Episode 231: Rest (4)

Once our business at the Presidential Residence at Bangbae-dong was finished, we headed straight for the training grounds in Shinchon-dong. On the way I asked about the strange air that had hung between Grandpa the butler and Yeongeun, and after a small sigh she began to tell a secret no one else had heard.

"It must have been about two years after I took Juhan on as butler. I used to stop by a flower shop nearby, buying flowers to dress the inside of the mansion. The owner was a girl about Juhan's age, and somewhere along the way the two of them fell in love. Before long he came to me and said they meant to marry."

As she started the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠story, Yeongeun's eyes went terribly far away.

"She was an orphan too. Perhaps because she'd suffered so much as a child, her body was unusually frail."

"..."

"I had no reason to stand in the way of their love, and no reason to envy Juhan his happiness, so I gave them my blessing. For a while after that, Juhan and that girl were happy. Until she was with child."

"Ah. So that's what you meant, about her body being weak..."

"Mm. Pregnancy and childbirth put a terrible strain on a woman's body. When that body is as frail as hers was, the trouble only grows. For her, carrying the child was dangerous enough — giving birth meant staking her life. But she wanted to bear Juhan's baby."

"Haa..."

I hadn't even heard the end of it, and a miserable ending was already writing itself in my head. All the more so because I'd just learned the old man lived alone.

"She did conceive, just as she wished, but from the earliest days of the pregnancy one dangerous turn after another kept coming. Even so, with all of Juhan's effort and his wife's devotion, I thought they had weathered every crisis..."

Yeongeun let the words hang. When a red light stopped us, she leaned her upper body against the wheel.

"Then the moment of birth arrived, and the fear became real. The doctor said that if they went on as things stood, the mother's life would be in danger. By then the complications had already set in — preeclampsia — so even a cesarean was difficult. Mother and child were both at risk. If I'd had any room in my head back then, I would have kept Juhan at his wife's side and found them a healer-type ability user besides. But I was insanely busy, and I never gave them the care I should have. And when word came that his wife's condition had turned critical... Juhan was away on a long trip. On my orders."

The light turned green. She started the car and went on.

"The work at the time was something I truly had to entrust to a person I could rely on, so I sent Juhan. And in the end, he never even got to be there for his wife's last moments."

"..."

Neither I nor Franc could say a word. We only listened. Yeongeun sighed faintly and spoke again, her voice a little choked.

"When Juhan came back, he cradled his wife's urn and wailed over the premature child — a seven-month baby, born of a hard labor, lying in an incubator. It would have been something, at least, if that child had grown up healthy... but even the last trace the two of them left in the world followed her mother before a hundred days had passed."

"...That wasn't your fault, Yeongeun."

Franc tried to comfort her, face clouded, but Yeongeun shook her head, firm, and refused it.

"I used being busy and worn out as an excuse, and at the very moment Juhan should have been beside his wife I loaded him with this errand and that and stole the time they ought to have had. I used being frantically busy as an excuse and never even looked after his wife. This isn't something I get to dodge by saying it couldn't be helped — that it wasn't my fault."

She shook her head at Franc's words, and her eyes were unbearably sad. I said nothing. I only closed my hand over the one she had resting on the automatic shifter and asked.

"Did Grandpa ever say he resented you?"

"...Just once. After he'd sent both his wife and his daughter off so early, he was suffering so badly that I forced drink on him until he was drunk. He hadn't slept in a week, and I was suddenly terrified he might follow that child. I meant to put him to sleep with the help of the liquor."

"And then Grandpa..."

"Mm. Drunk, Juhan wept and said he wanted to see his wife — his daughter — even just once more. That if he could see them one single time, he felt he could do anything."

Franc's throat seemed to close. She dropped her eyes and couldn't speak, and Yeongeun gave a bitter smile and poked her in the cheek.

Watching that, I tightened the hand laid over the back of Yeongeun's and spoke.

"Grandpa doesn't resent you. He's probably thinking that the moment to part from his wife and daughter simply came earlier for him than it does for other people. So don't blame yourself like that."

At my comfort she drew a long breath, looked at me, and smiled brightly.

"How is it you say the exact same thing Juhan did? He said that too. But once I had someone of my own to love, Juhan's loneliness, and the feelings his wife must have known, come over me without warning. When that child was facing death, how badly she must have wanted to see him. How desperately she must have longed for his warm hand, for his arms... When I think of that, the tears try to come."

"..."

Franc reached out and drew Yeongeun lightly in by the neck, and I only put a little more strength, without a word, into the hand holding Yeongeun's.

We arrived at the training grounds in Shinchon-dong. I took up the Cheonchong Ungeom and was loosening my body when I glanced back at Yeongeun. On the surface she looked the same as always, but to my eyes her heart had gone soft.

I sighed and pulled her into a hard embrace.

