Mythic Loom

Gordon picked up the invitation and examined it closely.

A Rescue Festival charity sale sounded like it would have plenty of good stuff. Many people would think they were getting rid of junk, but finding treasure in junk was Gordon's specialty.

"...Still, Charlotte must have said something else." Gordon remained concerned.

"She asked when I was moving out." Vera did not look up.

"What did you say?"

"I said I had no plans to leave."

Gordon slowly turned his head.

"You know that could be seriously misinterpreted, right?"

"No."

Gordon studied Vera's expression. She looked exceptionally clearheaded.

"...How did Charlotte react?"

"She smiled."

"That's usually not a good thing," Gordon muttered.

By the time Gordon finished eating, washing up, and making himself presentable, Vera had finished a sword routine and was resting where she stood.

Her lower abdomen was as firm as a sculpture when she tensed it, then regained its distinctive suppleness when she relaxed. The massive contours beneath her bandages rose and fell gently, while sweat slid down her beautifully shaped back and left marks on the floor.

Gordon admired her for a moment.

She was fast. Gordon could read her movements, but he could not handle them.

It was like knowing perfectly well that being run over by a large carriage would hurt. If it actually happened, there was nothing he could do but let it roll over him.

"My lady, times have changed," Gordon said. "Sinclair said he'd bring the world a new gun that reloads very quickly."

"Yes." Vera began swinging her sword again, her movements even but growing slower, as though following a song that was fading away. "Guns keep getting faster."

"But you aren't afraid of guns at all," Gordon said. "Whether it's the Wet-Foot People, hired thugs, or anyone else who wants to kill me in the future, they'll all have guns. Yet you aren't afraid."

"Being afraid doesn't stop me from fighting. The more I worry about gunpowder, the more I need to practice." Vera gave her weapon a flick.

"The technique you're practicing looks very well developed."

"Hound Swordsmanship. I can only use it when I'm focused."

"Looks like it takes some thinking."

"Yes. Back at the Hunter School, I was always studying different techniques and tactics: how medieval hunters used swords, how naval crews fought during boarding actions, how modern soldiers killed their opponents. I tried to incorporate as much of that experience as possible into my sword."

Gordon understood.

She struck so quickly it seemed instinctive, as though she had been born knowing how to kill her enemies.

But beneath that instinct lay layer upon layer of accumulated experience.

It included, but was not limited to, her training at the Hunter School, her own research, and the countless people and Aberrants who had died by her sword.

Those experiences had never vanished. They had merely sunk into the depths of her memory, and now they were gradually coming back to life.

"Do the moves have specific names?" Gordon asked. "Something like Merciless Sword."

"They don't need them. Truly mastered moves eventually disappear into your swordsmanship. By the end, there's no first form or second form anymore. You just make the most appropriate move at the most appropriate moment."

"That makes a lot of sense." Gordon took two steps forward. "Then the most appropriate move for us right now is to get ready and go to the charity sale..."

"No." Vera caught Gordon. "You need to keep training."

"There's more?"

Gordon remembered the special training Vera had put him through before they went to the pumping station.

Dodging copper pennies, sensing fists-only after that had he begun to grasp the power of source substance.

Clearly, the battle at the pumping station had not been his final exam. It had merely been a placement test.

"Sometimes, we're doctor and patient," Vera said earnestly. "And sometimes, we're instructor and student."

"Fine, fine." Gordon felt their roles had reversed.

"You have excellent perception and positioning abilities now, but you can still develop your source substance further. Merge with it more deeply, more strongly. At first, it only changes you. The school calls this stage 'Self-Body.' The power is still trapped in your flesh. Take another step, and your source substance will spread its influence into your surroundings."

"Give me the academic summary."

"The next stage is called 'Force Field.'" Vera rested the tip of her sword on the floor. "Let the laws leave your body."

She let her source substance power spread a little.

Although she had not used Fate-Biting to lock onto Gordon, he felt as though the floor had become scorching hot, and a terrifying mental pressure followed.

Only hunter and prey remained here.

Then...

Gordon felt his precise awareness of his surroundings being cut off.

In this state, he could not even sense Vera's body temperature and heartbeat as he had before.

"...My power has retreated into my body." Gordon carefully considered the sensation.

"It's been overridden," Vera said.

"So if I run into someone else with abilities, and they deploy this 'Force Field,' my perception will stop working."

"Yes, unless you can also extend your source substance into a Force Field."

Vera withdrew her power.

The invisible pressure dissipated with it, and Gordon could once again keenly perceive everything around him.

"How do I do that? Last time, all you gave me was 'Know Yourself.' This next lesson had better not be another little slogan."

"It is another little slogan," Vera said. "'Merge Yourself.'"

"Apparently, whoever writes the hunter textbooks doesn't get paid by the word."

"You can start meditating while you merge now. This might take a little time." Vera let Gordon settle into it.

Gordon closed his eyes and deeply explored the changes within.

Knowing himself meant observing himself from outside.

Merging himself meant there was no outside anymore.

Continuing to merge meant thinning the boundary between person and source substance until there was no distinction between inside and out.

