Subspace Acquired (2)
The moment I got my hands on the subspace ability, an idea hit me, and I badgered Noona until she tracked down a residential container house. What she turned up was something a hardcore prepper had built — less a container home than a shelter.
"This is not a container house! It isn't a safe house either! It's a shelter, I tell you — a shelter!"
The owner was a man who had made a fortune in architectural design, and he was pathologically obsessed with the end of humanity. He had no intention of selling.
"This is my sanctuary. Years of my effort, my sweat, and my passion went into it. And you show up out of nowhere and demand I sell it, just like that? Absolutely not!"
"I'll pay you a hundred times what it cost to build."
"I'll sell."
There really is nothing money can't do.
"With this kind of money, I can build an even better shelter!"
He flipped on the spot, grinning ear to ear. Color flooded his face. Behind me, Noona's icy stare drilled into the back of my head — the look of a woman asking whether I was seriously spending that kind of money on this.
I did my best to ignore her and turned my eyes to the container house in front of me.
"It's a shelter. Kindly call it a shelter."
When I looked at the shelter, the man launched into an explanation of its basic structure. Listening to him, I had to admit it deserved the name. The frame was built from specialized construction materials, and the outer walls were thirteen centimeters of concrete, engineered against earthquakes, impacts, and vibration. He had added further reinforcement for stability, and thanks to aberrant byproducts with outstanding resistance to heat and cold, the prepper swore the interior stayed perfectly comfortable whether it was forty below or forty degrees Celsius.
"And because I built it with seismic damping and base isolation, I can guarantee it will come through an ice age, a Category 5 typhoon, or a magnitude 8.0 earthquake without a scratch!"
The shelter was three stories tall. As he said, the first floor was the most solid, housing the power facilities and the various critical systems that let the place function as a shelter at all. The second floor held ordinary living space and a workshop stocked with tools for making whatever might be needed. The third had bedrooms and a lounge, and the roof came with a collector that could take in up to fifteen hundred liters of rain, plus a purifier. In short, it was a house designed with every harsh condition that might befall a person at the end of the world already in mind. Air filtration, waterproofing, even radiation countermeasures — what more was there to say?
In a way, it resembled the camping trailer I had bought. The difference was that it could not move. In exchange, the waste-treatment unit and the Phase Power generator were full-sized, the living area was larger, and the drinking-water storage and filtration systems were five times the trailer's. As he said, if the food held out, the occasional rain alone would let you live inside for years. The interior had been designed down to the storage spaces with painstaking care, so six people could live there in comfort. Carry a thing like this around in subspace, and life in the Phase World would be a great deal easier.
I listened, walked the interior, and took the blueprints from him to check them as I went. From the moment I had said I would pay a hundred times the construction cost — no, from the moment I had so much as mentioned buying a container house — Noona had been full of complaints. But after touring the inside, hearing the builder out, and looking over the plans, she seemed to accept that the thing could actually operate as a shelter, and her displeasure eased a little.
I drew up the transfer papers at lightning speed, took the blueprints and the copyright, and wired the cash. The man departed in a state of pure bliss.
"Ehehehe. A Fallout shelter... I can build a Fallout shelter...!"
The moment he vanished from sight, Noona let out a sigh.
"Haaah. Spending close to ninety billion won on something like this, honestly... And how exactly do you plan to move it?"
The features were better than I had expected, and still she grumbled with a frown about why I had bought a building that could not be moved. I ignored her and walked up to the shelter. A sweep of Spatial Perception confirmed no one was watching us, and that even the builder was driving away. I laid a hand on the shelter and thought of putting it into subspace. A shelter the size of a three-story house vanished from before my eyes with a soft rush of air.
Honestly, I had wondered whether a building would even go in. But perhaps because it was already separated from the ground, it went in without the slightest restriction. I nodded, watching the shelter float intact inside a portal only I could see. From behind me came Noona's dumbfounded voice.
"My god..."
She had been tearing into me — ninety billion on a meaningless container house, was I so rotten with money that I had taken up a tycoon's hobbies? — but the moment the three-story shelter disappeared before her eyes, she could not hide her shock. She stammered, caught my arm, and asked with shining eyes.
"That's subspace, isn't it? Rawar Naidu was coming and going, and you stole the trick that fast? So you bought this to use in the Phase World?"
"Yeah. If I alternate the Blue Space Wall and the amber Space Wall, that's a decent defense against aberrants, right? I bought it so we could live comfortably in the Phase World. Well? Still a waste of money?"
"No! If someone sees you putting it in and taking it out, there'll be talk, but... if you're not using it on company raids, only when you solo... with subspace you can be self-sufficient, which is good for preserving combat power too. Mm-hm. If that's the reason, then an expense like that is fine."
She set the back of her hand against her chin, posed a question to herself, and answered it herself. I watched her and let out a sigh.
"I don't go throwing tens of billions at things that don't matter either. Everything has a use, and I got this so I could start using it tomorrow. You didn't even know that, and you just kept grilling me. Don't you think that was a bit much?"
