Chapter 11

Chapter 11 : Let’s Change the Look (1)

When I opened my eyes and turned my head, someone was standing by the door with a hand over their mouth.

The source of the laughter.

What stood out most was that her eyes were covered with a strip of black cloth. In contrast, her blond hair fell in curls all the way past her waist.

“Assistant Pering sent me.”

“Ah, my watcher?”

“That too, yes, but if possible, please call me Ochel.”

A watcher with covered eyes.

I slipped down from the window frame and walked straight toward her.

This damned world treated absurd abilities as the norm.

Wings tens of meters long bursting out so people could fly through the sky, weapons spilling out of people’s bodies, human surveillance devices, even moving dolls.

This was a far cry from simply wielding a sword well or fighting a little like in a film.

It was a brutal world where each person’s unpredictable abilities could become a trap.

And that was exactly why it was dangerous to let your guard down just because someone looked weak.

“You would do better not to, Riwin.”

I stopped short with my wrist caught firmly in Ochel’s hand as I tried to seize the black cloth covering half her face.

In the same calm, flat tone as before, Ochel explained herself.

“There is no need to check. It is true that I cannot see in the ordinary sense.”

“And yet you grabbed me rather naturally?”

“It is only natural that you would be curious. It is my Unique Ability. I see without seeing.”

Ochel lightly brushed my wrist aside and stepped past me as though nothing had happened.

The cloth over her eyes certainly did not look thin enough for her to be seeing through it.

“If you see without seeing, can you also see things like what people are thinking?”

Ochel, who had been arranging the bedding she had brought, rose after smoothing even the last wrinkle from the sheet.

“What I mean by seeing is different from the way Riwin sees me.”

“How so?”

“I see the symbolic shape of things. Shall I give you an example?”

I had been watching her closely as she took out a bundle of flower stems and arranged them in the empty vase on the table, when I stiffened.

At some point, I had begun to feel a gaze on me, as though she were peeling me apart layer by layer.

“Riwin…… looks very peculiar in that regard.”

“……Peculiar?”

“You are prettier than I had heard.”

“……Pardon?”

To think someone who could not see would still try to use beauty against me.

I laughed stupidly out of sheer disbelief, then quietly turned my head away from Ochel’s smiling gaze.

“So people really are saying all kinds of things about me?”

“It was quite the commotion. Ah, if you are curious about anything, you may ask me.”

“Anything?”

“Anything within the range of what I am allowed to answer.”

Having finished everything she brought, Ochel picked up the now-empty bag and said,

“The fact that someone requested an attendant for you means nothing less than that you have been acknowledged to hold that much standing here.”

“Oh…….”

That was welcome news.

I beamed at Ochel and asked,

“When do we eat?”

“……? Ah, pffft. Yes, I will let them know.”

I could still hear Ochel choking back laughter even as she stepped outside.

At last, I was going to eat some proper food like a human being.

---

Even with delicious food set before me—if not exactly the level of a last meal, then still undeniably excellent—I only picked at it while my mind wandered elsewhere.

Ding!

[The reward for the 【Time】 Quest 〈Escape the Execution〉 has been selected.]

The moment I saw the reward notification intrude before I had even tasted the meal laid out for me, my appetite dropped at once.

Tearing a soft piece of bread into little bits, I glared at it.

A third of the time had remained, so perhaps it would give me something useful. At the same time, I had no idea what might appear, so anticipation and unease coexisted in equal measure.

‘What is the point of speculating? I can just open it and see.’

I stuffed the torn bread into my mouth all at once and briskly dusted off my hands.

“Open it.”

The system, somehow understanding me perfectly well, began by setting off what might as well have been fireworks.

Ding!

[Reward will be issued.]

[The fragment 〈Trace Left by the Master of Phantasms〉 has been bound to the Executor.]

[An Auxiliary Fragment cannot manifest independently.]

[Required Item ▶ Travel Log of an Ancient Civilization]

That book.

The very book that had led me all the way here from the Black Forest.

Ochel, who had brought me food, had also returned the confiscated book. Before leaving, she had even joked that it was odd this was the only belonging I had.

“So it was not just a simple notebook after all.”

Since the Contribution had barely changed, I had assumed it was no more than a trivial scrawl.

I hurriedly fetched the book I had tossed carelessly onto the bed and applied the reward.

Master of Phantasms. The wording sounded almost as though it meant the master of the Phantasmal Species, which stirred my curiosity.

The two fragments seemed to merge. The book was wrapped in light, and the pages fluttered open on their own.

The change began at the first page, the section that had been heavily damaged.

The part that had been half torn away and so stained that it was impossible to tell what had been written there slowly began to restore itself.

『 Foreword

It was a youthful act of rebellion from a time when I was still quite weak.

I wrote this in the hope that it might be of help to that child who once comforted me.

Therefore, if by chance you are not that child, I would prefer that you return it to where it belongs.

—Sek— 』

The signature at the end was written in a rather striking sweep.

That last line gave me an unpleasant feeling for no particular reason, and I found myself holding the book at arm’s length between my thumb and forefinger.

The child the book referred to was surely dead by now. The book wore the marks of far too many years for it to be otherwise.

That was why it had been left abandoned in a place like that.

“There is no curse on it…… is there?”

Just in case, I flipped the book this way and that, wondering whether the writer or that child had left some ghostly attachment behind.

In truth, it was nothing more than a book worthy of being called a travel record, filled with impressions of various places and notes on their dangers.

It made no sense for there to be anything more hidden in it.

Bang!

Just as I opened the book again, the door flew open with considerable force.

Pan.

