Departure Preparations (1)
Franc seemed to want me to carry myself with a dignity worthy of my power. But what was dignity, exactly? Standing with my hands clasped behind my back while a string of people trailed after me?
The truth was, I'd even considered slipping into Britain and hitting the Adelberg family in a sudden raid. If I crossed over with Dad, though, word would get out, and I figured that bitch — if she really was hiding somewhere over there — might simply run.
The more I turned it over, the more another problem presented itself. Sophia had been such a social butterfly, working every corner of this world, that there might still be people inside Grand Blue sympathetic to her.
I'd already posted notices on the raid team's homepage declaring Sophia Adelberg a traitor, a spy sent by Japan — not only on Grand Blue's board, but on the Certifier community, the official Korean ability-user site, and the Ability User Association's site as well. Even so...
She was too good with people, too naturally likable. I was sure there were still those who would help her no matter how hard I threatened. Better, then, to move in the open than to hide and creep around.
Anyway. Before I embarrassed myself with some stupid blunder, I needed to look into this dignity business and practice it.
Hwayeon and Yeongeun finished their sparring and headed off to wash away the sweat, trailing thick plum and cherry pheromones right past my face as they went. I got a little worked up, but I held it in. If I pounced on them now, I might not crawl back out until morning.
Franc said she'd start on lunch while the two of them washed, and disappeared into the kitchen. I stroked the tail of Miho, sprawled frog-like and asleep on the sofa, and thought it over. Before we entered on Monday, I ought to send this one to the Ability User Association's residential suites with Hiarid and have them keep watch.
The tail under my hand had the plush of the finest fur, and as I stroked it the other six began to sway like sea anemones, tickling my fingers.
"Mmmnn..."
I gathered the sleep-drunk, squirming girl into my arms. Even half-asleep she seemed pleased, smiling softly as she hugged my hand close. Her temperature ran a little warmer than my lovers', a pleasant heat. Little ones ran warm, didn't they? I was brushing back hair as fine as silk thread from the babbling girl when the dressing-room door opened and Hwayeon and Yeongeun walked out.
And good lord. Their outfits...
Both wore short tank tops and shorts, but the tanks were black fine mesh embroidered with flowers, so pink nipples flashed through the netting. Obscene didn't begin to cover it.
I stared, eyes wide, as the two of them settled beside me in a fresh green-grape scent. Franc, who had said she was making lunch, came in carrying fist-sized rounds of kimchi pancake and a bowl of dongchimi, the cool radish water-kimchi — and her eyes went perfectly round at the sight of their clothes.
Yeongeun posed beside me as if to show off her figure, watched my face go red, and smiled with satisfaction.
"Ohoho. Our Seoha can't take his eyes off, can he?"
"Aigoo... Yeongeun. Isn't that outfit a bit much?"
"They say men get excited by what they see, so I thought I'd try it on. And looking at Seoha's reaction, I was right. Hohoho."
Yeongeun laughed brightly while Hwayeon, eyes smoldering, slowly stroked my thigh. I had no idea how I was supposed to react. Franc caught my expression, looked down at her own plain clothes, and started fretting. This was about to get out of hand, so I opened my mouth in something like a half-threat.
"You're all beautiful enough as it is. Walk around in clothes that explosive, and... I might lose my head and pin you down at home the way I did last time. You sure you're all right with that?"
After the third entry, when the reporters wouldn't leave me alone, I'd burned off the piled-up stress by taking all three of them — and back then I really had gone at them all day, twenty-four hours straight.
The memory must have come back, because all three flinched. They were so cute I couldn't help a chuckle, and Hwayeon and Yeongeun quietly got to their feet.
"...We'll go change."
With that, they slipped into the room.
We had buckwheat noodles for lunch, then sujeonggwa — a sweet cinnamon punch — for dessert. Hwayeon brought up a hologram window and pulled a few data screens into view.
"Monday, we depart for the Asumpfre Sunken Ruins on a four-night, five-day schedule. We leave the morning of the tenth and return the afternoon of the fourteenth."
"Sunken ruins means underwater combat. Anything we should watch for?"
"Mm. The Asumpfre Sunken Ruins are home to aquatic dinosaurs. The water's deeper than you'd expect, and the ruins sit far from the lakeshore, which makes exploration difficult. Mid-High Rank Variants appear constantly and attack, and we judge there are at least two Peak-Rank Variants in there. A clear was attempted a year ago, but the site was ruled impossible."
I listened, studying the simplified map of the area and the spots marked as likely ruin locations, then asked.
