Debuff (6)
Stepping into Miho's room and taking in how the two of them were sleeping, I couldn't help thinking what a spectacle it was.
Miho had dozed off in sky-blue polka-dot pajamas, and her sleeping habits were clearly awful. The top had ridden up to her chest, baring a small breast, while the pants had slipped all the way down to her thighs and left a tiny pair of blue panties on full display. She slept on in some energetic sprawl, smooth plump belly exposed, and Darky lay atop that belly in the exact same pose.
I swept Spatial Perception through his body for a closer look. Sure enough, he was in a state much like mine and Franc's, though thanks to the effects of Myrdin's staff jab he was better off than she was. If Franc was a traffic jam on a two-lane road after a wreck dead in the center lane, Darky was more like congestion spread across four.
I stood by the bedside studying him, then picked him up and tugged Miho's hiked pajamas back down. Her eyes flew open.
"Hnngh!? Master? Mas—daaagh!"
Thud!
"Kyweeng!"
She had been about to launch herself straight into my arms when she stepped on the hem of her pajama pants and went down in a magnificent face-plant toward me. On the way down she crashed into the hand holding Darky, knocked him loose, and flattened him under her chest.
She didn't so much as glance at the slime she'd just squashed. Flapping and thrashing, she kicked off the pants that were getting in her way and leapt at my chest.
"Boss~! Uheheh!"
"......You...... damned fox-cat!"
Furious at being assaulted in his sleep, Darky sprouted tentacles from his arms and started spanking the butt barely veiled by Miho's tiny panties. Smack, smack.
Still clinging to me and sniffing, Miho tilted her head as if she had no idea why he was so annoyed, scratched at the spot he'd hit, and scooped the raging slime up in both hands.
"Whoa! The black washed out! You're all clean!"
"I evolved, okay! No—I was clean to begin with, got it?!"
He shouted and shaped a tentacle into a palm to slap her cheek. Miho's tails shot straight up. She seized him and started yanking him hard from side to side, and Darky, not to be outdone, formed a tentacle into a fist and began raining noogies down on her head.
"Ow! Uegh! Kyaow!"
"Grrrrrghhh~!!"
Watching the two of them start brawling the instant they laid eyes on each other, I sighed, pried them apart by force, and said:
"Enough. Enough! Miho, put your pants on!"
The lovers wore low-rise panties so often that Miho had taken to the same kind, and the still-green, inexperienced curves down there were on blatant display. Genuinely mortifying.
I picked up the crumpled pajama pants she'd flung aside and held them out, but she whined that Darky had started it, her tails undulating like sea anemones as she refused to put them on. Even when I tried to push her into the dressing room she braced with both legs stuck straight out, so I had no choice but to slip a hand behind her knees, scoop her up, and soothe her. Only then did she take the pants, giggling hee-hee.
Once she'd gotten them on and I'd given her a piggyback, it was Darky's turn to whine and cling to my leg.
They really did take turns wringing a sigh out of me.
I had no choice. I scooped up the one whose mouth had jutted out a mile and tickled under his chin the way you'd scratch a cat. He burst into giggles and squirmed.
Right. He's cute, so I'll allow it.
Then Darky climbed my arm, settled on top of Miho's head, and started bragging to her about everything he'd been through in the Phase World. Miho's snow-white fox ears perked as she sank completely into his story.
Were these two actually close, or not......
Grumbling to myself, I spoke to Darky, whose rage at being flattened had eased somewhat.
"I'm going to lift the curse now, so stay still. Got it?"
"Yessir."
I held him up and ran Spatial Perception over him once more, tracing the location and size of the clumped Phase Power inside him. He blinked up at me, eyes locked on mine. His body was small, which meant the density of that clumped power was high—I would have to shape the Mana Sieve into a spear, not a needle.
I prepared the sieve, focused, and gave his hardened Phase Power a sharp poke. A bizarre sound burst straight out of Darky's mouth.
"Kki-euk."
Every time I stabbed the hardened Phase Power and popped it, he let out one weird noise after another—glerk, kya-uk, kehik, bwoing. Once about half of it had returned to normal, he declared he couldn't take any more, flailed all four limbs, and started struggling with everything he had to escape my hand.
"Waaah~! Any more of this and I won't be me anymore~!"
He wouldn't be Darky anymore?! Startled, I stopped lifting the curse and hoisted the slime clinging to my chest—only for him to bite my finger, suck on it, and nuzzle my face in a complete frenzy.
So that's what he'd meant......
"TP, TP's gushing out!"
