Asumpfre Sunken Ruins (4)
"Seoha?!"
"There's still work left, and everyone else is working. I'm not about to slack off by myself. Let's just check the channel on the far side of the lake and come back. And kill every Aberrant we see along the way."
"……Okaaay."
Figuring I wouldn't listen even if she tried to stop me, Franc let out a stuffy little whine, pouted, and then climbed onto my back, slipping her arms gently around my neck.
"Oh. Feels like it's been a while since we did it like this."
I said it with a grin, savoring the soft press of Franc's chest against my back. She gave a small laugh of her own and pinched my cheek lightly.
"You will only look, yes? If we are out too late, Hwayeon and Lady Siha will worry."
"I will."
Carrying Franc on my back as I ran through the sky left me with a peculiar feeling. Beneath my feet a dense conifer forest lay drowned in darkness, the water's horizon to my right and the land's horizon to my left, and running a midnight sky like that felt like some unreal fantasy.
I glanced right. Moonlight glanced off the horizon as it came into view. That a horizon was even visible from a kilometer up — the lake was absurdly vast — drew a small sigh out of me, and Franc whispered at my ear.
"Seoha. It is a Peak-Rank Aberrant. Its appearance is very close to what Hwayeon described."
"Huh? Whereabouts?"
"Not far. If we continue straight like this, it should come into view shortly."
We were a hundred kilometers out from the outpost. A little farther past where we'd stopped the cleanup during the day, and we would have found the thing.
I looked back. The outpost's lights had dwindled to a distant point, that far — but a Peak-Rank Aberrant could cover a hundred kilometers without much trouble. In other words, the outpost sat well within striking range.
"The head truly does resemble a moray's. Its Phase Power is 970,000, and from head to tail I would put the length at about 1.2 kilometers."
"Phase Power's on the low side. Still a Peak-Rank, though, so we'd better be careful. What's it doing right now?"
"It has not moved a muscle. Seeing it so still, I believe it is asleep."
"Then let's check the lake quickly and head back. If it's still like that on the way, we'll ambush it and kill it."
"Yes!"
We followed the lakeshore — it looked almost like a coastline — southwest, then turned and cut across the lake itself, heading toward ten o'clock.
Along the way, with the help of Franc's visual analysis, we found quite a few Aberrants sleeping in the depths. Most were Mid-High Rank, and the High-Rank ones easily cleared a hundred. We found one more Peak-Rank as well, smaller than the first and weaker, with a Phase Power of only 600,000.
A lake big enough to swallow most of Korea, and so few high-ranking Aberrants that "only" felt like the right word. The distribution struck me as a little off.
"For a place this huge, isn't that way too few Aberrants? Now that I think about it, even when we were clearing things earlier today, the numbers were tiny compared to the ground we covered."
"Might this simply be normal? If you think back, even in the first round, after I met you, the only Aberrants we encountered over three days were a single rat Aberrant and the Rogue Imugi. Everything after that was unusual, because of the flood."
"……People crowd into some places and leave others empty, so I suppose Aberrant ecology works the same way."
After thirty minutes of running we reached what I'd thought was the end of the lake, only to find an enormous river — eight hundred meters across at its narrowest, and about ten meters deep. Climbing a little higher, I could see that it connected to a lake in the northwest.
"Doesn't look like earth-attribute users could fill this in, does it?"
"The channel is so wide that even if every earth-attribute user among the raid teams that entered threw themselves at it, I expect it would take several days."
"And once they burn through all their Phase Power, recovery takes over seventeen hours. That won't work."
Franc, who had been turning her gaze this way and that, narrowed her eyes and spoke.
"From Lowest-Rank through Mid-Low Rank Aberrants make their home in the river. It seems the Lowest-Rank and Low Grade ones grow larger here, then enter the lake."
"Hm. Let's go higher and take a look. From here I can't see much besides Lake Asumpfre."
I wrapped myself in the Mana Sieve and leapt up to a hundred kilometers… and the TP drain was less than in reality? I tried a shallow breath. The air was thin, but it was there.
