Where Are We? (3)
I was watching the forest where the battle of annihilation was grinding through its last act when a thought struck me, and I asked Franc.
"Now that I think about it, something's off. King Arthur's supposed to be a king of ancient Britain, right? And ancient Britain is a story from before the Common Era. But the Vikings, as far as I learned it, landed in Britain and started invading around the eighth century? The ninth? Somewhere in there."
"Pardon? Ah... yes. The Viking invasions took place between the eighth and tenth centuries, and after that all sorts of peoples crowded in until they became one — the age when Britain was taking shape. Hearing you say it, Seoha, it does seem strange."
"That knight, John Wheeler, said King Arthur had marched to war at the head of the Knights of the Round Table. So Arthur's existence is certain, and we've seen the Vikings with our own eyes. This era ought to fall between the eighth and tenth centuries, just as you said..."
Don't tell me the legend of King Arthur isn't some made-up story, but something that actually happened?
Coming south out of Scotland I had kept an eye out, and I hadn't seen a single Aberrant. Yet people lived here, ability users existed, and events written into the nations and histories we knew were unfolding right in front of us. The more I looked, the less I could believe this world was the Phase World.
...Then what kind of place is our reality? I stared at Franc in silence, and she stared blankly back, the same incomprehension written all over her face.
No idea. First, as Franc said, we find Camelot and Merlin... Hmm. Before that, what if we went and had a look at King Arthur? We're in the neighborhood anyway.
"If we circle around those Vikings who are supposed to have taken the southern coast, maybe King Arthur will be there. Want to go look?"
"Ah, that could well be. From what that knight said earlier, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have marched, and Londinium's army has gone out in support as well, so there ought to be no small force gathered. And if King Arthur has taken the field, perhaps Merlin is right there beside him!"
Whatever complicated thoughts she'd been turning over, she seemed to have tossed them aside the moment King Arthur came up. There was Franc, eyes sparkling all over again.
We returned to where her clothes had been hidden. She dismissed that princess-like dress and stood bare once more, and I watched her dress until I found myself scratching my head.
Say King Arthur and the first thing that jumps to mind is a genderbend. This is all Japan's fault. They just had to go and make an adult game with King Arthur as the heroine... Ugh.
I'd dropped games and anime once I became an ability user, and yet the instant I thought of King Arthur, that game came flooding back. Looks like I still haven't fully outgrown my eighth-grade syndrome.
"What's the matter? Did you remember something unpleasant?"
"Huh? No, no. My mind just wandered for a second. We started recording the moment we entered this world, so as long as we're here, we might as well dig into every part that smells suspicious. Before we head for Winchester, I want to stop by Stonehenge. It's close, and Stonehenge is where we came in."
"Yes!"
Does she really like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that much? Franc's face was bright with joy and excitement as we set off west, toward where Stonehenge ought to be.
Thank goodness for the Wall of Space, anyway. Without it, travel would have been so restricted that roaming around at the scale of whole regions would never even have crossed my mind.
Come to think of it, if I put my mind to it, I could probably cross the Pacific, too.
I checked the map against my memory as we ran for Stonehenge, and glanced over at Franc.
"Do you like the Knights of the Round Table?"
"It's the most famous legend in Britain. Just the thought of seeing them with my own eyes has me looking forward to it. And if I might see King Arthur and Excalibur as well, my heart simply races!"
Eyes shining with that much anticipation, she could almost have made me genuinely jealous. My mood dipped, and I turned my gaze forward — and Franc smiled softly and came to wrap her arms around my neck.
She rubbed her cheek against mine the way a cat seeks contact, and spoke as if to soothe me.
"Hehe. No matter how splendid King Arthur is, no matter how magnificent the Knights of the Round Table, I have only you, Seoha. If you could see the heroes of the Dangun myth, I think you would feel just as amazed and giddy as I do."
"Not listening. And King Arthur might be a woman, you know."
"......Pardon?"
Damn. Jealousy got the better of me and I said it out loud. Franc's face was pure what did I just hear? I'd already let it out. Might as well commit.
"I mean, there's no law that says King Arthur has to be a man, right?"
"B-but in the storybooks, he's always described as a man..."
Flustered, she began to stammer it out, and I cut her off.
"Just because a book describes it that way doesn't make it true. There are lunatics in the real world who claim God and Jesus might be women. If they publish that as a book, does Jesus turn into a woman? And thanks to some Japanese game company, there are people who honestly believe Arthur is a woman."
"........."