"Mid-High Rank Variants aren't that hard, are they? And they still ruled it impossible?"
"It's customary to raise an Aberrant one tier when it appears somewhere humans have trouble operating — lava fields, cliffs, underwater combat. The rank is Mid-High, but environmental factors rate them as High Grade."
"I see. Then I just handle the fighting?"
"You don't have to take all of it. Leave the excavation and transport to the other ability users and the supporters."
Yeongeun took a sip of sujeonggwa, ice clinking in the glass, and spoke in a voice that held not a speck of worry.
"The sunken ruins looked extremely tricky in the materials I got last time, but all that fuss is only about the fighting. If Seoha comes along, it'll be an easy win~."
"If we attempted a clear without Seoha, it would be a month-long course at minimum. And even then, one with less than a thirty percent chance of success."
"A month? The deepest point is two thousand meters, isn't it? If we pulled aggro off a Peak-Rank Variant, failed the hunt, and let it get away, the whole thing would blow up. A month wouldn't even come close."
"Which is why I said minimum."
"And I'm objecting to that minimum of a month."
Maybe the humiliation of their earlier spar was still fresh, because Yeongeun started needling her, scratching at Hwayeon's temper.
A lake, and two kilometers deep? Is that even a lake?
I almost asked a few more questions, then let it go. I'd know once we reached the sunken ruins. Nobody seemed to have anything on today, so I figured I'd take it easy.
Hwayeon went in early Sunday morning and spent a busy stretch preparing for the raid, and Yeongeun went out over the sale of the mansion, so I passed the morning on the terrace, forming Space Walls and practicing. I kept at it under Franc's cheering right up until lunch drew near, but I failed to create a Space Wall that wouldn't harm my companions.
"It feels like it's about to work, and then it doesn't."
I let out a long sigh. Yeongeun, finished with her errand, and Hwayeon, home for lunch, started getting the meal ready.
We were all gathered and eating when Spatial Perception caught Choi Soohan arriving at the Grand Blue Building.
Hmm... Everyone's here anyway. I should ask them about raising Choi Soohan's class.
"What do you all think of Choi Soohan?"
I called the three of them over once the meal and the cleanup were done, and my three lovers looked at me, puzzled.
"Ah, was that too out of nowhere? I'm thinking of growing Choi Soohan all the way to the peak of C-Class. What do you think?"
"Are you planning to make Miss Choi Soohan one of your inner circle?"
"If she's only at the threshold of D-Class, she's low next to my ability, and I worry she'd get looked down on. I'd also like to take her along on raids. At early D-Class she'd only get in the way, so I want to feed her TP and grow her some."
"This will take some thought, from several angles."
Hwayeon folded her arms and closed her eyes. She took that posture whenever she had something to think through deeply. Franc and Yeongeun each turned it over, faces thoughtful.
To help them judge, I sorted my thoughts for a moment, then spoke.
"Think back to the TP infusion experiments I ran on Aberrants in the fourth Phase World. The reason they change so dramatically is probably that the form of their Phase Power is different from a human's."
At that, my three lovers looked at me with curious faces.
"An Aberrant's Phase Power normally sits clumped at the center of the body. Once combat starts, the form of that Phase Power shifts according to each one's type. A human's, though, always exists in the shape of their own type."
"It does?"
Huh? Ah. I hadn't told them this. Hwayeon and Yeongeun looked startled and pressed in close, interested.
"Yeah. Because of that difference, I think Aberrants evolve into subspecies, while a human's body gets reconstituted by Phase Power and their ability improves. Intelligence above a certain threshold plays into it too. And..."
I put on a serious face, as if what came next mattered, and the three of them tensed a little and listened.
"When an Aberrant's Phase Power grows to its limit, they start forming a Phase Stone in the heart, right? Then, once that Phase Stone fills to its own limit, it converts back into Phase Power and spreads through the whole body. Aberrants naturally secure what they need to climb to the next rank that way. Humans don't have a Phase Stone to spend on bodily evolution, so I think that's why they pass out."
I said it looking at Yeongeun, and she looked down at her own body and murmured.
"That's right... In phase studies, there's a theory that Phase Stones exist so Aberrants can secure the energy to evolve. And comparing it to my own case, Seoha's hypothesis definitely holds."
"Growing Choi Soohan would make it even clearer."
"Ah. Then maybe the reason ability users have a ceiling on their aptitude is that a Phase Stone never forms in the body."
Hmm. Hearing Franc, I thought she might be right. Hwayeon and Yeongeun seemed to feel the same, nodding with surprised faces.
