I Genuinely Have No Idea What They're Thinking (1)
"To think an aberrant could cross into reality like this. It's beyond belief."
"Maybe they managed it because they had Ha Cheolsu to serve as a medium?"
"Judging by the principles of entering and leaving the Phase World, that does seem to be the case."
"Hmm~. Should I call it Ha Cheolsu's luck, or give the credit to the Dark Matter Slime and the Grand Turtle for being clever... Whichever it is, our country took heavy damage because of them. That's a fact. But when I think of what Seoha came away with, I can't bring myself to simply hate it. Not that I can be glad about it, either."
"We have already done our moral duty in that matter. I believe it is enough to be glad that Seoha gained strength."
"True enough, right? If we're assigning original sin, it belongs to the Alliance, for failing to stop a man like Ha Cheolsu from forcing his way into the Phase World. And Seoha even sold off the Grand Turtle's byproducts and scraped together a recovery fund for the victims. Trillions of won."
Franc, who had been listening from the side as Hwayeon and Yeongeun traded the conversation back and forth, shook her head and looked down at the Dark Matter Slime, muttering.
"What emotion was poured into the Dark Matter Slime and the Grand Turtle, that they tried to protect Ha Cheolsu even in that situation? Love? Loyalty?"
Slosh? Squelch-squelch.
The slime, its body shaped in a way that kept calling a chest to mind, rippled in answer to Franc's words, and Hiarid translated.
=It asks what love is.=
"Love is... the most human thing a living being can do. A heart that thinks of someone without end, and longs for them. The feeling, and the act, of treasuring a being and holding them dear. The affection between a man and a woman. Such things, I believe, are love."
Squelch.
=It says that is not love.=
"In any case, you came from a place full of reptiles, half water and half land. Is that right?"
Slosh!
=It says that is so.=
"Do you mean a place that worships some particular being, like the Floating Sky Islands? Have you ever seen a turtle even larger than the Grand Turtle?"
Slosh? Slosh, brr-brr.
=It has not. The largest one I ever saw was the Grand Turtle, it says.=
Hmm. Considering the size of the Supergiant Turtle, failing to notice it would have been the strange part, so "never seen one" amounted to the same thing as "there isn't one." Perhaps the Grand Turtle would have known. There was no asking a thing that was already dead.
Anyway, if five Calamity-rank aberrants had been gathered in one place, weaker ones must have existed beneath them, tier by tier and in plenty, and that was surely how Ha Cheolsu had grown so strong in so short a time.
In his own way, that bastard had been lucky. Mental Manipulation didn't seem to carry any safety meant to protect the caster, and he had nothing like my ability to read Phase Power — and yet he had kept a sound mind all the way to B-Class.
I was turning this over and that when Franc, who had been teaching the slime about one emotion after another, looked at me and asked.
"As I thought... Ha Cheolsu ending up in that state. That was the cause, was it not?"
"Yeah. He couldn't take the overload from Mental Manipulation, and his head got wrecked. No question about it. He was probably dragging around a crowd of High Grade and Superior aberrants, and manipulating this one pushed the strain on his mind past the point where he could hold on to reason. Dominating the Grand Turtle from there is what broke through his limit. Hey. When Ha Cheolsu died, how were you feeling?"
Uhuru-kukuru-huuu, uhuru-kukuru-huuu, uhuru-kukuru-huuu, uhuru-kukuru-huuu, uhuru-kukuru-huuu—
...What. It suddenly tangled its whole body into a knot and started pouring out this bizarre continuous noise.
At that strange resonance, at the sound repeating on itself, Franc of course, and Hwayeon and Yeongeun, and even Miho where she sat on my knee, all screwed their faces up tight.
=Uuugh. A vortex of emotions I had never experienced until then came flooding over. If I must name only a few, they were four: rage, sorrow, despair, and madness. They were eating away at me, until I received Master's gaze. But the moment I received Master's gaze, the chaos within vanished, and only I remained — wholly, loyally Master's!=
Hwayeon, who had been frowning, muttered under her breath.
"So when the caster dies, the mind of whoever was under Mental Manipulation collapses?"
"Wouldn't it make more sense to read it the other way? The manipulation ran toward affection, so when the one who cast it died, their world came down around them."
Hearing Yeongeun, that reading was plausible too.
"So how do you feel about me now?"
Boing! Slosh! Sproing!
