Anything Related to Space
“I can do anything related to space.”
“What…?”
The man echoed her answer with a look of pure disbelief.
Just because an ability fell under the spatial category did not mean every user could produce the same results. The most common manifestation was simple movement—blink, teleport, or warp, depending on the range—and it was so ubiquitous that people usually thought of it first whenever spatial powers came up. Spatial abilities themselves were still fairly rare, of course.
The problem was…
She’s not lying.
The man regarded Cheon Seo-ah with heavy, sunken eyes and muttered the thought to himself. He was an ability user as well. His power was poorly suited for combat, so he never worked as a hero, yet it was still formidable in its own way: the power of Truth and Falsehood. He could instantly tell whether any statement spoken before him was true or false.
And that power was now telling him, without the slightest hesitation, that every word leaving the girl’s mouth was absolute truth.
Really…
“You mean you can do anything?”
“Yes. Anything at all.”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
“Hmm…”
Seo-ah tilted her head in brief thought, then broke into a bright smile.
“It’ll be easier to accept if I just show you rather than try to explain it in words, don’t you think?”
Without waiting for an answer, she moved.
Designate
A single short word left her lips. At the same moment a faint thread of demonic energy slipped from her body and settled over the man, etching geometric patterns across his skin.
Move
Fwaat—!
“Huk!”
Another single word, and a strangled cry of shock burst from the man’s throat. In the space of a blink—no, correct that: without even blinking—he discovered his location had completely changed. He had been standing right in front of the door; now he stood more than a hundred meters away, facing a blank wall.
And the real surprises were only beginning.
“So movement is possible, as you can see. Next—”
Seo-ah unfurled her fingers and pointed at empty air.
The space her finger indicated simply folded in on itself.
Had any living person been caught inside that fold, their body would have been crushed as thin as paper to match the new geometry of space. And she was far from finished.
Space shattered like glass.
Space itself was shoved violently away.
Space was dragged toward her like a living thing.
Space was cleanly divided in two.
One impossible feat followed another as Seo-ah toyed with the fabric of space itself. The man found himself wondering whether the girl standing before him could even be called human. Ability users already twisted common sense into nonsense and nonsense into common sense, but this went far beyond any reasonable limit. Watching her casually reshape space made him feel as though he were staring at a god rather than a person.
At last Seo-ah turned back to him with a cheerful smile.
“Well? Pretty useful, right?”
“Ha… haha.”
All the man could manage was a hollow laugh. Useful? Was “useful” really the word for something like this?
Among existing ability users, those labeled the strongest held the rank of Zero. There were nine such Zero-rank villains and thirteen Zero-rank heroes. Yet the man was certain—absolutely certain—that the power of the girl in front of him lay beyond even those Zero-rank monsters. They could never hope to imitate it; they could not even approach it.
Just how…
How in the world did Gwanghwi find a monster like this?!
And she wanted to recruit this girl as her sidekick? Don’t make him laugh. A sidekick was someone whose ability was too weak to operate independently, someone who merely assisted a proper hero. If the world ever learned what this girl could do, every nation on the planet would scramble to claim her, and every villain would stop at nothing to kill her. Her power was that dangerous.
The man stiffened, ready to speak, when Seo-ah continued as if nothing were amiss.
“But the abilities I just showed are way too overpowered for Earth, aren’t they?”
What on earth was she talking about? The way she phrased it almost sounded as if she were saying she did not even belong to this world. He opened his mouth again, only for her to keep going.
“Still, it feels nice to stretch a little after so long. Showing this level of overkill would just make things annoying, though.”
Clap!
Seo-ah brought her hands together.
Kiiiiing—
A strange hum filled the air, and the world around her drained into ash-gray. Birds and airplanes mid-flight, ships on the ocean surface, submarines beneath the waves, the very rotation and revolution of the planet, the flow of the atmosphere itself—every process tied to Earth froze the instant the world turned gray. Within that stopped time, only Cheon Seo-ah remained free to move.
“Hmm. Just rewinding the time applied to Earth would create errors, wouldn’t it?”
Kiiiiing—
She clapped once more inside the gray world. This time the flow of time that governed the entire universe ground to a complete halt.
“Good thing Earth is confined to a single dimension. Anything more complicated would have been a real headache.”
Still smiling, Seo-ah opened her hand. A colossal mass of demonic energy condensed above her palm and took the shape of an enormous clock. Tick, tock. The second hand completed a full circle and the minute hand advanced; the minute hand completed its circle and the hour hand moved. It was unmistakably a clock.
Seo-ah hooked a finger around the minute hand—still moving even now—and murmured,
“Ten minutes should be enough, right?”
Kkigigik—
The minute hand that had advanced with every full revolution of the second hand now began to reverse under her touch. The frozen world of stopped time and space shuddered violently.
“Don’t bother resisting. You’ll actually collapse if you keep it up.”
She whispered the words into empty air. The moment they dissolved into the void, the unstable trembling that had gripped the world settled. And then everything began to run backward—Earth’s rotation and revolution, the motions of every living creature upon it, the Sun and every planet of the solar system. The entire universe rewound itself precisely ten minutes into the past…
“…so your ability is spatial in nature…”
“That’s right. It’s nothing impressive, though. All I can do is twist a certain area of space to deflect attacks—and even that stops working against anything Rank 7 or higher.”
“Is that so?”
The green light in the man’s eyes flickered. His Truth and Falsehood ability confirmed that every word the girl spoke was true.
“Understood. You’ll still need to take the official test, so please wait a moment.”
With that he left for somewhere else. Seo-ah watched his receding back and smiled to herself.
“Time-related arts really are convenient, aren’t they?”
“W-well? How did it go?”
“Here you go.”
Cheon Seo-ah held out a single card to Jin Yu-ri, who had been waiting outside in anxious impatience. The card was a hero license—an absolute requirement for any hero activity. It listed only rank, hero name, ability type, and a photograph, yet the card itself was woven with a special ability that made ordinary forgery impossible.
“Hmm. Rank 7, huh. Not bad, I guess.”
Kang Ye-seul glanced over the license and spoke in a lukewarm tone. Jin Yu-ri, by contrast, lit up with delight.
“Rank 7?! That’s amazing! Seo-ah, don’t you dare let that mean older sister make you feel small. Being Rank 7 at your age is incredible!”
Seo-ah beamed back at her, clearly pleased by the praise. They celebrated for a little while longer until Kang Ye-seul’s voice came from behind them.
“Yu-ri? We’re almost out of time.”
Only then did Jin Yu-ri’s expression shift to sudden realization.
“Hm? Do you have some kind of appointment?”
“Ah, well… honestly, we pushed this whole thing through on our own. I felt bad about that, so I reserved a table at a really good restaurant.”
“A restaurant?”
“Yeah. Super famous place. Dinner time’s coming up—you’ll come with us, right?”
Jin Yu-ri looked a little downcast, clearly worried Seo-ah might refuse.
“I’m fine with that. I already told them I’d be home late today.”
“R-really?”
“Yes. So what’s on the menu?”
“You’ll find out when we get there! Think of it as a little surprise.”
A surprise, she said. Seo-ah already knew everything, so she wondered how much of a surprise it could still be. Still—famous restaurant food was famous restaurant food.
And so, once more guided by Jin Yu-ri, Seo-ah set off toward the restaurant. Meanwhile Kang Ye-seul, who had briefly parted ways with them, flipped through a packet of documents someone had handed her about Cheon Seo-ah. A strange light flickered in her eyes.
“Spatial distortion, huh…”