Day Nine: Crisis (2)
Splash!!
The instant I hit the water, a violent current seized me and swept me away.
A cold so sharp it felt as if my heart were contracting wrapped my whole body, but my head was packed with rage, and it shoved that sensation aside to spit out fury in a steady stream.
That goddamned snake! A worm of a bastard I could chew to shreds and still not feel satisfied!
Right now, the only thing I'm trusting is Search.
The swimming strokes and breathing techniques stored in my memory began to take solid shape in my mind through Analysis, and I thrashed my arms and legs to match them.
Please—let my hypothesis be right!!
Snakes are cold-blooded. The colder the body, the harder it is to move.
Of course, that snake bastard might play the madman and drop lightning, or hold its temperature with Phase Power. Watching it carve through the current as it came, though, there was a good chance none of that would matter... and yet.
I can't give up on Franc!!
I didn't do anything hostile. I only ran. So it won't attack me!
"Pwah!"
Kicking and stroking my way to the surface, I sucked in a breath and—following the form rising in my head, reading my own movement through Detection—swam for the waterfall.
In truth I didn't even need to swim. The terrifyingly fast current was shoving me toward the falls with every passing second.
Ordinarily this would be enough to freeze a man with fear, but Search was feeding me the surroundings in real time, and that diluted the dread considerably.
Search really is the best, isn't it?
Thanks to it, even in the racing water I could hold my posture without much strain, steady my breathing, and give my body over to the current.
My heart was pounding so hard it was insanely thrilling. Staking your life for a woman you've come to love—that's a romance any man would want to try at least once!
The thirty meters to the cliff closed in an instant, and I swallowed hard at the sight of the falls rushing nearer by the second.
KWA-GOGOGOGO...!!!!
The roar of the waterfall punched through the slap of water against my ears. Listening to it, the base of my spine tingled...!
I drew a deep breath. I wanted to look back and see what the Imugi was doing, but I stopped myself. Meet its eyes and I'd freeze all over again, a frog before a snake.
Then came the sensation of weightlessness.
I'm counting on you, Search!!
On my ninth day in the Phase World, I was swept into my second plunge off a cliff.
I squeezed my eyes shut and locked into the water-entry posture I'd learned at marine training camp.
A strange buoyancy, as if my guts were being lifted, wrapped my whole body—and then, just as quickly, crushing water pressure closed in, and thunder roared in my ears.
KWARURURURURURUK!!!
Kh. This sound, like lightning striking right against my ears... it's been a long time.
Even as the falling water hammered me from above, I never took my hands off my nose and mouth, so I managed not to exhale, and water never forced its way up my nose. Sure enough—a person has to try a bit of everything!
Bits of wood and stones riding the current hit me a few times, but I made it down without any serious injury.
The pressure of the falls was still pinning me, though. The terrifying volume of water pouring over me beat me the way a sack stuffed full of water would.
I had to get clear of the waterfall as fast as possible. Otherwise I'd be pounded under it and never surface until the falls themselves ran dry.
And that, obviously, meant my death.
But the current...! Kh, I can't hold my posture!
I begged my heart—thudding away, burning oxygen at a furious rate—to please just calm down, and spun a Search scan through my body like a madman. Astonishingly, my heart began to settle, little by little.
Once Search had grasped my situation in an instant, I forced my mind as calm as I could and, taking the pounding of the falls, started to move while clinging to the bottom beneath them.
I can do this. I can do this!
With the lay of the land for eighty meters in every direction mapped inside my head, the steadiness it gave me was no joke.
Call it the feeling of playing a virtual-reality game of incredible realism. A VR game with a single life—die in there, and you die for real!
Get caught in the whirlpools born where the falls struck, or in the eddies spinning between the trees that somehow stayed rooted even now, and it would be the end. Literally.
I pushed Detection out to its maximum of eighty meters until my brain started to overload, analyzing the whirlpools forming on every side. Analysis marked the routes threading between them.
That meant I could avoid being torn to shreds in a vortex... but the problem was breathing.
I was running out of air, and fast.