Mm. Maybe that was too much of a shock. Franc wore the face of a little kid who'd just been told, I found you under a bridge!
"Anyway, I don't think people back home — myself included — would react to something like the myth of Dangun Wanggeom the way you do. But the British really love King Arthur, huh?"
Franc came back to herself with a start, blinked at me, and stumbled on.
"I-if you made them choose whether they like it, dislike it, or feel neutral, I think most people would say they like it. The legend of King Arthur has been turned into all kinds of stories, comics, and novels, and spread as a popular subject. In Britain, it has about the recognition that Romance of the Three Kingdoms has in China."
Fair enough. All I really knew of British history was that they'd gone at it with the Vikings, and that — from playing an Age of Exploration game — the British navy had once been called the strongest in the world. King Arthur, Excalibur, and the Knights of the Round Table, though, those I knew.
Speaking of which, it had taken two hours to come down from the Scottish north all the way to London, to Londinium, and I'd burned another two or so watching the war. Little by little the sky was staining red.
I looked down at the sea of clouds spread beneath my feet like a red carpet, then dropped through them. All around, it had grown considerably dark.
"We should find a place to rest. I was moving above the clouds and didn't even notice it getting dark."
"Where were you thinking of resting?"
"I'd like to get as far as the area around Stonehenge and find a spot there. What do you think?"
Franc looked at the western sky where the sun was setting, then turned back to me and nodded.
"Let's do that."
"Yeah. But it's strange. The way from London to Stonehenge was all plain, all flat, but the road from Londinium to Stonehenge is hills and thick forest."
There truly hadn't been a single place you could call a mountain between London and Stonehenge, and yet now the land rose and fell quite a bit. Franc looked carefully at what lay below us, and only then let out a sigh.
"Truly... it's a world that is Britain, and yet isn't Britain at all."
"Which is probably why we've got King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, right?"
"Ahaha."
She seemed to think I was teasing her for wanting to see them. Smiling softly, she clung to my back and slyly rubbed her breasts against me, pouring on the affection.
...I think she's got the wrong idea, but if it feels good, I'm not saying a word!
I reached a hand back and lewdly fondled between her buttocks, and with a "Kya~" she threw her arms around and hugged my neck tight. The plump softness of her breasts against my back, the yielding give under my fingers — it was... nice. Heh heh heh.
We ran hard like that and arrived at the place marked Stonehenge in my memory... and I was a little thrown.
"This is the place, right?"
"Yeah. It is."
Franc seemed just as thrown; she kept turning to look all around, and I looked with her. No Stonehenge. Forest, forest, forest, forest.
Nothing but forest.
"A world without Stonehenge?"
The sun had fully set, and the clouds were so thick that not even moonlight came through. Pitch-black darkness, in the most literal sense, lay spread around us.
Thanks to Mana Vision, though, it was a world of gray light and shadow, and making things out was no trouble. Franc seemed to be using Vision Analysis as well, glancing this way and that, but Stonehenge was nowhere to be found.
"Let's go down and look."
I compared the map stored in my head against the terrain through Spatial Perception and analyzed it. I was one hundred percent certain that where we were standing was the place where Stonehenge stood in reality.
Were we floating so high that Spatial Perception didn't reach the forest? With the trees this thick, Stonehenge could easily be hidden among them.
I carried Franc down on my back, and the forest began to enter Spatial Perception... and then...
"Huh?"
"Is Spatial Perception picking something up?"
I rubbed my eyes with both hands as I listened to her, but I still saw only forest. And yet...
"Spatial Perception is detecting Stonehenge. My eyes only see forest."
"......Pardon?"
"Whoa. Is this that illusion magic I've only ever heard about? Did someone hide Stonehenge with magic?"
The moment we closed to within five hundred meters of it, Franc went rigid and clutched my neck tight. She seemed to have sensed it through Spatial Perception.
"Vision Analysis didn't show anything! Truly!"
"I know, I know. You've got no reason to lie. Vision Analysis must be an ability that analyzes whatever comes into your field of view, so it can't see through an illusion."
Franc, who had been flustered, finally loosened the arms that had been hugging my neck with all her strength and rested her chin on my shoulder.
"Come to think of it, wasn't there a folk belief that Stonehenge is a structure Merlin built?"
"I've heard that story too. That it's a magical barrier, yes?"
"Right. Stonehenge was built in prehistoric times, before the Common Era, and King Arthur is a tale of ancient Britain, of prehistory as well. Archaeologically, the eras do line up."
"But it seems it wasn't merely a folk tale. If it's a magical structure that creates an illusion, that would explain what's happening now."
