

"Kyaa~!"

She had only assumed they would catch her; she had not expected them to dodge. When Hiarid stepped one pace aside, Altina Meldios flailed both arms and screamed in panic.

Thanks to that, the Branch Director behind her took one step forward, caught Altina Meldios, and set her on her feet. Only then did the woman sigh as if she had survived, turn to me, and start in.

"Excuse me! When a lady leaps at you, the manners are to catch her, not to tell her to get back!"

And where was the law that said I had to catch a lady just because she jumped? Watching Altina Meldios protest, ordinary blonde hair swaying to her shoulders, I was so dumbfounded I argued back.

"And where is the reason I should show consideration to a woman who charges my pet without permission? If you've got one, write it up—a hundred sheets of two-thousand-character manuscript paper—and submit it."

"You think I can't, if you tell me to?!"

"Then the sample submission is off."

"…"

I grinned at Altina Meldios, who had shut her mouth. She opened it again with a look of choked-back fury.

"I was wrong. How far will you allow the samples? If you would provide ova as well, I would be truly delighted."

The tone was smooth and soft, nothing like the choked expression, as Altina Meldios produced two sheets of paperwork.

The researchers standing nearby and the Branch Director watched with baffled faces, but the woman herself did not so much as twitch an eyebrow as she held the documents out to me.

"If Miss Altina Meldios takes a lifetime position at the research institute I'm going to build, I'll consider providing ova."

"Truly?!"

"Seoha! Miss Meldios!"

At my words, and at Altina's reaction to them, the Branch Director cried out in alarm, face aghast.

Altina Meldios twisted her small, pale face without mercy, set her hands on her hips, and snarled at him.

"Why! If I could time-leap ten years into the past, I would grab myself by the collar and fight to the death to stop myself from joining the IWO!"

"That's—!"

"You said you would let me research whatever I wanted, and then you have me doing boring things like analyzing the body tissue of trivial aberrants! I did not come here to infer lifestyles from blood samples and skin tissue! I joined because I wanted to do genetic-engineering research on aberrants!"

Through Altina Meldios's fierce protest, the Branch Director looked at me reproachfully.

I hadn't said I would give them. I had said I would consider it.

I ignored his gaze and looked at the documents. A kind of cooperation contract. Reading it, I spoke to Altina Meldios.

"Anyway, harvesting Hiarid's ova is absolutely forbidden… Ah. What is this."

On the surface, the papers Altina Meldios had brought were an ordinary contract: provide blood and body-tissue samples from High-Rank and Peak-Rank Variants, and receive the research results in return.

The important part was underneath, in print the size of millet grains—an insane clause stating that every material the principal investigator demanded had to be provided.

People say you have to read a contract carefully. I went through it in detail just in case, and found a poison pill like this…! Wasn't this fraud?

"What is this? A clause, in print the size of millet, saying I have to provide every material the principal investigator demands."

"Uh, that… well."

At Altina Meldios hemming and hawing with the face of someone caught, one of my eyebrows twitched. I turned around.

"This is fraud, isn't it? I'm not doing it. Let's go."

I had handed over Peak-Rank Variant corpses whole, and the compensation was an illegal contract?

Irritated, I snatched up the papers and flung them—then, worried what tricks they might pull with my fingerprints on them, caught them again and erased them with the Wall of Space.

"Aaah! Grand Blue Master! Wait a moment~!"

I started back the way I had come through the stunned researchers, and Altina Meldios came running in a panic and grabbed me.

"Let go."

"I'm sorry! I think I lost my mind for a second! Just once, just this once, please let it go! Please?!"

"Ha. Seriously. Didn't they teach you that if you pull a dirty trick in a contract and get caught, your wrist comes off?"

I smacked the back of the hand Altina Meldios had locked around my waist, made her take it off, and growled. Altina put on every expression available to someone in a thoroughly inferior position and begged without shame.

"I was wrooong. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠test subject like my very dream was right in front of me, and before I knew it I had pulled a dirty trick. Master Seoha, think about it just once! How you would feel if your lifelong wish were right in front of you!"

"Even if it were, I wouldn't commit a crime the way you did, Miss Meldios. The sample provision is canceled. I handed over Peak-Rank Variant corpses whole, and you write in print the size of millet to lure me into an illegal contract? I ought to just sue you."

I snapped and glared at Altina Meldios. She flinched and avoided my eyes. Then Director Kim Moohul, who had been standing behind, approached with an awkward little laugh, bowing again and again as he apologized and begged me to please let go of my anger.

"You need not sign any contract. If you prefer, you may record this conversation on video. We will be satisfied if you simply provide blood, oral epithelial cells, and hair cells from Miss Hiarid and Miss Miho. If you wish, we will also relieve Miss Altina Meldios of her senior researcher post."

"Director Kim Moohul!"

Faced with the crisis of losing her post, Altina Meldios shrieked. Director Kim Moohul grimaced, covered his ears, sighed, then turned a stern face on her as if to say he had never seen such a childish young lady.

"Do you not understand that whether we can conduct cellular research on humanoid Peak-Rank Variants and High-Rank subspecies at all depends entirely on Grand Blue Master's will? And yet, out of personal research greed, you tried to induce an unfair deal in fine print and wreck the research partnership. If this matter is reported to the IWO, your father and your mother will be simply delighted."

But as if she could not hear Director Kim Moohul at all, Altina Meldios looked at Hiarid, and at Miho held in Hiarid's arms, and stamped her feet.

At that childish display, Director Kim Moohul wore a frustrated expression, glanced at me, sighed heavily, grabbed Altina Meldios by the shoulders, spun her around, and barked:

"You childish young lady! This research cannot even be attempted without Grand Blue Master's cooperation! If this goes on and we cannot study living tissue either, are you prepared to take responsibility for the aftermath, Miss Meldios?!"

"Ugh."

"If Grand Blue's Master files a complaint, the Korean government will undoubtedly send a formal letter of protest to the Ability User Association and the IWO. Should that happen, the IWO and the Association will certainly accept it and take measures so that you can have nothing to do with aberrant research for the rest of your life. Are you confident you can live a life with no connection to research whatsoever?"

"…"

Altina Meldios seemed to imagine that future from Director Kim Moohul's words. With a distinctly unhappy face, she gave a small shake of her head.

"Do not ruin your career over greed for the sample in front of you. Walk steadily down the path you have been given. Do that, and someday you will reach the road you want. Do you understand, or do you not?"

"I… I understand…"

Under the harsh scolding, Altina Meldios hung her head, face gloomy. Director Kim Moohul, of course, and the researchers from the Association and the government standing around them, gave small shakes of their heads. This sort of thing must happen often.

A tiring person, in more ways than one.

But Director Kim Moohul—did he know Altina Meldios's parents?