11. Eye of Awakening
The next morning.
Sian opened the door with more caution than he had ever exercised in his life.
Fresh air drifted into the house as the door swung wide.
And then—
“Phew.”
Confirming that no one was standing in front of his house, Sian let out a sigh of relief. Merely recalling yesterday's events was enough to make his head throb—and beyond the headache, a wave of sheer indignation washed over him.
“Seriously, since when is it normal to take a story I made up to entertain some kids at face value?”
By any reasonable standard, shouldn't a lie be recognized as a lie?
He couldn't even begin to guess where, or in what form, the misunderstanding had taken root.
Well, I did manage to send them off somehow….
But it was far too early to relax completely.
Selene hadn't left the village yet.
After displaying an obsession laced with outright madness, there was no way she'd leave easily. According to the villagers, she had apparently decided to borrow the chief's house for the time being and live there.
As a result, the chief was currently crashing at someone else's place.
Can't say I don't feel bad for him, but what can you do.
If they'd told a count's daughter to make do with some rundown hovel, that maid of hers would have flown into a rage, filed a complaint with the Count, and the entire village might have vanished overnight without a trace. The chief had no choice but to show every courtesy he could muster.
He'd come to Sian's house the previous evening, begging him to do something—anything.
And what exactly am I supposed to do about it?
Telling her to go home wouldn't accomplish a thing; she'd never listen. Unless she gave up on her own, she was never going to leave.
The one silver lining was that he'd given Selene an impossible task.
Just don't go succeeding at it in some bizarre way, like Tiana did.
After his self-proclaimed disciple Tiana had left, Sian had turned the matter over in his mind again and again, trying to figure out what on earth had happened. And in the end, he'd arrived at a single conclusion.
Tiana just had a shitload of talent, that's all!
In truth, Tiana's Grateful Sword Draw had no special law or principle behind it beyond being “faster than sound.” It wasn't as though some bodhisattva had appeared behind her, sword in hand, swinging it for her.
Even though she always pressed her palms together like she was praying….
Honestly, she could have cut faster than sound without any of that. It was the desperation in her heart that had pushed her past her limits—not anything Sian had done.
That was precisely why, this time, he'd handed over a problem that should have been absolutely impossible to solve.
An eye that reads the flow of mana and lets you cast any spell you've seen once?
Where in the world would such an eye exist?
And even if it did exist, you'd be born with it from the start.
No matter how prodigious one's talent, this was a realm that talent alone could never reach. There was no way she could achieve it.
And yet—
…She can't, right?
For reasons he couldn't quite name, Sian felt a chill of foreboding.
At the edge of the village, in a secluded clearing deep within the forest.
Selene sat utterly motionless. Around her, portions of a magic circle traced in intricate patterns lay etched into the ground, and half-read scrolls were strewn about in disarray. Her blue eyes were shut fast, but her brow was knotted in a deep frown, and cold sweat beaded across her forehead.
Her lips trembled, and the mana swirling through her entire body surged with alarming instability. But soon enough, the roiling mana settled and quieted, and she let out a soft, weary sigh.
“Have you made any progress, my lady?”
Estelle, who had been watching from nearby, approached and offered her a towel.
“……”
Selene accepted it without a word.
Estelle knew what that silence meant—no progress whatsoever—and out of consideration for her mistress's mood, she asked nothing further. Her fiercely proud mistress could barely bring herself to admit failure in the first place.
But still….
Genius or not, this was bound to be a struggle for Selene. An eye that could copy any spell after seeing it cast just once. Estelle had never even heard of such a thing existing.
And she doesn't even know the conditions for awakening it, let alone the method.
Estelle had watched over Selene since childhood. Her mistress had always made the seemingly impossible possible, and so Estelle had never once doubted that Selene would succeed here too—but this time, even she couldn't help but feel pessimistic.
“My lady, this is surely—”
“Estelle.”
“……”
Before she could say it was impossible, that they needed more information, Selene cut her off.
Estelle had lost count of how many times this same exchange had repeated itself since yesterday.
Selene had declared, “The Transcendent One said that our founder, Aman, awakened on his own. Then I, too, must do it alone and prove myself.” With those words, she forbade any and all assistance.
Estelle had intended to contact the family—not to verify the claim, but simply to ask them to dig up any records on the matter—but even that was blocked. Confronted with her mistress's iron will to awaken through her own strength alone, Estelle could no longer find the words to object.
“Phew.”
Estelle sighed deeply.
Truthfully, part of her still wondered whether Selene was being deceived by this Sian person. But her mistress was not a woman who dismissed even a single word lightly. If Selene held such conviction, then it had to be true. However much she herself couldn't accept it, she had no choice but to acknowledge that.
“……”
Once more, Selene closed her eyes.
She marshaled every scrap of knowledge she possessed, searching for a path to awaken the Magic Wheel Eye. And what she had settled on was an ancient and dangerous secret art of mental resonance—reckless, but by her judgment, the one bearing the greatest promise.
