Chapter 291: Mind, and Manipulation (8)
Testing mental manipulation on Hiarid ended almost absurdly quickly. I wasn't probing any other emotion — I only poured obedience into her.
And just as I'd expected, the strain of laying it on an aberrant, set beside an ability user, was so vast the two hardly belonged in the same conversation.
Sophia and Hiarid were both C-Class, both high-tier variants, and yet I'd been able to manipulate more than fifty Sophias. If every one of them had sat at Hiarid's level, the ceiling would have been something like ten, wouldn't it?
Next to Suhan, the weight of it was beyond any comparison. If I carried that ratio across to Choi Soohan and the Dark Matter Slime, I doubted I could handle more than one highest-rank variant. Dominating a single one would leave a little to spare; reaching for a second would come up a little short.
The TP cost had climbed as well. Manipulating an ability user consumed a tenth of the target's Phase Power, but an aberrant seemed to take half. Hiarid's Phase Power stood at 2.4 million — 2.2 million to start, plus the 200,000 she'd received in training — and the TP I'd just spent binding her was 1.2 million.
Hmm. The Dark Matter Slime sits at fourteen million. For now, that's enough.
Bound by an obedience meant for me, Hiarid behaved no differently than she always had. I might have said I was seeing her anew, or that my brainwashing had been excellent — but either way, it only meant she'd been obeying me in ordinary life all along.
The problem came immediately after. Miho plastered herself to my side.
"Me too~! Do me too~!"
Yeongeun saw it, latched on as well, and started to wheedle.
"Me too~! Do me too~!"
Peeling the two of them off took longer than laying the obedience on Hiarid.
I smacked both of them hard across the rear and rapped their heads with a knuckle, and Miho and Yeongeun clung to each other, glaring at me in wounded resentment. That was cute. When I glared back with a deliberately angry face, the way they yipped and ducked their eyes was cute too.
I killed the lights in the living room and stepped into the bedroom, and there were Hwayeon and Yeongeun seated side by side at the vanity, taking their makeup off.
I was looking at the red handprint stamped across the firm curve of Yeongeun's backside when Hwayeon, wiping her face clean, caught my reflection in the mirror and spoke.
"Have you decided who you'll lay the mental manipulation on?"
"I mean to subjugate the Dark Matter Slime with it first, and think after that. The ability's vicious beyond anything I imagined... I'm not sure I ought to use it on people."
I'd originally meant to lay it on everyone who'd wronged me, and on every important figure at Grand Bleu besides. Testing it had shown me the danger, and my thinking had shifted. Even now, the goodwill I could draw with Mana Vision alone seemed sufficient. Though — should I still lay it on Sophia?
Franc, clinging to my back, rubbed her face against me like a cat. Yeongeun started scrubbing her own face with some odd bit of cloth and asked,
"Wouldn't it be better to lay it on everyone in a high position?"
She was saying exactly what I'd thought before. I shook my head.
"I don't know. Watching Suhan earlier, I thought it was dangerous. And if I start laying mental manipulation on people one by one, I had the feeling that in the end I wouldn't be able to trust anyone — that I might lay it on the entire world."
"That's right. Even Seoha's Mana Vision alone is a powerful ability. If there's someone whose goodwill you need, you can simply use Mana Vision. I don't believe you need to bear that burden and resort to mental manipulation. Human relationships are built on mutual trust."
Franc must have found the ability distasteful at heart. Hearing me out, she smiled brightly and wound her arms around my neck. The generous press of her breasts against my back left me feeling distinctly happy.
My thoughts had wandered. Steering people's emotions however I pleased looked, at a glance, like an immensely attractive power — but that sort of thing would only help a man with no force of his own. With the strength I had now, simply earning goodwill through Mana Vision was enough. Abusing a risky tool like mental manipulation would only hand people a pretext to come after me. Between what I'd already done and my handling of a highest-rank variant, there were already those who feared me as a genuine god of destruction.
So mental manipulation, quite literally, would be used only to dominate aberrants that wouldn't listen to reason.
When I said as much, Yeongeun answered that if that was what I wanted, she agreed — though her face was a little unsatisfied. Franc and Hwayeon smiled without reservation and nodded.
"You've thought it through well. Something like mental manipulation is convenient, but use it without restraint and you'll become a fool who only wants to be worshipped."
"Ah, that's not it. Franc just hasn't seen the political monsters and the tycoons of the business world. Look at that swarm of people with their eyes bloodshot over their own profit and power, and even you'd swallow those words."
"...Would I?"