All I knew of Merlin was that he was a great wizard, that he'd helped King Arthur, and that he'd had a thing with the fairy by the lake. I found myself wishing I'd learned a little more about him.
"Seoha. I don't see any danger. Let's go a little closer to the barrier."
She said it while lightly pinching my cheek, so I grabbed her buttocks and yanked them wide apart. "Hiiing?!" I looked over Stonehenge, now inside Spatial Perception.
Unlike the half-collapsed thing in reality, this Stonehenge was intact. Thirty-one great rectangular stones stood in a circle, and atop them thirty-one stones of similar size had been laid to form a ring of lintels, like a circular bridge. Inside that circle, stone pillars were set in a horseshoe, and pointed, stele-like rocks stood thick around them.
"Ah, I've seen a restoration drawing of Stonehenge, and it looks exactly like... that. Augh. S-stop touching meee."
Every time Franc poked my cheek, I poked at her petals in turn. She flinched and flinched, then heaved a great sigh and fussed.
"This is what Stonehenge originally looked like?"
I compared the Stonehenge of reality, held in my memory, with the one now inside Spatial Perception. It really was. The shape and placement of the standing stones matched.
Meanwhile, kneading Franc's rice-cake-soft rear, I felt the urge well up to torment the precious place between her legs as well.
"Yeees. What I saw was a form where they laid a floor of broad slabs up there and built an altar on top of—aah! R-really, stop~!"
I hooked her panties aside and pushed a finger into the cleft that was just beginning to grow wet. At once her voice went sharp. She straightened at the waist and started rapping my head with the side of her hand, tok, tok.
The taps were growing a little stronger. The prank had gone far enough.
I smiled and apologized, and Franc gave me a look that said I was hopeless, rested her chin on my shoulder again, and spoke while gazing at the illusion of forest spread out below.
"Anyway, what I saw was a form with an altar built up there."
"So the pillars standing like that now were meant to hold the altar up."
"Mm-hmm. But that hypothesis seems to have been wrong. The structure itself appears to serve some other function. I don't know what that function is, though..."
"Hmm. Nothing's certain yet, so let's not jump to conclusions."
There was no proof anywhere that Merlin had made it.
"There's a hut beside Stonehenge, but I don't see anyone. Did the owner go somewhere else? I wonder if it's all right to just punch through the illusion and barge in."
I swept the intact Stonehenge and the log cabin with Spatial Perception... Phase Power hung in the air, lazily circling the center of Stonehenge, but at the cabin and along the boundary of the illusion I felt nothing special at all.
What was generating the illusion? That Stonehenge?
For a start, I casually tossed a Mana Bullet of 0.1 TP at the illusion.
Thud-thud-thud.
The Mana Bullet passed straight through, warped the space beyond, and lightly erased a tree — and still the illusion stood. Phase Power kept flowing as calmly as ever, so there didn't seem to be anything like an alarm, either...
"Hmm. Let's go down."
"Yes."
As always, the moment I concentrated Phase Power into my skin through Mana Sieve, it moved smoothly and cloaked my body even faster than usual.
Somehow I felt I could push still more of it into my skin, so I did as the feeling urged. The Phase Power began to dwindle slowly, and then Mana Sieve spread outward like an aura, covering not only me but Franc on my back as well.
"Ah? What is this?"
"I think it's an added effect from my Mana Sieve proficiency going up. Does this mean you receive the effects too?"
"Mm... I think I am."
"Yeah? How can you tell?"
"Right now it feels the way it does when I'm held in your arms, Seoha. My heart is pounding, and it's warm. ...Ehehe."
Shy about it, she smiled softly and kicked both legs.
"......Ahem."
Ignoring the heat creeping into my ears, I slowly pushed my body into the illusion. A sensation like passing through a film of water brushed my skin, and at last I could make out Stonehenge and the log house with my own eyes.
"Franc, you're not feeling worse or anything, are you?"
"No. I'm perfectly fine. Seoha, Seoha. Over there — let's go to that hut."
A little excited, she fiddled with my reddened ear and pointed at the hut. I'd already looked the whole place over with Spatial Perception; what else was there to see... I didn't sense anything dangerous, so maybe it didn't matter?
I shrugged and, still carrying her, set down in front of the log house and looked it over. Hold on... the wood was alive?
"They just cut ordinary logs and stacked them on their sides. How is a log house alive?"
"Ah? I-it really is. Tree sap is flowing, too. Seoha! Let's go inside!"