=This emotion cannot be expressed as anything else! If Master abandons me, I will be unable to exist as myself. I will break apart and vanish!=
The words belonged to the Dark Matter Slime, but Hiarid delivered them in a passionate voice while her face stayed perfectly blank, and the effect was that Hiarid herself seemed to be confessing to me.
I wasn't the only one who felt it. Hwayeon's and Yeongeun's expressions soured, just a little.
"Uh, right. So what's your name."
...Slosh? Slosh-slosh.
=A name... do you mean a word that denotes an individual's existence? I have no such thing.=
"I heard the Grand Turtle had a name. Obutomuso. And you don't?"
Squelch.... Brr.
=That one said it received a name from another great being. I... had no being to give me a name.=
A great being?! If the Grand Turtle had called something a great being, it could only be the Supergiant Turtle! Whenever its mood sank toward sadness or anything negative, its body seemed to spread, trying to pour off my hand like liquid. I swept it back up and asked.
"You haven't heard anything about that great being?"
Brr.
=Nothing.=
"Nothing... huh. Tch."
So much for that. Anyway, I looked down at the black, translucent thing rippling quietly on my palm. We were going to live together from here on, and it would be ridiculous to keep calling it Dark Matter Slime. I ought to give it a name.
"All right. Then from now on, your name is Darky."
"Seoha..."
"Seoha, that's a bit..."
"Seoha..."
...What. Why are you making those faces.
Brr?! Slosh-slosh! Plap-plap!
=Is that my name?! Thank you for giving me a name! Thank you!=
Franc was watching Darky — rippling its whole body in passionate joy — with a pitying look, and Hwayeon was watching me with pitying eyes, and somehow it welled up hot in my chest.
"What! Darky. It's not bad! Darky's that happy about it, so as long as the one who has the name is happy, that's enough!"
Slosh♪ Slosh♪
=I love it so much♪ A name♪=
"...The rest of you, hush. If the one who bears it likes it, then it is a good name, but... Seoha. When our babies are born, you name them only after talking it over with us. You have to promise. All right?"
Yeongeun gripped my hand tight, grave-faced, asking again and again, determined to pull a vow out of me. I nodded, uncomfortable. Refuse, and it felt like something unfortunate would happen...
"Got it."
The moment I nodded to Yeongeun's plea and her insistence, the lovers sent me another round of pitying looks.
"...Enough. Anyway, Darky. What kind of abilities do you have?"
Slosh-slosh~ Ripple-ripple~
=Uhehe, you mean my abilities! I can decompose anything that touches my body! Skills made of TP or Phase Power, I can absorb and release at several times the strength! I can absorb impacts as well, so anything I am wrapped around will absolutely never break, nor be hurt!=
Darky's self-promotion came down to four things and no more — decomposition, absorption, release, and protection — but they were the very essence of practical power.
"But you couldn't decompose my Wall of Space."
Twitch, slosh....
=Ah? That is... well.=
Slosh-slosh! Squelch!
=I never dreamed, not even in a dream, that there could be an ability I could not decompose! Which is to say, Master more than deserves my respect — it overflows!=
"..."
Neither the answer nor the demeanor inspired much confidence. I looked down at it with a skeptical tilt to my face, and it seemed to catch my mood, rippling anxiously.
=Well. I believe I must think on it a little myself. I am sorry I cannot give you a certain answer!=
"Eh, forget it. And when you move on your own, what's your top speed? Last time I saw you, you were incredibly slow."
Slosh.... Slosh-slosh.
=I am not particularly fast. ...I am sorry! I am slow! I have never seen an aberrant that moves more slowly than I do....=
It drew in on itself so sharply I could feel the dejection coming off it. Its emotional range was rich enough that I couldn't keep thinking of it as nothing but translucent slime.
"Shame about that. Still, your other abilities are outstanding, so I expect I'll be getting a lot of help from you. I'm counting on you."
Slosh? Brr-brr!
=Yes? Yes, yes! I shall work hard! Ehehe.=
As if my words had delighted it past all reason, Darky — which had been squirming and going boing-boing — soon climbed my arm to my shoulder and gave Miho a look-at-me shrug. Miho, seeing that, stretched her eyes wide as a flounder's and glared.
And so the Dark Matter Slime, obedience and loyalty injected into it by my Mental Manipulation, took the name Darky and was brought inside my fence.
