Debuff (5)
I was sitting in front of the cabin, rubbing the places where I'd taken the hits, when Darky crawled out of my jacket's inner pocket with a worried face.
=You okay, Master?=
"Yeah. You didn't get hit anywhere?"
=That human only swung at the parts where I wasn't, so I'm fine.=
Not a single blow had landed on Darky in the middle of that thrashing. Was old man Myrddin some kind of grandmaster of the staff? I looked over the body that seemed made of gathered clear water, and finding neither a dent nor a hollow, I asked again.
"You got stabbed once earlier. What about that?"
Darky peered down at his own belly, poked at it, and shook his head hard.
=After the stab, my Phase Power actually started movin' a little.=
"Really?"
I reached out and lifted him from where he sat on my thigh. Sure enough, the body that had been slack as jelly was slowly getting some of its spring back. Had Myrddin patched him up? So the stab hadn't been for nothing.
Fiddling with the little guy's translucent body, thoughts kept surfacing. The premonition that I might never see Myrddin again kept coming back, and my chest went tight, my mood restless and unsettled. I'd wondered if it was only because I'd been half-forced out, but that didn't seem right. Knowing old man Myrddin's temper, he would have roared, "You miserable little wretch! Don't you ever come back!!" He wouldn't have driven me off like this, in a way that made returning impossible. Yeah.
I went on kneading Darky in my hand without thinking, following the thread of it, until he started thrashing and complaining that it tickled. The thought broke. I set him down on the wooden steps and stood.
Why was I getting a feeling like this? I turned it over, and then it came back—that brief, strange reaction he'd shown while he was pounding on me. Right. When I'd said I was going to kidnap Morgan. He'd muttered something odd about a boundary collapsing, then immediately worn the look of a man who'd slipped. After that he'd flown into a complete rage and beaten me senseless.
Nothing else came to mind. So had he broken some contract by mistake? Something like the promise I'd made the Lord of the Great Sea, not to use magic bullets or the magic cannon. I worried I'd gotten Myrddin hurt for nothing. Even so, he'd gone so far as to spend a spatial teleport sending me here. Going back to Camelot to look for him felt a little...
"Next time I'll bring more liquor and wine fit for a gift, and some sweets, and come see him again."
In the end I gave up on going back now. I stuffed Darky—sprawled across the log steps—into my jacket's inner pocket and crossed over into reality.
I came back among the tall trees, and dawn was staining the eastern sky. And Franc...
"...Where's Franc?"
Franc, who should have been inside the teepee, wasn't there. I couldn't even feel her warmth. The moment I confirmed that the person who ought to be there was gone, anxiety slammed into me.
I burst out of the teepee and swept the surroundings with Spatial Perception. No—she was forty meters tall. I shouldn't have needed Spatial Perception. I ought to have been able to see her with my eyes! Where could a body like that even hide...!
=Master.=
I leapt into the sky and scanned the entire estate, all 3.6 kilometers of its length, but Franc was nowhere. The moment I accepted that she truly wasn't there, my heart dropped, and every rotten thought I owned came flooding in.
=Master~.=
I drew a deep breath, returned to the teepee, and began combing the ground around it with Spatial Perception, inch by inch. Her Phase Power might have been sealed, but Franc still had outstanding technique and a forty-meter frame. When the difference in mass was that overwhelming, whether you had Phase Power or not hardly mattered. That was a fact her spar with Miho had already made plain. So if anyone had tried to kidnap her, the lawn couldn't possibly still be sitting there this neat. Damn it. What the hell happened.
=Master!!=
"Master's busy right now! Interrupt me and you're in trouble!"
The sod hadn't been laid yet around the teepee, and huge bare footprints wandered all over the bare earth. Tracking the ones that looked recent, I found she'd come out of the teepee, circled it once, then gone to the camping trailer, where a set of prints—deeper than the rest—suggested she'd crouched down beside it.
And there the footprints vanished without a trace. How?
How do you carry off a Franc who had to weigh close to seven hundred tons? Had she gone of her own will? Even then, could she disappear without leaving a mark?
