Camelot of a Strange World (3)

I stole a glance toward Camelot Castle, and there she was—a black-haired woman asleep, stripped bare, with nothing but a thin blanket drawn up about her waist. The room didn't even have a door. What did she mean to do if someone walked in...?

"Hey. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠told you not to use that ability. There may be no one in the place you lived who would notice, but those who have entered the Other Realm of this place will catch on at once."

Wait. He can tell not only when I'm looking at him, but when I'm looking at someone else?

The rebuke came flying the instant I turned Spatial Perception on that black-haired woman, and I flinched. Franc's eyes went round. She looked from me to Myrddin and back again.

Awkward, I offered a shrug and put the question to him.

"What's the Other Realm? Are there beings like ability users in this world, too?"

"......"

......Now that was a face. The look in his eyes all but said it outright. Ignorance, carried to such a height, must be a grace handed down by heaven. It nearly set me off. Come on. Of course I don't know. It's a thing I've never once seen, and never once heard of!

Old man Myrddin wiped the sour look away, turned his gaze to the fire crackling and popping in the hearth, and spoke.

"Awakening... was that the word. A thing like that can come to pass only when the Origin is left over in surplus, and only in those with the aptitude—they come forth the way one breaks out of an eggshell. Without effort, there is nothing. The Other Realm is the name for the world in which that young lady, and fellows like you, stand."

With that, Myrddin closed his eyes.

The world people like me and Franc stand in is the Other Realm? I don't understand. More than that, the line about there being nothing without effort snags at me.

Myrddin had said one takes the Origin into the body. So the ability users of this world don't awaken. They absorb the Origin—Phase Power—into their bodies, condense it, and manifest their abilities that way?

Thinking of it like that, I finally understood why I had seen so many I-Class and H Class presences in Camelot Castle.

I looked at Myrddin where he sat in his slowly rocking chair, and felt in him the will to say no more. I regarded that shrunken figure for a moment, then bowed my head and offered my thanks.

"Thank you for telling us so much, Myrddin. We'll be going, then. Please take care."

Perhaps my sincerity reached him. Myrddin gave a bitter smile and inclined his head, just slightly.

Leaving him behind, Franc and I stepped out of the stone building and looked up at the night sky, where a crescent moon was scattering a thin light. I unfurled a Wall of Space, rose slowly into the sky, and looked down on Camelot wrapped in darkness.

With every streetlamp out, the city held not a single point of light beyond the torches burning along the walls and in a few pockets of the streets, and it lay sunk in a pitch-black dark. I could almost understand what Myrddin had meant—that without light kindled by electricity, the night is an unknown world.

I was gazing at the city submerged in that dark when, all at once, my chest filled with fear.

The great questions and doubts knotted in my heart had, through an unexpected bond, mostly come undone. In their place, though, a fear of my own nature had settled, and with it a terror of what would become of me if I lost the family I held dear.

"Seoha?"

I must have stopped walking without realizing it. Franc turned to look at me, blinking.

"Hm? Ah, it's nothing. Just that a city you can only half-see in the dark has a way of stirring up fear, is all."

"Mm... does it?"

Franc tilted her head, as if my impression didn't quite land, then smiled softly.

"I think you have a rich sensibility, Seoha, and a rich imagination."

She took my hand. If I hadn't felt the warmth of her body heat in my palm, I might not have been able to hold on.

...For now, I'll bury everything about my past in my chest until we get home.

I started walking again, and asked Franc what she thought of the things Myrddin had told us about the Phase World.

"What do you think would happen if we made public what we heard from Myrddin?"

"...I'm still too shaken to really know. But even if it got out, I don't think many people would believe it."

"Because there's no proof. Still, I think public opinion would split into two factions."

"Factions?"

"Hear me out."

"If the reality we live in runs short of Phase Power and forced summons begin, then I could drag upper-tier or high-tier aberrants out of the Phase World, kill them, and spread Phase Power into the real world that way. Keep that up, and Phase Power will saturate reality, and that world they said was wounded will be restored too, won't it? Then, someday, the forced summons will stop."

