Chapter 243: Asumpfre Sunken Ruins (10)

Day three since we'd entered the Phase World.

That morning, leaving Team 5 behind to hold the encampment, they split Team 1 and Team 3 into four squads and sent them out to search for Return Points. Everyone who remained started packaging the byproducts.

My sister was checking the gems once an hour — sorted by type and stored inside the wardrobe — and those checks had convinced her that a single object took ten hours to be perfectly restored. What was completely destroyed could not be restored. Anything else, however badly damaged, would be fully restored in ten hours so long as it still held its shape. A shame, though, that even a hairline scratch still cost the full ten hours.

"Yeah. The gems all look brand-new, too."

She held a turquoise the size of her own fist up to the sunlight and broke into a dopey hehe of a grin. That face is wasted on her.

Jewels were cut from raw stone, and yet they returned to that optimally cut state. Watching it happen, I found myself a little curious what the principle was. Think about it. If the thing was being restored to completely new, shouldn't it have to go back to the item's original constituent material? I decided overthinking was how you lose, and switched my attention off. Once I built a research institute, I'd make the smart people look into it then.

"Shame you can't put in anything bigger than the wardrobe, though."

The wardrobe stood 2.5 meters tall and 1.5 meters wide, with no drawers along the bottom, so if you set something in at an angle you could fit roughly three meters of length inside. Beyond that was impossible — but honestly, were there items bigger than that?

"Seoha. How much Phase Power has the wardrobe lost?"

"About seven percent?"

"Eighteen hours of continuous use, I suppose. At that rate, the Phase Power will bottom out in about ten days. Restoring the things inside consumes a lot of Phase Power, and once restoration is finished, keeping that state seems to consume almost none."

She checked the gems that still bore scratches and muttered that she'd restore the rest of them today.

Then put the turquoise down before you talk.

I felt bad loafing while everyone else was working, so I told Hwayeon and my sister I was going out to gather some phase stones, took the Heavenly Gathering Clouds Sword and Nuhodi's spear, and left the encampment. Having seen the black fog's tale and Nuhodi's memories, I was curious whether other lakes might hold sunken ruins as well, and I meant to range far.

I tapped the shaft with my fingers.

"Hey. Can you see the lake?"

"Woom!"

Fifty kilometers up, looking down over the water, I'd put the question to the Cross-Spear, and the short cry came back as a yes. Before we set out I'd told it to hum once, short, for yes, and twice, long, for no, and it had already answered with a woom to show it understood. Even so — how a spear could see and hear the world around it was genuinely uncanny. If we were ranking uncanny, Franc still took the prize.

"Does that whole lake resemble the shape of the city you lived in?"

"Woom... Woooom."

"There are parts that were never submerged, but have all traces of the city disappeared?"

"Woom!"

"Then a hell of a long time must have passed since you died."

Borrowing Team 2 Leader Jung Tae-ryung's turn of phrase, I headed for the dildo-shaped lake and put another question to the Cross-Spear.

"You sure you're Nuhodi's soul?"

"Woom!"

"Could be some resentful thought that lingered and settled into the spear."

"Woooom!"

"Hmm. Well, I'll take your word for it. Anyway, you foresaw the city would be submerged and told the black-robed priest, right?"

"Woom!"

"But they wouldn't hear it, so you were made a slave gladiator, and in the end they tortured you to death."

"Woom..."

Franc looked down at Lake Asumpfre, her brow faintly drawn.

"How many years before this age would that have been? Someone who dated the stone buildings weathered underwater said at least two thousand years must have passed..."

"Woooom... Wooooooom..."

Hearing her, the Cross-Spear — Nuhodi — began to shiver the shaft in fine tremors. A faint ache stirred in my chest. It felt like the sound of weeping.

Dildo Lake... keeping that name was a little embarrassing, so I'd attach the name of the identical lake back on Earth.

"You said this lake resembles Lake Michigan in our reality, right? A calamity made the lake here in the Phase World. I wonder what made it over there."

"Team 2 Leader Jung Tae-ryung told me the Great Lakes in reality are glacial lakes."

"Lakes gathered from melted glaciers? Then was the calamity that buried Dalbu water and snow from melting ice, too?"

"Woooom? Woooooom?"

