Picking a Fight Will Piss Off Even a Sleeping Bear (2)

"The chairman of Grand Blue ought to cultivate an eye for which way the current is running."

"Sounds like that's an eye you ought to cultivate, sir. Don't you think? I mean, sure, I'm a B-Class. I just never imagined anyone would look at me and file me with every other B-Class ability user out there."

I sneered it back with a look every bit as sharp, and the American president's mouth set in a stubborn line. Oddly enough, I had the sense he understood my ability with some accuracy. Watching that, I let out a short, pointed laugh — as if to say watch this — and opened my mouth again.

"I'd appreciate it if you remembered that I'm a man who likes to give back exactly what he's given. And earlier you asked if I thought the raid would fail? Of course I do. If the Blade Flyer absorbed the Phase Power of the ten B-Class ability users who died in the first attempt and so much as formed a Phase Stone, I'll stake it on this: forget an A-Class. An A-Class's grandfather could show up and he still wouldn't win."

I could swear to it because I had a measuring stick — Duke Aaron Tempest of Britain. S-Class... honestly, I wasn't sure. But the only S-Class ability user supposed to exist had, by my guess, gone missing back in the Middle Ages, so there was no need to worry about that.

Take Aaron Tempest as the baseline, then. Him, plus a crowd of B-Classes, against a Calamity-rank variant? Against a Calamity-rank variant that had formed a Phase Stone and grown far stronger for it?

I had watched the Grand Turtle — eight million in Phase Power, and no Phase Stone at all — hold its own against my Space Wall. Set that beside everything I had gathered, over all this time, about the strength and abilities of one aberrant after another, and my conclusion was simple. An aberrant that had formed a Phase Stone would be too much even if you brought a single A-Class, a mob of B- and C-Classes, and every nuclear-powered aircraft carrier you owned.

Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Ten A-Classes might make it worth attempting — except the battlefield was the open sea, wasn't it?

At the certainty in my answer, President Trumpet's face clouded, while Puchin's and Youngeun's brightened by degrees. This was the certainty of a man who had hunted the Grand Turtle alone. Not something they could simply ignore.

President Puchin, who had been listening without a word, put on an amiable smile and cleared his throat.

"I am Sladmir Puchin, President of Russia. It is a pleasure to see you in person, Chairman of Grand Blue."

An amiable smile. So why did it feel so lethal? I looked at President Puchin, grinning wide with a face that went past strong and landed somewhere near frightening, then offered a short bow of the head — courtesy, of a sort — and answered.

"Unlike a certain someone, you actually know your manners. Jung Seoha. The pleasure's mine, President Puchin."

I matched the courtesy of the conversation coming my way, and President Puchin's smile only deepened, while a certain someone's face creased harder and turned mean. On top of that, Puchin was speaking English — likely because he knew I had only Korean and English — and thanks to that certain someone, the manners stood out all the more. The first impression wasn't half bad.

"To be frank, I myself find what the chairman of Grand Blue has said somewhat difficult to credit. In two hundred and sixteen years of Phase World history, nothing like what Chairman Jung described has ever once been reported. What would I have to hide? We looked into it through our own intelligence services, and no such hypothesis has ever been raised."

"Just because it's never come up doesn't mean it stops existing. If it's solid proof you want, the President of the United States — sir — will be kind enough to demonstrate it for you before long. You can wait for that."

"I see. Then Russia will set that matter aside and trust Chairman Jung. More to the point..."

Puchin watched President Trumpet's face crumple at his words with open delight, then went on, looking pleased beyond measure.

"I could not help overhearing, but it seems you intend to put high-grade Phase Stones toward the purchase of basic resources. Would you be inclined to deal with Russia? I can assure you that Russia can supply not only the basic resources Korea requires, but industrial resources as well."

"...These are not the property of the Republic of Korea. They belong to the chairman of Grand Blue, personally. If you wish to ask, ask the chairman."

At Youngeun's courteous deflection, President Puchin turned to me. Before he could speak, I stepped in close and whispered at her ear.

"I'll hand them over to the government at eighty percent of the posted rate on the Phase Stone exchange. That work?"

Youngeun's eyes opened a fraction. The calculation in her head must have finished at once; she nodded and addressed President Puchin.

"Very well. I've just finished speaking with the chairman, so I expect this will be a fine deal with Russia."

"Excellent. I will dispatch a negotiating team at once. President Yu Youngeun?"

