Chapter 238: Asumpfre Sunken Ruins (5)
With its head sheared off, the moray-leech's length had dropped to about nine hundred meters, though the body was still a long slab of flesh some hundred meters thick. Hauling a creature that vast — vast enough to spit on common sense — up onto the continental-shelf stretch of shore, I felt the buoyancy give out. The thing turned filthy heavy. A miserable fucking slog.
Then again, do the byproducts off something this stupidly huge even sell?
"Ah. Someone's coming."
"Who?"
"I believe it is a member of Team 1."
I was dragging the carcass along, laying a Wall of Space above the water, when Franc spoke, and I looked ahead. A wind-attribute user? The figure flying toward us drew closer, and the instant they saw what I was hauling, they recoiled in shock, dropped into the lake, and kicked up a spray.
"Pbbt—!"
"You all right?"
"I-I'm fine! My concentration just slipped, that's all."
The wind user floundered, then finally rose back into the sky, soaked to the skin, and kept stealing glances at the moray-leech while reporting on the outpost. Something enormous had crashed down nearby and put the whole place on alert. A vision-analysis user, carried aloft by a wind user, had scanned for the source of the sound — and everyone had been stunned to find a giant moray head, as big as the outpost itself, lying several hundred meters off.
While they fretted over whether the Master had caught it, where the Master was, and what in the world had happened, the vision analyst spotted me hauling something enormous their way.
"Boss Yoo Hwayeon received the report. She ordered the aberrant's head dismantled and moved, and sent me."
"I see. Then go back and have them send people to help haul this."
"Yes! I'll bring a transport team at once!"
The wind user shuddered, visibly creeped out by the moray-leech's sheer size, and shot off toward the outpost like an arrow. I followed, dragging the body along behind them.
With help from water-attribute users and physical enhancement users, I hauled the corpse to the stretch of shore nearest the outpost, and found Hwayeon, my sister, and a crowd of others waiting.
"Master!"
"Sis, I'm ba—"
She closed in with every emotion tangled across her face at once — anger, shock, worry, relief — and cut me off, the words pouring out like machine-gun fire.
"Good heavens! You said you were only stepping out for a short walk, so how did it come to this?! Going off alone in the middle of the night to hunt a Peak-Rank aberrant — Master, do you have any sense of danger at all...?!"
...Sigh.
"It simply ended up that way. I am fine. Not a scratch on me. More to the point, there is something to discuss, so let us gather in the meeting room."
I let my expression harden, just a little, and spoke with careful courtesy. She shut her mouth in a fluster and searched my face.
We moved to the meeting tent with the team leaders and squad leaders, sat down, and I switched on my Certifier, throwing a photograph of the lake panorama up on a hologram window. It was a night shot, but the moon was bright enough that the overall outline wasn't hard to make out. Everyone stared at it with curious faces, murmuring among themselves. After a few experiences like this, they didn't startle so easily anymore.
But when Squad Leader Jung Tae-ryung took in the five enormous lakes, puzzlement settled over her face, and she muttered to herself.
"It's flipped top to bottom, but the terrain looks awfully similar to that place."
I'd been about to begin when I looked at her, and the others turned toward the Support Team 2 Leader as well. Hwayeon watched her, waited a beat, then spoke.
"Squad Leader Jung Tae-ryung. Has something occurred to you?"
"Yes. The overall shape reminded me of the Great Lakes, spanning the United States and Canada."
"Ah!!"
The moment Jung Tae-ryung opened her mouth in that husky voice, my sister let out a short gasp and nodded.
"You're right. The shapes differ a little, but it really is just like the Great Lakes!"
"Huuh? So you're saying this is American soil right now?"
The sharp-featured leader of Team 5, whose name I didn't know, stared at the lake photograph in disbelief, then turned to me and spoke again.
"So the hypothesis is right? The Phase World really is another timeline of Earth?"
"Judging by the photograph the Master took, there is a strong chance we are at Lake Superior, one of the Great Lakes. The lake split in two toward ten o'clock would be Lake Huron, and the one shaped like a dildo would be Lake Michigan."
"...A dildo?"
At Squad Leader Jung Tae-ryung's utterly unselfconscious choice of words, the genial-looking leader of Team 3 echoed it with a blank face, while Squad Leader 1 and the other two team leaders coughed and looked away.
"What? You don't know what a dildo is? A vibrator. For women."
"No, I know what it is, it's just..."
"Enough. Then the remaining two lakes would be Erie and Ontario."
As the mood threatened to turn strange, Hwayeon cut in, steered the talk elsewhere, and fixed a sharp gaze on the hologram window.
"Yes."
"The Master said he would only step out briefly, for a walk and a patrol of the surroundings. He went quite far."
Erk. I'd thought only my sister was sulking, but Hwayeon was angry too. She spoke quietly, face blank, and the anger came through clear as day.