It showed a vacant side now and then, so it wasn't without its worrying points. Even so, it was tough enough against physical force and flame to come through a fighter jet's missiles unscathed, and it had displayed a staggering defense, remaining intact even against the Grand Turtle's secret technique, the Big Bang.
At that level, it was, in both name and fact, the ultimate piece of defensive gear among pets. From now on, whenever I had to be away for a long stretch in the Phase World, searching for those blue devil bastards, leaving this one with Hwayeon or my sister would clear away a great many dangers.
Say what anyone liked, Darky was a Calamity-rank aberrant with a Phase Power of 14.22 million.
The next morning, after going nearly the whole night in a foursome wrestling match with my lovers, I stepped out with a dry throat to get some water, and Spatial Perception caught my sister on her way in to work.
My sister really is something else.
Good lord, how does she not take a single day off? Ever since she rose to Director of Integrated Management, she hasn't rested once — just shuttling between home and the company, over and over.
No particular hobbies for the sake of fun, and no friends aside from Hwayeon, as far as I can tell. Today was the same. Saturday, and still my sister was commuting at five in the morning in a white designer suit.
If a workaholic ever took human form, wouldn't it be my sister?
The sight was so absurd that sleep fled me entirely. I grabbed Darky — already rolled up at my feet — and started drilling it, in detail, on everything it would have to watch out for in the real world.
Time passed. I ate breakfast, finished preparing for the trip, and found myself staring at Yeongeun and Franc, the two of them huddled over a laptop, browsing new cosmetics and clothes.
Hmm. They won't budge from that spot for the next two hours.
Miho had eaten and crawled into her wooden bed-basket, already asleep again. Hiarid sat in her usual place on the sofa, Darky settled on her lap, her hand moving over it in slow strokes. Hwayeon had gone to tell Aunt Hyeryeong she'd be away for a day tomorrow, and Suhan had stepped out briefly to finish the last of the travel preparations.
Good. I'll use the opening to go see my sister and get to the bottom of why she's been... hmm. Why she's been avoiding me.
"I'm stepping out to see Sis for a bit."
"Okay~."
"Go safely."
I scooped up Darky, perched on Hiarid's thigh like a pudding, set it on my shoulder, and passed the two of them — so fixed on the laptop that they didn't even look my way, only waved — and went out onto the terrace.
My sister had just finished breakfast in her office. A simple sandwich.
She could have rested a little after eating. She couldn't even bear that much of a pause. Tea in hand, she was opening the document folders laid out in neat order across her desk.
I let out a small sigh and cast Space Leaping to a point behind her chair.
The scenery changed. The back of her dark brown leather chair came into view, and with it her muttering, where she sat in front of it.
"...a shame. With this, six of the seven have refused the offer. Do professors and scholars with real ability and reputation simply not get tempted by money...? I don't want to scrape together a pack of nobodies and call it a think tank."
Unaware I was standing behind her, she muttered at the documents. Her head must have been aching. She set the teacup down, let out a small sigh, and muttered again.
"Anyway, regional ties, school ties, blood ties — those three connections are a rotten custom that needs abolishing, I tell you. Our Seoha is so kind, and so cute... With the country in this state, I should at least look into famous scholars overseas...? Oh my god!"
I gave the executive chair she was sitting in a light tap, and she startled hard and rolled right off it.
"Why so jumpy?"
"Ow, ow... Hey! If you appear behind someone without a sound, of course they get startled!!"
Still down where she had fallen, patting at her hip, she arched a brow and thumped me with her fist.
I let out a short laugh and held out my hand, and she took it with a sulky face. When I caught her arm and pulled her up, she glanced at Darky rippling on my left shoulder, lifted an eyebrow just slightly, and asked.
"Is this the Dark Matter Slime?"
"Yeah. Tamed it yesterday."
She looked Darky over this way and that, fascinated, then went "Hah!" in surprise — and at once hid the feeling behind a blank expression.
"Right. That aside, what are you here for?"
Catch her off guard, and she showed me the old sister — unguarded, the one who doted on me. The moment she collected herself, like now, the change was abrupt enough that "sudden" was the only word for it.
Which meant she was putting that face on on purpose. I swallowed the feeling that threatened to show, and asked.
"Busy enough you have to work on the weekend?"
"The busier the person on top, the better a company runs. Anyway, why are you here? Hwayeon has this weekend off, so if you've got nothing to do, go on a date."
