The Aberrant Appears (3)

Franc seemed to feel how foolish it was, too. There was little cheer in her face when she spoke.

"Princess Lydia. Is it true they mean to try taking a Highest-Rank Variant with nothing but a single A-Class and a raid team?"

"Yes... I think their view is that TP runs thinner in reality than in the Phase World, so the aberrant will be somewhat weakened, and if they throw every cutting-edge scientific weapon at it, they have a chance."

Lydia, who perhaps hadn't expected Franc to address her, fumbled for a moment and then nodded.

"They can't even grasp the obvious—that if an aberrant weakens, humans weaken even more? People who never asked for this are going to die. Lydia. Could I get a copy of this photo, too?"

"Yes! And this is a gift for Sir Seoha."

Lydia nodded as if that went without saying and worked her Certifier, sending me two files. One of them wasn't a photo at all. It was a twenty-minute video.

This is...? I looked at Lydia, puzzled, but she was already speaking to Franc.

"Does Sister Franc believe America has no chance of winning?"

Franc glanced at me with a look that asked whether she was permitted to speak, so I nodded that it was fine.

"That's right. You saw the battle with the Grand Turtle not long ago yourself, Princess, but the latest modern missiles inflicted what amounted to no damage at all upon a Highest-Rank Variant. And though the concentration of Phase Power is lower than in the Phase World, we cannot even be certain that this functions as a penalty against an aberrant."

"Physical weapons at anti-ship missile level and below, at least, ought to be considered ineffective against a Highest-Rank Variant. Anyway, thanks for going out of your way to look into it."

I was grateful she'd brought the information like this, and she was cute, so I stroked her head just lightly enough not to muss her hair. She twisted in place and flushed.

Franc, watching Lydia's retreating back, quietly spoke.

"Will the second raid be all right?"

"It won't. I don't know what they're thinking. If they fail, they're on the open sea—they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can't even run—and nine times out of ten they'll be wiped out. I don't know what kind of ability user that A-Class is, but the odds are good that person dies too."

"I thought that once the fight with the Grand Turtle became public knowledge, people would have recognized how terrifying a Highest-Rank Variant is. Why make such a reckless choice...?"

"Might be because that fight got out, actually. Set against me taking it down with no flash, looking easy from the outside, and against a Grand Turtle whose physical defense is tremendous, the flying fish didn't look particularly sturdy. They may have underestimated it."

"As you say, the sight of you fighting the Grand Turtle was... how should one put it. It lacked any sense of reality. There was that."

Just because I can bring down a Highest-Rank Variant with a certain ease, I don't assume other people will catch one easily. I know perfectly well what level my strength sits at.

America pours a staggering sum into defense, so they might have built a new weapon that grafts energy extracted from Phase Stones onto modern armaments. That could even be why they want the remaining Seventh Fleet included in this second raid. Well—if they'd truly developed such a thing, the total annihilation in the first raid would be hard to understand. Anyway, you don't know what's under the lid until you open it. First I needed to check the footage I'd received through Lydia.

The moment I got home I flung my uniform jacket and school bag at Sophia and went straight to Hwayeon's office by Space Leaping. My sister happened to be there as well, so if I connected a call with Yeongeun, we could all watch the footage together.

The instant I appeared in the middle of Hwayeon's office, my sister flinched in surprise. I deliberately ignored it and spoke.

"Got a video from Britain through Lydia. Let's watch it together."

"A video? Is it related to the aberrant in the Pacific?"

"Lydia called it a gift, so the odds are good."

My sister, who had been hesitating, wore a puzzled look at the exchange passing between me and Hwayeon, then asked.

"That—the Pacific flying-fish aberrant?"

"Yeah. You hear about it from Hwayeon?"

I asked it plainly, sitting on the sofa as I placed the call to Yeongeun, and my sister—as if a work switch had been thrown—quietly nodded.

She sat across from me, Hwayeon sat beside her, and the call connected at just the right moment. Yeongeun's image rose in a hologram window against a conference room at the Blue House, the presidential residence.

