Day Unknown, the Phase World

The Supergiant Turtle vanished, and with the bizarre phenomenon that had risen in its wake, the anxiety crouched in a corner of my heart washed clean away.

It had to be the turtle. The circumstances made it obvious enough—that thing had held the Rogue Imugi back for me.

I called up the image of it again, that immensely noble and mysterious turtle, and my heart grew heavy for an entirely different reason.

Two hundred and sixteen years had passed since the Phase World appeared, and yet it struck me all over again that humanity still didn't know the whole of it. Scientists would foam at the mouth and demand to know what kind of talk that was, but still.

......If I made it back to reality, should I hide what had happened here?

Ha! I hadn't even made it back, and already I was worrying about the aftermath. Talk about borrowing trouble.

And yet it had granted my request...... Do not hate them? Them who? If you're going to ask a favor, at least lay it out by the who, what, when, where, why, and how, so a person can understand. From what had shown itself, it seemed to mean the aberrants.

......Ah, forget it. I was a nobody who'd only just awakened, an ability user of no account at all. Hate this one, don't hate that one—first I had to survive this place, and even that was more than I could handle!

I pouted and started paddling again. The Rogue Imugi's pursuit was one worry I could probably set down, so it was time to look for somewhere safe.

Then I glanced up at the night sky mid-stroke, and a little unease crept in.

Before I'd met the turtle it had definitely been around sunset. Twenty minutes passed, I parted from the turtle, and what met me was a night sky with a full moon hanging in it.

There was a gap in the middle, time that had simply gone empty, and that unsettled me. Surely decades hadn't passed. Centuries?

Nngh......

Think too deeply and there would be no end to it, so I decided to keep it simple and call this Day 11.

"Pfft......"

Anyway, the moment I got back to reality, the first thing I'd do was study aberrant biology in detail.

An aberrant measured in kilometers. Otherworld biology catalogued countless aberrants, but nothing like that was in there. Even if such things existed, there were only a few of Highest Tier, and that turtle......

It felt like something that needed a name beyond Highest Tier. Super-tier? Transcendent-tier? A few turtles like that showing up in reality, and humanity's extinction would only be a matter of time.

And that bastard of a Rogue Imugi—a Highest-Rank Variant, and it threw a fit of lightning because it didn't want to come into the water? Just get yourself demoted to a High-Tier Variant!

Strange, how meeting the Supergiant Turtle had left me feeling energized. Ordinarily that sheer size ought to have terrified me into shaking where I stood. Was it the eyes?

I remembered them. Pitch-black as a starless dark, and yet somehow transparent, glittering.

I'd seen a turtle of that outrageous size, and I'd seen it and come through unharmed, and now it felt as if nothing I looked at would surprise me. I might not be surprised, but run into a mid-rank or High Grade aberrant and I'd still be scared.

If only Franc would appear, it would be perfect...... I called up that beautiful body, the one that set the heart ringing, and that smile of hers that made me happy just to look at it, and a pricking ache started up in my chest. It hurt a little.

"Hoo."

I let out a small sigh, kicked hard once more, set my body on the log, and started west, farther and farther.

For four hours I swam, turning over the image of Franc recorded in my head, slowly, carefully.

Halfway through I got hungry, tore off half a mouthful of the belt, and chewed moisture leaves without pause as I swam, and bit by bit the world around me began to brighten.

The surroundings usually started to lighten around five-thirty, so it was probably about then. Which meant I'd spent twenty minutes inside that water-mist, and in reality at least eight hours had passed......

A problem had come up. Nothing much—no. Depending on the answer, a very great deal.

I wanted to know whether Day 15 was counted by the time I'd personally felt, or whether time that had slipped past for some reason I didn't understand, the way it had when I met the turtle, was included in those fifteen days as well.

And what if, in the space of meeting the turtle, Day 15 had already gone by, and I could no longer return?

......

Ah...... Seriously, I couldn't even quit thinking about it.

By Day 15, as a rule, you were someone who had awakened as an ability user and succeeded at surviving. And if you managed to live until that day, small particles of light were said to rise around your body.

The textbook said those particles of light absorbed Phase Power and gradually grew, and once they reached a certain level they interacted with droplets that had appeared at the place where you'd originally been in reality, and you returned.

How to enter the Phase World again after that, or how to get back out once you'd gone in, wasn't in the textbook. But from posts Raiders and Hunters left on the blogs and social media they ran themselves, you could infer a fair amount.