"Then you should have told me you could use subspace! I was working, and you showed up out of nowhere telling me to look into a livable container house you could survive in for days or months. That's completely unreasonable!"
"That's why, when I saw you working, I said I had a favor to ask! And who was it that told me to just spit it out?! You didn't even ask why! You should ask the reason before you say things like that. I thought you already knew everything!"
"What am I, clairvoyant?! How am I supposed to know if you don't tell me! And when the chairman shows up saying there's something that needs doing, who turns him down!"
"...Ugh."
I should have just kept my mouth shut. Most of the time she figures everything out like a ghost even when I say nothing, and then, at moments like this, she pretends not to know and turns my insides completely upside down.
She smacked my back again and again, but the instant she raised her hand I spun up Physical Reinforcement, so it didn't hurt at all. Hmph.
Next I meant to buy food to store in subspace, then suddenly wondered whether anything I put in there would rot or spoil. Noona said it wouldn't.
"A subspace ability is exactly what it sounds like. You put things into another dimension where the flow of time doesn't exist, and you take them back out. Anything that goes in there slips out of the stream of time."
"Why?"
"...How should I know? All I did was read a paper that studied the flow of time in subspace with the help of subspace ability users."
She shot me an incredulous look as she drove, and I asked her anyway.
"So it doesn't spoil, then?"
"It doesn't spoil. It doesn't corrode. It doesn't crumble. It doesn't age."
"I see. Then I'll buy everything in sight and shove it in."
I went straight down to the big-box supermarket in the mall basement of the Grand Blue Building, ready to sweep up every scrap of food in the place. Noona heaved a deep sigh, caught me, and hauled me off to a nearby wholesale distribution center instead.
"Damn!"
From drinking water to processed food and household goods, thousands of products sat on ten-meter steel racks, filling a warehouse the size of a stadium. My heart raced. If I let my guard down, I was going to buy everything in the building.
I was about to start hoarding, pulse hammering, when Noona grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and stopped me cold.
"Are you opening a shop? Are you? You're going to fill that enormous subspace with nothing but food? Where are you evacuating to?"
"Ngh."
Her eyes were sharp, and I thought she was about to start in on me again, so I quietly looked away. Her expression softened a little.
"You said it's 0.125 cubic kilometers, right? Fill even a little of it and six people can eat for a year."
With that, she bought mostly processed foods, along with seasonings, spices, drinking water, and drinks, and picked out the daily necessities we would need. Afterward she took me to a nearby agricultural and fisheries market, bought rice, vegetables, fish, and meat in even measure, and stacked them neatly inside subspace. She also packed tools and materials for repairing the shelter, just in case. That filled about a tenth of the space.
"So what are you planning to do with the rest?"
"Aberrant byproducts, obviously! Just bring them back and we'll handle the processing on this end, so every single one you kill, haul the whole thing in. Got it?"
"...Got it."
She smiled brightly and patted me on the ass. I couldn't help thinking she looked exactly like a wife shooing her husband out the door to go earn money.
By the time we got home, the sun was sinking past the mountains.
Everyone was gathered in the training ground, and Suhan and Sophia were among them. Miho was locked in something closer to an all-out brawl than a grappling match with Suhan, while Franc faced Hwayeon and Yeongeun using the attack patterns a humanoid aberrant might employ. Combat training against humanoid aberrants, in other words. Whenever someone got hurt, Sophia cast healing, and if they collapsed from exhaustion she restored their stamina as well. Only Hiarid stood beside Sophia, watching the training with nothing to do.
Yeah. I really do need to evolve Hiarid.
Training ended sometime after six. Once Suhan and Sophia had gone into the camper to make dinner, I gathered my lovers and spoke.
"As things stand, the training isn't doing much good either, so I think I need to evolve Hiarid."
"Hmm? Saying a light-attribute flying type like Hiarid isn't helpful — aren't you setting the bar a little high? Even as she is now, you could count on two hands the raid teams in this country that could handle her."
"Those people are those people, and we're us. We should set the standard by us. What's the point of calibrating to weak raid teams?"
I said it while watching Hiarid try to calm Miho and Darky, who were fighting to claim the space between her breasts.
"Darky's reasonably clever, but sometimes he just follows instinct. Miho's mental age is young, but her ability is outstanding. When we're not around, Hiarid's the one who has to control those two, so she needs a certain level of ability herself. Especially since, aside from me and Noona, she's the only one who can actually land a real hit on Darky."
"If that is what you think, then that is what we should do. Should Hiarid become a Highest-Rank Variant, she would be, quite literally, an apostle of the heavens."
"I-I wasn't objecting to Seoha's opinion or anything, okay? I really wasn't!"
"I know, I know."
Yeongeun excused herself, insisting she had only raised another side of the matter that ran counter to my thinking, not that she was opposed. It was cute. When I let out a quiet snort of laughter, she flushed all the way to her ears.
I finished with my lovers and beckoned Hiarid over. She came walking toward me, wings of pure white fluttering, with Miho and Darky clinging to either side of her chest.
"Hey. You two, get off."