"Wouldn't you~? Seoha has overwhelming force that refuses anything ordinary, so he can just crush them flat. Me, I've wanted to take hold of those people's minds and work them like tools more than once or twice."
Wasn't more than half the current government out of Uihan University, which was why the administration had been running so smoothly? I'd thought Yeongeun would simply go along. Apparently it wasn't that simple.
Hwayeon, who had smoothed some liquid over her face, wiped her hands with a wet tissue, rose from the vanity, and spoke.
"There's one more thing I'm curious about. You aren't like an ordinary ability user, Seoha. I wonder whether other mental-manipulation users would bear the same burden you do, or a greater one."
"Ah, I thought the same. It ends at that much strain because it's Seoha. For any other ability user, I get the feeling it'd be two or three times worse."
"It really would be. Seoha is outside every standard, so we shouldn't measure by him."
I was staring, dumbfounded, at lovers who treated me like an off-spec product when Yeongeun, finished with her makeup, rose from the vanity wearing a catlike smile. Swaying the backside marked with that bright-red handprint, she crawled across the bed on all fours, flopped down in front of me with her belly up like a cat, and slowly gathered her breasts in her hands to tempt me.
"Ufufu. You'll ease the stress I've piled up dealing with those political monsters again today, won't you?"
She shot me a wink, and all I could do was laugh. What an erotic little cat. I brushed a kiss against the bridge of her straight nose and said,
"Of course. Because of me you can't even use that golden dildo anymore, so I ought to make sure the desire doesn't pile up..."
"Aaaah! That! We agreed not to say that!"
Hwayeon shoved aside Yeongeun, who was covering her face in shame and flailing her legs, and silently began undoing the front of my pants. At once Yeongeun was back to normal, as if nothing had happened, and she stared at Hwayeon in surprise.
"Huh? Wasn't I first today?"
"Have you forgotten that I won our last bet?"
"Ah."
"And Hwayeon — didn't you agree, the day before yesterday, to yield to me once?"
"Ngh. Th-that's..."
The lovers who had been gently squabbling over the order seemed to settle it at last. Franc slipped between my legs, Hwayeon kissed me, and Yeongeun began to caress my chest.
While I tasted Yeongeun's lips and tongue, small, slender fingers closed around Smarty. Something soft, warm, and wet began to lick the head, and then came the sensation of him sinking into a narrow, slick opening. So we were starting with Franc's deepthroat.
I set my idle hands to work, teasing the soft place between Hwayeon's legs and the swell of Yeongeun's breasts, and thought about the Dark Matter Slime. If I entered the Phase World, the Wall of Space would vanish by its nature, and I couldn't go in until I'd dealt with that thing. Tomorrow, the moment school let out, I'd subjugate the Dark Matter Slime with mental manipulation.
When I went to school the next day, the air had loosened all the way.
Nerves wound tight by the gate of the college entrance exam come undone the moment the exam is over. That's only natural. The Ha Cheolsu terror incident had broken out five days ago, but I'd cleaned it up quickly, and the damage had never reached the streets around the school. That, too, was part of why everything still felt intact.
Clustered near me and chattering, Han Go-eun, Lydia, Su Yu-ri, and Kang So-ra were plotting a weekend outing. Kim Chang-hyun, Kang Ju-chan, and Cho Min-ho were trading talk about a Premier League match from a few days back — which player had been in form, who had transferred for how much, and how a striker ought to be worth at least that.
"Sir Seoha, come spend the weekend with us. Please?"
"Yeah, yeah. It's a day trip! I looked it up — there was a heavy snowfall not long ago, so the ski resorts out in Gangwon opened early!"
Lydia came over first. Han Go-eun followed, dropped into the seat in front of my desk with her eyes sparkling, and spread open a pamphlet no bigger than her palm.
"Oh — a ski resort. Skiing's nice. I'm more of a snowboard guy, though."
At that, Kim Chang-hyun folded up the soccer talk, came over, snatched the pamphlet out of Han Go-eun's hand, and started looking it over.
"It opened yesterday, so there won't be many people. Seoha hates crowded places, so let's do one night, or a day trip. How about it?"
"A place that just opened doesn't have any information. The facilities might be garbage and the whole thing could fold, so somewhere well-known would be better, right? What about Yongpyong? I went last year. It was fine."
"Yongpyong's good, but isn't High1 fine too? There's a Kangwon Land hotel right beside it, so the facilities are decent."
The other kids in the class had a wall of status so high they couldn't even approach me. Han Go-eun's crew still came over whenever they found something to do and asked me along.
