Showdown at Breast Mountain (4)
I shook the water from my body and spoke as I dried off.
"I don't feel like getting jumped in my sleep, so let's wipe out the aberrants first."
"Yes!"
Franc, class-changed from a one-eyed giant aberrant into a spirit, was usually calm and brimming with kindness. Toward aberrants, though, she showed a merciless, frightening side.
She was throwing herself into it with remarkable enthusiasm, as if she needed something to aim her attention at so she wouldn't have to face the shame and embarrassment—and she still couldn't quite meet my eyes. Of course, neither could I.
My first time, and it had been a hard deepthroat. My cock, down that slender throat…….
Change the subject. Right. If I moved along the ridge, the whole mountainside would fall inside my range, and I could sweep the place clean just by taking everything I saw. The only way for them to get outside that range was to dive into the water and run.
If a low-rank aberrant fled into a sea of water, there'd be nothing to eat, and it would burn through its stamina swimming until it drowned. So even if they ran, what did I care?
Tting—boom! Buh-bum!
I broke into a run, and the moment Spatial Perception locked onto an aberrant I started flinging Mana Bullets, talking as I went.
"I have a feeling the zombie penguin showed up because of me."
"Because of you, Seoha?"
"I'd been dragging the aberrants' rage out with Search, remember? And I piled the corpses in one place, so the blood ran and they rotted down to mush. That must've fouled the spiritual energy pretty badly. Under the influence of Phase Power, one of them would have stood back up as a zombie."
"Could that truly have been the cause……?"
"It just occurred to me. What happened to you in the Phase World you were forcibly summoned to—that was the middle of a torrent of emotion, too. The place the zombie penguin rose wasn't as bad as that, but rage, hatred, and killing intent had been whipping through it."
"That is so…… When aberrants fight one another, unless the killer is a high-tier aberrant, they devour nearly everything they slay. A corpse is almost never left behind."
"Yeah. But because of me, the corpses stayed intact. And at the end, the two-tailed fox was spraying hostility and terror at me on top of it."
"Then Breast Mountain may not be safe either, may it? Ah—so that is why you cleared the slopes earlier!"
"Yeah. So I figure we can call tonight safe."
Tting—buh-bum! Ting, ting-ting—kwa-kwa-kwang!
The aberrants died without even knowing what had killed them, and no corpses remained. That was why.
And it was secretly fun. It felt like playing an FPS against aberrants with a sniper rifle that came with an auto-aim option.
Coming down the ridge that ran to the southwest, I closed to seven hundred meters and kept sending Mana Bullets whistling out as I moved. After about sixty shots, the rest of them fled like mad in the opposite direction.
The ones running toward me weren't a problem. A dozen or so had jumped into the water and were escaping, and a few Buddy Chickens were busy fleeing by flying straight over the surface.
"Look at that Buddy Chicken, flying off. It's a bird, so maybe it floats? I've never heard of a chicken floating, though."
Franc heard me and wore an uncertain look—and then the Buddy Chicken, flapping desperately as it fled…… Ah!
"It fell in. It's too far to see clearly, but I think it's splashing."
"I will go and return at once!"
"Huh?! Franc!"
Before I could stop her, she shot off with a whoosh.
Crackle! ……Kki-kooook…….
She spent 15 of the 300 TP I had charged into her, roasted the Buddy Chicken with a bolt of bright yellow lightning, and came back.
"……Nice work."
"Hehe. Yes!"
Now that we had a way to recharge her, I couldn't exactly forbid the lightning. But the next charge was going to get awkward, so…… so…….
I wouldn't point it out. Next time I charged her, I'd make up for that hard first time.
Fortunately, the TP I had pushed into Franc's Soul Stone blended with the Phase Power inside it and replenished without trouble.
At first I had been anxious about side effects, but the worry had been needless. Franc raised electricity and used Phase Power without a problem.
