Episode 80: Breast Mountain (1)

The dark was thinning by degrees. I made a breakfast of plucked moisture leaves and, while I ate, asked Franc.

“Half my detection range is nothing but island, and the aberrants I’m picking up in just that much are already past fifty. For a crowd of them packed into a one-kilometer radius, doesn’t that seem like way too many?”

“It is certainly far too many. By their nature, aberrants will not suffer another of their kind within their own territory — and yet this comes to scarcely twenty square meters apiece. The density is excessive, to my mind.”

The island ran long on a diagonal, and where I stood was the center, nearest the peak. This spot lay on the fringe, so the whole of the view was hidden from me... but judging by the island’s breadth as I had seen it while swimming, it had to be at least four times wider than the area I was sensing now.

I couldn’t assume the density held the same everywhere else. Even so, scale what I was sensing and two hundred of them was a staggering number. Turn my head a little and another aberrant came into sight — and they weren’t fighting, only staring? Set that against the way aberrants lived, eating and being eaten, and it made no sense at all.

Franc was staring straight at me, silently demanding the rest, so I laid out the kinds making their home here.

“On this island’s one and only peak there are four Silver White Wolves. One’s a male, over three meters long, Phase Power around 490, and he’s even carrying a Phase Stone. The other three are females, a little smaller than the male. No Phase Stones.”

“Might the male be master of the mountain?”

“Figured you’d think the same, Franc.”

“Yes. A Mid-Low Grade aberrant that has attained Mid Grade — and to hold the highest ground in the region is to suggest himself master of the mountain. Are there no other Mid-Low Grades?”

“At both edges of my sensing range, one each at the far ends of the ridge. Those are Silver White Wolves too, but they’re only around 110, and maybe 1.3 meters long.”

“Those may be Silver White Wolves only just come of age, parted from their parents.”

“How do you know that?”

Franc was sitting between my legs, her back against my chest. Knees drawn together like that, she looked like a small, cute squirrel, and the urge to tease her kept surging up unbidden. I lifted a hand, stroked her soft platinum-blonde hair, and asked — and she leaned her head against mine to answer.

“Silver White Wolves are ordered by the family. When the young are grown, they branch off to form another pack, and in that way they widen their territory.”

“Huh... So they made alts to take this island.”

“Alts...? Ah. Yes. It will be months before the water filling this region dries away entirely, so they will have branched off to secure prey, and not territory alone.”

So they held the chokepoints, and if some Low-Rank Variant evolved out of a fight with its own kind, they killed it and ate it? Even those things were scraping just to live. And to think four or five days of rain filled the basin, and that water then took months to dry out completely — a vile stretch of country.

Time passed, and the world grew properly bright, but the aberrants nearby showed no intention of waking. Felines, so of course they were lazy. The Silver White Wolf mates had woken, true, but they were only rolling about, playing with one another. An awfully peaceful scene.

“I want to take those Silver White Wolves...”

I must have muttered it without thinking. Franc turned to me, worry written across her face.

“Four would be dangerous, at your present level, Seoha.”

“I know. I’m not dumb enough to fight four on one. That’s why I’m thinking of holding out here and working on the Elemental type.”

“In a place this thick with aberrants? Would it not be better to find somewhere else, and move?”

“Hmm. Franc, do you remember what I said in front of the family, when I awakened the second time?”

“...Yes.”

She must have guessed where I was going; the corners of her eyes drooped, just a little. I raised a hand and brushed those brows as I spoke.

“I want to make a decent living, do a decent job, and live happily with you, Franc. But what I’ve got isn’t some treasure you see every day. If I want to protect it and actually have an ordinary life, I need power.”

No pain, no gain. High risk brought a high return. I had felt that down to the bone, surviving fifteen days in the first Phase World. My abilities had always grown the most when danger came with them, and knowing myself, once things around me settled there was a good chance I would go slack.

