School (2)

After dinner I went back to my room and started in on Phase Power control training.

I had listened to Franc's story all through the night and hadn't slept a wink since, but between my time in the Phase World and the control work itself, I wasn't all that tired. I might as well keep at it until I finally dropped off.

For about an hour I poured every nerve into Phase Power control. After that I tried multitasking — holding the power steady while I browsed the Certifier community, or while I watched Franc.

I was soaking up knowledge of the Phase World from the vast stores in the community's information archives when a survival-cooking entry caught my eye, and I glanced over at Franc, sprawled on her stomach across the microfiber carpet.

Whenever Mom or my sister started cooking, Franc would drift over to watch. She had to be interested. Maybe I ought to buy her a few cookbooks.

The trouble with thinking and controlling Phase Power at the same time was that the current of those thoughts bled straight into the control.

The Technique Shop had no listing for Phase Power control. That only meant nothing of the sort was registered there. Surely some ability user, somewhere, could do it?

If there was, I wanted to know how their performance compared to mine.

It might be sitting among the techniques still locked because my class was too low. Should I text Hwayeon and ask? Sis was helping Mom finish the dishes and then showering, so once she came out I would have to get Hwayeon's number from her.

I was controlling Phase Power, and thinking of my sister, when Search lurched off on its own and scanned her naked body in the shower.

Smack! Smack, smack!

I struck my own cheek several times with a hand clenched tight, beating back the wicked impulse trying to crawl in. Franc flinched at the sound and turned to look at me.

Search twitched as if it meant to run wild again, so I simply shut my eyes and began drawing Phase Power up into my head.

As I quieted my mind, the stinging in my cheek became a kind of seasoning and drew my focus in tight.

The moment I spread Phase Power through my brain, Search flared to 130 percent on its own, and the movements of every living person inside its range began pouring into my head.

Right after I had returned to reality, while they were running tests on me at the hospital, just keeping Search going properly had burdened my head so badly I could barely manage it. Now I had grown practiced enough to let unnecessary information — and the things I did not want to see — slide past on their own.

The regrettable part was that I could only pluck out what I wanted when I concentrated like this. I would have to train more, until I could manage it in ordinary moments too.

I cleared my throat. Hard.

Maybe because I had scanned my sister in the shower earlier, my awareness naturally snagged on people in the middle of something obscene.

That affair of a couple — a woman in her mid-twenties, a man in his early fifties — was lost in sex again tonight.

I had my reasons for calling it an affair. The age gap was nearly wide enough to pass for parent and child, but the real tell was that the man only ever came to that house to have sex. The near-total absence of his daily things in the place only confirmed it.

His long cock, which had been pumping in and out, suddenly punched through the mouth of her womb and drove in to the hilt. Her waist shuddered.

Whoa. A woman's womb could open like that? At that depth she ought to be in pain, shouldn't she? And yet her face had gone utterly slack. She looked as if she felt incredible.

The plump entrance of her womb, thick as a pink rubber ring, gaped wide and bit down around him. My mouth fell open.

She held herself in a rear-entry posture, only her hips hiked high, taking him while she trembled all over. He looked deeply satisfied with the way she answered him, and slammed down into her waist as if he meant to snap it.

Every time he drove down hard, his cock plunged deep into her womb and drew back out, and her upper body sank lower and lower until she was flat against the bed, clutching the sheets, too busy spilling moans to do anything else.

Still, I had read that sex that violent did a woman's body no good at all. There were posts about women who had only just started seeing a man and sharing his bed, who had been put through that kind of rough sex half by choice and half against their will, until a fallopian tube tore and died and the inside of the womb filled with scars, leaving them unable to conceive.

If she were an ability user, or a physical-reinforcement type, her recovery would outstrip an ordinary person's, and rough sex would not matter. Those two were both ordinary people.

Hmm. Even so, her reproductive organs did not look particularly damaged. A sturdy woman, by the look of her.

While I was thinking it through, she seemed to be cresting into orgasm. She took his cock deep between her folds and contracted every muscle in her body, released, and contracted again.

The nerves along her spine cinched so tight I wondered if she might die of it. Her lungs had locked up too. She did not even seem able to breathe properly.

Her pussy twitched as if in spasm and mouthed at him, and the middle-aged man snickered, worked his index finger into her anus to scrape and stimulate the inner wall, and at the same time spanked her ass with sharp, cracking slaps. Each time, her pussy contracted and relaxed to an extreme, like someone folding paper.

It was an affair that drew a sigh just to look at, and yet somehow I could not tear my eyes away.

After trembling as if in convulsions for a long while, she finally got her lungs to do their job and started breathing again. Too far gone to gather herself, she poured sweat like rain, her face flushed deep red, tears and spit trailing from her.

The middle-aged man was not finished. He stirred his cock inside her and jabbed at the mouth of her womb, and — was that clustered ridge the G-spot? — grazed the spot with cunning little strokes. Every time he did, she broke into a sharp cry.

