Dark Fantasy: Magical Eye Knight – Chapter 79

Chapter 79: Spring Rain (1)

TL: Potato-tan

Proofreader: Asianpotato

 

‘Unbelievable’. Russell rubbed his eyes. It was something he had never done in his life.

 

A girl was standing in front of him. No, maybe she was looking down on him. Or maybe he was looking up at her.

 

In a dimension where gravity didn’t exist, it was natural to lose a sense of direction and space. But Russell was more shocked by the girl than anything else.

 

He couldn’t see the girl’s face, even though she was standing right in front of him. The contours of her body were the same.

 

The girl’s body faded into the darkness like ink seeping into water. Yet, she continued to exist in that space.

 

Russell tried to see the girl’s face with shaking eyes.

 

Although she clearly had eyes, a nose, and a mouth, her face was blurry. The blurriness was both unfamiliar and familiar to him.

 

The unfamiliar yet familiar sense of blurriness evoked a longing for his past life.

 

In his past life, he had poor eyesight. He was nearsighted, with a prescription of -8 to -9. The glasses he had worn since elementary school had only gotten thicker, never thinner.

 

The only way to restore his lost vision was through artificial surgery, but he didn’t have the money for it.

 

For him, glasses were a window to a clear world. Without them, he could only see blurs, haziness, light confusion, and indistinct objects.

 

Humans rely on their sense of sight for more than 80% of their perception. Seeing is an indispensable and essential part of living. Most people would likely choose to give up a sense other than sight if given the choice.

 

Russell’s eyes now had a performance level that was incomparable to his previous ones. Not only could he see things more clearly, but he could also see things that were invisible or shouldn’t be visible.

 

For example, he could see the inside of people’s skin. Seeing not only the outside but also the inside of people was a great obstacle in his daily life.

 

The shape of their bones and skin, along with the arrangement of their facial features, determined whether a person was beautiful or ugly. But what if he could see not only their appearance, but also their bones, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and wriggling internal organs?

 

If he hadn’t had the calmness and composure he had since birth, as well as the knowledge from his past life, he might have gone mad.

 

The family worried about the young master, who didn’t even want to face them, but he was more relieved that people couldn’t see him.

 

The stress of constantly seeing people’s muscular structure and nerve distribution, their ceaselessly wriggling internal organs and lungs, and their beating hearts.

 

It was really hard to live from the moment he opened his eyes to the moment he closed them, seeing ordinary people’s naked insides. No, even when he closed his eyes, he had to see the red blood vessels in his eyelids, as well as the ceiling and sky beyond.

 

Behind Russell’s sense of mana, which he had acquired at an astonishingly young age, surprising even his father, mother, and other family members, was his fierce effort to have normal eyesight and a comfortable sleep.

 

When he awakened a new sense called mana and, through that sense, received mana, converted it into magic power, and then applied it to his eyes, Russell was finally able to obtain the normal eyesight that ordinary people had on a daily basis.

 

Even so, if he concentrated a little, he could see the individual strands of a bee’s wings, and he could guess the curvature, shape, and force of the raindrops as they fell and spread out brilliantly when they hit something.

 

In any case, not having to see the mysteries of the human body was a great relief for Russell. He didn’t have to avoid people, and he could sleep well.

 

In addition to his extraordinary clairvoyant abilities, the flow of mana in the atmosphere, earth, animals, and plants was also a tiring visual assault on Russell. Russell didn’t need to mention the souls of vengeful spirits or the spirits of the dead.

 

He had seen all of those things, and now he had consciously blocked them out.

 

He couldn’t see the girl’s face. He could see it, but he couldn’t recognize it.

 

Russell tried to ‘open’ his eyes. It was impossible. His ‘eyes’ were already open. He tried his best to stay focused and look at the girl.

 

The girl smiled brightly—or at least he thought she did—and silently watched Russell try to see her.

 

The blurry facial features gradually became clearer. However, as the shape of her face became clearer, the other things became blurrier in contrast. Even so, Russell couldn’t stop looking at the girl’s face.

 

It felt as organic as a waterfall cascading down or a wind-borne leaf ascending into the sky. He had to meet this girl.

 

Russell suddenly felt his cheeks get wet.