"Uh, yeah. I figured I'd take a night walk, do a little patrol, and it just..."
"Franc. You ought to have stopped him."
"Uu... I could not stop him. Forgive me."
At the quiet scolding, even Franc put on a tearful face and shot me a look that said see what you did. My sister, as if cheering Hwayeon on, nodded hard with sparkling eyes — clearly wanting her to dress me down so thoroughly I'd never try it again.
"Even so, I did not expect you to take down the master of the lake so easily, and drag it all the way here besides. You have worked hard."
"Uh—? Well, it was something that had to be done. Anyway, to drop the water level, I threw a few Mana Cannons into Lake Huron and brought it down quite a bit. If I lay a thin Wall of Space around the sunken ruins tonight, Lake Superior should fall as far as the line where I've set the wall."
I indicated the stretch with a finger. Hwayeon blinked, as if this were unexpected, and asked again.
"...Did you not say you would confirm whether there was a river, and fill it in?"
"I was going to, but Franc and I checked. Even the narrowest point is about eight hundred meters across, and the average depth is ten meters. The raid team only has four high-rank earth-attribute users right now. I figured filling it in was impossible."
"Certainly. At that width, it would be impossible even if we invested all four remaining days. Understood. I will leave that matter to the Master. Then what remains is..."
My sister pouted, just slightly, as if a little put out that the scolding had ended so quickly. Once the work of the meeting began, though, she said nothing more and joined in.
"The question will be how many Peak-Rank and High-Rank aberrants are in the lake."
"Ah, I checked that too. There's one more at the northwestern tip, with about three hundred thousand less Phase Power than the moray-leech I brought back, and a hundred or more High-Rank aberrants besides. The High-Rank ones seem clustered mostly in the northwest of the lake."
"Moray-leech. An amusing turn of phrase. That monster's name is Pisorsaurus. An ability user named Pisor was the first to discover it, and as its species could not be identified, he — a paleontologist — attached his own name and called it Pisorsaurus."
I nodded along to Squad Leader Jung Tae-ryung's explanation. Pisorsaurus. Naming an aberrant after yourself. Odd sort of person.
"Pisorsaurus turns up from time to time in other regions as well, but even as a Peak-Rank aberrant it is little better than waste. I have heard the skull bone is so hard, and so large, that people make use of the size to craft things. Nothing else sells for any real price."
Hearing it wasn't worth money, I scowled, and Squad Leader Jung Tae-ryung laughed as if she found it cute. Hauled the damn thing all this way for nothing. Should've just erased it.
I was grumbling inwardly when Team 1 Leader Han Hyeonrang swept back a wolf-cut in a flashy pose, shrugged, and smiled.
"Thanks to the Master's exploits, we have secured more than enough byproducts. Overflowing, even. Gather any more, and we may not be able to carry it all ourselves."
"Certainly. What is piled up now is an amount that would have taken us a full week of fighting all day, had we gathered it ourselves."
"But the Master gathered it in less than half a day, didn't he? I'm starting to think we ought to have brought more haulers than fighters."
The others laughed and agreed. Well, I had taken down quite a few aberrants today.
"Ah... I hear that among rare ability users, there are those who possess Subspace Storage. It would be nice if we could secure someone like that."
"You mean that B-Class ability user from India, Rawar? I heard he has an incredibly vast subspace."
Listening to the team leaders and squad leaders talk, curiosity got the better of me.
"A subspace user actually made it back alive from the Phase World?"
"That Rawar was from India's special forces, I hear. MARCOS, was it?"
As the chatter started to flow, Hwayeon clapped twice, gathered their attention, and spoke.
"Enough. Tomorrow, after we confirm how far the water level has dropped, we will commence the full exploration. Team leaders and squad leaders, finish processing the byproducts before then, and see to equipment distribution and the issuing of orders for tomorrow's exploration. Master, please rest, in preparation for tomorrow's watch and perimeter duty."
"Yes!!"
"Got it."
I'll leave the smaller Pisorsaurus alone. If it comes at me, I'll kill it.
The meeting ended, and the team leaders and squad leaders filed out of the tent. Hwayeon's face hardened. She came close, pinched my cheek, and started stretching it out — ooouuut?!
"Ghk—?!"
"You said you were going for a walk, and you did not return for over an hour. When lightning cracked in the western sky and the sounds of something bursting and exploding came one after another, can you even guess how startled I was?"
Hah — so the nagging earlier wasn't the end of it! The pain in my cheek was secondary. A lecture was coming, and I hurried to apologize first.
"I'm shorry!"
"Just tear that cheek clean off! That little thing is already starting to worry me sick — imagine the trouble he'll cause later. Better fix his habits now!"
There's a saying that the sister-in-law who holds you back is worse than the mother-in-law doing the hitting. I think that one's wrong. The sister egging it on from the side is the worst of all!
