To Britain in Search of an Enemy (13)

With every last item on the schedule I'd set finally behind me, a lightness settled in—and, right beside it, a hollow sort of letdown. The strength drained clean out of my body.

The moment I got back to the hotel and collapsed face-down on the bed, Franc collapsed on top of me.

"...Enjoying yourself, using me for a mattress?"

"Not especially! You're far too hard, and lumpy besides!"

"Oh, you little—!"

"Kyaa~!"

If I wanted the spent strength poured back into me, there was really only one way.

I meant to shake that hollowness off for good. Franc was laughing, bright and foxlike, and I put her down on the bed and loved her until she melted—thoroughly tormen... loved her, thick and deep, until she went soft as poured wax.

I was resting with that beautiful naked body gathered in my arms, flushed the deep pink of azaleas, breathing in the scent of apples, when a call came through on the Certifier and ruined the peace.

I checked who it was. Lydia. So the answer she'd mentioned at lunch had arrived?

Ugh. I don't want to peel myself off Franc's warmth...

She'd fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion, and I didn't want to wake her. I yanked on nothing but my pants, slipped out to the living room, and took the call. A hologram window opened, and there was Lydia.

Her face was strange—bright on one side, dark on the other. The moment she confirmed it was me, color spread softly across her cheeks. She looked away and started to hem and haw.

"You don't look so good. They turned down my request?"

"N-no! She accepted it! But... I think this matter may have put Her Majesty in something of a sour mood..."

"I've decided to stop overthinking things from here on. I'm going to be direct. So let me ask. Is Britain planning to treat me as an enemy?"

"...! N-no. Her Majesty the Queen has no intention of making an enemy of you, Sir Seoha."

"Then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stick close. Close enough that I'd think of you as a friend. The way I treat friends and the way I treat strangers are worlds apart, so stick close enough that I don't feel like we're nothing to each other."

"Yes..."

"Who knows? If it comes to that, I might even skip the auction and sell you a High-Tier Phase Stone at nothing more than a premium on the going rate."

"...You mean that? Truly?"

"If the Queen had given me the information on Alastor's Terrible Dark Castle without asking anything in return, Britain would have gained a Phase Stone. Too late for that now."

"Ah..."

Favors and grudges ought to be kept perfectly clear. That's what Dad taught me.

At my matter-of-fact tone, Lydia's eyes went wide as saucers. Then regret crossed her face, and she stamped her feet where she stood. The childish display pulled a short laugh out of me, and I asked.

"You spent about a month around me, so you've got a rough sense of what I'm like, haven't you?"

"Ah, it wasn't a full month. You went into the Phase World for fifteen days in the middle of it, Sir Seoha."

...Ah, anyway!!

"Ahem. Thanks for serving as the go-between. Pass my thanks to Her Majesty as well, for granting permission."

"Yes!"

Lydia cut the call short, eager, it seemed, to carry what I'd said to the Queen. I checked that the conversation had recorded properly as video, then called Hwayeon and Yeongeun.

It would be the dead of night in Korea, but if I wanted this handled first thing in the morning, I had to tell them now.

Contrary to my expectation that they'd be asleep, both of them came up on a single screen: Yeongeun in baggy gray teddy-bear pajamas, Hwayeon in an ordinary T-shirt and shorts.

"Huh. Neither of you was asleep?"

"What's the point of turning in early when my darling isn't here to cool this burning body? I might as well work."

Yeongeun giggled, let her eyes roam my surroundings, then casually bared the upper swell of her breasts and launched a provocation my way. Unfortunately for her, I had only just finished watering the flower garden called Franc to overflowing, and my resistance to that sort of thing was running high. I let the view pass with an easy face, and both their expressions went stiff.

"...Hah. Where's Franc?"

"You already got all lovey-dovey with Franc! Fraaaanc~!"

Watching my two lovers burn with jealousy, I didn't know whether to be exasperated or charmed. I cleared my throat and got to the point.

"Ahem! Anyway, the Adelberg couple have agreed to come over to Korea, and their children with them. I just got the British Queen's authorization through Lydia, so Hwayeon, call the Adelbergs and handle the handover."

"Understood. Do they know we're putting Sophia on trial?"

"Yeah. I told them."

"Good."

Whether she'd sorted her feelings out or not, Hwayeon's face no longer darkened when Sophia came up as a subject.

"Then, before we stand Sophia in court, we'll rough her up a little."