Getting back into the Phase World seemed to require a certain amount of Phase Power. The amount it took appeared to be nearly all the Phase Power in your body.

I'd picked up a nuance that rising in class left you a little more room to spare, but the details were beyond me.

The way back, they said, was by using the particles of light scattered here and there through the Phase World. Touch one and it sucked in Phase Power and made you a portal. Return that way, and re-entry was impossible for a set time.

So...... if Day 15 had passed while I was face to face with the Supergiant Turtle, what happened then?

Did I have to find one of those particles of light myself?

......Ah, this is irritating. What a filthy mess.

If my guess was right, it was a miserable situation, miserable enough to make me furious. Even so, I had a feeling it would work out somehow.

The day before yesterday I would have sunk into despair and broken into breakdancing, but now I could control and distribute Phase Power and raise my physical ability, and on top of that I had Detection, Analysis, Clairvoyance, and Telescopic Vision—abilities that were practically cheating.

But Franc...... was she all right?

Thinking of her left my chest tight and low, but I'd decided to trust her, so I decided to think no further. Thinking wouldn't give me anything I could actually do.

Dozens of somethings slid into my detection range. I flinched, looked to see what they were, and found freshwater fish. Were they schooling, swelling their apparent size, out of the habit of guarding their bodies against predators?

Wasn't that usually something you saw in saltwater fish?

Watching ordinary fish with no Phase Power at all swim leisurely this way and that, I felt the nerves that had been drawn tight loosen, just a little.

Come to think of it, I could see insects and bugs moving here and there along the bottom as well.

......Hm? Those things were aquatic? I'd thought they simply weren't coming up out of the ground, and maybe that was why. Among them were things shaped like crayfish and crabs, and what I'd taken for a tiny stone turned out to be a hermit crab pretending to be one.

"Whoa. Suddenly I'm detecting life all over the place."

Ah, damn it. Another bad thought. If ordinary creatures like that grew numerous, aberrants that lived by eating them would show up too.

Dawn ended, morning came, and the world brightened. The streaks of rain had settled into a steady seasonal fall, and looking around was no longer difficult. The sun still hadn't shown itself, but light was light.

I like morning air that has cooled overnight—a little cold, clear, refreshing.

Breathe that air down to the bottom of your chest and you feel healthier, and you get to think of yourself not as some night-owl with his days and nights flipped, but as a diligent human who rises early.

......In truth, all I'd ever done was pull all-nighters gaming and drink the clean air coming in through the window.

I swam hard, circulating Phase Power through my skin to keep it from pruning to mush in the water, and whether that blocked the chill to some degree as well, my body temperature never dropped enough to leave me shivering.

Where there's something gained, there's something lost, and what I lost was heat. Calories.

More than two days of nothing but swimming, and the flesh was falling off me like mad. Eating anything at all would have helped, but all I had were moisture leaves that were nothing but fiber, and an emergency-ration belt crammed with nothing but calories...... Whether it was the swimming, my arms and legs had grown a little longer and my height had climbed as well, until I was closing in on 170 centimeters.

A hobbit, finally turning into a person...... and long legs, on top of that. A little—no. Very happy.

My weight had dropped to 55 kilograms. Nearly all the fat was gone, and I'd come to look like those five-percent-body-fat physiques I'd seen online. But there was little muscle either, so what I had was a scrawny dried anchovy, bones and joints standing out, with only a hint of muscle laid over them. The look didn't sell. My cheeks had hollowed too, and taken all together I looked like a skull.

"A living skeleton, is it. Heh heh."

The school uniform had gone so loose it wrapped around me and got in the way of swimming, which was a little uncomfortable. I was untangling the clothes wound around my body when I touched my cheek and found the bumpy craters weren't there to feel.

Hm...... the acne on my skin was almost entirely gone. The fat had gone with it, though.

I looked at my face reflected on the water, and even I was startled by how much it had changed. The hair that had been fried in the lightning shower until it looked permed was slowly loosening into loose waves, and my whole impression seemed to have changed completely.

Someone who knew me, seeing me now, probably wouldn't recognize who I was.

I was glad to be getting better-looking, but set beside Franc's face I was just Random Passerby A......

I undid the belt and tore off another mouthful. What I'd nibbled away, little by little, every time hunger hit, came to more than everything I'd eaten since first entering the Phase World.