As if she were sinking herself into the act, a chill began to seep into her voice.
"Yeah. Actually, this afternoon we're heading to a ski resort. One night. Madam, Franc, Miho, Hiarid, Choi Soohan — everyone's going."
"Huh? R-right. A ski resort... That'll be fun. Have a good time."
For an instant, past the blank expression as it collapsed, I caught something. Envy? Jealousy? It looked angry, and it looked sad... complicated feelings, anyway, glimpsed and gone. It lasted less than a second. If I hadn't already been watching for it, I would have missed it.
Maybe my gaze had been too loaded. She spun the chair, cutting off my line of sight, and went back to the documents.
...Oh, come on.
I stepped in on her as she held the papers and reviewed them, snatched them out of her hands, and tossed them onto the desk. She flinched and looked up at me. Those eyes looked like a startled rabbit's. Thinking that, I caught her by the arm and shoulder and cast Space Leaping for the crest of the hill behind the house.
The world blinked once. Office became the middle of a thick stand of trees, and my sister let out a short scream and sat down hard.
"Kyaa!"
For a moment she looked dazed. Then the anger arrived. She set her hands on her hips and raised her voice a notch.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"
"I could ask you the same, Sis. What do you think you're doing?"
"What?"
At the counter, she made a face like she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"I'm asking why you keep trying to treat me so coldly. You've been like this for a while now."
"Cold, my foot. D-don't say weird things, and take me back to the office. Now."
Saying that, she looked around as if trying to work out where she was, and the gesture read like a refusal to talk to me at all. I started to get a little angry.
"No. Franc knows something. Hwayeon knows something. Neither of them will tell me. So I'm hearing it from you. Why do you keep pushing me away? If I did something wrong, I'll fix it, so just tell me."
I folded my arms, and when I brought up Franc and Hwayeon while looking at her, the shoulders of my sister — standing with her back to me — drew in for a moment, then settled back to where they had been.
She set her hands on her hips, turned to face me, and spoke.
"I haven't turned strange, and you haven't done anything wrong. This is a normal relationship between siblings. I said it last time, too. You're not a child anymore, and you have Franc and Hwayeon beside you, so there's no reason left for me to keep looking after you. That's all this is."
"You expect me to believe that? Do you know what your face looks like right now?"
"Ah— uh."
Only then did she catch herself. Both hands flew up to cover her face.
"Why do you look so sad? Because of wh— ah!"
She had been standing still with her face covered when she suddenly drew a deep breath, scattered black mist, and vanished from in front of me.
Shadow Jump?!
She appeared from a shadow under a tree more than seventy meters off, and then she was fleeing at a sprint, casting Shadow Jump again and again in succession!
Slosh?
"Why are you running?!"
She wasn't even going to have a proper conversation with me, and I was genuinely about to lose it. I tore after her at once, dodging trees left and right, and lunged for the spot where she was likely to appear next.
"Hup?!"
Eyes full of tears, she startled hard and cast Shadow Jump again. She's crying? No — forget that. More importantly—
"Hey! Where do you think you're going!"
"Don't say weird things!"
"I said let's talk!!"
"I said go have fun!!"
"How am I supposed to go have fun when your face looks like that!!"
She was leaping from shadow to shadow on Shadow Jump, and there was no way to get a hand on her.
If I fired off Space Leaping carelessly and overlapped her, there was no telling what would happen. So Space Leaping was out.
"Ah, seriously! These trees are in the way! I'll smash every last one of them!"
The trees blocking my path grated on me past all bearing. I hauled my Physical Reinforcement up hard and smashed every tree there was, charging like a tank. My sister glanced back at me, and with a look of pure exasperation, she cast Shadow Jump again.
But coincidence or something else, every time she cast Shadow Jump a tickle stirred inside my head, and from a certain moment on I began to feel as if I knew where she would appear.
An effect of Spatial Perception?
The instant I struck a tree as slender as my sister's waist and shattered it, she cast Shadow Jump again. I focused in that moment. There!
I sprang, and in the instant I came down where the sense pointed—
Fwump!
I threw a hand out toward the arm of my sister, appeared right in front of me.
"Ah!?"
But I was a step too late. Just before I could catch her, the startled woman scattered black mist and vanished, and a moment later she showed herself beneath a pine thirty meters ahead.
"Ah, seriously! I said stop running!!"
"Then stop chasing me!"
"Argh!"