Going Home (3)

Click.

"Come in."

We reached the room she had mentioned. I opened the door and stepped inside, and the first thing to fill my eyes was a machine the size of an oversized CT scanner. So this was the Phase Power discriminator?

One wall was packed with enormous machines that looked like servers, a tangle of cables running from the discriminator into them. A man stood off to one side of the machine. His name tag read nothing but Assistant.

There were no windows. So the results of a measurement or an appraisal couldn't leak outside? Come to think of it, I remembered something I'd read online—when the measuring devices first appeared, ability users had refused to have their Phase Power measured, and a boycott had very nearly broken out.

"Please remove the charm and set it to the side, then lie down on the Phase Power discriminator's bed."

I froze, staring at the CT-like machine. I had just sworn I wouldn't let go of the pouch. But if I carried the Soul Stone in there, there was no telling what might happen to it.

Director Oh Soeun was seated at the computer attached beside the discriminator. Was that where she operated it?

"The discriminator's awfully big."

She didn't so much as answer, only kept working the computer, and the silence turned awkward. If it had been Franc, she would have laughed, or at least given me a smile—some kind of reaction.

I did as I was told and took off the necklace, and the male assistant beside me reached out to take it.

Who the hell did he think he was about to touch?

I snatched my hand back and shot him a glare. He looked a little flustered, then bowed his head and stepped away. From his side of it he'd only meant to help, but the thought of someone else—a man, no less—laying a hand on Franc's Soul Stone stood my hair on end.

I set the pouch carefully on the tray beside the bed and lay down, and Director Oh Soeun began to work the machine.

"The examination is starting. Please remain still. It will be over quickly."

Whirrr. Wheeeeeee.

The bed slid forward and carried my body into the circular opening. The structure was identical to a CT scan. They turned me this way and that and ran my whole body through the machine three times—CT scans, no, Phase Power appraisals. Huge as the thing was, it barely made a sound. The only noise was a faint motor hum as the bed traveled into the central cylinder.

Each time I went into that cylindrical structure and came back out, I felt some unknowable energy rake across my body. And each time, my Phase Power stirred in answer to it. A strange feeling.

I gave Analysis a light turn and found I could sense the strange energy passing through me. It felt like a kind of altered Phase Power. An energy that made Phase Power react the moment it washed over you—it wasn't twisting mine into anything wrong, so was the discriminator deliberately stimulating it in order to read it? By what principle?

I was watching the reaction, wondering what it was, when the third scan came to an end and Director Oh Soeun looked from me to the monitor and back again, astonishment plain on her face.

Cheeeng.

A strange metallic whine, and the bed stopped moving. I sat up, and her voice reached me, colored with admiration.

"Remarkable, Mr. Jung Seoha. You are a Special Type detection ability user, and your Phase Power aptitude sits at the very peak of the high grade. With only a little effort, you will climb to the absolute highest."

The assistant standing beside me looked at me in surprise as well.

The very peak of the high grade—what did that mean? The blonde's internal Phase Power had been a swirling shape, a little faint, and Mr. Kang Woohyuk's had been larger and clearer than that. Did abilities have an upper grade, too?

Just then the door burst open, and an old man came in who looked strict and stubborn to the bone.

A wrinkled white dress shirt and black cotton trousers. A mop of white hair, and a short bristly beard growing in patches. A hunched back, a hunched neck. He didn't seem to wash properly either; the collar of his shirt was yellowed with ground-in grime. He looked like a grandfather worn thin by research.

"What? A Special Type aptitude of A+?"

The old man who had barged in without knocking shouted that out of nowhere, then stared at me with eyes that seemed ready to take me apart.

A+? What was that now? First I hung the Soul Stone pouch back around my neck. Then I stared right back at him.

No doctor's coat, no name tag—I couldn't tell what he did. But barging into an appraisal room that rudely, he couldn't be ranked below Director Oh Soeun.

Director Oh Soeun sighed at the sight of the two of us locked in a staring match and stepped between us.

"That is enough, Dr. Woo. This is my space. How many times have I asked you not to come in as you please?"

"As if I could sit still and wait! An ordinary high school brat who never even had combat training, who gets a detection ability and then goes and catches an evolved No-Head Mantis—a freak, that's what he is! And he turns the foreleg into a blade and carries it around, heh heh heh. Even that boss bastard over at Cheonggung couldn't pull a stunt like that!"

