Chapter 56: Franc's Story (4)

When I felt consciousness return and opened my eyes, bright moonlight was pouring from the night sky.

It felt as though I had only dozed for a moment. I had finished training, washed, and settled onto a plush sofa; drowsiness had stolen over me, and I had merely closed my eyes for a little while before opening them again — and yet I had become a ghost.

I tried to make sense of what had happened, and when I looked up at the clear waxing half-moon hanging in the night, I swallowed a sob. I remembered. Those killed by an Evil Ghost became ghosts or wraiths, and came to hate the living. So even in death I would have no rest. I had become an evil spirit. Despair and loss shook me — and then I felt that something was wrong.

I examined myself. I did not have the weathered, eroded look peculiar to evil spirits. I had returned to the form I wore in life, before I became a giant, and the contradiction of it struck me. I waited a while in the moonlight, but I felt no sign of changing into an evil spirit. If anything, memories of my life that I had forgotten rose with painful clarity, and that alone hurt.

Around then, my surroundings began to enter my sight. Before my eyes lay two corpses of different species, each the size of a house, piled one atop the other. Only after I had retreated a long way back did I understand that they were my corpse and Morg's.

The moment I saw my naked body sprawled over the giant mole, shame washed through me. When I had been an aberrant giant, I had not even been capable of feeling embarrassment...

Once I had steadied my confused heart, sorrow found me. To go from human to aberrant, and then, in death, to a ghost — I was glad I had not become an evil spirit, but I could not begin to guess when the twists of my life would ever end.

As a ghost, I could find neither a place to go nor a place where I belonged, and I simply stared blankly at my corpse and Morg's. Time passed. The night ended. And the moment the rising morning sun touched me, I realized my spiritual form was scattering. I fled in a hurry into the shadow beneath a tree, and then I was struck dumb by my own actions. If I had only stayed where I was, I could have faded away beneath that warm sunlight...

That was when I understood my true heart. Even if I were to vanish, I wanted to vanish in the real world, not in the Phase World.

When the sun set and night returned, I found I could move without hindrance again — but I could also tell that my spiritual form had grown a little more transparent than the night before. The thought that, at this rate, I would disappear without a trace in a matter of days left me sunk in gloom.

Morning came again. I was crouched beneath a nearby tree, unusually large, that cast a deep shadow, gazing helplessly at my corpse and Morg's, when Seoha came.

Yes. I watched everything he did from close beside him. There were nights I stayed near him as he rested up in a tree, and he never noticed me. But I was impressed by the way he kept his guard up, never letting his focus slip for even an instant. Mental fortitude like that is difficult to maintain unless one has trained for combat since childhood — and yet Seoha looked like a middle school student in a school uniform.

The next morning, his actions forced a little embarrassment on me. Because he stared at my body. Fixedly...

I-it may have been an aberrant giant's body, but it was still mine! And the one who saw me naked... Seoha was the first...

After examining my corpse, he climbed onto the dead Morg without hesitation and shoved my body aside so that it tumbled off. Then he climbed on top of me, split my chest open with a spear made from Morg's foreclaws, entered through the wound at my waist, and took out the Phase Stone.

To speak honestly, that bold course of action astonished me. The judgment to secure the Phase Stone in my heart, and the act of burrowing into a corpse — even one that was not human — would have been impossible without considerable strength of mind. ...Pfft. But the sight of him gone deathly pale, sprinting for the river, was a little funny.

He ran so fast I could not follow in time, but he came right back. And in the sight of him offering a silent prayer toward my corpse, I found a thread of hope in him. He could not see me. My spiritual form might scatter and disappear just like this. Even so, I began to follow him, as my heart told me to.

Moving through the shade put me a little behind, but while Seoha swam the river, I walked the riverbed, so keeping up was no trouble. I was astonished once more by his handiwork. Judging by the movement of his hands alone, a knotted cord looked as though it should never have taken shape at all, and the way he wound it around the claw-spear's grip and fixed it in place was remarkable as well. After that, I watched from beside him as he finished a training session — his stance clumsy, yet throwing off a strangely keen presence — and then went into a burrow to rest for the night.