What remained was barely eighty centimeters. Thirty-two thousand calories, enough for twenty meals. I couldn't even tie it at my waist anymore. It had to hang around my neck.

......

A fish swam past beneath my feet and caught my eye, but I had no way to catch it, so it was a feast I could only look at. Out of the water I might at least have tried fishing......

I could no longer pin down the day of return, so I ought to be sparing with the ration belt as well...... My head hurt.

Enough idle thoughts.

I focused on watching my surroundings and swam on.

Three hours passed, it became eight o'clock, and I felt my Phase Power rise by one. I checked the distance I'd traveled.

Whoa. The distance I'd swum in a stretch that wasn't even two full days beat everything I'd covered across nine.

I gripped the Soul Stone pouch in my left hand, felt the texture of the Soul Stone through the cloth for a moment, and looked at the log.

The time was drawing nearer when I would have to swim without so much as a piece of it.

Water was seeping deeper into the log, and it was sinking.

Ever since I'd first grabbed hold of it, it had stayed mostly submerged and traveled two hundred kilometers with me, so even a log as thick as my torso was due to go under.

A few hours ago I'd thought of moving Phase Power, pushing it into the log to shift the moisture, and just in case I'd torn a little off the tip and tried it there—and pop! the piece burst apart, and I'd jumped. Whoa, I'd truly been scared then. You could say I'd learned the meaning of a preliminary test at a level I would never forget.

......Hm. What if I practiced putting Phase Power into green wood and moving the moisture?

Thinking this and that, I grew hungry again. Fortunately there was a tree I could rest at, three hundred and twenty meters that way...... I sighed and turned, for now, toward the moisture tree closest to my line of travel.

It was a tree jutting about a meter out of the water. I'd hang off it for a bit and at least tear off some leaves to eat.

That was what I was thinking as I swam toward it.

BZZZZT!

"Ghk—ghk—ghk!!"

Electricity burst from my chest. It came with no warning at all, erupting suddenly near my heart, and my heart very nearly stopped.

The pain of it seizing stiff knocked the sense out of me. I trembled like a rat caught in an electric trap, and only when I barely, barely managed to circulate Phase Power to my heart did the pain gradually subside, and cold sweat came pouring down, late.

"Gh...... ugh."

The pain was secondary. I'd sensed that the electricity had burst from the Soul Stone, and the fear hit first—that something had gone wrong with it.

I was weighing whether to take the Soul Stone out of the pouch and check it with my own eyes...... and before me, softly, a woman took shape.

A small head that would fit entirely between two hands. Hair neatly kept, tidy and smooth. Brows a touch dark, yet fine and prettily shaped, with lashes just as orderly. A straight nose, lips like cherries. Cheeks that looked soft as fresh rice cake, and bright, lovely eyes like a deer's, clear and shining.

I looked into those eyes, apology and worry mixed together in them, and tears spilled over.

It was the face I had wanted so desperately to see, and the tears would not stop coming.

At the sight of my tears falling without rest, hers welled in those large, lovely eyes as well, and she reached out two slender, pretty hands and gently stroked my cheek.

I couldn't feel the touch. The feeling reached me all the same.

"Franc......!"

I sobbed and hitched for a long while, and Franc shed tears too, stroking my cheek, stroking my head, trying hard to calm me.

But the joy and the sorrow that came rushing in as the terror and the fear that had been eating my heart for dozens of hours finally broke—those did not subside so easily.

Even so, there was something I had to say to her, so I forced the crying down and said it.

I barely gathered the emotion that had overflowed and wiped my tears, and Franc hastily dabbed at her wet eyes as well, then smiled wide and nodded. A smile that warmed my heart the way a full moon warms the night sky.

Her expression, the tear-tracks on her cheeks, that smile—my chest surged with something too tangled to name.

I remembered the moment the lightning had beaten down on me, and the pain, and after that the stretch of swimming alone, Franc gone, through a night black as pitch where I could barely see, raindrops pouring like a storm. Emotion rose in me again.

More important than that was whether anything was wrong with Franc's body. I looked her over and asked.

"Your body—are you all right? Nothing's wrong? Was it the Rogue Imugi's lightning that made you hide yourself?"

Franc lifted her body into the air and, with a shy grace, revealed herself nude, then pointed at her own body as if to say look well. So I wiped my tears and began to look over her naked form slowly, wondering what had changed.