When she confirmed a branch of lightning extending from her hand and cried out, utterly sure of herself—
"From now on, I shall guard your back, Seoha!"
—I was honestly happy.
Despite that hard experience, far from coming to hate me, she still loved me.
Tting, tting, ting, tting.
Pung, buh-bum, pung, kwang!
I put Mana Bullets into the backs of the heads of the ones dog-paddling away in a splash, watched the spray kick up from the blasts, and dusted off my hands.
"That should finish the southern side. A hundred and sixty-two, wasn't it? Packed into a patch that doesn't even look like a square kilometer."
"They fled to the very edge to escape you, Seoha. There may be just as many on the other side."
"Low-rank aberrants aren't a problem anymore. Let's go around and finish them."
With Mana Bullets that reached a full kilometer, I could kill them cleanly without fighting up close, and the tension was easing little by little.
If it hadn't been for the Mana Bullets, I would have had to stay wound tight, claw sword in hand, dancing a mad blade-dance. And I probably would have gotten hurt in the middle of it.
Mana Mode, Mana Bullets, Spatial Perception—and the Mana Sieve.
Somehow I had the feeling the road ahead of me would lie as flat as if a steamroller had already gone through.
Physical enhancement let me run the mountain paths like level ground, but because I had been clearing aberrants as I moved, covering the 1.4 kilometers from the summit of Breast Mountain to the end of the southeastern ridge took thirty minutes.
On the way back I would only be running, so it would take less time. I had gotten excited, though, and fired without regulating my TP, and it was down to a third. From here to the center of Breast Island was another 1.4 kilometers, and then roughly 1.4 more to the northwestern tip. If I kept to an easy pace, my TP would recover completely along the way.
The hour was the awkward part. The sky was burning orange, as if the sun might drop at any moment, so by the time I started on the aberrants to the northwest it would be night.
For some reason, moving at night in the Phase World wasn't recommended, and that gave me a little pause. If it got dark, though, I could just turn the Mana Sieve on my eyes. Then I would see at night as if it were broad day.
I ran at something like an alert pace, passed the summit of Breast Mountain, and headed northwest. At the far edge of Spatial Perception, aberrants began to catch, one and two at a time.
The instant I meant to send Mana Bullets at them, Franc flapped her hands and pointed off to one side.
"Seoha! Seoha, Seoha! Over there! Over there!"
"What's wrong? Something over there?"
"A shimmer of light! It is a Return Point!"
"Huh?!"
Startled by the brightness in her voice, I swept the place she was pointing with Spatial Perception.
I couldn't see anything strange.
"Where? Perception isn't showing me anything odd."
At that, Franc streaked away, climbed a tree three hundred and eighty meters off, and pointed down.
I closed my eyes and scoured every inch around the tree beneath her feet—and there it was. A faintly wavering shimmer of light.
How to put it: it was faint, and blended into its surroundings so naturally that of course I had missed it.
But now that I had found one, the next would be easy.
Franc came flying back with a radiant smile. I opened my eyes and threw both arms wide.
"Franc, you're incredible. How did you spot that from so far away?"
"I searched with all my heart, because I wished to be of help to you, Seoha!"
More than the fact that we could go home, it was her thoughtfulness that made me so happy. I focused the Mana Sieve through my upper body, and when she slipped neatly into my arms I rubbed my cheek against hers.
"Kyaa~!"
She delighted in it. I savored the closeness for a little while, then approached the Return Point she had found.
"Whoa. It's melted into the scenery so naturally…… If you hadn't found it, I would have walked right past."
"Not at all. Even if it had not been I, a Return Point lay upon the very path we were taking. You would have found it soon enough, Seoha."
She said it with her face faintly flushed, smiling bright, and the sight was lovely enough to drive me out of my mind.
Unable to hold back, I carefully stroked her ass. Franc's eyes went round. Her face flushed hard, and she buried it against my shoulder.