Sweeping in with his usual unchecked momentum, Pan planted a hand on the table and flashed a sly grin.

“What is this?”

“It looks like you are done eating, and I brought the hair dye.”

Jingle, jingle.

The liquid in the little glass bottle looked nothing at all like ordinary hair dye, sparkling as though dusted with glittering powder.

Apparently this place was some kind of pristine alchemical region without any such thing as chemical products.

“And just how are you planning to dye my hair with tha—hey!”

With a clear little sound, Pan uncorked the bottle and poured it straight over my head.

Startled, I leapt to my feet and frantically shook out my hair with my hands, but whatever sort of potion it was, nothing stained my fingers at all.

“I made it specially, you know. If that is your reaction, it almost makes me wonder whether I should not have bothered.”

“At least warn a person first, would you?”

I looked around desperately for a mirror.

I was the one who had to walk around wearing this hair. Was it not a bit much to pour something over me without even asking my preference?

“The mirror is here.”

He had apparently brought one with him in advance. I snatched up the small hand mirror he held out and thrust my face toward it.

“If you wait a moment, it will be done. Do not make such a fuss.”

The me inside the mirror was glaring back with every possible expression of displeasure.

Seeing myself clearly in a proper mirror for the first time in a long while, I had the strange sensation of looking like myself and not myself at the same time. I could not tell whether it was because my hair was gradually changing color or because of the picture-bright yellow irises I was seeing.

“……?”

I blinked several times before belatedly realizing what was wrong with my eyes, and then I stared.

The pupils shifting there were undeniably mine.

This face was clearly mine.

Everything about me was still mine.

‘What are you?’

Those gleaming eyes were not mine.

The vivid yellow irises in the wide-open eyes shimmered brightly in a way that left me stunned.

They were no different from the eyes of some beast—a tiger, or a lion, perhaps.

“Riwin?”

Whether he called me or not, I was too distracted to answer.

I pressed at my eyelids a few times, then pulled one open with my fingers to stare harder.

Could only my eyes fail to be mine? Had this happened because I interfered with the Original Work? Had I once put in colored lenses and somehow forgotten? Thought after thought flashed through me.

That was why Hwipone, and the rulers too, had all been unable to determine with certainty whether I was Underfolk or not.

These golden eyes were not a trait of the Underfolk.

So then why—

‘Did I save my life with something that was never mine to begin with?’

I rolled my eyes about, wondering whether perhaps it was a side effect of the medicine Pan had given me. The way my hair was even now changing by the second made me wonder whether he had done something to my eyes as well.

“Iwon!”

I snapped back to myself at the voice calling from right beside me, just before I could poke a finger into my own eye from sheer horror.

“Ah.”

Pan took the mirror from my hand.

My stunned thoughts failed to catch up. My eyes followed the mirror away for a moment, then came back to rest where they belonged.

“If you intended to blind yourself, I would not have stopped you, but what exactly is the problem?”

“I was wondering whether a drug might abnormally alter melanin pigment or something like that.”

“……I have no idea what that means. Whatever it is, do you really think my medicine would have side effects?”

Hmm. Then what was the problem?

“There would be plenty of people who would do anything to have golden eyes. You may be the only one dissatisfied to this degree.”

“Are they rare?”

“Extremely.”

“And if people want them, that means they are desirable?”

Hair that belonged to the loathsome Underfolk, but eyes valuable enough to be coveted like a rare treasure.

I looked as though I might be some kind of half-blood.

If I combined things cleverly enough, maybe this could turn out to be useful.

I could figure out later why the color of my irises had changed. Since it had already happened, I might as well make the best use of it.

I took the mirror back from Pan and checked my hair from several angles as the dyeing neared completion.

The way the color spread slowly down from the roots felt genuinely magical, and I found myself curious about the principle behind it.

There was none of the sharp, chemical smell peculiar to hair dye either, which meant that, just as Pan had said, it did not even look harsh enough to cause side effects.

“There is something I want to ask.”

I confirmed that the tips of my hair had finally turned completely ashen and lowered the mirror.

“Why are you so favorable toward me?”

“Favorable?”

“You saved me back then, and you keep doing things like this for me.”

Even Pering kept his distance and remained convinced I was Underfolk.

Pan was different.

He had not helped me because I was not Underfolk. He had helped me because he knew me.

That difference showed clearly enough in the way he treated me.

Pan had been testing me the entire time.

Whether I truly was the Underfolk person he knew, or not.

Even the feeling that he had genuinely intended to kill me at the execution ground had been part of that same process.

Outwardly, I was clearly the A that he knew, yet he kept weighing things against one another by attaching reasons such as my changed temperament or the color of my irises.

And the fact that I was still sitting here instead of falling into those traps meant—

Pan was smiling his usual sly smile with his chin propped on one hand, but his eyes were sharp.

Pan was easy to read whenever the topic touched on my past. He always reacted more sensitively then.

“Is it not time you told me?”

“Told you what?”

Satisfied enough with the hair color I had never even dared to try in my previous life, I gave it a few more shakes, then leaned my upper body against the table.

“How you know me.”

One corner of Pan’s mouth twitched.

“I know someone with a rotten personality who looks just like you.”

I had already reached the conclusion long ago that the rotten person in question was me.

To begin with, he had already said he knew me. And by now, the matter had been settled by the simple fact that I had safely passed all his tests and was receiving his favor freely.

“Hmmm.”

Still smiling slyly, Pan ran a hand through his hair and tousled it back.

“So you really were anxious. Bristling all over and acting like some beast desperate to seize even me.”

Mm. Quick-witted too, I see.