“Nngh…!”
Needless to say, it was not going smoothly.
With every attempt, unfathomable chaos and vast torrents of information flooded into her mind. The harder she tried to focus, the more violently her mana raged.
…Something's missing.
She knew something was lacking. She simply couldn't identify what. She felt that if she could push just a little further, she might reach it—but an impossibly vast wall stood before her, and she could not advance.
So I… have no talent?
That she, who had lived her entire life as a genius, was nothing more than a common frog at the bottom of a well—she could never, ever accept that.
“No. That's impossible.”
As she muttered the words to herself, her mind turned to her family's secret research—the Seals.
Though she had told no one in the family, Selene had reached a certain conclusion during her research into the Seals, and from it, she had constructed a hypothesis.
She had never put it to the test. Not yet.
What if….
What if she used a Seal first?
The Transcendent One had said the eye must come first. But with no method in sight, she had arrived at a different answer: try the Seal first.
If it's me….
If it were her, it would be possible.
And with that thought—
That arrogant madness was already spiraling within Selene, churning so violently that no observer—not even Estelle standing beside her—could have failed to notice it. Selene, as if possessed, interlaced her fingers and traced the shape in the air.
Specifically, the restored form of the 'Seal' as she had decoded it.
She activated it.
“……”
Nothing happened.
Failure, then. She was just sinking into disappointment when—
Crack.
A sound, as of something splitting apart.
The empty air before Selene had fractured.
Before she could even grasp what it was—
KUOOOOOOO—!
A colossal surge of mana began to whirl. Standing directly in the path of that storm, Selene felt a pressure so crushing she could scarcely breathe.
What in the world….
What was the thing now crawling out of that fracture?
As Selene stood frozen in fear that transcended all comprehension—
“My lady!”
Estelle, who had been watching, dashed over in a single breath to shield her mistress. But—
KWAAAAAAA!!
“Hghk?!”
The storm howled and hurled her aside. Do not interfere—as if the fracture itself possessed a will.
It doesn't just seem like it has one.
She could feel it: a gaze, glaring at her from within the fracture—possessed of will, unmistakably.
Estelle gritted her teeth against it with superhuman willpower, struggling desperately to rise.
“My… lady. Run….”
And then she collapsed, unconscious.
Only then did Selene come back to her senses, whirling toward Estelle.
“R-run…!”
She had to. She tried to say it—but she could not leave Estelle behind. If things went on like this, it would not only be the two of them; whatever lurked behind that fracture would bring ruin upon the entire village as well.
No—the Transcendent One is in the village.
Then there was only one thing left for her to do.
Save Estelle, if nothing else. It was her own arrogance that had caused this mistake. If a life had to be paid, hers alone would suffice. She would not drag Estelle down with her.
She moved to cast a spell—
“My magic….”
It would not activate.
Her mana was warping in strange, perverse ways. As if the space itself had been seized and claimed.
The cause is—
The fracture before her eyes.
There was nothing else it could be.
CRACK-CRACK!
The fracture widened further, and the pressure grew heavier still—so heavy she half-feared she would be crushed to death by the mana alone.
Some way to send Estelle to safety, even now. There was only one.
I have to awaken the eye. Right now.
Of course, it was nowhere near as simple as it sounded. She had exhausted every avenue already without grasping so much as a thread. But then Selene remembered what Sian had said.
If you wish to learn from me, you must first awaken the 'eye.'
Come to think of it, that was a strange thing to say. If there had been no possibility in her at all, he would simply have called it impossible—an eye was not the sort of thing that could be awakened in the first place. He could have driven her out and ignored her entirely.
But he didn't say that.
Which meant it wasn't “I cannot teach you”—it was “pass the test.”
If her guess was correct—
I can awaken it…!
Her talent—no. Not her talent. Trust in the Transcendent One's words: that possibility existed within her. Even if it cost her her life.
She quietly closed her eyes.
CRRRRACK!
Shards began raining from the fracture in the air, and part of what lay within was revealed. A colossal eye was watching Selene through the broken seam.
A voice spoke from somewhere—but garbled with static, hissing and crackling, incomprehensible. And the moment that rolled, brimming pupil fixed its gaze directly upon her, the storm of mana came howling down upon her like an avalanche.
And then—
“……!”
KWAAAAAAAAAANG!!
The razor edge of the storm carved the entire clearing to ribbons. Any human form caught within it should have been torn apart without a trace.
And yet, from within the cloud of dust and earth kicked up by the blast—
“Phew….”
Selene's voice drifted out.
The eye that had been surveying its surroundings from within the fracture turned toward the sound. Slowly, the dust began to settle.
There, at its very center, Selene stood unscathed.
Across both of her eyes spread a crimson stain, dark as shadow—and within it, black jade-like forms revolved in a slow, eternal circle.
As though touching a priceless treasure, she raised a hand and brushed her fingertips against the corner of her eye.
“This is… the eye that reads mana. The Magic Wheel Eye.”
Selene Vesperia—eyes awakened.