"And after that?"

"Around the time the forced summons come to an end, the Phase Power filling reality will mean people start awakening as ability users in the real world as well—and aberrants may start appearing at the same time. Once they do, then just like in those post-apocalyptic novels, end-of-days scenes will break out all over the globe: raids against high-tier and highest-rank aberrants. And the more fighting like that happens, the more humanity's fear and dread of the unknown will draw Phase Power out, and the flowers of Phase Power rising from the bodies of ability users who die fighting aberrants will spur that increase on even harder. That's what I think."

"So if footage of the conversation I had with Myrddin spreads through the world, the world will, without fail, produce two reactions. One side will say the first is better—Phase Power runs short, and the forcibly summoned appear. Delay the restoration of the world's distortion as long as we can. The other will say no. Better to stop the forced summons, so that everything can be handled on our own initiative, in reality. Those two factions will split, and a fight will break out. I'm certain of it."

Franc, having heard me out, kept her eyes closed and stayed quiet for a moment before she spoke.

"There won't be any way to stop the Phase Power that has already begun to accumulate, linked as it is to the distant past. We could slow the time, but how great a price we would have to pay to do even that—I can't begin to guess."

"So you think the second is better?"

"Yes... Our world is already in the shape of a train with its brakes broken, and us trapped aboard. No matter what we try, it amounts to the same thing: there is no means of perfectly stopping the Phase Power from increasing. If we must prepare for a future in which aberrants appear, then the only path is to make weapons that work on aberrants—weapons that join Phase Power to science—and prepare that way."

Franc quietly opened her eyes, sent me a warm look, came close, and drew me into her arms. She smiled brightly as she spoke.

"The only person who can do that is my husband."

"With you it's always setup, buildup, twist—and then my husband."

"Pfft."

I linked arms with the giggling Franc and turned my gaze toward Camelot Castle.

I had learned the secret of the anomalous phenomena appearing in reality. On top of that, my Phase Power had increased, and I had mastered Space Leaping. If we waited like this until lunch tomorrow, the cooldown on the Return Point would end, and we would be able to go back to our world.

What should I do once we returned?

......

Revealing the truth of the world right now struck me as a poor choice. If—if, by some chance—I grew stronger still from here, then telling everything at that time, and steering the current of public opinion myself, wouldn't be so bad either. An individual who holds power that transcends nations can do a very great deal.

I walked the empty air with the Wall of Space unfurled beneath me, leaving Camelot behind, and remembered that Franc had wanted to see King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

"What do you say. Before we return, shall we head south and look for King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table?"

"What? Mm..."

I had expected her to say we should go find them at once, but to my surprise Franc looked as if she were weighing it. No need to ask why. She was worrying about me.

Whether I ought to tell my parents and my lovers that I was of demon blood, or keep it to myself. And if I told them, whether they would still see me as family. As a lover.

Think on that long enough and it was enough to eat a hole in my gut, but it was something to think about after we returned to reality. For now, we ought to enjoy what we could enjoy.

I reached out, took her hand, and walked the sky south, following the faint starlight.

"Since we've come all this way, let's go see them once. I don't know if they'll meet us, but we ought to at least catch a glimpse, from a distance, of the one they call the Great King. Once we go back, who knows when we'll run into a Return Point again?"

"Will you be all right?"

Both her eyes were full of worry, and I could see she was fretting over me. If I don't love a Franc like this, who am I supposed to love? A warm feeling welled up and filled my chest, and I smiled and poked her cheek.

"I'm fine. Rather than sitting still, it's better to clear my head by going on a date with you. Like you said, I've got a wild imagination, so if I sit still I think every thought there is."

"Aaah. If that's the case, then let's go, quickly!"

I was smiling and about to nod at Franc, who had seized my arm in a fluster and was tugging me along, when something like the gaze I felt whenever an aberrant looked at me drove into my back.

"......"