Miho snorted at him, half-melted with excitement as he wrapped around my arm, then flashed her water-attribute tail and dumped a torrent over him to snap him out of it. I got soaked to the skin as a bonus.
After I'd changed out of the wet clothes and come back out, Miho hugged my arm and asked:
"Master. Not sleeping?"
"Once Franc and Yeongeun finish washing up, we're heading to Grandma's. So go change, too."
Lucky, I supposed—we'd managed to wrap things up before a full day had passed, which meant I could go pay my New Year's bow to Grandma.
"Okay!"
Miho came out in an H-line denim skirt and a turtleneck sweater with no slit, then kidnapped the Darky who—aftermath of the curse-lifting, maybe—refused to leave my side. She hugged him tight and started rolling around the living room. Reduced to something like a Barbie doll, he wore a thoroughly sour expression. Quite the sight.
I was watching the two of them play dolls on the finest Persian rug when Franc, who had come to her senses mid-bath, slowly walked out of the bathroom with Yeongeun supporting her.
"How's your body? If I'd known it would hit that hard, I should have taken it slower."
"......I don't know."
Franc let out a tiny hmph and pouted. I grinned and slowly stroked the line of her back as she stood limp at the waist, leaning on Yeongeun's shoulder. She looked at me, pursed her lips in a small sulk, then planted a soft peck on my cheek.
I watched the two of them come back to the living room and sit on the sofa, then spoke.
"I won't be able to lift the whole curse in one go. We'll rest a few days, then do it again."
"Yes. If you undid the rest all at once, I would go mad as well......"
"Heh. It felt that good?"
Yeongeun asked the thoroughly fed-up Franc with a wicked little smile. Franc's face went red.
"I don't know!"
She shouted it and smacked Yeongeun hard across the back.
"Aahut!"
The blow had landed precisely where her own hands couldn't reach. I watched Yeongeun twist and writhe through some grotesque little dance, then triggered Healing Touch, stroked her back, and asked:
"When did Hwayeon go into the raid? When is she coming out?"
Yeongeun, who had shivered hard enough to suggest it had hurt quite a bit, swept the hair at her ear back with a soft rustle and answered.
"February 1st. Two days after you went in."
"It's the 10th now, so she's been in a while. They're usually five-day jobs."
"They found a massive aberrant settlement, remember? I heard they're planning this one for a full month. Six teams went in at once, and they took a mountain of supplies, so she said they won't be out until the 29th."
"A long extermination campaign, then."
"By scale alone, if you put Time River and Hwarang together, it ranks among the five biggest operations they've ever run. Part of it is to show that Grand Blue can carry out a Peak-Rank aberrant extermination on its own even without your help, so they may be focusing even harder. It might run later than that."
For all that she was describing what would be a landmark campaign, Yeongeun's expression wasn't particularly bright. I reached out, stroked her cheek, and asked:
"Is there another reason? Your face doesn't match the story."
"Mm. Because of what we talked about yesterday......"
"The strange rumors out of the Phase World? You said it wasn't confirmed. Isn't it just a rumor?"
"I don't think we can write it off as just a rumor. More like we're in the middle of the window set aside to verify the facts."
"Hey! Don't eat all of it~!"
"Why not? A living thing's whole reason for existing is whether it eats or gets eaten!"
"Uh, uhh? A-anyway, no! Grandma said pretty flowers are for looking at with your eyes, not for touching!"
Yeongeun glanced over at Miho, who was blocking Darky from eating the daffodils decorating the table, smiled a mother's smile at how bright the two of them looked, then soon turned grave. She touched her lips and went on.
"The incident first occurred in the United States, but the place with by far the greatest numbers is China. The problem is that America and China have grown extremely distant and are keeping their distance, and both are pouring enormous effort into how they handle and control information, so we couldn't learn the details...... It's the intelligence agents attached to Britain and Russia."
"The agents?"
"We're assessing that they've reported up the chain that ability users are running into one another inside the same Phase World more and more often."
"......Is that real?"
Franc asked, brow furrowed, and Yeongeun gave a small nod.
"Yeah. And how should I put it—one of the sides that met says they entered the exact same place, but the atmosphere felt completely different."
What was this supposed to mean? In a Phase World divided into separate spans of time, people were starting to meet one another? I couldn't make sense of it. I stared blankly at Yeongeun, then asked her with a face that said surely not.
"You're saying the Phase World's timelines are merging?"
"......Ah."
At the words I had just spoken, Yeongeun stared into empty air like someone struck by a realization and started muttering.
