Day ?, Phase World (5)

Last night I couldn't bring myself to shut Search all the way off — the unease was too much — so I tried to tune it down into some kind of half-awakened state. The fifth time I flicked the ability on and off, I lost consciousness and dropped into sleep before I even knew it.

Up until then I'd felt a little mentally worn, but not sleepy, and I'd been thinking I might practice control for a while and then turn in. Toggling Search off and on must put a considerable strain on the brain.

Still a lot of limits. This ability of mine.

And more than anything, morning handed me a reason I had no choice but to sleep.

The efficiency of Analysis.

Before I slept, unless I concentrated, the analysis rate sat around forty percent on average. After a full night's rest, mind clear and properly awake, it had climbed to seventy. What mattered more was that focusing added a full sixty percent on top of the ordinary state — which meant that if I used Analysis with my mind concentrated now, efficiency shot up to 130%.

So I tried at once to analyze Franc's spirit body. I failed.

Damn it. If I was going to protect Franc, I needed to understand what she was better than anyone.

Anyway, I couldn't analyze the spirit body, but I did learn one new thing about the Soul Stone and Franc. A thin thread I decided to call the soul thread.

It only became visible once Analysis hit 130% efficiency. At first, seeing a pale blue-gray thread running from my chest and connecting to Franc's back, I rubbed my eyes, sure it was an optical illusion. It was still there the second time, and for a moment I actually wondered whether this was the thread of fate between me and Franc.

...Thank god I hadn't said that out loud. I would have died of embarrassment.

Anyway, the thread flowed out of the Soul Stone and linked to Franc's back. When I told her, her eyes went round and she strained to look at her own back. The blue-gray thread swayed right beside her line of sight, and still she twisted around, groping at herself. I tilted my head.

Hmm? She can't see the thread?

It wasn't some imaginary filament my delusions had spun up, was it? A little worried, I watched her twist this way and that, trying to see the thread she was told ran to her back, and lightly caught it in my hand.

A phantom exclamation mark seemed to pop up over Franc's head.

Oh. So she can feel the soul thread being grabbed.

She froze and turned to face me dead-on, and relief washed through me. The soul thread wasn't a hallucination only my eyes could see. The moment I let go, the marks over her head doubled, and she came closer wearing a face that clearly asked what that had just been.

"I just tugged the thread connected to the Soul Stone. It's right here... You can't see it, Franc?"

As I said it, I caught the soul thread again. Franc's shoulders jumped, and she stared at my fingers with a look of pure wonder. Then something seemed to occur to her. She gestured for me to stay put and began climbing higher and higher into the sky.

What is she trying to do...?

A little worried about whatever she was planning, I kept glancing between her shooting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠upward and the soul thread stretching longer and longer — and then, all at once, the thread vanished without a trace.

I called her name in a panic. Fine gray particles spilled from the Soul Stone and assembled themselves into Franc's form. I watched her body take shape in a daze, then snapped out of it the moment she fully appeared and lit into her.

"How could you go that far without knowing what might happen?! What were you going to do if something went wrong!"

Scolded, Franc looked flustered — a face that said this wasn't how it was supposed to go — and scrambled to get her meaning across with hands, feet, and her whole body. What she meant was this.

One: no matter where the Soul Stone was, she could sense its presence.

Two: likewise, she could move back inside the Soul Stone from anywhere.

Three: the farthest she could go seemed to be about two kilometers, and if she tried to go farther, she was pulled back into the Soul Stone.

Four: she had wanted to grasp her own abilities more precisely, so she could be of help to me.

"Then say something first..."

I muttered it while settling my startled, pounding heart with Phase Power, and Franc gave an awkward, apologetic smile and nodded.

Her sudden stunt had startled me, but learning the first and third points took a huge weight off my mind. I'd been sick with worry that if trouble arose and we drifted too far apart, we might never find each other again.

And the reason the soul thread had vanished the moment she went too far was probably that Franc's true body resided inside the Soul Stone, and the spirit form I was looking at was, quite literally, a phantom or an illusion.

In any case, if a rise in Search's efficiency was what let me see the soul thread, then once Search was perfected, the odds of being able to detect Franc's spirit body would only get higher.

I was paddling along, sorting through the theory, when Franc shoved her face in front of mine and waved.

"Huh? Huh?"

There was a hint of frustration in her expression. She'd been calling me for a while.

"Sorry. I was thinking about something else... Huh? An island? You saw an island?"

My eyes went wide at the news that she'd spotted a small island when she flew up earlier. She couldn't gauge its size, but her gestures insisted it was definitely land, so I changed course toward it.

Land. Solid ground. I could lie down and rest.

