Chapter 253: The Eye that Reads Truth (8)
Tap, tap.
Just as I was finishing my considerations on 【The Eye that Reads Truth】,
the owner of said skill tapped the back of my hand with his index finger, questioning how long I intended to keep his mouth covered.
I covered his mouth because he was interrupting my thoughts... but if he asks why I did this, what should I say?
A brief worry crossed my mind, but it soon vanished.
Because Raysir was grinning, his eyes crinkling with laughter.
He had an expression of someone convinced that I had reflexively clamped his mouth shut out of sheer embarrassment from hearing his "too gentle to harm others (etcetera)" remark from the last chapter.
A wave of shame washed over me as I realized this.
Which in turn made my face flush, and seeing this, Raysir's smile only deepened.
He's quite good at smiling with his eyes, even with one of them closed.
"I'll take my hand away if you promise not to say anything and let it go."
"Kkh..."
The protagonist of someone else's novel made a strange sound, but...
...he nodded anyway, so I removed my hand from his mouth.
I could see Raysir's lips pressed tightly together, though I couldn't tell if it was to keep his promise to me or to hold back his laughter.
In that state, he opened both eyes, gazed at me, and manipulated a window only he could see.
He must have gone through the process of pulling up the list of sky-blue Ether skills, tapping a skill name that appeared, and opening its description window.
"The description for the 【Weather Manipulation】 skill is the same as Yor's."
"Then you don't have to bother writing it down. We can skip it."
"Okay, then I'll move right on to the general skills."
Raysir gestured in the air again, manipulating the skill window.
He then wrote down the descriptions for 【Whip Technique】, 【Dagger Techniques】, and 【Martial Arts】 in order, but there was nothing special about them.
I'll just skip them and move on to the new skill I acquired during the break.
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【Acrobatics】 - (F)
: Allows the user to perform flexible and agile movements like a cat.
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"The description of 【Acrobatics】 in my skill window isn't like that. The word 'cat' doesn't appear; it just says, 'Allows the user to perform flexible and agile acrobatic movements.'"
"Uh-huh, uh-huh. Is that so?"
"Doesn't the word 'acrobatics' itself mean 'circus arts'? I don't understand why an animal's name is being brought up out of the blue."
"I think I know why."
"......"
It seems 【The Eye that Reads Truth】 really does reflect the user's subjectivity.
There's no other explanation.
My expression went beyond reluctant and was practically rotting on my face.
But the protagonist of someone else's novel, finding my reaction amusing, chuckled and wrote the final skill description on the whiteboard.
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【Lip-reading】 - (D)
: The technique of understanding speech by reading the shape of the lips and the movement of the surrounding muscles.
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Thankfully, this one was completely identical to the description in my skill window.
For a skill learned in about two months, its grade was high, which was precisely why I couldn't be purely happy about it.
Because the grade for 【Whip Technique】, which I'd spent much more time and effort on, was still stuck at 'D', I couldn't help but feel a complicated mix of emotions.
That aside... in the end, 【The Eye that Reads Truth】 failed to read a single clue about my true identity.
It was a situation where I should have felt relief, but for some reason, a sense of disappointment settled in my chest.
Even though I had been anxious and worried about what would happen if my identity as a transmigrator was discovered.
I suppose I was inwardly thinking that it wouldn't be so bad to just get caught.
No, maybe I just wanted to confess everything...
I'm used to acting as the possessed body now, so that doesn't matter.
But the fact that this world's author treats the lives of supporting characters so lightly is still hard to bear, and it always will be.
Of course, I have Yor.
But I guess I wished for one more person who could understand my situation and share the burden.
Unknowingly, unconsciously.
But at this rate...
It's become impossible to reveal my identity as if pushed into it, using the excuse that it couldn't be helped.
It's difficult to reveal the truth without any evidence to present.
And since I could be treated like an otaku who can't distinguish reality from a novel at the slightest misstep, I had just decided to give up when...
"Wh-Wha...?!"
Raysir suddenly showed his bewilderment, looking around frantically.
Wondering what on earth was going on, I also turned my head this way and that, looking around.
But I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Mweyang? Mweyaang?"
Seeing Yor make those sounds while forming a question mark with her long body, it seemed even my wise baby dragon had no idea why Raysir was acting like that.
So, I tapped the shoulder of the bewildered, blinking Raysir.
Meaning for him to hurry up, get a grip, and explain what was wrong.
"Ah, well... Just a moment."
Raysir, still unable to hide his perplexed look, just told me to wait and moved his hands back and forth in the air.
It was obvious what he was doing.
He must be operating the status window.
But not knowing the reason why, my questions only deepened.
"What on earth are you..."
"I think I can go without the eyepatch now."
Just as I was about to voice my question, unable to wait any longer.
A seemingly random statement popped out of Raysir's mouth.
Since the reason he had to wear an eyepatch was his inability to control 【The Eye that Reads Truth】, it wasn't difficult to understand the meaning of his words.
But accepting it wasn't easy.
"Does that mean..."
"Even with my right eye open, the info windows that used to pop up on their own aren't blocking my vision, and I can see clearly."
"...You're saying you can now control the silver Ether attribute skill?"
