Ah, I Could Swear (3)

The water around the island, fouled by the rotting corpses of aberrants, was the absolute worst. It gave off a grimy, sour stench, and I had the distinct feeling that if I swallowed even a mouthful, my body would rise up in open revolt.

After a long, miserable struggle I reached the tree where I had hidden the log, and found the trunk I had hauled up into the branches.

Mm. Intact. Better still, it had dried out completely, so it looked as if it could bear my weight through a long swim.

Then I found another problem.

"The bathrobe soaked up so much water it's gotten insanely heavy..."

"Then we have no choice but to tear away only the sash and take that, do we not? One cannot know when a cord may be needed."

"Ugh."

My Phase Power had grown, and my recovery with it, so even without clothes I could hold my condition steady while I traveled. Still, throwing my clothes away to go on in nothing but a single pair of underwear-like compression shorts felt like surrendering something of my humanity, and the thought sat wrong with me.

Just then an odd feeling made me turn toward Franc, and I caught a cute little desire leaking from her eyes.

I stared at her without a word. She seemed to realize she had been caught; a faint blush rose in her cheeks, and she pretended to look elsewhere.

I let my gaze fall from her face to the perfect teardrop of her breasts, the pretty abs drawn in a neat pair of lines, the lower belly I wanted to lick, and the tightly closed valley of her sex, taking them in one after another before lifting my eyes back to her face.

"Right. Some young lady walks around stark naked, and I'm at least still wearing underwear, so I should be fine."

"—!!"

At that, Franc's face went tomato-red. She covered her breasts and her sex with both arms and arched the tips of her brows as if she were truly angry.

I chuckled at her pout, stripped off the bathrobe, and cut the sash with my claw sword before tying it around my waist. Then I cut an intact sleeve free at the shoulder, slid the claw sword in between the cloth, made another cord, and bound the whole thing tight. If I simply slung the blade over my shoulder, it could cut me.

"...Hm."

I undid the cord at my waist, wound it thick around the claw sword, and slung the weapon across my body.

"All right. Let's go."

"Yes!"

The blue gleam of the water below set my heart pounding, but I hid the throb behind a small sigh, caught hold of the log, and jumped.

"So it seems only Detection and Clairvoyance got pushed to the limit, and Analysis vanished. In exchange, the moment something hostile to me shows up, Detection snags it right away."

"Each has its strengths and its weaknesses, but losing Analysis is truly a shame..."

"I think the reason it vanished is that when the abilities merged, they were shaped by my thoughts and my actions."

"Your thoughts?"

Franc, who had been endlessly scanning our surroundings from above my head as I swam, asked again with a curious look.

"Yeah. Analysis reports a situation according to my knowledge, and I think I unconsciously decided it was less useful than Detection or Clairvoyance."

"So you thought you disliked it?"

"No, no. I never thought I disliked it. It was just... even after it analyzed something, how useful that was still depended on what I already knew, so I found it a little regrettable. And anything complicated, with too much information, I couldn't even understand, so I usually let it slide. In practice Analysis only helped in a fight, or when I was making something. I barely used it in ordinary life."

In the real world, after I used Analysis once in the Ability Users' Alliance building, I never used it again. Honestly, I had been too busy peeping at people with Detection.

Call it the month I learned why a peephole gets ranked among the masterpieces.

"And then you awakened once more, and as Search evolved, Analysis disappeared while only your Detection range widened so sharply. That is to say, the conceptual portion vanished, and it became sensory. Is that it?"

"I think so. The way I act has always been sensory, so maybe the ability just started following what I do."

I had thought Phase Power values were something I read through Analysis, so I was startled to learn it had been Detection all along. I had believed I checked Phase Power with Analysis constantly, but looking back, I had hardly used Analysis at all.

No wonder the damn thing vanished!

Strength went into my kicking legs for no good reason, and the splashing grew louder.

Only after it was gone did I realize it had been a precious ability, and I figured I was a goddamn idiot. But it wasn't anyone else's fault. My own actions had brought this on, so what could I do but accept it?

Ugh. I was already hopeless at close combat, and now the Analysis that had walked me through enemy attack lines, my stance, my facing, one instruction at a time, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was gone. Insult to injury.