Full breasts, and the dainty nipples at their tips. Then a belly that looked wonderfully taut, a cute navel catching the eye between faintly defined abs. Past the smooth lower abdomen, the pale, fine down there was beauty itself, needing no words at all.

I followed the long, slender legs downward, then brought my gaze back up to her secret place, and Franc, face flushed with embarrassment, lowered a hand to cover only that.

Looking at her beautiful naked body, the violent swell of emotion slowly settled. Seeing that she was truly here must have done a great deal to steady my mind.

"......I can't tell. What changed?"

At that, Franc puffed her cheeks just a little, drew her waist back, and held the back of her hand up in front of me. The gesture and the look asked me to notice, so I stared at that small, slender, pretty hand—and huh?

I narrowed my eyes and watched the vapor flowing along the outline of Franc's hand, and little by little a glitter came into view.

I went over her whole body, staring harder, and I could tell that the vapor running along the contours of her spirit form was sparkling, here and there, with light.

"Your body's sparkling! It's shining!"

I looked up at Franc and shouted it, and the area around her cheeks looked oddly bright.

What was this? She couldn't quite look straight at me. Her head was turned just slightly, her fingers fidgeting, her thighs rubbing together a little at a time, and it looked exactly like embarrassment...... was that it? She also seemed, somehow, excited......

I wondered if she was like that because I'd been staring too hard, but when I asked whether I was right anyway, she flinched and nodded in a hurry.

The fluster of it looked exactly like a child caught by her mother in the middle of a guilty little game with her hands. Franc was embarrassed for only a moment, and then she drew close and began to lower her body into the water—dip—BZZZT-ZZZT-ZZZT!!?

The instant her foot so much as touched the water, it felt as if hundreds of volts tore through my whole body. I shuddered and sank.

Seeing me, Franc yanked her foot back up in a panic and shot upward, but I had already been fried as thoroughly as a person can be fried, and my body would not move well.

Ugh, ughhh. Really getting a scorcher of an electric massage today, huh?

Sinking, I looked up. The ripples wavering on the surface kept me from seeing clearly, but I could tell for certain that Franc was circling and circling above the water, utterly at a loss.

Afraid the electricity might spread again, she couldn't even come near me, only spinning around the spot, so I forced my poorly moving body to twist, moved Phase Power, dispelled the shock I'd taken, and broke the surface.

Franc, confirming from the air that I was all right, covered her nose and mouth with both hands and looked at me, on the verge of tears.

"F-Fraaaanc......"

Hoo. Hoo.

"I-If you've got a complaint. Let's, t-talk it out. Yeah?"

I forced my stiffened face into a smile as I said it, and in the end she broke down and wailed.

Ah. I'd made her cry. But even crying, she was cute.

I wasn't angry. Honestly, compared to me molesting her and eye-fucking her with my stare, a little electric stimulation like this was basically a bonus in this line of work!

The truth was I'd let my guard down at a reunion I hadn't expected. If I'd even been circulating enough Phase Power to keep my skin from swelling in the water, I could have endured a shock of that level.

And Franc wasn't used to it either—a newly gained ability, I supposed. An electricity ability, anyway. The mistake came from that.

"So you don't have to feel that sorry."

I confirmed that my loose waves had curled even tighter, and sighed, and at that sight Franc, who had been watching my mood like a criminal, flinched all over again.

......Hm. It occurred to me that I could take this as a weakness and get Franc to do all sorts of wicked things. She would surely offer me her body out of guilt.

But I wasn't going to.

"It's fine. It's a new ability. Of course you might not be used to it!"

Even so, she stayed glum, and her expression would not smooth out. On top of that—maybe because her mood had sunk—the color of her spirit form seemed to darken a little as well.

Had the shock of attacking me, even without meaning to, really been that great? Her face, always bright and clear, had dimmed a little, and the texture of what I saw seemed to come alive all the more for it. I sharpened my eyes, then turned them back to normal and comforted the glum Franc.

"Ahem. If you're that sorry, grant me one request later. How about it?"

Worried for the glum Franc, with a pure heart! I shamelessly pressed her, straight-faced, to grant me one request later.

The truth was, I'd seen something like it in a psychology book—that if you made a quid-pro-quo demand of a person gone glum with guilt, it helped disperse the guilt and lift the mood. Something like that.

I'd stressed that it was a request, but given her nature she would certainly grant it. Of course, even without a constraint like this, I had a feeling she'd grant most requests anyway.

