And Two Months Passed (2)

“When you make it back alive, they run an identification screening, don’t they? Director Oh Soeun was supposed to tell me something then, and she never did. I had a miserable time because of it, so I came to ask why.”

The moment I brought up how the Mana Sieve had dragged me, against my will, into a second run — and how the whole mess had gone all the way to a review hearing — the Branch Chief’s face crumpled like a man who had just bitten into a mouthful of unripe persimmon.

“A returnee has the right to be told how their information will be managed and handled, based on the identification and measurement results. That’s the rule, isn’t it? I never heard a single word about what was supposed to follow the exam in the identification room.”

“Ghk…! Th-then you didn’t come to scout Director Oh Soeun or Dr. Woo Mingu?”

“Oh, come on~. Why are you so scared, hyung? If they’re satisfied with their treatment, they won’t come no matter how sweetly I talk. Nothing for you to worry about. Or did you bind them with some unfair labor contract?”

I slid around the question with a greasy smile. The Branch Chief let out a groan fit for a corpse and glared at me.

I turned my back on him, walked off, and took the elevator. It carried me straight to the identification and measurement floor where I had been examined.

He stared at the back of my head hard enough to bore a hole through it as we headed for the measurement room. Kim Eunha, the researcher I had met that first day, caught sight of me, startled, and came scurrying over in little steps.

“Oh my~? Grand Blue’s God of Destruction!”

Her tone was as light as ever, and she wore the same lab coat as before, her long permed hair falling in that calm style. God of Destruction. Honestly.

“If it weren’t for the hair, I might not have recognized you~. What brings you to the identification lab? Here for a retest?”

She said it with a bright, beaming smile, so she clearly remembered me. I grinned and waved back.

“No. I came on other business. By the way, noona, are you still…?”

I let the rest trail off — still a virgin? — and smiled wickedly. Kim Eunha’s face flushed scarlet, and she swung the record binder in her hand at me.

“Hey, hey! Hyung, you saw that, right? I told you this is how these people treat me.”

“Researcher Kim Eunhaaaaa…!”

Good. Good. The counts were stacking up one by one.

Kim Eunha looked past me at the Branch Chief, whose face had twisted like a vengeful ghost and was trembling, flinched, and still glared at me.

“Is Director Oh Soeun in there?”

I had already confirmed it with Spatial Perception, but I asked out of courtesy. Red-faced, she glared and pointed inward with the binder.

“Hehe. See you in a bit.”

I took the short corridor, turned the L-shaped corner, opened the door of the identification room, and stepped inside. In front of an enormous identification machine sat the career woman herself, Director Oh Soeun, coffee in hand, eyes on a paper. Last time her hair had been a short cut. Now it was long and straight, down to about the middle of her back.

She saw me come in with Franc and the Branch Chief, and her eyes opened a fraction with the cup still at her lips. One cheek bulged. She wasn’t drinking coffee while sucking on candy, was she?

She set the coffee and the journal down, eyes brightening, and switched the identification machine on. Why is she turning that on?

“Excuse me. I didn’t come here to be identified.”

Profound disappointment crossed her face, and she powered the machine back down. Then, long hair swaying, Director Oh Soeun sat in the chair again, lifted the cup, and took a long sip.

The first time we met she had at least talked. Now she didn’t say a word. She only stared at me flatly, as if to say that if I had something to say, I should say it.

“As branch chief, what do you make of that?”

“…Nothing to say.”

Hm. Time to push harder.

“Director Oh Soeun?”

A silent question sat in her eyes.

“Do you remember the first time I came in for identification?”

She nodded.

Say something, lady!

Watching her answer with nothing but a dip of the head, I swallowed the sigh rising in me and went on.

“There was something you were supposed to tell me back then. And you didn’t.”

She froze for an instant, then shook her head hard. She had just frozen. Why was she denying it?

“You only explained the aptitude tiers! I heard that after identification and measurement you’re registered automatically in the Ability User Association database, and then there’s a whole list of things you’re supposed to be told!”

