The Monster's True Name

"Bleeegh—"

In the end I couldn't hold it back. I emptied everything I had onto the floor.

Ah... you've gotta be kidding me.

I hadn't even had time to make it to the bathroom. The dizziness and the nausea had slammed into me in the space of a blink. I looked down at the floor, wretchedly fouled with what I'd brought up.

"Hah... how long is this gonna take to clean?"

I genuinely hadn't expected a side effect like this when I used the ability. If I'd known I was going to throw up, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I would have at least put something next to me. I let out a long sigh and cleaned up the evidence as fast as I could.

"Ugh... this feels disgusting."

My mouth was thick and sour, and a rank smell clung to my body. I headed for the bathroom to take a shower—and ran straight into a problem.

"Uh..."

A stranger's body. A woman's body, one I had never seen in my life. The skin was white as polished jade, not a hint of extra flesh anywhere, not even the stretch marks that come with growing up.

I let the clothes slide off, and the mirror offered up a lovely, naked figure. I stared at it, briefly emptied of thought. No matter how I looked, everything from the figure to the face was beyond human.

This is actually me? This pretty?

I had turned into a woman, yes—but I was this beautiful, and a smug little sense of superiority crept in whether I wanted it or not. Maybe being this beautiful as a woman was better than looking like an ordinary guy. I let the thought sit for a moment, then finished the shower in a hurry.

"Phew..."

I changed into the smallest thing I owned, shook the water out of my hair, and sank onto the bed. They say you'll go bald if you don't dry your hair properly, but that didn't apply to me—not with the Blessing of Immunity. I was invincible when it came to disease. Hair loss didn't scare me anymore.

"Honestly, laziness is part of it too."

The hair was long. Too long. It fell all the way to my waist—when was I supposed to find the time to dry all of this? I looked out the open window again, this time without using the ability.

"Is it going to be like this every time I use it?"

If it was, I was in serious trouble. Throwing up every single time I used the ability? I couldn't exactly walk around with a bucket. No—should I start carrying plastic bags?

Anyway.

"For now... let's take a look at the rest of it."

Divine Eyes could do more than see the future. There was See-Through, and something like a camera zoom—the ability to magnify things far away.

Please don't tell me See-Through comes with some weird feeling too...

Foresight had already burned me once, and I was feeling a little gun-shy. Just in case, I set a basin beside me, then activated See-Through.

And then—

"Huh? What's that?"

I'd expected See-Through to work the way the name sounded: clothes turning transparent, or maybe something deeper, bones and organs like a CT scan. What actually appeared in front of me were status-window-like UIs, drifting in the air beside people. And on those UIs:

Names. At a glance, they were people's names.

Why are names showing up?

There was even one floating next to a dog: Poppy. I thought back to the skill window I'd seen before.

So this is what it means by seeing their essence?

Ask someone what a person's essence is, and a name isn't exactly the wrong answer. From the skill description alone, I'd expected it to show hidden thoughts, secret intentions—something like that. Using it for real was nothing like what I'd imagined.

"Okay, so See-Through works."

The moment I used it, the outer walls of the building went transparent, and I could see everything the people inside were doing. It felt a little like committing a crime, but I wasn't using it with any malice.

While I was at it, I tried the farsight as well, stacking it on top so I could look at things farther out.

"Whoa! That's insane!"

The image blew up so sharp and clean that a high-end telephoto camera could pack it in. No side effects like the ones that came with seeing the future, either. I figured I might as well get used to the ability, and widened the range.

"Uh...?"

Heat surged through my head—my brain, specifically. A sizzle, like meat on a grill, rang in my ears as a hallucination, and it felt as if my brain were cooking. An instinctive sense of crisis hit me: if I kept using it like this, my brain would go soft. I cut the ability off at once.

"I almost fucking died..."

I'd come within a hair of curing cancer and turning into a vegetable in the same afternoon.

"Seriously? Every single ability has a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠penalty?!"

Even so, I couldn't really hold a grudge. I had died and come back, hadn't I? I'd awakened on top of that. Thanks to the Blessing of Immunity, I would never have to worry about getting sick for the rest of my life. All I had to do was make a decent living and enjoy a long, healthy one. The abilities would be fine as long as I didn't push them. And the dizziness—if I took it slow and mastered them, it would get better, wouldn't it?

I chose to think positively, and closed the window I'd left open. Maybe the problem was a mere human body trying to reproduce the power of a god. It was called Divine Eyes for a reason—the eyes of a god.

"Anyway, I think I've checked the abilities well enough... so now what?"

I'd originally planned to go to the Tower, then passed because I had zero combat ability. Association registration was on hold for a handful of reasons of its own. Even if I'd wanted to register today, it was the weekend, and they weren't working. Civil servants, the lot of them.

"Hmm... maybe I'll just play some games?"

I could get used to the abilities over time, and I could register with the Association later, when I actually needed to. I shoved the messy complications aside, sat down at the desk, and booted up the card game I always played.

Wait. If I use Foresight, doesn't that mean I can play while watching every card the other person is about to put down?

The thought became reality in an instant.

"Holy shit, I can see every card they're about to play?!"

You had to play a card within a five-second time limit, but even so, this was a cheat ability and then some. Practice the ability, enjoy the game. Two birds, one stone—this is what that phrase was made for. And unlike when I'd looked outside earlier, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠motion sickness wasn't nearly as bad. A little dizzy, sure, but this much I could handle.

I went on a deranged winning streak and enjoyed every second of it. Of course, this being an RNG dumpster fire of a game, knowing what they'd play didn't save me when they high-rolled. Even so, I posted a ninety percent win rate, a run that bordered on the absurd.

