Chapter 248: To Britain in Search of an Enemy (3)
Back when I was still in Korea, I had turned the problem over more than once. How, exactly, was I supposed to find Sophia?
The easy way was simple enough. Loose a few people, work out the places she was likely to have fled, and then use that to threaten whichever country she was probably hiding in.
"There's a bitch hiding in your country who stabbed me in the back and ran. Find her. If you don't, I'll open a sinkhole wherever she's likely to be."
Something to that effect. Raise a circular Wall of Space deep underground, and every scrap of earth above it would be dragged into the wall by gravity and vanish without a trace. Once colossal sinkholes started thudding open in their own great cities, I figured the presidents of other nations — those exalted personages — would find her somehow and offer her up.
I scrapped the idea at once.
Use open threats, and the invisible backlash of several countries was guaranteed. I had no desire to play the troll who bargains with civilian lives, either. And if I made a habit of threats like that, wouldn't I only be tightening the noose around my own neck?
Look at the hot-blooded manga from the country next door. The good ones usually get stronger the more people they have to protect, and the bad ones get weaker the more they have to protect. I think both lines have a point. When you have precious people you want to keep safe, you can't pull the outrageous stunts that would put them in danger, so you grow weaker — fair enough. And when you have no one precious to protect, you can ignore the backlash and run wild, so you grow stronger — also fair.
Which meant that if I kept threatening country after country, the ones on the receiving end would start thinking—
"Shit... leave that bastard alone and my own life's going to be in danger. I have to find a way."
And that way, inevitably, would be kidnapping the people precious to me.
Of course, if I crushed them with overwhelming force and erased a few countries with Mana Bullets to make an example, that sort of talk would dry up in a hurry. But every comic says the same thing. Wipe out the ones you dislike, one by one, and in the end you're the only one left. I had never once heard of a dictator like that meeting a good end, and more than anything, if I did something like that, my lovers, my parents, and my sister might grieve. They certainly wouldn't be glad of it.
Most important of all, I couldn't fire a Mana Bullet into wherever that woman was likely hiding and kill her without pain. I wanted Sophia alive, so I could spend this boiling rage on her myself.
The second method was to hang a bounty on her and have someone else bring her in. That one I was still turning over. Dangle a single high-grade Phase Stone as the reward, and wouldn't the secret agents of every nation come crawling out to find her for me? Britain's MI6, America's CIA and FBI, Russia's KGB.
A high-grade Phase Stone is not something you can buy just because you have money. Take the United States, China, Britain — when their national raid teams occasionally secure one, they treat it as a strategic asset and use it at home. They do not sell it to other countries. If America and China are like that, what do you think everyone else does?
When I said I was putting ten high-grade Phase Stones up for auction, the person beyond the hologram window who insisted the government had to buy them all was only saying what obviously had to be said. I was in a foul mood at the time, so I frowned, but still. That was the shape of it. Put a Phase Stone up as a bounty, and I figured every Tom, Dick, and Harry would fall over themselves to find Sophia for me.
Do it that way, though, and I didn't think she would land in my hands in one piece. Rape would come standard. Showing up with her limbs hacked off so she couldn't run would be the optional extra. Wounds like that a healer could patch clean, so long as she was still breathing — but I didn't want other bastards putting their hands on that bitch before I did.
Anyway. I had come to Britain with thoughts like those, to settle a few matters, and the moment I stood on British soil on my own two legs, I knew my choice to come here had been the right one. My gut told me that bitch Sophia was hiding on this land. So, leaning on that hunch, I was heading for Crawley, in West Sussex, where the Edelberg family was said to be.
Barge into her family home and stir things up, and some clue or other would pop out. Or I could go make a scene at the British royal family and demand they find Sophia. Whatever worked. Ah — maybe I should have grabbed Japan's interim prime minister when he came to apologize, and chewed him out until he found her...
From London to Crawley, at the heart of West Sussex, was about the distance from Seoul to Incheon International Airport. I was traveling at roughly two hundred meters off the ground, and unlike back home, the county of West Sussex had nothing you could really call a mountain.
"It's all flat."
"Set beside Korea's terrain, some ninety percent of Britain's land will look like plains to you, Seoha. Most of Britain's mountains are hills of this sort."
We left London, and I ran on while taking in the plains spread beneath my feet. It wasn't long before we reached Crawley. I swept the airport north of the city for a moment, then shifted toward the center, and the whole of Crawley came inside the range of my Spatial Perception. For a city with an airport, it was smaller than I had expected.
"Anyway, I don't see that familiar Phase Power of Sophia's, the one I've looked at so often. Is she somewhere else?"
"I am looking with sight analysis as well, but as expected, sight analysis is of little help where buildings and such block the view..."