"Given that ability users have never once met each other until now, between the parallel-dimension theory of the Phase World and the twisted time-axis theory, the one drawing attention has been the parallel-dimension theory—that each ability user possesses a Phase World on a different time axis. But if, as you said, the time periods are coming together and merging, and ability users are encountering one another in that unified world, does that mean it wasn't the parallel-dimension theory at all, but the twisted time-axis theory that was true? Which time axis is the reference point they're gathering toward? What can we expect once every time period has merged?"
Then she suddenly switched on her Certifier, ordered someone to convene an emergency countermeasures meeting, and bolted for the dressing room. I chased after her, and Franc followed too, eyes wide with surprise.
"Yeongeun?"
"What Myrdin said! That once the Phase Power of reality stabilizes, the passages between the Phase World and reality will naturally seal shut—this situation might be the precursor to that. This is no time to just sit here. I need to gather information on what is happening."
Had her workaholic protocol just kicked in? It wasn't even six in the morning, and she was heading straight in to work. She flung off an ordinary sweater and pants, exposing attractive lingerie, then pulled out a navy suit and started putting it on.
Helping her change, I asked:
"You're going in even though it's Lunar New Year?"
"There are people giving up the holiday to work. I have to gather those kids and collect information even one minute, one second faster."
"......I was going to ask you to come to Grandma's with us today."
Yeongeun took the pants I handed her and pulled them on, her firm, springy hips shifting as she did. Then her eyes curved into crescents. She caught my cheeks in both hands and kissed me deeply on the lips.
"I'll pay my respects to your grandmother next time. I have a feeling this isn't something we can just leave alone."
"......Hang in there. If there's anything I can help with, say so anytime."
As if she had been waiting for exactly those words, Yeongeun glanced at Franc standing beside me with a suggestive smile, then leaned in and whispered at my ear.
"When I get back, just let me drink plenty of your cock-milk with my upper mouth and my lower mouth. Hoo~."
Urk.
It was the kind of blatant phrase I had only ever seen in hentai, and hearing it for the first time left both Franc and me red-faced and speechless. Yeongeun giggled, finished getting ready for work in a flash, and left the house.
"I'm off~?"
Really, who would look at her and think she was a woman old enough to be someone's grandmother? I watched from the balcony until the black Ferrari she had climbed into vanished from sight, then wiped at my flushed face, looked at Franc, and laughed awkwardly.
"W-well then, shall we head out too?"
"Yes."
I had meant to surprise them a little by showing up unannounced. When we arrived at Grandma's, she was in the yard tossing the seasoned greens for the ancestral table. She broke into a beaming smile, came running, and pulled me into a hug.
"Our puppy's here~! Didn't you say you had urgent business? Is it all finished?"
"Yes. I got lucky and handled it quickly. I missed you, so I came the moment the work was done."
"Yes, yes. You did very well. You...... come in as well. You've grown quite a bit, haven't you?"
Franc smiled awkwardly at Grandma's marveling, and I chuckled.
"Something happened and she grew to eighty meters, but she's shrunk a lot for now."
"Grew to eighty meters? Now that sounds like a fun story."
She looked utterly dumbfounded, as if she didn't understand a word of it, then laughed ho-ho as though she had heard an amusing joke and ushered us inside.
"It's cold. Get in the house, quickly. You too, Miho."
"Yeah! Ah—yes!"
Mom and Dad, preparing the rite table indoors, were startled enough by Franc—grown now to two meters—that their eyes nearly doubled in size.
When Mom asked what on earth had happened and I told her everything that had gone on, she scolded me for not saying a single word about something so important.
"Son! If something like that happened, you should have told your mother~!"
"If I'd told you, you would have worried. If you'd seen her at eighty meters, you would have fainted from the shock."
"That's...... aigoo."
"She's still shrinking, so before long she'll be back to the way you remember her. Don't worry."
Once I had talked Mom around, she grabbed Franc and launched a barrage of questions. My sister joined in, and then Grandma, who had come in behind them, piled on as well, and the whole thing turned into an interrogation raid aimed squarely at Franc.
Battered by the flood of questions, Franc gradually took on a tearful look and sent me a signal to save her. Sorry. The women of this household still scare even me.
Pain only lasts a moment, so hang on a little longer! You've got this!!
I cheered her on in my head, ignored her distress call, and helped Dad stack nuts in the offering bowls, pare fruit, and set up the folding screen, getting ready for the ancestral rite.
Watching me prepare the table alongside Dad, Grandma must have felt her heart swell. She dabbed at her tears and smiled, deeply content.
"I wish our puppy would hurry up and get married and bring me lots and lots of great-grandchildren."
"You want to be a great-grandmother already?"