"...A little? In what way, exactly?"

"Hm? You know. Half-kill her, more or less?"

"Not bad. So long as you and I each kill half."

"If you each kill half, doesn't she die completely?"

Yeongeun, listening in from the side, looked appalled. Hwayeon turned a pitying look on her and scolded.

"Obviously you half-kill her, heal her, and half-kill her again. What did you think I meant?"

"What did I think? Sophia's stateless now, isn't she? No country left to protect her. Of course we should use this chance to make her spray out every last fluid in that body, for the nerve of the stunt she pulled on us. People used to die from the aftereffects of torture, sure, but we have a healer now, so the full hundred-and-eight-course treatment, torture over her entire—"

"Yeongeun, when I get back I'll have you climax a hundred and eight times, so drop it."

At the promise of a hundred and eight climaxes, Yeongeun hiccuped and waved both hands in a frantic no—but I muted her window at once and turned back to Hwayeon.

"Once I'm home, I think we brainwash Sophia and put her to use."

"Brainwashing her and using her for the long haul might be better than torture or beating her body. So—mmph. Wait! Why am I the only one getting a hundred and eight?! I won't be able to walk for a week! That's too much! ...What are you doing! Move, kyaa~! Where do you think you're grabbing! I told you to get out of the way!"

Yeongeun had killed her own hologram and stormed into Hwayeon's, and the two of them were raising hell. I shook my head.

On the morning of my third day in Britain, Franc and I thought about breakfast at the Savoy Grill, said to be one of the country's famous restaurants. It opened at noon. Lunch onward. So we reserved dinner instead and simply ordered room service.

Come to think of it, was this the first ordinary meal I'd eaten since arriving in Britain?

I'd been privately looking forward to the fabled grotesquerie of British cooking. Contrary to every rumor, what arrived was an exceptionally clean, gentle breakfast.

"Everything I read online said British food is salty, greasy, and swimming in its own juices, but this is actually really good?"

If any dish represented Britain, it was fish and chips. Fry the fish whole, take a bite, and the fishy juices come gushing out—that sort of thing. Korea has its own version, fish filleted and fried in a light batter, but the British fish and chips I'd seen online looked, on appearance alone, like something no one could honestly call appetizing. And yet the fried fish from the morning room service had a shattering crust, the flesh inside cooked a perfect golden brown, and the bread was moist, soft, and warm. Good enough that a sound of admiration escaped me on its own.

"The inside of this bread is softer than Franc's breasts!!"

"..."

I tore the bread off in bites, smiled at Franc—who was glaring at me adorably over what I'd just said—and made a solid breakfast of it. Then I fetched a notepad and set down, in brief, the information I meant to hand the Queen: the circumstances that had let Franc wield lightning, and the peculiarities of my Phase World. Meeting the Rogue Imugi early on. The great flood.

"You're going to tell them about the imugi as well?"

"Yeah. That much shouldn't be a problem to share. Hmm. Should I say I met a one-eyed giant, too? And a giant mole."

Right. The one-eyed giant and the giant mole fought and destroyed each other, and the High-Tier Phase Stone I'd taken from the giant was struck by the imugi's lightning ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and came away charged with a special power. If I then said Franc had consumed that Phase Stone, and that was how she'd gained lightning...

Plausible enough, isn't it?

I spun the story out onto the page, and Franc, watching from beside me, marveled and called it incredible.

"If you had become a writer, Seoha, I do believe you would have been a great success."

"I don't think so. Laying out who, what, when, where, why, and how, and piling on a heap of speculation—that's simple. Shaping it into a story with a beginning, a rise, a turn, and an ending, and actually closing the thing out volume by volume, is brutally hard."

"Mmm. You do seem to know a great deal about it... Is that from experience, perhaps?"

"...It's a humiliating old story, so don't ask."

"Pfft! Very well."

That had been the first time I'd ever thought I wanted to kill a malicious commenter...

The story was packed tight into a notepad a little larger than a pocket notebook, truth and lies blended at roughly four parts to six. I looked it over for a moment, then photographed it with the Certifier so I'd have a record.

There. Done. I could send it to Lydia when I headed home. And then...

A hubbub outside. Laughter, loud and loose. A long whistling rush—bang, bang-bang, boom.

I looked out the window at the racket and saw Chinese tourists passing, laughing and talking at the top of their lungs. Farther off, something like fireworks was going off. For a moment the elves crossed my mind, the ones being taken apart and experimented on while they were still alive. Nothing to do with me. I shook the thought off, turned to Franc, and asked.

