Acquiring Subspace (3)
She was no longer a Flauvis.
That, I supposed, meant the same thing as my own ceasing to be human. If I let the quiet stand, my lovers were going to turn on Hiarid for the kiss she had stolen, so I carried the talk forward at once.
"So you can't serve the Master of the Sky anymore, because you're not a Flauvis?"
=Yes.=
"Then why did you do that to me?"
=Because I wished for you, Lord Seoha, to become the being who stands in the Master of the Sky's place.=
"……You want me to become that? The thing that replaces it?"
=Yes.=
She answered with breathtaking simplicity. And yet that was not the end of it; the rest came pouring after.
=The Flauvis bear young through a reproductive act that resembles humanity's, and yet differs from it. For that to happen, one must receive the blessing and baptism of the heavens at the moment of birth, and thereby have one's constitution changed. That blessing and baptism are what bind the Flauvis to one another. A Flauvis who is not so bound cannot exist as a Flauvis, and even a reproductive union with her own kind will never allow her to conceive or to give birth.=
"Don't tell me."
Hearing it, Yeongeun narrowed her eyes and fixed a long, steady look on Hiarid, whose white wings had multiplied to six.
=On the day I submitted to you, Lord Seoha, my body received your baptism. The traces of the heavens' blessing and baptism grew faint, and the thread that bound me to the Flauvis became terribly thin and dim.=
At that, Franc and Hwayeon began to show the same wariness toward what Hiarid was saying. They looked, to me, like people bracing for an enemy.
Hiarid met my lovers' guarded faces, and my own full of questions, with a plaintive smile, and went on.
=From that day, I took you, Lord Seoha, for the lord of the sky in another world, and I served you. All the while the thread grew fainter with each passing day, and with it I grew ever less certain of the being I was. In that state I learned the ways of this world together with Miho and Darky, and I came to know that the life I had lived was nothing but obedience and exploitation, and that the blessing of the Flauvis was no blessing at all, but a shackle.=
A few months back, after I'd gained Darky and poured TP into Hiarid, she had suddenly thrown herself into my arms and wept. I remembered her saying she was lonely—lonely because I wouldn't stroke her. Back then I had taken it for nothing more than a side effect of the brainwashing…….
=It is different now. By your new baptism, Lord Seoha, I am no longer an unstable Flauvis, but one complete being. The thread of oppression is gone, and at last I may exist not as Hiarid of the Flauvis, but as the being called Hiarid.=
She spoke her own name with her own mouth, then dropped to her knees, set both hands on the floor, and pressed her brow to the backs of them—bowing to me—before she opened her mouth again.
Every trace of aching feeling had left the face of the Hiarid who had sworn herself to me. She looked at me again with that old calm, that old quiet.
So that expression earlier—more than two hundred years lived as a Flauvis, and today she had shed the race entirely and emerged as something else, and the sorrow and the regret had simply broken loose.
My lovers looked down at her with complicated faces, and now and then those faces turned on me. Franc pouted as if thoroughly displeased. Hwayeon closed her eyes and said nothing. Yeongeun wore the look one saves for a notorious rake.
"Arpis……? So thanks to Seoha, you can conceive and give birth even with other races now? And that's why you want that…… from him. That's why you serve him?"
=I am Lord Seoha's servant.=
Hiarid answered with a faint smile held on her lips.
She had not said no. Watching my lovers glare at her for it, and Miho and Darky standing blank behind her, a faintly chilling vision flickered across my eyes: Franc at the head, with Hwayeon and Yeongeun beside her, and opposite them Hiarid, Miho, and Darky, squared off against one another. It lasted truly no more than a tenth of a second, but cold sweat ran down my back.
I rubbed the gooseflesh on my forearm and forced the subject aside.
"But listen. Didn't you say Arpis was your true name? That if someone gave an order in that name, you'd have no choice but to obey? And you took that as your name?"
=So I did. It was blessing and baptism, and at the same time a shackle—a means, if you will, by which a Flauvis of higher station ruled one of lower station. But I am no longer a Flauvis, and I required something by which to prove that I exist.=
"So that's Arpis. The name that used to be your true name."
Past tense, was it……. Something in Hwayeon's words clicked. I turned to Hiarid, and she smiled faintly and nodded.
=That is correct.=
"……Then has Hiarid evolved, and ceased to be of the Flauvis? And does her true name no longer hold her, either?"
=The same, and yet not the same. As my lord so often says—just as Lady Flandre became a subspecies of humankind, so I have become a subspecies and a variant of the Flauvis. Please regard Arpis no longer as a true name, but as my surname.=
At that, Franc's brow drew in a fraction. Once she read in the expression that no belittlement had been meant, she let the crease ease. I watched, let out a small sigh, and said,
"All right. Then I'll keep calling you Hiarid."