“Most of the aberrants on this island are Low-Rank Variants. About the same level as the Long-snouted Lean Wolf I fought, or that big field-rat aberrant. Of course... look at their builds and they’re hard to set beside those two scrubs. But I’m not alone. I’m with you, Franc.”

At the word together, joy flashed across Franc’s face for an instant — but she was not persuaded. So this time I slid an arm around her waist and whispered.

“More than anything, there might be a Return Point here. I think a little risk is well worth taking.”

“Then please permit me to use my lightning, should it grow dangerous. Grant me that, and I will agree.”

I’d been wondering when she’d say it.

“Haa... Even if I tell you not to, the moment things get dangerous you’ll loose a thunderbolt anyway, won’t you, Franc?”

“Yes. Better that the Phase Power of the Phase Stone — no, the Soul Stone — should wane, than that you should die, or come to grave harm, Seoha.”

The resolve on her face told me persuasion was impossible.

“Yes!”

Franc threw her arms around me, smiling bright, and in that warmth I made a vow. I would see to it she never had cause to spend her strength.

As the sun climbed a little higher, the big cats sprawled here and there began to stir, as if the sunlight itself had charged them. How did the things even eat? There wasn’t a single ordinary animal inside my sensing range. The bones scattered all over said they had been hunted down long ago.

And sure enough, aberrants were clashing all through my detection zone. At the very edge of my Spatial Perception, the two Silver White Wolves that looked newly adult were fighting Low-Rank Variants charging them from every side. The young ones, though, didn’t seem to want the fight.

“Might it not be because they cannot grow, even should they kill? There is nothing to gain by fighting, and should they be wounded, the loss would be great.”

“That’d be it. Can’t look at them like ordinary animals.”

Looking closer, I could see half-healed wounds all over the young Silver White Wolves. They had been through some fierce fighting. I kept watch through Spatial Perception and studied the aberrants clashing with one another all around — the Silver White Wolves’ battles most carefully of all. If I ended up fighting the one at the summit of Breast Mountain, the movements of their own kind would be a real help. The analysis that used to run on its own was gone, so I would have to do it by hand.

“Plenty of them are hiding instead of fighting, but the ones with similar Phase Power are going at it pretty hard.”

“Because defeat is death.”

Even watching ordinary strays yowl and scrap was eerie enough, and these fights sprayed blood and chunks of flesh, so tension wound itself around me as I watched. After about an hour, the fighting inside my detection zone settled into a lull. Of fifty-seven, three were dead. The wounded slunk off as if they had made a pact beforehand.

In an ecosystem this cramped, an unspoken accord wouldn’t be strange. Watching them, I imagined fighting the things. Every one of them was a feline aberrant, a born hunter, and if they evolved into Mid-Low Grade they would be hard to handle — no matter that I was E-Class, Mid-High Grade by the aberrant classification.

The two-tailed fox I had killed had also been Mid-Low Grade, but its size wasn’t even a quarter of the leopard-line aberrants on this island. You couldn’t ignore the strength that came from a difference in weight class. Even two of them, and I would be torn apart with nothing to say about it. So if it came to that, I would hit the water without hesitating.

I had hated pain since I was little. Naturally I had hated fights that traded suffering, so when trouble started I was usually the first to back off. If I couldn’t back off and a fight broke out anyway, the best I managed was covering my face and body with both arms, or charging in with my eyes shut, windmilling both hands.

Even in games I had favored range over melee, and I had enjoyed PvE — fighting monsters — more than PvP against other people, toying with enemies from a distance. Coming over to the Phase World had driven that home even harder. Thanks to detection and analysis I had fought as if I weren’t myself, but the efficiency had been absolute garbage. Throwing spears with a spear-thrower had actually worked better.

Close-combat training might improve things, and there was no guarantee I had the makings of a marksman — shooting, sniping, any of it. Even so, I couldn’t give up the psychological calm that distance gave me.

When the threatening cries and the sounds of thrashing from all around died down, Franc turned.

“Are there no aberrants coming this way?”

“Nope. Nothing’s coming toward where we’re hid— huh? Wait.”