"Oh. There's air up here."
"Oh my?"
"In the real world I could barely breathe, and it was freezing and miserable. It's rough here too, but I can stand it."
I wondered what the difference was between reality and the Phase World, then decided to focus on the job at hand and looked down at the ground.
From Lake Asumpfre there were two more lakes of similar size, one at ten o'clock and one at twelve, and two smaller lakes farther off in the ten o'clock direction as well.
"Whoa. What the… There are two more lakes the size of Asumpfre? And two smaller ones besides."
The scale of that cluster of lakes was beyond words. I was getting a personal lesson in what it felt like to be struck dumb, while Franc stared fixedly toward ten o'clock.
"Franc?"
"Yes? Ah — I was wondering whether this lake might be connected to the sea."
"When I dove a few times during the day, the water didn't taste salty."
"……"
I left Franc to her thoughts, recorded the whole lake system, and took photographs from every angle. Then I spoke to her where she still sat with her eyes closed.
"Let's head over there, where there's an island in the middle of the river. I want to try throwing a few 10 TP mana shells near it."
"You mean to detonate them along the bank and fill the channel with the craters?"
"Even mobilizing the earth-attribute members looks like it won't be enough, right? I don't know if it'll work, but we ought to try. Mana shells explode rather than erase, so if I put up a Wall of Space and control the direction of the blast, it might do the trick."
A delta was building up downstream. Water seemed to be flowing into Lake Asumpfre from the other lakes, and the closer I drew to that delta, the shallower it clearly was — I could see the riverbed. The river wound through its bends, but the depth was only about seven meters, and the gap between the channel and the sediment island looked to be around a hundred meters. If I aimed the blast right, it might be possible…
I set a parenthesis-shaped Wall of Space along the bank, then fired a 10 TP mana shell so it would detonate underground beside the wall.
BOOOOM!
The shell burst underground and hurled house-sized clods of earth toward the river, scattering them until a stretch of the blocked channel filled in. But…
"No good. There are only so many places worth blowing up, and that isn't enough to fill the river."
"Seoha. Try setting one off there, and there."
Small animals and Lowest-Rank Aberrants fled in terror from the blasts and the shaking, but I left them be and, following Franc's advice, set off a few more charges with care. The earth that fell into the river didn't pile up. It simply washed downstream and pushed on into Lake Asumpfre.
"Mmm… The river sits at roughly seven to ten meters. If you simply erase the lake water with a Wall of Space, might the level not regulate itself?"
"Three lakes the size of our whole country, all linked together — do you have any idea how much water I'd have to erase?"
"Hmm. Ordinarily, once water exceeds what a space can hold, it flows from high to low, does it not? What if you erased the bed of the neighboring lake with a Mana Eraser, so that it could store more water than Lake Asumpfre?"
"Even then, if water keeps pouring in from wherever it's connected to the other lakes, it'd be pointless. Ugh. If the river ran the other way instead of into Lake Asumpfre, I wouldn't have to think about any of this."
"……Then let us not concern ourselves with things like environmental destruction, and simply eliminate the water! Erase about half of that lake at ten o'clock, and erase the Asumpfre side as well, and there should be time enough to survey the sunken ruins for four days!"
Franc checked the time, then offered that drastic plan. The suggestion was tempting. I checked the time myself — it was already pushing eight in the evening. If I wanted to take down that moray-like Peak-Rank Aberrant of 970,000 Phase Power on the way back, I'd need to start heading back soon. Better to do as she said.
"Yeah. Let's do that."
Over the center of the enormous lake at ten o'clock, I prepared to fire a Mana Cannon — not a Mana Eraser. Fire the Eraser wrong, and the whole lake would vanish.
I began condensing TP in my palm, spinning it faster and faster, and far more than I'd expected gathered there: 20,000 TP. Five thousand erased a full kilometer of diameter, so twenty thousand ought to be about four.