"Yeah...!"
With a face as if he were overwhelmed with emotion and didn't know what to do, Raysir subtly tried to hug me.
I was only able to continue my train of thought after taking three steps to the side to avoid him.
In the original novel, Raysir converted 【The Eye that Reads Truth】 into an active skill well over a year after he started full-fledged Demon Realm exploration...
Whenever 【The Eye that Reads Truth】 activated on its own, the original protagonist recalled the impression that 'it felt as if the silver Ether itself were craving knowledge.'
This is an important characteristic of the silver Ether established by the original author.
That's why Raysir couldn't use the method of holding the silver Ether in his core to stop the activation of 【The Eye that Reads Truth】 skill.
He absolutely had to cover his eye with an eyepatch.
Anyway, given this setting.
It was already a proven proposition that for Raysir to control 【The Eye that Reads Truth】, he needed to read a significant amount of information with that skill.
Why has it already been converted into an active skill?
It's hard to say it's because I, the possessor of the 【Writing】 skill, was disappointed with the function of 【The Eye that Reads Truth】.
Because not only has my 【Writing】 skill not been activated yet,
but if I could have meddled with the settings of 【The Eye that Reads Truth】, the word 'cat' would never have appeared in the description of my own skill.
And most importantly.
"It seems the skill has developed by a stage... By any chance, has anything changed in my status window or skill descriptions?"
"Hmm...... No, nothing. I can just arbitrarily activate and deactivate the skill now, but the content I see is the same."
Raysir said this after using 【The Eye that Reads Truth】 on me once more.
It seems my intentions weren't reflected to cause a sudden spike in the skill's proficiency.
In that case...
"Then why on earth did the skill function suddenly upgrade?"
"Maybe the proficiency had been building up without me knowing, and the moment I finished reading your information, I met the condition?"
"Didn't you start acting strange and showing your bewilderment a little while after you'd written my last skill on the whiteboard?"
"Ah, well... No windows were popping up in front of my eyes, so I thought my right eye was closed... but then I belatedly realized both my eyes were open... Ahaha..."
What is this, this incredibly stupid answer.
Of all times, it was at the exact moment I felt disappointed that 【The Eye that Reads Truth】 hadn't read my identity that Raysir started making a fuss.
So as much as I felt confusion and great expectation at the same time,
I looked at the protagonist of someone else's novel with genuine disgust, bordering on slight contempt.
"I don't know what I did wrong, but... I'm sorry...?"
"It's not particularly that you did something wrong. It's just... what you just said was a little... pathetic?"
"It was a bit, wasn't it...? Haha..."
Seeing Raysir laughing like an idiot with an awkward expression, I felt like I was doing something pointless.
Nothing would change just by glaring at him.
For now, if it's just as Raysir said and there's no other reason, that the required proficiency was simply met and the stage 2 function was unlocked...
It means he's already obtained an amount of knowledge comparable to what the original Raysir collected wandering the Demon Realms for over a year.
In this place, today.
Just by reading information about me and Yor.
No, but he couldn't read any of the important information, could he? With that being the case, what did he do so well to raise his proficiency??
It was utterly dumbfounding.
He didn't just transform 【Dragon Fear】 into something like 【Cat's Mettle】.
He even changed the name of my sky-blue Ether attribute skill, 【Character Analysis】, to 【Person Analysis】 and classified it as a purple Ether attribute skill.
...Still, does this count as having read it, in its own way?
Originally, it should have been content he had 'no authority to read,' like the information from a Special Character Novel.
If the proficiency increased drastically because he succeeded in reading it, albeit in a distorted form, then it's not entirely unacceptable.
But the feeling of absurdity still remains.
"Karvaldr, want to take a quick look at this?"
While I was lost in bewilderment, contemplating the silver Ether and 【The Eye that Reads Truth】, the one who could be called their master spoke to me.
He slid the whiteboard toward me, and on it was—
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〔Name〕 Raysir Daudabiner
〔Attribute〕 Truth / Lightning
〔Inclination〕 Justice
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—this content was written.
It was all information I already knew because I'd read the original novel.
But I never expected the protagonist of someone else's novel to write it down and show it to me himself, so my eyes widened in surprise without me realizing it.
"This is... why...?"
"You were the one who first let me use my skill to read your information. So I thought this would be fair."
Raysir erased what he had just written and started writing down his stats, replying in an indifferent tone.
"But... you couldn't read my Ether attribute's name or my inclination, could you...?"
"That's true, but isn't the Ether attribute name going to be a word related to your ability anyway? And your inclination... it's tsundere, cat, or tsundere cat, right?"
I thought I was slowly being moved, but the feeling receded in an instant like an ebbing tide.
It was because words that shattered the mood came out of the other party's mouth.
I felt ashamed that I was almost moved by the casual words of someone who thinks like this, and a surge of anger welled up inside me.
"No, mmph...!"
"Shh, you need to lower your voice."
The moment my voice started to rise without me realizing it.
As if he'd expected me to react this way, Raysir, who had kept one hand free, quickly clamped it over my mouth.
I suspect he might have intentionally provoked me just to get back at me for what I did to him.