Cheonggung? If he meant Cheonggung, that was the biggest raid team in the country. But this old man—every irritable word he spat was built to get under the skin. The headache I had only just soaked down in the shower felt as if it were surging back.

Annoyed, I dropped my voice without thinking and growled.

"I don't appreciate that. Is there some reason I should have to hear talk like that from you?"

The moment I opened my mouth, the assistant beside me trembled and backed away, and Director Oh Soeun's face drained to a sickly pale.

"Kahahaha! A detection ability user who went and learned Intimidation too? I've never seen a freak like this one! Wahaha!"

I blinked at the old man's booming voice. Intimidation? I hadn't done anything.

I looked at Dr. Woo, laughing with his whole chest, and at Director Oh Soeun and the male assistant, frozen with fear. Faces gone white, bodies shaking—exactly the look of people in a horror film who had just been badly startled.

My mood had soured, and my Phase Power had moved on its own, true enough. Had the Phase Power that briefly pooled in my throat come out in the shape of Intimidation?

"What. You didn't even know? Your voice mixed with Phase Power, and it scared the hell out of those two. Anyway, if the appraisal's done, stop tormenting kids who didn't ask for it and follow me!"

At the old man's words, a picture flashed through my head—giant Franc's roar, and the horned pup thrashing on the ground, frothing at the mouth.

I had used that? I hesitated over whether to ask about this thing called Intimidation, and failed to stop the old man as he cackled his way out of the appraisal room alone. But tormenting them—I hadn't meant to. It had just happened.

They must have been badly startled. Watching Director Oh Soeun and the assistant struggle to still their trembling bodies, a guilty feeling crept up on me.

"I'm sorry. This never happened in the Phase World..."

I bowed my head and apologized to the assistant and to Director Oh Soeun, and they soon waved it off, saying it was fine.

"We were a little startled, but it is nothing to concern yourself over. However, if you use an Intimidation technique on ordinary people outside in this manner, it constitutes a special ability-user crime, depending on the severity. You would do well to be careful."

I really had better watch myself. Use Phase Power without realizing it, and I could wind up shipped to Alcatraz.

And yet the old man had been perfectly fine. Why?

"The appraisal is finished. Please proceed to the measurement room across from the appraisal room."

"Ah—what is A+, exactly?"

"You are aware that classes are divided according to total Phase Power."

"Yes. Earlier, Mr. Kang Woohyuk was—"

"Separate from class classification, we also assign grades according to growth potential. Even within A, which is already high grade, the very highest receives a plus. That is A+."

"...So you're saying I show the potential to grow all the way to A-Class?"

"That is correct. The letters in D+, C+, and B+ mean, quite literally, growth potential up through D-Class, C-Class, and B-Class. When a plus is attached, it means the probability of reaching that class is very high. In your case, Mr. Jung Seoha, the possibility of becoming A-Class is very high, and there is also a possibility of surpassing A-Class and becoming S-Class."

Director Oh Soeun drew a small, cute pink handkerchief from inside her coat and dabbed the sweat from her forehead as she explained.

So if I trained hard, I could become A-Class someday. And when she had told me to put in effort earlier, it was because I might even reach S-Class.

Only then did I understand why the two of them had been so shocked, and why the old man who had barged in and walked right back out had reacted the way he did.

I could become A-Class? And if I did well, S-Class? It felt like someone else's business. The sense of reality wouldn't settle.

The two of them, cold sweat and terror... No. Director Oh Soeun seemed a little better now. The assistant was still washed out. At any rate, I apologized to them once more and stepped out of the appraisal room, and there was the old man, planted in front of the door across the hall, bellowing at me.

"What are you doing?! Get over here!"

This old man really was a piece of work.

Click.

I followed him into the room he had shouted at me from and immediately entered, and found an interior the same size as the room with the Phase Power discriminator—one wall likewise packed with machines that looked like servers.

But unlike the appraisal room, there was no imaging machine here. A carpet covered the floor, and on it sat a solid-wood desk. The other three walls were lined with bookshelves crammed tight with books, and the whole of it felt like a gothic study. Except the desk held a monitor, along with what looked like a heart-rate monitor, a blood-pressure monitor, and an oxygen-saturation monitor, and the cables running out of them connected to the servers occupying one wall. So out of place with the room that I felt as if I had walked into a mad scientist's laboratory.

