Where Is This? (1)

The glare bursting out of the Return Point was so blinding I couldn't open my eyes, but I didn't panic. I flooded my body with Mana Sieve until it was packed full, and just in case I kept my eyes shut and my breath held, letting Spatial Perception catch every shift in the landscape around me with hair-trigger sensitivity.

I raised a hand toward my face and felt wind against it. Wind meant air, at least. Not outer space, then. Small mercies.

Franc was already clinging to my waist. I pulled her in tighter and kept watch on every side, and bit by bit the lay of the land began to register around me—then nature itself, small animals and insects flickering into Spatial Perception.

"Hm? The animals and the insects look exactly like the ones back in reality."

Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, even wild field mice. Not the stock that lived in the Phase World, with their off colors and slightly different horns and claws. Animals identical to the real thing, down to the last detail.

"Haa. Haaah..."

In the end she hadn't been able to stop me, and crossing into some other world through a Return Point of unknown nature had left her anxious and sore at heart. The sigh that escaped her seemed to rise from somewhere deep in her chest. A prick of guilt needled me, but I shoved it aside, and as the glare slowly faded I opened my eyes and looked around.

A clear blue sky blazed overhead, the sun pouring down, and beneath it a smooth green meadow stretched all the way to the horizon. Off to one side a faint mountain claimed a stretch of the skyline, and between meadow and mountain a great river wound along, white clouds drifting overhead and reflecting on the water so peacefully it almost hurt to look at. A crisp wind swept through Franc and me, the kind that punches a chest clean, and the tickle of it left me light.

"Franc. Look around. The view is something else."

She had been holding me with her eyes shut, her face full of displeasure and unease. At my words she cracked them open, glanced around—and then her eyes went so wide that stunned was the only word for it. She slipped out of my arms and began to turn, taking it all in.

Franc stood on the green meadow among nameless white blossoms, in a pure white dress, and the beauty of her was dizzying enough to set my heart hammering on its own. Wind caught her skirt and her platinum hair and set them drifting, and she looked so much like a goddess I couldn't tear my eyes away.

A woman that beautiful, and she was my lover...

I spoke to her as she gazed out over the meadow and the great river.

"You were pretty from the start, Franc, but right now I think you're prettier than a goddess."

The fact that she was mine made me happier than I could stand. I kissed her peach-soft cheek, and Franc looked briefly at a loss before letting out a deep sigh.

"Seoha, honestly..."

Usually a kiss earned me a bright smile, or a kiss in return. Right now she just looked thoroughly unimpressed. She was probably still unhappy that I'd thrown myself into the Return Point without a scrap of caution. If I wanted to soothe her, I'd better confirm a way back first.

What Franc and I had touched was a Return Point. Return Points existed only in the Phase World; you laid a hand on one, poured Phase Power into it, and returned to reality. And the accepted rule was that for five days after returning, you couldn't enter the Phase World again. So if that rule held here, we wouldn't be able to enter the real world for the next five days.

I closed my eyes and forcefully called up that staggering first time with Hwayeon, Franc, and Yeongeun. Space around my body began to heave. Franc's eyes went as round as saucers, and she threw herself back into my arms.

But the faint ripple died almost at once, and space settled back to what it had been. I tried again a moment later. Same result.

"Figures..."

"W-what happened? Why did it look the same as when one enters the Phase World...? Ah—don't tell me?!"

"Right. I tried the method for entering the Phase World from reality. And the reaction was identical to being stuck on entry cooldown."

There were two ways to enter the Phase World from reality. One was to wish desperately to enter while using a Phase Power technique. The other was to recall an intense memory.

"Then we can't return to reality for five days?"

"That'd be my guess."

"Haa... If reality has become the Phase World, and the Phase World has become reality, then a Phase World connected onward from the Phase World wouldn't be reality, and reality would be the Phase World... nngh."

I pulled the rambling Franc close and gave her backside a few soothing pats until she came back to herself. Anxious again, she caught hold of my clothes.

"If this gets out, it will change the entire paradigm of the Phase World."

"It would. Reality and the Phase World were only ever told apart by entry and return, and now it's come out that Return Points exist in reality too. But thanks to the fog, no one should have witnessed the Return Point, and since we used it, the one we used ought to have vanished. I don't think word will get out right away."

