Homeward (1)

Screeeeeeeeeee—!

The brilliant light and the ring tearing at my ears cut out together, and the mutter of a crowd rushed in to fill the space they left.

The light was gone, but the afterimage burned into my retinas hadn't faded, and the pain wouldn't let me open my eyes. I turned Search instead and checked the thing that mattered most.

Good. The Soul Stone sat intact in the pouch at my neck. My body was in one piece, and my Phase Power was slowly filling back up. And...

Through Search, a picture assembled in my head: thirty people my own age with not a scrap of Phase Power between them, two others carrying a monstrous amount of it, and a classroom I knew far too well.

A school classroom.

A classroom. I made it back alive. I actually returned. Ahhh—!

In the swell of it my breath roughened, and a deep, weighty middle-aged voice cut through the murmuring and drove into my ear.

"Seoha. Are you all right?"

The owner of the voice was a middle-aged man standing directly in front of me. By my measure his Phase Power was over fifty thousand. I could see it churning like mad, and it overwhelmed me a little.

The Imugi and the Supergiant Turtle really had left their mark. More than a hundred times my own Phase Power, and yet it felt like nothing much.

Who was he, anyway? I'd meant, the moment I got back, to tick off a bucket-list item—seeing straight through the clothes of the girls in my class—but with another ability user standing right in front of me, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠urge died on the spot.

The other one had about seven thousand. Were these the special task force agents of the World Phase Ability User Association I'd only ever heard about?

"Senior. You don't think something's wrong with his head?"

I still hadn't answered, only quietly taking in my surroundings, and the one with less Phase Power spat the line out with a worried look.

Something wrong with my head? Rude as hell for a first meeting!

"Quiet. Seoha, can you hear me? If you can, say something. Anything will do."

The middle-aged one shut the rude one down and kept calling to me in a courteous tone. Instead of answering, I examined the two of them carefully with Search, taking care not to touch their heads.

Both wore black suits. I had no interest in seeing naked men, so I started with their faces and their dress.

Of the two, the one who thought something was wrong with my head had to be the annoyingly handsome bastard with hair like a lion's mane—down to his shoulders, gathered back and tied, dyed yellow, a piercing in his ear.

Handsome. A fine-featured pretty boy. Damn it.

The middle-aged man had a sporty look and a wild beard, and he was ridiculously handsome too. Few men can actually wear a beard, but the roughly grown one on him read as something wild—a bold, open handsome type.

They hadn't noticed Search, had they? At least it didn't seem like the kind of ability that got caught in any ordinary way.

More than that, I wanted to know whether Franc had properly followed. The guys in class were looking only at me, the way you look at something curious, which meant her form, like my ability, was something ordinary people couldn't sense or see.

If they could see her, there was no way those bastards would be sitting quietly in front of a nude body beautiful as a sculpture!

"Yes, I'm... all right."

The moment I opened my mouth and turned my awareness outward, my Search range snapped out to its 105-meter limit and a headache rolled in. A school meant too many detectable objects, and my nerves felt as if they were splitting apart and scattering. The entire four-story main building had come into range.

I frowned slightly, and the middle-aged man spoke at once.

"If you are unwell, I will have you taken straight to the Association Hospital."

"No... no. I'm fine."

At that the kids in my class started murmuring again.

"He's drenched in blood and he says he's fine?"

"Did he hit his head?"

My state was... yeah. Fair.

"You don't seem able to open your eyes. You really all right?"

The yellow-haired punk standing beside me asked it with a surprisingly worried look. Huh. Maybe he wasn't that bad?

"The glare hurts. I can't open them right now."

I said it and lifted a hand to rub my eyes, and nearby a sharp eek, a gasp, a shriek burst out. The middle-aged man's hurried voice followed.

"Seoha! You are holding a weapon in your hand. Would you be careful!"

"Ah. I was fighting an aberrant right before I crossed back. Sorry."

At my answer the class started whispering again.

"He says he fought an aberrant!"

"Him? No way!"

"Guess aberrants aren't such a big deal."

Who the hell said they weren't a big deal.

I lowered my hand, and the blond in front of me spoke carefully, as if determined not to set me off.

"You can't see, and this looks dangerous, so leave the weapons with us for a bit. We'll give them right back once the check's done."

Even if I refused, they'd take them by force. No need to make a bad first impression for nothing, so I held out the hilt of the claw-knife toward him. He carefully took the claw-knife and the horn awl.