 

In the darkness, a thick, heavy liquid with a different texture from water flowed down his cheeks, and he couldn’t even see his own hands. There was blood.

 

His heart pounded. Did I have a heart? He could feel the pounding in his chest for the first time.

 

The muscles in his limbs tightened, and he gasped for breath. Sweat poured out of every pore in his body. Despite his drenched state, he showed no concern.

 

And finally, Russell succeeded in seeing the girl’s face. White skin and delicate facial features. When she got older, she would definitely be beautiful enough to make many men turn their heads.

 

However, there was a major flaw in her beauty. The girl’s eye sockets were empty. There was only pitch-black darkness.

 

The darkness suddenly changed shape. It was something with countless appendages. darkness like a bubbling swamp. The eyes of a shadow that swallowed countless stars and wailed were there.

 

As Russell raised his head, it grew larger and larger. Russell said,

 

“Is this what I’m looking at, you?”

 

The darkness said,

 

“You haven’t seen me yet. Well, it doesn’t seem like you will.”

 

“Yes?”

 

At that moment, Russell felt a wave of nausea rising from within him, and he couldn’t hold it back. Russell bent over and vomited blood mixed with vomit.

 

But it wasn’t painful. Instead, he felt refreshed, and at the same time, Russell realized that the blood flowing from his eyes had stopped. His sweat-soaked body was also clean.

 

His pounding heart calmed down, and the muscles that had been so tense and cramped relaxed.

 

“I removed the poison from your body.”

 

“Poison?”

 

“The one from the child you battled. It’s a traditional method. Absorption into your blood would eventually cause it to disappear, but the process wouldn’t have been quick. You would have gotten even faster, but for a while, you would have only been able to eat blood. You wouldn’t have wanted that, would you?”

 

Russell realized that the darkness had helped him. And again, the darkness had become the blurry girl.

 

She was hard to see clearly. Like astigmatism. He could definitely see something floating in one part of his field of vision, but when he tried to shift his focus to see it in detail, it would quickly become blurry and hard to see.

 

“. . . . . .Who are you?”

 

He didn’t dare to speak informally. It was incomprehensible. A being that Russell couldn’t even guess at with his eyes was right in front of him. Two contradictory phenomena, visible and invisible, existed at the same time.

 

“Who are we?”

 

The girl asked back in a leisurely and gentle voice. It was a dreamy voice that made him feel like he would fall asleep if he didn’t clear his mind for a moment. That’s why Russell noticed the girl’s strange question about ‘we’ a little later.

 

“. . . . . .”

 

‘We’. Does that mean you and me? Or is she using the pronoun we to refer to the countless yous?’

 

The girl’s body was divided. The girl’s form was everywhere. He couldn’t tell what was real and what was fake.

 

Shiny hair stood out even in the pitch-black darkness. Russell was unable to recognize the distorted and blurred facial features. But within them, there were still empty eye sockets without eyes that stared at Russell.

 

Russell asked,

 

“Does that ‘we’ include me?”

 

“Think for yourself. Your head is there to think. It’s not just there to sit on your shoulders and look pretty.”

 

The girl’s words were sharp, but they weren’t wrong. Of course, there were monsters in the world who had two or more heads because one wasn’t enough, or even a zombie knight named Dullahan who carried his head around on his side. But it didn’t seem like the right time to bring that up.

 

Russell thought. He thought back to when he had first felt the girl’s presence. Looking back at his inner self, the quality and quantity of mana had increased. He had prepared his physical abilities for further strengthening.

 

While checking his senses and instincts, he felt a familiar presence in the air as he floated through this unknown space, and when he opened his eyes, there was a girl with black hair.

 

Familiar. Why did he think it was familiar? Why did this dark space feel as comfortable as his mother’s embrace or submersion in warm water?

 

Russell hesitated before saying,

 

“Are you my. . . . . .mother?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

Russell’s eyes widened at the girl’s affirmation. However, the girl’s overlapping voices were far from finished.

 

“Or maybe I’m your daughter.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Or maybe I’m your granddaughter. I don’t know.”

 

The voices overlapped as many times as the number of them. He felt like he was going to lose his mind from the gentle voices coming from all directions. Russell held on tightly to his consciousness.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Time and blood have no relation to ‘us’. In that sense, all the things in the world are my brothers, sisters, sons, and grandchildren.”