"S-Seoha?"

"If it really eats at you that much, then stop ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hating Choi Soohan, and help the two of them live as grandfather and granddaughter."

Held against me, Yeongeun fidgeted, then circled her arms around my back, buried her face in my shoulder, and gave a small nod.

We stayed like that a little while. Then, as if her mood had cleared, she drew back, and I answered the bright smile she turned on me with one of my own. Once Spatial Perception confirmed there were no paparazzi within range, I gave that firm backside three or four sound pats.

She stuck it out at me with a mischievous grin, and most of the gloom seemed to have gone. I was relieved.

"But I never hated Choi Soohan, you know? I only thought it was impudent of her, trying to get doted on by our Seoha ahead of the rest of us."

"...I never doted on her."

"If Franc hadn't stopped you, you'd have laid the rod of love on Choi Soohan first, wouldn't you? Trying it on her before your own wives — if that isn't doting, what is it?"

"No! That wasn't anything like love! I just thought punching and kicking a woman was wrong, so I used a tool—!"

I was desperately pleading my innocence under Yeongeun's interrogation when Franc cut in out of nowhere.

"Seoha is possessed of a strong sadistic nature. He says it is not so, yet we know full well that whenever we gasp in distress as we share our love, his little darling only grows larger. And each time he laid the cane upon Miss Choi Soohan, he grew faintly excited, did he not?"

...!!

"Oh my. Is that so? So it wasn't only I who felt it."

"Mm. Especially when we use our mouths. Every time it brushes the back of the throat, the little darling twitches, you know."

"I thought so~ I was suspicious, the way he looks so pleased whenever he puffs our bellies up as if he'd gotten us pregnant. So he was getting excited because we were suffering?"

They watched my flustered face and put their heads together, wicked looks on them, whispering. If you're going to whisper, then whisper so I can't hear it! I can hear every word!

Ignore them. Ignoring them is the answer!

I took the scabbard in my left hand, drew the Cheonchong Ungeom, and poured TP into it. Once the injected TP passed a certain threshold, sure enough, a sound like the choked sobbing of a woman thick with bitter grief spilled from the blade.

I let the weeping sword-cry slide past my ear and raised a Wall of Space... and the TP it consumed had dropped by more than twenty percent?

What was this? I'd made a one-meter cube. Ordinarily that should have cost 80, but only 70 had been consumed. The moment I held the sobbing Cheonchong Ungeom, a cold blue afterimage lingered in the empty air and dazzled my eyes.

Could it be because of this?

I drew the injected TP back out. The sword-cry stopped, and the blue light vanished with it. I generated another one-meter cube of Wall of Space, and this time 83 TP was consumed.

So the effect had been strengthened because I'd left TP sitting in the blade?

"What was that sound just now? It seemed to come from the sword!"

Having heard the sword-cry — that sound like a woman's sobbing — Franc and Yeongeun came over with their eyes wide as startled rabbits.

"I've never heard a sword-cry before! What happened? There was a flash of blue light, too. Is that an effect of the Mana Sieve?"

"Yeah. When I inject TP, this weird sound comes out, and the reduction in TP cost goes up to thirty percent. Franc, want to try it?"

She looked fascinated, as if she ached to touch it, so I handed her the Cheonchong Ungeom. Eyes sparkling, she took the sword in one hand — and lurched, about to topple — and I shot out a hand and caught hers.

"Ugh. I'm sorry!"

Franc seized the hilt in both hands at once, embarrassed at having nearly dropped the sword. As if to cover the embarrassment she raised the blade, aimed the tip at the empty ground, and let out a sharp kiai.

"Hap!"

Crackle!

A small strand of lightning, no thicker than a finger, shot from the sword's tip and scraped the earth, and the gravel in its path popped and spat as it was fried along the pure-white bolt.

I stared at the furrow that single bolt had plowed, then asked her. The TP consumed had been 8, so...

"Did you use a ten-TP one?"

"Yes."

After that Franc dropped bolts of 72 TP, of 108 TP, and so on across the empty lot, but the reduction in TP cost seemed to be only around twenty percent. The Cheonchong Ungeom didn't sob the way it had when I used it, either.

"Let me try once, too."

Yeongeun, who had been watching Franc's lightning demonstration, took the Cheonchong Ungeom, tried a light horizontal cut and a vertical cut one-handed, and nodded.

"The balance sits beautifully. A sword with no crossguard — much like a changpo-geom, the old Korean blade."

She set her feet shoulder-width, left foot forward, left hand high on the hilt and right hand low in a rider's guard, and at once chained a downward strike into a diagonal rising cut, a horizontal cut from the right, and a thrust straight after. The motions flowed together as cleanly as water — neat and fast, just as you'd expect from a sword fanatic like Yeongeun. The Extrema Ratio EX she'd given me was proof enough that she was a collector who spent money like water, so it was no surprise she took an interest in swordsmanship and the like. She was an ability user herself, after all.

