Ch.6262. Icarus

‘It’ was an eyeball.

An eyeball faithful to its role of seeing.

An organ dedicated to forming images and observing objects.

An organ faithful to its role, excluding all other functions.

The eyeball gazed at the being beyond the mirror.

Men in white coats were having conversations, oblivious to everything.

The eyeball couldn’t hear their conversation, but it could read their lips.

– “How is the <Eye Beyond the Mirror>?”

– “No reaction today either. I’m convinced it has no intelligence of its own.”

– “Then let’s conclude that. One year has passed. It has shown no intellectual responses, nor human reflexive reactions.”

It laughed at them inwardly.

The Eye Beyond the Mirror.

That was the name given to it as soon as it was pulled from the sea.

The eye recognized that they needed this mirror to see it.

But their naming was wrong.

The eye was not a passive entity requiring a subject, and the mirror was merely a window through which it viewed the world, not the space where it lived.

Though humans used mirrors because their organs couldn’t perceive it directly, they arrogantly assumed the eye lived inside the mirror.

Their arrogance didn’t end there.

Humans shone light at the eye, but it didn’t react.

They concluded it had no reflexive response, but the eye mocked this conclusion.

Why would they think reflexes would occur when it needed neither spinal cord nor brain?

From the beginning, the assumption that the eye would recognize others through light was wrong.

It doesn’t depend on light to see. To penetrate essence, it captures essence directly in its eye.

Likewise, the assumption that it had no intelligence was wrong.

It simply didn’t react because it wasn’t interesting.

Because they thought the eye had no intelligence, they carelessly conversed in front of it, not considering that their lips could be read.

It was human arrogance to think they could escape its sight with just a magic mirror and thick walls.

The Eye Beyond the Mirror felt boredom.

Though it couldn’t yawn or blink, the concept of boredom existed in that eye.

It had looked across dimensions to alleviate its tedium and monotony, but all it got in return were researchers’ useless conversations.

Their affairs and crimes provided some interest, but quickly became boring.

It was by chance that a man entered the eyeball’s field of vision.

Was it because of his yearning for the future, his mother’s mad love that persisted even after death, or was it simply fate?

That man, called Owen, who was touring the laboratory, observed the eyeball, and the eyeball observed Owen.

The eyeball showed small reactions only to Owen in secret.

Owen became interested in the eyeball and borrowed it, placing it in his company’s basement.

The eyeball found Owen’s story interesting and moved its window from the mirror to Owen’s eyes.

The world seen through Owen’s eyes was fascinating. And Owen’s life was fascinating too.

That’s why, in the moment when Owen was dying in despair, it gave him a small gift.

A mother’s love, and the power he so desperately wanted.

– “Ah! Finally you are by my side…!”

Owen praised the eyeball.

The eyeball didn’t need worship, but the praise wasn’t unpleasant.

In the past, the eyeball’s consciousness, which had only been used as a screen, became partially connected to Owen.

In human terms, the interaction had strengthened from the level of a television viewer to that of a gamer.

Was it controlling Owen, or was the eyeball passively following the story Owen was unfolding?

Now that the connection had strengthened, the distinction was meaningless.

The eyeball, or what could now be called <Owen>, saw the human called Amon and his companions from a world that had grown closer.

They all had interesting stories.

But the eyeball’s preference was closer to the host’s story.

It hurriedly wanted to clear Amon’s party from its sight and continue watching Owen’s story.

Just by strengthening its connection with Owen, the humans couldn’t move from their spots.

Like snails as seen by humans.

The sight was so pathetic that it filled the eyeball with a slight sense of superiority.

At that moment, it noticed one among the human group who was moving.

It was Amon.

The eyeball was intrigued by the appearance of a snail moving at human speed.

Owen, whose consciousness was connected, was also interested in Amon.

So it couldn’t resist looking into Amon’s essence.

And across from Amon…

“An ill-mannered intruder dares to set foot in my garden.”

A woman with a cold expression was making eye contact.

*

A woman… though named as such for convenience, it was an entity that couldn’t be confidently identified as female, making eye contact with the eyeball.

The eyeball realized it was the being humans called a ‘goddess’.

The eyeball looked at the goddess.

And the moment their eyes met, an inexplicable feeling of descent was felt.

“!!!”

“You who are not my child. How dare you look where you shouldn’t.”

The goddess addressed the eyeball.

“Impure dimensional drifter, do you not know that entering a home without permission and meeting the gaze of its head is not tolerated in any dimension?”

The eyeball’s feeling of descent continued.

It felt its rank being ‘torn away’.

To borrow human expression, it was like a four-dimensional being falling onto a two-dimensional canvas.

The eyeball desperately sent a telepathic message.

[“No, that’s not it! I’m sorry! I didn’t intend to…”]

But the goddess had no intention of conversing.