=Oh, come on. Master~!=
"Oh, come on. Why does this guy keep—!"
=You're lookin' for Lady Franc, ain't you? Lady Franc's at the building house.=
"...What? How do you know that?"
Just as anxiety and impatience were about to blow up into irritation, Darky's words made me flinch. I asked, and the little guy wriggled out of the inner pocket, slapped himself against my neck, and pointed toward the building's penthouse.
=Thaaat way! I can feel three familiar Phase Powers over where the house is.=
Three... Yeongeun, Franc, and Miho?
"You said you couldn't sense Phase Power... Oh. Has your ability started to come undone a little?"
=Yup.=
I patted his head—good job—and immediately unfurled a Wall of Space and leapt.
I don't think that short trip home had ever felt so long.
Forcing down the wild hammering of my heart, I landed on the balcony of the fortieth-floor penthouse. In the brightly lit living room, two people sat facing each other across a tea table. And there was the culprit who had been attacking my heart, chatting away with Yeongeun. A sigh of relief slipped out of me.
"Oh my? Our Seoha's home~!"
As if she'd sensed me, Yeongeun turned, long ponytail swinging, and ran into my arms. The soft give of her against my chest, and the warm, sweet scent of cherries, let the relief settle in.
"Yeah. I'm back."
"Nnngh~. Ahaha."
I pulled her waist in hard, and she let out a breathless little laugh. Behind her, Franc approached with a pretty smile in her eyes. Seeing her that calm, as if nothing at all had happened, I felt a flicker of anger—and, at the same time, sheer relief.
"Welcome back. You have returned earlier than I expected?"
Franc, shrunk down to two meters, was wearing the deeply backless dress Hiarid usually went about in. The dress was a little large on her, so the dimples at the small of her back and the Y of the cleft below them showed just enough to be fiercely erotic.
=Hey, ladies!=
The moment we got home, Darky popped out of the inner pocket, waved both hands wildly at Franc and Yeongeun in greeting, and bounded off toward Miho, who was snoring away in her room.
Watching him patter off, Yeongeun spoke with a slightly startled face.
"His color really did change, didn't it? And doesn't his personality seem different, too?"
"Hmm? His way of talking feels a little lighter, but his personality too...?"
"Even if his personality changes, even if his way of talking changes, Darky is Darky. More importantly, what happened with Franc? You used Miniaturization, right? Your Phase Power is sealed. How did you use it?"
I asked with genuine curiosity on my face, and Yeongeun, wearing a mischievous look, ran a suggestive hand slowly down the beautiful line of Franc's back.
"Eek?!"
"Just look at that reaction. Isn't this body indecent beyond words? And with a body like this, she's been playing the pure little lady who doesn't know a thing in front of us, all this time!"
"Nngh! What are you trying to say!"
Franc, shivering as if goosebumps had risen all over her, snatched Yeongeun's wrist with a face that was a little angry, a little mortified, and thoroughly ashamed. I, for my part, had no idea what they were suddenly talking about. Not understanding the non sequitur, I stared blankly at Yeongeun, and she slipped Franc's grasp with a light movement, stepped into the living room, and grinned like a little imp.
"I finished work and clocked out to the camping trailer, and would you believe it—Franc was crouched beside the trailer looking utterly wilted. So I asked why she was so down, and do you know what she answered?"
"What did she say?"
"Y-Yeongeun! Don't! You mustn't say it!"
"Hold still! Seoha wants to know!"
Franc chased after her, face bright red, trying to cover her mouth—and then a sharp smack rang out across her back. Skin met skin with a stinging shock that seemed to knock the words right out of her, and she flailed, trying to reach the spot. Yeongeun gave the silently screaming, writhing Franc a light push that toppled her forward, then pointed at the red handprint stamped in the middle of her back and went on.
"She said, 'I've only just become able to touch Seoha, and now I have to live as a giant again. I'm so sad. I think I might cry.' And that's not all!"
"Not all?"
"Kyaah~!"
Yeongeun held down the screaming Franc by sheer strength and kept talking.