Franc heard me, and her expression hardened—I'll admit I got a little scared—and then, with a face full of resolve, she nodded once, grimly.

......No, she didn't need to steel herself quite that hard.

I'd been planning to read the room later and ask her to show me a few gravure pin-up poses, but if she got this serious I couldn't say it......

One way and another I loosened that grimness of hers, set a mood in which we could keep talking, and asked again.

"Just in case, but it was that one, right? The Rogue Imugi's, the really powerful bolt at the end?"

I pointed at the Soul Stone pouch hanging at my neck and drew a lightning shape with my finger, and Franc nodded at my words, then drifted a little away from me and held both palms out toward me.

Her hands dyed blue-white up to the elbows, and a bzzzt-bzzzt of electricity began. In that state she brought the index finger of her right hand slowly toward the index finger of her left, and between finger and finger—crack!—a spark jumped.

"So the lightning did flow into the Soul Stone."

At the words Soul Stone, Franc tilted her head just slightly, puzzled.

Ah! I'd slipped......

I floundered and stammered, and in the end I told her honestly.

"......So from that day on, because your soul is inside it, I've been calling it a Soul Stone."

Franc had been listening from the air in a crouch, and when she'd heard all of it she smiled brightly, wore a look of pure delight, and turned circles around me as if she were swimming.

Crying, then laughing, then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pretending to be angry, then crying again, then laughing...... a young lady of truly colorful moods.

I'd been meeting her eyes through the story, so I hadn't looked, but when I glanced down, there it was again—Franc's precious parts, laid utterly bare.

Suddenly I wondered whether other people would be able to see her like that too.

......I didn't want that. I didn't want to show Franc's naked body to anyone else!!

For now, I'd talk it over before we escaped this place. If it came to it, we'd use the method where she only showed herself where there were no people.

Anyway, change the subject! I liked seeing Franc happy, but I was embarrassed enough to die......

"So that's how you came to be able to use electricity."

Franc, who had been flying through the sky as if swimming underwater, in extremely good spirits, heard my murmur, came down, hugged her knees to her chest, and nodded.

......That pose was genuinely too much stimulation for me.

I forced my gaze away from her secret place, so plainly visible. I'd been hard for a while now, and it was making swimming a little difficult.

I let my thoughts wander a moment, then looked at Franc's eyes. She'd been squeaking and carrying on for some time, and still I could feel worry held in one side of her feelings.

Half worry, half pity? From the way her gaze touched my face, the looks that had changed so sharply in barely two days ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seemed to be hurting her.

Mmm. Losing the weight couldn't be helped, and it wasn't her fault......

Remembering how, the first time we'd seen the imugi, she had told me to just give the imugi the Soul Stone she was in—looking at that, she seemed to be turning my present state into her own fault without even knowing it.

Leave her like this and she'd keep blaming herself, so I told her about the mysterious Supergiant Turtle I'd met last night.

"So you don't have to worry about the Rogue Imugi anymore. If anything, thanks to all that, my abilities improved like crazy."

I swam and explained, earnestly, the things that had happened while Franc was inside the Soul Stone. She listened hard, nodding along, but she didn't look surprised even after hearing about the Supergiant Turtle, which made me think she had already known.

Had she not been asleep inside the Soul Stone, but watching the outside?

"Can you see outside from inside the Soul Stone?"

At the question Franc smiled softly and nodded.

"I see. I was insanely worried when you disappeared. I thought maybe we'd been separated, and I'd never see you again."

In the end, Noona had been right. My own pointless imagination had conjured the fear. Franc heard me, reached out as if to tell me to be at ease, stroked my head, and smiled with a natural ease.

......Somehow it felt like she'd started seeing me as a child. Well, that wasn't bad either.

Ah...... aah! Then she'd seen all of it, hadn't she?! Me crying my eyes out, calling for her in terror!

And here I'd thought I'd only shown her the cool version, putting on weight and dignity...... A blanket! I need a big, thick blanket!!

Splash, splash!

I suddenly started thrashing, and Franc looked at me with worry, as if wondering whether I was hurt somewhere. Under that gaze I thought I might die of shame, and I shoved my face into the water.

Ugh...... so that was why she'd looked at me with such a worried, pitying face. Good that I hadn't gone and done anything too weird...... let's call it good. Ugh, ughhh......

I was bubbling under the water for a while when Franc's face suddenly thrust itself right in front of my eyes, and I startled hard!

