Episode 250: To Britain in Search of an Enemy (5)

I shot Sophia a glance, left one last message that she looked about to wake, and shut off the Certifier.

I'd thought about telling Hwayeon that she had been the target. What did it matter now? I kept it to myself.

Yeongeun's reaction had been the normal one, hadn't it? When I first set foot on British soil I'd been brimming with the urge to wreck Sophia, and now my heart sat as flat and unsettled as a soda gone stale. One miserable goddamn sob story, and already I was wavering. Honestly.

Sophia was starting to stir. My brow drew tight.

I watched her through it.

"Mm..."

A faint groan slipped out of her. She pinched her brow, drew a long breath, and slowly opened her eyes, regarding Franc and me through a bleary gaze. She said nothing. Both hands came up to rub at her eyes, and then her attention returned to me. A faint smile touched that gaunt face. I opened my mouth without expression.

"Sleep well? Your last one?"

"Yes. Did you come in person to take my life, darling?"

She looked as if she'd been waiting. Not a trace of surprise, not a flicker of panic—just a calm face, speaking Korean as though nothing at all had happened. Something hot lurched in my gut, and irritation surged up after it.

"I'm not taking it."

She tilted her head, as if to ask why.

Once, that wasted look might have stirred pity. They say affection, once it twists, turns wholesale into hate. That was me. It wasn't that love had piled up—but I'd grown fond of her, a longtime friend and the older sister of the woman I loved, and she'd cracked me across the back of the skull. Fondness flipping to hatred was more than enough. Clean as a switch thrown the other way.

And yet the heart isn't that simple.

I had reasons enough to hate her. Part of me wanted to smother her in rage and black desire and drop her straight into the pit—to work all that pitch-dark fury and hunger out on that body. But she'd had her reasons, and the thought that Sophia had only done what she must to protect her family made me want to let it slide. Japan had started it, when all was said and done. The Edelbergs, and Sophia herself, had merely been swept along.

Franc stood quietly at my back, as if to say she would respect whatever I chose. Sophia met the blue light spilling from my eyes with the stillness of someone who had already made peace with death.

Was it guilt over betraying us—more than twenty days of it—that wore her down to this?

Even so, I couldn't simply let it pass. Precedent mattered. I hadn't been able to decide what to do with her before we met, but looking at her like this, my mind settled. Most of the high-ranking Japanese officials who bore the original sin would spend the rest of their lives drifting as stateless bums, having learned that life doesn't do rehearsals. The five ringleaders were probably already dead in Alcatraz.

So I wouldn't kill Sophia. But I was a petty, small-minded little shit. I couldn't put on the Edelbergs' magnanimous face and forgive her with a wave of the hand. I'd keep her close, torment her for the rest of her life, and work her to the bone.

A C-Class healer, decent-looking, and sharp besides. Feed her TP and raise her into a B-Class healer, and her usefulness would go without saying. The Edelberg family was no different. Dwight was deputy director of the Grokis Institute, a leading center of phase research, and Ichika was a C-Class Physical Reinforcement user who bossed a small raid team. Sophia had loved her family enough to cross to Japan in Ichika's place and take the spy training. Dwight and Ichika cherished that Sophia past all reason. The ways I could use them were endless.

"I'm not going to kill you. Looking at you now, all dressed up to die, I don't even think killing you would feel good. So I'm thinking of making your family pay the price instead."

Sophia's breath caught. Her eyes flew wide. At the words that her family would pay in her place, her pupils trembled, and dismay broke across her face.

"Your parents get along awfully well, don't they? Such a loving family."

"D-darling..."

"Shut up."

The word had become a habit with her. I snarled it back with a scowl, and Sophia squeezed her eyes shut. I powered the Certifier back on, searched Dwight Edelberg, and floated the result in front of her face.

"Dwight Edelberg. An outstanding scholar and researcher, and a nobleman besides—not only in Britain, but in phase physics itself. Younger siblings, every one of them a distinguished academic. His wife, and the mother of his children, Ichika Edelberg: C-Class, boss of a small raid team. Wow. Hell of a household."

A thin edge of killing intent rose off me as I brought my hands together, soft and slow. Clap. Clap. Clap. My stare pinned both of her eyes.