He looked at himself in the mirror.

[Shining small source substance-"Unbroken Strings"]

Gordon focused his mind inward.

Until now, he had always treated it as a switch in his head. Once he turned it on, he could use Synchronized Conduction to sense everything around him.

That approach still divided "person" and "source substance" into two separate things: one giving orders, the other receiving them.

He thought again of what Vera had just said.

Truly mastered moves eventually disappeared into your swordsmanship.

Source substance was the same.

In truth, he should not be calling upon his source substance. He should not even be distinguishing it from himself.

With that thought, Gordon tried to draw the source substance out.

The power slowly sank...

It entered every corner of Gordon's body, from his shoulders to his arms, from his chest to his abdomen, from his thighs to the soles of his feet.

It was a wondrous sensation.

When his entire body was saturated with this power, his flesh seemed unable to contain it any longer.

And so, a certain "property" overflowed from beneath his skin.

At that moment, Gordon saw a vision he could not comprehend.

Unbroken Strings hung in the darkness like a strand of spider silk.

He followed it upward, but could not see its end.

Behind one thread were more threads, thousands upon thousands, crisscrossing and filling the vast expanse-trillions of them!

To his eyes, the world was no longer made of earth and flesh. Its true nature lay fully exposed: a tapestry still being refined, still being woven.

Farther up...

All the threads seemed to come from one enormous shadow.

It looked like a... loom!

Its mere existence exerted a sense of pressure.

Gordon tried to examine it, but could not see the loom's edges or the hand operating it.

Perhaps that hand was hidden somewhere far above the mortal world. Or perhaps there had never been any great hand at all.

The loom simply worked, spinning out strings that linked the entire world.

And Gordon's "Unbroken Strings" was merely a segment at its very end.

It had come from an immeasurable height, fallen into the mortal world, and condensed within a Spider Aberration before Gordon had happened to obtain it.

As he tried to get a clearer look, the vision gradually faded.

The mythic loom finally vanished behind the infinitely high heavens.

He did not know how much time had passed.

When Gordon opened his eyes, it was already broad daylight.

Sunlight shone on his face.

His first worry was that he would be late for class. A moment later, he remembered it was the Rescue Festival holiday. What a relief.

"Awake?" Vera sat nearby.

"How long did that take this time?" Gordon's throat was dry, and he felt both excited and exhausted.

"About ten hours."

"Ten hours!"

"Yes."

"You were here the whole time?"

"Yes."

Gordon rubbed his eyes.

While he had been watching the Cosmic Loom, Vera had been watching him stare into space. The two were probably equally mysterious.

"I saw something incredible. I think I've started to get somewhere," Gordon said.

"Different people see different things." Vera thought back. "Sometimes, I dream of a hunting ground beneath a blood moon. I run through it, but there's no end..."

"What are you chasing?"

"I don't know." Vera seemed a little lost in thought. "Something I can never reach."

Gordon quietly felt the invisible growth of the source substance power inside him.

After those ten hours of meditation, he felt his mental strength had improved considerably.

Source substance was some kind of power from the Upper Realm. Gordon had learned that from The Properties of Source Substance.

But those scholars had written more than three hundred pages, and the amount of actual information was pretty damn close to Vera's "I don't know" just now.

Whatever the case, Gordon needed to wash his face and clear away that feeling of having witnessed a miracle.

He entered the bathroom and checked whether the water company had connected its pipes to the Blackwater River.

[Lundenim Tap Water. No citizen fragments or Aberrant components detected today.]

Only after confirming that the water met the standards did Gordon fill the ceramic basin and wipe his face with a towel.

The cold drove the grogginess from his head, and his thoughts felt much clearer.

Just then, he noticed the two towels on the rack.

[Her towel. It carries her scent.]

[Your towel. But perhaps not yours alone.]

Gordon froze for a moment.

Because his ability had grown stronger, he could now see what appeared to be faint, fine threads on both towels.

Gordon tried releasing his source substance power toward them.

Then...

The two fine threads stretched outward, passed through the bathroom door, crossed the air, and connected all the way to the living room.

Holding his own towel, Gordon walked out, following its thread.

Before he knew it, he had stopped in front of Vera.

"?" Vera looked at Gordon.

"I've discovered that its connection to you is a little too strong," Gordon said.

"I picked up the wrong one once," Vera said casually.

"Using it once by mistake wouldn't create a connection this deep."

Vera fell silent.

This silence lasted an especially long time.

"Maybe more than once." Suddenly looking guilty, Vera took the towel from Gordon's hand with a movement so natural it might have belonged to her all along. "Let me have this one. I'll buy you a new one."

"One won't be enough." Gordon glared at her.

"Understood." She folded Gordon's towel and put it away, then quickly changed clothes and picked up Charlotte's invitation. "...Well, it's time to go."

Clearly, she was trying to gloss over that little detail as though nothing had happened.

"Let's go."

When they left 9 Knights Road, the world was still perfectly peaceful.

He felt as though he had stepped through a door. Behind it, no new power had appeared out of nowhere; he had simply moved one step closer to the mysteries of source substance. He had also lost a towel.