"Please, go on."

"Thanks to the chairman of Grand Blue, this summit seems to have been most substantial for both Korea and Russia. Wouldn't you agree?"

"The chairman's existence is a blessing for Korea."

"Ha ha ha. I concede the point. Then I shall take my leave here. And, Chairman of Grand Blue?"

"Yes?"

"I should like to keep a good relationship with you going forward. If ever you have need of Russia's strength, contact me at any time."

"Thank you. I won't forget the goodwill, either."

"Ha ha ha. The man I see now, and the boldness — the sheer driving force — I have heard of in rumors. Personally, I find the chairman very much to my liking."

For a president people called a dictator, the warmth was a little much, and it sat awkwardly on me. Still. Not bad.

Puchin's image vanished from the screen. I turned to President Trumpet and found him staring at the rest of us — the ones talking without him — mouth clamped shut, his face so rigid it looked one degree short of turning to stone.

"Hm? You're still here? From what I heard, this summit was about attempting the raid. Korea and Russia won't get in your way, and I won't be helping either, so handle it yourselves and get going. The fallout's yours to deal with, too."

Nothing came back.

I waved him off and stepped over to Youngeun. President Trumpet glared at me with that frozen face, and then the unpleasant mug that had been taking up half the panel disappeared as well.

Once the video call with the presidents of two great powers had ended, Youngeun looked up at me with genuine worry — what on earth are you doing — then took my hand and started for the small door beside the conference room, calling out to the people still in the room as she went.

"Wrap things up, and the bureau chiefs involved in this Russia trade will stay. Ministry of Finance and Industry, proceed with the Phase Stone handover to the Grand Blue raid team with the utmost care. Minister of Foreign Affairs, prepare to receive the negotiating team coming from Russia."

"Yes, ma'am!"

She led me by the hand into a small room, a lounge steeped in her scent, and there she caught my arm and looked up, worry written all over her face.

"Why would you do that? Nothing good comes of provoking the United States! It's a mercy you pulled Russia onto our side, so America won't be able to move carelessly — but there's no telling what tricks that tightfisted old pedant will pull, and you went and rushed in...!"

"Let him."

"...Eh?"

Franc, who had followed us in after ending the recording, pulled the stunned Youngeun into an embrace and soothed her as she spoke.

"If they slap retaliatory trade restrictions on us, Seoha is prepared to answer even if it means releasing every Phase Stone he has. Don't worry so much."

"Does this look like a situation where I wouldn't worry? Those are all Seoha's property! And we can't gather junk-grade Phase Stones anymore...!"

Youngeun was venting, frustrated, at Franc, who held her. I wrapped my arms around both of them and said,

"As long as Phase Stones are what people use for energy, money doesn't mean anything to me anymore. And I forgot to mention — from what Dr. Dwight found when he looked into it, Blue Stones have ten times the energy efficiency of ordinary Phase Stones."

"...!"

The moment I passed along what Dr. Dwight had told me, word for word, her face lit right up.

"So unlike Phase Stones, I can make as many Blue Stones as I want, so long as there are aberrants. You know what that means?"

"Haa. You really are King Midas. Setting that aside — tell me the truth, won't you? Why did you provoke America on purpose?"

"Some bastard was making a fool of my woman and grinding her down. What kind of man just stands there and watches?"

"Ah..."

At the bluntness of it, Youngeun covered her face. Her ears were red enough to show. Perhaps she thought the whole affair had started from something she had done; seated on the sofa, she hid her face and began to suffer under the self-reproach and the shame.

"Aaa... because of me, Seoha..."

Seeing her flushed all the way to her ears, I grinned and fiddled with her earlobe. She shook her head, shook my hand off, and — her face gone strange from holding in the embarrassment — gave my cheek a light pinch.

"All right, all right. It's already happened, so there's nothing for it. I'll have to prepare countermeasures in case President Trumpet imposes retaliatory trade restrictions."

"Countermeasures? Can't you just take whatever you can't export and sell it to some other country?"

"It isn't as easy as it sounds, you know~? These aren't deals where parties bound by contract simply hand cash back and forth. If a trade blockade of even one month cuts off the flow of funds and the supply of materials production needs, subcontractors and the small operators on contract work go bankrupt at a terrifying speed."

"Whoa."

"I have to put countermeasures in place to prevent that, so I won't be able to come home for a while."