=Yes, Lord Seoha.=
Yeongeun had been listening with quiet little nods. Then—how to put it—she turned on Hiarid eyes that were terribly cold and empty of feeling, and asked leave to question her.
"Hmm. Hiarid? May I ask just one thing?"
=Please, speak.=
"You said you'd serve Seoha with your whole life. If Seoha decided to wipe out the Flauvis, what would you do?"
=If Lord Seoha but gives the command, I shall take the foremost rank and lead.=
The answer came without even a second's wait, and it must have satisfied her. Yeongeun wiped the cold from her face and nodded.
"Then that's enough. That matter is different from this."
This? What was this……? I looked at her, openly curious, but Yeongeun turned her head away with a hmph.
The cold look was gone. It wasn't quite hostility, and it wasn't quite wariness either. In any case, wearing an expression that somehow could not leave Hiarid alone, Yeongeun nodded to herself with a little mm-hmm.
Hwayeon and Franc were much the same. Hiarid, for her part, went on watching my lovers with that smile that might have meant something and might not.
"Is the talk over?" Miho piped.
"S'over?" Darky echoed.
Once the grave-sounding talk had ended, the two of them—who had been glancing back and forth between my lovers and Hiarid—sidled in. One hung off Hiarid's neck. The other crawled into her arms.
I watched her stroke Darky's head and caress Miho's cheek, a soft smile on her face, and took stock of her body while I was at it. Phase Power, three and a half million. If she had become a subspecies…… a Calamity-rank subspecies, so perhaps power on par with Franc's? But I didn't feel that prickling, skin-crawling pressure I got from Franc or from Baekcheong.
…….
I looked at the lingering trace of gooseflesh on my forearm and swept a hand over it again. That vision had been laid out like a faction war between a queen and her concubines…… No. Surely not.
Beautiful, capable women fighting to claim me might be the fantasy of a great many men. But if those women were the people I loved, it wasn't a fantasy. It was a nightmare.
The thought that I ought to pay this a little mind settled into one corner of my head.
The next morning, with less than four hours left on the Return Point's cooldown, I managed to nearly finish preparing for reentry. Preparation, such as it was, amounted to nothing more than food in the shelter already sitting inside the Subspace.
It was Saturday, so Yeongeun, who hadn't gone in to work, was wholly absorbed in training with Hiarid, Miho, and Darky, while Franc and Hwayeon were learning the esoteric art of miniaturization from Nuhodi.
I was watching the training ground bustle and waiting to go back in when my sister showed up, carrying thirty-seven longswords and something pitch-black.
I had a Space Wall spread in midair and was sitting slumped on it. She dumped the longswords in a clattering heap in front of me, glared with a thoroughly displeased face, then thrust out a black one-piece that looked like skin-tight tights and shouted.
"Are you going to get down already?!"
She looked about one breath short of a full fit, so I hopped down in a hurry. My sister glared at me, spread the garment out, and said,
"It's a tights-suit made from the processed hide of a Peak-Rank aberrant, a thunder eel. The insulating properties are excellent, so it can cut the damage from a lightning strike to some degree. Add Darky's power on top of that, and the resistance to electricity will be far better than the Turtlerock suit."
"Turtlerilock?"
"The Turtlerock suit!! The 120-billion-won armor you destroyed!!"
"Gk—?! It cost that much?!"
I'd figured it wouldn't be cheap, being made from the byproducts of a Calamity-rank aberrant, but 120 billion won…… At my words my sister pressed a hand to her head as if dizzy, then flew into a rage.
"You think that was all of it?! The Beetle Pack alone ran past seventy billion won to make! And on top of that you went and lost the Cheonchong Ungeom, which you can't even put a price on! And you stand there perfectly calm……!"
……Nnngh.
She was seething like a wife watching a husband who had thrown money away outside the house. Hwayeon came over, wrapped her arms around my sister from behind, and soothed her.
"It was made from Calamity-rank byproducts, yes, but that figure is the cost of research and processing added together. Make another, and the price would drop to a third, and developing the Turtlerock suit produced several new technologies besides. It isn't pure loss. Calm yourself."
"That's true enough, but he doesn't even have the sense to realize how expensive the thing he destroyed was. And then he stands there with that brazen face—it drives me up the wall!"
"Thanks to that, he also brought back a great quantity of Transcendental aberrant byproducts, so if anything he deserves to be praised. And money on that scale is pocket change to Seoha. Scolding him over it is unfair."
Hwayeon patted her shoulder as she said it. My sister pouted, then snapped at her.
"Covering for your groom-to-be, just because you're the bride-to-be?"
