Potential
Iris left the subway, following the orders streaming from her phone.
At first she had fretted that someone might see her and call the police, yet to her astonishment not a single soul appeared along the path she took.
Marveling at the strange phenomenon, she walked the streets until she arrived at a small building on the outskirts of the city.
“Where is this…?”
—“Go inside first.”
Iris stepped carefully into the building.
The moment she entered, a middle-aged man was waiting for her. He approached with a bright, sunny smile.
“W-who…?”
“Ah, you must be the tenant? Quite the unusual guest we’ve got today.”
Even after seeing the wings sprouting from Iris’s shoulder blades, he showed no particular surprise.
Iris hastily tried to fold the wings out of sight, but the man simply continued as if nothing were amiss.
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Hans—I handle real-estate matters.”
“Tenant…?”
—“Hand him the phone first.”
Without suspicion Iris passed the phone to the man.
“Ah, Lord Lucifer? I received your message loud and clear.”
—“Sorry for calling you out of the blue.”
“Haha, not at all. After everything I owe you, this is the least I can do. Thanks to you, my daughter’s growing up healthy.”
—“Glad to hear it. Contact me again sometime.”
“Yes, of course. Shall I start with the house details?”
—“Go ahead.”
Hans switched the call to speaker and turned back to Iris.
“Now then, your name is…?”
“Iris…”
“Right, Miss Iris. The place is about ten pyeong, and we’ll supply the basic furniture—bed and so on. Anything else you can work out with Lord Lucifer.”
“…Is that all?”
“That’s all?”
Iris stared blankly at Hans, who kept smiling cheerfully.
He only answered her gaze with another smile.
“Look, I was dragged out of bed myself, so I don’t really know what’s going on. I’m just providing the house—Lord Lucifer will handle the rest.”
—“You can go now. I’ll take care of everything else.”
“Ah, yes sir! Have a wonderful day!”
Watching him vanish like the wind, Iris wore a look of pure disbelief while the voice on the phone continued without pause.
“This is the house you’ll be living in from now on.”
“A house…”
“I’ll cover the water and electricity bills, but don’t go crazy with them. I’ll also give you a basic food allowance.”
“B-but…!”
Iris raised her voice the instant she heard me, then realized she had gotten worked up and deliberately lowered it again.
“…Doing all this for me… what could you possibly gain…?”
—“You’ve asked that before.”
“But…! I just can’t understand it. I’m a complete stranger to you—nothing more than a criminal who wiped out a third of US-TK-07 Zone.”
—“Why did you attack TK-07 Zone?”
“Th-that was… to fight off the pursuers…”
—“And why were those pursuers after you?”
“…Because I staged a terrorist attack on the auction house…”
—“Why?”
“…”
Iris stayed silent for a long moment before forcing the words out.
“They were selling little children as slaves… collaring them with electric shock devices and forcing them into every kind of labor.”
—“And?”
“Organ trafficking and drugs too. Kids who weren’t even ten years old were already addicted. Once they even offered me some, but I refused.”
She still seemed trapped in the past.
As if the faces of the people she had failed to save were flickering before her eyes, she hung her head low.
—“Then that’s enough.”
“Pardon?”
—“A lot of people died because of what you did, but just as many must have lived.”
For the record, I don’t care much about the people of this world.
I was dragged here against my will, so I feel no obligation to protect them. I’ll save them if I can, but ultimately their lives are their own responsibility.
That was why I never particularly liked the heroes this world raved about.
They seemed to highlight the weak side of people who leaned on others.
I wonder if that was any comfort.
Fortunately, my words seemed to have shifted something in her thinking.
“Th-then… what should I do?”
—“Hm?”
“I can’t just sit around doing nothing. If you give me orders, I’ll do anything.”
I considered her words for a moment, then hit on a good idea.
—“In that case, I’ll give you some homework.”
“Homework…?”
—“Yes. Until I contact you again, complete everything in the file I sent you. You can manage that much, right?”
Iris looked ready to succeed no matter what the file contained.
Though it’ll be pretty different from what she’s expecting.
Still, the difficulty itself wouldn’t be that easy.
“All right. My vision should recover by tomorrow, so please wait.”
—“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
With that I asked Laplace to handle the cleanup.
