A Simple Plan, Nothing Special (2)
The Ability Users Association's Busan branch stood in Nam-gu, the city's southern district. I'd heard it was the second-largest building in Korea, so I'd let myself look forward to it a little — only to be let down by how few floors it actually had.
Seoul headquarters still ran to something like a hundred and twenty stories. The Association building in Nam-gu was eighty: a giant of roughly thirteen hundred feet, but eighty all the same. Height was height, though. From anywhere in Busan, that building would probably catch the eye.
Come to think of it, I'd read online that the reason they insisted on these high-rises — wide open to attack, miserable for security — was to plant a symbol of ability users where citizens could see it, and steady their hearts and minds that way. After the Ha Cheolsu terror attack, people had started asking whether there was any point in pouring that kind of money into clinging to skyscrapers.
There'd been criticism, too, that when the Grand Turtle nuzzled the place, the building had slumped helplessly to the ground and, in the falling, crushed homes and driven the death toll up. Then Aran Shaker, Director-General of the Ability Users Association, had answered.
At that, whoever had first opened their mouth had apparently whimpered and gone quiet.
That handsome older man, warm-looking enough to melt something, had a tongue like a blade once he used it. He'd done the same to a Japanese reporter during the Japan incident, hadn't he? In any case, the building's shape was close enough to the headquarters in Seoul that it felt familiar.
Where was the Branch Chief? I swept the Busan branch from the ground up with Spatial Perception and found him on the top floor, deep in talk with a B-class sensory-type ability user whose Phase Power sat at 4.72 million.
The sensory user was a middle-aged woman, soft in the face and full of a gentle femininity. Was she the director of the Busan branch?
I drew close to their floor and rapped the glass like a knock. The Branch Chief turned this way — and jolted.
Why was he so startled?
The woman seated across from him turned at his reaction, saw Franc and me stuck to the window, and showed a flicker of surprise herself. Even her surprise looked elegant. Dignified. Give Franc a few more years, and she'd probably look just like that.
The surprise passed quickly. As if she already knew who I was, the beautiful woman of middle years smiled faintly, rose, and came toward the pane I was pressed against. I'd never seen a woman whose hips didn't move when she walked. A woman's pelvis is wider than a man's; take a step, and the hips sway. That's just how the body is built. This woman showed none of it. Her gait was so quiet, so still, that it was nothing but elegance and poise.
Then it occurred to me that dropping in unannounced like this might be rude.
"Think we can just walk in?"
I muttered it as she drew near. Franc shook her head.
"It would be better to ask permission. Coming upon them so suddenly is already an impropriety..."
"Y-yeah. You're right. I should've called from the entrance."
Hesitating, I snuck a glance at the woman, nearly upon us now. Franc smiled small, phased only part of her body through the glass, and addressed her with careful courtesy.
"I am terribly sorry to call on you so suddenly. Our Chairman has an urgent matter to put before the Branch Chief, and has presumed to come despite the impropriety. He wished me to ask whether we might enter. Would that be permissible?"
"Oh my. Of course. Please, come in."
The moment I'd read the exchange from their lips, I caught Franc and appeared before the woman by Space Leaping. She smiled, thoroughly impressed.
"So that is the Grand Blue Chairman's Space Leaping. An ability that bends principle itself, and yet the Phase Power moves as quietly as flowing water. Seeing it in person, remarkable feels too worn a word for how splendid it is."
Huh? She could sense Phase Power too?
I looked at her — a neat bob, not a hair out of place — with a touch of surprise, and Franc, beside me, asked in a startled voice.
"Might you be sensing Phase Power?"
"Oh my, nothing of the sort. I only receive the faintest feeling that Phase Power has moved."
Ah. So she was simply gifted in her senses.
"Ah. I see."
At Franc's surprise, the woman offered an elegant smile and guided the two of us to the sofa.
Following behind her, I glanced around. The room was broad — some twenty-five hundred square feet — and spare: a solid-wood desk for work, a reception sofa, a few large decorative plants. That was all. The walls were entirely glass, so Busan's streets and both the eastern and southern seas fell into view at a glance. It had a beauty distinct from home.
Standing beside the Branch Chief, she invited us to sit across from them. I dipped my head and took the seat. He'd been looking at me with open displeasure since the moment he spotted me, and now he let out a deep sigh. I cocked a look up at him. He simply closed his eyes.
I'd donated the proceeds from selling the Grand Turtle's corpse, just as he'd wanted. What was there to be unhappy about? I thought that — but I knew the real reason. Even so, I didn't feel like letting it pass. More precisely, I wanted to needle him. So I asked, grinning.
"Wow. If you can't manage a welcome, do you have to look at me with that sour a face?"
"Every time your face shows up, another one or two of the Association's talents walk out the door. How am I supposed to be glad about that? Busy as you are, you came all the way out here — who are you here to poach? What are you trying to tear off me?!"
Heh. If that was the first thing he thought when he saw me, he'd been under some real stress.
"Ahaha. It's not like I show up to poach talent every single time. Today I just came to ask a few things."