Seven hours had already passed since I left the island and started swimming west. The world around me had gone pitch-dark, but with Mana Sieve turning in my eyes I could see as clearly as if I were wearing night vision, so it was no real problem. And because I was in the water, I could feast my eyes on Franc's naked body—and even get hard—without her ever catching me!

She was flying ahead of me at the same speed, a little in front, so whenever I lifted my gaze her breasts, yielding just slightly to gravity, her firm lower belly, and her slit all came into view at once. As a man, it was a position that felt genuinely blissful.

Franc's there was so flawless in shape, color, and form that even a perfect hundred out of a hundred would have fallen short. No matter how she moved her legs, those outer lips never parted. They stayed tightly shut, pink and appetizing as two pieces of sweet rice cake pressed together, and I—gulp.

I stole looks with my eyes whenever I could, and with Spatial Perception too, but Franc's nude body never grew tiresome no matter how many times I saw it. Every glance made me happy. Heh heh heh.

Now and then she would subtly part her thighs, and it seemed she knew I was peeking. Well. When someone strikes poses like a model out of a magazine while nobody is supposed to be watching, you can't help thinking it, even if you try not to. And at those moments I could see her face flush, just a little.

My heart jumped at that tiny clitoris, barely there and barely visible. Looking at Franc's naked body mattered, but so did watching the surroundings with Spatial Perception.

I had been surveying the area with it for all seven hours of the swim, and I had not seen a single one of those masses of light from the final fifteenth day. Using Mana Sieve, I had covered about fifteen kilometers an hour, roughly a hundred and five kilometers in all, and aside from plants and the insects in the soil, I could not see a single living creature.

A faint eeriness settled over me as I watched carefully for any life possessing Phase Power to enter my Spatial Perception, and Franc murmured as if worried.

"If only there were somewhere nearby where we might rest... You have been swimming for so long, Seoha. You ought to rest a little..."

With that she rose a little higher and looked around.

"You won't see anything. The water's up to forty meters, so any ordinary tree is underwater."

"Forest upon the hills and rises, then plains, then forest again... Seoha? Is all the ground within a kilometer of your Detection of similar terrain?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"If the land nearby rises little by little, I believe a place I know may appear."

"Oh. There's something around here?"

"Yes. I remember many places like small mountains in the vicinity."

"Ooh. So if we go a little farther, we'll see something like an island again?"

"Yes. So please, take heart, and go just a little farther!"

The moment a destination was secured, strength seemed to return to a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠body that had been strangely drained and limp for some time.

Swimming without rest, diving for a leafy branch to chew whenever hunger hit, keeping at it for seven hours—it wore a person out in the mind, truly. The memory from a month ago made the exhaustion feel even heavier. If Franc had not kept talking beside me, if I had not been able to look at that pretty body, I could never have kept up another mindless swim like this. That was the only reason I had any strength left.

"You can do it!"

I had pretended to be energized on purpose, but I could not fool her eyes. From time to time she came close to stroke my head, kiss my cheek, or rub her breasts against my back, working diligently to lift my spirits. When her bare breasts touched my skin and her nipples poked my back, the sensation was a sharp little thrill.

I swam another four hours or so with Franc through the dark, and far, far off on the horizon, something like a mountain peak began to peek into view. I could not tell how far away it was, but even swimming at about two hundred meters a minute, I was closing on it slowly. It had to be quite distant.

After another hour the mountain-like shape began to swell, and it seemed considerably taller than I had expected. I had gone once to look around Daehan University, where Dad had studied, and seen Mount Gwanak beside the campus district. The mountain ahead looked about as tall as Gwanak.

It was not a range of many peaks crowded together. The ridge rose in a gentle slope, and only one place jutted up sharp, so that the mountain looked just like... a woman's breast.

"That mountain is the one I spoke of!"

"Huff. A mountain as pretty as your breasts, Franc. Huff. Look at it."

Franc heard me, looked at the mountain for a moment, then looked down at her own breasts. Her face reddened, and she covered them with her hands.

"Huff. Think there are aberrants there too?"