The sighs of relief around me were uncomfortable. Exactly the reaction of people who'd been worried I'd thrash around like a lunatic.

For the one who'd said aberrants were nothing, though, I was perfectly willing to thrash around in person.

I wiped my palms on my clothes, rubbed my eyes, and the moment I finally got them open I looked for Franc.

I found her behind the two ability users, watching me with worried eyes. Thank god. She'd followed me properly.

I met her eyes for a moment, so the others wouldn't notice, and looked around the classroom. Classmates who felt a little less familiar, their faces full of curiosity, and the Otherworld Biology teacher...

That pig bastard!

Remembering being chased by the Long-snouted Lean Wolf, anger surged, but I swallowed it. The teacher wasn't even an ability user, and he'd only taught what he'd been taught. What did he do wrong.

I let out a small sigh and dropped my gaze. A band of tape printed DO NOT APPROACH sealed off a two-meter radius around where my desk had been. Scattered desks and chairs, my bag, and textbooks and writing tools dropped on the floor.

When my eyes met the two men watching me from outside the tape, the middle-aged one smiled faintly, relieved by how calm I was. The girls answered with a volley of squeals, sharp as dolphin ultrasound.

Yeah. A proper dandy of a middle-aged man.

The muscle pain still hadn't fully left me. I sighed and sat, and the blond, examining the claw-knife, burst out in admiration.

"Whoa, this is the foreleg of an evolved No-Head Mantis. You caught it yourself?"

Recognized it on sight? And yeah, so it really had been Low Grade... Around us, the words No-Head Mantis set the murmuring off again.

"Yes."

"What? F-for real?"

The blond scanned my face and my body, shocked. The middle-aged man looked surprised too, so catching a No-Head Mantis during a forced summon must have been a fairly difficult thing.

"Looks like you awakened Physical Reinforcement pretty hard. Impressive."

I wasn't a Physical Reinforcement user. I didn't feel like correcting the blond, so I kept my mouth shut. The middle-aged man waited a moment, then set his expression and spoke to me in earnest.

"Congratulations on making it back, Seoha. You will have had a hard fifteen days, and you must be very tired, but there is something that has to be done at once. If you are willing, I would like to take you straight to the Ability User Association. Better to rest easy once the examination is finished, wouldn't you say."

From his point of view I was an unremarkable newbie, and he still kept this courteous. I found myself liking him.

"Yes. I'd appreciate that."

I stood, broke the tape marked DO NOT APPROACH, and stepped out. He told me to come along slowly to the main entrance, gave the biology teacher a short bow, and left the classroom first.

I looked back at the blond. He grinned and gestured for me to go ahead. Ignoring the thirty-one pairs of eyes stuck on me, I opened the back door and went out, and he followed.

Walking the corridor toward the school's main entrance, I found students packed against the window of every classroom, staring at me like monkeys at a zoo.

"Whoa, he's covered in blood!"

"You think that's all blood he spilled himself?"

"Looking at how it's splashed across his chest... probably."

"Scaaaary."

"Damn. So he's an ability user now too."

"What kind, you think?"

"Isn't that the kid from Class D? Senior Siha's little brother."

"Yeah. He's insanely skinny, though. Must've suffered like hell in the Phase World."

Did I have a secret attention-seeker in me? Getting the attention of over a hundred kids felt oddly good.

I didn't show it, just walked quietly toward the main entrance, and behind me the blond, fiddling with the horn awl, spoke up.

"I'm Choi Soohan. Seriously, though, that's impressive. Catching a Low-Rank Variant on your first time—weren't you scared?"

First time. Weird choice of words.

"I got lucky. The aberrants were in the middle of a brawl, so I picked it off while they were busy with each other."

No need to tell him the whole truth, so I cut off the front and the back of it. The blond didn't seem like a bad guy, so I'd use his name. Choi Soohan looked even more shocked.

"What? You jumped into a fight between aberrants? Whoa... you've got some serious guts."

"Not really..."

I almost added how hard it had been, what kind of mindset I'd fought with, but it would have sounded like bragging or a sob story, so I shut my mouth.

"It's not 'not really.' You really are something. If it were as easy as it sounds, the survival rate on a first entry wouldn't have dropped this far."

I glanced at Choi Soohan. He was smiling with a face handsome enough to make me jealous, giving me a thumbs-up. At the same time the girls' eyes slid off me and onto him, and dolphin squeals fired from every direction.