The old man was seated in the expensive chair at that desk, and behind him stood a woman with a short bob whose name tag read Researcher Min Nayoung, together with Researcher Kim Eunha.

"Don't just stand there gaping like a monkey. Get over here and sit."

A monkey...

He didn't seem like a bad person. Had age simply made him impatient, and childish?

I was practically steaming with how little I liked this, and still the old man didn't hide his expectant look, rubbing his hands together, eyes soaked in curiosity.

I didn't like it. But I was in no position to refuse, so I sat in the round swivel examination chair he indicated, and as if even the time it took to wait were a waste, he immediately started firing questions at me.

"Well then. Tell me how you got your ability. You said it was a detection ability? Don't tell me it's composite. Or a standalone reinforcement type? Analysis? Clairvoyance? How'd you catch the No-Head Mantis? What region did you survive in? You met a giant Aberrant, you said?"

Was this an interview, or was he just passing gas? Why ask things like that? And he wanted me to say what my ability was. He already knew it was Detection, so once they measured my Phase Power the examination ought to be over, shouldn't it? And yet he wasn't even measuring—just demanding I lay my ability bare.

He had been running his mouth since earlier. Old man or not, older than me or not, I had reached the point of not wanting to deal with him.

I stared at him in sheer disbelief, snorted, and glanced around the measurement room. If he was a doctor who researched abilities, then the hundreds of volumes were all in that field. Come to think of it, she had called him Doctor earlier, hadn't she?

The two female researchers standing behind him came into view, but I was in no mood for Clairvoyance. All I wanted was to see Mom and Dad and my sister, and rest.

I deliberately ignored the old man and looked over the books and machines filling the room. He grew restless, scowling, and at last opened his mouth.

"What are you—"

"You have an awful lot of books."

"...What?"

"My dad says the more a man reads, the deeper his thinking grows, the more learning he stacks up, and the finer his character shows. The person sitting in front of me doesn't seem like that sort. And my dad doesn't lie..."

I let the end of it trail and stared steadily at him, and the old man let out a stunned hah.

Only now did he seem to catch that I was angry. How would this old man play it? If he bellowed that I had no manners and tried to throw his weight around, what was I supposed to do?

Mindful of what came after, I waited for his reaction. Under my calm gaze he groaned—the sound of a man desperate for the toilet—then offered an awkward smile and apologized.

"Ahem. Are you angry, then? If so, I am sorry. You see, I was startled, that's all. You're no ordinary fellow. You obtained a Detection ability, and the likes of—I mean, you obtained one and still showed the makings of someone who catches Low-Rank Variants and pulls a foreleg to make a weapon."

He'd been about to say "the likes of you," hadn't he?! I knit my brows, and the old man hastily revised himself, speaking as if to soothe me.

"Besides, your Phase Power aptitude is the highest grade, is it not? This old man has worked in this field for decades, and I have never seen a fellow as remarkable as you. Ordinarily a Detection ability user spends those fifteen days skulking and hiding from Aberrants, and given the nature of the ability they show the early symptoms of mental illness—but you are not only perfectly fine, you are downright unfazed. That is why I acted as I did. So won't you understand this old man a little?"

Researcher Min Nayoung and Researcher Kim Eunha were looking at him with slightly startled faces. The look of people who had scarcely ever seen this old man curry favor.

Was my aptitude really that extraordinary? Enough that he would awkwardly try to placate me?

"How on earth did you do it? What new detection ability did you obtain, that you could catch a Low-Rank Variant?"

Under the old man's sparkling gaze, I turned over how much of myself I ought to open.

I had no intention of telling him my ability in full, nor of recounting everything I had seen in the Phase World. But he was the doctor in charge of the measuring device. I probably couldn't conceal all of it. Better to reveal only a portion of my ability than to tell a lie that would be found out.

"It's a Presence Sense ability. The range grew to 105 meters with a single growth, and I can detect beings that possess Phase Power."

The old man's eyes went wide at the mention of a single growth, widened again at 105 meters, and at the last of it—that I could detect beings possessing Phase Power—they nearly burst from his head.