"Blub-blub-glub!"

I jerked my head up in surprise and flailed, and Franc, seeing my dumbstruck face, laughed a bright peal and drifted lightly about.

Heh. So that's how it is?

"Ugh. You scared me!! I thought a water ghost had come up!!"

At water ghost, Franc looked at me with an urk! of a face and pouted.

We stared at each other for a moment, and then, with no telling who started it, we both burst out laughing.

There was still plenty I wanted to ask, but it occurred to me that enjoying this ticklish feeling in my chest, just for a little while, was nice too.

"But what was that just now? I went into the water and didn't get shocked?"

I blinked, and Franc smiled gently, spread both hands, and pressed her palms together, then apart. No spark jumped the way it had before, so it seemed she could control the current as well.

Amazing. Power like that didn't seem like the sort of thing that would simply occur...... oh, right.

"When I checked yesterday, the Phase Power flowing out of the Soul Stone had stopped too. Did you do that?"

Franc only blinked those large, pretty eyes, puzzled, as if it were something she didn't know.

"Think about it! If you can deliberately stop Phase Power from flowing out of the Soul Stone, then couldn't you absorb it too, the other way around? If that works, it means you could stay in reality for as long as you wanted!"

I told Franc what I'd thought, and she opened her eyes round, thought for a moment, then smiled quietly, came close, touched my cheeks with both hands, and worked her lips.

"Hueheo...? To...gether?"

"Together? You're saying let's be together? We already are, though?"

I asked it back, and Franc gave a small, bitter smile. Realizing I hadn't caught what she meant to say, I suddenly felt stifled, as if I'd eaten steamed sweet potatoes one after another with nothing to wash them down.

Right here with Franc, and I still couldn't hold a conversation!

"Tch. The second I'm back in reality, I'm learning lip-reading and English!"

Oh—there it was again, a smile I'd never seen before. Looking at it, my heart started thumping all over again.

I was staring blankly at Franc's face when she closed her eyes just slightly and leaned in. About the time I thought our lips would meet, a faint tingle touched mine.

Uh......

So just now, I...... got kissed?

The moment I recognized it, my face went hot, and a happiness rose in me so fierce it felt like it might fly away. I'd thought this heart that loved her was a one-way street of mine alone, and yet she had kissed me first!

My eyes met Franc's, floating before me, and she sent me a deep, lingering look. I gazed blankly into that look and touched the lips that had met hers.

Eighteen years of a life without a single kiss.

My first tasted of thrilling electricity.

I was swimming a vast, boundless expanse, the same as yesterday or the day before, but the feeling was nothing like then, and without my noticing the corner of my mouth kept climbing, a grin leaking out.

To think a change of heart like this could come from a single person.

She had no body, and still, thinking that a soul more beautiful and lovely than anyone's loved me, I became extremely happy.

This is what they mean by soulmate. Yeah.

Mm...... but the shock of the kiss seemed to have knocked a few memories clean out of me. I was pretty sure there'd been a few more things I meant to ask, and I couldn't remember them.

Eh, it was probably nothing. Anyway, I focused and looked over the returned Franc with my Search ability.

Still couldn't detect her, though. And what had that tingly feeling on my lips been, when we kissed? Had she wrapped a little current around it, as a way of expressing the kiss?

Looking back, I hadn't been running Analysis at full power with everything I had, but I had been allocating forty percent to it, and I hadn't detected Franc when she came out of the Soul Stone either, nor when she wrapped her body in current.

The kiss...... ahem. I hadn't detected that either.

......? Thinking on it, I hadn't detected the lightning the Rogue Imugi dropped, either. Bolts falling from outside my detection range, I could allow that I might not know—but failing to detect even the electrical conduction......

Mmm. I'd thought that lightning was a phenomenon raised with Phase Power. Was it not? ......Was it right to call this a limit of Search, and assume I simply couldn't detect elemental attacks made of Phase Power?

An uneasy feeling sat in me, and with it the sense that that wasn't it.

I'd been tilting my head for a good while, thinking about something, when Franc pushed her face in front of mine with a look that asked what was wrong.

God, look at those adorable little lips.

She seemed to realize my eyes were on her lips, covered them lightly with both hands, and her eyes curved like crescent moons. A sight that made me want to pounce and kiss her myself, but we were moving at the same speed, and kissing was hard!

Feeling a little regret, I opened my mouth.