Yeah. Blondie it was.

Feeling the stares of the teachers and students watching me, I stepped out to the main entrance. A black midsize sedan was waiting. I stood there staring at it, and Blondie opened the trunk and wrapped the claw-knife in some strange cloth, then gestured for me to get in.

This car?

I opened the door, and the interior came into view—seats set to face each other. After a look at the luxurious cabin, I muttered with all the self-consciousness of a nobody.

"My clothes are a wreck."

"Don't worry about it. The car's prepared for receiving returnees anyway."

Blondie said it with an easy, friendly smile. I climbed in, and Franc, embarrassed to be drifting around naked, sat pressed tight against my side.

I gave her a small smile, then leaned back into the plush seat. My body sank deep into it, and the fact that I had really returned hit me so hard my throat tightened.

I wanted to run to my family this instant.

A moment later Blondie opened the door, came in, and sat across from me. The middle-aged man came out with the teachers and got in as well. He pressed a button on the armrest, and the car began to move without a sound.

Watching the city pass outside the window, I felt my heart start to pound.

So I was an ability user now. And yet... I wasn't all that glad. I'd thought that once I became one I'd be bouncing off the walls with excitement. If anything, I was a little afraid of how my future might change.

While I was thinking it, the middle-aged man took a small, thin booklet—a pamphlet?—from his bag and spoke.

"My name is Kang Woohyuk. I will be serving as your temporary case officer."

Kang Woohyuk said it and handed me the pamphlet. I took it and opened it, and found a simple account of an ability user's duties, rights, and compensation, and the restrictions to be observed in the real world.

"Temporary case officer?"

"You are still a minor, are you not. So until you come of age, one case officer is assigned to you. The general branch will explain the details."

I'd thought minor ability users were simply left alone. Apparently not. Well, they wouldn't handle it that thoughtlessly.

Looking through the booklet, I found something like this.

Franc, sitting primly and reading along, let her face slip into an appreciative oh. She was leaning toward me, and the way her breast sank into my arm felt strange.

I dragged my attention off that full chest and, partly to turn my thoughts elsewhere, spoke to the two in front of me.

"There's something I'm curious about. May I ask a few things?"

"Go ahead. If it is something I can answer, I will answer in detail."

"Were the two of you waiting even before I returned?"

"We received word that your droplets were gradually merging. We have been on standby since two hours ago."

Two hours ago—that was right when I was in the middle of controlling my Phase Power.

"What did it look like when I came back?"

"The same as any other returnee. The droplets slowly merged and grew, there was a little light and a refraction, and you emerged from within it."

So they hadn't seen Franc. They still couldn't, it seemed.

After the light questions, I asked the one that had been my real purpose.

"What happens to the items returnees bring back?"

"They are all yours. Do not worry about the state or the IWO taking them."

Kang Woohyuk nodded as if he could guess what I was thinking, stated it firmly, smiled gently, and went on.

"If something is taken, or if someone tries to take it, contact the Ability User Association at any time. The Association exists to prevent exactly that, and further to protect the rights of ability users. That said, there are just as many rules to keep, and if you commit a crime, a heavy punishment comes down."

Mm. It was in the booklet too. Ability users had plenty of rules and plenty of restrictions, but it wasn't the humans-versus-ability-users fight you got in your average post-apocalypse story.

Thanks to that, civilians looked at ability users with something close to envy, and ability users didn't throw their power around. I'd heard the Association had gone through hell to build an environment like this.

Anyway, that meant Franc's Soul Stone became my property. Still, it wasn't an ordinary Phase Stone, so if the people in charge caught on, they might take it...

I didn't want that.

The two in front of me certainly looked decent, but that was no guarantee about anyone else. Until I built up my strength, I should hide it as much as I could. But how?

I was worrying over how to hide a Phase Stone when I noticed the two of them still looking at me, and I threw out another question.

"The two of you are ability users, of course?"

"Yeah. Like you, me and Senior are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠both Physical Reinforcement types."

Blondie shrugged as he answered, and a pride in being Physical Reinforcement showed through. But I wasn't a Physical Reinforcement user.

Physical Reinforcement, huh.

The movement of their Phase Power was so alike that "similar" didn't cover it. Which meant the movement itself was different from mine.