"No matter what you say, all that reaches our ears is humming. And I can't keep calling you 'you' or 'Cross-Spear,' so I'll call you Nuhodi. All right?"

"Woom..."

Talking with Franc about this and that, I reached the lake I'd decided to call Michigan and began the survey. It was a long, vertically stretched lake in the shape of a branch. The narrow stretches ran about 80 kilometers across, the wide ones about 120 — certainly smaller and narrower than Lake Asumpfre. Smaller and narrower, and still staggeringly huge. A straight line from Seoul to Gangneung on the east coast is only 160 kilometers, so this one lake was nearly large enough to fit all of Korea inside.

The shape of the lakebed resembled Asumpfre's, but the water was far deeper. The deepest point reached 2.6 kilometers.

Anyway, Franc and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I spent about ninety minutes racing across the sky over the lake, and we found no trace of architecture. What we did find were four high-grade phase stones, taken from high-rank aberrants that carried them — sea crabs, octopuses, sharks, and whale-like things tens of meters long.

I could charge a phase stone however I liked, so the grade mattered more than the TP value. Charging 100 TP into a mid-low-grade phase stone consumed the same Phase Power as charging 100 TP into a high-grade one, but the difference in grade put the actual price nearly 1.8 times apart. All of it premium. A high-grade stone holding 10 was better than a mid-low-grade stone holding 400.

Four peak-rank aberrants lived in the branch-shaped lake, and every one of them was a Pisorsaurus. The strongest of them barely cleared a million in Phase Power, so I couldn't get phase stones off them, which was a little disappointing. One high-tier phase stone and I'd have had the money to build a research institute.

In that moment, an idea flicked through my head.

"If I feed an aberrant TP, turn it into a highest-rank aberrant, and kill it the instant it's made — could I absorb that Phase Power?"

"...You aren't thinking of actually testing that, are you?"

"I want to try."

"No! Aberrants that eat your TP all become subspecies! A highest-rank subspecies could, in theory, put out power on par with a transcendent-grade aberrant! And more than anything, a highest-rank subspecies has never even been known to exist!"

Her opposition was fiercer than I'd expected.

"I just have to beat it to death before it adapts to the stronger body. Think about Yeongeun, or Choi Soohan. They only went up a single stage, and they still weren't used to their own bodies."

"Think about Miho. She evolved from low grade all the way to high grade, and there was hardly any delay, was there? And for a lowest-rank aberrant to evolve straight to highest-rank takes about 7.4 million TP. With your Phase Power as it is now, you couldn't even feed that much at once — you'd have to portion it out, which would give it time to adapt. Absolutely not!"

I said it as if I were gently coaxing her, logical as her refusal was, and still she was firm as a drawn blade. At times like this, there was only one method.

"Franc."

I called her name low, drew an arm around her waist, and looked into those eyes like polished jasper.

"I know. You're worried I'll come to harm, aren't you?"

"Nnngh..."

I whispered it softly at her ear, and the face that had been set like steel began to slacken and melt, cheese on a hot pizza. Yes! It's working!

"I'm not planning to pull something dangerous without thinking. I'll run one careful little experiment, and if it doesn't work — if it looks like I can't handle it — I'll bolt. Obviously, if anything feels off midway, I'll stop right there. Even a peak-rank subspecies couldn't chase me all the way to the edge of the atmosphere, right?"

I pointed at the sky and pressed the case, and Franc's pretty face crumpled, little by little, toward tears. I set my forehead to hers and, in the softest voice I could manage, said it.

"So please."

In the end, she nodded.

"In exchange, you'll get as far from the encampment as you can, and run the instant it turns even a little dangerous. Yes?"

"Yeah!"

I answered with force, and Franc smiled bitterly, the face of a woman who knew she couldn't stop me.

For an hour I crammed every bit of TP I had into a high-tier phase stone I'd been carrying, brought it up to 7.5 million, gripped it tight, and went looking for a test subject. Nuhodi had been humming and shivering the shaft since earlier, and I couldn't tell why. Every time I drew TP out and condensed it into the stone, it had cried — ah. There was a fine guinea pig right over there. Figures. The easiest mark of all was a sea-crab aberrant.