"Franc. Shall we go on a date?"

"A d-date?"

"Yeah. Don't want to?"

"How could I not! I'll get ready and be right out!"

She broke into a bright smile, scurried into the bedroom, and—plainly excited—laid out clothes and accessories and began adorning herself.

Hmm. I hadn't expected her to be quite that happy. I'd have to carve out time I didn't have and take her on dates now and then.

To avoid the hotel lobby, which was crawling with agents, Franc and I vaulted out the window and dropped toward the Thames embankment. Passersby startled at the two of us falling out of the sky and stared. I ignored them and turned our steps toward Waterloo Bridge.

Franc wore a bright sky-blue dress, wedge sandals, and an outing hat picked out with a black silk ribbon, and she asked with a beaming smile.

"Where shall we start?"

Couples were walking arm in arm along the Thames. I linked my arm through Franc's and answered.

"Shall we start with the Tower of London?"

"Y-yes."

The arm startled her. She flinched, flushed, and answered shyly.

We walked the embankment together and arrived at the Tower of London—the same place I'd glanced at from the car when I first got to Britain.

The place was absurdly old, raised more than eleven centuries ago. At its center stood the White Tower, twenty-eight meters high, just over ninety feet, and around it clustered St. Peter's Chapel, a museum, the Jewel House, and more, the whole of it wrapped again in castle walls. Inside, tourists wandered freely, taking in the sights.

I followed their paths. With my eyes I took in the White Tower's exterior; with Spatial Perception I scoured the interior down to the last stone. A double tour.

"Shouldn't they call it the Grey Tower, not the White Tower?"

"Back then, they say, it was white enough to truly be called white. But as the years passed, it changed to look like this. Even so, on a day when the sun beats down, they say it looks pure white from a distance!"

I gave the White Tower's interior—done up more or less as a museum—a quick look, came out, and went into the Crown Jewels, where the crowns worn by Britain's kings through the ages were kept. Besides the crowns, all manner of jewels were on display. I lingered near a group a guide had brought in, eavesdropping on the earnest explanation, then examined the crowns laid carefully away inside the glass. As expected, every last one was a fake.

The curious part was that the genuine articles were stored separately, underground, right here.

Was the security actually sound? Guards were posted all over, sure, but if someone came in meaning business, the place would be stripped bare.

Not my problem.

Comparing real and fake through Spatial Perception, I cracked a joke about how wearing a thing like that day to day would put a disc out in your neck, and when we came outside a little play was underway on the lawn beside the White Tower—people in old military dress, acting out some scrap of the past. I watched it with Franc, whose smile never once left her face, then we stepped beyond the walls and took in Tower Bridge, right there in front of us.

"It's curious, I'll give it that. I wouldn't call it impressive."

"They say the night, with the lights on, is nothing at all like the day. Let's come again later!"

"Let's."

After that we toured the magnificent Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, and the absurdly enormous clock tower right beside them, the one called Big Ben.

Franc never once unlinked her arm. She leaned into me and squealed the whole way, cute enough that the muscles around my mouth went soft. Even then, irritating presences kept loitering around us.

It was our first date. She was enjoying herself for once, and I didn't want to spoil it, so I stayed quiet.

But I remembered your faces.

Afterward we went to Buckingham Palace, watched the Changing of the Guard—red and black uniforms, black horses—had our picture taken by someone offering Polaroids, snacked on this and that, and kept the date going with Franc until night fell.

In the evening we returned to the hotel and sat down to a chef's-recommendation course at the Savoy Grill, where we'd booked. I happened to glance at the chef and realized I knew the face.

So Britain's famous star chef ran a restaurant here.

"They say that chef's temper is an absolute terror."

"...That gentleman?"

Franc, carefully cutting her medium steak, opened her eyes wide and stole a look at the chef, who had come out to greet the guests.

"Yeah. I saw it myself. He was on a reality show crowning the best chef, and he poured out an incredible amount of swearing."

"He looks a man of real depth, though..."

"Apparently he is, in person. The broadcasts just lit him up spewing words that start with F, something fierce, and that's the image that stuck. In real life he's supposed to be a gentleman. And his cooking is good enough that if you added up the Michelin stars across all his restaurants, it'd come to a dozen or more—so of course the place is this full."

"It really is."