"It's all right. That ability works in the Phase World more than it does in reality."
I smiled and stroked the slightly crestfallen Franc's backside, and she shot me a pretty glare and gave the back of my hand a weak pinch. She hadn't caught word of my arrival the way a spy would, pulled a flying getaway, and skipped out somewhere else through the airport, had she? I was scanning Crawley once more with Spatial Perception when Franc, who had been searching up the Edelberg mansion on her phone, showed me the screen and pointed east.
"The Edelberg family mansion is in Crawley Down, seven kilometers east of here."
"So that's the place."
I climbed a little higher, put strength into my eyes, and looked the way Franc had indicated. A cluster of luxurious mansions entered my view, and among them one stood out as conspicuously large. That would be the Edelberg estate. I kicked hard off a Wall of Space and hurled myself toward that great house. The target rushed up in an instant. I twisted and alighted lightly in the mansion's broad garden.
It was early morning, cold air hanging over the wide grounds, and four older men who had been trimming the lawn with mowers stared at me in a daze. Estate employees? I swept the surroundings clean with Spatial Perception. Luxury mansions stood in a row all around, and each housed an ability user or two. Add them all up and there were well over two hundred nearby. Most were mid-tier E-Class, with the occasional D-Class mixed in. There was only one C-Class, and that one was in the mansion before my eyes.
Then one of the men who had been staring — a grass-stained checkered shirt, trousers held up by suspenders — hesitated, came toward me, and spoke with care.
"Who might you be?"
"Jung Seoha, from Korea. I've come looking for someone..."
"I beg your pardon? If you have been invited, kindly enter by the main gate."
"Are you this house's gardener?"
"Ah — how rude of me. I am James Huckley, butler of House Edelberg."
A butler? I looked the man over again. He had a faintly similar air to Yeongeun's butler, old Juhan — the one now driving hard at founding a foundation.
"A butler, then. Hmm. Will you understand if I put it this way? I'm the boss of a Korean raid team, betrayed by Sophia Edelberg."
"......!"
"So I'd like to meet her parents. Show me in."
The butler looked over my clothes, then asked with a bewildered face. A white short-sleeved shirt, black cotton trousers, casual shoes — comfortable clothes. Was that why? Even so, perhaps because of the ability Franc and I had just shown, he didn't answer rudely.
"This is rather disconcerting. I understand the circumstances, but have you an appointment with the master?"
"I don't."
"To see the master, you must arrange an appointment beforehand."
"If I go back, make an appointment, and return, I can't say what will happen then. Should it come to that, can you take responsibility for all of it, Mr. Huckley?"
"......"
The Edelberg butler's brow twitched, and he looked toward the entrance beyond the wide lawn. From that direction, two peak F-Class Physical Reinforcement types — bodyguards, by the look of them — came over as if flying. I glanced at the other gardeners slinking away, then turned my eyes back to the butler in front of me. Fear flickered through his gaze. Even so, he didn't run. A butler is a butler, I thought.
"If you don't want the Edelberg mansion to disappear, you'd do well to stop what you're about to do and announce me inside. I didn't come with kindly intentions."
As if to show them, I spread a vast amber wall wide over the Edelberg mansion. The butler cried out in shock.
"Hhk—! Th-the God of Destruction!"
Right to a person's face, this man...
"Shall I show you what destruction is?"
I scowled and glared, and frightened by my savage look, he bolted into the mansion. Left standing there like a pair of borrowed barley sacks, the two bodyguards looked back and forth between me and the enormous flat Wall of Space that had appeared over the house, then faltered and began to edge away. One of them drew a radio from his coat and started muttering into it.
"Emergency A, Emergency A! An intruder at the mansion—!"
"Franc. The moment any of them so much as looks like they're attacking, roast them all with lightning."
"Yes!"
My magic rounds and my Mana Bullets were both too vicious to use with anything like restraint against a person. I followed the Edelberg butler as he ran pell-mell, scanning the inside of the house with Spatial Perception, and found a middle-aged man handsome as a movie actor occupied with the business of making an heir alongside a young, pretty woman who looked to be in her late twenties.
The looks passing between them were full of love. This didn't seem like a middle-aged man who had summoned a young pretty woman to indulge in a dissolute life. The woman in her late twenties was East Asian, mid-tier C-Class, without a single blemish on her face. She had to be the woman out of Japan's Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office who had become the current lady of House Edelberg. By my reckoning she was at least eighty, and yet, thanks to her C-Class Physical Reinforcement, she had flawless smooth skin and a firm, finely shaped body. The man I took for the Edelberg head must have exercised hard as well. There wasn't an ounce of spare flesh on him.
"Oh my!"