I knew what that gaze was on instinct. I spread Spatial Perception, and there was the black-haired exhibitionist witch—awake, just as I'd thought, her full breasts and jet-black pubic hair laid utterly bare, lying atop her own bed in a pose meant to entice, staring in my direction.

White smoke was streaming from both her eyes. It occurred to me that this might be the secret art Myrddin had spoken of. If she were a Special type I would have taken that for an ability, but she was a Physical Reinforcement user.

Some flare of pure contrariness made me concentrate Mana Sieve through my whole body, condense Mana Vision hard into my eyes, and stare back. Surprise flickered across those eyes of hers, slightly slanted, sharp in their air.

Right after, she smiled a smile that all but dripped with lust, and with a motion that felt uncanny she turned both arms behind her head, swept up her long black hair, and gave me a sidelong glare. My eyes went of their own accord to the breasts swaying in rhythm with her movements, and to those taut nipples—but I lifted my gaze at once and met hers.

In that sensual pose she swept a hand softly down her plump, rising mound and the black thicket, and at the same time caressed the pink nipples that stood out against her snow-white skin. And the corners of her mouth, curving soft as a crescent moon...

Who the hell are you trying to seduce? I ought to erase that bed with a Wall of Space and drop you flat on your ass.

"Franc."

"Yes?"

"There's some weird exhibitionist pervert of a woman in Camelot Castle trying to hit on me. Let's get out of here."

At the words exhibitionist woman, the ends of Franc's brows shot up, and she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made to turn back toward Camelot. I caught her around the waist and kicked off toward the north.

Ignore her. I was taught not to get close to a woman who carries on like a bitch in heat with a man she's only just laid eyes on.

Being ignored seemed to startle her more than a little. Her brows drew down into a sharp, unhappy angle—but a moment later she put on a venomous look and began to glare at me. Right after that, Camelot Castle slipped out of Spatial Perception's range, and I could no longer see how she reacted. Still, when Myrddin had said that nothing good would come of staying long, he had surely meant that exhibitionist woman.

An unpleasant feeling crept over me. I put more strength into both legs and got clear of Camelot in a hurry.

Thirty minutes after we turned south, and nearly a hundred kilometers on, I finally slowed and gave a light pat to the cheek of Franc, whose face was tight with anger.

"That 'nothing good will come of it' old man Myrddin mentioned was definitely about that exhibitionist woman. This world must have other abilities we don't know, so rather than stirring up friction, let's just let it pass quietly. All right?"

"...That woman. She was the black-haired one in the indecent clothes, up on the walls of Camelot Castle, wasn't she?"

Oh. Franc had seen her too? I nodded that she was right, and Franc's face flared. She turned a fierce glare in the direction of Camelot Castle and shouted.

"That woman is, without question, the wicked witch Morgan le Fay!"

Huh? If she was Morgan le Fay, then she was an actual witch. But more than that—

"How can you be so sure when you don't even know what she looks like?"

"Black hair, and that—that shameless clothing, and a face that looks as if it could bewitch a man...! Ah, in any case, Morgan le Fay was a witch from the moment she was born! And she is accomplished in wicked necromancy! Above all, she is the mother of Mordred, who betrayed King Arthur and led him to his death! The worst of witches, who disguised herself with magic, seduced her half-brother Arthur, and bore his child!"

Whoa. I think this was the first time I had ever seen Franc angry enough to breathe fire. She seemed madder than when I get attacked and hurt.

"That wicked witch was definitely trying to seduce Seo—mmph, mmph!"

"Shh. My good Franc, you've gotten far too worked up. Calm down. All right?"

If I let go of her like this, she looked ready to fly straight to Camelot Castle and loose a bolt of Judgment Lightning, so I broke into a cold sweat, patted the fuming Franc, and soothed her down.

"There, calm down. Breathe in deep, and out, and in..."

"Hoo... haah... hoo."

She took the deep breaths as I told her, and when she seemed a little calmer I asked, carefully.

"Do you dislike Morgan?"

"I hate her!"