I adjusted the angle so as much water as possible would disappear, and then — fire!
TWAAANG!!
With a sound like a violin string snapping, a deep water-blue Mana Cannon shot from my palm, punched through the water at the point I'd marked, and then—
Thump…
A sound like a heartbeat, and a black hole opened on the surface, then began to shed a faint light. The Mana Cannon erased the full four-kilometer span I'd expected, scattered a glow fainter than moonlight, and vanished in an instant. Where it had detonated, it left an enormous hemispherical void, as if someone had pressed a clear glass bowl down into the water.
"……What? Why isn't the lake water rushing in?"
It had erased every drop within range, and the ground beneath the lake as well, laying the neatly scooped lakebed bare — and the shape of the detonation was holding, which was strange, until—
KWA-RRRRRUMBLE…
Mid-thought, the lake heaved and began to surge into the empty space with terrifying force. The awful roar of water collapsing inward carried all the way to us.
"That is incredible…"
"Use that right on the ocean and you could raise a tsunami."
The surface thrashed, spinning up a vortex that had to be well over ten kilometers across — frightening enough that I swallowed hard.
"I think the water level has dropped a little."
"From the look of it, that lake's at least two kilometers deep. I'll have to fire a few more Mana Cannons of the same scale."
I raised my right hand as I said it. Fortunately, it wasn't like Mount Elephantros, when I'd taken down that High-Rank Aberrant chieftain — one shot, and my arm had gone so numb I couldn't fire another. My class had risen, and my Physical Enhancement with it. That was probably why.
I picked four points, including the site of the first blast, and fired from my right hand and my left in succession. Pitch-black holes bloomed one after another — thud, thud, thud — and erased the lake water and the lakebed wholesale. Whenever the water rose in raging waves and whirlpools to fill the voids, I fired another Mana Cannon, waited for the gap to close, and fired again. After several rounds of that, even a glance showed the level had dropped drastically.
"Looks like it's down by about a third, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
Franc studied the lake with one hand on her hip and the other raised above her brow — a cute pose — then turned to look back at Lake Asumpfre.
"Ah, Seoha. Look at the current."
"Hm? Oh!"
At her cry I turned. The current had reversed. Water was beginning to flow out of Lake Asumpfre toward the lake at ten o'clock.
Tomorrow, if I wrapped the Asumpfre Sunken Ruins in a thin Wall of Space, the lake water would touch it and vanish, the way bathwater drains down a sewer.
…Not tomorrow. Before I slept. The water level would take time to fall.
I checked the time: exactly eight in the evening. The return would take about thirty minutes, and if I killed the 970,000 Peak-Rank on the way, I'd still have time to wash up and sleep.
"Looks like we'll be able to wrap up Grand Bleu's first raid successfully after all."
"Is that why you have been striving so — to make the first raid a success?"
"It's the first raid since Time River and Hwarang merged. And I came along. Succeed, or don't — go and fail, and we'll be a laughingstock."
Franc, clinging to my back, worked her lips as if she had something to say, then gave up, hugged my neck tight, and spoke.
"Even so, I do not believe you need to undertake labor of this sort. Your ability is far too outstanding for such chores, is it not?"
So that was what she'd wanted to say. I wasn't particularly interested in swaggering around on the strength of my power and authority.
"I'm the only one who can do this kind of thing, aren't I? And if the one in charge leads by example, people will work hard to follow."
"If the person above finishes all the work, those below may grow accustomed to it and turn idle. Your conduct is beyond reproach, but you do know that moderation is also required, yes?"
"Yeah, yeah~"
"Answer only once!"
"Yes."
I wasn't sure what was so funny, but I could feel her giggling through the chest pressed to my back. I reached behind me and settled her properly into a piggyback, and she kicked her legs, delighted.
"So this is what it feels like, being carried on your back, Seoha~"
"You like it? I'll carry you often from now on."
I carried her back to where we'd found the Peak-Rank Aberrant of 970,000. According to Franc, it still hadn't stirred — snoring away in its sleep.