The two women standing behind him sucked in a sharp breath as well. They looked thoroughly shocked.

People say the old, having lived through so much, almost never get truly astonished. For him to be that shocked—I had a feeling that if I had told the truth, the branch would have been turned on its head.

Hiding it had been the right call after all. A treasure you cannot keep is nothing but a calamity. There was nothing to lose by being careful.

"Yes. If you can sense Phase Power, then that would follow."

The old man's expression grew grave. Was 105 meters a range that refused to make sense?

Ah! I had said beings that possess Phase Power. I'd stepped right on a landmine! That meant I could detect not only Aberrants, but ability users too!

Neither survival studies nor biology had ever said a thing about a Detection ability being able to sense Phase Power. A Detection ability was nothing more than a radar for living things. And I had gone and said I could detect Phase Power as well!

Gaaah! I wanted to spin time back one minute!

Should I manufacture a weakness and feed it to them? Leave it like this and I would draw no small amount of attention. But if I volunteered a weakness with my own mouth, they would get suspicious, so maybe I ought to keep still.

No. I should at least ask a comparative question, to see where this sat. I was curious besides, and I could steer them into asking about my ability in more detail while letting a weakness slip out sideways.

"Is 105 meters long?"

At my question the old man shot me a glance, then answered in a subtly curt voice.

"It's fucking long. The detection range of the best currently registered B-Class Presence Sense ability user is a radius of 140 meters."

Ghk. B-Class was seriously high, wasn't it? And that was all they managed?

"There's no rule that says an ability user keeps growing forever. But in your case, you said you'd already grown once, didn't you? Generally, the ones who awaken an ability during a forced summoning and then grow again not long after tend to keep growing steadily. Going by that, there's no knowing how much further you'll grow. What was your detection range at the start?"

It felt as if the moment to reveal a weakness were drawing near.

"Sixty meters."

All three of them recoiled at once.

"Hah... a growth rate of seventy-five percent? Grow five more times and that's 183 meters, 321, 562, 984, 1,723—nearly two kilometers coming into range? And you'd identify the beings inside that range as well, and detect Aberrants, and ability users too?"

How could he declare I would grow by seventy-five percent every time? More than that, seeing it laid out in numbers, it hit me that my Search ability was no laughing matter.

The old man looked too shocked to think of asking anything more. Before that, I should correct one thing.

"Um, there's a big difference between having my eyes open and having them shut. 105 meters is with my eyes closed. With them open, it's only about half."

"Hm? There's a restriction like that? Hmm. That, I can understand to a point. Even so, it's still at a level that slaps ordinary Presence Sense ability users across the face... Are there any other differences?"

This old man just kept asking. I was already agonizing over whether I ought to keep telling him.

He must have read my expression. (In truth, I had put on a bit of a sullen face so that he would.) The old man went on in a slightly more serious tone.

"Speak honestly, you brat. Don't go catching hero syndrome and hiding your ability, pulling that I'm so amazing~ I'm a being on a whole different level from you people~ crap. The Ability User Association is an international organization born to guard and protect ability users. We have to know you well if we're to protect you better, don't we?"

"Your ability is a Search ability, peerless even among Detection abilities. If this becomes known, raid teams, and plenty of nations besides, will be drooling over it—do you think you can protect yourself? The place that can block the approach of organizations like that and protect you is right here. The Ability User Association, which labors to advance the rights and interests of ability users. That is what I am saying."

The word Search had jumped out, and for an instant I nearly flinched—but with a superhuman reaction I managed not to show it. The woman named Min Nayoung was tilting her head, but I ignored her and stared straight at the old man.

"We need your ability down exactly if we're to dispatch someone to protect you, or register you with an outstanding raid team or group and see to your safety. So cough up the strengths and the weaknesses, all of it! Quickly!"

Oh, for real. What was he even saying? Register me with a raid team or a group? Why? He was talking about sending bodyguards? Over my ability?

I was frowning at the old man as he sidled up to me when Researcher Kim Eunha sighed and spoke.

"Seoha is reacting like that because he doesn't know what kind of influence ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his ability has on the people around him. There are three elements in this world that people call essential to a raid. Know what they are?"

"Tank, dealer, healer?"

"That's a game. Not all that different, mind you, and tank and healer are right. A physical reinforcement user to hold the front line, and a healer to close your wounds—those are essential. But the last one is a Presence Sense and Analysis ability user. Someone like you."