"Eeeh~ Nooo~."
"Guarantee chest time for the pet too! Guarantee it!"
The two of them hung off Hiarid like babies in their mother's arms, and when I tried to peel them away they thrashed and resisted. I caught them by the scruffs of their necks, forcibly detached them, and tossed them to Franc, then spoke to Hiarid.
"As you are, you're not much help. So starting now, I'm going to evolve you. Anything you want to say?"
=There is nothing. May it be as the Lord of the Heavens wills.=
She knelt before me with a submissive air, as if refusal were not a thing that could exist. I lifted the short apron-like top she wore and set my hand on her waist — a texture a little different from a human's, like touching silk. My lovers' gazes soured for a moment, but they quickly composed their faces and watched closely as I began to infuse TP.
The more TP went in, the more Hiarid flinched her four wings, wearing the expression of someone who had just had ice laid against the nape of her neck. The moment the Phase Stone forming inside her body reached three and a half million, she lost control of herself and began to sway.
"Whoa—"
Then the Phase Stone converted into dense Phase Power and spread through every corner of her body, and she pitched forward, collapsing onto me.
I'll say it again: Hiarid is two hundred and twenty centimeters tall. Even sitting, she towers over me, so when she fell forward her face nearly met mine, and whatever was happening to her spine, her body went soft and molded itself against me. That cheating chest of hers crushed into mine, and the sensation put me in a slightly better mood than I cared to admit — but if I showed it, I would definitely get an earful tonight.
I forced a mask of normalcy and laid the half-awakened Hiarid down on the ground. Scanning inside her with Spatial Perception, I found the three and a half million Phase Power left by the burst Phase Stone gathered thick in some places and thin in others, lapping faintly like the surface of a lake in a breeze.
Creak. Crack-crack-crack. Snap. Crack.
From the prone Hiarid's back came the sound of something breaking and tearing. Her upper body jerked, and those watermelon-sized breasts heaved, so I quickly reached out, caught her arms, and sat her up. Something was beginning to change along her back.
"Ah — her wings..."
"Another pair of wings is growing."
Creak. Crack. Pop. Riiip.
Bone leaving its place. Bone breaking. Muscle tearing, one sound after another. The skin of her back bulged, then split in a long vertical tear, and bone as white as light surged upward. The bones of a bird's wing. At a glance they looked like a human arm, lengthening as they emerged, and blue Phase Power wrapped that bone in a faint glow. A thin membrane of skin formed over it. Fine down grew on that skin, the down lengthened and took the shape of feathers, and in an instant a pair of wings like a pure-white swan's had come into being.
Holding Hiarid's limp body, her eyes half-open, I noticed the other changes just as quickly. Her skin grew finer and softer, with a coolness to it that was hard to place — not an unpleasant chill, but the pleasant cool of lying in a tree's shade in high summer while a breeze moved over you. Her soft chest gained elasticity and firmed, her muscles grew denser, and her hair — once a blonde close to honey — now shone as if each strand had been drawn from gold itself, growing long and abundant enough to reach the backs of her knees.
One more pair. Six wings in all.
Changed enough that anyone would have called her an angel, she rested in my arms — then suddenly gave a small tremble, reached out the hands that had hung limp, and wrapped them around my back.
=Seoha...=
"Huh? Mmph—?!"
Lips closed over mine in an instant. Cool, and yet soft, sweet as honey — and then a soft, wet tongue—!
My lovers' eyes went wide enough to tear, and I froze in shock. In that span Hiarid ended the stolen kiss quickly, rubbed her cheek lightly against mine, and drew me into her arms the way a mother holds a baby, covering me snugly with all six wings.
Perfectly held by her, I caught a scent like the one I had smelled climbing Cheonwangbong on Jirisan with Dad, back when the mountain was thick with cloud. Walking up through the clouds, it had smelled like this. Dad had called it the smell of clouds. The poetry of them, he had said.
Buried in the arms of a woman a good forty centimeters taller than me, I remembered clinging to Mom as a child and acting spoiled. Hiarid stroked my head and my back with a gentle hand, her expression somehow tender and aching, calm and passionate all at once.
Wait. Did Hiarid just call me by my name?
Yeongeun looked ready to tear Hiarid out of my arms at any moment, her body twitching with the urge, but Hiarid's expression bothered me too much. I looked at Yeongeun and sent her a look that said to hold.
......
A little later, when the six rippling wings had settled, I pulled free of Hiarid's embrace and looked at her face. In that aching, tender expression I felt a deep grief, and the feeling of someone who had lost something precious. The air around us seemed to have gone cold. I glanced at my lovers and found every one of them wearing the same cold, angry face. They were looking at Hiarid with open displeasure, and yet they had not rushed in. Perhaps because her expression was anything but ordinary.
She showed no sign of speaking first, so I asked.
"Why did you do that? Why are you making a face like that?"
=...It is because I am no longer Flauvis.=
I had not been able to tell whether the result of the evolution was Highest-Rank or a Highest-Rank subspecies. From Hiarid's answer, I understood. She had become a subspecies.