Hwayeon spoke.
"Even so, it feels a little like we'd be running a human experiment on Choi Soohan, and that sits poorly with me..."
"Can you really call it a human experiment? Our Seoha's Mana Sieve has never caused a single problem. If there were one, the first abnormalities would have shown up in our bodies — the ones that take his seed every time we make love. He's grown and evolved Aberrants several stages at a time, and they were all perfectly fine."
Yeongeun answered, glancing at Miho, who was playing with a game console in her hands. Franc and Hwayeon followed her gaze, thought a moment, then nodded and agreed. Then Franc suddenly shot me a sidelong glare.
"If only it didn't arouse whoever receives the TP, it would have been truly perfect."
"Hehe. Oh — you said the less intelligent Aberrants showed extreme hostility when they took in TP and evolved, didn't you? Maybe that's why they got so angry. They saw Seoha, who isn't even their kind, and couldn't understand why they were suddenly, helplessly aroused?"
"That makes sense. Beasts that go into heat on a cycle, not constantly, would have no way to understand suddenly finding themselves in heat."
"Ahaha..."
I laughed awkwardly at my murmuring lovers. Hwayeon looked displeased at the idea of showing Choi Soohan the Mana Sieve, but perhaps recalling how Soohan had been lately, she let out a small sigh and nodded.
"Seoha is strong enough now that no one can lay a hand on him lightly. Even if this story leaks, it won't become a serious threat to him. I agree."
"If word gets out that classes can be raised this way, research requests in the related fields will get extreme... Well, similar research is already underway, so maybe it doesn't matter. I agree too."
"I agree as well."
"Then, as they say, strike while the iron is hot. I'll call Choi Soohan right now."
I had my three lovers' consent, so I ought to handle it immediately.
Summoned with their agreement, Choi Soohan dropped everything the moment she got my call and came to the fortieth floor of the residential wing — my home.
In a slightly loose white lace tee and gray cotton pants, she saw me and my lovers and bowed at the waist with a butler's crisp precision.
"I greet Master, and my ladies."
Under the gazes of the three women and the two beasts, Choi Soohan stood at perfect attention without so much as a twitch. I spoke.
"Is the work at the Bangbae-dong mansion all finished?"
"Grandfather said he would see to the mansion's final arrangements himself."
So the old butler wanted to close out the mansion where he'd spent so many years with his own hands? Either way, this meant I could take Choi Soohan on the raid Monday.
"Choi Soohan. You've hit your growth limit, haven't you? Phase Power of 27,000."
"That is correct."
"If you could break through that limit and grow further, what would you do?"
"I would grow, no matter the price."
"Why?"
"Because at my current class, I fear I would only be a burden to Master."
She clearly didn't understand why I was asking, but her face said that since it was my question, she would answer faithfully. So this was what a loyal retainer's blind devotion looked like.
"With my ability, I can break your growth limit and raise your Phase Power. I'm thinking of taking you up to C-Class with it."
"I— is that tr... Thank you."
She had started to blurt out a stunned question, then seemed to decide that was unbecoming of a butler, corrected herself, and bowed.
"I don't need any price. It's a reward I'm giving you, for accepting your wish to serve me."
"...Yes!"
At the word reward, her face flushed on reflex, but she fought to hide the heat and looked at me with reverence.
There were three ways to increase Phase Power: feeding my TP directly through the mouth, absorbing it through the skin, and injecting semen. Setting the third aside, which of the mouth and the skin would be more effective?
Hmm. Feeding it by mouth seemed to drive them into severe heat, so I'd go with skin contact, which carried less sexual stimulation.
I got up, sat down on the carpet, and said,
"Take off your top and sit in front of me with your back turned."
At my order, without a shred of question or hesitation, Choi Soohan pulled off the lace tee and the thin, tight chemise beneath it, baring her upper body completely. I spoke to her as she knelt with her back to me.
"I'm going to inject TP directly into your body. It may get hot as you take it in, so endure it."
"Yes!"
Franc and Yeongeun, seeing Choi Soohan's chest — flatter than a man's — for the first time, wore the exact expressions of people looking at a pitiful animal. Choi Soohan paid them no mind. She straightened her back and set both hands on her knees.
The Phase Power required to become C-Class was 299,999, and Choi Soohan's was 27,000. To fill her all the way to the peak of C-Class — roughly three million — my current 3.5 million looked a little short.
"Franc. Bring me one high-grade Phase Stone."
"Yes!"