"Wh—! N-no. This is strictly a general principle……!"
"Spare me. Deny it all you like with that new-bride face. I don't believe a word of it."
And with that she flung the skin-tight suit at me.
"Put it on. Now!"
"Yeesh. The hysterics."
I had muttered it under my breath, barely a whisper, but she must have heard. The fires lit in her eyes again, and I whipped my head aside.
Yesterday I had skipped the part about nearly dying, and mentioned only in passing that the Cheonchong Ungeom, the suit, and the backpack had vaporized. She had been chewing me out like this ever since, over destroying something that expensive, and because she really was my sister I couldn't even get properly angry…….
Well. Better than watching her burst into worried tears over the story of how I'd nearly died.
Dodging my sister as her face twisted like a ghost's, I hurriedly shoved the longswords into the Subspace, fled to the camper, and pulled the tights on.
I put them on straight over my underwear and checked myself in the full-length mirror. True to skin-tight tights, they were an embarrassing fashion, one that threw a man's anatomy into particularly stark relief. I sighed softly, dressed over them, and muttered.
"Something like this only does the eyes any good if Franc or Hwayeon or Yeongeun is the one wearing it."
I grinned, picturing the three of them in the tights-suit in all their blatant glory, then remembered my sister's hysterics along with it and heaved another sigh.
"Sis really needs to get herself a boyfriend. Maybe then the hysterics would ease up."
A sting.
"Hm?"
……What was that. Just now, something inside my chest had stung and throbbed.
Ah, whatever.
I was packing a change of clothes and a towel from the dressing room into the Subspace when it grew a little noisy outside. I looked out the window to see what was going on. Ten heavy trailers were filing, one after another, into the empty lot on the estate grounds.
Curious what they carried, I scanned the insides with Spatial Perception. Eight of the trailers were loaded with Franc's clothes, tops and bottoms packed separately, piece by piece, and the remaining two held her underwear, boxed and wrapped.
So the clothes my sister had said she'd ordered were finally here?
When I stepped out of the camper, my sister had hold of Hiarid and was fussing over the wings that had grown to six, looking thoroughly amazed. Told that Hiarid had evolved, she laughed and offered her congratulations.
Hmm. Hiarid's expressions—or maybe her feelings—seemed richer somehow. Before the evolution she had been nothing but an inorganic doll that answered when spoken to. Now she was a woman whose emotions were only a little faint.
"You don't need to prepare anything else?"
Yeongeun asked it as she came over. I shook the thought off, confirmed that my sister's attention, off in the distance, was fixed on Hiarid's wings, then took Yeongeun's hand and kneaded it as I answered.
"Yeah. The insulating suit's here, and the weapons, so I'm done."
Thanks to the Subspace, I didn't have to sort luggage, shoulder it, or arrange a way to carry it, so the time spent preparing had shrunk to almost nothing.
I opened my collar and showed her the thunder eel tights-suit underneath. Yeongeun brushed my nape and my collarbone, stared straight through my face, and laughed softly.
"Once you're in, you have to be careful, and careful again, all right? And don't forget that we're always waiting."
Ugh. The face said it plain. You never told us, but I know every last thing that happened in the Phase World last time. My conscience took several sharp pokes.
If Yeongeun was talking like this, it meant she was certain that Franc, Darky, and I had nearly died.
"I'll be careful."
I could feel her worry reaching me, and that worry made me glad, so I squeezed her warm, pretty hand hard—and Franc came up, heavy footfalls ringing. Hwayeon, walking along beneath her, saw me holding Yeongeun's hand, smiled faintly, and spoke.
"You brought back Baekcheong's byproducts, but you failed to kill it, and even the Certifier was destroyed. Hearing that, I was sure. Someone like you…… would not have said you had nearly died, for fear we would worry."
I flinched at being told she had been certain of the hiding. But Hwayeon showed no intention of dragging the matter out to take me to task. She turned her gaze toward Hiarid, who was with my sister, and went on.
"Still, we did not tell Siha, so do not worry. And if I followed my heart, I would tell you to take Hiarid with you this time as well. But Team 6 found a massive aberrant settlement in the region they discovered, and it seems we will have to send a subjugation force there."
"If it's bad enough that Hiarid has to go, there must be a lot of Peak-Rank aberrants?"
"Yes. It is a place with a grotesque number of monster-type aberrants. More than half are forms we have never seen, and quite a few have been confirmed as High-Tier. We judged that clearing it properly would be impossible even if we committed every raid team in Grand Bleu and spent the entire year. Rather than have you, busy as you are, come and go, it is more efficient to take Hiarid."
"If Hiarid's going, she'll need someone with her. Who's going along?"
"I am. Siha has too much to do at the company."