"She told me every last thing that happened in the Phase World, and then—tears welling up, mind you—she said, 'Seoha finally held me after nearly a month, and if I get this big again, I won't be able to be held until the curse is lifted!'"
"She... said that?"
"Uuu! Uuuugh!"
"Ah! Ow, don't pinch!"
At the exposure, Franc stamped her feet in shame, and in the end started pinching Yeongeun's arm and side. The sight was so cute that a smile broke across my face all on its own. I was grinning, and Franc couldn't even bring herself to meet my eyes. She glared at Yeongeun with pure resentment, but Yeongeun didn't so much as blink.
Call it shameless. Or call it a politician's iron-face skill.
"So how did she end up like that? Her Phase Power is sealed. How did she use Miniaturization?"
"Just in case. Nothing to lose, right? I told her to try it once."
"And here I was... I came back, and Franc wasn't in the teepee where she should have been, and I thought something had happened."
It wasn't particularly strange. When I'd stuffed Baekcheong's corpse into Subspace Storage, my own stiffened Phase Power had vanished as if it were being sucked out by force. Something similar must have happened to Franc. So drawing on Phase Power directly in order to use a technique was impossible, but using Phase Power with the technique itself as the intermediary...
Wasn't that the same thing either way? Why did one work and the other not?
I tilted my head, puzzled, then decided a good result was a good result. I wrapped an arm around each of their waists—Franc, too ashamed to speak, and Yeongeun, grinning as she teased her—and went to sit on the sofa.
Franc, only just calmed, fiddled with my hand and opened her mouth as if to apologize.
"My Phase Power was sealed, and yet, for some reason, when I used the secret art of Miniaturization, a little TP decreased and it activated. I am sorry. Had I known you would return so early, I would have gone back to the camping trailer and waited."
"No. It's fine. I was a little startled, but thanks to Darky I knew right away that you were home."
I slipped a hand into the exposed cleft of her backside and brushed the sensitive place there. She let out a tiny "haht," twisted her waist in embarrassment, and plastered herself against my arm so I couldn't move it.
Yeongeun, who had been watching that with evident pleasure, turned to me and asked.
"So, did things go well when you went to see Myrddin?"
"Yeah."
As I began telling them the conversation I'd had with Myrddin, the squealing mood vanished at once, and they focused on my story with serious faces.
"Hmm. A power versed in a thousand arts? From the thousand-versed to the all-versed, and at the end of that road, omnipotence?"
"Omnipotence? What, am I supposed to become some kind of god? Anyway, my Mana Sieve is the ability to move Phase Power, so I think if I move the Phase Power frozen inside Franc's body, I can undo the curse. What do you think?"
"I think so as well."
"Then let's test it right now."
Not knowing what might happen, I left the sleeping Miho and Darky behind and took only Franc and Yeongeun to Shinchon-dong.
It was clearly brighter than before, but the air was still chilly. I sat facing Franc, set my hand on her bare waist, and carefully examined her Phase Power with Spatial Perception. It drew itself naturally in my mind: Phase Power split into many clumps, like cells huddled together, and between those clumps, through narrow, stiff passages, a truly feeble trickle of Phase Power barely managing to move.
I focused my will, meaning to slowly shift the Phase Power frozen inside her, and her body began to twitch.
"Nn, ah...? Hnn."
The Phase Power I'd ordered to move didn't move. Franc did. I told her, low, to hold still and endure, and focused harder.
Move!
"Hnn...!!"
At my will the Phase Power surged once, and Franc's body—soft as cotton candy a moment before—went rigid in an instant.
At least I'd confirmed it could move. Wondering what to do from here, I decided to try piercing the membrane that held that Phase Power prisoner and bursting it. With Mana Sieve I shaped Phase Power into a sharp needle and drove it, with a soft thunk, into one frozen clump, wrapped the way a membrane wraps a cell. It gave, squishy and yielding, then rushed outward all around like liquid.