"Any other Aberrants around?"
"That one lies alone on the lakebed, prone atop something shaped like an undersea mountain. Everything around it is ordinary aquatic life. There is not a single Aberrant."
"Doesn't even live with its own kind, then. The 600,000 one is hundreds of kilometers off. Must be a loner."
Fine by me, if it kept to itself.
Its four fins were broad and large, like a seal's. It could probably move out of the water, so killing it before it raided the outpost was the smart play. Once Franc gave me its exact position, I formed a stair and walked slowly down toward it.
Judging by Hiarid, a Peak-Rank Aberrant's Phase Power detection range was about four kilometers. Mine was four and a half, so I could kill it with a Wall of Space from somewhere it wouldn't notice.
Creeping closer through the dark, I thought I must look like an assassin. As I descended, a portion of the body Franc had described entered the edge of my Spatial Perception. And it really did look flabby, squishy, and slick — creepy as hell…
I couldn't tell where the head was. Careful not to step inside its detection range, I walked a little farther, and the body tapered toward the tail and thickened toward the head. I drew closer still, searching, and the moray-like skull registered. Some kind of fish, apparently, sleeping with its eyes open. The shape of those blood-red eyes reminded me of that one… Hm. That one?
For an instant, a strange blue monster's face flickered through my mind.
What the hell. Why did that suddenly come to me?
"Seoha? What is the matter?"
"Huh? Nothing. Some weird monster face just popped into my head. Focus. Focus!"
I'd been standing dead still, so Franc opened her eyes a little and looked back at me. I slapped my own cheeks and turned my senses once more on the inside of the moray-head's skull.
The skull looked absurdly tough, and inside it sat a brain the size of a person. But the brain was almost smooth, barely a wrinkle on it. If more folds meant higher intelligence, then this thing was a fish-head in the most literal sense. Even while I examined that brain, it didn't so much as twitch. The smaller Aberrants went berserk whenever I swept their brains with Spatial Perception.
Anyway. Kindly die in your sleep.
I stacked five Walls of Space across the whole of its brain. The moment the walls formed, a blue energy field shattered. The brain shuddered, burst, and melted away inside the Wall of Space like cotton candy dropped in water.
In that instant the thing went mad. It twisted and writhed and started smashing the undersea mountain range!
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! CRASH-SPLASH!
"Whoa?!"
"Kyaa!"
As it thrashed, the flabby skin of its torso wrinkled, then thrust up in sharp points, and from those points water jets as thick as a grown man's forearm poured out in every direction. It twisted, and the jets carved through heaven and earth in time with the movement. I watched one split the undersea ridge like tofu, startled, and threw up a Wall of Space beneath my feet — and in that same moment a jet struck the wall.
The instant the water jet hit the Wall of Space, my Phase Power recovered by a full 100,000. A single shot, like a laser, and it was packed with that much.
Watching the jet fail to pierce the wall, I spoke.
"I had no idea it had an ability like that. If I'd brought the team's ability users, that would've been a disaster."
"Yes. To split undersea rock the way one splits tofu — an ordinary ability user would have been cleaved in two."
So that was why people spent a month investigating a high-tier Aberrant in detail before raiding it. Take an attack like that with your guard down, and the whole team would be wiped out.
By a rough count, water jets were erupting from well over a hundred places along its torso. The directions weren't even fixed. Every time that leech of a body writhed, the jets bent and sliced in ways you couldn't predict. Dodging and blocking all of them looked impossible. A body that huge — maybe this was simply the form it had evolved, the better to protect itself.
"But why won't it stop?"
The brain was gone, and still it flopped without pause, burning Phase Power like mad and refusing to quit. I clicked my tongue at the thing. Both eyes had gone crimson, streaming bloody light in streaks, and the eyeballs rolled up, down, left, and right independently. Grotesque.
I concentrated the Mana Sieve more tightly around my body and told Franc to get clear. Once I was sure she'd put distance between us, I raised a Spatial Barrier, dismissed the Wall of Space under my feet, and dropped, pulling the whole of its head into my Spatial Perception.