My body had grown so transparent it seemed ready to vanish at any moment, but I did not care. I had already accepted, in my heart, that if I disappeared, that would be my fate.

The next day, I was a little puzzled when he moved along the cliff toward the waterfall, but I soon realized it was so he could climb, and I came to believe that if it was Seoha, he could make it back alive from the Phase World.

And then, on the night of the full moon, by the river...

When the story ended, I realized Franc was somehow restless, sneaking glances at me to read my reaction. Had she hidden something at the end? She seemed shy...

I could have teased her and sounded out her intentions on the sly, but I remembered making her angry with my joking earlier, so this time I decided to let it go. A glance at the clock told me it was past three in the morning. Her story had started around nine at night, which meant I had listened for a full six hours. Under those sidelong looks, I scratched my head.

In the end, the reason she became an aberrant must have been the viruses of undead subspecies and variants, together with some unknowable power of the Phase World, acting on her at once. As for her becoming a ghost, I figured she had been influenced, to some degree, by the spiritual power of the Evil Ghost that had been possessing Morg's body — spirit-channeling? — when he died.

It was a genuine, gut-deep relief that she hadn't taken on the Evil Ghost's bad influence. If Franc had become a wraith... Ugh. I didn't even want to think about it.

And here I had thought I was the only one who'd suffered like a damned dog. Hearing her circumstances, what I'd been through wasn't even fit to hand her a business card. From the very reason she was born — an illegitimate child of a noble house, brought into the world to be used — to being torn as a child from the only mother who had ever given her love, to falling into the Phase World and becoming an aberrant, and even after death...

I checked her expression without letting her notice. She was as innocent and pure as ever. Earlier, in the part where the forcibly summoned people were dying off, her face had gone so dark I'd been worried. But the moment our eyes met, she flinched as if she'd been caught out and looked away. I watched her hesitate and twist her fingers for a moment, then spoke with everything I meant.

"You've had a hard time, haven't you? You really went through a lot."

The instant I finished, tears welled in Franc's large eyes and spilled over.

Huh?! Wh-what did I say to make her cry? I just said she'd been through a lot!

"H-hey, hey. Why... no, are you okay?"

"Nn... n-no. It isn't that. The tears simply... came. Sob."

Seeing her cover her face with both hands and cry spread a bitter taste through my mouth. The reason she had broken down was surely that a grief built up over seventy-one long years — a life of nothing but fighting, without a single warm word — had finally burst free. They must have been days hard enough that even one gentle sentence could comfort her. I wanted to hold her tight and console her, and the fact that I couldn't seemed like it would become a regret of its own.

I was searching for words that might comfort her when a hypothesis came to mind — one that had begun to take shape from the moment she gained her electricity. If this worked, maybe I could stop her tears?

"I... don't think of you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as a ghost."

Franc, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, looked at me in puzzlement.

"In a lot of ways, you don't seem like one. Before, you were so pretty and kind that I half-jokingly called you a spirit, but maybe you really did become one."

Sniffling, she seemed to be trying to take my words as mere comfort. The smile she forced looked pitiful. To persuade her when she didn't believe me, I turned on the Certifier and opened a page I had bookmarked.

"Here. Look at this."

Earlier, while I was searching this and that on the Certifier, I had happened across a post about spirits on an overseas forum. The author might as well have been a former historian; they had put up a long piece, nearly a thesis, on a community board, and its contents were spirit tales handed down across the world. Ever since the gates to the Phase World opened, sightings of spirits had been reported, so this was probably the sort whose personal interest had exploded on that point. It was a brutal scroll of an English post, but as the comments and the view count made plain, it was extremely interesting and full of useful information. I wasn't used to English yet, so I worked through the interpretation as I read, and the short of it was this.

Set against Franc's situation, it fit to an almost uncanny degree. An invisible being that transcends nature — so no one but me can see her — with consciousness and memory, able to unleash supernatural lightning. I spoke to her as she stared blankly at the holographic screen I was showing her.

"The Evil Ghost that possessed Morg might have become one with him while it was fighting you."

"Become one, you say...?"