The frozen Phase Power melted with it, but that portion felt a little murky. Probably the lingering will of the curse. I didn't like the thought of something like that sitting inside Franc's body. After a moment's hesitation, I drew it up through her throat and guided it out past her lips.
"Mmph?! Haaa..."
Franc, who had been holding her mouth tight shut, parted her lips a little, and from that gap the murky Phase Power spilled like breath on a cold winter day and scattered into the sky. The moment I confirmed that her Phase Power flowed a little more smoothly for every bit of murk I'd drawn out, I understood this was the right way to treat it. Only one thing left, then. Starting with the largest of the countless frozen clumps, I drove the Mana Sieve needle into them, one after another.
Up to here, it was fine. The more I released, the more actively Franc's Phase Power began to move. There was, however, one problem.
"Hngh. Hnaang. Ah, haang. Aaaah♡"
Franc, her face blank and her soul gone, convulsed and spilled lewd sounds every time I pierced a clump of Phase Power with the Mana Sieve.
Where she sat, her fluids had pooled as if a flood had come through, and the fierce scent of apples rising off them filled the living room.
Yeongeun, looking at a loss, leaned against me and watched Franc's body flinch and tremble, then spoke as if worried.
"Is she all right? She's been climaxing since we started—I think this is the thirty-sixth. Oh. Thirty-seventh."
"Forty-fourth. Every time I loosen a frozen clump of Phase Power, she climaxes."
When I corrected the number she'd gotten wrong, Yeongeun made a face like she'd had more than enough.
"At this rate, isn't Franc going to die of pleasure? I think we ought to stop there for today..."
"You think so? I've only undone about a tenth of the curse... Yeah. We should leave it here for today."
When I tried to take my hand off Franc's waist, her sweat-slick skin clung to my palm as if glued there and wouldn't come free. I gave a wry smile and pulled it away. It peeled off with a wet, sticky schluck, and Franc, startled into a shiver by the sound, exhaled a sweet breath, slumped bonelessly, and spasmed in fits through her thighs.
"Mm..."
I moved to lift her, then frowned at a thought that surfaced. If I pierced the frozen clumps of Phase Power inside my own body, would I feel pleasure like that too? That would be even grosser than jerking off...
I was seriously weighing whether to just do it the way I had been—churning my Phase Power wildly and scraping the frozen bits loose a little at a time—when Yeongeun, wearing a look that said she knew allll about it, took the limp Franc from me.
"I'll take Franc and wash her, so you go do what you need to do."
"..."
I couldn't answer the grinning remark, and while I hesitated, Yeongeun scooped Franc up in a princess carry, humming, and disappeared into the bath.
Ugh... Ah, fuck. That bastard Baekcheong just had to go and slap a seal on me!
Irritated and on edge, I raked at my scalp, but seething over something that had already happened was both hollow and infuriating. I heaved a grandiose sigh and shook the regret off.
After making sure Yeongeun was washing Franc in the bathroom, and that Miho and Darky were snoring away in their room, I drew a deep breath and stabbed the largest frozen clump of Phase Power.
......
.......?
"Nothing?"
I'd braced for that unpleasant sensation, but all that happened was the frozen clump bursting and turbid energy spreading. Wondering if the feeling would arrive late, I waited a moment, but the foul murk only circled in my chest, so I burped it out.
I stabbed another large mass with the needle I'd made of Mana Sieve, but thanks to the Phase Power now moving more smoothly, all I felt was that things had gotten a little easier.
"So it doesn't affect me?"
Relieved, I rapidly burst the remaining clumps, gathering the turbid Phase Power and spitting it out over and over, and as I puzzled over why, I reached a conclusion. It was because of Mana Sieve. I was already as used to it as a man could get, and I was the original besides, so there was no reason for me to get all floaty and high. Franc, who had never experienced Mana Sieve, had simply reacted the way a new bride does on her wedding night, tasting it for the first time.
And to think breaking the curse was this easy, this simple. A genuine egg of Columbus, if there ever was one. After I'd dispelled the entire curse in a way I hadn't even imagined, simple as that, I flung open the door to Miho's room to lift Darky's curse as well.