A sea-crab aberrant was a Physical Reinforcement type, and yet it was slow, and though it sometimes hopped and tried to smother you, it had no ranged attack and poor eyes besides. The very definition of a meal among meals. Just in case I failed to finish it and had to run, I tore off every claw and every leg and left only the body. As if it felt fear, the thing clicked and twitched with nothing remaining but its two eyes, and before I fed it I used Mana Sieve and Mana Voice to shrink its mind as far as it would go.

Watching those characteristic bulging crab eyes tremble without mercy, I began condensing TP at my fingertips. The first 500,000 condensed easily. After that it grew harder and harder, and in the end I had no choice but to make eight round, bead-like orbs of a million TP each. Over-compressed, perhaps, they gave off black light instead of blue. I looked down at the eight orbs, then at Franc. She was tense to the limit, too.

"Starting."

"Yes!"

Both of us tense, I shoved every last TP orb into the maw of a low-rank sea-crab aberrant whose body alone ran past a meter, and darted back —

"Huh?!"

"Ah?"

Tss-zzzt-zzzsh...

The thing that had eaten eight orbs of a million TP each in one go dyed itself — the shell, no, the whole of it — a very deep blue, went soft, melted, and vanished on the spot. Right after, Phase Power burst outward in an explosion, but this wasn't Phase Power. It was my TP. I drew it in with Mana Sieve, it soaked into my body, and the Phase Power I'd spent refilled in a rush.

"Oh, come on. It can't handle eating eight million TP at once?"

And I'd fed it eight million, but what spread out and came back was under six. In that brief moment, two million had vanished.

"You aren't ending it here, are you?"

"Of course not! Next subject!"

Fssshhh...

"Can't even handle a single orb."

Eight down to six. Six to five. Four. Three. With every attempt I cut the number of orbs I fed them, and still the sea-crab aberrants couldn't endure a single TP orb. They became liquid, turned to gas, and vanished. Wondering if they were simply too frail, I found a mid-low rank aberrant and fed that one too. Failure again.

"Seems like I need to raise them a bit before I feed them. Last try — I'll evolve one up to high grade, then feed it."

"Yeees..."

Franc's eyes said she'd rather we turned back already. A man who draws his sword ought to at least cut a radish!

This time I caught a mid-grade sea crab, pulled every leg, and injected TP until it became a high-rank aberrant. The shell dyed itself green, and the severed claws and hind legs regenerated in the blink of an eye. It grew, too, and the shell turned hard and angular, like a mobile armor out of Gundam.

The moment it finished regenerating, the thing — now high grade — swung a robot-arm claw sideways like lightning. Good thing I had Mana Mode — Acceleration on. If I hadn't, I'd have eaten that hit. Furious at missing, it vented steam in sharp little bweeps and brought the claws down with a vicious air, clacking them like scissors as if it meant to mince me.

I threw up a Spatial Barrier, leapt, and struck a Wall of Space into the joint of its leg. It crunched and held for a moment, and I was startled in spite of myself. A high-rank subspecies, and it has durability like Hiarid's wings?

I layered Walls of Space over it. Every leg sheared off, and the huge body hit the ground with a heavy thud and buried itself. From the severed stumps, something crimson flowed, trying to regenerate.

"Can't have you regenerating."

The belly shell writhed as it tried to move, so I shaped a Wall of Space like a stake and pinned the body, then laid more across the joints. Regeneration broke down as fast as it formed. Neutralized, the thing clicked its pitch-black eyes.

"Durability like Hiarid's wings. Process this, and I bet you'd get some pretty decent armor."

Marveling at a carapace that genuinely felt like iron plate, I stepped in closer —

Shllrrp!

The thing, pinned and run through by the Wall of Space, suddenly whipped its head toward me and sprayed something pitch-black from its maw. I dodged on reflex, the liquid having come at me from nearly point-blank, and only then realized what it had spat was a black fluid.

"Seoha?! Are you all right?!"

"Huh? Y-yeah. I'm fine."

I turned my head. Where the black water had landed, the ground was melting, giving off a vile green smoke.

"Honestly! Getting rattled even by a lobster that turned into a high-rank subspecies —"

The mood said she was about to call the experiment off, so before she could finish I shoved a TP orb into the sea crab's maw. Franc's eyebrow shot up at the sight, and at the same moment the lobster aberrant's eyes began clicking like mad, as if it had lost its mind.

Fwik, byurgeuk — kyuurigik, pyubwek!