"Siha is at fault as well."
"Huh?"
"Seoha is, to the outside world, the Master of Grand Blue. Even if you scold him where no one is watching, stepping in to restrain his actions like that is not proper. No matter how cute a younger brother he may be."
"Ah..."
"And this is not the first time."
"Urk..."
When the arrow of the scolding turned on her as well, my sister glanced awkwardly between me and Hwayeon.
Heh. Siblings getting dressed down as a matched set. I could die of shame.
This is all Sis's fault!
"You worked hard bringing it back, but a Pisorsaurus corpse is good for nothing but fertilizer. Troublesome as it may be, I would like you to erase the corpse with a Mana Bullet."
"All right. If we leave it and it starts to rot, it'll be bad in all sorts of ways."
I fired several Mana Bullets, erased the moray-leech — the Pisorsaurus corpse — sprawled along the shore, and came back to find the meal-duty supporters scraping meat off the Pisorsaurus's head, rolling it into plump round meatballs, and setting them to grill. An evening snack, it seemed, for the people still processing byproducts.
I watched a while, showered again, and came out. At my sister's request to deal with the scraps, I launched a Mana Bullet into the pile that had already heaped up into a small hill.
Sssk— A soundless black-hole effect lingered a moment, and where it vanished there was only a shallow pit. My sister marveled at the cleaned ground.
"What a convenient ability. You could open a waste-disposal company and make a killing."
I shot her, spouting nonsense, a sharp glare.
"Anyway. Where are you sleeping tonight, Sis?"
"Hm? In your tent, I was going to..."
"No. You sleep in the women's tent."
Clueless! I glared and spoke almost like a threat, and she immediately knit her brows and whined.
"Aigoo, you little pervert!"
"Thanks for the compliment."
"That was not a compliment!"
"It is to me."
Dodging my sister, who was about to get properly annoyed, I wandered the outpost. Members were setting lamp-poles here and there around the processing ground to light the work, and others were still wholly absorbed in sorting byproducts, when a few of the support-team women brought over moray meatball soup and called it a late-night snack. They'd brought a camp chair too. I thanked them, took it, and looked.
This isn't soup. This is a stew, isn't it?
"I can't eat fish stew..."
"Oh? Truly?"
I nodded at Franc, who asked as if hearing it for the first time.
"I can't eat grilled fish either, if the fishy smell is strong. For some reason I get dry heaves."
"Some kind of allergy...?"
I sniffed, trying to judge whether the stuff was harmful or not, and Franc took a spoonful first. Her eyes went round.
"Oh. This is truly delicious. There is no fish taste at all. Seoha, please, you must try some."
"Yeah?"
At her urging I had no choice but to take a sip, and unexpectedly it tasted of meat, not fish. No fishy smell, no fishy taste — spicy and bracing, the kind of heat that unknots everything inside you. The meatballs were well seasoned, too, with a springy, elastic bite I liked very much. This, I can eat!
After finishing the late-night snack, I surveyed the midnight outpost with Spatial Perception. Three squads of three, apparently preparing to stand watch, were reporting in to Hwayeon. I turned my gaze toward the mountain of aberrant corpses and found Choi Soohan, who hadn't left it, diligently dismantling byproducts, and beside her my sister, generating water to wash them clean. Fire- and wind-attribute users dried what had been washed, then bundled it or packed it into boxes — and already there was enough to fill an entire tent.
I stepped into the meeting tent. Hwayeon had papers stacked before her like Yoo Yeongeun back in the verification-team days, recording something.
"I'm thinking of heading to the sunken ruins and laying a Wall of Space."
"Hm. Very well. Call a wind-attribute user, and we will go together. Siha and I must confirm what happens as well."
"Yeah."
With a wind-attribute user from Team 5, I brought my sister and Hwayeon to where the sunken ruins lay. A moonlit lake with no artificial light at all was dreamlike beyond belief. Night fog brushed low across the water, and when that piercingly white moonlight settled into the fog, it wasn't quite a hidden paradise, but there was something sacred in it.
I watched the moonlight shatter across the surface for a moment, then scoured the depths with Spatial Perception, gauging the breadth of the ruins. I hadn't been able to check by day, too busy minding aberrants, but now I could feel Phase Power — faint, in several places.
"The sunken ruins are the size of a fair city. And there are spots here and there where I can feel Phase Power."
"Really?"
"Truly?"
My sister and Hwayeon started, and looked down at the lake rippling beneath their feet.
"Yeah. It's not aberrant Phase Power, so it must be items."
Leaving the two of them shining with anticipation, I ran the perimeter and raised a Wall of Space — a hundred meters high, a single centimeter thick — and covered the sunken ruins entire. Playing it safe, I laid about thirty-two kilometers of it, and 3.2 million TP vanished in a gulp. A little thicker, and I couldn't have covered it.