Then, as if she were working a manipulation art, the Phase Power inside her body began to spin at speed, and as that rotational force poured into the blade the Cheonchong Ungeom started to ripple with a watery light.

A watery light — other people probably couldn't see it. Just in case, I asked Franc, and she said a colorless, transparent shimmer showed around the sword.

"Haat!"

In an instant she stepped in on her right foot and cut upward from the left, then bent her knees, kicked off the ground, leapt back, and brought the blade down from the right.

The moment the sword cut the air twice, a huge watery half-moon unfurled in an X and surged on, scoring two sharp slashes into the ground. I hastily raised a Wall of Space in its path.

The X-shaped slash that touched the wall vanished without a trace, like a drop of water falling into a glass.

"Hnn. The Wall of Space really is a frightening thing. That was a crescent blade that used three hundred thousand TP, and it didn't leave so much as a scratch."

So she could loose sword aura, too. Marveling at the Wall of Space, which stood completely unharmed, Yeongeun passed the Cheonchong Ungeom back to me.

"I put TP into the sword with a manipulation technique, but there's no sword-cry, and the reduction is only about twenty percent. It seems to answer only to the Mana Sieve."

"Is that so. Where did Japan say they got this sword?"

I fed TP back into the blade she'd returned, and once again that long sobbing — hyuuuu — rang out.

"They said they found it somewhere like the royal tomb of Kahumil."

Kahumil — an undead region, like Marauso? If I found the time, I ought to lead a raid team out there too.

Something I'd come to suspect while using the Wall of Space: couldn't I make it so the wall wouldn't harm a person I designated?

After all, the Wall of Space tore apart everything except me, and yet it had no effect at all on the shoes or the clothes I was wearing. Suspecting as much was only natural, wasn't it?

Miho was dashing about the wide grounds in high spirits, six tails streaming this way and that, and I ran Spatial Perception over her small body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Two fox ears and two human ears. Six tails springing from the tailbone. A flat little body with no sexual characteristics to speak of — two hearts, one at the pit of the stomach and one in the abdomen, and aside from that no different from a human's.

"Miho, come here."

Miho, who had been chasing a butterfly and laughing bright as bells, flew over at my call.

"Did you call, Master?"

"...Never mind. Go play."

Miho tilted her head, then soon found the butterfly she'd been after and went fluttering off again. I turned my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eyes to Franc and Yeongeun... but if something went wrong they could be hurt, so I left them out of it.

I looked Hiarid over from head to toe with Spatial Perception, missing nothing where she stood quietly, then reached out and began a serious investigation of texture, of shape, of all the rest.

"What are you doing? If you need something to touch, touch my body!"

My hands had come down from Hiarid's chest to her abdomen, and I'd started on her rear, her thighs, the space between her legs, when Yeongeun shouted with a slightly angry face and shoved her large breasts at me. Franc glared at me too, sulking.

"Huh? No. I'm trying to test whether the Wall of Space might leave a target I designate unharmed. I remember every inch of your bodies, Franc, Yeongeun — but if something goes wrong you could be badly hurt, so I was going to test it on Hiarid. She's sturdy."

"Ah..."

"Th-that's what it was?"

I threw the two embarrassed faces a crooked smirk, felt Hiarid's wings as well, dusted off my hands, and spoke.

"I'm going to test the Wall of Space on you. You might be badly hurt, but if you are I'll heal you, so don't worry."

Hiarid set her staff on the ground, pressed her palms together, and tucked them between breasts the size of watermelons. Calm-faced, she gazed at me.

She seemed ready. I kept hypnotizing myself — I will not attack Hiarid — and tried to raise the Wall of Space... Hmm.

A moment ago I'd felt that if I examined her thoroughly with Spatial Perception and became firmly aware of that body, it would work. Now a premonition stood out clear as day: raise the Wall of Space like this, and Hiarid would die.

I scratched the back of my head and turned it over, but I couldn't tell why the premonition had suddenly changed. I'd been standing with my arms crossed, worrying, for ten minutes, and Franc, Yeongeun, and Hiarid were still staring at me without the least sign of boredom...

Ah.

To unfold the Wall of Space, I had to concentrate Phase Power through my whole body. Then, once I decided what shape to raise the wall in and designated a place, the Wall of Space generated itself there on its own. That act was no different from reaching out an arm to take hold of something, or from moving my body.

In other words, it was an action carried out on an unconscious level, with no need to think at all. So if I stayed conscious of raising the Wall of Space...!

"Hnnrgh!"

"Ngh. It's no good."

I was sure the method was right, but it wouldn't obey me nearly as well as I'd thought. I spent two hours wrestling with the Wall of Space and didn't succeed even once.