"Under modern law I can't charge them with guilt by association. But if I lodge a formal protest with Britain, don't you think something rather entertaining might happen? Half the senior officials in Japan lost ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their heads for trying to kill me."

I'd wondered whether threatening her family would cut deep. Sure enough, Sophia's face filled with suffering, and she rose slowly from the sofa. Franc had been listening in silence, watching that reaction with a cold stare. She extended a hand and gathered lightning, as if to say that one wrong move and she would loose it on the spot. Sophia paid her no mind. She came slowly to stand before me, knelt, and looked up.

"Dar— No. I will become Master's slave, and do whatever you command. My family is innocent. So please, lay the guilt on me alone. I beg you..."

"Why are they innocent? I heard the whole story before I came. Your will was part of it, yes—but they're the ones who handed you over to Japan like they were selling you. Isn't that crime enough on its own? Of course, the direct wrong was yours."

I said it with a thin smirk, looking down at her where she knelt, and urgency spread across that thin, wasted face.

"And you don't get excuses, or a choice, to begin with. Japan's already been smashed to pieces. All the value you've got left is as a sandbag for me to beat on. Nothing more. Nothing less. The same goes for Ichika Edelberg."

"That's not true! Mother is an ordinary woman, with nothing to do with Japan!"

She shook her head hard, then swayed, dizzy, clutching at her skull. She lifted her face again and insisted, desperate, that it wasn't so. I rose from the sofa wearing a look that said I didn't believe a word, seized the back of her head—she was bowed low, only her face raised—and slammed it into the floor.

CRACK!

"Kya—ugh."

"And how would you know? Just before you came over to Britain, she was in Japan's secret intelligence service, wasn't she? Can you be sure the Ichika Edelberg you know is all there is to her?"

Her eyes blew wide. The rest of the protest died in her throat.

I let go and got to my feet, but Sophia, forehead driven into the floorboards, couldn't even think of lifting her head. She trembled.

"There's a saying. Keep showing a person kindness, and they start to think it's theirs by right. Because you were as good as a real older sister to Hwayeon, I trusted you too—and what I got back was a knife in the back. Calling you a traitor... no. That word doesn't even fit. Do you know how much Hwayeon suffered when she heard you were a spy? Do you know the look on my sister's face? On Aunt Hyeryeong's?"

The more I spoke, the angrier I got. Rage at Sophia for stabbing me in the back tangled with my hatred of Ha Cheolsu, coiling in my gut like a snake. I lifted my foot and pressed the heel of my shoe, slow and firm, into the back of her head. She didn't resist. In a crushed voice, she apologized.

"I'm... sorry... ugh."

"When I came back from the Floating Sky Islands as a B-Class, you should have come clean to me or to Hwayeon and begged forgiveness. Not run."

THUD!

"Aagh!"

I took my foot off her head and kicked her shoulder with the anger still in it. She flipped backward, screaming. The left shoulder blade my kick had caught snapped and hung loose. Cold sweat poured down her bloodless face. If she died of shock like that, it'd be a nuisance.

"Augh..."

I watched her shoulder race back toward its proper shape, then stepped in on Sophia as she thrashed through the aftershock of a shattered scapula and kicked her in the chest again. She went over. The dry floorboards groaned and spat a boom. I set my foot on her chest where she lay and steadily bore down.

"Ha... ugh."

A dull, grinding crack...

"Aaaagh!"

Under my foot on her solar plexus, bone shifted faintly out of place. Over her scream, I spoke.

"Why'd you do it?"

"Ghk. I— I was... wrong... P-please... forgive..."

"You think you're in any position to ask for forgiveness?"

"N-no... It was all... my... fault...!"

I said nothing.

Sophia, who had betrayed me and run. At first I'd thought Mana Vision's effect had worn off—that she'd taken Japan's orders, betrayed me, and fled. Looking at her now, the favorability effect still seemed to be there. Her chest crushed, her bones twisting, she had gone pale. A single tear slipped free, and a faint, pain-soaked moan leaked out of her.

"Ugh... augh, ugh."

"Seoha. She will die if this continues."

I looked down at that gaunt face as the color drained steadily bluer, then took my foot off her chest.

