Ah, I Want to Swear (1)
A sting.
A sting!
What the... damn...
A sting!!
Ugh. It's not even summer, and there's a mosquito... so annoying. I was sleeping just fine...
Clutching at the sleep that kept trying to slip away, I flapped the arm that had been prickling.
CRACKLE—!!
"GYAAAAAH?!"
A sudden electric shock tore through my whole body. Pain closed on me like a fist around my heart, and my eyes flew open. My muscles jerked and spasmed under the current, beyond any control of mine. Then my pores opened and cold sweat poured down in sheets. I circulated Phase Power through the Mana Sieve, recovered, and bolted upright.
"Wh-what?! ...Huh?"
The instant my eyes opened, there was Franc above me, her face crumpled as if she might cry. White electricity crackled at her fingertips. She was the one who had shocked me.
...But what the hell is that. Behind Franc, something that should not have been there. Blue sky. A blinding sun. And a smell like food rotting in the height of summer...
Only then did Spatial Perception engage, and the world around me began to pour into my head.
"...What is this?"
"What do we do?"
This was the island I had reached at the very end—in the Phase World I had managed to come back from alive.
I really wanted to swear.
An island about a hundred meters to a side. A horizon showed past it, so it looked like a sea, but it was a lake. Chunks of Aberrant corpse drifted on the water. On the island itself the ground was scabbing over with dried blood, and heaps of Aberrant dead rotted where they lay, leaking a yellowish seep.
Why am I here?
Why? How? Why?
Absurdity, disbelief, irritation, and rage tangled into a knot, and my head crowded with it. The situation was so ridiculous I couldn't stop cursing under my breath. I turned my head.
A two-tailed fox lay there dead—both tails cut away so only the roots remained, its waist severed clean in half—rotting, pouring out a stench. The foul smell stabbed at my sinuses until my stomach churned and I thought I might vomit.
"...Franc."
"Yes."
"We did come back. That wasn't a dream, was it?"
"It wasn't a dream."
The island had not changed in the slightest from the moment just before I returned. I had truly fallen back into the Phase World.
According to Franc, not long after I fell asleep the space around me had begun to ripple. Right after that I was sucked into the rippling, and she herself had passed with me through a pitch-dark tunnel and ended up here. Listening to her, I checked what I was wearing, and a hollow feeling rushed in with my sigh, tangled up with the sense that this was a crisis.
"This is really bad."
For clothes, a white bathrobe—no, a white bathrobe with a good amount of blood soaked into the back—and one pair of spats. No shoes. No weapon. Small mercies: reaching E-Class had lifted my Phase Power to 3,733, and I had Spatial Perception and the Mana Sieve besides. Without even those, if I'd still been nothing but an ordinary sensory-type ability user... I'd have been completely fucked.
Seeing me scowl, Franc comforted me with all her heart.
"Please don't worry too much. Unlike last time, your Phase Power has risen, and you've gained the Mana Sieve and Spatial Perception, haven't you? You can use Physical Reinforcement as well, so if it's you, Seoha, you'll be more than able to see this trial through!"
"Franc!"
"Eek."
I gathered Phase Power in my upper body alone through the Mana Sieve and pulled her into my arms. Holding her gently, I could feel the embrace—only a little, but I could feel it.
"Haa. I'm really glad you're here with me, Franc."
With her beside me, my heart settled and my head seemed to clear. Alone, I'd have fallen into a panic and started gibbering all over again. Franc only smiled, soft and a little shy, and stroked my head with a gentle hand. That smile put the mess in my head back in order fast.
I let her go, looked around, and spoke.
"I don't know why we were suddenly sucked into the Phase World, but I know how to get back."
"How?"
"I saw it on the internet, so I don't really trust it, but they say there's a place where a lump of light floats around. They call it a Return Point. So we have to find that lump of light."
Explaining my scraps of knowledge, I stared at the hind leg of a No-Head Mantis jutting from the corpse pile. Alive, it had been a vivid green. Now it was a withered, dead-grass color. A lump of light, they called it—but I didn't even know whether it looked the same as the one that had appeared before my eyes on the fifteenth day. Thinking of it that way made me uneasy. On the other hand, Spatial Perception let me survey a full kilometer in every direction without taking a step, so I decided it wasn't so bad.
"If it's a lump of light, it ought to feel like something alien to everything around it. We should be able to find it easily."
Though maybe not.
I swallowed the rest and walked toward the heap of Aberrant corpses. Not to look for something to eat, of course. The only things that could stomach rot like that would be hyenas or vultures.
"Seoha? Wh-what are you planning to do?"
"Secure a weapon first. I don't have the edible belt, but there's the moisture tree, so food will sort itself out somehow."
Damn it. If I'd been pulled in just one day later, I could have picked up an Elemental-type ability and a Healing-type ability too. I should have watched more carefully yesterday afternoon. No—I should have looked up the Phase World's entry conditions and exit conditions first! What the hell had dragged me back in? Why hadn't anyone told me how to avoid entry? Maybe it was so simple everyone figured it out without being told, and I'd been too stupid to catch on.
Fuck...
Hoo. Calm down. Wear that irritated look and Franc won't know what to do with herself either.