"Hell yeah! Maybe I should go pro?"

But this being an RNG dumpster fire of a game, the pro league had vanished a long time ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ago. There was a time people mocked it with, This game has a pro league? Then where's the pro league for horse racing?

Anyway. I'd had my fun with the game. I was just about to slip into bed when it hit me.

"Come to think of it, that place exists."

The Ancient Civ Gallery, I mean. And no, not a torture forum—it's short for Ancient Civilization Gallery. A place where people held heated debates about ancient civilizations. I'd never been all that interested, but one thing I wanted to check had just occurred to me.

The ancient script.

Letters that looked like the Unown from Pokémon, all tangled up together. No one had ever deciphered them. But I could, couldn't I? The skill window had clearly said I could read and interpret every form of writing.

"Let's take a look."

Strike while the iron's hot. I turned on my phone then and there and opened the Ancient Civ Gallery. Lying in bed, I scrolled through the featured posts and found a thread on the ancient script with no trouble at all. It was something like an old mural, packed with writing I'd never seen before—and thanks to the skill, I understood every word of it at once.

The surprising part was this.

"Is this... for real?"

The contents were about the Tower.

That was the whole of it.

I looked into why anything about the Tower would be written there, and it turned out the mural had been found in a Tower hidden stage. Someone had posted it while clearing the place; it had spread and spread until it washed up in the Ancient Civ Gallery. Checking the source, it really did look like it had been uploaded by an active Hunter.

If this was true...

"I could actually climb the Tower, couldn't I?"

And I wouldn't even have to fight. I'd just go up, check the True Name, say Die, and the monsters would kill themselves. Some people have to bark out a command word and take a hit of pain every time they speak. If this was real, there was none of that.

"They don't make a click this click."

I searched to see if there were any more Tower-related murals. Unfortunately, this was the first and the last.

"Should I try the Tower tomorrow?"

I could go in on Easy, as a test. I had to be careful—there was always a chance the True Names wouldn't take.

But what if they don't work?

Easy difficulty spat out three goblins. If the True Names failed, I'd be fighting goblins with my bare hands. Even with Foresight, one-versus-three was a lot to ask. The whole reason I'd been reluctant to go to the Tower in the first place was that I didn't have the confidence.

"Hmm..."

I didn't want to gamble on something I wasn't sure of. The credibility was very high, that much was true—but blindly trusting it was another matter. I turned it over for a long time, weighing it against the original plan.

Register with the Association the safe way, and live off using the ability. Or, if it worked: an instant-kill cheat, a click, and a speedrun up the Tower.

The first would be a decent life—if the Association believed my body had changed. If they didn't... I'd be in serious trouble. The second had no identity problem at all, but a nonzero chance of dying. But if it worked? I could rake in a fortune so massive that winning the lottery a hundred times would feel like pocket change.

There was some risk. The return was enormous.

"Let's do this."

After all that turning it over, I decided to go to the Tower. If I fought while watching the future, I should be able to dodge attacks too, and it wasn't as if I were going in on Hard. It was Easy. If the True Names didn't take it would be dangerous, sure—but I'd see every attack coming. I could put up a fight.

Which meant what I had to do right now was this.

First, do something about this motion sickness.

Hellish training. Before that—

Sleep first.

It was late. Training could wait until tomorrow morning. I turned off my phone, stretched out on the bed, and tried to sleep.

The next morning.

"Haaaaawn..."

I ate a simple breakfast and went straight into training. With a basin at my side, of course.

"Hah... I really don't want to do this."

Throwing up every time I trained. I'd rather go on a ruck march.

First, let's try to keep the vomiting from happening at all.

The first time I'd used the ability, I'd looked at too much. It had been fine when I used it while gaming, so if I narrowed my field of view, the dizziness should ease off too. If I adapted like that, bit by bit, I was sure that someday I'd be able to use it the way I breathed.

Because that was just how it went in manga for kids with eyes like these. They struggle at first, then they practice, and they adapt in no time. And even if it didn't work out that neatly, I could feel it in my body. I'd used it over and over yesterday, and I had definitely gotten used to it.

I opened the window and looked outside. Narrowing my field of view and watching the future, the dizziness was clearly milder. In between, I stacked the other abilities as well, checking when the brain-overheat kicked in. With See-Through, I could look as deep as I wanted, names and all. When I used the zoom at the same time, as long as I didn't look too far, my brain didn't feel like it was cooking.

I practiced like that for a good long while. Around the time the morning meal had worn off, I closed the window and called it.

"Ugh, I'm exhausted."

I collapsed onto the bed with a groan that belonged at a funeral. Makes sense, after staring in concentration for hours. Still, I'd adapted quite a bit. Too much information still brought on a motion-sickness feeling, but not enough to make me throw up.

"Might as well look up some Tower info in advance."

I knew three goblins came out on the first floor. I didn't know the terrain, or what weapons they carried. I opened YouTube and started looking up first-floor clear videos, and a thought brushed through my head.

What if the True Names show up from a video alone?

If I could confirm a True Name without seeing the real thing, I wouldn't have any reason left to be afraid. If they showed up on video, then they would definitely show up when I saw one in person.

I put the thought into action at once. I hit play on the video at the top of the list, and a dark cave filled the screen. From a bodycam point of view, the monsters' True Names were floating in blue windows.

"It actually shows up?"

According to the mural, the structure wasn't something a human could pronounce. As a test, I tried saying it exactly as it was.

"Kuhaa—z."

Bizarre syllables I had never heard in my life spilled from my mouth.