"Cough! Haah, haah!"

If she was still fond of me, why betray me and run? I looked at her—curled like a shrimp, coughing through the pain—and asked it coldly.

"Why'd you run? If you'd come to me and Hwayeon back then, told the truth, and begged forgiveness, you might've taken a little punishment, but you would've been forgiven easily. You of all people should've known that."

"Th... cough. Back then, beside my family... there was a spy Japan had planted. Haah. Haah. There was a spy. A-and beside me, too...! The moment anything irregular entered Master's actions, those spies—cough!—those spies were under orders to hit not only my parents, and my older sister and younger siblings, but the people around Master as well...! Cough. I... couldn't... tell you..."

Hadn't they said even Japan couldn't pin down where Sophia was? So when she fled Korea, she must have dealt with that spy, then slipped into Britain in secret and dealt with the one attached to her house. And she would have lined up a story with Dwight and his wife, for if someone from the Korean government came calling.

"I'm... sorry. I was scared. I was so scared. If I told the truth, I was afraid I'd be thrown away. Afraid I'd be hated... They're all good people. Kind people... I was afraid they would come to hate me..."

Dwight had asked me, hadn't he. What would I have done, in the same situation? He was right. I would have done exactly what Sophia did.

"Haah. While I kept on with the spying, Master rose to B-Class and kept growing stronger. And the rift with Japan was widening, the situation turning more and more serious, and I didn't know what to do..."

The rest of her story was predictable, if nothing else. Yeongeun had sensed she existed and was drawing the net tighter. Go on like that and get caught, and her family would eat a terror attack to shut her mouth. Surrender to me, and the same result awaited—her parents and family killed by spies strung out in layers. In the end she had secretly murdered the spy stuck to her side, slipped free, and fled to Britain.

She lay there clutching the cloth over her chest, face twisted, still coughing. I cast it on her once.

She staggered, then knelt before me again. Looking a good deal easier, pallid face turned up, she spoke with care.

"Telling the attackers where Master was, so they could find you—that much was my doing... But watching Master grow impossibly strong in so short a time, I thought that if you kept growing like that, no one's threat would mean a thing, and you would stand under no one's heel. So after you rose to C-Class, I passed nothing to Japan. That shortage of intelligence bred impatience, and it came out as provocation aimed at Master."

She struggled to raise her upper body, sank down sideways, and looked up at me. Moisture was welling in both her eyes.

"I... thought of Hwayeon as my own little sister. And Master, who was with that Hwayeon... I didn't want to betray you, either..."

She smiled, pitiful, lowered her gaze, and went on.

"But my family's safety mattered too... Whatever I say will sound like an excuse, won't it. Dispose of me however you wish, Master, and I will follow gladly. So please, lay my parents' guilt on me as well. All of it. The two of them only gave in to my insistence...! If I hadn't gone to Japan, Mother would have gone in my place. And she would have become an ordinary raider!"

I looked down without expression at her panting, heaving form. She kept talking.

"I became the spy in Mother's place. My parents did nothing wrong! Taking Master's information and handing it to Japan was my own will! So please—with me alone...!"

In the end she couldn't hold it. Thick tears spilled, and watching them, my mood turned sour and tangled. I glanced at Franc. She wore the same look of not knowing what to do. I bit down on my molars, seized the slender throat of the kneeling Sophia, and slowly lifted her into the air.

"Ghk."

Hauled up by the neck, she grabbed my arm with both hands and kicked her legs in a failing struggle. Veins rose on her brow. She couldn't breathe. I turned both on and let killing intent pour off me as I spoke.

"I... I'm sor—ghrk."

Caught by the throat, she couldn't even answer. She only shook, and that frail trembling traveled up into the hand around her neck. Lack of oxygen flushed her face a deep, congested red. Her mouth gaped, begging for air, and the pupils of her jasper-green eyes—shuddering as if the ground itself were quaking—shrank to points.

"Ghhk—!"

Veins stood out across her forehead and throat. Her eyes bloodshot, bulging as if they might burst. Foam gathered at the corner of her mouth, and she thrashed in broken fits. I watched, then flung her onto the wooden floor of the narrow living room. She hit with a crash and sprawled, and I sensed several bones give. There was nothing left of that body but bone.