That’s everything I needed to do…
Now it was time to go see my Yulia.
The moment Yulia returned to the mansion she raced straight up to my room.
“Young miss? You’re back? How was class?”
“Totally awesome! You should’ve sat in—it was that good!”
She always exaggerated, but her reaction suggested the day had been genuinely worthwhile.
It was one of the most prestigious middle schools in Korea, after all.
“Oh, and my sparring match is already scheduled!”
“What? Already?”
“Yep! So I figure I should start preparing for it soon, right?”
“Hmm… all right. Let’s put together a special training regimen. More importantly—who’s your opponent?”
Yulia pulled a sheet of paper from her bag and showed me the profile of her opponent.
“This person!”
“…This is a third-year.”
“Well, I took a skill evaluation!”
“What? Wasn’t the evaluation scheduled for the weekend?”
“I asked them and they did a simplified version on the spot. Plus everyone takes an innate-ability test before enrollment, right? They combined the results and assigned me accordingly.”
In short, the evaluation had decided she was too strong for her classmates, so they matched her against an upperclassman.
“What on earth did you do…?”
“Dunno? I just used my innate ability on some weird crystal ball and it shattered.”
“?”
What kind of web-novel protagonist nonsense was crystal-ball-shattering?
Puzzled by her words, I glanced at the innate-ability assessment sheet—and immediately understood what had happened.
Destructive Power: 8/10 Control: 10/10
Versatility: 9/10 Duration: 7/10
Safety: 8/10 Convenience: 9/10
Expert Opinion: Every parameter ranks in the upper tier. Combined total: 52 (average 8.8). With steady growth, the bearer is fully qualified to aim for a titled rank.
Right. I made Yulia like this.
The “crystal ball” she mentioned was almost certainly a device for measuring mana capacity.
The assessment sheet didn’t list a mana value, but looking at her overall stats it was impossible for her mana to be low.
Control and Duration—the two stats known to influence mana the most—were sitting at absolute top-tier and high-tier respectively.
Ha… compared to when we first met, her average has jumped a lot.
Specifically, her Destructive Power—once only mid-to-low—had risen.
Innate abilities were supposed to measure potential rather than raw power, so the numbers assigned at birth shouldn’t change under normal circumstances.
Of course, “normal” methods were another story.
Even an innate-ability assessment wasn’t infallible; with as many unique abilities as there were people, errors were inevitable.
That was why anyone who disputed the results could request a re-evaluation—and Yulia had done exactly that, having her potential reassessed.
For reference, my own case wasn’t a true innate ability—just something borrowed—but if I took the test the results would look something like this:
Destructive Power: 3–5/10 Control: 5–7/10
Versatility: 6–7/10 Duration: 1–2/10
Safety: 1–2/10 Convenience: 2–3/10
This was only an educated guess based on other people’s abilities, so nothing was certain.
I had been researching the power for years, yet I still couldn’t get a proper handle on it.
Too much remained hidden. At first I thought it was simply blood manipulation, but that wasn’t the case either.
I couldn’t interfere with the blood of living people, so fighting the way Yekaterina did was impossible, and the amount I could control was pitifully small to begin with.
Then, roughly five years ago, I used the ability on a dying puppy and realized it was far from simple.
On the bright side, it had freed me from blood-related illnesses like anemia, so I tried to be content with that.
The puppy recovered in no time, running and barking as if nothing had happened.
After that I poured a considerable portion of my capital into researching the phenomenon, only to hit the limits of the ability and fail to produce real results.
More precisely, I was only one step away from a breakthrough.
If the duration were just a little longer…
Because I used the blood inside my own body, Safety was low; and since I couldn’t sense mana, Duration suffered as well.
Considering that ordinary people who never became heroes averaged 1–3 across the board, mine was roughly on par—or worse.
Someday the results will come…
If “that” were ever completed, I would no longer be limited to operating from the rear; I could stand at the vanguard of commissions as well.
“Ahem. First let’s put together a proper training routine.”
“Eeh… I hate training…”
“Even with the difference in innate ability, your opponent is a third-year with actual combat experience. They’ve also had two extra years to build skill.”
“Hiiing…”
“Whining won’t help.”
Somehow it felt like my to-do list had just gotten a lot longer…
If I cut back on sleep, I’d manage somehow.