"Got my hands on a twenty-minute video. Called so we could watch it together. Can you watch now?"

Whether it was thanks to how thoroughly I'd comforted that hole of hers in bed last night, Yeongeun's condition was tracing a healthy rise. She clapped twice and made the declaration from beyond the screen.

Amid the murmur filling the conference room, she moved to a lounge set off to one side, sat on a sofa, and spoke.

At that, I opened a second hologram window and played the twenty-minute file I'd received from Lydia.

The video opened on a torpedo boat being cut in half.

It was a large steel craft, mounted with two naval guns and an autocannon, and the flying-fish aberrant's wing took it like a laser cutter—clean through the center—and down it went. No cinematic fireball. The torpedo boat simply settled, slowly, into the sea. The footage seemed to have been shot from a great distance and wasn't particularly sharp, but it was clear enough to make out form and motion.

The flying-fish aberrant didn't bother hiding under the water. It rampaged without even dodging the ranged attacks of elemental ability users and physical-reinforcement ability users, skimming the surface so low it threw up spray, eight transparent wings scattering rainbows in the beating sun. It swung those wings like blades, batting the elemental users' rounds aside until they burst, and blocked the warships' gunfire and missile strikes as it skipped across the water.

Roughly the size of a destroyer, the flying fish fired a water cannon from a carp-like snout, and from the saw-toothed spines packed along its back it shot something transparent and glittering, sinking the fleet one vessel at a time. Another torpedo boat, struck by the water cannon from the Blade Flyer's maw, had the point of impact blown clean through and exploded in spectacular fashion. Hit a bad spot, maybe. In the same stretch, a destroyer that had been hurling Vulcan fire and missiles at the Blade Flyer from a distance was pierced by something glittering, and it exploded as well.

From three cruisers, missiles flew together with countless elemental rounds of wind, water, and earth loosed by the ability users. Moving at speed, the Blade Flyer evaded more than half of them, and even the missiles and Vulcan rounds that connected failed to punch through the beat of its eight wings, four to a side. Missiles, Vulcan fire, and elemental rounds embroidered the sky densely enough to call up a bullet-hell shooter. Ten minutes after the footage began, every destroyer, escort, and torpedo boat had sunk, all but a single cruiser.

That last ship threw itself into desperate evasive maneuvers and kept attacking, but the Blade Flyer charged the remaining cruiser as if at play, rammed it bodily, then swept its four pairs of wings and tore the ship to pieces. Afterward it roamed the surface, eating something and spitting it back out, over and over. It looked like it was eating the ability users. Three cruisers, five destroyers, seven torpedo boats—smashing all of them hadn't even taken fifteen minutes.

The footage must have been a shock. Even after playback ended, my sister, Franc, and Hwayeon didn't say a word. Didn't strike me as all that shocking, honestly.

Anyway, I'd been told ten B-Class ability users had been in that force, so it was a sure thing their deaths had made the flying-fish aberrant even stronger. Just as I had absorbed Ha Cheolsu's Phase Power, that flying fish would have eaten B-Class ability users of its own grade and taken their Phase Power in turn.

Then a sudden, ominous thought slipped out of me before I knew it.

"Don't tell me it's evolved a stage past Highest Tier..."

Hwayeon, who had been sitting there with a frown, lifted a brow at my muttering.

"What do you mean?"

"Huh? They said ten B-Class ability users took part in that raid. If the flying fish ate all of them, its Phase Power would have grown by at least seven million."

Not only Yeongeun—Hwayeon and my sister were staring at me, startled. What, they didn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠actually know?

"...When a person kills an aberrant and absorbs Phase Power, it's obvious an aberrant absorbs Phase Power if it kills an ability user. Don't tell me you didn't know."

As if she could hardly believe it, Yeongeun—rare for her—asked again.

"I saw it with my own eyes. When the Ability User Alliance building collapsed and so many ability users died, Phase Power spread out of that place like fog. And when Ha Cheolsu died, I absorbed the Phase Power that poured out of his body, too."