Inside a few aberrants still fighting, Phase Power was swirling like a whirlwind.

“Right. Aberrant classes were the same as ability users’, weren’t they?”

“They were.”

“The Phase Power inside the ones that are fighting is whirling just like a Physical Reinforcement user’s, so it startled me.”

“...Ah?”

“...Huh?”

Looked like Franc had landed on the same thought as me.

“An Elemental-type aberrant!”

“An Elemental-type aberrant! Yes! If we watch an Elemental-type aberrant fight, we should be able to learn the way of an Elemental ability!”

Excited, Franc pressed her face close enough to kiss. Her azure eyes glittered like sapphires, bright enough to dazzle.

“Good. Let’s practice moving in an Elemental pattern with the Mana Sieve while we wait for an aberrant that uses an element to show. When it does, we watch it close!”

“Yes!”

I had been uneasy about how many aberrants there were. This might turn into an opportunity instead.

Most of the fights ended quietly, with no one dying, but near the two young Silver White Wolves several lay dead with their necks broken. As expected, the dead ones’ Phase Power was not absorbed by the young wolves. It simply spread into the air and was gone.

The two young ones, drenched in blood, started tearing into the corpses of the Low-Rank Variants they had killed, and the sight made my own stomach growl. The calories burned by more than ten hours of swimming could not be replaced by the water and fiber in moisture leaves, and practicing the shaping of Phase Power into an Elemental pattern with the Mana Sieve had sent the burn spiking on top of that.

Scanning around the mountain with Spatial Perception, I could see several fish among the submerged trees, but I had no way to catch them. I considered eating a Low-Rank Variant. Thinking of the fallout, it wasn’t a good idea.

The pale-green Leopard Cat closest to me was one that had not joined the fights breaking out all over Breast Mountain. While the other aberrants bled and fought, it had prowled the area, climbed a tree, draped itself over a thick branch, and lazed, yawning now and then.

Lazy cat or not, taking that thing was... out of the question. It cleared a seven-meter tree in an easy bound, and if it ran mid-fight the aggro would spike. Every aberrant nearby might come running. But eating nothing but leaves that only took the edge off hunger was dangerous too. I needed protein if I was going to bank any stamina.

Which meant fishing. Nothing for it.

Franc was still sitting with her back against my chest, glancing around ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now and then and staying quiet, as if she meant not to interrupt my thoughts.

“Franc.”

“Yes?”

She turned when I spoke. ...I didn’t like it. What I was about to ask would spend the time she had left to live.

“...I’m sorry. I have a favor. Will you hear me out?”

“Please do not apologize! Anything I am able to do for you, I shall do!”

That’s why anything is a dangerous word.

“Practicing burns way too many calories. Keep this up and I’ll waste away again. It’ll be a problem for my stamina, too. I need to bank strength in case a fight comes...”

“Hm. Is there a beast nearby that we might hunt? Shall I take it with electricity?”

She grasped at once that we had to hunt, and guessed what needed doing. I swallowed the bitterness and pointed into the water.

“Over there, underwater, there’s a moisture tree with thick leaves, and three fish about as thick as my forearm are hiding among them. Will you help me catch them? It’s freshwater, but if you raise a weak current right beside them, they’ll stun and float up.”

Franc’s face lit at having something to do, and she cried out for me to leave it to her.

“Yes! Please leave it to me!”

She flew off at once in the direction I had pointed, and I followed, turning the Mana Sieve over to a Physical Reinforcement pattern.

I watched her dive. She searched for the fish hidden among the branches, found one, then confirmed where the other two were. Then, ever so faintly — if I put a number on it in TP, something like 0.001 — she ran a current so fine you could hardly tell whether she had used any at all, startled the fish, and herded them into one place. The moment all three gathered, she spent about 1 TP to generate electricity and stunned the lot of them at once.

Her control was ridiculously fine. At that level, I probably didn’t need to worry about Franc wasting Phase Power even by accident. Seeing the stunned fish float up and catch on the branches, I dove in.