A few from the other classes were already sneering that her bunch were obnoxious lackeys, farting flattery while they clung to power. That wasn't how I saw it.
These kids had been exposed to my Mana Vision often since early April. At first they must have come out of nothing more than curiosity about an ability user who had made it back alive. Before long they were the ones who met that vision first, and deepest, and the goodwill had sunk far down into their heads.
They weren't ability users. They were ordinary people, high-school seniors with minds that hadn't finished growing. Glance over now and then from a distance — the way those kids at the far end of the classroom were peeking this way — and you'd come away with nothing but a moderate fondness. These ones had met my Mana Vision often, and for a long time, from relatively close range. They followed me the way imprinted chicks follow.
I'd only noticed it myself on the last day of summer break, when I ran into them in the commercial district of the Grand Bleu building after they'd finished their part-time work there. They were sorry they hadn't gotten to hang out even once, all the way to the end of the vacation. From behind them I said, since tomorrow was the first day back, should we take a walk out to a nearby valley? They dropped what they were doing, said sure, grabbed drinks and a few things to eat — rice balls, snacks, some fruit — and left at once by taxi.
The look on them then. Like children hearing a parent ask if they wanted to go to an amusement park. I still couldn't forget it.
Guilt over this and that nearly pulled a bitter smile out of me. I hid it, watched Han Go-eun flip through the pamphlet, and said,
"Shall we?"
"Huh?"
"The ski resort. Let's go together."
"Really?!"
"It's not as if we're leaving the country. The urgent things are mostly settled, so I can spare one night."
She'd brought it up herself and still hadn't expected a yes. At my answer her eyes went round; she sprang to her feet, caught my hand, and shook it.
"For real? It's a promise! Whoa — we have to book a hotel right now!"
"Let's go to High1, High1! The hotel's right next door, and they said a new indoor heated pool just opened, so we can swim too!"
"Hey, hey. Pick somewhere close to the slopes. Close!"
"It's one night, so let's leave early in the morning!"
"I'll have to rent gear when we get there. I've grown. The stuff at home probably won't fit."
"I bought new gear the day before yesterday, so there~!"
"What are we taking? Should I ask my mom for a ride?"
"Homin. Let's borrow a few of your sister's board games. We'll need something to do at night."
Watching them bustle and start writing down what to prepare, I spoke up.
"I'll find us a place to stay. You just get your parents' permission."
"Okay!"
Kim Chang-hyun turned a greasy, needling voice on Han Go-eun, who was searching something with a face like she might die of excitement.
"Hey, hey. Go-eun, didn't your mom and dad scold you not long ago for playing too much? Think you can even get permission?"
"...I will get it!"
"Didn't your test scores drop, too? Heh heh heh. Everyone else goes and you're the only one left out, that'd be hilari— gah!"
"What kind of obnoxious crap is that?! You want to get it?!"
Even with a red-faced Han Go-eun kicking him, Kim Chang-hyun just grinned and went on teasing her without a pause. Somehow they seemed closer than they had at the start of the semester. Had they really grown fond by fighting?
After lunch with them in the school cafeteria, Lydia said she had something to discuss, so Franc and I headed for the rooftop garden. Han Go-eun's crew tried to follow, but when Lydia said it was company business, they went back to the classroom without a word.
"I'm sorry. We traced backward from the moment that footage was recorded, but it was so long ago that not a single person who knew anything is left."
"You said it was filmed seventy years ago. That's no surprise."
So in the end I'd have to go looking myself. All this while I'd been gathering and sorting the intelligence team's materials, hunting for their traces, and I hadn't seen so much as a tail. I'd asked in the hope of even a small hint. A shame.
Perhaps because she hadn't been able to help, Lydia looked glum. She sidled up beside me and spoke with a curious face.
"Sir Seoha, may I ask why you've suddenly started looking for the Black Castle?"
"Just a personal grudge."
I answered while watching students play soccer on the field beyond the rooftop fence. A puzzled light showed in Lydia's eyes, but she didn't do anything tactless, like pressing the question on purpose. She really was quick to read a room. She sensed in advance what I didn't want to deal with, and stepped back.
Caught between me and Britain, she was something of a mediator, and she'd been no small help in building friendly relations. They'd said her hand was in it when my side was taken during the Ha Cheolsu affair, too.
Hmm. I ought to answer Lydia's help, and Britain's cooperation. What would be good?
Franc read the worry on my face, glanced at Lydia, smiled faintly, and whispered at my ear.