"Like me?"

"Right. Tanks can fill the dealer's role too. But a Presence Sense user who can read an Aberrant's weak points, an Analysis user who can find the Aberrants—nobody can stand in for those. That's why one of the three elements is a Detection ability user."

"Is... that so?"

"Right. And even among Detection users, there's a priority. That's the Presence Sense user. Because it's an ability that can keep reading an Aberrant's condition and report stamina, weak points, damage, all of it in real time. And yet!"

I stared blankly at Researcher Kim Eunha, who had suddenly raised her voice. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠As if frustrated, she squeezed her eyes shut, lifted a fist, and spoke while it trembled.

"Even now, and you're still lower class, you're only thirty-five meters short of a top-class Presence Sense user. And your growth rate is seventy-five percent. If that ability develops, your Presence Sense range is obviously going to reach a level that slaps Analysis users across the face. And oh my! Your Phase Power growth aptitude is the very top? You can detect Aberrants separately too, can't you? This is an ability that could pull its own weight even if you were thrown into the field this instant—an ability that would hold up anywhere in the world. You! If every raid team on the planet learned this, they'd drop everything and come running just to recruit you!"

Watching Researcher Kim Eunha pour out her heated speech, I didn't know whether I ought to be glad or sad. I had revealed only one very simple piece of my ability, and every raid team in the world would covet it? Bewilderment was the larger feeling.

The old man, as if he had seen through my expression, narrowed his eyes and asked.

"Looking at that face of yours, I can roughly tell. You took your trial in a plains region, didn't you?"

No. It was a forest cut through with cliffs.

I wore a lukewarm expression toward the old man, who had grabbed the wrong end entirely, and Min Nayoung folded her arms and opened her mouth. Even with her arms folded, she didn't have Franc's dignity.

"Most of the regions where Aberrants are hunted are places where human sight is blocked. Old city ruins, underground prisons, caves in particular—entering those without a Presence Sense user is no different from suicide. You could even say the number of Detection ability users is the measure of a raid team's true strength."

"So you're saying my value is beyond what I imagined? To the point that, if I'm not careful, raid teams might come to blows over me?"

"That's right. If something like that occurred, not only you yourself, Mr. Jung Seoha, but the people around you would come to harm. The body that exists to prevent that is the World Phase Ability User Association—an IWO international organization."

I put on a show of being moved by Researcher Min Nayoung's talk of protecting me. An altruistic giant collective, built by many people coming together? As if I would believe that.

Humans were the ones who hung Jesus up. Humans were the ones who stabbed him dead. The essence of a human being is not hesitating to stab someone in the back for their own gain. How was I supposed to believe a word of it?

Even so, if information on me was entered into the Ability User Association's database as things stood, it was obvious I would be the only one in trouble.

What I had thought the least valuable of the abilities I held had turned out to be tremendous value to them. For now, I needed to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drag my value down.

"There aren't any more strengths. What's left is nothing but weaknesses. The Phase Power consumption is on the high side, and underground or underwater the penetration rate drops as low as eighty percent. When I'm tired, detection efficiency falls, and if there are too many objects I get headaches."

I had mixed the weaknesses of Telescopic Vision and Detection, but how were they supposed to know whether it was true?

"Is that so? I figured there'd be a penalty of about that degree. If even that weren't there, I'd have wondered what little monster had crawled out of where."

A little monster?!

Only around then did the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠old man—Dr. Woo—begin writing something down on a paper report. I was about to look and see what it was when Researchers Kim Eunha and Min Nayoung came over and pressed something like jump-rope handles into my hands. Were they starting the measurement now?

With the two women pressed close, a sweet scent seemed to rise off them. It was different from merely looking. My heart started to thud.

Kim Eunha, who had me set my thumbs on the round beads at the ends of the handles, brought several round seals no bigger than a quarter and stuck them to my chest. And as she applied the seals, she felt over my chest with a bewitching hand—and then she was smiling, round and bright.

"Oh my. You look like a complete skeleton, but your chest is a little firm?"

A virgin, talking like a pervert. Min Nayoung sighed at the sight of her and went back to the old man's side, and Kim Eunha pretended not to hear it, kept sticking seals to my chest, then oh-so-casually tried to touch the Soul Stone pouch.