At the water’s edge I split the bellies of the forearm-thick fish, took out the guts and the heads, and carried them back to the tree where we had been hiding.

“You’re amazing, Franc. When did your control get that fine?”

“Th-that is...”

At my praise she flushed and hemmed, then opened her mouth with an embarrassed little smile.

“I practiced, little by little, when I kissed you, Seoha.”

“Ah...”

“Auu...”

I laughed, awkward, and Franc covered her face with both hands and hid behind my back. Even her embarrassment was adorable.

I found a suitable branch, roughly scraped the scales off one fish, rinsed it, and tore off a bit of flesh to try. Personally I hate raw fish that still has the bones in. A bone jabbing the inside of your mouth, or your gums, hurts. The fish Franc had caught was full of fine bones too, so I didn’t much want to eat it — but the moment I circulated Phase Power through my mouth with the Mana Sieve, the bones crumbled with a cracker-crisp crunch.

Good. I could chew as hard as I liked and not hurt my mouth. I chewed thoroughly, expecting some surprisingly savory note to show itself... and got nothing of the kind. The fishy reek made every bite a chore.

“Ugh... The muddy taste mixed in with the fishiness is too much...”

“They must be freshwater fish. If only we could grill them, it would be easier to bear.”

“No grilling. If they see fire, the aberrants might flare hostile.”

With Franc’s pitying face for a side dish, I tore off leaves and chewed them along with the fish until I had finished one, and she stroked my head with a well-done look... The petting was nice. She was treating me far too much like a child, though.

Skinship with Franc was possible now, and I had confirmed she grew aroused at my touch — that she even reached orgasm — so one of these days I was going to clear a day and brand it into her that I was a man.

Anyway, once I had eaten the one fish and filled my stomach, I threw myself into Mana Sieve control training, and around the time the sun stood at its zenith I succeeded, for the first time, at shaping Phase Power into an Elemental pattern. Once I had done it, making an Elemental pattern afterward was not hard. Switching patterns, though, was painfully slow.

“Base state to a Physical Reinforcement pattern takes less than three seconds, but base state to an Elemental pattern takes thirty. Elemental to Physical Reinforcement, or the other ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠way around, doesn’t work at all.”

“Is the shift impossible?”

“I don’t think so. I just need to... practice a lot more.”

When I tried to change from Physical Reinforcement to Elemental, my chest went tight, as if something had stuck. That tightness was probably why it failed. Franc had been sitting on a branch facing me, and she nodded at my words. I wished she would lean on me the way she had before, but maybe she was too shy to come close again.

“You can do it!”

“Yeah. Wh—?!”

I was smiling, pleased at her cute little cheer, when I sensed a mass of Phase Power come whooshing in from the far side of Breast Mountain, outside my detection range.

Fast.

The mass felt like around 10 TP. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠little bigger than my fist. Spherical, carrying a strange rotational force, it flew toward the male Silver White Wolf, master of Breast Mountain. He caught on late, barked a deep whuff, whuff!, and sprang clear. The missed mass struck the base of a nearby tree —

It exploded and blew the base of the trunk clean off! A Phase Power mass of a mere 10 TP, and it shattered a trunk five meters across in a single hit?!

The sound of the rootless tree falling and smashing came faintly from far off, and at that sound Franc’s eyes went round as she turned toward it.

“That is the sound of a tree falling...? The blast was much like compressed wind bursting. What might it have been?”

“A round green mass of Phase Power came flying in from outside my detection range. That was the sound of it bursting when it touched the tree.”

“Ah.”

At the blast, and the roar of the breaking tree crashing down on the others, the aberrants around the summit startled and fled down the mountain. Other creatures, threatened by the sight, clashed with the ones running their way, and chaos broke out.

Up on the summit, too, a standoff was underway. The Silver White Wolf, master of the mountain, was faced by a creature that looked like an American raccoon — five times the size.