I'd learned as much a little while ago, when I switched the Certifier on. Naturally, the ability-user community doesn't function in the Phase World. Turn the thing on and there's nothing there—just a large, empty square of hologram, and a single line burning dead in the center.
= Connection Terminated =
Disconnected
Hadn't someone said you could draw on it, too? The intent was probably that you sketch a map, but my memory had gotten absurdly sharp, and every stretch of terrain I read through Spatial Perception wrote itself straight into my head. I didn't need it. Anyway, in was in. First, prepare to survive.
As you'd expect, move Phase Power through the Mana Sieve the way a Physical Reinforcement type does and the skin turns extremely hard. Hard enough that stepping barefoot on cracked, jagged shards of stone didn't bother me in the slightest. Thanks to that, I shook off any lingering attachment to clothes and armor quickly enough. A weapon, though, was still the problem. I especially missed the horn awl that had served as every kind of tool. A claw sword, at least, I could manage—cut the foreleg off another No-Head Mantis buried in that corpse pile and use that.
The closer I got to the heap, the more the stench made my head ache, but I held my breath and approached the hind leg of the No-Head Mantis I'd already picked out. This one, maybe because it was an insect, had hardly rotted compared to the rest. Only the abdomen had gone soft, swollen purple, as if a touch would burst it with a splat.
I ran the Mana Sieve, hardened both hands, and pulled.
Rip. Tear, splat, gush.
The swollen belly split. A monstrous stench came with it, and maggots and half-rotted innards poured out in a wet rush.
"Blech!"
"Uuugh!"
I fled in a panic, Franc with me. It looked like someone had thrown up a half-digested feast, left the mess to rot for days, and then had the whole thing dumped out at once.
"I-I won't be eating anything like intestine soup for a while."
"I-intestine soup...? Urp."
She's a spirit. Can she even smell? I stared, baffled, at Franc floating in empty air and dry-heaving, then winced at the reek myself. I wanted to pinch my nose. Couldn't the Mana Sieve do something about it?
No. When I'd shoved Phase Power into my dick with the Mana Sieve, the thing had gotten bigger. Sharpen my sense of smell the same way and it would obviously get keener. Terrible idea. No helping it. I tore a sleeve off the bathrobe and covered my mouth with it like a mask.
A little better.
"Going back in."
If the carcass came apart under a little force, I'd be better off just yanking the foreleg sticking out up ahead. I took hold of it carefully, so I wouldn't get hurt, ripped it free in one pull, and ran without hesitating. Whether because I'd disturbed the pile or not, the heaped corpses collapsed, staging a scene so awful I didn't want to picture it.
Shrrrr, squelch. Blub-blub, squish, cruuunch...
"Eeeek!"
"Franc, don't look. Keep looking and you'll catch a serious mind hazard."
"Ugh, yes!"
Hoo. I grabbed the mantis foreleg I'd somehow managed to extract, dragged it along, tossed it near the spot where I'd once built a campfire, and dropped onto the bone-dry pelt of a land penguin. Hard, but better than sitting on bare ground.
"Haa.... A bit—no, the smell makes it disgustingly awful, but surprisingly, looking at a heap of rotting corpses doesn't hit me mentally. Becoming an ability user really must have hardened my mind."
Honestly, through eighth and ninth grade and two years of high school, I'd lived like a complete loser. The me from back then would have been puking, tears and snot streaming, crying out for Mom.
"That's because you were remarkable from the very start, Seoha. Are you going to make a sword from the foreleg again?"
"Yeah. Honestly, I don't know how much good it'll do even if I make one. Still better than having no weapon."
"If you make it, it will help a great deal!"
Franc had both hands clasped tight, encouraging me. I gave her a bitter smile.
"We don't know how strong the Aberrants we'll run into are going to be. I caught a glimpse, through Spatial Perception, of the Physical Reinforcement users training at the Time River Building, and when I saw how people of the same E-Class as me moved, I really thought I shouldn't get into a close fight. I'm a hopeless klutz."
I called up those movements—the E-Class Physical Reinforcement users I'd watched through Spatial Perception at the Time River Building.
"Their movements, even with Spatial Perception, were so dazzling I couldn't begin to imagine matching them. And they say even Physical Reinforcement users who move like that have to gather in numbers to handle Aberrants of the same tier."
So a klutz like me... tch.
"Aww... but when you took down the Long-snouted Lean Wolf and the big field rat, your movements were truly beautiful, weren't they?"
"That was an ambush, not a head-on fight, remember? Be honest. How did I look at the end, fighting that two-tailed fox?"
Franc couldn't answer. She only hemmed and hawed.
I was the kind of person who could barely grind out three pull-ups, and only by twisting my whole body and kicking both legs. In my short life I'd hardly ever played a sport that asked anything of the body—soccer, basketball, none of it. And my nerves weren't thick enough, or steady enough, for a close-quarters fight.
"Heh heh. Knowing your own limits is a very important thing."
Franc, looking a little tearful, clung to my back and stroked my head gently. I turned the Mana Sieve up into my head so I'd feel it properly, and asked her for more.