Remembering what I had done at lunch, a little strength gathered in my cock, and she seemed to feel it. I could see the red climbing all the way to her ears.
I soothed my pounding heart and drew back with some regret, and Franc wore a faintly regretful look of her own.
"Ahem. Just in case, let's kill every aberrant before we go back, so it doesn't cause trouble the next time we enter."
"Yes! Let us take care that the Mana Bullets do not strike near the Return Point!"
I said it while looking at her reddened face, and she nodded, just as red.
A little farther north along the ridge, the tip of the island came entirely inside Spatial Perception.
The aberrants on the northern ridge numbered thirty-four—about a quarter of the southwest. Twenty-one were cat-types. The other thirteen were a mix of land penguins, Buddy Chickens, No-Head Mantises, Caesar Beetles, large field mice, and the like.
I had only ever seen a Caesar Beetle in the bestiary. In the flesh it was a giant stag beetle, ninety centimeters from end to end. Blue, green, and brown, somehow. The Wind Raccoon's fur had carried a faint green, too, hadn't it? Were these attribute-types as well?
I checked their Phase Power, but it was clumped into a single mass, so as expected I couldn't read it.
Every one of them was a Low-Rank Variant. The Lowest-Rank Variants must all have died in yesterday's fight. Which meant the Mid-Low Rank Variants had been only the wolf family of six, and a single Wind Raccoon.
I looked up. The sun had nearly finished crossing to the west. The world was dimming; a little longer and it would be fully down.
With the Mana Sieve focused on my eyes and Spatial Perception besides, reading my surroundings wasn't hard. Night combat would be easy too. And yet…….
The aberrants' reaction was a little strange.
"Their bearing is a little strange."
"Right? Even I can tell something's off."
"Yes. They are watching you, Seoha."
They weren't merely looking. They were glaring at the place where I stood.
"Beast instinct must've caught on that I'm their reaper. Spatial Perception is picking up hostility like crazy. If I attack, every last one of them is going to rush me at once."
"Mmm……."
At that, Franc made a troubled sound and studied them.
"The feline aberrants, hunters by instinct, and the No-Head Mantises come to about twenty-five altogether. If they swarm at once, it may be dangerous."
"It's fine. I've got Mana Mode. I trigger Acceleration, fall back, and fire Mana Bullets. Honestly, I'd rather they charge me than run. Then I don't have to chase them down to kill them."
Seeing me unafraid and sure of myself, Franc seemed to settle at last. She smiled softly and spoke.
"If any draw too close, I shall cast lightning."
"I'm counting on you."
I drew a deep breath and took stock of my body. There was no need to take stock—I was in peak condition—but that was no reason to get careless.
I stretched lightly, loosened muscles that had stiffened, and called out with confidence.
"All right. Let's go."
I punched a fist into my palm, grinned, and bellowed at the aberrants glaring at me.
"Come on, you bastards!!"
Kyaooooong!! Kyaaak! Shaaaaak!
My shout was the starting gun. More than twenty aberrants howled savagely and charged as one.
In the lead, the swift cat-types flashed their eyes. Behind them, four No-Head Mantises and two Buddy Chickens spread their wings and came on through the air.
Chwirrrrr!
Kkogok! Kkokyaaaek!
Two dozen of them bunching up to rush me. How considerate.
Ting-ting! Ting, ting-ting, ting, ting!
I ran backward out of the closing pack and fired Mana Bullets from both hands. The target was the center of the clump charging in together.
Buh-buh-bum, puh-pung, kwang! Kuang!
With every blast, three or four were swept up and erased, or lost a piece of themselves and went tumbling, spraying blood.
Watching a Mana Bullet warp round with the detonation and then, with a shuk, erase everything inside its range, I felt something in me rise.
The three Caesar Beetles crawling up from behind, shaped like stag beetles, were attribute-types after all. Two faint lines of Phase Power, like tree rings, rippled, and then shots of water, wind, and earth came flying in a scatter.