Yeongeun's face hardened in a frightening way at that, and I figured she truly hadn't known. How do you not know something like that?

She shot up from her seat and paced the lounge in a distracted scramble, back and forth, like someone whose mind had come apart.

Take 3.5 million as the floor and ten of them comes to 35 million. If aberrants are subject to the twenty-percent rule as well, Phase Power increases by 7 million. But there was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no way all ten sat at the B-Class minimum of 3.5 million, so if I estimated a little generously and the ten of them together came to around 100 million, Phase Power would shoot up by 20 million in an instant.

Franc, watching that restless pacing, spoke in a voice that trembled slightly.

"Shouldn't we tell America? According to the information Princess Lydia gave us, this time an A-Class ability user, the G.S. raid team, and the Pacific Fleet mean to sortie. If those people all die as well, the flying fish might surpass Highest Tier and become Transcendent-grade."

Having heard me out, Yeongeun spoke in a rush and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ended the call. I pulled my eyes from the hologram window as it vanished with a blip and turned to my sister, Franc, and Hwayeon. None of them could hide the shock on their faces.

"I never even thought of it," Hwayeon said. "An aberrant being able to absorb an ability user's Phase Power..."

"What shocks me more is that nobody thought of it in two hundred years. If someone dies in the middle of a Phase World raid, the person beside them absorbs the dead one's Phase Power. Your own Phase Power goes up. How can you not know that?"

"Well, of course," my sister said. "You're the only person in the world who can turn an aberrant's Phase Power into a number and actually read it. Think about the limits on absorption, too. If your Phase Power increases, all anyone thinks is that the aberrant they caught must have had a great deal of it. That's as far as it goes. And if you fail, you flee the scene or take losses close to annihilation, so you can never stay in one place long enough to keep watching."

There had to have been cases, though—crimes, where an ability user murdered another ability user. Hadn't there?

Franc looked at me, unable to hide her worry again, and spoke.

"Seoha. If it should come to fighting that flying fish... will you be all right?"

"I'll be fine. I upgraded Mana Bullet, didn't I? And if I have to face the flying fish this time, I'm taking Darky and Miho."

Miho was a High-Tier subspecies too. In ability she could match Highest Tier, and Darky went without saying. Hwayeon nodded beside me and added a word.

"Take the Mermaid's Pearl with you when you do."

"Yeah."

Come to think of it, wouldn't it be better to dominate that flying-fish aberrant, the Blade Flyer, with mental manipulation than the Rogue Imugi? Raise Miho and Hiarid to Highest Tier, dominate the Blade Flyer, and land, sea, and air would all fall into my hands. To do that, the Blade Flyer's Phase Power figure mattered. If that thing's Phase Power crossed 37 million, I wouldn't be able to lay mental manipulation on it with my own Phase Power. For now, I needed to wait and see how Yeongeun's talks with America went.

But are the scholars actually all idiots? If an ability user kills an aberrant and absorbs Phase Power, then an aberrant can kill an ability user and absorb TP. That's the same statement. How did they fail to consider that the reverse was also possible? They'd even figured out why aberrants hate ability users.

And that night, Yeongeun never clocked out.

Suhan and Sophia waking—folding the blankets, changing clothes—registered on Spatial Perception, and my brain climbed slowly out of sleep. Been a while, this. Waking because someone else's movement had caught on Spatial Perception.

A weight on my chest drew my eyes down. Hwayeon lay asleep sprawled over me, naked and good enough to eat. I rustled the blanket up over her and over Franc, who had claimed one of my arms, and turned toward the window.

Pitch black. The time... five in the morning already? I'd gone to bed without shutting Spatial Perception off, in case Yeongeun got off work, and in the end she never had.

The information I'd given her must have mattered to America as well. I thought of calling to ask how things stood, then couldn't bring myself to—afraid I'd get in the way of whatever she was doing.