Becoming an ability user had increased my lung capacity, so I could act underwater longer than an ordinary person—but I was still inside human limits. And moving, of course, only burned oxygen faster.
I didn't rush. I crawled the way Analysis told me to, and now and then let the flow shove my body along in long glides, and the feeling of the falls beating on me dropped off sharply.
The moment it did, Analysis pointed out a route toward safety. I followed it, working hands and limbs to lift my body, and swam in the direction it indicated while crushing down the urgency as hard as I could.
I-it's fine! If I can't breathe, I can swallow a little water! It's muddy, but drinking it won't kill me!
Shuddering at the way my lungs clenched, screaming for fresh air, I felt the falls push until the current wrapped my body and began to carry me.
The instant I broke completely free of the waterfall's pressure—the instant I felt the current shove me from behind—I thrashed both arms and both legs like a madman.
"Puk-heok!! Kehek, kuluk-kuluk! Uweeeek!!"
I'd swallowed something like two liters, but I got my head above the surface in one piece—and the moment I opened my eyes, I saw Franc flying about with tears pouring down her face.
She seemed to be looking for me. Why did that pained, sorrowful, heartbroken expression fill me with such relief?
"Haha. Franc, I'm over here."
She must have caught my voice. Franc, already turning back toward the cliff, whipped her head around, flew straight at me, and made a face like she might burst into tears any second.
Even a Franc wearing that expression was beautiful, I thought, as I checked the direction that would let me slip the whirlpools and started swimming again.
The goal was to get as far from the cliff as I could.
Rain pouring as if the sky had a hole torn in it, and water stealing my body heat. Both would erase scent and temperature, which might help against an ordinary snake—but that Rogue Imugi was an Aberrant, so who knew.
It was a Rogue Imugi chasing me for Franc's Soul Stone. Which meant that while that thug of a thing crawled along at its leisure, I had to run as far as I possibly could.
Fortunately, the water here was eleven meters deep. That Imugi's body, by comparison, was twenty-four meters thick. I hadn't sensed and analyzed the thing directly, but if I compared the height of the trees to the Rogue Imugi's height...
Anyway! If that Imugi comes down below the cliff, half its body will be underwater and it'll lose heat. And between the water and the trees, moving will be hard for it too!
So I need to head for somewhere the gaps between the trees are narrow and the water runs deep.
Damn it. Shame the current's this slow. If it were as fast as it was above the cliff, I'd cover ground in no time. Then again—would the Imugi just chase me down faster if it were?
Past the trial of the falls, through the safe pockets between the whirlpools, I swam with everything I had to get clear of the danger.
I was working my arms and legs hard to put as much distance as I could between myself and the Imugi when my head suddenly went zzzt—and the world in front of my eyes wavered.
...Huh? My Search range grew again!
The range had expanded by twenty-four meters, out to 104. With my eyes open, Detection reached 34.6 meters! On top of that, Telescopic Vision had jumped as well—I could see out to 450 meters!
My ability improving in a crisis like this. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I'd laugh! Heh heh heh!
When I started snickering, Franc—floating above my head and moving along with me—looked even more like she was about to cry. So I shouted.
"Franc! My ability improved!"
Even at that happy news she couldn't smile. She only cried, fingers laced together, her face asking why I hadn't abandoned her and jumped.
"I'll protect you, Franc. Looking after a crybaby princess is a man's— my role."
At my words Franc clenched her fists as if she were angry, shook them furiously, and started crying all over again. Heh. So she could make a face like that too.
Anyway, at the very edge of my Detection range I spotted a chunk of log about the size of my torso drifting along, and I headed for it.
I had no idea how far I'd have to swim. Given my poor skill and what was left of my stamina, swimming on my own was as good as suicide.
In other words, a log light enough to float would do just fine as a lifeline.
I swam hard toward the piece of timber, and only then did Franc seem to notice it too. She flew up onto it, clasped her hands tight, and sent me a look that said hang in there.
After a short stretch of swimming I finally caught the log and leaned on it to catch my breath, and only then did I feel like I might actually live. There was no time to rest, though.