"How are those things even aiming?"
A leopard cat caught between me and the Caesar Beetles took the volley full-on and rolled across the ground. It was so absurd I almost laughed.
Puh-pung—pak! Kwa-jajak, udeuk!
Kraaaang?! Kyaoooo!
Kiek, keeeek!
Next to my Mana Bullets it was child's play, but against aberrants of the same grade it was too strong to ignore. As if it carried an armor-piercing option, it punched holes clean through a body I couldn't tell was tiger or cat.
Blood and guts sprayed from the holes. The leopard cat couldn't overcome its own momentum and went tumbling across the dirt.
Behind, the three Caesar Beetles were firing attribute shots. In front, I was firing Mana Bullets. Caught like the filling of a sandwich, the leopard cats panicked and thrashed in every direction, and one of them turned on a Caesar Beetle only to take a hole through the skull and die on the spot.
What were they even doing. A hollow laugh tried to get out. I swallowed it and kept sending Mana Bullets the moment the cooldown came up.
A leopard cat in a panic, having even lost the thing it meant to charge—that was a fine target.
Ting—tting—ting, tting. Ting!
Kwa-kwa-kwang! Boom! Kkwang, buh-buh-bum!
Watching the ones that had been running in to kill me take my Mana Bullets and vanish in the blasts, I felt some nameless stress melt away.
"Hup!"
While I was sweeping the leopard cats, I marked a No-Head Mantis that had closed nearly half the distance, triggered Mana Mode—Acceleration, and hurled a fist-sized rock with everything I had.
I had only meant to get a feel for how far Mana Mode had raised my strength.
Thwack!
The rock punched straight through a torso thin as a chopstick and a grotesquely swollen belly. It blew apart like a hit from a large-caliber rifle, spraying fluid in every direction, and I startled.
"Whoa. So this is about the strength of G Class physical enhancement?"
"I believe it is a little stronger than G Class. Did you not put more strength into it?"
"……Ah. The TP cost went up, too. About 5.3 times."
"Then that would sit around the very lowest edge of F-Class."
"R-right!"
Bwaaak—!!
Ting—kwang!
A Buddy Chicken that had gotten close was blown apart by a Mana Bullet, and a stir seemed to run through the survivors. It lasted only a moment. The ones still alive, caught between me and the Caesar Beetles, bolted without a backward look.
Once the obstacles were gone, the Caesar Beetles' attribute shots came flying at me. I was in Mana Mode—Acceleration, though, and dodging them was easier than I had expected.
"Physical enhancement is something else. If only my thoughts had sped up, moving would feel as frustrating as being underwater. With the body enhanced too, it's like I'm the only one moving in a different timeframe."
"That is precisely why the speed of thought matters so!"
Putting that ability to full use, I sent Mana Bullets at the three multicolored Caesar Beetles crawling like grubs. A troll that spams friendly fire deserves to lose its head.
Then I went after the rest of them as they fled.
"Hey—you're not going anywhere!"
I wasn't about to let them get away.
Franc spent about five Phase Power to raise electricity and locked the fleeing aberrants rigid, and I split them with Mana Bullets or the Mana Laser.
Anything that fled up a tree, I erased tree and all. A land penguin half-flying and half-running at a ridiculous speed, stubby wings flapping, went stiff under Franc's lightning—and in that instant I cut its torso apart with the Mana Laser.
Trying to run from me, with Mana Mode—Acceleration up and Spatial Perception besides. Heh. Idiots.
I erased the last large field mouse with a Mana Bullet, and with that the battle on Breast Island was over.
I had faced thirty-four aberrants, and thanks to these cheat-level abilities I had spent less than a quarter of my Phase Power, killed every one of them at my leisure without a scratch, and a sense of accomplishment welled up until it filled my chest.
The forest was completely wrecked, and it would take a long while to grow back. That had nothing to do with me, so I put it out of my mind.