"Most likely... we must assume there are. When I was an aberrant, I used mountains that rose like a nipple as landmarks, and sought out the aberrants nearby to kill them. I remember a fair number gathered each time I visited."

"Huh? When you were a giant, you were High-Tier, weren't you? If Franc showed up, wouldn't they all run? Wouldn't they be hard to catch?"

"I had the roar I learned from the Silver Knight Wolf, you see. If I climbed quietly to the summit so the aberrants felt no threat, then loosed the roar twice in succession, every aberrant of Low Grade and below died!"

At that faintly boastful air, a bit of mischief welled up in me.

"Now that you mention it, I nearly died from the two roars you let out when you fought Morg."

"Eh—"

"Man, that was seriously dangerous. The first roar just startled me and left my body shaking, but the second one gave me a nosebleed and I was vomiting blood, it was no joke—w-wait?! No, no! I'm joking, I'm joking!"

Listening, Franc looked as if she had gone into shock. Her face drained to a ghastly blue-white, and tears welled until they would spill the moment she closed her eyes.

"I'm fine! That roar back then stimulated my Phase Power just enough that I was able to gain Telescopic Vision later, you know?! I exaggerated a little because I wanted to tease you! I was G Class from my first awakening! Mid-Low Grade! It hurt a bit, but it wasn't enough to kill me! And back then you were moving on instinct, and you didn't even know exactly that I existed, right?!"

She looked so unsettled that if I left her like that, there was no telling what the mental shock might do. I panicked, forgot even to swim, and explained with everything I had.

The explanation seemed to land. Her wan complexion returned to a face white as milk, but as a backlash, tears rose in her eyes until they threatened ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to overflow at any moment.

I reached out, caught the leg of Franc trembling in the air, pulled her in, and held her. Then I focused Phase Power into my hand through Mana Sieve and stroked her head, and the trembling slowly subsided.

"Sorry for scaring you."

"I... I am sorry. I did not even know such a thing had happened, and I boasted so childishly..."

"No. Back then, even a god would have made the same mistake."

Even when I told her it was all right, the guilt did not seem to fade. She kept apologizing, so I set a finger to her lips and stopped her.

Ugh. One joke, and mental fatigue piled up like mad. My nape was already prickling, and I was in poor shape to begin with. Well. I had brought it on myself.

"There, there. We can see the destination, so let's get there quick and rest. If we feel any danger, we'll circle around. Yeah?"

Franc, eyes brimming, nodded quietly without a word. I saw no anger, nor any other shade of that sort of resentment, so I figured it was all right.

Telling myself I would have to be careful from now on, I savored for a moment the warm body heat of Franc against the hand where I had gathered my Phase Power.

Perhaps because it was deep night, the moon already past overhead and sliding west, the world on every side was silent. It had been silent in the daytime too, but still.

Afraid the sound of my kicking would carry far, I swam carefully and studied the island-like mountain just beginning to ease into the edge of my Spatial Perception. Aberrants, here and there, as expected. Most were Low Grade, with the occasional Lowest among them. At that level, it might be all right.

The island's shape, though, was blatant. The ridge resembled the line of Franc's breasts, so I kept drinking in the view. An island shaped exactly like Franc's breasts. For short, I would call it Breast Island.

I shared the results ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of Search with Franc.

"Most of the aberrants detected across about half the island are Low Grade. Nearly all of them seem to be felines. The rest look like Buddy Chickens or No-Head Mantises."

"How many are there?"

"Low Grade, let's see... about twenty, I think. Lowest, about two."

"A little many, but at that number, might we not rest carefully up in a tree? Do you see the important mass of light?"

"Ugh. I can't see the important thing."

"It is not... failing to register on Detection, is it?"

Franc looked anxious and uneasy even as she said it. If she was going to be like that, she shouldn't have said it. Now I was anxious too.

"Heh heh. That was the part I was deliberately trying not to think about... Franc, you're awful."

"Aah, I am sorry!"

"Aaah, my strength is draining..."

"Nnn, Seohaa."

So that was the face they meant when they said a sight could wring your heart out. Watching Franc fluster and fret with that anxious look, I felt a little strength come back.

Was I a sadist?

I kept swimming carefully until I reached the foot of the mountain, and the moment my feet touched ground a grand sigh left me and my whole body went slack.