"A living thing possessed by an evil spirit usually gets steeped in death-energy before long and dies on its own. But the Morg I examined right after I awakened was a perfectly living creature, you know? Not sick anywhere."

When I told her about studying Morg with Analysis from across the river, she looked intrigued and asked,

"You believe the Evil Ghost fused with the mole and became a separate living being?"

"Not entirely separate, but I think at least the Evil Ghost's vicious traits disappeared. Victims of an Evil Ghost become vengeful spirits, but you became an ordinary ghost, right? That's the important part."

If I wanted her to believe a hypothesis that sounded absurd, I had to believe it myself first, and be more serious about it than anyone. When I set aside my light attitude and put on a serious face, Franc focused on me with tear-wet eyes. Under that gaze I hypnotized myself and laid out the theory I had been turning over all along.

"Think about it. The Evil Ghost possessed the mole's body because it was afraid of you — to run from you. If that was the primary goal, what was the secondary one? Once Morg had stored up a certain amount of power, wouldn't it naturally have tried to recreate the conditions of the Evil Ghost's birth by killing a large number of aberrants? The fact that its body split and split and shriveled means the death-energy was purified, or vanished, and decreased."

"Yes! The Evil Ghost I met again after that — I could barely feel the intense presence from when we first encountered one another!"

"I don't know for sure, but the Evil Ghost that ended up possessing the mole was probably driven into a corner called annihilation. After that, it might have meant to dominate Morg, slaughter aberrants, and replenish its death-energy."

I asked her as she chimed in with bright, sparkling eyes, agreeing that I was right.

"You said your instincts kept driving you after Morg, right? Did you ever see him kill an aberrant?"

"That... I do not know. Day after day I searched for Morg, hiding beneath the earth. When I felt aberrants vanishing nearby, I would run to that place. And when I arrived, he was usually there alone, so the order of things was that I charged in and fought."

"The fact that Phase Power didn't accumulate even after he killed aberrants... maybe the Evil Ghost lost dominion over Morg and was reduced to a simple energy source."

"Why do you think so?"

"You made contact with the Evil Ghost, didn't you? You remember that feeling, right? Did you ever feel anything like it when you faced the fully grown Morg?"

"...I did not!"

"If the Evil Ghost had properly dominated Morg, he definitely wouldn't have stayed a giant mole — he would have mutated some other way. If that had happened, I think its traits would have leaked out in some form. But the Morg I saw was, literally, just an enormously large mole."

Maybe she felt something in the hypothesis. Franc stopped crying, marveled, and looked at me with admiring, respectful eyes!

Ugh. The corners of my mouth were about to climb on their own.

"So this is what I think. The Evil Ghost had already lost most of what made it an Evil Ghost and been reduced to Morg's energy source. That was the unidentified something flowing inside his body, and that's the reason he grew so huge."

The bigger the body grew, the more power the Evil Ghost would have lost. And the end of that was becoming a simple energy source. So once Morg could think and move freely, he must have started fighting her properly.

"And I think most of the Evil Ghost's traits vanished, but one remained. That spread in every direction when Morg died, affected you, and made you into what you are."

"Ah... When I think of it that way, it does seem right!"

"I'm not saying I believe you're a spirit on this alone. This is only the foundation of why I think you became one."

"Then you are saying there is another reason?"

"Of course."

Franc looked at me with sparkling eyes, waiting to see what story would come next.

"One is the Phase Stone that was condensing inside your body — this, which became a Soul Stone when you came to dwell in it. And the other is the Imugi's lightning."

"Ah..."

"Lightning is usually said to hold the power of purification, and since ancient times it's been regarded as the sacred power of the gods. The Rogue Imugi fired that kind of lightning without hesitation. I think its nature is different from an ordinary natural phenomenon. It's definitely a power infused with Phase Power."

I opened the mouth of the pouch and showed her the Soul Stone as I spoke.

"This Soul Stone grew inside your body. In other words, its sync with you can be considered perfect. And it holds a massive amount of Phase Power. I think that Phase Power is what's supporting you, so you can stay intact even under the sun. In that situation, lightning made of the Imugi's Phase Power struck the Soul Stone and passed through it dozens of times. Like a kind of baptism."