Oh. Franc almost never got angry unless it had something to do with me, and for her to say it this plainly—she must really hate her.

"What about her do you hate so much?"

Franc's brows bristled as if there were no need even to think, and the words came pouring out.

"The thing I hate most is that she, a fairy herself, seduced her own younger brother, King Arthur, with her body, bore a child, and set that child to attack King Arthur! And that capriciousness no one can keep up with! She attacks King Arthur, then on a whim turns around and helps him, then, as easily as turning over her hand, attacks again—I hate that! I hate that she harbors affection for Sir Lancelot, too! And then, after all of that, taking King Arthur to the isle of Avalon at the end as if she had repented—I hate thaaat so much!"

Franc snorted, a hard breath through her nose, clenched her teeth, and glared back the way we had come.

Er, well. In those days, wasn't marriage between close kin common enough, to preserve royal blood?

I had a very, very strong feeling that if I said this, Franc would nag me without end. No need to touch the reverse scale. I kept my mouth shut.

She must have disliked Morgan to begin with, and the attempt to seduce me had only fed the anger. Morgan... Morrigan? Morian? Anyway, I hummed along to Franc's heated speech on Morgan's faithlessness as we moved south, and then we found a lake ringed by forest.

It was a rare horseshoe-shaped lake, and a hill blocked the wind blowing down from the north, so it looked like a fit place to rest for a night.

"Let's spend tonight there."

"Yes."

I soothed the still-huffing Franc, came down to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the ground, and cast a look over the lake, which was reflecting the thin light of the crescent moon.

Hm. Dangers... none, it seemed. Seeing Franc gather dry branches, I dragged over a broken dead tree and brought my fist down on it, making firewood. When the preparations for a campfire were done, Franc piled up dry leaves, snapped her fingers to strike a spark, and set them alight.

Watching her, I felt my mood begin to sink.

All the way here Franc had clung to my back and talked without once stopping, and I had listened. Even so, running beneath that pitch-black night sky, the mother who had borne me and Alastor's Terrible Dark Castle kept rising up, and body and mind alike were wearing thin.

...At a time like this, the right thing is to hold Franc and rest. Or to be held in her arms.

I watched the campfire as the flames began to climb, then closed my eyes and, with Spatial Perception now stretched out to 6.75 kilometers, carefully searched the surroundings once more for anything dangerous. Wolves, wild boar, foxes—beasts of the field were there, but they were ordinary animals, not aberrants, and they didn't look like any threat at all.

"Still, just in case, let's make a room with a Wall of Space and rest."

"Yeah."

As Franc said, I raised a dome of Wall of Space around the campfire, sealed us in, and lay down on the grass. I beckoned, and she lay down right against me. Her warmth, and the scent of apples on her, tickled the tip of my nose and steadied the mind that had been trembling with unease.

I closed my eyes and tried to empty my head of every thought I could, and Franc, lying with my arm for a pillow, quietly opened her mouth.

"...Since when did you notice?"

She had been glancing at me for a while, starting to speak and stopping again. So that was what she had wanted to know. She looked as if she were already fretting that she might have asked something she shouldn't have. I reached out with both arms, drew her in by the waist until our bellies met, and said it low.

"...It was when I took down the Elephantros chieftain and rose to C-Class. That was the first time I saw a vision of the black castle."

Even with the thought of telling Franc everything, my premonition did nothing to stop me, so I told her all of it, slowly.

"And when I killed the second of the Flavius race on the Floating Sky Islands and became B-Class, I saw another vision. But like a dream, I couldn't remember what was in it. Then, when I saw Alastor's Terrible Dark Castle in the archives in Britain, I remembered all of it."

"Ah. So that time you clutched your head..."

"Yeah. The headache came as the whole dream came back to me. Back then I couldn't understand why I was dreaming something like that. I didn't know who the woman in the dream was, either."

Franc laid me out flat, climbed up over me, and pressed a light kiss to my lips. A faint moisture was gathering in her eyes, now that she had heard me. Franc really was a crybaby. I lifted a hand, stroked her cheek, and went on.