After about an hour and twenty minutes of swimming, the water level gradually dropped, and trees began jutting more than ten meters above the surface. Before, the tallest had been around three. The ground around here must sit higher.

Franc was flying just ahead and to my left, as if doing the backstroke, keeping watch behind me. Ever since she'd learned Search's blind spots, she seemed determined to cover the parts I had trouble sensing. I could keep an eye on the front with Telescopic Vision, but the rear was harder. I felt ashamed of the version of me who had once gotten cocky over a Search range that wasn't even that wide, and sold her short for it.

Then again, I'd already swum nearly ten kilometers. Even granting she'd seen it from the sky, she'd spotted an island this far out? Franc was something else.

I'd been swimming another twenty minutes or so when Franc, who had been shuttling between me and the sky at regular intervals, simply stopped coming back down. Wondering what was up, I focused and checked the soul thread. It was stretching toward the island.

Gone ahead to scout?

I kept swimming while I waited, and a moment later she came back, signaling frantically for me to stop.

"What's wrong?"

Flustered and grave, she mouthed something, but I couldn't make out a word. I stared at her blankly, the look of someone who couldn't parse a word that long, and she clutched her face in both hands, thrashed, then started repeating a single word.

Monster. Monster.

She looked so desperately worried I might not understand even that, I almost wanted to tease her — but whatever she was trying to tell me was serious, so I let it go and asked.

"A monster? Some huge animal, like that giant mole?"

She shook her head, face tight. If not a monster, then an Aberrant?

"So you mean an Aberrant? There are Aberrants on the island?"

Only then did her face brighten, and she nodded.

Not enough information. I didn't even know if island was the right word, let alone how wide it was or how many of them were gathered there.

"Can you tell how many there are? How far is it to the island? The trees are blocking my view from here."

Franc gestured for me to wait, then flew off toward the island. It struck me all over again how wasteful it was — the claw spear I'd left behind, the javelin thrower I'd built and never once used — but what was left behind was left behind. Looking around, there were plenty of straight branches, and plenty of trees. Building a thrower and sniping might not be a bad idea. Analysis would handle the ballistics for me.

While I waited for her return, studying the nearby trees and designing a new thrower, a gray shimmer spread from my chest, and Franc's form began assembling slowly from the head down. My eyes drifted of their own accord between her chest and her thighs, but I looked away before she opened hers.

Once her body was fully formed, Franc shook her head frantically, face urgent, gesturing wildly away from the island. Go somewhere else.

"Hold on. Franc, calm down. Tell me what you saw. Are there Low-Rank Variants on the island or something?"

She shook her head at that, but her expression said not so much no as I don't know. Then she held up two fingers on her left hand and four on her right.

"You're saying there are twenty-four of them on that island?"

She nodded. Hard.

Well. How were numbers like that all piled in one spot? The same kind of Aberrant?

"How big is the island? How much distance is left?"

I kept asking instead of running, and her face grew more and more miserable. At this rate she wasn't going to tell me anything unless I reassured her. That wouldn't do, so I soothed her and laid it out gently.

"Twenty-four is a lot, but if they're all clustered on an island, doesn't that mean they have trouble moving through the water? So I think hiding behind a big tree and sniping with a javelin thrower could work. I've got ballistic analysis, and I can boost my strength, so sniping isn't a bad option."

At that, Franc seemed to glimpse the possibility, and her expression visibly steadied. Probably because I'd been building all sorts of things and explaining my abilities in detail. I added one more line.

"And... if I get into trouble, you'll help me, won't you?"

Roasting them with a full lightning bolt was out, but short bursts of electricity to paralyze them in flashes would be a huge help.

"Above all, if it gets dangerous, I can circulate Phase Power through my whole body and swim away."

By the time I'd explained that far, the unease in Franc's eyes seemed to be lifting little by little. Even so, the worry never fully left. She still couldn't quite settle with the idea of me, not a combat type, fighting Aberrants.

Hmm. If I'd shown her me taking down Aberrants with the javelin thrower I'd built, she wouldn't be like this.

I'd never used it in actual combat either, but a guideline appearing the moment I threw was flat-out broken — cheat-tier. Add a strength boost on top of that, even if it fell short of a true Physical Reinforcement ability, and taking down Lowest-Rank Variants on the level of a Long-snouted Lean Wolf or a Big Field Rat would be no problem at all. Maybe I could even handle a Low-Rank Variant.

Watching Franc waffle adorably between stopping me and encouraging me, I smiled inwardly and went on.

"I'm not some reckless fool who'll get cocky just because my body got a little stronger and start thrashing around. But I also don't think running from every Aberrant forever is any kind of answer."