"Ah..."

"Shall we compare? Before the lightning hit, there was no sign at all when you went in and out of the Soul Stone. There was no change even when you slept, and Phase Power of about 3.86 flowed out of the Soul Stone every hour without pause. And of course, you couldn't use electricity either."

But what about after?

Every time Franc entered or left the Soul Stone, a halo of light the color of lightning poured from it, and when she slept, that same light flowed from her body. The Phase Power that had run from the Soul Stone like a stream had vanished, and around her soul inside it, something sparkled as if electricity were passing through. Lastly, she had become able to call lightning by drawing on the Phase Power stored within.

The longer my bullshit went on, the more the respect in her eyes grew, and somehow I started to feel smug. That just meant my bluff was pretty convincing, right?

Hmm... No. Maybe Franc was just the type a con man could fool easily.

"Hey. When the lightning affected the Soul Stone, what did it feel like?"

"I have never been struck by lightning, so I do not know if this is accurate, but it felt as though my whole body locked, and a tingling current passed from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes. Especially in the moment the strongest bolt — the one that struck you — hit the Soul Stone and passed through, it seemed I closed my eyes for an instant and opened them, and when I opened them I had returned inside the Soul Stone without realizing it. And I came to know that the space around me was filled with that same sensation I felt when electricity flowed through my body."

After that, she said, if she recalled the tingling that had been running through her while she was outside the Soul Stone, electricity would form.

"I see. Just as I thought. You, who used Phase Power as energy, were influenced by the lightning's Phase Power, and your nature changed. From an ordinary ghost into a supernatural being bound to electricity, with Phase Power as the medium. I think that's a miracle born of countless coincidences overlapping."

Hearing her explanation, my hypothesis felt even more credible.

"Part of why I think you're a spirit is what I've already said, but another reason is my Search."

My mouth felt a little dry.

"I can see the gray light inside the Soul Stone, but with Search I can't detect your soul, or your spiritual form. I can sense the energy inside the Soul Stone, though. This energy is a completely different kind from the unpleasant energies I've felt so many times. Looking at it, it's so beautiful and sparkling that I wanted to keep staring. You said you felt a chill from the Evil Ghost that cursed the living, but I couldn't feel anything like that from you at all. And could an ordinary ghost use Phase Power to make electricity — to make lightning?"

"In fairy tales, and in the stories that have been passed down, there was nothing of the sort..."

"Could an ordinary ghost study, think, express joy and anger and sorrow and pleasure, use Phase Power to wield electricity, stay invisible to others, and entrust its soul to a Phase Stone?"

"No."

"Then what would you call a being like that?"

"...A... a spirit?"

I nodded quietly.

"Yesterday morning, while you were asleep, my sister, Mom, and Dad saw your face."

"What?!"

"And when I said you seemed like a spirit then, they all accepted it, you know? If you'd been a specter, or something classed as an evil spirit like an Evil Ghost, I think my sister and Dad — who miss nothing — would definitely have been creeped out. More than anything, I believe what backs my words is that even Hwayeon, whose Phase Power is over ten million, didn't notice you existed, and that when you generated electricity, Mom and my sister and Dad — who have no Phase Power at all — were able to see you."

Having heard the whole hypothesis, Franc seemed a little confused. Whether she had really become a spirit, or was only a ghost. So I had to drive in a wedge, and leave her no room to doubt!

"That's why I think of you as a spirit. A spirit who, when she isn't using her power, is invisible to other people's eyes, as if she exists in another dimension. A lovely spirit only I can see."

When I slipped in something that was basically a confession, Franc's face began to brighten, little by little.

"You can think, you can express what you intend, and you can learn. Right?"

"Y-yes."

"If you were a ghost without a body — a ghost without a brain — would any of that be possible?"

"...I do not think so."

"Right? And there's a book that claims will is power. I've read it, and I agree. So if you, too, believe that you aren't a ghost or a specter, but a spirit, and if you hold to that will..."

"Seoha..."

"You really can become a spirit. You were a person who became an aberrant — why couldn't you become a spirit?"