Using the log like a swim kickboard, I started forward, and it was definitely easier. I even had the spare attention to look back toward the cliff. The mist raised by the rain made it hard to see... but it seemed the Imugi hadn't arrived yet.
I'd covered more than a hundred meters in a few minutes, and Detection didn't even reach the cliff anymore. To check I'd have to turn and look back with Telescopic Vision, but if I kept glancing over my shoulder, my swimming would slow. I couldn't afford that.
"Franc."
When I spoke, she came down to the surface and brought her face close. It was a mess of tears. I wanted to wipe them away.
"Stay with me, and watch whether the Imugi is coming."
She nodded with a grim, resolute expression and started to fly up into the sky, so I reached for her in a hurry.
"No! Don't go far—just watch from beside me! If it comes, signal me with your hands. I'm counting on you!"
Hearing that, she came back down and began moving with me, keeping watch on what lay behind.
Come to think of it, I dropped the formal speech with Franc without meaning to... and she seemed to take it naturally, didn't she?
I'm in the middle of fleeing a Rogue Imugi over a hundred and fifty meters long, but something like a confession seems to have gotten through, and that makes me glad. Ahem.
Now I just have to get away from the Imugi... I do wonder, though, how far that thing's Phase Power detection actually reaches.
Curiosity is curiosity. For now, kick hard and run far!
After about thirty minutes of nonstop kicking, my thighs felt ready to burst. But the moment I stopped would be the moment I lost Franc, and thinking that, I could endure it even though it hurt.
A fair amount of time passed like that, and still the Imugi didn't appear.
My thigh muscles ached as if they were tearing, and my stomach and lower back had gone stiff and throbbed, but for some reason Phase Power was spinning madly through my body, so I could still hold on.
When I'd fallen from the waterfall it had suddenly started to rotate, and thanks to that my physical ability seemed to have climbed a little more... this wasn't a bad thing, was it?
In the meantime Franc had calmed. She'd stopped crying and was watching the cliff without blinking once, waiting to see when the Imugi would come. She was a ghost, so she didn't need to blink anyway!
She seemed to find it strange that the Imugi still hadn't shown itself. Tilting her head, she moved out ahead of me so she could keep both me and the cliff in view at once, and the posture looked a little like she was doing the backstroke without actually moving. Oddly fascinating.
"Wow. Seeing your pretty face, Franc, I feel my strength coming right back."
At that she covered her face with both hands, embarrassed.
There was a hint of scolding in it—what are you saying at a time like this?—but I could see she was pleased too, and that pleased me. If my praise made her happy, that meant she liked me.
...It did mean she liked me, right?
After that, as if conscious of what I'd said, Franc watched the cliff without ever leaving my field of view. My eyes were happy for it, and she seemed aware of me, which gave me strength. Two birds with one stone.
If I hadn't even had a moment like this to catch my breath in my head, it would have been harder still.
Even so, my mind stayed drawn taut, and the premonition that I hadn't escaped the Imugi refused to fade.
"Still, it's strange the Imugi isn't following. Thirty minutes should have been more than enough for it to reach the cliff. Maybe being in the water is slowing it down?"
Franc nodded at my words, then put on a worried face—and, catching herself under my gaze, quickly brightened her expression. It was obvious she was forcing the cheer, which was a little pitiful, and a little cute...
I stared at that face for a moment, then grinned and said:
"I heard if you force your expression, your face muscles lock up later and you end up making weird faces. It'd be funny if that pretty face of yours froze into something that ridiculous, Franc."
Flustered, she scrubbed at her face with her hands. Watching her, a helpless, doting smile pulled at my mouth of its own accord.
Then her face went rigid, and she raised a trembling hand to point behind me.
"Yeah. Got it."
It's here.
I didn't stop kicking. I only turned my head a little and looked back toward the cliff. Up on the cliff, grown small with distance, something like a thin spit stood planted.
That would be the Rogue Imugi.
Ugh, don't come down, please, please! Don't come! Go back!
I'd heard certain snakes are terrifyingly fast in water. Sea snakes, especially, had evolved for swimming.