Franc soothed her bewilderment, closing her eyes and pressing a hand to her forehead.

"Could the sudden change in the weather at Stonehenge have been an effect of the Return Point appearing?"

"I'd say so. And..."

I swept Spatial Perception across the area. No Aberrants, no human shapes at all. But in the air within range, faint as it was, Phase Power was present. I looked over the meadow as well, and nothing that could be judged an Aberrant met the eye.

In the Phase World you knew where you were the instant your foot touched down, thanks to the thick Phase Power in the air and the unidentifiable trees and beasts. This place wasn't so different from reality. The concentration of Phase Power in the air was a little denser, I'll grant that, but otherwise there was hardly any difference.

What was this world?

I looked back. A low hill blocked the view, and beyond it, far off, a small mountain rose more sharply than the rest. No—perspective was hard to get a grip on, so I couldn't tell whether it was a large mountain or a small one. Judging by the size of the little trees covering it, though, it didn't seem all that far. I let out a small sigh and voiced my guess.

"Jeral Packard might have drifted into this world too."

"Ah!"

There were several hypotheses about Jeral Packard's disappearance, but the one ranked most likely was this: that he had entered the Phase World alone and was living there, or else that he had died in the Phase World. The moment I'd found a Return Point in reality, though, I'd had a strong hunch that wasn't the case. For now I set Jeral Packard aside, sorted out my thoughts on returning, and laid them out for Franc.

"Call the real world 1, the Phase World 2, and this place 3. If all three are connected—if you can enter 2 from 1, then 3 from 2, and then enter 1 again from 3—the entry cooldown might not apply."

If that worked, we'd be free to come and go through the Phase World as we pleased. The question was whether the Phase World and this place were connected at all. We'd know for certain once we crossed into the Phase World later and tested it.

An exclamation mark might as well have popped up over Franc's platinum hair as she took the explanation in. I drew the crisp air deep into my chest. The cold, refreshing wind suited me perfectly. Savoring air that settled the heart, I worked the Certifier and started a video recording. Everything I saw here needed to be logged and kept as research material.

I formed a Wall of Space and began walking slowly up into the sky, sweeping Spatial Perception over the surroundings once more. No trace of people. Not even the sort of path that forms where people come and go.

"I followed a hunch and jumped in blind, and now I have no idea what I'm supposed to do."

"Has the hunch had anything else to say since?"

"Yeah. Nothing. Same as always—it'll stay like this from here on out, too. Until it jumps out of nowhere."

About thirteen hundred feet up, what spread out wherever I looked was too plain to call mountains. Hills, literally, rolling out in every direction the eye could reach. I took Franc's hand and we kept climbing, and when we'd risen roughly six miles above the ground, Franc, who had been scanning the surroundings hard, spoke with a bewildered look.

"Seoha? Doesn't the shape of the land look like Britain?"

"Mm. I can't tell at all."

"That coastline over there looks like Scotland..."

She could see that? From this height it just looked like a flat stretch of land to me. Had she caught it because it was the country she was born in?

"Let's go higher."

I concentrated Mana Sieve through my whole body, and when we'd climbed, by rough guess, some sixty miles above the ground, Franc—still unsure—turned a few circles, checked the land beneath our feet, and sucked in a sharp breath.

"Britain. It is Britain. That's Scotland! Somewhere near Aberdeen, I think... There isn't anything like a city in sight..."

I wrapped an arm around Franc's waist and looked down. She was right. And if this were reality, sixty miles up would be the worst kind of environment, one where you couldn't even breathe. Right now it was like the Phase World—a little harsh, but perfectly endurable. I switched on the Certifier. A hologram window appeared.

"Looking at this, it's definitely not reality. But if I feel out the distribution of Phase Power, it isn't the Phase World either."

Franc spoke, her expression complicated.

"Is this what it feels like to come face to face with some enormous reality...? My chest feels tight, and I'm growing anxious."

"Yeah. That soothed feeling the peaceful view gave me a minute ago is gone in an instant."

"On the way up I caught a glimpse of something like a village to the southeast. Let us go there!"

"A village?"

A village. I understood less and less of what was happening. Franc wore the look of someone who wouldn't sleep a wink at this rate. She tugged my arm and pointed at one spot along the coastline.