"When I first met Hiarid, and she said I gave off a stench. When Album Cetus looked at me and spoke words I couldn't understand."

I paused, dismissed the Wall of Space, and looked up at the night sky. Not so many as on the day I had seen the Supergiant Turtle, but there were many stars, and a crescent moon on its way to becoming a half-moon.

"The moment I heard Myrddin's story, I knew. Even the meaning of what the Supergiant Turtle said to me."

They must be the blue-skinned demons. That's impossible. Don't hate ones like that...?

"The puzzle pieces had started to multiply in my head, and then I heard Myrddin's story and became certain. A rough underdrawing took shape, and the pieces fitted down onto it, one after another."

Of course it was only circumstantial. There was no hard proof. But Myrddin's story, and the dreams I had dreamed, and my abilities, and all the incomprehensible things that had happened until now—the moment they clumped together, suspicion became certainty.

"The woman who appeared in that vision—the woman whose left arm and left leg were gone down to the root—I arrived at the thought that she was the mother who bore me. And..."

Franc, having heard the whole of the vision, was looking down at me with a blank face.

"Franc? What's wrong?"

"My... husband. That person. The one who... gave birth to you. Your mother. She..."

From the mouth of Franc, looking at me with trembling eyes—eyes that seemed about to spill tears at any moment—the words came out together with a thin sob, and they became a single bolt of lightning and struck my head.

The shock of it made me forget, for an instant, even how to breathe. I couldn't speak.

Franc let a single tear fall, drew my head into her arms, and went on.

"When you had returned alive and were in the hospital—when Grandmother, and your maternal grandmother, and all your family were gathered—your father told the story..."

...Ah.

Dad's voice, which had trembled so distinctly then, seemed to come sweeping through my ears again.

"Is... that so."

So that was it.

The wounds Dad had spoken of... that was what they were. I'm not Dad's son. I'm my aunt's son. Then my sister is my cousin? Dad becomes my maternal uncle, and Mom my aunt by marriage...

"Seoha..."

I closed my eyes, and something hot ran down my temple. Franc held my head tighter still and cradled me.

"So she wasn't my aunt. She was my mother."

Haha. I want to laugh. Mom and Dad must have known all along. And still they cherished me like their own child, and loved me...

My chest itched past bearing, and laughter began to spill out.

"Heh heh. You know, Franc. When I entered middle school, I really agonized over it. You know as well as I do—Dad, Mom, my sister, every one of them is good-looking, and smart, and good-natured besides. Heh heh heh. And me, I'm ugly, I can't study, I'm stupid, and my personality's bad..."

"Once, in middle school, I even cried in the middle of the night with the blanket pulled over my head. I'm telling you. However completely the bad genes got dumped on one person, there's still such a thing as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a baseline, and I alone was nothing like anyone else in that house, so I started to wonder if I was a kid Dad and Mom had picked up... I was too scared to ask. Too scared they'd say it was true..."

"Seoha...!"

"It was true..."

Franc was weeping, at a loss for what to do, because she found a me like this so pitiful. I reached for her cheek and held it as I spoke.

"Don't cry. Mom is Mom, and Dad is Dad. My sister is my one and only sister, too. That doesn't mean I intend to deny the mother who gave birth to me. The parents who raised me and loved me for eighteen years, and my sister, who scolded me when I went wrong and still loved me and looked after me—they're the same. But..."

A fire began to burn, slow, inside my chest—black and sticky as tar.

It astonished me that a person could hold a killing intent this fierce. Inside my head, every kind of horrific imagining played itself out, and all of it was aimed at those blue-skinned demon bastards.

I cannot forgive them. My mother's image, carved into my mind—the things those demon spawn did! Everything about them!!

I can never forgive it.

In this moment, a goal was born that I must achieve, and must see resolved, even if I stake my whole life on it. No matter how long it takes. Even if I have to devote the whole of my life to it. I will see the end of it. I swear I will.

But my aunt—my mother—I was told she died twelve years before I was born...?