Franc went into the large room, brought back a high-grade Phase Stone, and drifted around us with a curious face. Miho came trotting over too, clung to Hwayeon's back, and swished her tails with a fascinated expression.
"Th-the material you need is a high-grade Phase Stone...?"
"For now, yes."
"...I-I'll give it everything I have!"
Whether it was the shock of a Phase Stone worth a little over a trillion won being used as material, or the shock of it being used on her, her loyalty only seemed to deepen.
I set the Phase Stone aside, sat behind Choi Soohan, and took hold of her waist, which hadn't an ounce of spare flesh. The bare skin under my hands felt different from my lovers' — taut, springy. The moment I touched her, she flinched, then drew a deep breath.
"I'm starting."
"Y-yes."
Blue light seeped from the gap between her bare skin and my hands, and I could faintly see TP flowing into her waist.
"?!"
Choi Soohan's eyes flew open, and the muscles of her back twitched as she tightened her grip on her knees. Watching that, I started pouring TP in a little faster. She scrunched her face, let a faintly heated moan slip, then flushed hard. After that she shut her eyes, clenched her teeth, and endured.
According to Yeongeun, it felt like being caressed pleasantly, without pause.
I infused TP for ten minutes, and the moment Choi Soohan's passed 299,999 and reached 300,000, she lost consciousness just as Yeongeun had, and collapsed forward. When I reached out and caught her upper body, my hands met a flat chest and the nipples barely raised at its tips — but far from exciting me, it only made me feel sorry for her.
I laid her down comfortably and watched inside her body with Spatial Perception. Sure enough, the Phase Power within her slowly decreased while her muscles and cells repeated expansion and contraction, exactly as it had been with Yeongeun. Creak. Crack. Crunch. A wet rip.
"Mm. Same phenomenon as with Yeongeun, after all."
"Oh my."
"Mmm."
...And yet Choi Soohan's chest began to twitch like muscle under electric stimulus, then slowly rise.
Curious at the slowly swelling chest, I watched a while, then reached out, set my hand against her sternum, and started pouring TP in. For a long while things creaked and cracked as muscle and bone grew firmer and denser. When the TP I'd poured into her unconscious body — whether she'd fainted or simply fallen asleep — reached about 272,000, her flesh stopped absorbing any more Phase Power. I took my hand away and looked down at a chest that had changed enough to look like a B cup.
"Noona's chest got bigger too, the higher her class rose after she became an ability user, and now Choi Soohan's doing the same. Do breasts just get bigger when your class rises, or when you awaken?"
"I've been like this since I awakened at twenty-seven, you know?"
Yeongeun lifted a hand and presented her chest to me as if to say it was purely natural. Hwayeon looked down at her own, tilted her head, and spoke.
"When I awakened I was still growing, and my class rose along with that growth, so I can't confirm it."
"Seoha."
Franc, who had flown off to the bathroom, brought a towel and handed it to me. I took it, covered Choi Soohan's chest, and after a short wait she opened her eyes with a groan.
"Oh my. She's opening her eyes sooner than I thought?"
"Right? I thought she'd sleep for hours. Maybe because her class is low."
Choi Soohan lay there staring up at me with dazed eyes, then suddenly shot her upper body upright — and the momentum launched her forward, sending her rolling across the floor.
"?!"
Sprawled with a dizzy look, both hands planted on the living-room floor, she turned toward me in a daze.
"Now that you're C-Class, your physical ability has jumped. But your body still remembers being D-Class, and your control is calibrated to back then, so don't make any violent movements."
"Y-yes."
"Come here and sit with your back to me."
She got up unsteadily, walked over with great care, and sat with her back turned again. Only then did she seem to feel the weight at her chest. She looked down, and startled.
"..."
The look on her face as she raised a hand and touched her own chest was the look of someone asking whether this was a dream or waking life. She kept kneading the nicely, moderately risen breasts as if to confirm they were really hers, then turned to me with the face of someone who had just been enlightened, flung herself into a full prostration, and cried out.
"Master is truly my god!"
"...Uh. Sure."
I looked down at her glossy straight black hair with a dumbfounded face while receiving that fierce, sincere bow, and Miho, looking amused, started imitating the bow beside her.
"There's still some left, so that's enough. Turn your back to me."
I caught the shoulders of Choi Soohan, who looked ready to bow all day, and stopped her. Only then did she calm, if only a little. She turned and sat with her back to me, then cradled her chest as if it were the rarest treasure in the world.
Is a bigger chest really that wonderful?