Just hearing it, I couldn't begin to guess what the work even was. I had no idea how much it would take to fix, and I had gone and dumped a bomb of paperwork on Youngeun...

"Uh... sorry. That wasn't what I meant to do."

Youngeun gave my apologetic face a pleased smile, caught my cheek, and kissed me deep.

I met the cherry-sweet tongue that slid slick into my mouth, and for a while we went back and forth. Then she drew away, face flushed, smiled, and said,

"At this rate it was going to be nothing but irritating, boring summits on repeat. However it happened, we landed a hit on that obnoxious Yankee captain and even pulled Russia onto our side to close it out, didn't we? We're the ones with a clear goal to move toward, so we're actually more at ease. Our Seoha doesn't need to make that face!"

"Got it. Then I won't be sorry — and when you come home I'll hold you until your back gives out, so look forward to it."

"Goodness... my heart's fluttering so hard I won't be able to work."

Youngeun wore a fox's smile, brimming with allure. She kissed my cheek once more, straightened her clothes, and opened the lounge door to step out. Beyond the closed door, her voice rang out, full of force.

"All right — summon every minister and vice minister from the trade ministries, and let's prepare a meeting on countermeasures against international trade restrictions!"

The people who had been snapping photo after photo of Miho, sitting there quietly, with their phones began to move in a flurry at Youngeun's order.

"She seems energized, doesn't she?"

"Heh. With a husband that solid standing behind her, what woman wouldn't be?"

I broke into a wide, foolish grin at Franc's praise, kissed her on the lips, and as we left the conference room Miho stood, her seven tails swaying.

"Let's go home."

"Okay!"

All that was left was uploading the footage to YouTube.

I was a kid, so being a brat was only natural — but I hadn't expected the president of a country as enormous as the United States to be that devoid of basic sense. Once footage of the man's bare face hit the internet, I had a feeling it would be pretty entertaining.

I thought of the American president, who had looked down on me and belittled me from start to finish, and grinned a crooked grin.

Go on, then. Choke on it.

"Franc, Franc. Master's grinning like a villain."

"Shh. When he's like that, you pretend you didn't notice."

Villain? Have a little class. Call me a thug.

The moment we got back, I went to Aunt Hyeryeong in the office on the thirty-sixth floor and told her to sell one high-grade Phase Stone to Britain at her own discretion, at the Phase Stone exchange's posted rate, as it stood.

"A carrot for a job well done?"

"Yes. A carrot so she'll keep doing well."

"Pfft. Understood! I'll wrap it up nice and tasty for her."

I looked for a moment at Aunt Hyeryeong's face, blooming bright, then put on a mischievous smile and asked,

"Heh heh heh. Nights must be going very well. You've got flowers in full bloom on your face."

"What?! Y-you mustn't tease your elders!"

"I really ought to scare up some black raspberry wine and send it to your husband~. Oh, and if he throws his back out, tell me. I'll heal him for free."

"Ugh. Chairman, honestly..."

Unable to handle me grinning like a rascal, Aunt Hyeryeong lifted her documents and hid her reddened face behind them. That was enough teasing.

"How's your husband's health been since then?"

"Thanks to your healing, Chairman, he was given a clean bill of health. These days he's in wonderful shape and devoted to his creative work. I don't know how I can ever repay your kindness..."

Aunt Hyeryeong lowered the documents that had been hiding her face and looked up at me the way one looks at a true benefactor. Gratitude filled both her eyes, and the embarrassment crawled all the way up the back of my skull. I scratched there, then waved her off.

"Ahem. Just keep on as you are, so don't take it too heavily. Well then!"

Before any other topic could come up, I Space Leaped home in a hurry. Franc took my hand and held up her phone to show me the video we had recorded.

"Seoha. What should we do with the footage we filmed?"

"Move it to the laptop, then upload it to the streaming site everyone in the world uses."

I hooked Franc's phone up to the laptop, moved the file over, and played it. About eighteen minutes. I went through it slowly, and there was nothing that needed cutting.

No preamble, no idle chatter — just a video where sharp impacts landed in more than one place. The exchange with that Trumpet bastard, the American president, had been captured clean as anything. I couldn't say for certain, but once this got out, the countries along the Pacific were going to be turned upside down.

I was looking forward to the reaction.

I went out to the terrace, lay back on the beach bed, and called Lydia through the Certifier. The sunset was starting to come on; I was watching the sky redden when the call connected.