Honestly I couldn't have said what made a sea snake different from an ordinary one, but if something that size started driving itself in an S-curve, the distance I'd opened over dozens of minutes would close in an instant. The thought scared me.
My heart hammered and my chest lurched. Terrified it might dive in, I kept swimming and watched the Imugi without blinking once, even as the rain drove into my eyes.
The stick went back and forth along the top of the cliff, as if it were deliberating what to do.
Then it held still for a long while.
BOOM!!
"Guhk!"
A flash of light, and a shock slammed into me as if my heart would stop.
Flash! KWA-RURUNG!
"Kyaak!!"
Flash! KUUUNG!
"Kkuk!"
Flash-flash! KWAGWANG, KURURURUNG!!
"Kkeueok!"
I-I'm going to die!!
The choice the Rogue Imugi had made was to drop lightning without discrimination.
The bolts didn't seem to reach where I was; they were simply stabbing down into the water. But every time they did, current punched through my whole body, through my heart, and foam filled my mouth.
My entire body trembled, and my jaw locked so tight it wouldn't open. On top of that my body had gone rigid, and I couldn't move, I couldn't—!
Flash! Flash-flash-flash! Flash!
Kurung! Kururu, boom-boom!
"...!"
I couldn't even scream. My whole body had stiffened like a log, and once I could no longer swim, I began to sink slowly beneath the surface.
Even as I sank, waves of current I couldn't begin to count stabbed through me and passed on. Being boiled by electricity underwater, a sudden fire erupted in my chest—fierce resistance, and rage surging all the way to the top of my head.
You... son of a bitch, you think I clawed and scraped my way through life just to die like this!!!
"Bugururururuk!!"
Whether it was the ball of fire born in my chest or the electricity passing through me, the Phase Power that had been rotating near my heart suddenly spread through my entire torso. Its speed jumped as well—three times what it had been, five.
The faster the Phase Power spun, a cool clarity wrapped my heart, and the arms and legs that had lain paralyzed—my body—began to move at my will.
I was startled by the overflowing vitality filling me, but Franc, sinking alongside me, was sobbing her heart out, so I hurriedly worked my limbs and shot up to the surface. She came after me, wailing.
"Puhak! Kuluk-kuluk! You dare make my Franc cry?! Just you wait, you Imugi bastard!!"
Hearing my shout, Franc hiccuped and made some bizarre expression I couldn't even parse. Then she pressed her clasped hands hard against her chest and burst into tears all over again. Comfort could wait. I grabbed the log and started kicking like a madman.
The moment I began to swim, the Phase Power that had been whirling fast only through my torso flowed down into both legs. In that instant the thighs that had felt like they were on fire cooled, strength surged into my legs, and my speed increased.
Wh-what is this? Normally, even if your legs get stronger, all you get is a worse splash??
While I was still reeling, the Phase Power kept spinning faster. The more it did, the more strength went into my legs, and my speed climbed again...
Then, at some point, a set amount of Phase Power moved out to my skin and formed something like a single membrane.
Why are they doing this? When I tried to force them to move, they wouldn't budge an inch...
Flash flash flash flash flash flash...
In that moment the dark sky, dumping its downpour, began to flicker ominously. No lightning fell. No thunder sounded. It only flashed, like someone switching a fluorescent light on and off.
I swallowed hard at the ill omen.
KWA-GOGOGOGWANG!! KWARURURURUNG...! KWA-GOGOGOGANG!!
"KYAAAAAAAH!!!"
Lightning fell like it had gone insane!
As if it had decided to kill me, bolts were stabbing into the water at nearly two a second. But whether it was thanks to the Phase Power circulating over my skin, the impact dropped to the level of a sharp little sting, like being nipped by a clothespin.
I can endure this much!
And besides!!
Thanks to the shock, I've figured out how to move Phase Power!!
The catch was that Phase Power was dropping by five a minute, and by three every time a shock passed through me. At this rate I wouldn't last long. So while it held, I had to get as far away as I could!
The mad Imugi, dumping lightning until the surroundings blazed bright for dozens of seconds, stopped the instant it saw I was barely affected and was actually swimming faster.
