Energy Eater 2 (1)
The faculty office sat at the center of the second floor, and the principal's office was right beside it.
I paused before the solid-wood door, the gold panel reading Principal's Office level with my eyes, then raised a hand and knocked.
Knock, knock, knock.
Before anyone answered, I scanned the room with Spatial Perception. Three men and one woman. The principal himself, white-haired and in his seventies; two men in their fifties; and a woman who looked to be in her early to mid-thirties.
Which of them is Time River's General Affairs Director?
The principal heard the knock, rose, and opened the door himself.
"Oh, come in, Seoha."
"Hello, Principal."
He was a gentle-looking old gentleman, his pure white hair swept neatly back. His manner was as dignified and old-fashioned as his face, and a handful of girls with peculiar tastes followed him with something like fanatical devotion.
He never forgot his courtesy, even with students far younger than himself. He didn't command quite the reverence the Chairwoman did, but every student at our school—myself included—respected him a great deal.
He took my greeting with an apologetic smile.
"It is this school's tradition not to summon a student out of class if it can be helped, but the matter being what it is, we had no choice. You'll understand, won't you?"
"Yes, sir."
I answered short and looked past his shoulder. The three I'd already sensed were on their feet.
The woman in her thirties was a tidy beauty, her hair cut in a neat bob just below the ears, and the eyes she turned on me were thick with goodwill. Of the two men in their fifties, one wore a white dress shirt, black suit trousers, and a lab coat over them—a plump middle-aged man of about five foot seven, a little soft through the middle. The other looked as if he kept himself carefully; the black suit fit him with a living edge, and he was much the same height.
I didn't feel any hostility from either of them. I'd confirmed it that morning, when that shaggy-haired troublemaker kept picking fights: once dislike crosses a certain line, Spatial Perception takes it for hostility and sounds an alarm. From these two, nothing.
"Come in. Sit."
I followed him in. He took the seat of honor on the fine sofa, and I sat in the empty place across from him. Seeing me settle, the other three sat as well. Franc hid behind my sofa and peeked only her face out, and set to watching the three of them.
The two men shared a two-seater; the woman sat opposite them. She had to be Time River's general affairs officer. The one in the coat would be the institute director, and the man in the suit the one sent by the Ability User Alliance.
A moment later a clerk came in, set a cup in front of me as well, and left. Red, with a bittersweet fragrance. Black tea?
Once my tea arrived, the principal spoke first.
"Then I shall withdraw. I ask only that you refrain from any words or conduct that might threaten the student."
Huh. I thought he'd stay with me, and he's clearing out. Even so, the way he said it—hard eyes, a firm voice, the courtesy wrapped around a warning that he would not sit still if they threatened a student—had so much force behind it I could have fallen for him on the spot.
He left through the door to the vice-principal's office, his stride crisp and exact. The oldest of them, the man in the lab coat, cleared his throat and spoke.
"...Ahem. Principal Hanwool is unchanged, I see."
"Indeed. And we ourselves are graduates of Euihan High School, mind you."
"Heh. The students currently enrolled must be more precious to him."
Watching them speak of the departed principal with soft smiles, I had to wonder. None of the three seemed like a bad person... right?
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Lee Hyeryeong, General Affairs Director, here from the raid team Time River. I also handle personnel."
The woman in her thirties smiled as she introduced herself. She had the air of an intellectual career woman: a light gray suit and skirt, her natural hair grown to her waist and neatly kept, the ends tied with a white cord like a ribbon. The calm voice suited the clothes and the hair perfectly.
I scanned her, just discreetly enough not to be rude. Breasts that rose to a pleasing fullness, a taut figure that hadn't neglected its upkeep, hips, long straight limbs. A natural beauty who looked after herself.
So this is Noona's right hand? I'd heard she was trusted without reservation and assumed she was an ability user, but she was ordinary.
Spatial Perception started to slide toward the space between the director's thighs. I shoved it down and was about to answer—
"Hahaha. Ms. Hyeryeong beat me to the introduction. Allow me, then. I'm Kim Moohul, director of the Korea Defense Research Institute under the Ministry of National Defense."
—but the generously built man in the white coat, easy in his impression and soft around the middle, opened his mouth first. So he was the director after all. By elimination, the man with the look of a well-honed blade had to be the one from the Ability User Association.
"I'm Chae Hoon, team leader of the External Operations Team at the Korean Headquarters of the World Phase Ability Federation. I've heard a great deal about you."
Team Leader Chae dipped his head slightly, posture exact. All three of them were treating a kid like me with scrupulous courtesy.
I looked over Team Leader Chae and Director Kim with Spatial Perception. Both ordinary people. Not even ability users... because they were officials? But I was a minor, and I hadn't even joined a raid team. A complete newbie.
