He was fired.
The cause of it was the cane he carried around in his hand.
“Cha Hun. I am sorry it came to this.”
The library director's voice was steeped in a bitter taste.
“It seems a complainant called City Hall to protest. Asking whether we would take responsibility if the children tripped over it. Whether someone who cannot see could do the job properly…….”
Perhaps realizing his slip partway through, the director hurriedly added,
“O-of course, you have never once made a mistake at work. And you have never bumped into anyone, either.”
“Please don't be so sorry about it, Director.”
Although he had only just been fired, Cha Hun's voice was calm.
“I know it can't be helped. No matter how careful I am, the patrons watching me can still feel uneasy.”
“……You old man in a boy's body. I would rather you shouted and got angry at me. That would put my heart at ease.”
A faint smile spread across Cha Hun's lips.
He focused on the senses of his ears and nose for a moment.
The director's breathing was regular.
The faint smell of his sweat had not changed, either.
‘Which means…….’
The director genuinely regretted Cha Hun's dismissal.
Cha Hun bowed deeply at the waist.
“Thank you for looking out for me all this time, Director.”
“Of course. I will settle this month's wages as quickly as I can. Is there anything else you need help with? If it has to do with the library, tell me anything.”
“Hmm. If it's help…….”
Cha Hun fell into thought for a moment.
Then, all at once, his expression brightened.
“There is. One thing.”
***
Perhaps they were consoling him for being fired.
The cries of the night birds on his way home from work sounded especially mournful tonight.
A hillside village reached only after climbing a narrow, steep alley for a long while.
At the very end of it was Cha Hun's rooftop room.
“Phew.”
Cha Hun wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Then he folded his cane and put it into his backpack.
There was still a long stretch of alley left, but that was no problem.
After all, he intended to use his own method of survival, one he had not been able to use at the library.
TOCK!
Cha Hun flicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
The peculiar sound produced inside his mouth tore through the entire alley.
The sound waves returning like echoes drew the surrounding space for him.
TOCK!
This sound was lighting up Cha Hun's dark path.
A practiced stride that would have startled the night birds watching him.
There is a saying that the opposite of an excuse is preparation.
Cha Hun did not want to use his eyes as an excuse to live carelessly.
This skill, which he had learned before becoming an adult, was one part of that preparation.
Click.
The highest rooftop room in the entire hillside village.
Cha Hun had lived there alone.
“This is the first time I'm reading it here.”
A cramped room without a single decent piece of furniture.
He set his backpack down on the cold floor and carefully took out what was inside.
A large, heavy book.
As though it were some sort of treasure, Cha Hun slowly stroked the book's cover.
Bumpy protrusions could be felt at his fingertips.
Two from left to right.
Three pairs from top to bottom.
A language all their own, made up of six dots in total.
Braille.
This book was a Braille book made for the blind.
What was more, it was the only fantasy Braille book in Korea.
It was only natural that Cha Hun, who could not see, had come to love fantasy worlds.
In that sense, this book was practically a gift to Cha Hun.
[Swordmaster of the Heavenly Slaughter Star]
This was exactly what he had asked the library director for.
Since the lending procedure was so strict, it was a book he had only been able to read in snatches inside the library.
He had been able to borrow that book for several days.
Forgetting even his hunger, Cha Hun read on through the Braille book.
“……No matter how I think about it, this is the side for me.”
As his fingertips read the Braille, the corners of Cha Hun's mouth lifted.
The protagonist of the work was a Swordmaster who wielded a sword.
But the one he admired was someone else.
‘Mages.’
Cha Hun liked the mages of the rival empire more.
He did not know red, but he knew heat.
He did not know blue, but he knew the coolness of an autumn breeze.
He did not know green, but he knew the fresh scent of blades of grass.
That was why he loved magic.
Whenever he imagined the dazzling, colorful magic of the novel, the world would draw itself before him.
‘What would it feel like to use magic?’
A world where he could see, and could use magic, too.
If only he could live in a place like that.
Just imagining it made his chest swell.
Unaware even that day was breaking, Cha Hun read the book through the night.
It was just as he was reading the novel's final passage.
“……Huh?”
Suddenly, Cha Hun's voice grew louder.
His fingers, which had been moving as if dancing, came to a halt.
They had no choice.
Because on the page that should have been empty after the last Braille ended,
he felt protrusions he had never felt before.
“That's impossible……!”
Cha Hun shook his head.
Whatever else he might not know, this book, at least, he was confident he knew better than anyone.
He had read it hundreds of times, after all.
There was no content after this.
At the end of the page, there was nothing left but Braille reading ‘To be continued in the next volume.’
‘But new Braille has appeared?’
Now Cha Hun's fingers neither danced nor wandered.
They merely swept slowly over the paper with careful movements.
As if to confirm it for himself, he murmured the Braille's content aloud.
“One who recognizes the grimoire. Shall gain the light……?”
A grimoire?
This was nothing more than a novel written in Braille, wasn't it?
That question did not last long.
WHOOSH!
Suddenly, a dazzling, five-colored light burst forth from the Braille book.
A powerful light that, in an instant, drove out a space that had been filled with nothing but heavy, black things!
In an instant, the room became as bright as midday.
Unfortunately, Cha Hun could not witness that spectacular sight.
Instead,
KRA-KOOM!
As his consciousness grew faint, he only heard the sound of thunder.
***
The inconveniences of not being able to see are too many to count.
If I had to pick a trivial one among them,
it would be that it's hard to tell dreams apart from reality.