Not even two weeks left until winter break, and this is when it blows up. I needed the Blade Flyer dealt with before vacation if I wanted to enter the Phase World with my mind at ease. Well. Better than the mess erupting while I was off grinding away in the Phase World, wasn't it?

Too halfway between to fall back asleep, I weighed what to do, then started slowly running my hands over Franc and Hwayeon where they slept. I stroked the small of Hwayeon's back—firm muscle under my palm, the hollows of the dimples above her hips—and kneaded Franc's plush, springy ass.

"......nnh......"

"Mmm... Seohaa..."

They rustled unconsciously and pressed in closer, and I answered by slipping a finger into Hwayeon's cleft and rubbing, and by lightly tracing the entrance of Franc's asshole. At the sensation abruptly waking their bodies, the two of them flailed, opened their eyes, and stared at me in a daze.

"Sleep well?"

"Nn... Seoha, honestly."

Franc got up with the air of a woman who had given up on correcting me, and wobbled into the bathroom. Hwayeon sat still with her eyes closed, not all the way out of sleep.

"If you don't get up, I'm pouncing."

"Urk. I-I'm up. I'm up."

Her legs still wouldn't take her weight, so she crawled across the bed on all fours, and that put the flex of her pelvis, her taut ass, and the pink inner flesh between her spread cleft right in front of my eyes. The urge surged to bury my nose there and breathe her in. If I did, Hwayeon would be tired in more ways than one, so I held back for now.

"Ah!"

The moment I slung her over my shoulder she snapped awake, bracing against my back and kicking her two deerlike legs, begging to be put down.

"Behave."

I said it with a smack across that moon-round backside. Hwayeon clamped her mouth shut and ground her elbow into the nape of my neck. Press. Press.

I took a morning bath with my lovers, came out, and was sitting in the living room watching the morning news when Miho, still drunk on sleep, walked out wearing nothing but a pajama top.

"Nnngh. Master, Franc, Hwayeon, g'morning..."

Watching her hug Darky tight in one arm and rub at her eyes, she looked like a middle-school girl clutching a doll. While the little thing sat between my legs, head bobbing as she dozed, Suhan and Sophia finished getting breakfast ready, and we all gathered to eat with the news still on. Nothing came up—no special report, no urgent bulletin. Only the usual. An actress's scandal, or a fuss over an idol's revealing outfit and dance moves that brought sex to mind.

"How long are they planning to sit on it? If it's bad enough Yeongeun can't even clock out, it can't be a minor issue."

I said it with my eyes on the TV, and Hwayeon—a mouthful of seasoned stir-fried shishito peppers, green and red tangled together—nodded slowly.

"Given Madam Yeongeun, who holds clocking out on the dot as a virtue, that point you passed along yesterday wasn't something America could easily wave off either. Figure the U.S. government makes an emergency announcement today or tomorrow."

"Wonder which way they'll jump."

"Rationally, asking you for help would be the correct choice, Seoha. But brains gathered into a collective intelligence are not, by that fact, guaranteed to choose correctly... As of now, there's no way to infer it."

While that none-too-light talk went back and forth, Darky stood on the dining table, personal fork held like a trident, staring down at a thick, golden-grilled Spanish mackerel bigger than he was, mouth working.

"The hell's this. Why'd they grill the meat."

"Raw meat's got the flavor of being raw, but grilled meat's got its own taste, the taste of grilled meat."

"Oho. That sounded like it actually meant somethin'."

"Try it. You'll feel how the taste is different, too."

Heh. Miho doesn't even know the difference between meat and fish, and here she was putting on this cute little expert act, lifting a big flake of the golden-crisp grilled mackerel with her chopsticks and pushing it at Darky. He glared at it, then cautiously took a piece of the flesh.

"Mmph! Yeah, the breaking-it-down taste is the real thing! De-de... delicious?"

Working his mouth in that awkward English, Darky set to hacking the grilled mackerel apart with his fork and greedily stuffing it in, bone and flesh without distinction.