Maintenance
More than ten days had passed since that eventful first scouting run. I spent today, like every day, training my body under Arwen's supervision—mostly because I'd accepted her argument that I needed to handle psychic energy with real skill first. After all, there was no telling how many monsters roamed this research facility.
"I'm dizzy..."
The most basic training had been wrapped up over the past few days. What remained was the final task Arwen had assigned me: learning to use psychic energy as footing in every direction, up, down, left, and right. In plain terms, it meant I had to be able to fight with my feet stuck to the ceiling. Wait—haven't I seen this training somewhere before?
"Focus, please. The aura concentrated in your soles is scattering."
"Eep."
Hanging upside down from the ceiling like a bat, I pressed my slipping feet back against it at Arwen's reminder. The moment my concentration broke, the adhesive property I'd imbued into my aura kept trying to peel away.
Aura...
Its formal name was psychic energy, but I'd decided to call it aura instead. Psychic energy was, in the end, the power of the mind. According to Arwen, the direction and potency of its development could change depending on how a person perceived that power. In other words, by consistently using the word aura, I could unconsciously refine my psychic energy through the impression the word itself carried. Arwen had recommended the more universal term mana, but aura simply felt more familiar to me.
Thud, thud.
I walked slowly forward along the ceiling, still hanging upside down. Body Reinforcement doesn't boost your physical stats by fixed numbers—it works in percentages. Which means training it is the most efficient path for an Enhanced Human like me. It suited my aptitude, too. The technique looked plain on the surface, but it was powerful. Better to hone a field with a definite edge than to fumble around producing fire or ice with some flashy special ability.
"Hooo... the blood's all rushing to my head."
I'd assumed my sturdy Enhanced Human body could shrug it off, but even for me, hanging upside down for over thirty minutes was starting to make my head swim. My ears rang, pressure crowded behind my eyes, and it was genuinely uncomfortable. To any third party watching, I probably looked like a red-faced comedy act.
"You'll need to control that as well."
But Arwen brushed aside my complaint by demanding something utterly absurd.
"Am I a machine? How am I supposed to control that?"
"Psychic energy—or rather, aura—is omnipotent. Discard your preconceptions. Dissolve aura into your bloodstream and force the blood to move. Make your aura liquid."
"...Easy for you to say."
I grumbled halfheartedly at Arwen and refocused my mind. The blood pooling in my head was scattering my concentration, but a real combat situation would undoubtedly be far more chaotic than this. I have to be able to move my aura even under these conditions.
Most of my aura was currently gathered in my soles, providing the adhesion that held me up. I projected my will onto the leftover aura drifting aimlessly through my body. Give it a liquid-like texture, let it flow through my blood like... hm? It's working?
For all my complaining, the aura obeyed my will without protest. It melted smoothly into my bloodstream and seized control of my circulation, steering the blood that gravity dragged downward back into its proper flow. The blood that had been pooling excessively in my head now circulated, at least in part, along its original course.
Twist!
"Whoops!"
My divided attention shattered the aura in my feet, and one leg peeled completely off the ceiling. I scrambled to catch my balance and adjusted my aura back to its original state—but this time the aura controlling my blood flow fell apart instead, and blood rushed to my head again.
"...Not so easy."
"You're doing very well."
Still, as time passed, splitting my consciousness to control aura in two places at once grew steadily more familiar. My head throbbed like I was drawing two different shapes with each hand at the same time—but since I could see my skill visibly improving, I could push through it.
"Splendid, as expected. You learn so quickly that teaching you is actually rewarding."
"Thanks. But is this training really doing anything? Shouldn't I be doing something more physically demanding?"
Arwen showered me with generous praise for maintaining a composed complexion through my clumsy blood-flow control, but to me the results felt underwhelming. Aside from the occasional danger of plummeting headfirst, the training wasn't all that hard. It felt like I wasn't really making progress. What's more, the sight of Arwen's remaining three months gnawed at me.
"The purpose of this training is to make you proficient at changing aura's properties and multitasking with it. You are performing quite adequately, Ha Jun."
"It's just that I don't see any noticeable change, so it feels off."
"Then... come down for now. Let's run today's final test."
"Fine by me."
I released the adhesive aura in my soles. Tap. A half rotation of my body, and I landed on my feet. Even from a height of four or five meters, all that could be heard was the softest of sounds.
"Now, go to the far end of the wall and sprint back here at full power."
"Just running?"
"That's all. Of course, use your aura as well. Don't wait for any signal—just run."
"...?"
Bewildered by the simple instruction, I tilted my head and moved into position anyway. Running's easy. It was the very first thing I'd trained, wasn't it—physical reinforcement? Perhaps because enhancing something is such an easy concept to visualize, reinforcing my muscles had always come effortlessly. I permeated aura through every gap between the muscles of my lower body.
"Hah!"
Thoom!
Just like when I'd ambushed the goblins, I unleashed my aura-reinforced muscles. Every ounce of recoil transferred straight into the floor, and I launched forward. Adjusting my forward-tilted center of gravity, I tore down the corridor in a full sprint. Arwen, waiting in the distance, closed in within a heartbeat and then flashed past my shoulder.
What? I feel absurdly fast all of a sudden.
"Stop."
Tap, tap, tap...
At Arwen's signal I throttled down and braked gradually. Stopping too abruptly could wreck my joints, so I bled off my momentum little by little. Ever since my raw strength had edged into superhuman territory, I'd grown far more conscious of my body's durability than of its power.
"You got faster, didn't you?"
"...Yeah."
Arwen had cut off both the question and the answer herself. Still, I agreed with her. What I'd felt while running hadn't been my imagination. I was at least twice as fast as I'd been during my last fight with the goblins, by my own estimation. The training had looked unremarkable, but I was growing stronger all the same.