"How about telling them where Camelot is? If Seoha says it, they won't dismiss it — and with a thorough investigation, they may even confirm that it was a real place."
"Huh? Hmm. Would that be enough?"
I whispered the question back. Franc nodded as if it were obvious.
"Britain has more people who rejoice in the legend of King Arthur than any other country. They even regard King Arthur as the king of kings. If they secure proof that she truly existed in the past, they will certainly be deeply grateful to Seoha."
"Hmm."
Thinking of how Franc herself had reacted when she learned that King Arthur and Camelot were real, it was persuasive. I ought to take her advice.
"Anyway, thank you for the help. I thought I'd offer a small return."
"I didn't do it hoping for anything like that."
Lydia smiled as if she were in a bind and waved the idea off. I grinned at her.
"When you hear it, you might think it's nonsense. And it may be something you can find evidence for."
"...?"
"There was a time I vanished for a few days in Britain, wasn't there?"
"Yes? Yes."
"Back then, as it happened, I came into information that King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were real."
"...What?"
I let it drop while looking out over the school field. Lydia's eyes, which always held a smile, went perfectly round, and her mouth parted. Not only hers. The triplets, whose feelings were usually faint, blinked as if more than a little startled.
"The site of Camelot Castle is the Manchester region of today. It stood alongside a fairly large river."
"Uh — uh?"
"I can't explain the exact circumstances. Anyway, it's thanks for looking into the Black Castle."
I left the four girls staring blankly after me and Franc, and stepped out of the rooftop garden.
After I'd come back from Britain and school had started again, I'd looked into King Arthur a little whenever I had the time. I'd found accounts that she was not a king who ruled ancient Britain before the common era, but someone who existed after the sixth century A.D. It was also true that the Viking invasions began around then, and that a fortress called Londinium had stood where modern London is. So the odds that Camelot lay in the Manchester region were very high.
What I'd been most intent on finding, though, were the treasures that appeared in the legend. The pieces of equipment with a peculiar feel, the ones I'd confirmed while scanning Camelot Castle with Spatial Perception, were all things called the armaments of legend. I'd been thoroughly surprised to learn that the green cloth belt with the strange aura was the one known as Gawain's — a belt that granted extreme regenerative power.
Legend said Gawain wore it all the time. I didn't know why it had been shoved into something like a treasure vault, but thinking of Gawain and the Green Knight, and of what the thing could do, I wanted it badly. Honestly, I wanted to slip it away and give it to Hwayeon or Yeongeun. But Myrddin was there too, so stealing was a bit...
Besides that, the spear hanging on the wall behind the dignified chair I'd taken for King Arthur's throne was Rhongomyniad, Arthur's own weapon. The teardrop-shaped shield, I thought, would have been the one called the Cursed Shield, carried by Galahad, one of the Knights of the Round Table.
Next I'd turned to the lore and the secret histories around Morgan le Fay. The investigation turned up a career so spectacular I wondered if she wasn't Britain's original crazy bitch. Practically yandere brother-complex levels. A loose woman who spread her legs at the drop of a hat, besides. I felt sorry for King Arthur, keeping a half-sister like that.
What would happen if I went and trained Morgan le Fay into a sex slave? Had Mordred already been born? There was also a story that Morgan learned magic from Myrddin, and I wondered if that was true. She'd be his disciple, then. I wasn't sure I could simply kidnap and lock away a woman like that.
No. She'd picked a fight with me first. Unless Myrddin asked me himself, I wasn't going to forgive her just like that.
I was turning all of this over on the way down to the classroom with Franc when Lydia, as if she'd only just come to her senses, came tearing after us.
"S-Sir Seohaaa! Wait a moment!"
She blocked my way, gasping. I gave her time to catch her breath. One hand pressed to the slight swell of her chest, she drew a deep breath and asked with her eyes flashing.
"I-is that true? That it's really there?"
She wanted to hear it again. I gave her a small smile and answered as I quietly passed her by.
"Tell me a reason I'd have to lie to you."
"Ugh. M-may I ask how you came to know...?"
"I'll tell you later. I can't tell you now."
Not until the forced summons stopped and the connection to the past was cut. Only then.
As if that weren't enough, Lydia pressed right up under my nose, eyes glittering, and asked without a pause.
"Did you see King Arthur in person? What about Merlin? And Sir Lancelot — what was he like?"
I reached out and flicked her on the nose.
"Hnnngh?!"
I'd only tapped it, and already she was milking it. Watching her clutch her nose and groan, I said one quiet line.
"I said I'd tell you later, didn't I?"
"Uuu."