"...Really? You're not here to steal people?"
"Come on. Have you spent your whole life getting taken for a ride? I really did come to ask one thing today."
I answered his suspicious stare with a grin, and the woman who'd been listening beside us smiled brightly and spoke to him.
"Hyunwoo, you mustn't show such an ill-tempered face to a guest who's come from so far."
"Hngh."
"See? She says you mustn't."
He bowed his head without a word of protest. I teased him, still grinning, and the Branch Chief rubbed the back of his neck, let out a pained groan, and opened his mouth again.
"Well. That's behind us. I saw the size of the donation you made. Honestly, I didn't think you'd give that much. Set aside the way you keep poaching the Association's people, and I thought you were an ability user worthy of respect after all. It's overdue, but — thank you."
"Uh. Mm. We can leave it at that."
I'd expected him to flare up at the teasing. Sincere gratitude instead left me a little wrong-footed.
More than that — the way he followed the softly smiling woman's words so readily, she had to matter to him. Who was she, to handle the Branch Chief with a single sentence?
As much to exchange names as anything, I inclined my head toward her and spoke.
"I've been slow with the greeting. I'm Jung Seoha. I hold the title of Master of Grand Blue."
"I've heard a great deal about you. I am Yoon Haehwa, advisor to the Branch Chief of the Korean headquarters, and serving as director of the Busan branch. It is an honor to meet the renowned Chairman of Grand Blue."
"An honor? I haven't done anything grand enough to be told that."
Renown I had — notoriety, more like — but an honor? I gave a small wave, playing modest, and Madam Haehwa answered with a smile as soft as spring blossoms.
"Hehe. Just as Hyunwoo said, you are a humble man. To Japan you may be an unspeakably wicked person, but here in Korea you are a hero without equal. You are more than entitled to the word."
Well. She didn't mince words. Madam Haehwa brushed a strand of hair back over her ear, turned toward Franc, and inclined her head once more.
"And this young lady must be the spirit who is always at the Chairman's side. It is a pleasure to meet you."
Franc said nothing. She only returned the greeting with a formal, slight bow from the waist. The Branch Chief, who had been gazing at her, turned his eyes back and fixed me with a look that still hadn't shed all its suspicion.
"Right. What did you come to ask? If you've got a question, ask it and go home."
"Wow. Pretty cold, for a guest who came all this way on purpose."
"Cold or not — you only ever look for me when you need something!"
He cut in with the scolding, and I only smiled, a little deflated. Madam Haehwa laughed softly and rose.
"Oh my, where is my head. Guests have come, and I haven't even offered tea. I'll prepare some. Please, speak freely."
I watched her back as she opened the door and left, then looked at the Branch Chief, calming himself over a cup of yellow chrysanthemum tea. Had she stepped out on purpose, to give us the room? Either way, he had no love for idle talk — straight as fire — so I went right to the point.
"Chief. How did you pour four million TP into an Elemental Cluster?"
He lowered his teacup. As if trying to read the intent behind the question, he studied me in silence, then leaned back against the sofa.
"Planning to swallow my secret technique for free, are you?"
"Huh? Secret technique? That was a secret technique?"
When the Grand Turtle had unleashed its Big Bang, the Elemental Cluster it fired into my Wall of Space hadn't struck me as anything special. Maybe that showed, because the Chief's brow drew in.
"You just thought it was nothing, didn't you. You're the abnormal one, bursting upper-rank and Peak-Rank aberrants dead in a single strike. At my level, this is perfectly respectable."
Nothing got past him. I smiled, sheepish, and he looked at me with displeasure before carefully setting the cup down.
"Strange, that someone with a monstrous ability would covet a secret technique he finds unimpressive. Why?"
"What's strange about wanting to get stronger? I just feel like I might not have enough strength for what I have to do, so I'm trying to get stronger."
"Stronger than you already are?"
"Yeah. There's someone I need to pay back several times over, and that thing's a bit strong."
I said it with the Rogue Imugi in mind. The Branch Chief stared at me a moment, then brushed down his arm as if sweeping off a chill.
"Anyone who makes an enemy of you isn't going to sleep easy."
"So long as they don't try to kill me, or lay a hand on my family, there's no one safer than I am. Anyway — if that's your secret technique, then I suppose I can't ask."
If it was a secret art, I couldn't just demand he teach it. Look into it on my own, then? I'd seen the Grand Turtle shrug off Mana Bullets and the Wall of Space without much trouble. Going into the Phase World like this felt a little uneasy. Even the sword-aura Mana Bullets I fired with the Heavenly Gathering Clouds Sword had only left scratches.
I was wondering whether I ought to offer something in exchange when the Branch Chief said what I hadn't expected.
"No reason it can't be done."
"Wait. Really?"
"The principle of my secret technique is simple. Anyone who knows it can attempt it — but that doesn't mean just anyone can use it. It isn't the realm of aptitude. It's the realm of talent. I kept quiet because I didn't care to pass it to just anyone. If the first one I truly pass it to is the Chairman of Grand Blue, I can hold my head up."