Franc must have seen the scene through Spatial Perception too. Her face flushed a little, and she stole glances at me. To my eyes they were nothing but two animals mating. I set the heat-filled bedroom aside and swept the grounds. Two hundred meters or so to a side — something like eight acres, by a rough count. The mansion occupied half of that. Six stories, a luxurious medieval exterior, and a modern interior, so that the harmony of old and new made for a remarkably handsome house.
"They do live well, I'll give them that. Phase Stones, precious metals, and jewels, hidden all through the place."
"It looks even larger than Yeongeun's mansion."
Whether they had gotten the radio call or not, I sensed D-Class ability users pouring toward the mansion from outside the grounds. Leave them be and they would be a nuisance, so I wrapped the house in a Wall of Space. There were a dozen or so people inside, but most of them were maids without abilities, and they couldn't do anything that would threaten me.
As I stepped inside, I faintly heard someone urgently knocking on a door upstairs. He kept at it without pause, and the Edelberg head stopped what he was doing, frowned, got up, and pulled on a robe. His wife, looking regretful, hid her bare body under the pure white covers. He left the bedroom, came out into the sitting room, and opened the door — then looked puzzled at his butler's face, gone blue-white with shock. And when he heard what the man had to say, he flinched and locked rigid.
"The God of Destruction from Korea has forced his way in and demands to see you, master!"
The Edelberg wife, hidden under the covers, must have heard it too. She shot upright in the bed. The family head wasn't an ability user, but he had a Certifier. He touched his arm and began to move his fingers through the air, as if to place a call somewhere, so I switched on Mana Voice and warned him.
"Try any tricks, and I will sink this mansion all the way to the mantle. Come down and talk."
Unable to ignore the warning, the family head flinched and stopped. The butler hurried off somewhere, and his wife, covering herself with the blanket, came running out of the bedroom.
Around then, the ability users outside the mansion gate swung their weapons at the Wall of Space — and shouted in shock.
"Goddamn it! What the hell is this?! Touch it and the weapon melts!"
"Hey. Hey, isn't this that thing? The ability of the man they call the master of the Grand Blue raid team."
"What? The God of Destruction showed up?"
"Damn it! There's no way this barrier holds with no limit! What are you all doing?! Everyone, attack!"
At one man's shout, the elemental ability users gathered, fired elemental rounds, and loosed lasers — and the Wall of Space swallowed all of it.
"Th-this is... what even is this..."
"Captain. It's useless. That thing's a horrific barrier that melts whatever touches it. They say it held even against a high-tier aberrant's Light Thunderbolts."
"We still can't just stand here gawking! Keep attacking!"
The man who seemed to be their leader looked troubled and at a loss — weapons and abilities alike doing nothing — and still he urged the attack on. Franc, who had been watching the commotion beyond the gate from the mansion entrance, tilted her head.
"Would all those ability users outside be private soldiers of House Edelberg?"
"Private soldiers who double as raiders, no? Like House Aldion."
"Ah. Then the lady of House Edelberg must be the raid boss."
The Edelberg couple had been watching that same sight from the third floor, faces gone stiff. They stood there as if their souls had left them, then seemed to remember I was downstairs, and at length began to dress and put themselves in order. I went into what looked like a reception room, sat on a fine sofa with my legs crossed, and waited. Before long the pair came in with the butler, stopped short at the sight of me, and flinched.
I had been waiting with Mana Sieve poured thick into my eyes, precisely so they would be startled. At my calm, insolent posture, the Edelberg head reproached me with anger showing.
"To come calling without so much as a word, and rudely at that, would alone be cause to protest to the Korean government — and you go so far as to use force and threats. What sort of unmannerly conduct is this?"
"And what your daughter did was mannerly, was it? Enough. Look me straight in the eye and answer. Where have you hidden Sophia Edelberg?"
At the abrupt thrust straight to the point, and at the effect of Mana Voice, the family head's face went pale. Then the lady of House Edelberg — slightly sharp eyes, hair in a natural wave — stepped in front of her husband and began to glare at me.
A staring contest? Fine. I'd play. I put into my eyes the killing intent I had only recently become able to use, lit Mana Vision, and glared back at her. She held for a moment, then broke into a cold sweat and began to tremble. A gaze even a C-Class Physical Reinforcement user couldn't meet. First time I had tried it, but the effect was to my liking.
"Stop this! If you mean to harm my wife, I will not stand idle!"
But your daughter already did me harm. Still, I was a gentleman, so for now I would try talking it out. At his words I drew the killing intent back, withdrew Mana Vision as well, and spoke.
"Sit down, first. I'm in a very bad mood because of what your daughter did to me, so don't provoke me any further than that. You know who I am, and if you think about what I did to Japan, I expect you'll understand how mannerly I'm being right now."