If I didn't control it, mine took the shape of a Möbius strip centered on my heart, rotating through both arms, both legs, and my head. Theirs whirlpooled around the heart and spun in circles through the torso.

Maybe the motion differed by type?

I thought for a moment, then decided that hiding my ability entirely would be rude. I didn't like it, but I corrected Blondie.

"I'm not a Physical Reinforcement user."

"...Huh? Yeah, well. For a Physical Reinforcement type, your face was kind of off."

What?!

I glared at Blondie for the outrageous remark, and Mr. Kang folded his arms and asked.

"Ha. Seeing you holding that mantis foreleg, I was dead certain you were Physical Reinforcement. So you awakened an Elemental ability?"

"I'm a Detection-type."

"Oh! Special Type! Figures—if you've got Detection, surviving tends to be on the easy side!"

A wave of displeasure flooded through me, and my face went stiff. Across from me, Blondie saw it and panicked.

"Uh... uh, did I say something I shouldn't have...?"

He laughed, awkward and sheepish, and I hated the look of it, so I turned my head as if to look out the window and looked at Franc instead. She was glaring at Blondie with a slightly angry face, as if to say, You don't even know what you're talking about!

Franc getting angry in my place took the edge off.

Blondie looked at Mr. Kang with a flustered, stuck expression, and Mr. Kang, looking tired, started in on him.

"Soohan. I have told you time and again to think before you let words leave your mouth."

"Urk."

"Do you have any idea how rude that was to Seoha? Fix that habit of measuring everything by your own standards. One of these days that habit is going to cost you dearly."

At the scolding Blondie ducked his head and blurted it out.

"Sorry!"

"I said something really thoughtless. I haven't been with the Association long, so I don't have much experience. I was thinking of the Special Types who are out in the field, and I just... sorry."

Among people who admit fault the moment it's pointed out, apologize, and reflect, there are no bad ones.

Blondie just seemed short on thought. And sometimes his mouth skipped his brain entirely. His personality seemed flighty, too.

Keeping up the sulk—in front of Franc—would only make me look petty, so I sighed and accepted the apology.

"It's fine. I just went through some things that aren't in the textbook, so hearing it called easy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made me angry. That's all."

"Ugh. I'm really sorry!"

Blondie even pressed his palms together like a prayer. I ignored him and asked Kang Woohyuk.

"Among the other returnees, has anyone made it out of a natural disaster?"

Choi Soohan, ignored while I put the question to Kang Woohyuk, pulled a wounded face, then turned to him as well, as if he'd grown curious about the question himself.

Look at that. Not a goldfish, and he'd already forgotten what he did wrong.

Well, from his point of view I wasn't anything particularly outstanding right now, so maybe he didn't think too deeply about it.

A little irritating.

"There are some. A water-attribute ability user who met a flood in jungle country and barely survived to return. Another who ran into a blizzard that would not stop in the snowy mountains, awakened wind and flame attributes, and came back."

"Then has anyone, at a forced-summon site, met something like an insanely huge monster?"

Both of them watched me without a word. Mm. I'd asked because it was the part I was most curious about, and the part that felt most unfair. Their reaction was strange.

"Did you, by any chance, meet a Mid-High Rank Variant?"

"I don't know what rank it was. I met a mole that was truly, enormously huge, and I only survived because coincidences stacked on coincidences."

Mr. Kang closed his eyes and sank into thought. Beside him, Choi Soohan cut in, curious.

"A giant mole? Not a Lowest-Rank Variant, then?"

"If it were that, I wouldn't have bothered sticking 'giant' on it."

I didn't hide how pathetic I found the question. Blondie winced and clicked his tongue. Then he asked again.

"How big are we talking?"

"The size of a house. Ten foreclaws, five on each paw, and each one of those was over three meters long."

The size seemed to steal Choi Soohan's words for a moment. Kang, hearing it, opened his eyes and looked at me, startled.

"At that size the body would have been seven meters at the minimum. A High-Rank Variant."

"Uh, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but a mole evolved all the way to High rank... there aren't any reported cases of..."

"There are no cases. But this is something that happens in the Phase World. Nothing that occurs there is surprising."

At that Blondie turned into a clam and clamped his mouth shut.

If I said that giant mole hadn't even had Phase Power, would they believe me? Then Mr. Kang spoke, his face careful.

"Hm... Seoha."

"Yes?"

"That story—I think you would do well to hide it as much as you can, until you come of age."

"...Why?"