“Do not apologize. There may be mothers who find fleas repulsive, but there are no mothers who speak to those fleas. Foolish master of the well. Scoundrel. However, I will not judge you.”

The goddess gestured.

“As I have chosen to respect the freedom and will of my children, I will merely lock the door through which you entered. Go down. My children will be able to judge you.”

“Aaaah!!! I’m sorry!!!! Please have mercy!!!!”

No sooner had those words ended than the eyeball sank into Owen’s consciousness.

The real Owen was also screaming the same scream.

“Aaaah!”

Owen writhed in pain.

His eyes hurt. It seemed like he had seen something, but his head hurt. His brain was refusing to understand.

Clearly I… what did I see?

Only one voice echoed in Owen’s mind.

[I loved you and named the taboo, yet children always cross the fences their mothers set.]

Owen refused to understand this.

Owen looked at Amon through his pain.

Yes. The pain started after seeing that man.

Then all he needed to do was defeat him.

In extreme pain, Owen saw the future.

In that future, Owen fought Amon one-on-one and…

His neck was cut.

“?!”

He looked at the future again. And was cut again.

Just as an ordinary human might know a bullet is coming but can’t dodge it, he was defeated by an overwhelming difference.

He couldn’t understand.

So he looked at the future again. This time taking Amon’s companions hostage.

And he was defeated.

“Kugh…!”

He changed his strategy.

He provoked Amon to lose his composure and fought.

And after torture so terrible he wished for death, he died.

“Ugh…!”

After briefly dry heaving from the vivid, terrible future that felt as if he had experienced it directly, he observed again.

And he was defeated in every future.

For one reason.

Owen feared Amon, and couldn’t think of a way to defeat him.

It was as Kathy had warned before the fight began.

The future gives no choice to those who give up.

Owen had momentarily realized his resolve during the battle, but intoxicated by arrogance and power, he forgot it and could never reach that choice.

‘No… that can’t be…!’

But Owen wouldn’t accept it.

So he put more strength into his eyes.

‘I can’t give up…!’

He couldn’t give up.

However, that wasn’t resolve.

‘After all I went through to get these eyes..!’

Obsession couldn’t become resolve.

He tried to see a future where he could defeat Amon.

In exchange, his limbs began to gradually melt away.

But since his eyes were his top priority, he didn’t care.

The melting that started from his limbs climbed up his torso and reached his head.

Even until that moment, Owen was looking at the future.

Eventually, he was left with just one eye.

When what had been Owen became closer to a snail, with nerves in the body and the eyeball shrinking.

He finally saw a future where he didn’t lose to Amon.

It was taking his own life.

“Ah…!”

But all the snail that had been Owen could do was let out a pitiful sigh.

Even while sighing, countless futures appeared.

But a snail had no right to choose.

All it was allowed was to see.

What had once been Owen looked at the huge humans, Amon and Kathy, approaching him.

“What is this?”

Amon’s expression, looking down at the snail, was filled with considerable bewilderment.

He had never seen or heard of such a thing.

If hardcore veteran Amon didn’t know, Kathy had no way of knowing either.

“I don’t know either.”

Amon pointed at the snail with his finger and asked Kathy.

“Is this Owen?”

“Maybe?”

Only after hearing Amon and Kathy’s conversation did the snail recall that it was Owen.

A being that could do nothing quickly lost its identity.

But the memories of Owen it recalled were jumbled and mixed in a sea of overwhelming information, becoming meaningless.

Amon looked at the snail with a troubled expression.

“How should we deal with this…”

Kathy cautiously asked him.

“Should we, perhaps, kill it?”

“Huh? Why? Suddenly feeling compassionate?”

“No, that’s not it… it’s just…”

Kathy hesitated before speaking.

“Looking at it, it doesn’t seem like an ordinary snail, it’s like an entity. I don’t know if it’ll be useful, but I’d like to keep it in our company basement for research… Haha. Sorry. Does that disgust you?”

“No. Hearing you say that, I think it’s fine.”

“Oh…? Is it okay?”

“What?”

“Like, heresy or something…”

Hearing Kathy’s words, Amon briefly examined Owen’s actions.

The reason this human turned into a snail?

Unknown.

But one thing is certain.

He did the same thing as that cult leader in Punk City 1.

Circumstantial evidence is sufficient.

Tap tap. Heresy confirmed.

But despite the conclusion, Amon’s inner scale didn’t tilt toward execution.

“We’re not in the medieval era. Not all punishments for heresy are execution. Besides…”

“Besides?”

“Sometimes in this world, there are punishments worse than death.”

Essentially permission.

“Ugh-“

Kathy picked up the forearm-sized snail with a dustpan, put it in a container, and said.

“Good. Then I’ll name the new entity. <Wise Snail>. How’s that?”

Everyone agreed.

Owen, who had tried to see too much, eventually lost his name and was left with only the identity of a snail.