I had no idea what this was about.
"Hello. Jung Seoha, third year."
A lot ran through my head, but I put on a blank face... or rather, I simply hadn't meant to make any expression at all, so blank was what I got.
Anyway, I greeted the three without expression, then spoke again to Lee Hyeryeong, personnel officer and General Affairs Director both.
"I heard from Hwayeon-noona. I'll be in your care."
The director and the team leader exchanged glances, apparently thrown by my manner. Director Lee looked relieved to see me address her alone. At that, Team Leader Chae gave a wry smile.
"If you heard it from Time River's boss, I imagine what you heard about me wasn't favorable."
"Time River's boss is famous for refusing to draw close to the Federation, so that would follow. Wouldn't you say, Director Lee?"
"Hohoho."
Director Kim slipped a quiet restraining shot toward Team Leader Chae. Director Lee neither confirmed nor denied it, only let a natural smile pass.
Come to think of it, I'd heard she was locked in talks with the department head of the Aberrant Special Countermeasures Division. Was this connected to that? Well, he'd said External Operations. He'd know everything there was to know about Noona, ranked third in the country.
...I feel like I just glimpsed the size of Noona's generosity.
Director Kim and Director Lee seemed to share a certain fellow-feeling, while Team Leader Chae stood apart. It was like watching a one against two.
Yoo Hwayeon, only daughter of Yu Youngeun—Time River's boss, and the sitting president. A government man, and the director of the raid team that woman led. It wasn't strange that those two would show a certain closeness.
I watched the three of them wage an invisible war of nerves—heh, ho, ha—with a blank stare, then asked.
"To be honest, I have no idea why the three of you came looking for me. Is it because of the Energy Eater I captured yesterday?"
Asked point-blank, Director Lee and Director Kim tensed, just slightly. Team Leader Chae, by contrast, showed nothing and took the thread up as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"That's correct. The Energy Eater Mr. Jung captured is currently in the custody of the Korea Defense Research Institute for research. We have gathered here to confirm the opinion of Mr. Jung, who holds ownership of the Energy Eater, and to ask about a few points of uncertainty."
"At six yesterday evening, our boss confirmed, and stood warrant, that you captured the Energy Eater with no one's help. She also testified that after giving you the basic briefing, she brought the Energy Eater in."
Team Leader Chae's tone carried a very particular implication. That Hwayeon-noona had hidden something from me for her own profit. Director Lee's felt like a rebuttal: nothing of the sort.
It was true Hwayeon-noona had taken the Energy Eater off me, calling it dangerous, knocked the thrashing thing out on the spot, and carried it away. But afterward she'd said the bounty and the capture bonus would be paid out properly, hadn't she?
Surely she hadn't booted that clueless Choi Soohan out of the way on purpose and taken the Energy Eater just to skim some benefit for herself?
I'd thought Hwayeon-noona, for all her cold face and colder voice, was a little simple, and that she looked after me out of goodwill—her best friend's little brother, her childhood friend. If there'd been something else behind that simple goodwill, I'd be a little disappointed.
Ugh. I hated situations twisted up like this. I'd been glad to see Hwayeon-noona again after so long, and I didn't want to suspect her this way.
The hilt was still in my hand, though. In a moment like this, better to go straight at it.
"So?"
"Ah... well."
Perhaps sensing my reaction had come out colder than she'd expected, Director Lee looked a little flustered as she tried to go on.
"Ah. A moment, please. Ms. Hyeryeong, Mr. Chae. I believe Mr. Jung needs to see this first."
"I see."
"Ah. Yes."
What?
Director Kim gave a short laugh, set his phone on the clear low table, and worked the panel until several hologram windows rose into the air.
Oh? The applications have come even this far?
The hologram showed the Energy Eater inside a special cage, pure white, three meters to a side.
The one I'd caught yesterday.
It sat blankly in the middle of the room—and then it yawned. That tiny muzzle stretched wide, and there wasn't a scrap of tension in it, as if it didn't even know it had been caught.
A moment later it flopped onto its side. Watching it, I heard Director Kim go on.
"The Energy Eater captured at Iljasan has no wounds, and aside from a touch of hunger its condition is excellent. For that reason, last night, after Time River's boss transported it personally, we drew blood and samples from the Energy Eater—codename White Fox—and ran the tests at once."
It had started to snore. White Fox, was it? I'd call it that too. Beside the White Fox, several information windows rose.
Eighty-nine... eighty-nine? It had been seventy-two the first time I saw it. I'd expected the trait field to lay out something like an aberrant's DNA structure. They'd simply entered the species.