Another shake of the head.

“…Right. Then I’ll see you in court. I’m opening an age of lawsuits these days anyway. Adding one more name isn’t exactly difficult.”

“Wait a moment.”

I turned to leave with a sour look, and only then did Director Oh Soeun speak, her voice somehow mumbled. She spat the candy into the coffee cup and started over.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t talk. I was brushing my teeth. As you said, Master, there were circumstances that kept me from speaking at the time.”

Brushing her teeth while drinking coffee? With those little round white candies? I was suddenly very curious about the inner workings of Director Oh Soeun’s mind. More to the point — circumstances? What circumstances?

“Circumstances?”

“Do you remember releasing killing intent, Master of Grand Blue?”

“…Yes. It was unconscious. The assistant beside me tried to handle my talisman without permission, and I got sensitive.”

Director Oh Soeun gave a quiet nod and spoke again.

“That killing intent startled me so badly that I failed to pass on the matters I was supposed to convey. I forgot about it afterward, and I only remembered when you went before the review body after your second run.”

“And when I asked later, you did explain the aptitude…”

I grumbled, and she answered with a smile that suited a career woman.

“You did shake the soul out of me first, Master. But I’ve admitted my own fault, so perhaps we could call it shared fault and let it go.”

Well. Arguing over something already past would only get in the way of bringing her in, so I decided to shelve it.

“Then would you grant me one request?”

The moment I came to the point, the Branch Chief flinched and moved to approach me. Franc slipped in front of him at once.

“Hold on — what request are you about to make! Miss Franc, step aside a moment!”

“Please be quiet. The Master is speaking.”

A sharp crackle split the air.

“…! No, wait…! Hey!”

Director Oh Soeun spared a glance for the commotion behind me. A trace of unease crossed her face.

“What request?”

“It’s simple. Any interest in a better environment, more money, and better research to throw yourself into?”

“Seoha! Are you really doing this!”

Sorry. I wanted to try my hand at aggressive headhunting.

I ignored the Branch Chief’s howl of despair and looked into Director Oh Soeun’s black eyes. She asked for a little time to think.

“We also have Dr. Altina Meldios, well known at the IWO for aberrant biology, and Dr. Dwight Edelberg of the Grokis Institute, who’s called a master of phase physics. You hold a doctorate in phase properties, don’t you, Director? If you came to our Grand Blue Institute, the synergy with those two would be extraordinary.”

“…I think I need to consider it a little.”

“If you come, you’ll receive twice the compensation you get from the Ability User Association, and the research performance bonuses will be entirely yours. Contact me when you’re done thinking.”

I left the pondering director behind, walked out of the identification room, and headed for the measurement room. The Branch Chief looked ready to have a fit, but Franc blocked him with a hawk’s eye, and he staggered to the wall with the face of a man whose stomach ulcer had just flared, leaning a shoulder against it.

Unfortunately, Dr. Woo Mingu was out. So I asked his assistant and fellow researcher, the only faintly remembered Min Nayoung, and poor eternally single Kim Eunha to tell him I wanted a word when he returned.

“…You rotten brat.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

When we stepped out of the elevator, the Branch Chief waved me off and told me never to come back. I smiled, said we’d see each other again, and fired a Healing Wave into him. His face scrunched hard — and then he snorted a laugh.

I don’t know about hair loss, but a Healing Wave works wonders on a stomach ulcer. Give a man the disease, then hand him the cure.

Once I learned I could pour TP into depleted phase stones and pass them off as new, Hwayeon and Yeongeun had been collecting depleted Superior-grade and High Grade phase stones on a regular basis.

The haul came to 332 depleted Superior-grade stones and 85,700 High Grade ones. Not long after I got back from Britain, Yeongeun said it was going to be hard to gather any more depleted stones.

“Why? Are fewer of them being thrown out?”

“About the same. Me and Hwayeon have been scraping up every depleted phase stone we can get our hands on, so Rice Country and that big brown bear way up north seem to have smelled something.”