"Sob..."

At my words, filled with conviction, Franc began to cry again.

The Franc-is-a-spirit theory might be nothing but convenience and forced logic on my part. A brat's worthless knowledge, jammed into place to suit myself. Simple stubborn rationalization. But in reality, there exists a miraculous power that turns the impossible into the possible.

Phase Power.

If it was Phase Power — the Phase Power that turns people into superhumans and ability users — then I believed it would make Franc not a ghost, but a spirit.

I looked at her, held in my arms, and turned over the questions I still had.

There wasn't much left that I was curious about. Why did she stay stark naked, why had she kissed my cheek on a rainy day, and what was the exact reason she had bowed to me in the tree room.

The first... how to put it. An angel and a devil were fighting in my head without yielding an inch. You have to tell her, so she'll cover herself!If clothes hide that beautiful body, you won't be able to see it! Are you out of your mind?! And so I couldn't say it.

And the kiss she had given my cheek in the rain — I had thought it simply held reverence, but honestly, where would Franc have any reason to revere me? Her passing explanation wasn't enough!

Lastly, about the bow in the tree room. I had thrown the question at her out of nowhere while she was talking, and she had gotten thoroughly flustered, gone blank, and clearly hidden something. There was definitely something there. The kind of something, for example, that could turn on a green light.

...But if I asked a mischievous question like that while her favorability seemed to be shooting up, I'd lose every point I'd gained in one go.

Anyway, watching Franc, almost everything I had expected turned out to be right. Good family blood, and a good education. What I'd gotten wrong was that she wasn't so much of the house as a child born through a shocking bit of seed-sowing.

That didn't mean I liked her any less. If anything, I liked her more. The way she had worked without rest to become a knight, and the way she could have moved to a far better place by her own choice at any ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time, yet never forgot the kindness of those who had raised and taught her, and refused every temptation.

The process by which she became an aberrant had been a shock too, and she had said she found me hiding in the tree. I only now understood why she had found me and left me be, but that wasn't the important part. The important part was that Franc might like me too — except it was a little ambiguous...

That woman, the second madam, had taught her a woman's conduct and the duties of a vassal, hadn't she? She'd said the woman was Japanese, so was it samurai spirit? I had wondered whether bowing to me also meant she meant to serve me as a vassal, and was that actually it? There were similar situations in the samurai stories in Japanese manga, and when they taught the act of bowing, they probably taught it that way...

I had thought she might have pledged loyalty to a family head, but she had said it herself. That she had served him as a father.

Ugh... This wouldn't do. I should just ask why she bowed to me! Sorry, Franc!

She seemed to have calmed; her heaving shoulders slowly settled, and she wiped her tears with her fingertips. Seeing that, I asked her straight out, so I wouldn't be able to overthink it.

"Franc. That bow you gave me in the tree room back then — was it you saying, as a knight, that you'd serve me?"

The moment the words ended, Franc's movement stopped dead.

...So it really was that. But then what were the reactions she showed afterward? If that moment in the tree room was her saying she would serve me as a knight, then how was I supposed to read the feelings she had shown after the Imugi incident?

She quietly turned her head so she wouldn't meet my eyes, and seeing how troubled she looked, the urge to tease her began to creep up again.

"Fraaanc?"

She drew her shoulders in with a tiny hitch, as if she'd squeaked, and carefully turned toward me... With a faintly tearful face, she pushed her lips out a little, as if displeased — almost as if to say, you already know, so why are you asking.

"...Seoha, you truly are unkind. When you already know..."

Hurgh! I-I didn't know a counterattack like this existed!

Whether or not she knew she had landed a blow on my heart, Franc couldn't keep her gaze still, flicking it this way and that as if embarrassed, and my heart pounded. So she did like me...!

"I-it is as you said. From the way you regard me, and from your actions, I... I came to know your sincerity. And so I thought I wished to serve you. As my m-master."

...Huh?

I stared blankly at Franc, who had squeezed her eyes shut and covered her face with both hands.

"Then what about now?"

"Auuu..."

At the question, she shook her head back and forth as if she would die of embarrassment. If Franc was about to die of shame, I was about to die of my heart skipping.