Franc looked around at that, and sure enough there wasn't an empty seat. The restaurant was packed.

We finished the meal, left, and were heading through the lobby toward the room when the American deputy assistant secretary who had come by on Saturday afternoon approached again, together with the sub-manager of the G.S. Raid Team, as if the two of them had been waiting.

Outside, the gnats had been irritating me. In here, a cockroach of a man was doing the same.

Watching the man and woman walk straight at us, I glanced around the lobby. The people alone sitting on the hall sofas with their eyes on us numbered a dozen or more, and the faces were a mix of ethnicities. Were all of them agents, here to sweet-talk me into immigrating to their countries?

"Good evening, Mister Blue Genius."

And on top of everything else, they were gracious enough to sour my mood nice and crisp by using the nickname I hated.

I was irritated enough already. This was the bastard who'd badmouthed Franc.

The sub-manager addressed me in English as if that were simply the natural thing. Considering my nationality, wasn't the obvious courtesy to open in Korean? Lydia spoke Korean when she talked to me.

Franc started forward to cut them off. I stopped her, let the cold roll off me in waves, and spoke curtly to G.S.'s sub-manager.

"Not especially well, no."

He smiled brightly, as if he hadn't heard, and dipped his head in a slight bow. The deputy assistant secretary smiled with her eyes.

"Haha. That mood will change once you've heard our proposal. The United States, and the world's finest raid team, Granado Spata, have a splendid offer that would benefit both Mister Blue Genius and ourselves..."

"Don't use that nickname. It irritates me. And you're saying G.S. came to win me over?"

"Ah, my apologies. Mister Jung Seoha is quite correct."

Not even Master. Just Mister. The man calling himself sub-manager smiled thinly at my reaction and opened his mouth in a just-hear-me-out sort of way. So, to summarize roughly...

"Our G.S., under the full backing of the United States government, holds the number-one ranking in the world. Which is to say, should Mister Jung Seoha join the G.S. Raid Team, we can offer support, and material and spiritual satisfaction, on a scale that cannot even be compared with your homeland of Korea. The United States of America is the land of freedom and equality, is it not? How would you like to rest in the embrace of such a great nation?"

...That was the gist. He'd dressed it in all sorts of flowery language and drawn it out at length, but the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠point was that.

The woman who went by deputy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠assistant secretary stood beside the sub-manager in a black velvet dress that clung to her body. Catching my gaze, she offered me a faint smile and spoke.

"If Mister Jung comes in under America's shade, you will be able to enjoy wealth and honor you have never experienced. The benefit the Korean government has granted Mister Jung is nothing more than a slight tax reduction, isn't it? Come to America, and we can offer complete tax exemption—not only on the private sale of any Phase Stones you acquire, but covering direct and indirect taxes alike. And depending on your results, a limited immunity as well..."

With a seductive sway she took one step closer, set one hand on her own waist and the other on my shoulder, and leaned her upper body in just enough to show the cleft of her breasts.

What is this, a honey trap?

Every piece of trash under the sun, losing its goddamn mind. Unreal.

"Solo operations would be guaranteed, along with land running to several thousand hectares—tens of thousands of acres—and a place to train. Every convenience of life you can imagine would be yours with a single word of acceptance. Of course, this is only a fraction of the benefits we would extend to Mister Jung."

"The treatment Korea has given Mister Jung Seoha is, quite frankly, wretched. A nation's support is necessary if one is to maintain a dignity befitting one's ability—and the Korean government? Far from elevating that dignity, one might as well say they have degraded it. I can state this with certainty. There is no country that can treat Mister Jung Seoha in a manner befitting his ability as the United States of America can."

The deputy assistant secretary quietly reached out, took my arm, and tried to tuck it between her breasts. I watched the expression slowly vanish from Franc's face.

I didn't know how much those two actually knew, but they clearly had no idea that my own government was watching my back. Otherwise they would never have laid the offer out with that much confidence.

Yeongeun was part of why, but at least in Korea the current government looked after me well enough that I didn't have to spare a thought for restrictions that might hinder running a raid team or working in the Phase World, or for interference from politics and business. The support was secret enough that even America hadn't caught on. Only now did I start to grasp how formidable Yeongeun's ability was, and how complete the government's hold.

Cold-faced, I knocked the woman's arm aside with a sharp smack. Her eyebrows—like straw gone soggy—twitched, and she took a step back. The windbag calling himself sub-manager frowned, the look of a man whose script had just failed him.