Soon the lake water began to vanish, as if sucked into the Wall of Space. I'd worried the wall was too thin and something would go wrong, but it didn't so much as flinch under the immense pressure and current. Feeling it keep working, I watched the surface, and gradually whirlpools began to form. Not one or two. A full seven, and more.
Watching the whirlpools born around the wall, an idle thought occurred to me. If the Wall of Space annihilated whatever it touched, shouldn't it erase air as well? But standing near it, I hadn't particularly struggled to breathe, nor felt air rushing in. Does it only annihilate things above a certain volume or mass?
"Whirlpools have formed. Have you finished laying the Wall of Space?"
"Yeah. I've laid it all around the sunken ruins. Sis. Fire a Light Bolt into the water."
"Mm."
At my request, the two Light Bolts my sister fired pierced the water and the whirlpools and struck the Wall of Space — but like water touching tissue paper, they were absorbed in an instant. The wall that had devoured them was, of course, perfectly fine. Hwayeon looked down at the pitch-black lake where the two streaks of light had vanished, and murmured.
"It seems intact."
"I was worried what would happen if it took a hit, being so thin, but I don't think we need to worry. Let's head back."
I was looking forward to seeing what the morning would show.
I didn't sleep a wink before morning. I could feel the Wall of Space still working, and my head was a little foggy — a feeling much like the night I'd first gained Spatial Perception and stayed up straight through. Brought the memory back fresh. If I'd been alone, I would have tossed and fidgeted and eventually just bolted outside to play with the aberrants and collect their lives as payment. But Hwayeon, who had gone to bed late after processing byproducts until dawn, was sleeping soundly in my arms without so much as stirring, and that only left me feeling more tired.
Anyway, I got up when she did, after her four hours. She had been using my left arm as a pillow, and she smiled and pressed a kiss to my lips. Maybe because it was a morning met outdoors, the sweet-and-tart plum scent of her mouth seemed even stronger.
"Did you sleep well."
"Well enough. You only got four hours, Hwayeon. You all right?"
"Since living with you, the time I spend asleep has grown several times over, compared to before. For me, four hours is as much as four hours."
"When Seoha is away, Hwayeon only ever sleeps a hundred and fifty minutes."
On the other side, Franc, pillowed on my right arm, opened her eyes at our talk and gave me a morning kiss of her own. A hundred and fifty minutes — two and a half hours? I could stay up if I had to. Tell me to do it every single day, though, and I was confident I'd lose my mind and start climbing the walls.
"I need at least seven hours a day."
I muttered it, and Hwayeon, getting dressed, must have heard. She smiled faintly.
"I trained from childhood to sleep only three hours, and I am a physical enhancement user, so that is how it is. Seoha, sleep as much as you need to shake off the fatigue."
I helped her into her gear. In nothing but her tights-armor, every curve of that lush body showed through. Once she was equipped, I threw on my Force Leather jacket and stepped out of the tent, and the supporters preparing breakfast in the early hour bowed in greeting. I returned it, washed, and headed out to the lake. Hwayeon followed.
Franc, Hwayeon, and I went to check the sunken ruins where I had laid the Wall of Space. The water level had dropped sharply. Under the blue sky, the ruins and the wall I had set stood exposed to the open air. Only the lower portion was still slightly submerged, and it seemed that as the area in contact shrank, the rate of the drop had slowed as well.
"The level has fallen a great deal."
"Yeah. But it's still up to the ankles. I'll set another Wall of Space in the deep water and bring it down further."
Looking at the ankle-deep shallows, I laid another large Wall of Space deep in the lake. At that size, the ruins ought to be fully exposed once we'd had breakfast.
"If this were reality, this little act would have put my name up as a notorious environmental criminal."
"Certainly. If Seoha laid a Wall of Space broadly beneath the sea in reality, the ocean would vanish from that alone. I cannot think of a faster or surer way to destroy the Earth."
...Hwayeon's imagination is terrifying!
As the water fell, the ruins that emerged were half-buried in moss and mud, tilted at an angle — traces that felt somehow forlorn. Looking them over, wider to the eye than they had seemed through Spatial Perception, I found houses like medieval English stone dwellings, great pillars whose purpose I couldn't guess, and the remains of collapsed mansions and all manner of facilities, spread wide across the ground.
Hwayeon took my hand.
"Let us return. After breakfast, we will divide the personnel in half and assign an exploration team and a byproduct-dismantling team."
At that, Franc tilted her head.
"Would it not be better to finish processing the byproducts before beginning the exploration?"
"The first day's exploration is for grasping the terrain and the structure of what is there. Full excavation will not begin until afternoon, and aberrants will come attacking in the meantime, so we must also leave personnel on standby at the outpost."
"Ah. That is true."
Listening to my two lovers, I let their hands lead me back toward the outpost.