Katon Village
The Spirit-absorbing race.
Among the countless humanoid peoples of Nionevres, they numbered among the rarer breeds, and their defining trait was this: they could live without food, so long as they had water and a man's seed—or a woman's nectar.
Their blood was black as a night sky, and that darkness stained the membranes of their sex, their nipples and areolae, even their lips. When their arousal climbed past a certain threshold, the blood itself shifted hue, turning blue, and with it came a change in the color of their hair and mucous membranes.
In other words, if a Spirit-absorber's body hair changed color mid-act, it meant she was extraordinarily excited. And if that color shifted once more—to white—it meant she had fed her fill of essence and was deeply, thoroughly satisfied.
A Spirit-absorber who had undergone the White Flower in this way came to regard her partner with boundless reverence and adoration…
"Take this too. It's a fountain pen—all the rage in the capital of the Racial Alliance these days. I've added pressure regulation, ink generation, and durability reinforcement, so it should serve you well. Ah, and this, and this. Mmh! You said you'd be going into labyrinths, didn't you? Then you'll need these as well."
Yurpa's hair swayed—not the white of old age, but the pure white of an albino—as she swept every last item off the magic-tool shop's display shelves into a high-capacity subspace bag whose interior measured roughly ten meters across and seven meters high.
Hwanin watched in silence as she bustled about the shop without a thought for the consequences, then caught her by the shoulder and brought her to a stop.
"Yurpa."
"Hm? Is there something else you need, darling? Just say the word. Anything I can get my hands on, I'll get for you. I may not look it, but I've got quite a bit of money. I can get you just about anyth—"
"Yurpa. I am not a kept man."
"…Huh?"
At that calm, even voice, Yurpa flinched. Her hands stilled. She turned to look at him.
"It is true that compensation played a certain part in why I became involved with you. But the reason I held you was, more than that, because you tasted good."
The bluntness of it sent color flooding into Yurpa's pale face.
"A method to improve my constitution? It does not trouble me as things stand. And if the need arose, I am confident I could resolve it through my own efforts."
He caught her slender chin lightly, tipped it up, and held her gaze at the angle of a kiss.
"It was because you were attractive. Had that not been the case, no compensation in the world would have put me in your bed. Does that sound like a lie to you?"
"Ah—n-no…"
"And yet you try to load me down with material things and treat me like a kept man. That saddens me."
"Th-that's—no… That isn't what I meant. I just—I like you, darling, and I wanted to give you something, anything…"
"Then there is a far simpler way."
He released her chin and stepped back, opening his arms just slightly. Yurpa's eyes wavered dangerously—and her heart with them.
She threw herself against his chest, pressed her forehead to the solid muscle there, and murmured,
"I… I'll never forget you as long as I live…"
Through the press of their bodies he could feel her heart hammering. He stroked the back of her head with gentle fingers.
"Forget me. Remembering someone who will not return will only make things harder for you."
The words he whispered against her ear stole the breath from her lungs.
She went so blank she could not even think to hold him as he left.
After today, she would never see him again? For the rest of her life?
…Could she live without him?
No. She could not.
Only after the fact did Yurpa realize he was already gone. She sank to the floor where she stood.
"…"
A famous saying among the Spirit-absorbing race rose unbidden in her mind.
The one who turns you white is a bond heaven itself has marked. Lose him—or her—and you will have squandered half your life.
Through a warped, poor-quality window, yellowish sunlight spilled in and fell across her. Yurpa stared blankly at the gold-washed glass, then clenched a small fist tight.
Outside the magic-tool shop, Hwanin turned the enchanted fountain pen over in his fingers and thought,
A bit of a waste, honestly. I should have picked out a few things and left the rest.
Even the ultra-capacity subspace bag alone—Yurpa's pride and joy, measuring ten by ten by seven meters—sat in a price bracket that made the brow tighten. With subspace bags, the base price was essentially the product of length, width, and height; each additional option then added or multiplied another five to sixteen percent. That kind of money could buy a distinctly luxurious mansion even in the capital. It would have been a lie to say he felt no regret.