"I had a bit of a question about my ability—oh, right. You don't know the details of my ability, do you?"

Franc opened her eyes round and nodded, and I grinned and said it.

"I named my ability Search, for now. When I first realized I had it, I was using it without even knowing what it was, but as I gradually figured the ability out, I realized it performed like a fusion of Presence Sense, the Special-type detection ability, and Analysis. Like I combined the two and upgraded them?"

At my words, the eyes that had gone round opened wider still.

Wow. Her eyes were seriously huge. Like a doll's. If the irises had been too small or too large it would have looked wrong, but they were a golden ratio, the kind that makes you think pretty on spinal reflex the instant you see them. The irises especially...... I had a feeling any color would suit them.

"You at least know what kind of power a Presence Sense user and an Analysis user have, right?"

Franc nodded that she did, and I told her about the Detection, Analysis, Clairvoyance, and Telescopic Vision I had, and that I was using the four abilities together under the concept of Search. Franc's pretty eyes began to sparkle with admiration.

Hands clasped, sending me that admiring look—pride rose in me until my shoulders shrugged on their own.

"My Search is sharp enough to detect even the Phase Power distributed through the atmosphere, but strangely, I couldn't detect any Phase Power in the lightning the Rogue Imugi fired. It didn't feel like my Search was too lacking to catch it. It felt like some other reason. And I can't guess what that reason is."

At that Franc seemed to fall into thought as well, but in truth I wasn't expecting much. The only person who can grasp your own ability is you. Or someone with a similar ability of the same kind.

And I was currently estimating Franc as Physical Reinforcement type...... while I was a special detection type that didn't even exist in any ability classification recorded so far.

More than anything, Franc was someone from decades ago, so she wouldn't have any connection to the latest information or trends.

......Wow. Put it like that and she sounds like a grandmother. Grandma Franc.

I do not commit the idiocy of saying that part out loud.

Anyway, I glanced at Franc, who was furrowing her brow just slightly and thinking hard, and asked, hoping for something.

"I don't think my ability is a common one. What do you think?"

Right after that she nodded at a speed that seemed like it ought to make a buzzing sound, and a flood of praise spilled out—Great, Perfect, Excellent!

It felt like being acknowledged by Franc, and the corner of my mouth threatened to twitch, so I was trying to calm myself when Franc watched me like that and laughed as if I were cute. Somehow it felt like my inner heart had been seen, and I was a little embarrassed.

Then, without any particular thought, I turned my awareness to the Phase Power circulating through me, using Clairvoyance on the inside of my body—and in that moment I found that Phase Power was concentrated only in my skin and in the muscles I mainly used for swimming, while everywhere else the concentration had dropped drastically.

Huh. Why was it like this? No—since when?

The memory rose: jumping from the cliff, fleeing the imugi, getting roasted dozens of times by the lightning's current, and instinctively moving Phase Power to escape the Rogue Imugi.

......Ah. Right. It was from then.

To swim for a long time no matter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what, I'd distributed Phase Power to match that as best I could. I'd routed every bit of the Phase Power that should have gone to my head down through my waist, below that, and my skin alone, so the amount my brain could take in and use for Search had decreased, and Detection had weakened along with it.

One bad break stacked on another, and I'd been mentally backed into a corner, so I hadn't even been using the ability properly.

Balance. Was balance what mattered?

At once I returned all the Phase Power I'd been routing to my skin and to specific muscles back to my heart, then began spreading it evenly through my whole body.

It was harder than I'd thought. Phase Power pooled in certain parts, and in other places it spread into the surroundings and broke off before it could arrive, then connected again. Controlling the Phase Power that passed through the brain was especially difficult.

To think the brain was this big. Pour even a little attention somewhere else, and the power failed to reach every corner and came right back.

Swimming, plus circulating Phase Power evenly through my body, plus controlling the power climbing to my brain, plus running Search on my surroundings—too many things to do at once. My head hurt!

I endured the headache and pushed stubbornly through what absolutely had to be done, and somehow a cycle formed in the jumble of actions, and slack began to enter the work.

The headache vanished along with it, my head eased, and then...... a pleasant sensation, like a lukewarm brain cooling to a crisp chill, spread from the nape and wrapped my head.

"Hoo."

I opened my eyes to a clear, cool sensation I had never felt in my life, and I knew that my eyes-open detection range had grown to a radius of sixty-four meters.