Because wherever I am, there's nothing but darkness.
“Young Master Kawin! Please get up at once!”
Someone was clearly shaking my body, yet calling me Kawin.
A case like this was easy to tell apart.
‘It's a dream.’
I must have fallen asleep while reading the book.
While I sorted out my thoughts, a crotchety voice kept rattling my eardrums.
“The Family Head has been waiting since dawn, I tell you. Young Master Kawin!”
In the end, I sat up.
Even in a dream, I'd rather pass on listening to someone squawking right beside me.
“I am not Kawin.”
“Heavens! Of all things, now you are even spouting such drivel! Then let us say that I, too, am not of House Anper, but the butler of those worthless scoundrels, the Dispelions!”
“Anper…… Dispelion?”
I murmured the family names in a deflated voice.
They were far too familiar to call a coincidence.
Dispelion was the family name of the protagonist of [Swordmaster of the Heavenly Slaughter Star],
and Anper, which the aged voice had mentioned, was…….
“The fallen Lightning house?”
“Heavens! Fallen, you say? How could you say such a thing as the heir of House Anper?”
“But I'm not the heir.”
“Do not disappoint this Vilkus any further. It is already more than enough. So please, get ready to go see the Family Head at once.”
I decided to examine the man called Vilkus.
His voice was fierce, but his breathing was steady.
The scent of sweat mixed with soil stayed just as it had been from the start.
It seemed Vilkus really did think I was Kawin.
‘Well, does it matter?’
I didn't particularly feel bad about it.
After all, I'd briefly entered the world I loved most.
Since things had turned out this way, I decided to enjoy it a little more.
I flicked my tongue with a practiced motion.
TOCK!
Fortunately, all my senses were normal.
I examined the structure of the room through the sound waves.
I set both feet on the floor, straightened my back, and stood up.
“What are you doing right now?”
But Vilkus didn't seem to like any of those movements.
As if I'd forgotten the most basic thing an ordinary person ought to do.
“If you are awake, you should open your eyes first! Shall I pry them open for you with my own fingers?”
“……Ah.”
Opening my eyes.
I'd tried it more times than I could count in my dreams.
If I lifted my eyelids like this, wouldn't I be able to see the radiant things I'd never seen before?
It was a dream, after all.
Wouldn't it be possible?
But what came back was always the same darkness.
And then I would wake from the dream and sigh.
“I will be sure to report to the Family Head that you are awake, so do not get any other ideas!”
I heard the door close.
Naturally, I was left alone in the room.
“Should I finally…… wake up now?”
The person to talk to was gone, and above all, I wanted to read the novel again.
As I always did when waking from a dream, I put all my strength into my eyelids and lifted them.
To return to reality.
“With all my might, like this……!”
I forced my eyes open toward the deep darkness.
But then,
WHOOSH!
Suddenly, my breath caught.
A ‘sensation’ I was feeling for the first time in my life swallowed every breath I had.
Something soft, like the touch of downy fuzz.
It seeped in from outside and filled the room.
Could this be the thing people face every single day…….
“Light……?”
CLATTER!
Nearly falling over, I made my way toward the things in front of me.
With faintly trembling hands, I touched every object around me I could reach.
A square, hard thing that smelled of wood.
A soft, fluffy thing that smelled of soap.
Everything that touched my fingertips told me a dreamlike truth.
That I, right now, was truly ‘seeing.’
“……Ha. Haha!”
Something hot streamed down from my eyes.
“I can see it! I can see!”
If this is a dream, I don't want to go back.
I stopped thinking about what situation I was in.
With eyes drenched in tears, I simply gazed endlessly at the round thing that had risen outside.
***
The ecstatic sensation of being able to see the world.
It took quite a long time to grow used to it.
Long enough that Vilkus, who had called me Young Master, came to treat me like an outright lowlife bastard.
‘Vilkus. So this is what you look like.’ That line was the finishing blow.
Thanks to it, I was able to vividly witness what I'd only understood through Braille as a ‘rotten expression.’
“Haha. Seeing is a good thing.”
My eyes, which couldn't see, could now see.
Compared to that, the fact that I'd possessed someone inside a novel was easy to adjust to.
“Now I don't have to fret every day, either.”
The Korean library with many Braille books was in the heart of Seoul.
For Cha Hun, who had started out in an orphanage, living in a neighborhood like that meant paying most of his salary in rent.
That was why he felt so much lighter.
Now he could live in this blessed world without a shred of lingering attachment.
Moreover, he had become part of the mage bloodline he loved, so perhaps even becoming an Archmage…….
“……That's probably impossible, isn't it? In this House Anper.”
Kawin Anper.
That was his identity after the possession.
Even if not an Archmage, it would have been nice to be given at least one decent talent.
But the Lightning line, of all things, the weakest magic in this world.
House Anper had been passing down a magic that the people of the world treated like dirt.
-Static electricity in winter is more than a match for Anper.
It was a line he remembered because the mages' mockery had left a strong impression.
That was how rarely it was mentioned in the novel.
He only remembered it because he had read the book hundreds of times; an ordinary reader wouldn't even know House Anper had existed.
“Vilkus. There's something I'd like to ask you.”
Kawin went up to Vilkus and asked about the Imperial calendar year.
Vilkus frowned once more, but soon answered obediently.
“Year 777, huh.”
Having confirmed the Imperial year, Kawin clenched his fist tightly.
The light he had only just gained was practically living on borrowed time.
The nation of the novel's protagonist.
Until the ‘Iron Empire’ massacred the mages here.
Not even five years remained.