Was this what people meant by tired enough to pass out? Since awakening as an ability user, Phase Power control and Mana Sieve had kept me from ever thinking I was tired, and yet a mere ten hours of swimming had worn me out this badly. Something was off.

Tired was tired. There were aberrants here, so from this point on I could not let my guard down.

When I unwrapped the cloth binding the claw sword, water ran down in streams. I carefully unwound the cloth around the blade, hung the sword at my waist, wrung the scraps and the cord tight and shook the water out, then wound them around my neck to protect the drawstring of the pouch that held Franc's Soul Stone.

I had been wearing nothing but one pair of thin, soaked-through shorts, and with the wind coming off the water it was cold enough to make me shiver. I spun Mana Sieve hard in a Physical Reinforcement pattern. My body heat rose, the water evaporated, and I was dry and soft in no time. It made me hungry, but I endured, and scoured the surroundings with Spatial Perception.

Breast Island was a long, stretched oval, so long and wide that the mountain's full shape would not fit inside my range. Even so, the center of the island, the highest peak, had come within perception, and I checked around it just in case. Sure enough, the strongest aberrant was living at the summit.

A Mid-Low Rank Variant with a Phase Power of 492: a Silver White Wolf. True to the name, its long silver-white fur was splendid, and the jet-black eyes were the final stroke that made the whole creature look like a work of art. A different world entirely from those shabby Long-snouted Lean Wolves. I could see why the wealthy preferred a Silver White Wolf as a trophy.

And here I had not expected a Mid-Low Grade. At those numbers it would soon evolve into a Mid-Rank Variant... huh? It even had a Phase Stone in its heart?

Turning it over, I checked the other Silver White Wolves around it. Three of them. Their Phase Power sat around 260, but they were female, so they were probably the wives of the one at 492. The beast itself was asleep atop a large, flat boulder set into the summit of Breast Mountain, in a spot with a clear view of everything below. It looked as natural as the master of the mountain.

Four against one was too much. Right?

The aberrant closest to me was a Leopard Cat, a catlike thing patterned in green leopard rosettes. About seventy centimeters long, a Low-Rank Variant with a Phase Power of 73, half asleep under a tree seventy meters off. The distance was far enough that it did not seem to have sensed me.

When I told Franc what I had detected, she nodded.

"Then I shall keep watch first. Seoha, please rest a little."

"...No. The trees here have grown denser and bigger than I expected, so the sightlines are bad. I think your watch wouldn't be very efficient."

"That may be so, and yet..."

"More than that, the most numerous kind are feline aberrants, and most of them are armed in green or yellowish-brown camouflage. Cats climb trees well. I can't sleep in a place like this. I'll just close my eyes, keep Mana Sieve turning, and rest."

"Mmm. I will follow you, Seoha."

First I climbed the tallest tree nearby. I picked a spot screened on every side by branches, hard to see into, and leaned my back against the trunk.

Haa. I was incredibly exhausted. The mental fatigue especially was too much.

Strange. Why was I this tired? Last time I had swum for nearly a hundred hours and been fine.

My head was spinning, my chest was pounding, my heart was heaving, and I could not calm down at all. I had been running Mana Sieve through my head for a while because of it, and it did not seem to be doing much. Franc had gone visibly dejected, as if she thought she had become useless. I was so worn out in the mind that rather than comfort her wilted self, I wanted to be comforted.

At a time like this, if Mom held me and patted my back, I would be fine at once. I glanced at Franc. Her body looked exceedingly soft and warm too. The embrace, when she had comforted me earlier, had felt wonderful.

The urge to bury my face in those blessed breasts and rest surged up unbidden.

"Um... Franc. I have a request."

"Yes? What is it?! If it is something I can do, I shall do anything!"

That "anything," I submit, is an extremely dangerous statement!

"I'm pretty worn out, and I want to hold you... would that be all right?"

"Ah..."

Franc flushed, hesitated a moment, then carefully nestled into my arms.

I quickly focused Phase Power, through Mana Sieve, on every place we touched. Chest to my chest, her face buried in the nape of my neck, both legs stretched out past my thighs—it did not look like a comfortable posture, but Franc did not seem to mind. She reached around and held my waist. Red-faced, she whispered at my ear.