"In any case, let's stop here for today. Good work."
"Thanks."
Training was over. But with plenty of stamina still in the tank, I couldn't afford to waste the rest of the day.
I rested only briefly before setting out with Arwen on a scouting run toward the emergency stairwell. The corridors grew steadily more labyrinthine, with sections sealed off by bulkheads here and there, but with Arwen along, none of it posed a problem. We punched through at breakneck pace. Not a single goblin showed itself—wherever they'd gone, they'd gone thoroughly—so the sweep proceeded without a hitch.
"You're basically all-powerful, you know that? At this rate I should've just brought Nanny along and headed straight for the upper floors."
"I'm glad to be of help."
Partway through, we came across a senior administrator's private living quarters. Arwen unlocked the firmly sealed door with a light touch, and I complimented her for it. At my praise, she placed both hands on her hips and struck a visibly smug pose. No matter how I looked at it, nothing about that reaction said artificial intelligence.
Nanny's the same way... practically indistinguishable from a person. Did the AI of the future world really advance this far?
"Whoa! This is..."
While chatting idly with Arwen and rummaging through the room, I made a valuable discovery. Inside what looked like a cabinet, a long blade had been hidden away—a sword with a blade of roughly sixty centimeters, in a distinctly old-fashioned style. Yet for all its classical design, its condition was pristine even after three hundred years. No, pristine didn't cover it. With that silvery blade glinting coldly, it might as well have been forged yesterday.
"A sword made of Artium. A metal that was popular back when vampire movies were all the rage. Charming silver luster, wouldn't you say?"
Arwen examined the blade from every angle and delivered her appraisal.
"Vampires? Wait, don't tell me this thing's actually made of silver? Wouldn't that weaken it..."
"It merely resembles silver—it's an entirely different metal, so don't worry. Its performance as a weapon should be more than sufficient. Though I must say, for someone to become an administrator and spend it collecting trinkets like this... tsk."
Shink.
As long as it works as a weapon, I have no complaints. I let Arwen's disgruntled grumbling pass in one ear and slid the silver blade back into its scabbard. The steel vanished into the sheath smooth as if it had just been oiled. I tied a long strip of cloth around my waist like a belt and thrust the sword through it. Finally graduating from a steel pipe, huh. That felt good.
"By the way—can you actually handle a sword? It seems rather likely you'll end up cut by your own blade."
"Obviously I've never used one. But I think I'll be fine. It doesn't feel awkward at all, does it?"
My memories were hazy, but I had a vague sense I'd studied kendo in my past life. And above all, a body this overflowing with talent would no doubt pick up swordsmanship in no time.
"If you say so, Ha Jun... Ah, it's mealtime."
Having conceded my point, Arwen turned to fly off elsewhere, then wheeled back around toward me. Oh no. The single hour of the day I hated most in the entire world. I scrunched up my whole face.
"Already? I'm not even hungry. Can't we skip it?"
"No."
Dammit. I'd thought things might be easier without Nanny around to enforce it. Reluctantly, I moved my hand and unscrewed the canteen.
Glug, glug.
"Ugh... tastes like garbage, every single time."
"Are you now a picky eater as well?"
PINCHING my nose shut to choke down the vile green juice, complaints escaped me naturally. Arwen chided me for it.
"You try living on nothing but this stuff and see how you talk."
"Well... if I had a body..."
"What was that?"
Arwen's voice had dropped so low that I barely caught her final murmur.
"Nothing. Anyway, today's haul wasn't bad. Let's head back."
"...Yeah."
On the way back to the cafeteria after finishing our rough sweep, I kneaded the dull ache in my joints and asked Arwen a question.
"By the way—I grew this much in a single year. Is that actually okay? Don't I need stabilizers or something?"
Even now, I seemed to be growing bit by bit.
"Not in the slightest. An Enhanced Human is practically a superior human. Quite a few politicians back in the day underwent procedures to modify their bodies, after all."
"I see... I only asked because the growth rate defies all common sense."
Just then, Arwen, who had been flying ahead of me, stopped dead in the air and spoke.
"You are a very peculiar person, Ha Jun."
"Out of nowhere?"
"You were born here and have never once left this place—so where did you learn [common sense]? I've never even seen you read a book."
"!"
Her sharp remark sent a chill racing down my spine. It probably wasn't just this one conversation, either. Looking back, I'd been speaking far too carelessly this whole time. The way I'd absorbed the [Stone] last time was another example. But I had zero idea how to act the part of a blank slate who knew nothing.
"Well, that's..."
I opened my mouth intending to answer with something—anything—but the words jammed almost immediately. What am I supposed to say? Claiming the mute Nanny taught me was absurd. Saying I learned from an automated education system—no, I didn't even know whether such a thing existed here.
Seconds ticked by. My response practically had I HAVE A SECRET stamped across it in neon letters.
I'm screwed.
"I wasn't trying to interrogate you. I merely found it unusual. It's nothing important."
"..."
Seeing me break out in a sweat, Arwen simply shrugged and turned back around, resuming her flight. I exhaled in relief inside and followed after her.
But do I actually need to hide that I reincarnated? No. Better safe than sorry. I didn't doubt Arwen now, but if this place ever linked up with the humanity outside and my information leaked automatically, things would get very complicated very fast.
Still, the sight of Arwen flying on ahead looked strangely lonely. So:
"...Someday, if the chance comes, I'll tell you."
"Hm. I hope that chance arrives before I'm deactivated."
In the end, the hollow promise left my mouth before I could stop it. And so we arrived at the cafeteria wrapped in a peculiarly heavy silence.
The door slid open.
"Another long day. Time to get some sle—Nanny!"
I'd tossed out the quip to lighten the mood—but what met my eyes was Nanny, slumped face-down on the floor, without so much as a twitch of movement.