"If an aberrant that strong was present at a forced-summon site, you may take it as given that a good number of aberrants on that level exist in the surrounding area as well."

True enough. I'd seen an Imugi, after all.

"Places like that tend to draw attention as high-grade raid zones. If your story gets out... there is a good chance a number of major raid teams will try to use you."

"Use... me?"

I must have looked baffled, because Blondie explained it in easier terms.

"You like games, Seoha? You know what an instance dungeon is?"

"Yeah. An independent space assigned to each person, right?"

"If you think of the Phase World as that instance dungeon, it'll be easier to understand."

Goosebumps. I understood at once what Mr. Kang had meant by using me. They'd use me as a key that worked on more than one treasure chest.

Leave it there. I'd wanted to ask a few more things about the Imugi and the Supergiant Turtle, but after his warning, the desire to ask anything else was gone.

I didn't want to suspect two people who were looking out for me enough to hand me a tip like this... but I also didn't think you should go trusting people carelessly. And I was an ability user now. I could look it up myself.

Huh? Wait.

"Um, it says here that minors are restricted from ability-user activities. Does gathering information count too?"

"No. The activity restriction only applies to hunting aberrants and entering the Phase World."

I nodded at Blondie's answer. Then I'd look it up myself. Ah, one more thing.

Far beyond the window, a silver high-rise of a hundred floors stood alone—the Korea General Branch of the World Phase Ability User Association. I looked at it and asked Kang Woohyuk.

"Are the Phase Power ranks for ability users and aberrants different? From what I went through in the Phase World, a lot of it didn't match Otherworld Survival Studies or Aberrant Biology."

"The textbook divides the ranks into six stages: Lowest, Low, Mid, High, Greater, and Peak. But the information released to ability users breaks them down as finely as the ability-user class tiers. And the difference in power is night and day. What you learned in school is not wrong, but it is not everything, either. Better to think of it as a guidebook that only collected whatever would raise the survival rate as high as possible."

"...Why wouldn't they teach something that important? The textbook is written like that's the whole of the Phase World."

I asked it angry, thinking of the Imugi, the giant mole, the Supergiant Turtle. If they'd just told me accurately, I wouldn't have fallen into a panic!

The answer came from Blondie.

"Because telling people the whole truth would only multiply the despair."

I had nothing to say to that.

"And if you spell it out in a textbook, there are plenty of senseless bastards who aren't ability users and will use that knowledge to do something rotten. Really, truly, if someone wants to know, they'll come find a branch or headquarters themselves, and for people like that we provide as much information as we can."

"Even the material on Phase Power?"

"Yeah. So gather as much information as you can, and if you've got a brother or a sister in the family, I hope you'll tell them properly."

"Sharing it isn't a problem?"

"The people who ought to know end up knowing. That's all."

That irresponsible... I was staring at Blondie, too dumbfounded for words, when the car stopped.

"We've arrived. Step out."

The latch clicked. I was watching Kang Woohyuk open the door and get out first when the opposite door opened and Choi Soohan stepped out, saying it as he went.

"Anyway, welcome back. Ability User Jung Seoha."

I turned to Franc. She looked just as dumbfounded, sitting still with a scowl. I watched her a moment; she met my eyes and gave me a bitter smile, so I quickly gestured toward the Soul Stone against my chest.

Others might see, and this was the Association building. Who knew what might happen.

Franc saw the gesture, nodded, and went into the Soul Stone. In that instant a gray shimmer spread from the pouch. I flinched and clamped my hand hard over it.

Surely the two outside hadn't seen it? The cabin was partitioned off from the driver's seat, so they wouldn't have seen it from in here.

I checked their reaction outside. They were only waiting for me to get out. They didn't seem to have seen the gray light.

I blew out a long breath.

Honestly, it was the first time in decades she'd come back to reality, and I felt a little guilty telling her to go into the Soul Stone without even letting her look at the outside. But it was for her safety.

If someone tried to take the Soul Stone, I didn't have the strength to stop them. Not as I was now.

If anyone asked, I planned to insist I'd picked the Soul Stone up in the Phase World—just a pretty rock that gave off electricity, so I'd made it my protective charm.

Mr. Kang had said it himself. The Phase World was a place where nothing that happened was strange.

I opened the door and stepped out of the car, hoping the bluff would hold.

The voices I had so badly wanted to hear for fifteen days drove straight into my ears.