I restored Hiarid's index finger — disintegrated for the thirty-third time — with Healing Touch, let out a deep sigh, and turned to my lovers. Miho was fast asleep in Franc's arms, and Franc and Yeongeun were chatting with each other while taking pictures of me.

...My concentration was dropping, too. This was as far as I'd go.

I sighed heavily, got to my feet, and dusted off my backside, and Franc and Yeongeun came over smiling.

"It didn't go well?"

"No. It feels like some thin wall is standing in my way."

"That ability isn't bound to any particular place, so if you practice whenever you have the time, might you not come to a fine result?"

"I think so. I'll go home, rest a little, and practice again."

When we got home around lunchtime, Hwayeon was on the terrace practicing Sihwa Yuseon. So her work was finished?

I was watching her move with such focus that her spandex training suit was soaked through with sweat when Yeongeun, having changed into a training suit of her own, went out onto the terrace and broke in on Hwayeon's Sihwa Yuseon.

"...What is it."

"It's been weeks since I had a proper spar, and the itch is killing me. Won't you humor me?"

"See that you don't regret it."

"I haven't regretted a single thing since I started sleeping with our Seoha."

I watched the two of them bicker and tangle, then turned on my Certifier, registered the Certifier mail Lydia had given me just before she returned home, and placed a call.

I watched the hologram window hanging in front of my eyes. After about five rings, the call went through — and the instant it did, I realized it was around two in the morning in Britain and froze. I should have called after dinner.

"Uh, hi."

Beyond the screen, the pale-blonde girl smiled brightly and waved. Lydia, in a crisp white blouse without a single wrinkle and a blue ribbon tied in a butterfly bow at her throat, looked genuinely delighted to see me.

Plant one strand of idiot-hair on the crown of that head and she'd be perfect.

Anyway, I'd been rude calling so late, so I apologized first.

"Sorry. I didn't wake you, did I?"

She smiled brightly and held up a book whose title I couldn't tell for French or German, as if to say she'd been reading until just a moment ago.

"I see. You didn't get scolded by Her Majesty when you got back?"

"So she figured we couldn't even be friends."

"Heh. I am a bit particular, yeah."

A sudden commotion broke out beside me. I turned to find Yeongeun flailing in an angry Hwayeon's naked choke while Franc scrambled to pull them apart. Off to the side, Miho was bouncing up and down, shrieking with delight.

"It's nothing to congratulate me for. I only got what I was obviously owed."

Lydia looked faintly startled, then broke into a helpless laugh.

"I don't know whether I ought to be happy about that or sad."

I was glad my name seemed to have spread a little, but still. More than that — what was a Grand Master? Had I picked up another nickname?

"What I'm sad about is that I don't like attention piling onto me."

"And I'll decline any official invitation. Laughing ha-ha, ho-ho with strangers in a place I don't know isn't to my taste. Still, I am planning to visit Britain around the middle of this month."

At that moment a commotion carried over from Lydia's side. I wondered what the fuss was, but the princess paid it no mind at all and poured every bit of her attention into our conversation.

"That's one reason. There are a few more."

Lydia looked at me with a face full of expectation, clasped both hands together, and smiled radiantly.

"That's welcome news."

"Were you thinking of coming out to meet me?"

"Don't. I'm not going on Korea's business, or Grand Blue's. I'm going on my own personal business. I'm only telling you now because we went to school together, and that was only a month — I'm telling you for that much feeling."

Hwayeon and Yeongeun's spar was growing fiercer by the moment. Neither was listening to Franc's attempts to stop them, and both were slowly spinning up their Phase Power. I was going to have to break it up.

"Anyway, I'll contact you again then. I'm hanging up."

"Yeah."

I hung up, ran over, and wedged myself between the two of them as they locked fingers and strained against each other hard enough to turn their fingers white.

"Stop it. Keep sparring and you'll tear the building down."

"...H-hmph! Know that I'm letting her off because of Seoha!"

"That is my line. Understand that you owe Seoha your life."

I was settling the two of them, panting like a pair of she-cats, when Franc let out a small sigh, gently stroked my shoulder, and spoke.

"Seoha. I'm sorry for listening in. But I agree with Miss Lydia's opinion."

"Hm?"

Franc took my left hand in both of hers.

"Because of Japan's assault, it has become widely known that you are no ordinary ability user. The world remembers you, Seoha, as an ability user without precedent — one who brought Japan to its knees alone, without shedding a single drop of blood."

"..."

"A great many people will be watching for news of you. It needn't be the full ceremony due a king or a minister of state, but the time has come to keep a certain dignity. Only then will the standing your name carries continue to rise — and with it, the honor of your parents and of Grand Blue."

"...All right. I'll keep it in mind."

So in the end, she was telling me to muster an honor guard suited to the power I had now — the way a student puts on a uniform to go to school.