In that instant three water jets raked the surface of the Spatial Barrier, and its duration fell by a quarter in a flash. Was one of those little jets on par with Hiarid's bolts of light…?
I was falling fast. The moment its entire torso entered my Spatial Perception, I set a Wall of Space under my feet and searched for its heart — whoa!
FWOOM!!
"Kh!"
I'd dropped to about a kilometer above the surface when a house-sized mass of water suddenly flashed in and slammed past me. A water-attribute ability, and it fired a water cannon with no warning at all! I refilled the Spatial Barrier — its duration had fallen by half — and then—
Whoaaa!
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
More water cannons erupted from the surface and came straight at me. I kicked off Walls of Space and bounded through the air to dodge, but the thing kept launching them from its maw as if it could see me with its own eyes. The problem was the feeling of it — precise detection, deliberate attack.
"What? That wasn't the brain? It's still alive?"
So I looked inside its body with Spatial Perception… and there was nothing you could call organs, or a brain.
KR-RROOM! KRA-KOOM!!
Maybe because she'd seen me under attack, Franc hid behind the Wall of Space I'd set earlier and dropped lightning worth hundreds of thousands of TP, bolt after bolt. But we were high over deep water, and the lightning didn't seem to conduct all the way down to where the thing was.
"Tch. And I wanted to drag it off in one piece!"
BOOM!
The lightning hadn't reached it, but it seemed to register that it had been attacked. A fresh water cannon launched toward Franc. I ignored it. Her mobility was faster than mine, and she moved through the sky more freely than I did. She even had a Wall of Space for a shield. What was there to worry about?
The thing showed no sign of stopping the jets or the cannons, so I shaped a Wall of Space into a thin blade, stacked it three deep, and manifested it between torso and head. The head dropped clean off the body.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! SHHHK! SPLOOSH!
"Yikes!"
With the head gone, the body started thrashing even harder. I sprang clear of it, leapt high into the sky, and came down atop the Wall of Space where Franc was hiding.
"Whoa. Brain gone, head cut off the body, and it still isn't dead. Didn't expect the severed head to keep firing water cannons, either."
"Is it a single-celled creature?"
"Seems like it. No organs."
Franc wrinkled her nose, clearly revolted by something that grotesque. Still frowning, she watched the water below heave violently, then spoke.
"Ah. The body's movements are growing sluggish. The head has stopped moving now."
She told me crimson blood was pouring from the cut, that the twisting bulk was slowly coming to a halt, and that the skin which had gone sharp was flattening back to what it had been. I raised the Spatial Barrier again and jumped.
This time there was no sharp reaction as I approached. It was definitely dying. Even so!
Just in case, I kindly drove a Mana Riser into anything that looked like an unusual organ, guided by Spatial Perception. Every time that blade of cold blue light stabbed through and split the body, the thing twitched — until at last its breath seemed to break. The awl-like points caught in its skin vanished, and the body went slack, like a dead jellyfish.
I examined the cross-section of the halved corpse with Spatial Perception. Truly bizarre. No spine to be seen anywhere, and yet there was bone running up toward the head.
Hmm. I'd killed it, so the first order of business was moving the carcass.
I held the pearl the First Mermaid had given me in my mouth, dove, seized its head — more than a hundred meters of the thing — and lifted. It was insanely heavy. Not Mana Mode: I pushed Physical Enhancement to its limit, hauled the head up to ten kilometers of sky, spun it the way they spin the hammer in the Olympics, and hurled it toward the outpost. The head traced a long arc and came down in the forest nearby.
I watched the dust rise, then dropped again, caught its front fins, and started hauling the body up toward the surface while laying down Walls of Space as I went. It was nearly the size of an aircraft carrier, and just as heavy, but underwater it had buoyancy on its side, so it came along — grudgingly, but it came.
And so, with Franc cheering me on, I dragged the thing slowly toward the outpost.