A woman who stopped breathing and thrashed in pleasure whenever her womb was struck, and a middle-aged man who kept thrusting roughly, as if it still were not enough.

She was leaking slick in a stream, as if she were pissing. She had gone completely out of her head. With chemistry that good in bed, no wonder she was not quitting the affair.

I had read in a book once that a few inborn conditions let you class a woman as a masterpiece, and one of them was a vaginal wall dense with fine folds that stimulated a cock as if countless worms were crawling over it. In that sense, hers could be called one.

No wonder the man only seemed to like her when they were joined. Last time, and this time too, he insisted on taking her from behind. Was he doing it to hide his face?

Look at that. The moment she tried to turn and lie flat on her back, he got irritated and forced her shoulder down, locking her into the rear-entry position.

I had been watching the couple for a while when I heard my sister step into the next room. Her shower must have ended.

Right. I'll ask her in a bit. If I stood up now, an awkward situation was going to unfold.

"Hwayeon's number?"

My sister, in a loose pair of pajamas printed with all sorts of animals, was drying her hair at the vanity. At the question she turned a suspicious look on me.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"...It's nothing. Hwayeon doesn't pick up numbers she doesn't know, so I'll call her and tell her to contact you."

"If she asks what it's about, say I've got a question about Phase Power."

"Ah... okay."

What was that? Hmm. Sis's face was as hard to read as ever. It was like two or three layers of thin cloth laid over her expression, so whatever emotion came through arrived faint.

I perched on the edge of her bed, meaning to watch her call Hwayeon, but she waved me off with a flick of her hand.

Should I eavesdrop on whatever they talk about? I went back to my room, circulated Phase Power into my ears, and my sister's voice and Hwayeon's came through, small.

"Hwayeon, it's me."

"You busy? It sounds noisy over there."

Hwayeon's voice cut off for a moment, and the noise around her vanished.

A dispatch — was this the case from the community alert? The government had requested them too. Hwayeon's raid team really was something. Or was it because her mother was the president?

"They're calling you out, so a dangerous aberrant must have shown up."

"Hmm~."

At that vague answer my sister let out a small hum through her nose. Showing him that meant she had already pieced the whole story together, start to finish.

"Be careful. Don't get hurt."

"Same as usual. He's not petty enough to sulk over something like that, so you don't need to worry. Anyway, you sound busy, so I'll just get to it. Looks like my brother has something he wants to ask you. I'll give you his number — could you call when you have a moment?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

I listened to the call end and scratched my chin. So the reason she had called off yesterday's plans was Yongmunsan.

Something felt off, though. A B-Class ability user and the nation's number-two raid team had been deployed, and it still was not resolved? From what Franc had told me, the response to an aberrant appearance followed a manual under the Alliance's own regulations. And they were still on standby into a second day?

It did not seem like a matter of needing force. There was some other reason. I was turning over what that reason might be when my sister rapped the sliding door — tok, tok — opened it a crack, and poked only her head through.

"I just told her. She said she'd call when she has time, so if you wait—"

Before she could finish, my smartphone on the desk burst into a classical bell tone. Rring. Rrriiing.

"...Guess she's free?"

My sister put on a sullen look, as if something displeased her, and watched me pick up the phone. I gestured for her to clear out, a little payback, and she went "Hmph!" and slid the door shut with a sharp bang.

The number on the screen was strange, though.

I hit the call button, and Hwayeon's voice came through, a little cool.

"Hey. You seem busy — is it all right to talk?"

The voice, and the way she skipped even a formulaic hello and went straight to the point, made it feel as if she were in a bad mood.

Our reunion the day before yesterday had ended in an atmosphere that was not bad at all. Was it because I had called while she was busy?

I was used to catching mood and thought off a person's face, and I could not do that over a phone, so I felt cowed. She was a childhood-friend noona I had only just met again after several years, and her social standing was on another level from someone like me.

"It's nothing big. Just a small thing I was curious about. You're the only person nearby I can ask. ...If it's a bother, should I hang up?"

I asked it timidly, and Hwayeon gave a small cough, then answered in a voice a little warmer than before.

I had been letting my imagination run, wondering if she had come to dislike me in some subtle way, and the softened voice let me relax inside. I asked.

"Yeah. What I wanted to ask is about the Alliance Technique Shop — whether there's a technique that lets you control Phase Power. My class is low, so a lot of entries are locked and I can't see all of them."

"Huh?"

Right. Of course. There was the risk of a wiretap, or of someone listening in.

But an ID? I had written one down when I sent that message to SexMachine, but that probably was not my real ID.

"Hold on. There's an ID registration? I don't think I ever did that."

I answered while powering on the Certifier, and Hwayeon kindly walked me through how to register an ID and a CP Mail address. I followed along, and in under ten seconds I had an official mail address on the Certifier.

A moment later I heard a rustling beyond the phone, and then a tapping sensation came from the Certifier fastened to my wrist. A hologram window split off on its own, and an alert rose that a friend request had come in.