She said she was twenty-seven — was it allowed to be this cute? And that face was late twenties? I'd have believed late teens.

"N-now, it is... nngh!"

She broke off and covered her face with both hands again. Too embarrassing, it seemed, to put into words.

But I felt like I was going to die in a different sense. Did she like me, or did she just think of me as her master?

...This wouldn't do. Playing push-and-pull like the romance fantasy novels my sister squeals over didn't suit me. If you're a man, it's all or nothing! Just go for it and see!

Feeling a heart that had gone past pounding and seemed ready to explode, I swallowed and opened my mouth.

"I don't know if you realize this, Franc, but I... like you. I've come to like you."

Thanks to her covering her face with both hands and bowing her head, her ear had dropped to exactly the right place, and I added, whispering into it:

Still covering her face with her palms, Franc went limp and folded forward like a caterpillar. Thanks to that, the beautiful curve of her back came fully into view. At my confession her whole body was glowing white, and I was nervous and embarrassed too — heart hammering, blood rushing to my face, heat rising.

I had no idea a confession could be this tense and shaky!

She stayed perfectly still in that posture, so, wanting an answer, I brought my mouth to her ear again and whispered.

"I worked up a lot of nerve to say that, and if you just stay like that... I think I'm going to be sad."

At the whisper she flinched hard, then slowly turned her head toward me and looked at my face through the gaps in her fingers. Only then did she seem to see how red I had gotten. She squeezed her eyes shut, lowered her hands, and slowly raised her upper body. I sat up properly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to match her, and Franc, with a bewitching expression, rose onto her knees, looked down at me, and laid a hand on my cheek.

"Th-this is my answer."

Then she closed her eyes a little, offered her lips, and leaned in — and as those lips, which had begun to sparkle, drew toward mine, my heart started pounding like mad.

A soft peck.

Her lips met mine lightly and started to pull away, then came back to meet them again. The second time I tasted them, they were warm and cozy, with a faintly tingling flavor.

As I had expected, she said the kiss she had given my cheek in the rain had meant reverence. Secondly, the bow she had offered me in the tree room had been meant to express the Japanese chivalry she learned from the woman called the second madam, and the first kiss I had received from Franc while swimming to escape the Imugi had meant love.

She was so embarrassed that it took a long while to hear the whole of it, but watching her be embarrassed, I didn't notice the time passing. I got embarrassed too, and squirmed as I asked what she had liked about me. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠At first she said she had fallen for my strength of mind and will, and for the acceptance I showed even toward her, a ghost. The decisive thing, she said, was the sight of me trying to protect her from the Imugi, and of me refusing to yield to the lightning, enduring to the end and carrying my will through — that was when she had fallen completely.

...Pfft. Pfhehe...!

Ahem. But wasn't she seeing me way too grandly? If I had to live up to Franc's standards, I was in trouble. And then what she said next made my face burn as if it would catch fire.

"But that was not it. Swimming above a forest that had become a lake, through night rain black as pitch, searching for me and weeping — in that sight of you, I could see my own childhood. Only then did I understand. That you were simply a child, of the same age I had once been."

Gaaah! Th-this humiliation!!

I resolved to dive onto the bed and burrow into the blankets, and was about to do it when I realized her story wasn't finished, and I held on desperately. I could hide later!

"At that time, I was desperate to deaden my emotions and push others away. But you, rather... The moment I saw that, I resolved to remain with you until the very end. And I realized my feeling was love, and yet... I believed myself a ghost. A confession, I thought, was not mine to give."

"..."

"And so your confession is the greatest gift of my life."

I stared blankly at Franc, who pressed a palm to the prettily swelling cleft of her breasts, shaped like a drop of water, and wore a look of tender compassion so gentle it could enchant.

"My heart is still trembling. But please, understand. I have no body. I have no body with which to receive your love, or to hold you. And so..."

She smiled, the faintest tears held in her face, and spoke.

Franc's last words stabbed my chest and gouged at it.

What was I supposed to say. What words could be an answer to a confession like that.

I...

In the end, I couldn't say anything at all.