In other words, because Yeongeun kept collecting the empty phase stones that were meant to be discarded, America and Russia had pricked up their ears. They had started watching closely, trying to figure out what new technology could make someone hoard that many spent stones.

I could see the shape of it well enough. Watching us, they would be thinking what if, clutching their own depleted stones and putting a research team back together to try again.

“And while they’re at it, thinking of sending spies to steal the tech?”

“Correct.”

Hmm. I had already prepared thoroughly against wiretaps and eavesdropping, just in case of a situation like this.

I scratched the back of my head and looked at a stretch of the living room wall that, to any eye, was nothing but an ordinary wall.

You can’t simply pile tens of thousands of phase stones inside a house, so I had made a secret room for form’s sake, layered a few security measures over it, and stored the stones there.

Calling it security was generous. It wasn’t anything grand. Hiarid patrolled outside now and then and hauled anyone acting suspicious off to the security team, and Miho spent all day in the house being tormented by her tutor while keeping watch. That was about the extent of it.

The walls of the secret room were the same radio-blocking special alloy used on the inner walls of the Association’s measurement and identification rooms, so even the latest surveillance gear couldn’t see inside, and no one could simply punch through. Last of all, the room where the stones were kept had no door. The only way in was the Space Leaping I possessed.

“Well, if I just finish charging everything we’ve gathered so far, it’d be enough that we wouldn’t even need to run a raid team…”

Pack about eighty-five thousand High Grade phase stones with Phase Power crammed in at up to three times capacity, charge the lot, and that alone came to 77 billion Phase Power. Korea draws an average of 370 million Phase Power a year out of the Phase World. This much would last two hundred years. An absurd amount.

On top of that there were 332 Superior-grade stones. Charge all of those, and frankly, even if forced summoning were blocked tomorrow and the phase stone supply stopped dead, it wouldn’t matter.

The only problem was when I would find the time to charge so many. Charging itself could be done slowly.

“By the way, 77 billion Phase Power — how much is that in money?”

“Seventy-seven billion, so even stripping out the grade premiums, that’s seventy-seven quadrillion won… In dollars, sixty-three trillion… hah—!”

Yeongeun calculated the value in an instant. Her pupils turned into dollars and won, and she twisted in rapture. Her tightly pressed thighs gave a faint tremble, as if the number itself had brought her to climax. Half dumbfounded, I let out a hollow laugh and said:

“What. That’s only about a tenth of Sophia’s fine.”

I muttered it as if it were nothing, and Yeongeun’s face went blank with shock.

“Anyway, if they’ve caught a strange scent, stop the collecting there. No need to hand them something to suspect and make life tiring. America especially.”

I said it with those two bastards in Britain in mind, the ones who had tried their schemes on me, and Yeongeun nodded that she would.

From then on I carried empty phase stones on me at all times and spent two months charging them without a break. By the time winter had come right up to the door, mid-November, I had charged most of the 85,000 High Grade phase stones.

In the office I was skimming the Phase World geographic materials submitted by the Phase Intelligence Strategy Team I had organized a month earlier, memorizing what needed keeping and discarding what didn’t, pulling the information together, when the secretarial office called to say Hwayeon was coming up to report.

I said I understood and flipped quickly through the pages that remained, taking the contents in.

A memory bordering on perfect recall was a fine thing. Glance over it like this, and I could call it back later whenever I had the time.

Anyway, with winter closing in, what I was doing these days was reading, indiscriminately, the aberrant habitat charts and geographic data the Phase Intelligence Strategy Team collected — all of it in search of where those blue demon bastards lived, the ones who were my mother’s enemies.

The hope was simple. If I just kept gathering information like this, someday I would catch a thread.

That didn’t mean I was neglecting company work as raid team Master. A great deal had happened in the two months since I returned from Britain, but if I had to name the result that stood out, it was this: I had strengthened my competence as Master of the Grand Blue raid team.