Lydia, taking the call, was flustered, and startled, and glad... wait, why was she glad? She didn't seem wired like a normal person either.

I sent the video I had shot with the Certifier's recording function to Lydia — who liked me, strangely — and told her to look it over.

A moment later she was stammering, asking, with trembling eyes, whether the conversation in the footage was real.

"You can tell, roughly, how the situation's playing out. Right?"

"I'm showing it to you first, before I upload it to my account on YouTube."

Something in her eyes shifted. Lydia clenched her fist and nodded without a word.

If I wanted this story spread through Europe, sending it to the Queen of Britain through Lydia would be faster than uploading it to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠YouTube. If she had caught my intent, she would pass the footage to the Queen the moment the call ended.

The Queen, before she even got to the contents, would rack her brain over why I had shown it to them first — why I was showing them this — then summon Aaron Tempest, put their heads together and rack their brains all over again, then gather the British cabinet and rack their brains once more. The conclusion they came to would be something like: she didn't know what I was going to do, but they should at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠least pretend to help. If that help meant spreading word of my streaming account, good. If they didn't go so far as to treat America as an enemy, but helped Korea in some fashion the way Russia had, that was good too.

Lydia hemmed and hawed for a moment over the footage I had sent, then hardened her face, put on a worried look, and asked,

"If I don't upload it, where else would I put it?"

I watched blankly as Lydia, brows drawn slightly together, sighed over the fallout — then answered in a so-what sort of way.

"Even if it goes bad, it's America that goes bad, and if a panic comes, it'll come to the places touching the Pacific. Nothing to do with Britain."

"And I don't think America's going to choose a worst case like that. If the president tries to pull some dumb shit, the Senate or the House — the lawmakers, the secretaries — they'll stop him. The state governors, too. And if it looks like things are really heading for the worst, I plan to step in myself, one way or another."

At the fact that I wasn't simply going to stand there with my hands behind my back and watch, Lydia finally broke into a foolish, happy smile and bobbed her head in a bow. She looked exactly like a child who had been praised.

"So Queen Grandma praised you, then?"

"Right. I've already told our general affairs director, so you can send someone over right away. See you tomorrow, then."

I ended the call with a Lydia brimming with confidence and looked up at the sky. Darkness had already fallen about halfway.

I stood and paced the terrace, running a simulation in my head. If the Blade Flyer became an extreme-rank variant, could I handle it?

Right now, as a Calamity-rank variant, its attacks were a water cannon made of water, colorless transparent missiles fired from the spines rising along its back, and a slashing attack that cut warships apart by swinging wings like a dragonfly's, sharp as blades. It hadn't rammed anyone with its body, so it was hard to call its physical ability strong. It manipulated water, and its body was the color of water — safe enough to treat it as a water-attribute type?

Besides that, it would have one attack technique that served as proof it was a Calamity-rank variant. Something on the level of that imugi's terrible lightning, or the Grand Turtle's Big Bang. The wings had looked fairly sturdy. It might use them to take to the air for a little while.

If it evolved into an extreme-rank variant from here, I couldn't begin to guess how its abilities would change. From what I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worked out, an ability user who went from B-Class to A-Class came to hold two types of ability. If an aberrant evolved from Calamity-rank to extreme-rank, what happened then? Did two types mix, the way they did for ability users?

But Miho had physical reinforcement, all kinds of elemental abilities, and transformation on top of that. There was no way to confirm what I had guessed, and trying to check was far too dangerous.

While questions I had no way of answering piled up, dark as the night sky, I watched the people hard at work beyond the glass of the office wing. Miho threw the terrace door open and came bounding over, bold as anything, with some nonsense she had cooked up together with Darky, proud of it as could be. It took about a second to see through the trick. She stuck her lip out and fled for the living room anyway, still determined to show it off, and Franc came running with a startled face, put a stop to it, and delivered a knuckle-rap to the top of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her head.

The rap seemed to sting less than losing the trick. Miho dropped to the floor and wailed, throwing a tantrum.

"...Honestly."

Her nonsense pulled a laugh out of me, and the head that had gone heavy with complicated, dizzy thoughts felt light.

Agonizing over something I had no way of knowing was nothing but a waste of energy. If the Blade Flyer evolved to Transcendent-grade, I would leave measuring the thing's abilities to America. And I would attempt the raid safely, using whatever they found out.

Heh. Not a bad idea, is it?