"With a Phase Power total of eighty-nine, had it grown only a little more it would have evolved into a Mid-Low Rank Variant. Its trait before becoming an aberrant was a desert fox kit, and we determined that it grew larger in the course of turning aberrant."
Ah. So that was what trait meant. The base an aberrant was built from. They did find aberrants now and then whose base couldn't be identified.
"And the reason we have gathered like this is precisely this type."
Director Kim produced a pointer and indicated the type field, written in English. It read Special Type.
I didn't know how aberrant types were divided, so I didn't know which part was the problem either. When you don't know, asking outright moves the conversation along.
"How do you classify an aberrant's type?"
"I'll explain that. Aberrant type classification is no different from that of ability users. We were able to determine it because, as now, we sedated the captured small aberrant with drugs and measured it."
"To add to that, for a physical reinforcement user, think of our boss. The current head of the Korean branch is an elemental user, and the boss of Cheonggung is a typical healing user. Detection, of course, would be you yourself, Mr. Jung."
Director Lee added the explanation, perhaps thinking I wouldn't know ability types well. A kind consideration. Unnecessary.
Anyway. So aberrants weren't classified much differently from people.
"Thank you both for the explanation. Let's continue, then."
"The problem lies in this Special Type field. An Energy Eater's original type is a Hybrid Type, possessing two abilities—detection, and an individual ability."
Huh?
Franc must have found it unexpected too. Her eyes opened a fraction, and she looked at the director over my shoulder.
"Every Energy Eater captured until now has been Special Type, with a trait sensitive to Phase Power. The problem is that, peculiarly, the Energy Eater you captured has lost that trait."
"Trait?"
"The property of charging the moment it sees Phase Power, the way an alcoholic charges at liquor. Watch. We introduced into its cage a Phase Stone we'd used in experiments until only a trace remained, but—"
The hologram changed, and in front of the white fox a stone dropped. Nearly pitch-black, the faintest watery sheen, no bigger than my thumb.
By Director Kim's account it should have gone mad and rushed the thing. The white fox kit gave the Phase Stone a single glance... wait. That was a snort, wasn't it? Hnf—and it turned its head away.
Wow. Aloof. Not even going to look at what little Phase Power is left?
"It won't so much as look, as if the thing were beneath it. Watch this as well."
Director Kim worked the panel a moment and brought up another window. In it was an eagle blotched with grievous wounds. The wounds had all closed, but the traces were tremendous.
The beak was half broken away, and both wing joints had been cut asymmetrically, so flight was out of the question. Neither leg was whole—one severed all the way to the root, the other with the ankle carved out. Feathers had fallen out in clumps, and between the gaps were wounds that looked as if they'd been cut and then healed over.
Trapped in a white room, the creature thrashed, stopped to rest, then thrashed again, fidgeting without end. Then a small door set in the ceiling opened, and a Phase Stone much like the one dropped for the white fox fell.
It landed quite far off, but the instant the recess in the ceiling opened the eagle snapped its gaze that way like lightning, and the moment the Phase Stone showed itself from the hole it crawled over on its limbs and swallowed the stone in one bite.
The eagle beat its wings and screamed as if satisfied. Director Kim pointed at it.
"That eagle is an Energy Eater currently under study at the Altzhagon Research Institute in the United States."
"I see... Is the Altzhagon Research Institute a place like the Defense Research Institute?"
"No. True to its title as a Phase Power research institute, it studies anything connected to the Phase World, and it is counted among the foremost groups in the world. We, as you know... are an organization directly under the government."
I listened, and stared hard at the eagle. Was the reason that white fox kit didn't react to Phase Stones really what Franc had said? And was that why these people had come?
"Energy Eater is only a collective name. The trait can appear in any animal. This desert white fox kit, too, has been identified as a pet from some household that mutated and escaped."
I flinched. A pet, mutating? I hadn't heard of any report like that. Director Lee read my face and said, smiling softly,
"Strangely enough, in all of recorded history there has not been a single case of an animal near people—wild or pet—turning aberrant. The ones that mutate are almost always animals that nested in places where human traces are extremely rare."
That was a relief. Grandmother kept a Great Pyrenees and a Siberian Husky, one of each, and I'd startled. I let out a breath of relief and, watching the footage of the white fox kit and the eagle, asked the room at large.
"So the eagle's behavior is what's normal, and the white fox's can't be considered normal. Is that it?"
In the white fox's room, the playback showed them dropping Phase Stones of steadily greater size and Phase Power. Dozens lay scattered around it, and the kit paid them no mind at all. When one rolled and tapped its nose, it got irritated and batted the stone away with a forepaw.
Director Kim worked his phone and shut the hologram windows. Team Leader Chae's eyes flashed, and he pressed me as if this were an interrogation.
Here it comes.