"What does a title matter, if I get to see the cute little ones."
"Mm...... I'll talk it over with Franc and Hwayeon later."
At my answer Franc's face went scarlet, and while Mom and my sister grinned at her like a pair of wicked aunties, the preparations moved steadily forward. Grandma and Mom were something else—their hands never stopped, even as they chattered without a moment's pause.
There had been this and that, but the rite preparations proceeded normally, step by step. And just like any other Lunar New Year, once we had finished at half past seven we all gathered to offer Grandma our New Year's bows, then went out to the backyard to pay our respects at the family graves.
In other households, after the rite they pack a little of the ritual food, go find the graves, offer liquor, and bow again. Grandma and Grandpa had come up as orphans, though, so there was no ancestral hill. Because of that, and because Grandma had wished for it so dearly, we had enshrined a family grave behind the house. Instead of a formal visit after the rite, we tidy Grandpa's grave, Uncle's, and...... Mother's, and clean the headstones before the ceremony.
When I was little I had asked why we held an ancestral rite at all when we didn't even know who our great-grandfather and great-grandmother were. Grandma had stroked my head and answered.
Ahem. Anyway, cleaning Mother's grave made one side of my chest ache, but I steadied myself by swearing I would kill the bastards who had driven her to her death and have my revenge.
The family watching me sent looks tinged with a little worry, but Miho and Darky were chattering so loudly that the mood turned rowdy again in no time.
"Miho, you walking rice pot! What do you think you're doing, spraying water there!!"
"Uh, huh? I'm not supposed to spray it here?"
"Who sprays water on a grave! Look how nicely Master and Master's dad did it! You moron!"
Darky, eyes sharp as axes, was scolding Miho for dumping water on the burial mound in the middle of cleaning Uncle's headstone, and even Dad—sweeping Grandpa's stone with a neatly kept brush—snorted a laugh. Grandma, Mom, and my sister, pulling weeds from Grandpa's grave, were holding their laughter in as well, and Franc, cleaning Mother's headstone alongside me, smiled.
Miho had stubbornly insisted she could do it herself, so with Grandma's permission she had been cleaning Uncle's grave. She kept doing such scatterbrained things that we ran late, and in the end my sister pitched in so we could finish before the rite.
Last year, tidying the graves of Grandpa, Uncle, and Mother—whom I had thought of as my aunt back then—had sunk the mood, and we had spent a quiet Lunar New Year. This year, thanks to Miho and Darky, we were having a noisy one, and I liked it. By the time the cleaning was nearly done, Grandma had always been wiping her tears with a handkerchief. This time she was smiling that brightly.
Her expression alone made her the finest beauty in the village, and I had never liked how gloomy her face always was. Seeing her smile like that, she really was a sight.
After the rite I was eating sweet songpyeon and watching Miho and Darky stick to Grandma, fussing and coaxing—trying, maybe, to make up for their mistakes during the headstone cleaning—when my sister quietly came over and tugged my sleeve.
I sent her a questioning look. She gestured for me to quit talking and follow, so I did, and she dragged me to a small room in a corner of the second floor.
"Is the curse all cleared?"
"Mine's fully lifted, but Franc and Darky overloaded while we were dispelling theirs, so they have to rest before we continue. It'll take a few more days."
"How long a rest?"
At my sister's question I watched Franc for a moment. Strength still wasn't going into her waist, and now and then she wobbled. In that state, four or five days seemed about right.
"Five days or so?"
Hearing that, my sister smiled brightly, as if it had worked out perfectly, and took my hand.
"Then tomorrow we go see Grandfather, and from the 11th you and I enter the Phase World. You came over from the Middle Ages, so the cooldown shouldn't be running, right?"
"......You're really going? Is it all right for you to be away from the company that long?"
"Five days is fine. Chae-rin can cover my absence."
Chae-rin? Yoo Chae-rin? At my sister's words I thought of the soldierly woman who had assisted Hwa Joong-kang. I had assigned Yoo Chae-rin to her to stop any absurd rampages in matters that involved me, and I had never imagined it would turn out like this......
"Then we'll do it that way."
"Yeah!"
Refusing now would only make her sulk and pinch my arms, legs, and waist like mad while throwing a fit, so giving up early would be better for the health of body and mind.
Honestly...... She had heard the stories, so she had to know the Phase World out there was nothing but a sea of water, not worth a look—and I had no idea why she wanted to go so badly.
Clutching my hand and shaking it up and down in delight, my sister answered when Mom called from downstairs and dashed off at once.
I blankly felt the warmth she had left in my hand, then, at the noisy voices rising from below, started down as well.