Chapter 253: Truth-Reading Eye

It was around the time I finished my contemplation regarding the [Truth-Reading Eye].

The owner of said skill tapped the back of my hand with his index finger, questioning how much longer I intended to keep his mouth covered.

‘I blocked his mouth because he was distracting my thoughts… but what should I say if he asks why I did it?’

A brief moment of worry crossed my mind, but it vanished instantly. Reysir was grinning, his eyes curved into crescents.

Based on his expression, he was convinced that I had reflexively covered his mouth because I felt too embarrassed after hearing his comment from the previous chapter — something about not being able to harm others (and so on).

Realizing this brought a wave of shame over me.

As my face turned red, Reysir’s smile deepened even further. I couldn’t help but think he was quite good at smiling with his eyes, even when one was closed.

“I’ll take my hand away if you promise not to say a word.”

“Mmph…”

The protagonist of another novel made a strange sound, but he nodded regardless, so I removed my hand from his mouth.

I couldn’t tell if it was to keep his promise or if he was simply trying to hold back his laughter, but Reysir’s lips were pressed tightly together.

In that state, he opened both eyes and stared in my direction, manipulating a window that only he could see. He was likely bringing up the list of Sky-blue Aether skills and tapping on the names to open their description windows.

“The description for the [Weather Change] skill is exactly the same as Yor’s.”

“Then there is no need to write it down. You can skip it.”

“Yeah, then I’ll move straight to the general skills.”

Reysir gestured in the air again to manipulate the skill window. He then wrote down the descriptions for [Whip Technique], [Dagger Arts], and [Martial Arts] in order. Since there was nothing special about them, I will skip ahead to the skills I acquired during the break.

[Acrobatics] — (F)
You can perform flexible and agile movements like a cat.

“The description of [Acrobatics] in my skill window isn’t like that. The word ‘cat’ doesn’t appear at all. It simply says, ‘You can perform flexible, agile, and acrobatic movements.'”

“Oh, really? Is that so?”

“In the first place, doesn’t the word ‘acrobatics’ simply mean ‘circus-like feats’? I don’t understand why a specific animal is being mentioned out of nowhere.”

“I think I might know why.”

“……”

It seemed that the [Truth-Reading Eye] really did reflect the subjective views of its owner. If not for that, there was no way this would be happening.

My expression was beyond sour; it was practically rotting. However, the protagonist of another novel seemed to find my reaction amusing. He chuckled and wrote down the final skill description on the whiteboard.

[Lip Reading] — (D)
A technique to understand the content of speech by reading the movement of the lips and surrounding muscles.

***

Fortunately, this was exactly the same as the description in my skill window. For a technique mastered in about two months, the rank was quite high, which actually made it difficult to be purely happy about it.

Knowing that my [Whip Technique], which I had invested far more time and effort into, was still stuck at rank ‘D’ left me feeling complicated.

‘In any case… the [Truth-Reading Eye] ended up not catching a single clue about my identity!’

It was a situation where I should have felt relieved, yet for some reason, a sense of disappointment settled in my chest. Even though I had been anxious and on edge, fearing I might be caught as a possessor, I suppose I had secretly thought it wouldn’t be so bad if he just found out.

‘No, maybe I just wanted to confess everything…’

I was used to acting as the possession body, so that didn’t matter. But the fact that the author of this world treated the lives of supporting characters so lightly was still hard to bear, and it would likely remain so in the future.

Of course, I had Yor. But perhaps I had unconsciously wished for one more being who could understand my situation and help share the burden.

‘But now that it’s come to this…!’

I could no longer use the excuse of being forced to reveal my identity. Since I had no evidence to present, it would be difficult to prove the truth. At worst, I might be treated like some otaku who couldn’t distinguish between reality and a novel. Just as I was making up my mind to give up…

“Wait… Uh, huh?!”

Reysir suddenly expressed bewilderment and looked around. Wondering what was happening, I also turned my head this way and that to scan the surroundings. However, I didn’t see anything unusual.

“Mew? Mew?”

Seeing Yor tilt his long body into a question mark while making those sounds, it seemed even my wise baby dragon had no idea why Reysir was acting that way.

Thus, I tapped the shoulder of the blinking, puzzled Reysir. I wanted him to snap out of it and explain what was going on.

“Ah, that… hold on a second.”

Still unable to hide his stunned expression, Reysir told me to wait and moved his hands back and forth in the air. It was obvious what he was doing. He was manipulating his status window. But because I didn’t know the reason why, my confusion only deepened.

“Just why are you—”

“I think I don’t have to wear the blindfold anymore.”

Just as I was about to force a question out, a seemingly random statement escaped Reysir’s mouth. Since the reason he had to wear the blindfold was because he couldn’t control the [Truth-Reading Eye], it wasn’t hard to understand the meaning behind his words.

However, it wasn’t easy to accept.

“That means…”

“Even with my right eye open, information windows don’t just pop up and block my vision. I can see properly.”