The lobster aberrant let out a sound like glue coming to a boil. Soon its jet-black eyes began to stain blue, and blue spread across the green carapace like mold blooming. Then, just like the test subjects before it, it dyed itself blue in a rush, melted like water, and vaporized.

I glanced at Franc. She was looking at me with a bleak face. A cold sweat ran down my back. I forced a smile, went to her, and took her hand, but those eyes stayed cold on me.

"Th-the point was the experiment, wasn't it? Eating one of those won't turn it into a highest-rank aberrant. That's why I only fed it one, just as a test..."

"Enough. I know exactly what you're thinking right now."

"Huh? I-I'm not thinking anything..."

"Regardless! The experiment ends here. Even a high-rank subspecies used an attack that caught you off guard. I don't know what a peak-rank subspecies would do. Absolutely, absolutely, absoooolutely not!"

"Ugh. Still, if I'm careful, and I cut the crab legs off every time they regenerate..."

"Do that, and you can expect never to see me again! I will not come out of the Soul Stone a second time!"

"Hhk. All right. I won't."

Her stance left no gap a needle could slip through, and I had nothing to say. More than anything, she was like this because of what I'd done... tch.

And here I'd thought it was a good way to grow my Phase Power.

I was kicking pebbles and grumbling when Franc, wearing the look of someone past saving, shook her head, came up behind me, and drew me into her arms. Her whisper ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brushed my ear.

"Once Miho becomes a peak-rank subspecies, and the three of us — Miho, Hiarid, and I — are fully outfitted, weapons through armor, then I'll consider it."

"...That's a promise?"

I was extracting the promise from the limited permission she'd given me when Franc sighed, shook her head, and kissed my cheek. I kissed hers in return and thought it over. She hadn't given me a firm yes, but knowing Franc, she wouldn't go back on her word later. I could trust that, couldn't I?

The moment we got out, I'd have to scout a private tutor for Miho. Manners, ethics, and social studies.

Around lunchtime I came back to the encampment and found half of the dozen-odd tents stacked with byproducts already folded and struck, the rest being repacked in turn by the support staff. The packed byproducts were being gathered in one place, bundled for easy carrying. The four squads that had gone out to confirm the Return Points seemed to have returned as well. Combat teams and support teams alike were checking the loads they would shoulder, and the encampment was noisy with it.

"You're back?"

"Yeah. All together, these phase stones hold 160,000 Phase Power."

My sister came over with a bundle of documents in her arms, already changed out of her work clothes and into the feathered uniform. Come to think of it, everyone had been in ordinary clothes during yesterday's excavation, and now they were dressed for combat.

"...You made 160 billion won in four hours?"

She took the four high-grade phase stones in both hands and looked up at me, incredulous. Members passing by caught her words, startled for an instant, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then went on toward the byproduct tents.

"He's the Master. Of course something like that is simple for him."

"Right, right."

"...I picked them up while messing around a little. There's going to be a lot of money going out, so I figured I should earn some."

I said the part about messing around quietly, so it wouldn't carry.

"You're really building a mansion at the Shinchon-dong training ground? A research institute, too?"

"A graaand mansion. A research complex, and a refinery while I'm at it."

"You already have the money to build them."

The proceeds from selling the high-tier phase stones?

"That's Grand Blue's funds. My house, I'll build with my money."

"You didn't read the business report, did you."

The business report? That two-hundred-page encyclopedia of a book? Of course I didn't. Time I could have spent with Hwayeon... ahem.

At my perfectly unashamed face, my sister scrunched her brows, then let out a short laugh.

"Revenue from the raid team, taken by percentage: thirty percent is used as the team's funds. The remaining seventy gets divided according to the participants' share rates — but if you take part in the raid, Seoha, you receive half of that seventy. Thirty-five percent."

"Then what about everyone else?"

"Everyone else takes their share within the limit of the remaining thirty-five percent."

She flipped through the file and held a section out for me to see.

Billions on billions. The page was nothing but them.

"Even excluding the curved blades, the chainmail, and the wardrobe — the ones that finished restoring — this expedition's income is about 2.332 trillion won. Most of that, you earned alone. If you'd come in by yourself, every bit of this would have gone into your pocket. You don't get it?"