U-uneasy. Like the calm before a storm...
The sense of crisis rang so violently through my head that something dangerous felt incoming. Unconsciously I ran all my Phase Power out to my skin—then flinched, pulled only two-thirds of it to the skin, and left the remaining third circulating inside my body.
The instant I did—
KKUAAAAAAAAANG!!
"...!!!"
Kh... heok.
Kuluk. Keok. Keok.
Something like the toll of a great temple bell filled the sky, and my vision went white. Analysis returned a result: if I hadn't circulated Phase Power to my skin, my organs would have cooked and I'd be dead, and if I'd sent all of it to the skin, the shock would have stopped my heart.
And what remained of my Phase Power had dropped to 55.
My whole body shook uncontrollably. But I didn't stop. I forced my legs to move, caught the log again, and started swimming.
Heh. Heh heh. You fucking Imugi bastard.
Just you wait.
For real... Th-this grudge. I won't... forget it...
My heartbeat was irregular, and it hurt like my heart was about to stop. My mind was blank, and my whole body tingled.
Swimming on instinct, I desperately kept what Phase Power I had left in circulation, and I could feel my body recovering, very slowly.
Flash!
Kwarung!
"Kkehek."
...Ugh...
In a moment of carelessness a single bolt fell, and my mind went hazy.
My breathing roughened. My body prickled. The heartbeat that had been settling fell back into an irregular stutter.
Kuluk. Kkuh... Huuk... Hueu... Heu... Heu...
...
...
Shaaaaaaaa.
...Ngh. Huh?
A sound like rain, close to white noise, poured into my ears. Thanks to that my blurred mind came back to some degree and my eyes opened—but I was still dizzy, and my head hurt.
I looked around through the daze... and what met my eyes was a water surface stretching from one end of my vision to the other, with only the tips of trees poking up here and there.
"...Kek!"
The realization that my legs had kept stroking up and down, swimming against my will, hit me—and only then did both legs stop. Pain crashed in as if the muscles, both legs, were tearing apart, as if every single cell were about to burst.
"Kkeu... heh heh heh."
I clung to the log so I wouldn't sink and endured the agony, and only then did the memory of what had happened start to come back. That last single bolt must have half-knocked me out, and I'd kept swimming unconsciously, just kicking my legs up and down.
Hanging from the piece of log and catching my breath, I felt something off and looked around.
"Eh—eh?!"
Search isn't working?!
I flailed in shock, and pain like everything below my waist being ripped to shreds crashed over me!
"Kkeueueuk."
I... I'm done for...
Tears, snot, and cold sweat poured as I suffered pain beyond comprehension, and then my mind snapped—
Huuuuuk.
...clear, and, huh?
A sound like wind blowing rose in my head, and Search began to function normally.
Ah—ahh! Is this how you do it?
Huuuk.
...Shaaaaaaaa.
The sound of air leaking rang through my head again. The noises around me stopped, then returned. And Search shut off.
"S-so this is how."
When I turned Search on with a feeling like flipping a switch, a hemisphere extended far out around me and the surroundings were detected. I used it to check that there was nothing nearby I needed to watch for, then—thinking of my Phase Power, which had hit rock bottom—swept every direction with Telescopic Vision in the shortest time I could manage.
Aside from the forest sunk underwater, there was nothing special. No living creatures either, once you set aside plants like trees and grass.
I let out a sigh of relief. If even one more bolt had fallen, I'd have died. Another miracle, for real.
Ha. You piece-of-shit Rogue Imugi.
"Eugeuk..."
I ground my teeth, and pain climbed my spine again until spit dripped from my mouth. But even with my whole body feeling as if it were tearing apart, I was overjoyed that I could now turn Search on and off.
"N-now I'll be able to sleep."
One worry, crossed off.
If I told Franc, she'd be happy for me as if it were her own good news. Seeing her bright face and that beautiful smile, I felt as if even this pain would ease a little.
But...
...?
Huh?
"F-Franc?"
Where's Franc??
"Franc?!"
I looked all around.
"Franc!!"
I looked at the sky. I looked into the water.
Franc was nowhere to be seen.