"Quickly, please!"

"R-right."

High above an unnamed fishing village strung along the distant sea, I examined the people moving about with Spatial Perception and spoke.

"They're real people. Ordinary people, without a scrap of Phase Power. What does that even mean?"

"Judging by their clothing and how they live... it looks like the Middle Ages..."

Men and women, old and young—178 people in all lived gathered in the village. Aside from being remarkably short, they were no different from human beings in any way. The tallest man stood at four feet eleven; the women ran around four foot seven. Most had dark blond or brown hair, and their skin was the typical coloring of white people.

The houses were mostly stacked timber with thatch laid over the top. The ones dug into the earth, with triangular roofs pitched over the pits, especially called thatched huts to mind. Here and there I saw houses of stacked logs plastered with mud, but there weren't many of those. Their clothing was rough cloth, single lengths thrown over the body. If I had to name the cut, the men and children wore tunic-like tops with baggy trousers, while the women wore one-piece garments cinched and tied at the waist.

I watched people heading out to the fields, others drying what looked like fish, still others putting out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠toward the near ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sea in small wooden boats. Franc turned her head, swept the surroundings, and looked at me.

"What would you have us do now?"

"Franc, can you understand what those people are saying?"

At that she shook her head.

"I thought it might be the accent, but I don't believe it's English. I can't understand a word."

"Then let's head down to where London is. This does seem to be Britain, at least."

"Yes."

I checked a map. From here to London was roughly three hundred and seventy miles. Call it two hours at top speed, and we'd arrive with room to spare. Then again, how did the Return Point mechanism even work? When you entered the Phase World from reality your position was saved, so using a Return Point in the Phase World sent you back to the marked spot. So why had I...?

Feeling my head start to tangle, I dropped below the clouds and ran due south for about a hundred minutes straight.

As we traveled I spotted villages now and then. Unlike reality, people in this world lived packed tight into single places. In the real world I wouldn't have covered a third of a mile before small villages, or clusters of five or six households, showed up scattered all over. I'd learned that in the Middle Ages, without transport as convenient as now, populations concentrated in one spot—and sure enough, the farther we descended into the southern plains of England, the denser the villages and towns became. The houses changed too. Thatched huts of woven wood and grass gave way to more homes built of timber, and now and then a house of stacked stone, or of cut masonry, began to catch my eye.

Wait. That was a castle.

A city rose with the castle and walls that came to mind at the words Middle Ages, but I didn't stop. I kept running toward where ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠London, the capital of Britain, ought to be. Curiosity got the better of me partway there. I dropped altitude a little and swept the place with Spatial Perception...

...and something about my fantasy of the medieval world cracked. Filth in the streets that might have been human shit or horse shit, people grimy from never properly washing, a cityscape that paid no mind to sanitation at all, and—floating down the river—actual sewage...

......

I climbed without a word. Franc pressed her hands to her cheeks, abashed.

"I'm starting to feel more and more like we've come to the past."

"Yes..."

And the moment two hours of running came to an end, at the place we took for London, a shocking scene unfolded before our eyes. Franc and I stared down in a daze at London—or rather, at something more like a fortress city—engulfed in the flames of war, black smoke boiling upward. Then I turned my gaze aside.

Ships came surging like a tide up the Thames, which ran out to the sea. Seventeen oars to a side, thirty-four in all, prows curled like fern shoots. They looked a great deal like the ships Vikings sailed.

At war with Vikings?

Armed men crowded those ships—as few as fifty, as many as two hundred—and dozens of such vessels were cutting the current, oars driving. On the flat ground to the left of the Thames, a raider-like host in leather armor or chainmail, bearing heavy weapons—axes, spears, maces—was colliding with an army that had organized gear and formation. What looked like a regular force had dozens of men at the vanguard raise longbows, loose their arrows, and fall back, and the instant they did, cavalry with lances charged. The same scene played out here and there beyond the walls raised east of the fortress city.

I turned from a battle that looked to number over three thousand between both sides and looked to the flat ground north of the fortress city. What was already playing out there left nothing wanting of the name war. Watching army crash into army, I felt no quickening of the heart, no excited urge to throw myself into the fight. If anything, my brow furrowed.

Arms and heads tumbling through the air. Torsos split and severed. People dying run through, dying stabbed, dying beaten—people, people, people...