At that, the family head sat carefully across from me with a grave face. The woman stood beside him, as if to protect him. Her hand had gone to the sword at her waist, but that hand was trembling, finely. Then she saw Franc standing behind me, and her face turned puzzled. Could she actually remember Franc? I had heard that House Edelberg had gone so far as to propose to her, so it was possible she remembered the face.
"Shall I introduce myself first? My name is..."
"I know it. Anyone who does not know the Eastern God of Destruction does not belong in this world. My name is Dwight Edelberg. This is my wife, Ichika Edelberg."
God of Destruction again. I gave him a crooked smile and opened my mouth.
"You know me well, so this will go quickly. Your wife seems precious to you, Mr. Dwight. It's the same for me. Your child, Sophia Edelberg, harmed me and my bride-to-be and ran, and that—"
"She did not! Not long ago an agent of your country's government came and made a scene, and now you yourself have graciously come, trusting in your power, to throw your weight around in person?! Did I not say we have nothing to do with her! I told you, again and again, that we have nothing to do with that unfilial wretch who struck her father and stormed out!"
He cut me off, face flushing deep red, and shouted. I watched Dwight, then looked at the woman standing beside him — Ichika.
Aunt Hyeryeong had said this woman raised her own children as spies for Japan. That story must have come from our government. Did her husband not know? And yet no matter how I looked, she didn't seem like a woman who would use her own children. When she had been having sex with her husband earlier, the way she looked at him, the way she moved — no matter how I read it, it was someone who loved him deeply. Turn the fruit of that love into a spy for another country?
From the moment the conversation began, I had focused Spatial Perception on Ichika Edelberg, watching every shift of her body and expression with care. Not a trace of the affectation or the composed mask a spy would show. She looked like a wife and a mother worried for her family, and that confused me.
She had to be around Yeongeun's age, and she was ex-intelligence, so I considered that she might be accomplished at lying to her own heart, and to herself. Sold out of Japan like a half-slave, and yet she had become a lawful wife who even took her husband's name — that meant she was capable. I couldn't rule out an act. But I had learned to read faces without meaning to, getting hit by my sister from the time I was small, and lately, living with Franc and Hwayeon and Yeongeun, I had trained that skill further still. Yeongeun in particular had raised my proficiency a great deal, and no matter how I looked, that woman's expression was the real thing, with no lie mixed in.
...Let's test it.
"Then Sophia Edelberg — no, I heard you cut her off, so she wouldn't even have the family name. If I find Sophia, cut off her limbs, flay her hide the way you'd skin a pelt, pull out her eyes, tear out her tongue, and then have her raped by dogs and pigs dosed with aphrodisiac, you wouldn't mind? And at the end, cut off her head and kill her?"
I broke off as if I were angry too, hardened my face, and spoke with a blank expression while letting a slip of killing intent leak out. Ichika Edelberg's face turned the color of death. A crack ran through Dwight's angry face.
"That bitch went around at my side and passed information about me to Japan's Patriotic Subjects Association. On the strength of that, they came for my life twice, and if I had left it alone, they would have reached for the people around me as well. Thanks to her, my lover — the woman who is to be my wife, who had thought of Sophia as an older sister — took a deep wound to the heart. I think you would understand how I feel, Mr. Dwight, seeing as you seem to cherish your wife so terribly."
"......"
"D-darling..."
"I said it publicly during the Japanese ability-user assault as well. Anyone who lent a hand to those trying to kill me is a target of my attack. So when I go back, I'll upload a video to YouTube. Spreading Sophia Edelberg's photograph, and announcing that I am personally putting a bounty on her."
Dwight cleared his throat. He could not hide his discomfort. It didn't seem like discomfort toward me, but toward whoever had created this situation. It didn't seem to be Sophia. Hard to call, from a reaction like this.
"I'll also say that anyone who gives decisive help in capturing Sophia — on the condition that she need only be alive — will receive a high-grade Phase Stone, and that those who help to a lesser degree will be paid, by tiers, in superior-grade and mid-high-grade Phase Stones. So long as she's alive, nothing else matters... As deputy director of the Grokis Institute, Mr. Dwight, I'm sure you can fully anticipate what result that will produce."
At the words high-grade Phase Stone, Dwight's face flooded with astonishment, and at so long as she's alive, nothing else matters, Ichika's color drained white. Looking at Ichika Edelberg's face, I thought the information Aunt Hyeryeong had given me was wrong. A woman who loved her child like that, sending her precious daughter to another country as a spy? It didn't make sense. There had to be something behind it.
"So I will ask you plainly, here and now."
I rose from my seat, and the Edelbergs looked at me in alarm. I regarded that sight with eyes gone cold, and spoke.