But the evening before, Kantwi had told him that once the White Flower passed, a Spirit-absorber's reason returned. Some of the emotion from that state would linger—but the moment she came back to herself and realized she had handed over her entire fortune, problems were all but guaranteed.
I'll content myself with the talent-development and constitution-training methods.
And that was not all. Five hours spent rolling Yurpa in his arms had given him a thorough test of his essence-absorption ability.
The stamina and vigor spent on the act he had restored with blood-red Phase Stones; the calories burned in recovery he had replenished with high-grade healing potions. The essence he had expended, he had drawn back from Yurpa herself—which meant she had drunk every last essence-recovery potion. No: she had drunk most of the potions, period. Dozens of climaxes had drained her strength, and thousands upon thousands of thrusts had left her sex raw; nearly every healing potion had gone into her mouth or been smeared across her body.
The sensation of coating himself in healing potion and pushing back inside had been distinctly strange—as if the walls of her passage had come alive and writhed like earthworms.
And from using essence absorption so relentlessly, his residual Warmth had dropped to fifty percent around the four-hour mark. After downing a phase-force auxiliary potion worth dozens of gold coins a bottle, Hwanin had learned that Warmth had nothing to do with phase force.
A pity there's no artificial way to restore it besides holding a woman.
More than that—what were Warmth and Chill, exactly?
He understood they were powers tied to the soul. But the supernatural energy of this world was known as phase force. Trace every form of energy back to its source and you arrived at phase force—or so the story went.
And yet Warmth was not phase force.
"…"
In any case, by the five-hour mark when they had finished, the remaining potions stood at four healing out of seventeen, zero essence out of nineteen, and five phase-force auxiliaries out of six. Roughly eighty-two gold over five hours—the phase-force auxiliaries being high-grade at fifty gold a bottle—more than eight billion won's worth of potions, guzzled away.
Next to her entire fortune it was pocket change, so there was nothing to fuss over. Yurpa had not thought it a waste either.
"Well, it was the first White Flower of my life! Do you think it was a waste, darling?"
It was not his money. Why would he? If he had, he would have sold the high-grade phase-force auxiliaries instead of drinking them.
At any rate, learning that essence absorption and release help with sex as well counts as a harvest.
Piecing together the half-possessed mutterings Yurpa had let slip during the act: when her essence was being drawn out, pleasure surged and flooded the place it was being pulled from until she thought she would go mad; when essence was being poured into her, the sensation of being packed full below and packed full at the solar plexus at the same time had nearly driven her out of her mind. By the end she had been up on her knees with her rear in the air, thick cream-like seed dripping from her hole, out of her senses for a full ten minutes…
"…"
Recalling the peculiar, chewing quality of Yurpa's inner flesh, Hwanin murmured inwardly that he would probably think of her from time to time, then sat down on an empty riverside bench and opened the booklets.
Hm…
Reading them was not difficult. Technical terms appeared in numbers, but their meanings were clear enough if you inferred from the surrounding context. He drew out the rechargeable pen—another gift from her—and worked through the pages steadily, jotting interpretations and annotations in Hangul.
Two volumes, roughly eighty pages between them. Not much; it did not take long to finish. He slipped the pen into his inner pocket and reviewed the material once more.
First, learn to feel the sensation of the constitution activating. Once you have a grasp of its essential nature, repeat the same conditions over and over until that sense grows sharper and clearer… or so it says.
Something like rehabilitation exercises for muscles reset by injury.
And talent training…
Similar to building immunity by steadily taking small doses of a weak poison.
The annotations cautioned against excessive training. Talent was a gift from the gods, constitution an innate physical capacity; overtax either and the body's balance and rhythms would break down. The booklets also listed warning symptoms to watch for and how to rest properly, so Hwanin worked through both volumes at a leisurely pace.
How long had he been reading, with the murmur of flowing water and the white noise of children and passersby for background music?
Flap-flap-flap—
A noisy thrash of wings, and a green mass dropped straight down in front of him.