“…You’ve gained control over your Silver Aether attribute skill?”

“Yeah!”

With a face that looked as if he were overwhelmed with emotion, Reysir subtly tried to hug me. I only managed to continue my thoughts after moving three steps to the side to avoid him.

‘In the original work, Reysir only converted the [Truth-Reading Eye] into an active skill more than a year after he began exploring the Demonic Realm in earnest…!’

When the [Truth-Reading Eye] used to activate on its own, the original protagonist thought to himself, ‘It felt as if the Silver Aether was hungering for knowledge.’

This was a key characteristic of Silver Aether set by the original author. That was why Reysir couldn’t stop the skill by simply holding the Silver Aether in his core, and he had to go around with his eye covered by a blindfold.

Anyway, since such a setting existed, it was already a proven premise that Reysir had to read a massive amount of information with that skill to gain control over it.

‘Why has it already converted into an active skill?’

It was hard to believe it was because I, possessing the [Authoring] skill, was disappointed in the functionality of the [Truth-Reading Eye]. My [Authoring] skill hadn’t even been activated yet. Furthermore, if I could have interfered with the settings of the [Truth-Reading Eye], the word ‘cat’ wouldn’t have appeared in my skill descriptions.

And above all else.

“It seems the skill has evolved a stage… Has anything changed in my status window or skill descriptions?”

“Um… No, nothing. It’s just that I can now voluntarily activate and deactivate the skill. The content I see is the same.”

Since Reysir said this after using the [Truth-Reading Eye] on me once more, it seemed the skill’s proficiency hadn’t surged because of my will. If that was the case…

“Then why did the skill function suddenly upgrade?”

“Maybe I’d been accumulating proficiency without knowing it, and the moment I finished reading your info, I met the requirements?”

“Didn’t you start acting strange a little while after you finished copying my last skill onto the whiteboard?”

“Ah, that’s… since no windows were popping up in front of me, I thought I was keeping my right eye closed… I only realized later that both my eyes were open. Ahaha…”

‘What on earth was this remarkably stupid answer?’

It just so happened that Reysir had made such a fuss right when I was feeling disappointed that the [Truth-Reading Eye] couldn’t read my identity. Because I had felt both confusion and great expectation at the same time, I looked at the protagonist of another novel with genuine disgust, bordering on slight contempt.

“I’m not sure what I did wrong, but… I’m sorry?”

“It’s not that you did anything particularly wrong. It’s just… what you just said was a bit… pathetic?”

“I guess it was, huh? Haha…”

Watching Reysir laugh like an idiot with an awkward expression, I felt like I was being petty. Glaring at him wasn’t going to change anything.

‘If there really isn’t another reason like Reysir said, and the second-stage function just opened because the required proficiency was met…’

It meant he had already acquired a level of knowledge comparable to what the original Reysir gathered over a year of roaming the Demonic Realm.

Right here, today.

Simply by reading the information of Yor and me.

‘No, but he didn’t even read any of the important information! How did his proficiency go up after all that?!’

It was absolutely absurd.

He had transformed [Dragon Fear] into something like [Cat’s Vigor]. He had even changed the name of the Sky-blue Aether attribute skill [Character Analysis] to [Person Analysis] and classified it as a Purple Aether attribute skill.

‘…Still, I suppose he did technically read them.’

Normally, information like that from a special novel would be ‘content without permission to read.’ If his proficiency increased significantly because he succeeded in reading it, even in a distorted form, it wasn’t entirely nonsensical.

Even so, the feeling of absurdity remained.

“Karbaldr, do you want to see this for a second?”

While I was lost in shock, contemplating the Silver Aether and the [Truth-Reading Eye], the one who could be called their master spoke to me. He held out the whiteboard, and on it—

[Name] Reysir Daudabiner

[Attribute] Truth/Lightning

[Alignment] Justice

This information was written there.

I already knew everything because I had read the original work. However, since I never expected the protagonist of another novel to write that content down and show it to me himself, I unintentionally widened my eyes in surprise.

“Why… this…?”

“You let me use my skill to read your information first. So I thought this would be fair.”

Reysir replied nonchalantly as he erased what he had just written and began listing his stats.

“But… you weren’t able to read the name of my aether attribute or my alignment, were you?”

“That’s true, but the name of an aether attribute is usually just a word related to the ability anyway, right? And as for your alignment… it’s probably Tsundere, or Cat, or maybe a Tsundere Cat?”

The touching sentiment that had been slowly building up vanished instantly like an ebbing tide. It was because words that utterly shattered the atmosphere had come out of his mouth. I felt ashamed that I had almost been moved by something said by a person who thought like this, and a surge of irritation welled up.

“No, mmp—!”

“Shh, keep your voice down.”

the moment I was about to raise my voice without thinking.

As if he had expected this reaction, Reysir, who had kept one hand free in advance, quickly covered my mouth.

I strongly suspect he intentionally provoked me just so he could pay me back for what I did to him earlier.