"Stroke me a little more."
"Pfft. Yes."
Under her hands I shoved the horrific scene from earlier out of my head and examined the mantis foreleg I'd brought back. Hmm. The joint had come out with it. Everything but the bladed part would have to go. I wondered briefly how to leave only the edged portion, then ran the Mana Sieve through my whole body, raised my physical ability, gripped the joint, and forced it the wrong way.
CRACK!
"Ugh."
The joint snapped with a sound like a cracker breaking, and something like nerves and stringy guts trailed out after it. Goosebumps rose on my skin. Whether because it was an insect or because it wasn't really innards, it hadn't rotted much. It was absolutely not a pretty sight.
"Anyway, even if we're the same E-Class, I got the feeling there's a gap in the physical ability we can actually bring to bear. They looked faster than me, so they're probably stronger too. A klutz like me needs to get a weapon together first and prepare for whatever comes."
Franc nodded hard, as if that were exactly right.
"Splendid! I was only flustered, fretting over what to do, and here you've grasped the situation at once and sorted out what must be done!"
"I just have too many stray thoughts, so a few things occurred to me, that's all... Ah, I miss the horn awl."
These... innards? Tearing them off by hand was deeply unpleasant, and the broken cross-section was pretty grotesque too. I wondered what to do, then just ground the thing against the earth. Scrape, scrape—fiber-like strands tore free and fell away, dirt caking on thick, until it was trimmed into something passable. Then I took the torn bathrobe sleeve I'd been holding over my nose and mouth and wound it round and round the handle. I picked the weave apart, twisted the threads tight, and bound them off, and a fairly convincing sword was done.
I took the grip and gave it a few swings. It didn't feel much different from the first claw sword I'd made. No—maybe because this one's body was a little thinner, the handle sat perfectly in my fist. It actually felt more comfortable.
Not bad.
I flung the broken remains of the mantis joint toward the corpse pile and asked Franc.
"First goal is finding this Return Point... Franc, you got any good ideas? Things we ought to do from here, or things we ought to get ready."
Should I make a spear-thrower like last time? Spatial Perception had stretched out to a kilometer, so finding Aberrants would be easier, and if I shot from a distance I'd be safe, wouldn't I?
"You grasped the shapes of Elemental-type and Healing-type Phase Power, didn't you, Seoha?"
"Yeah."
"Then what if you controlled your Phase Power with the Mana Sieve and looked for a way to fire elemental shots, or a method of healing?"
"Oh..."
"And we have to get off this place, so what about drying a moisture tree with the Mana Sieve and making a kickboard again? Last time the pieces burst apart, but if you practice a little, you might be able to dry it all the way through. Then you lean on a dried log and get out of here."
I'd already figured I'd need a dried log to stand in for a swim board. But using the Mana Sieve to produce an Elemental ability—that was a good idea. Far better than a spear-thrower, wasn't it? I brought my hands together in three sharp claps.
"Franc, you're amazing. I hadn't even thought of making an Elemental ability. All right, let's try both!"
"Yes!"
Delighted by the praise, Franc plastered herself against my back. At the soft give of her breasts, faintly perceptible through me, my monster pillar tried to lift its head. I changed tracks fast.
"I need to focus on staying as safe as I can. If I'm going to tear into Choi Soohan—someone from the Survivor Protection & Management Department, and she never even told me the important parts, like how you enter and leave the Phase World—I have to make it back first."
Though if I did tear into her, Choi Soohan would probably just get even more excited and start dripping.
Franc nodded too, her expression a little angry.
"To think they can break a matter set down in law, and break it like this. How could they not tell you something so important... I'm angry! That man Kang Woohyuk is no different!"
"Right? They said minors are barred from anything and everything to do with the Phase World. Somebody's broken the law, so once I'm out of here, there might be bastards looking to punish me for it. I'll offer the two of them up as living sacrifices."
The words living sacrifice put an awkward smile on Franc's face.
All right. Time to get serious.
"First, Elemental-type Phase Power was amorphous, irregular motion. Healing-type came in two kinds—one where several clumps of Phase Power were packed tight together, and one where they sat far apart."
"An amorphous form and a clustered form, then."
"Yeah."
Healing, I had no feel for at all. Elemental, though—a few things I could test came to mind right away. The Elemental pattern was lines woven dense as tree rings around the heart, and those rings had been rippling, sloshing this way and that. Physical Reinforcement worked by spinning it fast, like a vortex, so the body reinforced itself and physical ability climbed. Think along the same lines, and maybe Elemental was something you fired in a flicking, bouncing shape.
I closed my eyes and slowly moved the Phase Power inside me with the Mana Sieve. It lay still as a windless lake. I began reshaping it after the two female Elemental-type ability users I'd first seen at the hospital entrance. The Physical Reinforcement pattern was easy—just spin it and you were done. The Elemental pattern... ugh, building the rings was hard. They kept collapsing, whipping around and around like the Physical Reinforcement pattern.
"Hmm. This is a bit difficult. I'll need practice."
I felt the Phase Power form that had slumped like pudding, scratched my head, and was about to try again when Franc suddenly shoved her face in front of mine—startled, gone rigid.