Eyes closed, and the range of Telescopic Vision, were the same as before, which made me wonder...... was this the original range?

It wasn't.

It seemed Detection was gradually finding its original form. I had a feeling that if I became able to circulate the Phase Power sent to my brain perfectly, even unconsciously, that would be the very moment my Search became complete.

When that time came, maybe I'd be able to detect Franc's spirit form too. But where was Franc?

I looked around and couldn't see her, so I looked up, and Franc was a little above my head, keeping watch on the surroundings.

......The view looking up from below was pretty......

Ahem. Ahem!

"Franc?"

Franc heard my voice, came close, and looked at me with eyes full of expectation, something about her sparkling.

"Is there something you're curious about?"

She had the look of someone wanting to hear something, so I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠asked what she was curious about, and Franc blinked a couple of times, then pointed at the sky.

The sky? ......Huh. When had the sun climbed that high? I checked the time and checked the map, and three hours had already passed. It was noon. And on top of that, I'd moved thirty-six kilometers?

Twelve kilometers an hour? Heh. Before, even using Phase Power, I'd barely managed 7.8 kilometers in an hour.

"How did that happen? All I did was practice controlling the Phase Power in my body a little."

At those words her eyes opened round—Franc's eyes went round awfully often, didn't they? Anyway, she wore a look of wondering what ability I'd gained this time.

"The Search range while my eyes are open just got a bit wider, that's all."

At Search range, Franc brought her face close and showed her curiosity. Oh, right—I'd never told her about the range of my ability.

"So if I close my eyes, the Search range goes a little past a hundred-meter radius around me. With my eyes open, I could only manage about thirty-four meters, but now I can do sixty-four. If I keep my eyes open and focus Detection on my eyes and the space between my brows, I can detect up to four hundred and fifty meters ahead, in a cone."

At that her eyes didn't merely go round. They blew wide, her mouth snapped shut, and her brows rose a little...... a surprised face? An aghast face? Yeah. An aghast face.

"......Is it really that shocking?"

At my question she went bright and sparkling and started pouring out, intensely, the look of someone seeing an amazing person. If the reaction had been moderate I would have shown off a little and shrugged, but it was beyond what I'd imagined, and I just felt awkward.

Anyway, curious how it would be now, I asked Franc to raise a little electricity for a moment, weakly.

I spread Phase Power through my head, ran Search at full, and gave her a look, and Franc, who had risen into the air and was waiting, immediately began to emit a faint light around her body.

......I could see it! No—I could feel it! The flow of Phase Power running around Franc's spirit form. That must be the power that made electricity.

Huh? The Soul Stone's Phase Power was decreasing a little too?

The amount was extremely slight compared to the Soul Stone's total Phase Power. But it didn't feel as if it were being released outside. It felt, somehow, as if it were vanishing into the Soul Stone's interior......

"Franc? Are you using Phase Power right now?"

Sparkling all around her body, giving off the air of a fairy princess out of legend, Franc tilted her head for a moment, then closed her eyes just slightly.

A little later her sparkle grew clearer, and the color of her spirit form mixed blue into the gray. I closed my eyes at once and focused on the Soul Stone.

......As expected. The presence at the center of the Soul Stone was absorbing the Phase Power around it. Along with that, an image took shape in my head: a human-shaped mass of electricity, floating in the air.

Those curves were Franc's. The problem was the amount of Phase Power being consumed!

"Franc, stop! Stop!!"

I shouted in a rush, and Franc, with a puzzled look, stopped generating electricity with her body—but the electricity didn't vanish at once. Blue current was visible flowing, as if traveling around inside her spirit form.

So she could generate electricity by consuming Phase Power, and electricity once generated didn't disappear immediately even if the supply of Phase Power was cut? Franc looked over her own body, sparkling blue-white, as if it were a wonder, then turned her head to the sky, stretched out a hand, straightened only her index finger, and aimed it upward.

"Huh?!"

From the tip of that slender finger, a single blue-white bolt as thick as Franc's own forearm ripped the atmosphere and rose into the sky. Franc wore an open look of wonder, as if to say ohh.

She clearly had no idea how much Phase Power she had just used.

Crack! Kra-kra-KOOM! KRA-KRA-KRA-KOOM!!

With every bolt she fired, the blue-white of her spirit form diminished. Firing off stems of lightning wildly, Franc looked, somehow, like she was having fun.

Hoo...... Once she was done shooting, I'd have to tell her.