I lit Mana Vision in my eyes, glared at the pair of them, and spoke.

"Setting benefits and support aside, I can see that the intelligence of America, and of G.S.—the so-called finest raid team in the world—is pathetic. Your headhunting strategy is pathetic, your thinking is pathetic, and your judgment is pathetic."

At the sudden acid in my voice, both their faces went blank with shock, and curiosity seeped into the faces of the others who had been watching. I could read the thought. Even terms like those aren't enough to reel him in?

"You look like you don't understand. America and G.S. will let me enjoy support, wealth, and honor I've never known? I don't give a damn about that, and even if I did, my own ability is more than enough to get it. Do you even know how many High-Tier Phase Stones I sold not long ago?"

"That..."

"And yes, I speak English, but I'm Korean. If you approached me to win me over, didn't it occur to you that speaking Korean would be the basic courtesy? Anyone with a working head would know what a refused visit means, and yet you dragged an assistant manager over, forced the door open, and now you're blocking my way and pressing the offer again."

"Mister..."

"If you've got a head, try using it. Why I'm in Britain. What I did while I was here."

I tapped my temple—a gesture telling them to use their heads—and the pair's expressions hardened like stone. I turned a contemptuous look on the woman called deputy assistant secretary.

"Did you think that because I'm eighteen, a few nice-sounding words would tip me right over? That if you came at me with your body, I'd drool and say yes? In all my life I've never seen anyone pull something this stupid. How stupid must the person who gave you that stupid order have been—the stupidity is overflowing. I'm dumbfounded enough to drop dead."

"You're being far too harsh."

"What's harsh is that head of yours. Princess Marietta, and even Her Majesty the Queen, at least had the sense to carefully hint that they wanted to recruit me. And you? A mere deputy assistant secretary? Plus some sub-manager I've never even heard of?"

At the blatant dressing-down, the sub-manager's face—and the woman's even more so—began to flush red. The deputy assistant secretary in particular, rebuked after trying to come at me with her body, looked ready to burst at a touch.

"Your face is reddening, so I suppose you're angry. It hasn't occurred to you that I'm angry too, sought out by people who failed to grasp my personality, my tastes—not even my hobbies—and then made to listen to an absurd proposal?"

"I don't quite understand. Which part of the terms we offered displeased you?"

"All of it. All of it. At the very least you should have come knowing what I like and what I hate. You didn't even bother with that, and then terms that aren't even funny, and an absurdly cheap honey trap on top of it. I can take that piece of stupidity as the will of the American government, can I?"

The woman went scarlet, trembling, unable to get a word out. The sub-manager's face hardened as well, a hint of hostility showing as he opened his mouth.

"You go too far! However strong Mister Jung Seoha's ability may be, there is nothing one can accomplish alone. You would do well to understand that America is not Japan!"

"Shall we test whether you're really so different? You don't even understand why I'm reacting this sharply, do you? You're the ones who stuck a tail on us and got on our nerves while Franc and I were out enjoying ourselves, aren't you?"

Whether they had really been the ones to put that tail on us or not, their faces stiffened for an instant at the mention of being followed, then smoothed—only to crumple again at what came next.

"Judging by your faces, it really was you. Anyway, go home. If you truly think America is different from Japan, by all means try your little tricks on me. Oh, and I've recorded every word of this conversation, so don't go back and think about cooking up some scheme."

I raised my forearm, showed them the Certifier, and sneered. The two of them could only stand there and shake.

Even so, they seemed to have at least the sense to realize that another word would only feed my anger. I looked at the pair—faces crumpled as if they'd bitten into rotten fruit—then turned away and muttered, loud enough to carry.

"How much of a joke do they take me for, to try this? Does America not need High-Tier Phase Stones? I've still got plenty left."

I'd meant it to be heard, and it was. Not only the man and woman who had approached me, but the others in the hall who had been studying me with hawks' eyes, went blank. I turned Mana Vision on them and glared at each in turn. They cleared their throats and looked away.

Sigh. What am I supposed to do if I don't want to keep seeing this kind of nuisance? Do I actually need to buy one of those private jets they call a flying hotel, and a villa in every country besides?

Out of nowhere I remembered my sister nagging me to bring an attendant. If I had, I probably wouldn't have had to deal with this.

Tch. Listen to your big sister, and rice cakes turn up even in your sleep—that old promise of unearned good luck, it seemed, still held.