"Hoo. One job down?"
I felt like I had gotten a little worked up partway through. Whatever.
I wiped the sweat from my brow, refreshed after letting all that built-up stress out, and Franc—having checked once more that nothing had survived—came over and smiled brightly.
"Well done. As expected, the Mana Mode of the Mana Sieve is extraordinary. You settled a battle of one against many without any real difficulty."
Behind that smile I felt a trace of fear. What? Why was she afraid?
……Ah.
Was it because I had gotten a little excited near the end, and that had looked wrong to her?
With Franc's nature, if I left her alone she would come back to herself. Even so, I didn't want to see her afraid of me, not even for a moment. I started soothing her gently, and making excuses.
"I got a little excited in the middle, didn't I? From the first Phase World on, I was so constantly on edge about aberrants that the stress must have piled up. Four-legged beasts especially. I hate them more, because they remind me of the Long-snouted Lean Wolf."
Franc knew that on the first day, the moment I arrived in the Phase World, I had been chased, fled like a madman, and gone cliff-diving. Understanding came over her face at once. She smiled kindly and answered.
"It is all right. You did quite well enough, Seoha. They are aberrants, not animals. They require no mercy!"
"Right. The only good aberrant is a dead aberrant."
"Ah—the only good aberrant is a dead aberrant…… What a saying!"
Her expression brightened, and I couldn't hold back. I kissed her cheek. She clutched it and glanced this way and that, flustered. I watched that cute fluster with a satisfied smile and searched Spatial Perception for anything still alive.
……Mm. No aberrants.
I didn't know when the next entry would be, but if I had cleaned the place out this thoroughly, it ought to be fine.
I fiddled with Franc's Soul Stone in the pouch at my neck, and with the two mid-low-grade Phase Stones, and spoke to her while she was still covering her cheek in embarrassment.
"Shall we head back, then?"
"Y-yes!"
Franc covered her face at the crack in her own voice, blushing all the way to her ears. She was cute enough to set my heart racing, and I wanted to pin her down right then—but now that it was time to return, worry crept in, and I couldn't feel easy.
I had been told I would have to pour Phase Power, TP, into the Return Point. With the Mana Sieve, activating it shouldn't be much of a problem.
What worried me was something else.
I had made up my mind to shove the blame onto Choi Soohan and Kang Woohyuk, but I was a minor, and I had entered the Phase World. If some leftover charge stuck to me too, then what.
As I saw it, the cause lay entirely with the Survivor Protection & Management Department, and I was innocent. The law, though, is sometimes unreasonable, so the chance I would be punished wasn't small.
Walking with Franc toward the tree where the shimmer had been, I spoke as if to shake the worry off.
"Seriously…… When I get back, I'm having it out with Kang Woohyuk, and I'm chewing Choi Soohan out until she drops."
Franc turned, her face asking what had hardened my resolve.
From the second entry on, you could enter of your own will. Leaving, you could only do through that shimmer of light.
And what did that mean?
"To activate the shimmer, I'd have to learn Phase Power control and pour Phase Power into it. I never learned any Phase Power control. If I hadn't gotten the Mana Sieve, I might never have been able to leave!"
"Ah……."
"I never even heard the conditions for entering the Phase World again, and I never learned how to handle Phase Power. That means I would have had to find the shimmer and kill aberrants nearby so it could absorb their Phase Power. If I'd been an ordinary detection-type, would that even have been possible?"
"No. And in a region flooded like this, a Return Point would have been difficult to find in the first place. Seeing it now, those two bear a great deal of the responsibility!"
The realization that I had nearly walked into a situation where I might have died seemed to give her chills. She frowned and kept rubbing her arms.
"That's what I'm saying."
I still didn't know why I had been dragged into the Phase World while sleeping in Hwayeon-noona's room. They had told me hunting and anything to do with the Phase World were off-limits—and then they hadn't even taught me how to avoid being pulled in.