Uh…… Hwayeon, going somewhere full of Peak-Rank aberrants? Hmm. I was wondering whether I ought to attach Darky to her, and had just decided he would be better off with Hwayeon than with me and was about to say so, when she cut me off as if she had expected it.
"Nuhodi will be there, and Hiarid is coming with me. There is no need to attach Darky as well. Darky's traits will be more necessary on your side, since you may have to fight Baekcheong again."
She said it while showing me the Ispect in her hand. All sorts of things to say, all sorts of thoughts, rose up, but the one I chose among them was this: just as they trusted me, I ought to trust them.
If I tried to look after every last thing, that wouldn't be care. It would be a cage.
"All right. I just need to tell Hiarid, then?"
Hwayeon nodded. I jumped up onto a trailer whose side was fully open, swept every last piece of Franc's clothing—sealed in big black plastic packs—into the Subspace, and walked over to my sister and Hiarid.
Seeing me approach, my sister shouted, "I forgot!" and ran off toward her car. Forgot what? I stared blankly at her retreating back, then turned and asked Hiarid.
"What were you and my sister talking about?"
=She saw that I had gained another pair of wings and asked whether I had evolved, and I answered that I had. She said the touch of the wings had grown softer and warmer than before, and that they had turned whiter, and she praised them as beautiful.=
Just small talk, then. I opened my mouth to Hiarid, who was gazing steadily down at me as if determined not to miss a single moment.
"There's a subjugation in a few days. They say the place is full of monster-type Peak-Rank aberrants, so would you go with Hwayeon and help clear them out?"
=Yes, Lord Seoha.=
She answered while pressing down hair like spun gold as the winter wind tossed it.
But, hmm…… the way her eyes changed bothered me. Affection looked ready to drip from them, as if she were simply happy.
How to put it. It was the same face Yeongeun wore in the moment before she pounced on me. Franc was watching that look, and so were Hwayeon and Yeongeun, with expressions a little uncomfortable, if not as much as yesterday.
Ugh. It wasn't really going to turn into a three-on-three over me, like that vision I'd seen, was it? A strange silence had settled, and the air had grown so awkward I wanted to break it, only I had no idea how.
"Ah. I should grab the snakeskin wrap Franc was wearing, too."
The moment I thought of an excuse to escape the awkwardness, I darted into the house raised out of Space Wall. I put Baekcheong's scale-hide—the one Franc had taken off and folded neatly—into the Subspace, and when I came out my sister, who had somehow already arrived, shoved a white box against my chest.
A red cross on the top of the white box…… a medicine kit?
"You didn't pack medicine, did you? Cold medicine, painkillers, disinfectant, stomach medicine, and general health drugs, plus poultices, ointments, laceration treatment, and wound protectant. I sorted them into medicines you take and medicines you apply."
I held the first-aid kit and snuck a glance at Yeongeun. She turned her head, all innocence. So I hadn't even gotten to use what she'd packed for me last time, and this time she'd nudged my sister into sending emergency medicine along.
"……Thanks."
I had Healing Touch and Healing Wave. When would I ever use a thing like this? And if I were in a situation where I couldn't use the skills, wouldn't this kit be meaningless too?
Anyway, I had the Subspace now, and plenty of room left in it. No point arguing over a little extra luggage. Just then the alarm I had set to ring when the Return Point cooldown ended went off.
"Franc, you ready?"
"I am ready. There is nothing that requires preparation."
Right. I ought to take the Summoning Conch as well. I took Darky from the arms of Miho, who had come up before I noticed, set him on my shoulder, and said,
"I'll stop by the house for a moment and grab the Summoning Conch."
"You're going to use that?"
"Yeah. Just in case. Thought I'd take it this time."
"It was an awkward thing to find an occasion for, anyway. If you use it for something that helps you, that's fine too."
My sister, thumb to her lips, thought for a moment, then nodded and accepted it. Hwayeon and Yeongeun said it was something I had obtained, my own property, and I should use it as I liked—but my sister added, a little wistfully, "I wanted to see that whale just one more time……."
She still hadn't let the longing go, it seemed.
I stopped by the penthouse, and with a Space Leap tossed the silver Summoning Conch—no bigger than my hand—into the Subspace. Then I came back and climbed onto Franc's palm.
"Then I'll be off. I'm counting on you here."
"Leave it to us."
Yeongeun answered for those who were staying.
A mixed group of humans and aberrants waved. They were precious to me beyond anything I could trade them for, and I waved back, gathered my focus, and wished, hard, to cross into the Phase World.
I watched the world around me draw down to a single point, like light swallowed by a black hole, and with Baekcheong in my mind I swore that this time I would cut its breath for good.