Whoa. I stared at him, startled. He swept his black hair — shot through, here and there, with a fiery red — back with a flourish, and held out his right hand.
"You know the Phase Power operation technique, I assume."
"You keep your own type in mind and wish for it hard, the way you move your body. Right?"
I'd been too stingy to spend three-quarters of a million dollars on it at the technique shop, but through Hwayeon, Yeongeun, Suhan, and Sophia I'd heard the outline of what the technique was.
To put it simply: a person moves their body because they want to. Almost no one knows the exact principle. The brain sends a signal, muscle contracts and relaxes, and the limbs move. That much is common knowledge. Dig any deeper — into the primitive question of how the brain's signal comes to be in the first place — and most people would have to admit they don't know. Extend that to the involuntary muscles, and aside from someone who's studied the thing, no one could explain it.
Using the Phase Power operation technique was the same as moving your body. My Mana Sieve let me control it whenever I wanted, however I wanted, the way I moved an arm or a finger. The operation technique, by comparison, was as simple as flipping a light switch. On, off. Light, dark. That was all it was.
"Right. But I didn't stop there. I thought a little deeper. The operation technique — if will can turn the movement of Phase Power on and off, then couldn't that same will compress it further?"
It brought back the first time around, when I'd tried everything to move the Phase Power inside my body. Only after the Rogue Imugi's baptism of lightning had I been able to move it as I pleased. Before that, no amount of trying had worked.
"So whenever I had a spare moment, I tried. Again and again, at all hours. And I succeeded. But it was only half a success. All it let me do was pour an absurd amount of TP into an elemental shot. I could regulate the amount of TP by will, but..."
"But?"
"Ahem. What comes after that is another matter. Anyway. You have the point?"
"Believe in the power of will?"
"Simple to say. Difficult to do. I taught it to a few people I trusted, and not one of them succeeded."
Ah. So that was why he'd called it the domain of talent. Effort was a kind of talent, too.
...Wait. Hold on.
"What? You said you'd be passing it to me first, but you've already taught other people?"
"...Ahem. Anyway, what I felt when I succeeded was that Phase Power seemed to be sucked into the elemental shot. Keep that in mind while you train."
There he goes, changing the subject.
Anyway — he was saying you compressed an elemental shot just by wishing hard. How was that any different from moving TP with Mana Sieve and condensing it into a Mana Bullet?
Franc, who'd listened beside me, tilted her head. Then, as if something had come to her, she closed her eyes and quietly focused.
"...Miss Evans seems to have realized something. You felt nothing?"
Just then Madam Haehwa came in herself, a tray of tea in her hands. I glanced at her gentle smile, looked down at my palm, formed a Mana Bullet, and condensed into it every bit of TP I had. The Branch Chief's eyes flew wide, as if shock might split them.
He stared, struck senseless, at the Mana Bullet that had deepened past blue into black. Madam Haehwa, too, looked at the bullet hovering over my hand with trembling eyes.
I was cramming in TP and compressing it with everything I had, but it wouldn't condense past a hundred thousand. Force it any further and it had the feel of a thing about to burst with a sharp pop, so I let the gathered TP go.
Phase Power sucked into the elemental shot, he'd said? Hmm...
The compressed Mana Bullet vanished. A small wind spread out from me and stirred Madam Haehwa's hair. The feeling seemed to bring her back to herself, and she asked, carefully.
"Chairman. Did you grasp Hyunwoo's secret technique the moment you heard it?"
"Huh? No. This is my own ability. A Mana Bullet. It looks similar, but it's something else."
"Ah..."
No need to explain in detail. I didn't mind if it became known. I just hated the hassle.
What I'd wanted was a way to raise a Mana Bullet's cohesive force. What the Branch Chief had given me seemed to be nothing more than simply condensing Phase Power, and I was a little disappointed. I'd expected something grander, hearing it called a secret technique.
The reason I wanted that cohesion higher was Darky.
Darky had called a Mana Bullet a concept a full dimension above its own power to decompose — and yet it had slipped through the Grand Turtle's body with ease, the same body my Mana Bullets couldn't touch, and simply taken that thick shell apart. Mine hadn't been able to.
That was why cohesion had come to mind. When a Mana Bullet struck an aberrant, it exploded, and the blast burst outward like a wormhole, ran along the skin of a creature wrapped in an energy field, and vanished. So the difference between my Mana Bullet and Darky, I'd thought, was cohesion. How densely it was packed into a single space. How tightly it was condensed.
The Wall of Space, which Darky had called its equal, had easily melted things a Mana Bullet couldn't damage. Against those whose Phase Power was high enough to resist the wall, I'd stacked it dozens of times over the same spot and squashed them flat. Striking one place again and again had, in effect, raised its cohesion.
But the Branch Chief had no ability to judge the nature or the character of Phase Power, so he likely didn't know. It had never been shared widely enough for many minds to work it over, either.
The power of will... It didn't seem entirely unrelated.
I'd have to think on it a while.