Her brows drew into a pitiful arch and her lips worked, as if she had something she wanted to say. Seeing that, I decided to give a little ground.

"Fine. I'll approach as carefully as I can, then use Telescopic Vision to check what level of Aberrant is on that island first. And if it looks dangerous, I'll back off. That works, right?"

At my concession, Franc gave a small nod, her face saying that much was acceptable. The instant I saw it, mischief welled up.

"I know perfectly well my ability isn't combat. It's Special Type, and Detection at that. And every move I've made so far had a reason behind it, but you don't even acknowledge that — you just oppose me. Do you really trust me that little?"

I pouted like I was sulking, pressed my cheek to a log, and grumbled. Franc's eyes went round and she flustered, insisting that wasn't it. When I turned my head away, her face crumpled, and she shifted into my line of sight, pressing her hands together and begging.

Now's my chance.

"Give me one peck and I'll forgive you."

I smoothed my expression and looked at her with a wicked grin. Only then did Franc realize she'd been teased. She looked dumbfounded, but a moment later she wore a resigned little smile and softly pecked my cheek.

Huh? I'd meant on the lips.

Maybe peck and kiss got read as different things. Not that this was bad... Next time I'd have to say kiss, and mean it.

"All right, I need information. What kind of things are gathered there, what the island's situation is, its size and terrain — I have to confirm all of it. Did you see what kinds are there, and how many of each?"

I listed off the Lowest-Rank Variants I knew, and Franc raised a hand for the Long-snouted Lean Wolf, the Big Field Rat, the Two-Tailed Fox, and the No-Head Mantis. Plus two kinds I hadn't named, for six in total. Of those, the Big Field Rats were the most numerous at eight; Long-snouted Lean Wolves, four; Two-Tailed Foxes, three; No-Head Mantises, two; and finally two unidentified kinds, four and three respectively.

"Unidentified Aberrants... Can you describe what they look like?"

Franc answered with her body, acting out the shapes of both kinds. She bent her knees a little, stuck her hips back, and leaned her upper body forward. One hand she spread against her rear, fingers fanned outward; the other she raised above her head and opened. The whole performance was too cute, too adorable, and far too suggestive.

I gaped, drinking in the sight without a thought in my head, until Franc seemed to notice I was only looking at her figure. The tips of her brows lifted just a fraction. Ahem. What was that — a chicken? Were there chicken Aberrants?

"An Aberrant that looks like a chicken?"

She clapped as if I'd gotten it right and nodded. I dug through my memory for a moment, trying to recall whether there had been a chicken among the Lowest-Rank Variants. Nothing came up.

"And the other one?"

Next she crouched in midair, drew both knees to her chest, set her hands on her hips, and flapped while shuffling along on her feet alone. Not being able to save that as video or a photo — a permanent private archive — was enough to kill me with the injustice of it.

"I need that recorded and kept forever...!"

At my cry, thick with regret, Franc startled, then flushed red, covered herself with both hands, and protested.

"Ah, ahaha. Sorry, sorry! I got it — it's a land penguin!"

Her gestures jogged my memory a beat late. The remaining kind must be a land penguin: unlike ordinary penguins, an Aberrant that lived in warm regions and wore short ocher fur. Soothing the sulking Franc, I started swimming toward the island, using Detection to search for trees with enough branches to make spears.

Truthfully, if safety was all that mattered, fleeing past the island as Franc wanted might be the better call. But with no idea how much time remained until the return to reality, the problems weren't just one or two. If less than a day had passed since I met the Supergiant Turtle, I'd be sent back to reality on my own in three days. If not, I'd have to fight to survive.

On the fourth day after the forced summoning, while making the claw spear and looking at giant Franc's corpse and the giant mole's carcass, I'd had a thought. I couldn't keep running forever. Fleeing the problem in front of me was easy. With Search and Franc, I could run as long as I wanted. But then I'd have to live like a loser, like a fugitive, for the rest of my days.

As I please. To live the way my heart leads. For that I needed power, and to gain power, there were times you had to fight. Dad said he'd fought like hell with Mom's father just to marry her. So if you wanted to seize what you desired, you had to fight.

Thinking that, I found a tree with plenty of branches suited to making javelins. And yet, somehow, the expression on Franc as she followed beside me was the same one she'd worn when she bowed to me in the tree room.

"What's wrong?"

I asked, but Franc — who had at some point put on a dignified expression — only smiled faintly and offered nothing more. It wasn't exactly a problem. For now I needed to think about how to deal with twenty-four Lowest-Rank Variants.