Emergency Food.
"Kueht!"
"You came alone?"
"Kuuung. Kyuppit."
I'm hungry—what are you doing hereee?
The way Emergency Food nuzzled into his chest, whining, finally made Hwanin realize he had skipped lunch. The bird had gone looking for him without eating, because its master was nowhere to be found.
"Sorry. I forgot it was mealtime."
"Kueh~."
"Well. The people at the manor will already have eaten, so we'll eat outsi—hm?"
"Kueht. Kuehng-ek! Kuuuuh!"
"…They're waiting without eating? That was careless of me."
He closed the books, swung up onto Emergency Food's back in one smooth motion, and nudged the bird's belly lightly with his heel.
"Let's go."
"Kueht~!"
After a somewhat late lunch, Hwanin returned to the annex and considered how he might attempt the constitution-improvement method.
Talent training began with detecting the constitution's activation. To sense that activation, you had to keep stimulating the constitution—and the book recommended starting with nonviolent arts or techniques. It even suggested a method: hire a mage and deliberately take weak spells.
Hwanin had no intention of following that advice.
This power could become a hidden blade. The fewer people who know about it, the better.
A few alternatives came to mind, but each had its flaws, and none of them appealed.
Buy offensive magic tools—cheap ones for a few silver, expensive ones for gold—and use them on himself.
Drink various herbs or potions steeped in phase force.
Face spell-using enemies in a low-rank labyrinth.
Of the three, using a curse-type magic tool that inflicted a specific status ailment—motion sickness, nausea, loss of direction, and the like (a Motion-Sickness Wand, eight silver)—was safest in several respects, but also the most expensive. It would mean pouring gold into the effort indefinitely.
The second option—drinking general-purpose low-grade potions manufactured by the temples (one silver apiece)—was cheaper than magic tools, but risked potion dependency, and the amount of phase force stimulating the constitution would be small, making it inefficient.
The last was the most dangerous, and also the cheapest: seek out spell-using aberrant species in a low-rank labyrinth. Finding a labyrinth that even spawned such creatures would cost money and time, and even with Isilite and Emergency Food at his side, simply being attacked by aberrants carried risk.
There are the Screaming Monsters in the Labyrinth of No Light…
But their paralyzing shrieks drew attention, and as area attacks they raised the odds of a dangerous situation.
Hwanin looked down at his left arm.
The soul orbs—now forty-two, two more since leaving Maestig—were interlocking and meshing, beginning to form something like a gauntlet of light.
"…"
He regarded his left arm for a moment, then loaded a single shot of Soul Explosion and studied the orb, which seemed to glow with an almost crystalline radiance. Before, it had been a small sphere wreathed in white haze; now it looked like haze trapped inside a clear glass bead. A side effect of his growing power strengthening the technique, perhaps.
At any rate, he now knew Warmth was not phase force—which meant soul techniques that used Warmth were unrelated to phase force as well.
But was his constitution truly one that only shed phase force? Had it not also blocked Yurpa's essence absorption? Could Yurpa have been mistaken? And was the mental intrusion of the labyrinths even accomplished through phase force in the first place?
The experiment… will have to be on my own body.
Hwanin set anything that must not be broken or torn on the wooden veranda, stripped off his shirt as well, and placed a mid-grade healing potion on top of the pile just in case. Bare to the waist, in trousers only, he stepped down into the courtyard.
"Kuu?"
"You'll get hurt. Stay back."
He waved off Emergency Food as the bird tried to approach, then summoned the memory of the worst pain he had ever known—the time he had raised the Blade Boar's soul—drew a long, steadying breath, and detonated a soul orb in place.
KWAANG—
"Kueht?!"
Startled by the sight of its friend harming himself, Emergency Food rushed over and wrapped him in both wings, chirping frantically.
"I'm fine. I needed to run an experiment."
"Kuu…"
"I'm all right. Stay back."
"Khing."
Pushing Emergency Food away, Hwanin felt his bones creak as he inspected the scar the blast had left in the ground. Then he checked his body—scraped and scored here and there—and drew his conclusion.