I slapped her hand away with a sharp smack, and Kim Eunha clutched the back of her hand and knit her brows.

"Ow! Why'd you hit me?"

Why. Because she had tried to lay a hand on Franc's Soul Stone without so much as asking.

I was a little angry. Her groping my chest as she pleased had already put me in a bad mood, and the attempt on the pouch that held Franc's Soul Stone irritated me on top of it. I didn't feel like letting it pass, so I would indulge in a little spite.

With a sulky face, I grinned at Kim Eunha as she connected the wires from the seals to a machine on the solid-wood desk that resembled a heart-rate monitor.

"Noona, how old are you? You're a virgin, right? The way you used your hands was pretty awkward just now."

The old man and Min Nayoung, midway through preparing the measurement, went blank, and Kim Eunha's body locked rigid as her face began to redden. Even her hands were trembling.

"Ah, so when I scanned you, it was the real thing? Hehe."

I had seen all the way to her hymen when I ran the Clairvoyance scan. As if there had been any chance I hadn't gotten the shot. That place, a pale pink like an abalone, the opening of it just barely sealed by a thin membrane—it had been cute.

"Nnngh~~!"

"Drop it. You started it."

Perhaps because I had said it so hatefully, Kim Eunha was a breath from throwing a fit when Min Nayoung stopped her. At that she couldn't even get a word out. She just ducked her head and stood there, body shaking.

She must have been that furious. When she turned her back to prepare this and that, a faint shine of tears had gathered at the corners of her eyes. Well. They say the kids these days don't know enough to fear an Aberrant. So why did she have to go and poke one?

"Heh heh. The temper's something, too. It's been a while since a supersized rookie turned up."

I didn't feel anything like malice from the old man, chuckling as he entered the report into the computer, so I didn't say anything in particular either, and threw out a question to get a few pieces of information.

"Earlier, in the appraisal room, you said I'd learned Intimidation. What is that?"

"What do you mean, what. Was that Fear you burst out with in the appraisal room a coincidence?"

Good of him to catch on so fast. So go on and explain it already.

"Good grief. What an impossible brat to get a read on. I thought you'd caught it by using Intimidation properly. How did you catch an evolved No-Head Mantis?"

"He caught an evolved No-Head Mantis by himself?"

At the old man's words, Kim Eunha was startled enough to forget her anger. If I didn't correct that misunderstanding, it was going to get annoying later.

"A mob of Aberrants were stuck together fighting, so I just reaped the profit. That's all. I couldn't even get close. I only threw a javelin from a distance with a spear-thrower."

"You caught it, though, didn't you. Cowards and the ones without talent can't even seize a chance like that. They just croak. And if you're curious about the Intimidation skill, once you've got your Certifier, go into the ability-user technique shop and look."

The old man spat out words that were exceedingly sharp and hid his face behind the monitor. I thought I saw sorrow in the scowl.

Was there a story there? If he were nothing but eccentric, Kim Eunha and Min Nayoung wouldn't look at Dr. Woo with faces that pitied him, or worried. So it was eccentricity with a reason behind it.

But what had he reacted to? He had said cowards, and those without talent. Was that someone he knew? Family?

The old man's words sank the room into silence, and perhaps unable to bear the quiet, Kim Eunha turned her attention to me.

"So. What's in that charm pouch, that you'd slap a woman's hand away with everything you had, no mercy?"

Come on. Just let it go. Why ask again?

"It's just a stone that saved me when I nearly died. So I feel safe when I have it, and that's the only reason I carry it. I figured if someone touched it, the effect might weaken."

"Heh heh. So you treat it like a guardian object, or a totem. Carry an object that moves your heart like that on your body long enough, and your ability may seep into it until it truly becomes an artifact. So treasure it."

My ability, seeping in? Then Franc would be able to use Search? An artifact. I would have to look into that later.

Kim Eunha wore a look that said she understood, if that was all it was—but a moment later she was scowling again, as if the harassment I had lobbed at her refused to fade.

Hmm. Should I apologize first? No need to make an enemy over nothing, and the virgin remark had definitely crossed a line.

Still. Touching a charm was as good as taboo, and that woman had tried to touch it anyway.

I scrunched my face as hard as it would go, and brooded.