At minimum I'd have to get close enough that half my Search range reached inside the island. Telescopic Vision could sense out to 450 meters, so the island's size would matter. If dozens had been alive when the flood isolated them, with nothing to eat, the weakest would have been eaten first. The twenty-four that survived would be exceptionally strong even among Lowest-Rank Variants.

The more Phase Power something held, the stronger it became, and when an Aberrant died, its Phase Power spread into the surroundings. The survivors would have absorbed that power, so of course they'd grown stronger. A gu, in the literal sense — the venomous thing you make by sealing every kind of poisonous insect in a jar until only one is left alive.

I didn't know how strong they'd gotten, but so long as they hadn't evolved into Low-Rank Variants, sniping from a distance shouldn't pose much of a threat.

I let my gaze rest on Franc flying ahead of me, her backside on full display. She seemed to notice the look and turned with a face that asked if I had something to say. I smiled lightly as if to say no, and she tilted her head, then rose into the sky.

Going to check again?

I kicked forward as carefully as I could, trying not to splash, and found animal carcasses drifting on the surface, torn apart in places. The head was gone somewhere, and most of the organs looked eaten out. One hind leg was missing. Two tails spread in the water. A Two-Tailed Fox?

Other corpses started entering Telescopic Vision's range too — a Big Field Rat sunk underwater, a crushed insect, Aberrant remains that made you wrinkle your nose just looking at them. And the water was starting to give off a faintly sour smell. I shouldn't drink it.

Careful not to let the water rise above my neck, I was checking the carcasses with Telescopic Vision and Detection when Franc came back down. She hesitated a moment, then drew an irregular quadrilateral in the air — telling me the island's size? Then she spread both arms as wide as they would go, dropped them, and formed a hundred with her fingers.

"You're saying the island's circumference is about a hundred arm-spans?"

She shook her head.

"Hmm. Not the circumference — the diameter?"

She nodded hard.

"Right. Your arms are on the long side, so fingertip to fingertip is about 140 centimeters. A hundred of those would be roughly an elementary school field."

Watching Franc's face light up as she nodded earnestly, I scratched my cheek. That size wasn't exactly wide, but it wasn't narrow either. A reasonable area for twenty-four of them?

I moved another careful twenty minutes, and the water grew shallower — about three meters on average, it seemed. And between two distant trees, ocher earth came faintly into view, more of it than I'd expected. Using the surrounding trees as reference, I worked out a rough distance. About three kilometers left.

If I closed to 450 meters, wouldn't I get spotted? I ran the real distance and the number of Aberrants packed onto that island through my head for a moment, then decided to put getting closer off until later and grasp the situation first. A higher vantage would make scouting easier, so with Franc's help I found the tallest nearby tree that would let me look the island over.

Before climbing, I asked her to scout, in case the situation on the island had changed.

"Could you go to the island and see if anything's moving differently? Approach slowly, and check whether the Aberrants there can see you. Please."

Franc clenched both fists with a resolute look, as if to say she understood, and began gliding over the water toward the island, slow and careful. Meanwhile I used Detection to search for branches straight enough to serve as spears.

Two per creature, forty-eight — wouldn't that be enough? With a throwing guideline, I probably didn't need a hundred or two hundred. But there were a fair number of straight branches, and still I didn't think I could get forty-eight out of a single tree.

Judging by the javelins I'd made on the cliff the night before the end, even the short ones needed to be at least a meter, and a little thicker than a steel bar. Too long or too short and they wouldn't fly far; too thick and the weight kept them from flying; too thin and they'd bend in flight, or snap on impact and lose their penetrating power. Still, Lowest-Rank Variants were relatively small, so it was a mercy that a decent spear would be fatal so long as it hit them anywhere on the body.

Thinking it over, the rectangular javelin thrower I'd made first seemed better than the long-stemmed pipe design after all.

I settled my thoughts and hid behind the tree to wait for Franc, when her face suddenly popped out through the trunk.

"You're back. How was it?"

She'd secretly hoped to startle me, and looked disappointed that I didn't so much as flinch. With the soul thread visible, there was no way I'd be surprised. When I told her that, Franc's pretty face brightened a little. Embarrassed? Heh.

As if to change the subject, she began reporting the island's situation. According to her, two Big Field Rats, one long-snouted wolf, one chicken Aberrant, and one Two-Tailed Fox had died. The rest — everyone except the Big Field Rats and the Long-snouted Lean Wolves — had been chopping the corpses into pieces and eating them. The two mantises in particular had claimed one Big Field Rat all to themselves.