 

‘Us’? This time, a plural suffix followed the first-person pronoun. It was a strange way to refer to oneself, but seeing the girl divided into countless beings like this made him think it wasn’t wrong either. Russell considered the girl’s self-description and posed a question.

 

“. . . . . .Are you saying that you are a god?”

 

“Well.”

 

The girl only gave a vague smile and didn’t answer. Russell didn’t think she was like a god, either. He didn’t sense any divine power in her.

 

But that absence didn’t detract from her perfection. The girl existed alone, and that was enough.

 

He asked something else.

 

“Where is this?”

 

“This is the world you created. You even gave it a cool name. Abyss.”

 

Before he could question whether this was the space he had created, Russell blushed.

 

“. . . . . .I haven’t named it yet.”

 

“No, I think it’s cool.”

 

Russell coughed.

 

“But I don’t think I can create that space yet.”

 

“That’s right. This place is your space, but it’s also something I created. Your eyes allowed me to observe you. If I can see it, it exists. Oh, this is a gift.”

 

Russell, who had been hanging his head, looked up again. The still-blurry girl was holding something large in her small hand. At first glance, it looked like a red bead the size of a fist.

 

The girl sent the bead to Russell. The bead, which had been floating in the air, slowly descended into his hand.

 

“What is this gift?”

 

“Technically, it’s something you earned for yourself. Open it yourself.”

 

At that moment, the space shook. Russell realized that it was a sign that his consciousness was about to wake up.

 

“Russell.”

 

For the first time, the girl called his name.

 

“Don’t die if you can help it.”

 

Russell looked at the girl.

 

“Who in the world would want to die?”

 

“Don’t die anyway. If you die, something big will happen.”

 

“What big thing?”

 

“I can’t tell you. If you hear it, you’ll explode.”

 

The girl’s tone was playful, so he couldn’t tell if it was a figurative expression or if his body would actually explode. Still, it wasn’t a difficult request to grant, so he nodded.

 

The girl smiled brightly, and then suddenly her face hardened. The girl said,

 

“Don’t take my words lightly. The boundaries are crumbling. A different era is coming. I don’t know what the uninvited guests will bring, but like most things they bring, it’s probably not good news. You need to be prepared.”

 

“. . . . . .I understand.”

 

“Your eyes are a window that connects us and them to the world. See many things. See and feel many things.”

 

Russell tried to answer, but his voice wouldn’t come out. He was sinking. He attempted to lift his head to catch a glimpse of the girl, but she had already vanished.

 

Russell, who had been sinking, suddenly fell at a frightening speed, and at some point, he was rising. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment.

 

Russell opened his eyes.

 

🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷

 

The first thing he saw was an unfamiliar room. It was a luxurious room. The room exuded an aristocratic luxury not typically found in inns or private houses. He was lying on a bed in the room.

 

It seemed to be daytime. The sky was cloudy and hazy. One by one, transparent ripples appeared on the window and slid down.

 

At that moment, the door to the room opened. A girl with white hair entered. She opened her mouth and eyes wide when she saw Russell awake, and with a small patter of footsteps, she jumped onto the bed.

 

“Why did you wake up so late? You idiot!”

 

Russell looked down at Aellasis, who was in his arms, dumbfounded.

 

“Aella?”

 

“Yes! I’m Aellasis! You idiot, you idiot!”

 

Aellasis’s voice was as moist as the sound of rain outside. Russell smiled slightly at the relief in her voice.

 

Then he remembered her question about why he had woken up so late.

 

“How many days have I been out?”

 

Aellasis lifted her face away from his arms. Her eyes were slightly red. Aellasis sniffed and said,

 

“You woke up after two weeks. I thought you were never going to wake up. Do you know how surprised I was?”

 

‘Two weeks? The conversation had only lasted a moment. It couldn’t have been more than an hour, or even thirty minutes. However, there was a huge difference between the time he felt and the time outside.

 

However, Russell didn’t say anything about it. Excuses were useless.

 

“I’m sorry. I overslept.”

 

Aellasis hugged him tightly again. Russell patted her on the back. The sound of rain hitting the window, thud, thud, thud, grew louder. It was spring rain.

 

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