“That raccoon’s huge. About as big as the mountain’s master. And its fur is green... Huh?!”

The Phase Power pattern of the raccoon, now inside my detection range, was amorphous, like an Elemental-type ability user’s. Which meant...

“An Elemental-type raccoon!”

Meeting the green raccoon, the male Silver White Wolf’s Phase Power began to whirl like a Physical Reinforcement type. In answer, the Phase Power inside the green raccoon surged once toward its snout, as if flicked — and the tip of that surge broke free and shot toward the male.

That was it. That was how an Elemental-pattern attack worked.

I ignored the sudden large-scale battle of Low-Rank Variants breaking out below the summit and focused on the fight between the male Silver White Wolf and the green raccoon, smaller than him by about a head. The male, master of Breast Mountain, bounded about with a deer’s speed, dodging the wind-attribute bolts the green raccoon fired, and the green raccoon chased him, shooting wind bolts from its snout.

Bang. Boom. Bang, boom-boom...

Each time it fired a wind bolt, its Phase Power dropped by ten, so it seemed to spend 10 TP a shot. The green raccoon’s Phase Power was 480 as well. It even held a Phase Stone in its heart, with around 200 Phase Power condensed in the stone. A match, I thought, for the Silver White Wolf who ruled the mountain.

The long exchange of shots and dodges changed all at once.

Graaaah—!

The mountain’s master barked so loud it reached even where Franc and I were, and as if to declare I’ve read your pattern!, he zigzagged through the wind bolts and charged. Every time a wind bolt grazed him, fur split, flesh was cut, and blood sprayed, but he paid it no mind and lunged as if to tear the green raccoon’s throat out.

Crack!

Hak! Grrrk!

It avoided a square bite from the mountain master’s fangs by a hair, but the graze left a shallow gouge in its neck, and the green raccoon flew into a rage and sprayed wind bolts in every direction. At that fury, the three female Silver White Wolves that had been creeping in from behind wrinkled their muzzles as if they had smelled something foul, and scattered.

Boom-boom-boom! Bang! Boom!

Wind bolts bursting on every side gouged the earth and exploded into dirt. Dust swallowed the view, and a cloud rose over the summit thick enough to see even from here. In the green raccoon’s frenzy, the females could not even approach. Only the mountain’s master kept dodging the bolts this way and that, looking for an opening — and he didn’t seem able to catch one.

The tide was turning, and not in the raccoon’s favor. The mountain master’s side had the numbers, and their Phase Power... their TP was mostly still in reserve, while the green raccoon had already spent more than half of its own. As if it had realized the disadvantage, it bared its teeth and hissed, then leapt, poured nearly 50 TP into the ground at its feet, and fired a wind bolt swollen in size.

KWAANG!!

And riding the pressure of the blast, the green raccoon fled back the way it had come. Burn through all its TP and it would be helpless against the Silver White Wolves afterward, so running was the right call. It was outnumbered, too.

Thoom...!

A faint boom carried from far away. The green raccoon must have spent what TP it had left when it landed. The mountain’s master was soaked in his own blood, but he gazed after the fleeing raccoon with a pride befitting the lord of the mountain, as if declaring, You are no match for me.

One hell of a beast.

More to the point — seeing wind bolts powerful enough to tear up the ground and snap trees, I swallowed hard from the tension alone. Far too strong to call the attack power of a Mid-Low Elemental type. If I took a hit like that, could I endure it? If I fought something like that right now... could I win?

Run the Mana Sieve through my body in a Physical Reinforcement pattern and I could dodge at speed, but close combat was out. Get near and I would freeze from fear. No question.

“No further booms are reaching us... Has the battle ended?”

Franc, on her guard, kept looking between me and the place the booms had come from, and I told her what I had seen.

“Elemental abilities... Honestly, I’d been looking down on them. Seeing one for real shocked me.”

“An Elemental ability is the type that bears the axis of attack. A Physical Reinforcement user’s strength is by no means low, but to deal violent damage in a brief span is a thing difficult for any but an Elemental user.”