And it seemed Aberrants couldn't see Franc either. At least it was certain the Lowest-Rank Variants couldn't. She'd waved her hands right in front of a Two-Tailed Fox and a chicken Aberrant, and neither had noticed. In that state, running a current through them could probably deal fatal damage — but I didn't say so. If I did, she'd immediately volunteer to kill them all herself.

"Hmm."

Five dead in two hours, nineteen left. I checked the time. Right around lunch.

I climbed the tree slowly and reached the top. The leaves were sparse, so the surrounding view came in at a glance. Turning toward the island, I saw an irregular stretch of land — just as Franc had said, a flat island roughly 120 meters by 90. Three trees of twenty to thirty meters stood on it, and the Aberrants had gathered by kind along the edges, wary of the others. The two headless mantises, though, had claimed the two trees growing at the island's center and stood motionless in their shade.

Those No-Head Mantises were conspicuously larger than the other Aberrants. Even without heads, they looked nearly as tall as I was. The land penguins and Two-Tailed Foxes looked like ordinary Lowest-Rank size. They might threaten a fresh summon just arrived in the Phase World, with neither ability nor technique — but as I was now, with Search assisting and my body enhanced by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Phase Power control, I could probably take two of them at once on ability alone without much trouble.

But I was a klutz, so I couldn't be sure. On specs alone it ought to be enough, though I'd dropped a frightening amount of weight, and that nagged at me too. I gripped the horn awl at my waist tight and dug through memory for what I knew of them.

A land penguin stood a meter tall, fleshy and heavy, but moved nearly as fast as a Long-snouted Lean Wolf. They ranked in the upper tier of Lowest-Rank Variants, or so I'd heard. Their hide was covered head to toe in short brown fur about ten centimeters long, and when they ran they didn't waddle — they charged fast enough to drum the ground. Their wings were larger than an ordinary penguin's, and with a bit of flapping they could manage a brief, swift low flight. I'd seen it in the Aberrant compendium. The notable points: a beak sturdy enough to peck rock apart, and a hit from those wings — arms? — landed like a hammer blow. In my current condition, one of those would break bone.

A Two-Tailed Fox looked identical to the common red fox of reality, except for the two tails. Also called a twin-tailed fox, and extremely agile. Their main attack stretched a thirty-centimeter tail to twice its length for a stab. The claws weren't much to worry about, but the teeth were viciously sharp. An ordinary person bitten would be torn to pieces in the instant of the bite, and their speed ranked in the upper tier of Lowest-Rank Variants.

I'd already met and fought Big Field Rats and Long-snouted Lean Wolves, so I could skip those. The problem was the chicken. Where was the chicken?

I couldn't see it, and searched for a long while before I happened to find it perched on a tree in the island's northwest, sitting there like a pigeon or a sparrow. That was a chicken? It was a bit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠different from any chicken I knew. The shape was the same, but its whole body was pitch black, studded with white spots. Comb, beak, and feet were pure white. The eyes were completely hidden by feathers. It had climbed to what looked like nine meters up — so it could fly?

Ordinary chickens in reality could flap a few meters, and in some villages, left to free-range, they even flew up into trees, so I'd have to be careful of that one. But it was quite small, only about twice a normal chicken. Maybe I only had to watch the claws and the beak?

Last, and most dangerous: the headless mantis, the No-Head Mantis, was the size of a grown man. Aside from the missing head, it looked much like a mantis from reality. No brain, apparently, so it attacked every living thing that approached. The island turning into a bloodbath was probably largely their doing. In place of a head, once combat began its senses sharpened drastically, reading presence and movement around it with uncanny precision. To kill one, I'd heard, you either closed in and finished it in a single rush, or struck sharply from a distance.

Its combat ability sat at the top of the Lowest-Rank Variants, but because of that exceptional battle sense, some scholars argued it should be reclassified as a Low-Rank Variant. Fights between them and actual Low-Rank Variants had been witnessed more than once.

For now, if those things were still Lowest-Rank, their Phase Power detection range would be about seven meters, so they shouldn't have noticed me here. And in fact, none of the Aberrants on the island showed any sign of having found me.

"Hmmm..."

The biggest problem looked to be those No-Head Mantises. That bulk bothered me. People said Aberrants were usually graded by size, because the more Phase Power they held, the more grotesquely their bodies swelled. Looking at the Rogue Imugi alone — damn long and huge — that tracked.

Anyway, I'd seen on social media that Lowest-Rank Variants almost never exceeded a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meter in height or length, and anything beyond that should be treated as having evolved a stage. So those two, standing over 170 centimeters, had a very high chance of already being Low-Rank Variants.

Franc seemed to have reached a similar judgment. She looked at me with worry, as if wondering whether she ought to stop me even now.