"It wasn't a day or two. For all fourteen days since I got back, they didn't so much as mention it. That's dereliction of duty, isn't it?"
"Is there any way to protest to the two of them?"
"When we get back, I'll have to talk it over with Hwayeon-noona. I did break the law, that's true, but I'm still expecting they'll clear me. I don't know the law, though. I might end up punished too…… and thinking about that makes me uneasy."
"Mm…… Might you not ask President Yu Youngeun for help, then? She was exceedingly fond of you, Seoha, so I believe she would aid you in such a moment."
Franc's words brought Madam Yu to mind without my trying. An air more mature than Hwayeon-noona's. A refined style. A bewitching body…… Ahem. Ahem.
"Maybe she kept her mouth shut because she's a masochist pervert who wanted to get scolded."
Franc looked at me in pure confusion, as if asking what on earth she had just heard.
"……A m-masochist per……vert?"
"Yeah. A masochist. Someone who gets sexually excited when they're tormented and physically abused."
"Choi Soohan was a maso…… pervert? And yet he looked like a perfectly ordinary man……."
Franc looked thoroughly shocked. A man? Ah—we had been texting while she was asleep.
"No. We exchanged texts while you were sleeping, and she said then that she was a woman. And at Iljasan, when she badmouthed Hwayeon-noona, I scolded her and chewed her out for being useless—and she got all excited. I'm telling you."
"What?! A w-woman, you say?"
She was so startled that I showed her the message inbox on the Certifier, and only then did she nod.
"She truly is an astonishing person, in ever so many ways."
"Right?"
I would have to keep quiet about openly ogling a rather pretty ability-user woman. Franc probably already suspected, but suspecting and being sure were as far apart as heaven and earth.
How, once we were back in reality, could I chew Choi Soohan out until she whined and cried without getting her excited? How could I dump every last bit of the blame on her? Turning those questions over, I arrived at the tree that held the Return Point.
Unlike when I had seen it earlier, the shimmer was at least three times brighter, shining clear.
"A lot of the Phase Power that spread when the low-rank aberrants died must have flowed in."
Night had fallen completely, so the glow caught the eye even more.
I was E-Class, so even if I killed a low-rank aberrant I couldn't take the Phase Power spreading from its corpse into my body, and I hadn't paid it any mind. Had the shimmer drawn in a little of what had spread into the air?
If so, Phase Power would gather at the Return Point as time passed. I could have gone home even without ever learning how to handle it.
"Ah. I didn't grab the claw sword."
"Ah—let us go back for it!"
"Leave it. Even if I took it home, it's the thing that cut the zombie penguin open. It gives me the creeps."
For a moment I wondered whether I could sell it if I brought it back. It was only a byproduct of a low-rank aberrant. It wouldn't be worth much, and it was unpleasant besides, so forget it.
"That is so."
"Then let's go."
I swallowed and reached a hand into the shimmer. The light my hand touched rippled, swayed for a moment, and stopped.
"In case something dangerous should occur, please keep one thousand TP of Phase Power in reserve!"
"Ah. I will."
I began slowly drawing TP out through my hand. The shimmer soon became a mass of light, and the surrounding scenery started to waver, little by little.
A change that called up the moment I had been forcibly summoned.
I wrapped an arm around the waist of Franc, who had dropped down beside me, and drew her in. She looked faintly startled, then smiled, set a hand on my chest, and looked around at the scenery that had begun to ripple.
Wow. A true ant's waist—narrow enough to close a hand around. How could anyone be this slender?
The instant I thought how good it felt to have Franc's breasts press into my chest and give, the Return Point stopped drinking Phase Power, and the world around us began to rush toward the point ahead.
A strange sensation of time and space stretching long.
I was not going to get used to this feeling—
The moment I thought it, light poured out as if a Big Bang had gone off, and everything before my eyes turned pure white.