"Augh! Cough, haaagh! Ugh... cough!"

"Th-thank you! Thank you!"

Oxygen-starved, half out of her mind with pain, Sophia still dropped to her knees at my feet and bowed, over and over.

"H... ugh, hak. Y-yes! Yes!"

Cold sweat, tears, and spit ran down her face together. She couldn't even cast a heal on herself. She looked up at me through a chaos of fear, grief, and pain, and said nothing. At that sight I fired it without a word.

Goddamn it. I'd forced the anger up and used violence anyway, and far from feeling better, I felt worse than ever.

How nice it would be if the world split cleanly into good and evil. Then I could hate a loathsome, guilty villain without limit—beat them, torture them, kill them—and feel nothing but satisfaction. Not a scrap of guilt.

She had clearly done wrong. She'd given cause for the brothers and sisters of my security detail to die, and gotten countless people hurt. And yet, because there'd been a tie between us, because there'd been circumstances, I felt this filthy, unsettled nausea. The absolute worst.

"Seoha..."

Franc looked at me with sad eyes and carefully folded her arms around me from behind.

I let the breath out.

I couldn't leave Sophia here. No choice, then. I hauled her onto my back and headed for the Savoy Hotel.

Running the sky back toward London, I could feel her heart hammering against me through my back. Partway there she mumbled something in a voice thick with tears. I shut my ears on purpose and ignored it. After that she buried her face in my shoulder and sniffled, and she didn't say another word until the hotel. No movement at all, and her breathing had evened out. Asleep, by the look of it. Or had she passed out?

It was getting on toward lunch when we arrived. Dad and the security team were nowhere in sight. Wondering where they'd gone, I found a single note on the living-room table. Franc picked it up, glanced over it, and held it out to me.

"Father has gone to the University of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠London. He says he will return late at night."

Truly, only the words that absolutely had to be said. I read it, then laid the unconscious Sophia on the sofa. For a moment I considered tying her with rope, and decided to leave her as she was. From what she'd shown at the house where she'd been hiding, she wouldn't do anything that put her family's lives on the line. A warning later—don't leave the suite—would be enough.

I went back to the bedroom and dropped onto the bed, and a call came in on the Certifier. I checked who it was. My sister.

"Yeah."

Behind her in the hologram, the sky over her office was visible. The sun looked to be going down over there. Working herself to death like that even on a Saturday—a hopeless workaholic, that sister of mine.

"...Ask one thing at a time. Aside from the Queen of Britain using a princess as bait because she wants to eat with me, nothing's wrong, and I'll have lunch in a bit. Dad went to the University of London, and more importantly—!"

She was about to open her mouth again the moment I finished, so I cut her off quick.

"The research institute. Look into building that properly for me. And whatever happened to that think tank of mine from before?"

"Better to build it big from the start than build small and expand later, right?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

...A trillion? 1,000,000,000,000 won?

I stared at her, blank. She let out a little snort of a laugh and fluttered a hand.

"Huh? You're not?"

"Yeah. Wait—I'm building a house in Shinchon-dong too, and if you spend all of it—!"

"Yeah, okay."

After that she needled me with every trivial thing she could think of, so I barked at her.

"If you've got nothing to do, go rest already!"

She cut the call with a sulky face.

So the biggest problem—Sophia—was in hand. I could deal with the rest as it came.

I'd skipped breakfast, and I was about to head down to the Savoy's restaurant to take care of lunch. But for a while now I'd been seeing people who didn't look like ordinary guests posted up by the suite stairs and all through the hotel, and I didn't feel like going down. Agents sent by other countries, no doubt. Something of that sort. I didn't want to step outside and wade into a scene, so I turned to Franc.

"Franc. I can't be bothered to go out. Could you just make me something?"

"Fufu. What would you care to eat?"

"If I named everything I want, I'd eat until I burst and die. So make whatever you like."

"Hee hee. Very well. Please wait just a moment!"

I dropped onto the living-room sofa and watched her start in on the cooking. Then, at the farthest edge of my Spatial Perception—

"What? A Phase Power of 51,280,000?"

That's an A-Class.