I had read the reviews of Flame Bolt and Wind Bolt in the skill shop, and privately figured their might wouldn’t differ much from what an ability user could actually bring to bear.

“Then isn’t that way too big a gap in attack power, next to a Physical Reinforcement user?”

“The difference lies in the endurance of battle. A Physical Reinforcement user sustains combat better than an Elemental user.”

“Why?”

“Because a Physical Reinforcement user has almost no cause to spend TP. As a rule, what they recover exceeds what they consume. TP does lessen when they exert a great bodily power, but it is only natural that their staying power should exceed an Elemental type’s, whose every means of attack devours TP in quantity.”

“I see... So that’s why the green raccoon gave up and ran, even with more than half its TP left, once the mountain’s master closed in and the three females cut off its rear. Smart, for an aberrant.”

“I have heard that the Elemental Raccoon line tends toward high intelligence. The wind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠attribute, in particular, is said to be the more troublesome.”

But Franc didn’t seem to care about the wind raccoon at all. She clasped her hands tight and looked at me, expectation bright in her eyes.

I grinned.

This was the answer she wanted, wasn’t it?

“I think I know how to use an Elemental-type ability.”

At my answer she laughed, bright as anything, and clapped.

“As I thought!”

If I copied the way the wind raccoon fired its wind bolts, I ought to be able to shoot an elemental bolt of comparable power. Then I would have a real means of fighting aberrants. I was looking forward to it.

“So you know how you seat a pebble in a slingshot, pull it way back, and let go, and the pebble flies off the rubber’s recoil? The knack of firing an elemental bolt is similar. You gather Phase Power in a specific part of the body, then use the amorphous, tree-ring-shaped Phase Power pattern like the band.”

Having heard me out, Franc looked at me with sparkling eyes, as if she wanted a demonstration. How could I disappoint a Franc like that?

“I’ll test it.”

First I moved the Mana Sieve and shaped my Phase Power into an Elemental pattern. Then, as a trial, I flicked the tree-ring Phase Power around my hand the way you would pluck a bowstring, and a tingling spread from my palm. Good. This time, gather a little Phase Power... and flick — I saw TP burst from the center of my palm.

“It works!”

“...!”

I had fired with the Phase Power condensed to the minimum, but watching a millet-grain of it, shining with a watery light, leap out and vanish in the air, my confidence surged.

“Have you succeeded?”

“Huh? You didn’t see it? A watery lump just shot out of my palm and disappeared!”

“No. I did not see it.”

She must have been waiting eagerly to see me fire an elemental bolt. Disappointment crumpled her face — an aggrieved look, as if missing the commemorative first shot were a personal injustice.

“Maybe it only showed to my eyes because I was running the Mana Sieve? I’ll try again.”

Last time I had gathered about 0.1 TP to fire, so this time, how about 10? I extended my hand and aimed at the Leopard Cat still sprawled in a nap through all that commotion. Seventy meters off, and the earlier uproar had driven the nearby aberrants far away, so it shouldn’t pull aggro. I gathered TP in my palm, condensed it, drew it back as far as it would go, and let it fly.

Ah. It was going to miss. No guide marker, and the shot had gotten hard.

“...Huh?”

“Kya?!”

“Hhk?!”

The TP mass... had punched straight through the trees in the direction my palm pointed, raised an enormous explosion, and vanished. The Leopard Cat had the worst luck. If it had just kept sleeping, the shot would have missed — but it jerked its head up, met the TP mass that was going wide, and in that instant the mass blew.

Through Spatial Perception I could see the Low-Rank Variants nearby startling again at an explosion that shook even the air. Some thrashed. Some turned this way with their fur standing on end.

“...”

“I will go and look!”

I lost my words at the sight of a clean five-meter radius around the blast’s heart simply gone, and Franc, looking dumbfounded, flew quickly toward where the explosion had happened. When she saw the blast site, her expression went blank, words failing her.

“Th-this is... what in the world...”