The fortress city, under attack from both the sea and the land, was for some reason being looted in its very center as well. The great water gate at the end of the canal linked to the center was broken; the raiders must have forced their way in from that side. More than several hundred of them were setting fires and plundering all over the city, and a company in matching chainmail, white coats blazoned with a red rose, met them sword and shield in hand.

So this was war in the Middle Ages...

Seeing blood run like a river, my heart gave a small kick, but I cycled Mana Sieve to settle it and turned to Franc.

"Franc, do you happen to see any ability users with Phase Power?"

"..."

"Franc?"

"Y-yes?!"

Franc, who had looked even blanker than I did, startled at my call and turned to face me.

"This isn't the Phase World. Thinking of the worst case, there's no telling what might happen, and I can't step into a fight between humans. You'll understand, won't you?"

"O-of course! But why did you call me?"

"Among the people fighting right now, is there an ability user with Phase Power?"

"Ah. Mm... Where the siege is underway to the north, I can see a few faint... Physical Reinforcement ability users. The city streets are hard to make out, hidden behind the buildings. And along the Thames to the east, where the fighting is, I can see H Class Physical Reinforcement users as well."

"No Elemental or Healing types?"

"None. The ability users mostly look like knights in quality equipment. And among the ones who appear to be Vikings, there are Physical Reinforcement users just the same."

I drew an arm around the waist of Franc, who was looking down at the battlefield with a pitying, heartsick face, and kept examining the streets of the fortress city.

"Those raiders are Vikings?"

"Judging by the style of the ships and their equipment, I believe so."

"Hm. For now, let's wait here until they've driven out every raider who broke into London. Vikings, you said?"

I wasn't sure it was London, but I'd call it London for the time being.

"Yes."

Chainmail from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠neck to ankle, gauntlets and plate boots, white coats over it all—those would be knights, wouldn't they? The knights soon led their soldiers through the streets of London and succeeded in driving the raiders, the Vikings, out. The Viking ships trying to slip away by water began sinking one after another under crossbow bolts flying from the walls that lined both sides of the canal.

Once the sunken hulls fouled the channel and no more Viking vessels could come in by the Thames, the war outside the walls intensified and spread into a slaughter. The losing side was the regular army. Driven all the way back to the eastern wall, they retreated inside under covering arrow fire from above, and the Vikings who had chased them to the wall and were massacring them got a baptism of arrows for their trouble and began falling back in a startled scramble.

Vikings were said to specialize in raids and plunder, not sieges. Watching it with my own eyes, that seemed to hold. Still, they appeared to understand the fundamentals a siege rested on. The moat of the eastern wall was already being filled in with bags of earth and the corpses of the dead, and through that they were trying to set ladders against the wall. Some blocked the pouring arrows with thick wooden boards, dragged wooden ladders up, hooked them on the wall, and climbed. Others manhandled crude battering rams—no wheels, nothing but brute manpower, and who knew where they'd even gotten them.

With the wall between them, something like a thousand Vikings strained however they could to break through, and the regular army strained to hold them off.

I didn't know much about strategy or tactics, but loosing arrows at a wall your own allies were climbing didn't look like the normal thing to do. The Vikings were shooting up onto the wall, and it wasn't only London's soldiers up there taking hits—their own men were too. Even so, they kept doggedly climbing the ladders, hauling themselves up onto the wall. Knights in white coats ran along the top, fighting the Vikings who made it up, while the soldiers struggled to shove the ladders hooked over the wall back off.

If the east was raiders against an army, the north had the look of army against army. Where the east used battering rams, the north had brought catapults and was hurling stone. Men swarmed seven of the machines, loading rocks the size of a human torso and firing them again and again, and in front of them warriors on horseback were preparing to charge.

The Viking army attacking from the north looked to be about twenty-five hundred. Roughly two thousand infantry, about two hundred mounted, and the remaining three hundred working the catapults. The defenders, by comparison, didn't even look like a full thousand. I'd read somewhere that to carry a siege, the attackers needed about twice the defenders' numbers. The ratio here was past double. Did that mean things were precarious?

I was looking at the huge stones piled behind the catapults, thinking the northern wall would come down any moment—and the thought had barely formed when all seven machines hurled their rocks at once.