For two months, after school and on days off, I had studied hard under my sister, Aunt Hyeryeong, and Hwayeon — everything a Master was supposed to do. Thanks to that, I had a grasp of how the company ran, and by what means.

Of course, grasping the flow of the work didn’t mean I did the paperwork. Aunt Hyeryeong, my sister, and Yoo Chae-rin, appointed as my sister’s aide, handled all of that. What I did was set the direction of the week’s in-house guidelines at the Monday executive meeting, and approve a few important projects and proposals. About that much.

Aside from building that competence and charging phase stones, there wasn’t much else to do, so I was looking over Phase World geography and indiscriminately absorbing whatever was known of aberrant types, forms, traits, habitats, living conditions, and all the rest.

Anyone watching would have called me a figurehead boss — no, a figurehead Master — living that easy. But none of Grand Blue’s raiders or staff said a word to me about it. The moment I entered the Phase World, I brought in more profit than all thirty-odd raid teams running subjugation battles for the same stretch of time. They would sooner worship me than complain.

The moment I finished reading and closed the booklet, the elevator opened. Hwayeon stepped out in the exclusive Grand Blue boss uniform, came close, held out a thin stack of documents for approval, and delivered a piece of news.

“Director Oh Soeun submitted her resignation to the Ability User Association?”

“Yes. She’s formally leaving the Association, and she’s indicated that she wants to contract with our Grand Blue Phase Science Research Institute.”

“If there’s no problem, let’s contract. When we draw up the papers, I’ll come along and slip some goodwill in with Mana Vision and Mana Voice.”

“Understood. I’ll set a date and tell her to visit.”

“Yeah.”

I thought that was the end of her business. It wasn’t. She lingered in my office, hesitating, and I looked at her.

“What? Something else to say?”

“…Are you truly set on not going to university?”

“I’m not going. There’s no particular reason to go now, is there? Better to spend that time doing what I need to do.”

I didn’t need a diploma that said I had graduated, and there was nothing I absolutely had to learn at a university. If I truly needed to study something, I had more than enough money to summon a luxury faculty and learn it.

I set the finished geographic materials aside and checked the approval documents. Hwayeon’s expression turned a little glum.

“I would be happy if you came to Uihan University.”

…Ugh.

The college entrance exam was in three days, wasn’t it? From about fifty days out, my sister and Hwayeon had started subtly coaxing me — how about putting in an application to Uihan University?

Early admissions had already closed. They meant the regular round. I had no reason to go soak in college life on purpose, so I declared I wasn’t going, and both of them were terribly disappointed. Hwayeon in particular had looked unusually deflated, as if she had been aiming for a campus couple, and I had even taken a picture.

My sister was… hmm.

How to put it. Ever since she learned I wasn’t her biological little brother, the way she treated me had gone a little lukewarm. The relentless fussing she used to pour over me had almost vanished. I didn’t think she had come to dislike me, but her attitude had changed so much that I felt a distance.

Before, she had looked after me and nagged me second only to Mom. Lately even the trace of that was gone. So I had asked her directly.

I ended the recollection, looked at Hwayeon again, and said it plainly.

“I have no intention of going to university. I completely let go of studying back in May, and the entrance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exam is in three days. I’m not a genius like you or noona, and I don’t want to sit the test just to embarrass myself.”

Hwayeon told me not to worry, set a hand on my desk, and went on.

“It’s an old arrangement, but Uihan University has a contribution admission system as well. And the way your foundation serves society, and the way the Grand Blue raid team returns its gains and income to society — all of that is done in your name. The research equipment you’ve donated to Uihan University’s affiliated institute alone comes to several billion won. So even if you don’t study, if you want it, you can be a candidate for contribution admission whenever you like.”

“Huh? No, setting the studying aside—”

The assignments would be endless. How was my head supposed to keep up with Uihan University’s level? The reports and coursework there were famous for being genuine hell. They were homework given so students would devote themselves purely to study, and telling me to do that was impossible. No.