"Oh, I confirmed it."

The moment I answered, the call on the smartphone cut.

Hwayeon's personality seemed to have changed a little. As a child she had been poised beyond her years, but she had not been the type to tie things off this crisply. She used to tell bone-dry jokes that froze everyone around her.

I set the smartphone down, walked to the sliding door, and struck it with a thud loud enough to carry. My sister, ear pressed to the door, startled and landed hard on her rear.

"Kyaa!"

"Don't eavesdrop."

"Ah—I'm not!"

She did not lie and claim she had not been listening. That was just like her.

I warned her and turned around, and Franc, who had been lying on the carpet, offered me a faint smile before lowering her eyes to the tablet again.

What was I supposed to do, not buy her the tablet. She seemed to chase after me less now that she was reading, and somehow I felt as if the tablet had stolen Franc from me.

Jealous of a machine!

I sighed inwardly and sat on the bed, and the Certifier flashed white and gave off a light vibration. I touched it to bring up the screen, and an alert rose that a call had come in from Hwayeon.

I touched the accept button, and just as when I had spoken with Mr. Kang Woohyuk, Hwayeon's upper body was projected into the hologram window.

Hwayeon through the hologram window felt different again from when I watched her with Search.

Jet-black hair that looked soft, drawn up into a ponytail; neat bangs that just barely covered her eyebrows; calm eyes, a finely raised nose, cheeks faintly flushed, and a dainty mouth. A pretty face I could look at forever and never tire of, the way I never tired of Franc's.

"Yeah."

Once the call began, Franc set her reading aside, pushed herself up, and clung to my back to watch the two of us talk.

Hhk — five hundred million?!

"Wait — they don't just protect you, they pay you too?"

I brightened at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the mention of money, and Hwayeon looked at me steadily for a moment before going on.

"Okay! But about how much are the bonus and the salary?"

What? The Hwayeon looking at me showed a flicker of unease. Did I look like I was going to take the money and run?

"If I said I was joining some other raid team at this point, my sister would beat me to death. Take the money and wipe my mouth clean, and Dad would beat me to death."

It was a serious answer, as far as I was concerned, but Hwayeon bit her lip hard and held in a laugh. That strange sense of humor had not changed either.

She even turned her head away and trembled, and only barely swallowed the laugh and returned to her original expression. The faint red in her face remained.

Fi—five billion! And a salary of one billion!!

"Y-yeah. That's right."

At those figures, an illusion of bundled cash went fluttering across my eyes. Five billion — I could buy everything I wanted and do everything I wanted!

Hwayeon had no idea I was leaping around inside. She looked at my perfectly ordinary face and wore an expression of mild surprise.

After that she rattled off the things it would be good for me to know, explaining that these contract guidelines had been set by the Alliance and that most other raid teams adopted similar clauses. I nodded along.

"Yeah. Got it."

I wanted to know more about this Phase Power operation technique before I spent five hundred million won to buy it, but asking any further here felt as if it would seem strange, so I asked something else instead.

"The reason you're at Yongmunsan — is it because a high-grade aberrant showed up, and you're waiting for ability users to gather?"

"The Certifier community keeps showing the state of Yongmunsan in a popup. There's a subtitle constantly asking ability users for help, too."

Hwayeon's brow knit, just barely.

"Something troublesome?"

"What? Isn't that dangerous?"

It feeds on inanimate things? Does that include the Phase Power in a Phase Stone? Startled, I fidgeted with the pouch hanging at my neck, and Franc looked a little uneasy too.

"Does it evolve or anything, feeding on Phase Power like that?"

I had nothing to say to that.

Fair enough. She had probably only said what she was thinking, but a calm face mixed with that sharp tone left me feeling, how to put it, as if I had been called an idiot. It got awkward. Hwayeon made a face that said that wasn't what I meant.

She seemed about to say something more, then closed her mouth, and at last gave a small shake of her head as if she had given up on speaking.

"Uh? Yeah."

"Yeah. Hang in there, Hwayeon."

Huh? Just before the call cut, I caught a woman's voice, faintly. Help?

"A Low-Rank Variant. A small one. A wide mountain."

At the few words I let out, Franc looked at me and nodded.

"That's what I think too. But with the Minor Ability User Protection Act, they won't be able to make the request, will they?"

"Well, if they need me, Hwayeon's mother is the president, so even if they have to file an official request with the Association, they'll get in touch. Probably."

Come to think of it, Hwayeon was only twenty now. How had she piled that much Phase Power into her body? Because she was a genius?

And in that instant a memory Search had kept of her rose up unbidden. I shoved it back down.

Enough. I have to stop thinking about it. Any further and my face was going to burn.

Let my mind wander even a little, and dizzying adults-only footage came spilling out of the warehouse of my memory. Fap material to spare, hormones pumping hard, and still I could hardly sneak a hand to myself with Franc right there. Nngh.

Forced abstinence mode. It was agony. Agony.