"D-does this suffice?"

"...Yeah. Thank you."

What was I supposed to do. The sweet apple scent I had smelled in my dreams seemed to be circling through my nose, and I was going to get worked up.

What do I do. What do I do, what do I do.

Ah, forget it.

I buried my face in the nape of Franc's neck. I felt her flinch, and my heart fluttered, but I forced my eyes shut and used Spatial Perception only to track where the aberrants were. The soft, moist feel of her skin against mine made my cock try to stir... but I was so tired it wilted again.

The feeling of mental fatigue slowly leaving me was too subtle to put into words. A moment ago the back of my skull had been stiff, my temples throbbing, my head so heavy that even thinking felt like a bother. Little by little the stiffness and the throbbing faded, and the fog inside my head cleared.

By the time the moon had fully set and dawn was beginning to break, my mind was sharp and the headache was gone. The TP I had spent on combat and the long swim had fully recovered, and the Phase Power that had been sloshing unsteadily inside me was calm.

I was not entirely sure, but it had to be because I had rested while holding warm, soft Franc in my arms!

Against my chest her breasts were pressed flat, her nipples sunk a little into me, and because we were touching directly my heart thudded. Quietly I focused Mana Sieve into both hands, ran them over Franc's back, and gave her ass a light squeeze. The curve of her back was a little firm, and yet soft, and her ass had a plush, marshmallow give that was a drug all on its own.

"—?!"

I felt Franc, breathing in soft little sighs in my arms, flinch.

Morning had not brightened yet. So that meant I could keep touching, right?

Little by little I kept kneading her ass, her lower back, her sides. I wanted to touch the place where I could enter her, to know what it felt like, but I had a feeling I should not do that here, and I thought Franc would dislike it, so I stopped. Instead my right hand fiddled with her ass while my left stroked along her spine, then pressed with my fingertips at the underside of the breast squashed sideways against my chest.

A plushness different from her ass. Press, and it sank in soft; let go, and it wobbled back into shape. I was happy beyond words.

"—!!"

I felt her flinch away from my hands and try to slip free, but I held Franc's spirit-body tight in both hands, Mana Sieve turning, and did not let go.

"I'm still resting, you know? I don't want you to go."

I set my lips to her ear and whispered, and Franc pressed her face even closer into the nape of my neck, her shoulders trembling.

Aah. I wanted to build Phase Power quickly and feel Franc with my whole body. As it stood, I could only hold her carefully, and the lingering hunger of it was enough to kill me.

I sighed while lightly nuzzling my cheek against her nape, and I felt goosebumps rise along Franc's spine.

"S-Seoha. Hnn."

The feel in my hands was so good that I kept touching, and Franc called my name in a trembling voice. I was going to get aroused.

I spoke with my nose buried in the platinum-blonde hair swaying over her shoulder before my eyes.

"The more I touch, the more I want to keep touching. It's like a drug."

The moment my breath touched her ear, she trembled, shivered, and flinched, and the sight looked exactly as if she had reached her peak. A little different from the Franc I had seen climaxing in my dream, but still similar.

As a test I carefully stroked her belly. Her lower belly quivered, and a slender moan slipped from between her pink lips.

"Haahn..."

Thighs pressing together, strength gathering in her toes. She had really climaxed. I had only lightly stroked her back, her ass, and the undersides of her breasts, and she had come. I was a little startled.

I lifted my nose from the nape of her neck and forced back the hands that did not want to leave her ass and her breasts. Any more than this would be no different from torture for Franc.

"Resting in your arms, I think all my mental fatigue is gone. Thank you."

I kept Mana Sieve focused in both hands, gently cupped her cheek, and met her eyes. A little moisture had gathered there. Shyly, she opened her mouth.

"Seoha, you truly are... a pervert."

"That's because the young lady in my arms is you, Franc."

"...Hmph."

I watched her hide her reddened cheeks as if to conceal them and avert her gaze, then impulsively kissed her lips. To my delight, Franc's tongue came out to meet mine.

Sharing tongues in that kiss, I somehow felt I had grown closer to Franc.