After squirming about, Franc climbed down from my back, caught my hand, and started pulling.
"Wait, wait. Nobody's here, sure, but it's still someone's house. If we just walk in without any manners, how are we any different from thieves?"
"Oh... y-you're right. Ahaha!"
"I get why you'd be excited at the thought that it might be Merlin's house, but let's wait until the owner comes back. They probably won't complain if we light a campfire outside the hut and rest."
Putting up an illusion in the first place probably means don't come in, but still.
Ah, whatever. If they say something, I'll just tell them the illusion was there, I got curious, and I came in.
The night was late and a little chilly. I was gathering branches fit for firewood so we could light a campfire, and Franc picked up well-dried leaves and thin twigs for kindling.
Even so, she kept stealing glances at the log house. She hadn't quite let go of it.
"This forest is a little strange, though."
"In what way?"
"There isn't a single animal inside my Spatial Perception range."
"You're right... We didn't see a single bird on the way here, did we? Do you think the master of this forest drove them all out?"
"Hmm? Why drive all the animals out?"
"To protect the barrier? Among the stories passed down in Britain, there are many about masters of the forest, or wizards who live in the woods, driving out the animals and such, raising a barrier, and making the place their own domain. So this forest might be the same."
"Drove everything out to protect the barrier that casts the illusion... Then aren't we, standing inside it, target number one for elimination?"
"Ugh. That is true."
Uneasy now, Franc stacked the firewood I'd gathered neatly, set a finger on the kindling, and ran a current through it.
Sparks jumped — tak, tak — and fell onto the leaves ground to powder, and smoke soon began to rise.
I blew. Hoo, hoo—. The smoke billowed thicker, and then the fire burst up all at once.
I laid more leaves and thin branches over the small wavering flames, and a crimson blaze licked out its tongue and gathered strength.
"Seoha. There might be a monster in a different sense from an Aberrant, so we should keep watch on our surroundings."
"Yeah. I'm paying attention to Spatial Perception, so don't worry."
In truth, from the moment she'd started in about the master of the forest, I'd felt a little uneasy and had kept my eyes on the range of Spatial Perception, so I'd know the instant anything appeared. So I could grasp any change right away.
For supper I undid the emergency-ration belt and tore off a bite. A rich beef-jerky savor filled my mouth.
The first few chews were as tough as chewing rawhide, but a few more and it went soft in a hurry, and it felt like eating truly top-grade jerky.
I cut the ration belt with Mana Laser at minimum output, handed Franc a piece, and said,
"But Merlin's image is generally a good one, isn't it? I can't really picture him driving things off while shouting, 'This forest is mine! Everyone get out!'"
"Then why isn't there a single animal in the forest?"
I looked at her, asking it back with a curious face, and my own look must have been dumbfounded. She grew awkward under it, then smiled softly and nestled into my arms.
"The forest is enormous — big enough to swallow all of Seoul and still have room left — so maybe there simply aren't many animals living in it. Or, like you said, there might be some monster you could call the master of the forest that drove them all out. Or we might find that Merlin's a finicky bastard who laid some trick so nothing can come near the illusion."
I murmured it while listening to the chirring of insects and looking up at the half-moon in the night sky, and Franc nodded that it could be so.
"Somehow, talking like this, I've gone and convinced myself the owner of this log house is Merlin. It might be some other wizard. That wizard might have hunted the animals for living sacrifices until there wasn't one left. There are all kinds of assumptions."
At the words living sacrifice, Franc wrinkled her face a little and shook her head.
"But in the legends, there's a story that Merlin lived at Stonehenge, you know? There's even a story that he built it himself."
"If we're going that far, Merlin might have beaten the wizard who offered living sacrifices and made the place his own, right?"
"Nnngh."
Held in my arms, Franc looked back and forth between Stonehenge and the log cabin and sank into thought. The apple scent rising from her made me quietly slip a hand inside her dress and stroke the soft of her thigh. She startled and smacked my hand, slap, slap.
"You wicked hand! Not now!"
"Why not? There's nobody here. If anyone comes close, Spatial Perception will tell me right away."
I wheedled, putting on a spoiled voice, and Franc refused with a firmness I almost never saw from her.
"Even so, no! They say a wizard can look upon faraway places whenever they please, and I don't want to show anyone... that kind of sight!"
"Come on."
This wasn't the kind of no that reluctantly gives in if you push. It was the kind of no that means absolutely not.
Regretful, I pulled her by the waist and grumbled, and Franc let out a long sigh — the look of someone watching a child who won't listen — and stroked my hand.