I could see the number she was writing out for me, 2,332,200,000,000 won, and still it only looked like a number. It didn't feel like money. To turn it into currency actually circulating on the market you'd need all sorts of complicated procedures, so it wasn't pure cash, even so...

Two trillion? At the start of this year I had two hundred thousand won in my account?

"And that's not all. The ten high-tier phase stones sold to the various countries are on record as ones you procured against the Flauvis, so this quarter's payment is already in your account. Because of your equity share, a portion of raid activity you didn't even join will land in your account too. You, now and in the future, are going to be counted among the richest people in the world. Counted, and counted again."

"Y-yeah. I get it. But taking money from places I didn't even participate in is a little..."

"That is fair compensation you are absolutely owed. It's a share calculated from your ability and the added value you generate. Decline what you're rightfully owed and you'll only make a sucker of yourself, so don't say strange things in front of other people. Understood?"

"Mm."

She'd been showing a vacant side a lot these past few days, but she was actually sharp. Better to just go along with what she said.

Word that I'd gone out alone that morning and secured 160,000 in phase stones seemed to have spread through the encampment. Ability users kept glancing my way. I sat in a chair of Wall of Space up in the air, watching them bundle the byproducts into loads, and the conversation I was reading off the women's lips was anything but ordinary.

"So handsome... Look at him, lost in thought like that."

"I can feel more anguish in him than in Rodin's Thinker... I think I'm falling for him~!"

I'm just sitting in a chair with my chin in my hand, watching. Is Mana Vision's effect starting to show? Or is it a plain trick of the eye?

Either way, if goodwill kept piling up like that, they wouldn't fall for temptations like spying. I ought to just call it a good thing. The mouths kept going.

"He made 160 billion in four hours — what even is his hourly wage?"

"Forty billion an hour!"

"...Does the Master even need to form a raid team?"

"Right? He could throw ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out the worthless byproducts and just take the phase stones. Why did he become a raid team Master at all?"

"Ugh, you idiots. Obviously it's because of Boss Yoo Hwayeon. Behind Hwarang stands Boss Yoo Hwayeon's mother, the President. Do you not get it?"

At that, a male ability user who'd been listening nearby grinned and opened his mouth.

"I don't know about all that, but I'm plenty satisfied. If this payout ratio holds, the dividend coming my way is over ten billion, isn't it? Back in the old Hwarang, earning that much meant risking your life and grinding like a dog for a whole month. Here I made it just for digging a little and hauling loads over two days."

"And that's what's left after the Master takes half, right? They said the artifacts aren't even included."

"...Woooow~ I want to keep working with the Master from now on, too!"

"Fat chance. I heard only two out of the ten teams will rotate in each time the Master enters the Phase World. We got to come this time — our Team 1, and you lot from Team 3 and Team 5 — because it was the first mission, a submerged-zone operation. From next time, only two teams go with him."

On the whole, all fifty-four combat members were delighted to the point of giggling over their dividends — a record rate of return, apparently — and the support staff on annual contracts had a bonus equal to a full year's salary waiting for them, so morale was piercing the sky.

Heh heh heh. If I kept earning a name among the raid team's members little by little like this, maybe I'd even start giving off the air of a conglomerate chairman.

At that moment, something I couldn't overlook leapt from their lips.

"I heard eating the TP only the Master can make feels so good you go to heaven and back. Is that true?"

"What if it is?"

"Suji from Team 7 stuffed Miho with treats and got the details out of her. Said it felt so good her whole body writhed."

What?! Oh — right. I never told Miho to keep her mouth shut.

"...If we cling to the Master and sweet-talk him, think he'd let us have a taste?"

"Get caught by Boss Yoo Hwayeon doing that and you'll die without even a squeak, you."

"Exactly. Get greedy, get marked, and you might be discharged without a mouse or a bird knowing. Forced out of a golden workplace like this, the only places left are second-rate and third-rate raid teams. You want to live there, grinding like a dog for people who won't even acknowledge you?"

At her fellow member's point, the woman with her hair tied in a ponytail seemed to imagine something. A strangely heated little moan slipped out of her as she muttered.

"Hahh... Just imagining it is dreadful. Guess I'll clamp my mouth shut and stick to work."

"Same."

I watched the backs of the women as they clamped their mouths shut and went off to finish packing their loads, then turned my head and let out a sigh.

When I got back, I was going to have to spank Miho's backside raw.