The reason was too embarrassing to say out loud, but I made it clear I didn’t want it. She must have come up today fully resolved, because this time she came around the desk, sat on my knee, and looked at me with clear eyes.

If Franc had been here, she would have stopped Hwayeon around now. But Franc was with the tutor, teaching Miho ethics and morals, so there was no one to hold Hwayeon back.

She looked at me with eyes hot enough that a single do it would have her carrying it out on the spot. I turned my gaze away without thinking. She cupped my cheeks in both hands, turned my head, and met my eyes again.

“…Is this because you want to be a campus couple with me?”

“Th-there’s that reason too.”

This time Hwayeon flushed and tried to look away, so I asked again.

“If there’s that reason, what’s the other one?”

“…The consensus among us is that you’re very clumsy with people. I want you to meet far more of them at university and learn how to deal with them.”

Uh… hmm.

It was true that when I went to school, only eight people approached me. Han Go-eun’s crowd — Han Go-eun, Su Yu-ri, Kang So-ra, Kim Chang-hyun, Cho Min-ho, and Kang Ju-chan — plus Lydia, the British princess who had come looking for me the moment summer break ended and the second semester began. And Lee Yu-mi, the student council president, still coming at me to join the student council even now, with November already underway and graduation not far off.

Everyone else only stole glances at me from a distance.

“Even at the company, the people you talk to can be counted on one hand, can’t they? Siha, me, Director Lee Hyeryeong, Boss Park Jiwoong, whom you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠see now and then, and Cha Soyoung, whom you see even less often than that. Your relationships are extremely narrow compared to your ability and your position. There’s a reason the current-affairs columns call you Grand Blue’s ghost.”

“They call me a ghost? What does that mean?”

“A ghost only harms those who anger it. Otherwise it does nothing at all, and never shows its substance, as if it doesn’t exist.”

Mm. This past month I really had done nothing but go between school and the company, busy charging phase stones.

“Then let them think that. Whatever anyone says, I’m Grand Blue’s Master. And if I need to learn how to deal with people, wouldn’t that be better learned in diplomacy between nations, or on a stage of goodwill, than at a university?”

“Ah…”

“These days, when I go to school, aside from Han Go-eun’s crowd and Lydia, the others only watch me from far off. They don’t come near. That’s because of my ability and my status, isn’t it? Friendship forms between people of similar strength, or of roughly equal social standing. Otherwise it’s only a vertical relationship, someone above and someone below. If that’s all it would be, I don’t think I need to attend university and build calculating relationships that are already stained.”

Hearing me out, Hwayeon couldn’t hide her surprise. This wasn’t entirely my own thought. It was a side conclusion that had come up during a break, while I was debating with Han Go-eun’s group about what a friend even was. It was a peculiar conclusion, so I had remembered it.

I pressed a light kiss to the cheek of Hwayeon, whose eyes had gone round as a startled rabbit, and closed the subject.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you the campus couple you wanted. I really think university would be a waste of time for me right now.”

“That’s… no. I didn’t know you were thinking that deeply. My worry was nothing but groundless anxiety.”

I finished checking the report, signed it, approved it, then stood and offered my arm to Hwayeon, who looked a little embarrassed. She played indifferent for a moment, turned her head, and quietly linked arms with me.

I had grown a little taller than her, and at last we looked like something of a picture. It pleased me.

Arm in arm with Hwayeon, stepping into the elevator, I thought it over.

I had turned it around in a lot of ways these past two months. Once I finished charging every depleted phase stone Hwayeon and Yeongeun had gathered, and once ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I graduated, I intended to wander my Phase World for a while.

I hadn’t told Franc, and I hadn’t told Hwayeon or Yeongeun either. None of them wanted me moving freely in my Phase World, because of the Imoogi.

The problem was that to leave with an easy heart, I first had to deal with Ha Cheolsu, that bastard — and nobody knew when he would come out.

Even so, the premonition I had become able to feel, now and then, in something like the direction I wished, told me this much.

Not a distant day. Soon, I would meet Ha Cheolsu again.