The constitution works on soul techniques as well.
A direct hit from Soul Explosion had the power to strip and shred the hide of a third-class magical beast. That had been back when he had roughly thirty soul orbs, traveling near Rehil; the power would only have grown since. His own flesh ought to have burst open and left him a bloody mess—yet the impact felt no worse than a flat dive into water from thirty meters up. The reduction in force was certain.
Roughly a sixty percent reduction in damage, give or take.
Either way, he had found a way to stimulate his constitution that cost nothing and carried little risk. Pain he could endure, if it meant growing stronger.
He simply could not fire them off in rapid succession. He would have to take it slow, restoring his body with blood-red Phase Stones as he went.
At that moment a commotion rose from the main house, and Kantwi came charging over with a crowd of servants and maids clutching weapons.
"Lord Hwanin! Are you all right?!"
"Yes. Is something the matter?"
"…Ah—we heard an explosion just now… W-what happened?"
Told that the sound of Soul Explosion had made them think he was under attack, Hwanin smiled and apologized.
"My apologies. I was training for a moment and caused a disturbance."
"Oh, nonsense—a disturbance? Not in the least. Only… you are unharmed, yes?"
"Yes. It was nothing. Please, go back about your business."
Only then did Kantwi let out a breath of relief. He sent the servants and maids away, then lingered near Hwanin, pacing.
Having gathered his clothes and belongings, Hwanin offered the man a small smile.
"Is there something you wished to ask?"
Emboldened by Hwanin's gentle manner, Kantwi glanced about as if someone might be watching or listening, then lowered his voice to a careful murmur.
"Lord Hwanin. That is… well. Apostle Freehold's youngest…"
"Yes."
He stole a look at the Soul Master's expression. Finding neither displeasure nor irritation there, Kantwi pressed on with greater courage.
"That youngest… did he… do well? I was a little curious, you see."
"Aint passed on without lingering regrets or grudges. Before that, he wept and begged forgiveness of his parents and his brothers and sisters."
"Ah!" Kantwi let out a small exclamation, then exhaled a long breath of genuine relief and wiped the cold sweat from his face and scalp with a handkerchief.
"Hah. What a hopeless fool he was. Born a man, and he couldn't even manage a scrap of backbone—listen when he ought to listen, keep quiet when he ought to keep quiet…"
"Do you think I went too far?"
"N-not at all! What sort of talk is that? If anyone was at fault, it was that Aint—running with a rotten crowd, committing crimes, and then dithering about without even making a clean confession."
"I have heard the story. That Apostle Freehold means to lay down his office and return to Parhist."
"They say it's the worthless child who weighs heaviest on a parent's heart, don't they? The eldest, Fractal, and the daughters all managed well enough on their own—but that one boy alone fretted his parents half to death, and in the end drove a spike straight through their chests…"
Having finished dressing, Hwanin gave Kantwi the words the man had been hoping to hear. Converted to coin, the hospitality of the past several days would come to something near a gold piece. Call it repayment for that.
"When the time seems right, please let Freehold know. Tell him his son repented of his sins, found peace, and entered the garden of the gods."
"Thank you. I shall do exactly as you say. Though…"
"You are wondering whether the four thugs' souls also entered the garden of the gods?"
It was a smile that did not feel like a smile, and a voice like cold steel. Kantwi felt as though an invisible hand had closed around his heart. He shook his head with desperate vigor.
"N-no, not at all. Of course not."
"They received punishment equal to what they had done."
"Yes. Yes."
Only when Hwanin's gaze turned away did Kantwi press a hand to his chest and look after the man's retreating back.
I thought from the first meeting that he was no ordinary man, and indeed…
Feeling his judgment confirmed, Kantwi let out a quiet sigh of relief inwardly.
What if he had not invited the man into his home that day? What if Hwanin had stayed at the village inn and been swept up in some trouble?
Even the thought of it sent cold sweat prickling across Kantwi's skin and made him swallow hard.