You've Opened Your Eyes
You've opened your eyes.
How was I even supposed to describe what was happening right now?
Something so thoroughly absurd was unfolding that I couldn't begin to figure out where to start or how to handle it.
"W-we should deal with that sword first, somehow."
The sword Albedo had handed over to me. From the moment it shoved aside Sayulcheon's touch, I'd already guessed it was no ordinary blade—but I never once imagined it would thrash around like that.
Of course I hadn't. I'd never heard of anything like it, never seen anything like it. As far as I knew, things like ego swords simply did not exist in this world.
"That thing. It's your sword, right?"
"Yeah?"
"…Can you grab it?"
Jerie's question cut sharp. I glanced away without meaning to, and she let out a pained groan as she drew up her mana.
Tree trunks erupted from every direction and shot toward the sword all at once. Even at a glance, they were packed with a massive amount of Jerie's mana—solid enough to mean serious business.
But then—
"Where the hell did you even get that thing? Fine, a living sword I can almost swallow, but those lightning-bolt attacks make it impossible to bring down."
The trunks slammed into the power the sword was pouring out, got carved down bit by bit, and finally collapsed into nothing more than skinny dead twigs.
"Right. Let's calm that sword down first, then talk."
I cleared my throat and launched myself forward. Partly because answering Jerie's grumbling was awkward—but mostly because she was right. That blade needed settling, now.
Jerie huffed a soft sigh and glared at me with a sulky look. I ignored it the best I could and gathered the Ether around me.
KRRRAK!
Stone ground and split with a cracking roar as the earth under my feet surged upward toward the sword. I'd never learned any fancy midair flight techniques, so this was the best way I had to reach a blade floating in the sky.
And then something genuinely surprising happened.
"Huh?"
The sword abruptly changed course midair and came streaking straight at me.
Are you kidding me—what is that thing doing?
The one silver lining was that the hilt, not the edge, was pointed my way. I poured every last scrap of mana left in my body into reinforcing myself and clamped down hard on the flying sword's grip.
"Got it! Miss Jerie!"
The moment it hit my hand, the sword went as quiet as if the whole rampage had never happened. I still had no idea why it was behaving like this, but I called the situation out to Jerie, who still had her tree-trunk volleys ready to fire at a moment's notice.
"So… what about your house?"
I returned the earth I'd transmuted for the climb back to normal and dropped down beside her. She jerked her chin toward my place. I followed her gesture.
There, looking like someone had dropped a bomb on it, lay the wreckage of what used to be my house. A few familiar-looking pillars still standing here and there were the only things left that even suggested the pile of rubble had once been a home.
"Wow. It really got obliterated."
Jerie's head snapped toward me. Her half-lidded purple eyes said, clear as day: How are you being that casual about this?
"Come on, who do you think I am? Something like that, I can just fix with alchemy."
I walked toward the rubble, gathering Ether as I went, and spread a considerable amount of it evenly across the entire wreckage.
"Watch closely."
In a single instant the debris pile dissolved and vanished, and the house rebuilt itself as if someone had tapped a button in a game and dropped a structure into place. Foundation, pillars, floor, walls, windows, ceiling—and every other fixture and feature—reclaimed their old shapes one after another. The house that had been nothing but dust and collapse finally stood clean again, as if nothing had ever happened.
Leaving Jerie staring after me in pure disbelief, I opened the front door and waved her in.
"Come on in. I'll explain a few things about this sword, too."
Once we were inside, I shoved Jerie into the bathroom first and went back to my room alone. I fully intended to explain—but I needed a minute to get my own head in order first. I was still rattled myself.
Thankfully, she must have been worn out from sparring with the sword, because she went into the bathroom without a fight.
This damn crazy blade…
I glared at the sword I'd been gripping tight in case it decided to fly off again. The voice that had been ringing in my head ever since I first caught it mid-rampage answered immediately.
The voice had felt oddly familiar, and no wonder—it was extremely close to Albedo's. I'd missed it at first because of how harsh and piercing it was, but yes. This was Albedo's voice.
But… why?
Never mind the fact that this lunatic sword had a will of its own—why was it screaming in Albedo's voice?
"Care to explain yourself?"
I had no idea how you were supposed to talk to a sword, so I just addressed it as flatly as I could. Whether that was the right call or not, the blade that had been thrashing and shrieking alone finally seemed to settle enough to answer.
It was Albedo's voice—and absolutely nothing else about it was Albedo. How to put it? Like some street thug or school delinquent wearing Albedo's vocal cords. And it wasn't coming through my ears so much as speaking straight into my mind.
I turned the sword over in my hands, looking for any sign of magic or sorcery. Outwardly, there was nothing special about it.
"You know me?"
My head tilted in genuine confusion. If I'd been looking in a mirror, my face would probably have been scrunched up a little. The only people who knew I'd named Albedo were me and Albedo herself.
Inside Albedo?
When I pressed for a better explanation, the something wearing Albedo's voice snorted.
"No. Who exactly are you?"
It felt like the conversation kept looping back to square one. All this circling and zero real answers—my irritation was starting to climb. Maybe locking it in a closet would knock some sense into it. The thought crossed my mind, then died. It would just break out and trash the house again.
I was still wondering whether it had any intention of identifying itself when—
I held my breath and focused. Whatever this was wore Albedo's voice and was not Albedo. On top of that, it had been inside her until it was shoved into the sword—so of course I wanted to know what it actually was.
I swallowed hard. And in Albedo's voice, it spoke its name.
"…?!"
I sucked in a sharp, startled breath. The presence inside the sword said its name in a voice so casually flat it might have been stating the weather. But that name was not one you tossed around lightly.
It was the dragon that had finished off the already-doomed Destroyed Kingdom for good—the worst calamity-beast to ever threaten the entire continent.
The star that had fallen to Sayulcheon's hand years ago was sitting in my palm right now.
That was what the presence in the sword—Antares—was whispering to me.
The sky over the Destroyed Kingdom was wrong. Color, currents, every phenomenon—none of it belonged to an ordinary heaven.
"…!"
And deep within that place, beneath the harshest and most twisted stretch of sky, a girl stood alone. She looked up, a faint smile on her lips, and let out a soft, hazy sound of wonder.
"You've opened your eyes."
Swirling cloud and Ether came riding the wind. For an ordinary human, that environment would have stripped flesh from bone and flung the pieces into the distance in a heartbeat. To the girl, it was no real threat at all. If anything, the storm seemed to flinch from her—bending and warping strangely as it slid around her body.
"At last."
Pure white hair, long enough to reach the small of her back, stirred in the wind. Crimson eyes caught a star shining beyond the violet sky, and her senses stretched out to feel something that had just happened in a place far, far away.
"…Seojun."
She thought of the first friend she had ever made—the man who had simply shown her kindness in this brutal world. Being with him had been nothing but joy. Even when he left, he had comforted her. And she repeated the name he had given her under her breath.
"Mm…"
Albedo found a suitable rock, sat down, and carefully slid the pack off her back onto her knees. With delicate care, as if afraid of getting even a speck of dust on it, she opened the bag and took out what was inside.
"Almost gone."
Looking at the dwindling rations, Albedo smiled. The contingency she had left behind had opened its eyes—which meant the time of their reunion was not far off.
She slung the pack over her shoulder again and swept a hand through the air. The motion looked like nothing more than a simple knife-hand strike—but the Ether Storm rolling toward her split apart and scattered under that single blow.
"Soon. We'll be able to meet again."
So saying, Albedo started walking. Moving with a lightness a little brighter than usual, the corner of her mouth was unmistakably drawn into a soft, gentle curve.