Verica wanted to sort out some logistics with me before I left. She tried to keep me from talking to Roxana too much, but Roxana kept hovering over her shoulder, which sort of ruined her efforts. When Verica registered a personal communication channel between our lenses, Roxana jumped in and insisted that Verica add her too. Then she also exchanged comm links with me, which I was pretty sure was just out of politeness, but she was so sunny and welcoming about it that if I hadn’t heard her conversation with Verica I might have actually taken her at face value.

I didn’t get the impression that Roxana actually liked me, though, and Verica didn’t seem to like either of us, so I wasn’t sure what Roxana was hoping to achieve here.

I left before they could talk to me about anything troublesome and went through the front gates of the institute, walking down the hillside roads towards the city center. It wasn’t long before I came across the inhabitants of this world: sun-bronzed, sporting tunics and sandals, all wearing lenses. They were going through the motions of ordinary days, carrying food home, hanging laundry, cleaning the doorsteps of their homes. The mundanity of it all felt quite distant from the disaster that would arrive on the fourth day.

The language spoken by the inhabitants was unfamiliar, as was the writing system on the signs. However, I could still understand them — perhaps for the same reason why I could read my Record of Existence.

Acacius’ suit earned me many strange looks as I strolled through the city. When I passed by a bakery, a curious child came up to me and asked if I was a refugee. His mother hurriedly pulled him away before he could touch me.

“I was brought here by Council Member Hanan a while ago,” I said, speaking in Iyirian. “But I prefer wearing clothes I’m used to.”

The mother’s face relaxed. She responded in her language. “By the Council? That’s fine then… Ah, I’m sorry for being rude. We’ve just been so on edge lately…”

Whatever translation service was being provided, it sure was convenient. “Because of the disaster?” I said sympathetically.

She nodded with a sigh. “Although we’re safe here for now, who knows when it might reach us? And we can’t even use the Kaleidoscope to check…”

“Why not?”

She gave me a bewildered look. “The Kaleidoscope has the strongest vision, so it would be the first to fall to any contamination, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s the theory, anyways… Do you know something more?”

A sight-based power system up against a visually transmitted disaster… Yeah, it made sense the compatibility was poor.

I soon made it to the downtown area. The architecture and art on display here had some similarities to what I’d seen in Fulsgate; I guess Fulsgate must have taken some inspiration from it over the years. There were also crystalline monuments placed throughout the city, usually on roofs or jutting out at odd angles from other buildings. The tops of the monuments had been covered with tarp.

I checked the notice that had been posted next to one that was near to the ground; it read, “As a precautionary measure, this perspective line is temporarily out of service.” A map and schedule of alternative transit options was written underneath.

Curious, I found a monument in a quiet area, untied the rope holding the tarp in place, and peered underneath. It was covering a carving of an eye.

How mysterious. Just what was the Kaleidoscope capable of, exactly?

With that thought, my attention came back to the lens that the Broken Kaleidoscope had given me.

The functions were rather minimal, and the interface was in Iyirian. Which was very thoughtful of the Broken Kaleidoscope, but…

Why did they even bother with this, again?

I sent a message to Verica through our communication channel.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: Hey.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: In your opinion, how does the Broken Kaleidoscope’s lens compare to the one you had when you entered the world?

sys_node_44: It’s simpler to use and the UI is more familiar.

sys_node_44: What’s with your name?

Your Trustworthy Classmate: Tell me I’m not the only person with missing functions in the new lens.

sys_node_44: It’s for the sake of a simplified interface.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: Sure, but what’s the point of providing us with special lenses if they’re less useful?

sys_node_44: Because it’s easier to use.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: Is it?

Your Trustworthy Classmate: So when are you going to change your system name?

sys_node_44: I don’t need to change it

sys_node_44: Why did you even change yours?

The back of my neck prickled. I closed our communication link and pondered my growing feeling of paranoia.

The lenses they gave us operated on a closed network that only communicated with other devices within the network. But did they really need to worry about information security so much in a world that was continuously reset? They could have just used everyone’s preexisting lenses to open the equivalent of a group chat or something.

The only other good reason I could think of for distributing these lenses was to have a way to track everyone. I didn’t really want to be tracked. I had other things to take care of. What if someone asked me questions?

Better take care of this now. I walked around until I reached a semi-residential area with less foot traffic and an abundance of artfully arranged gardens. Soon, I found a secluded area of a park to experiment in.

Did the lens count as something I was wearing? If so, was it possible for my World Proof to reproduce it?

I turned the lens off, and once the visor dematerialized, unhooked the ear piece. Then I tried adjusting [Honest Man’s Deception] to the time when I had been wearing the lens.

It didn’t work when I set my target as “Acacius Duval.” I guess it was because I’d never seen Acacius Duval wearing the lens. However, when I targeted myself as I had appeared just a few minutes ago, I was able to take Acacius’ appearance and manifest a copy of the lens at the same time.

The visor was still functional, and when I opened my communication link with Verica again, our message history was still there. Out of curiosity, I changed the target of [Honest Man’s Deception] to me before I’d gotten downtown. When I turned on my lens again, our message history was gone.

I tried sending a message.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: Do you still have our message history?

sys_node_44: What?

sys_node_44: Hang on, how did it just disappear?

And the communication link still worked. Excellent.

With everything in order, I tossed the original lens to the ground and crushed it underfoot before sweeping its remains into the dirt of a nearby planted bush.

My feeling of paranoia finally eased, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Better safe than sorry, right?

Now to take care of what I actually wanted to do.

I wandered around until I found a fence that let me climb to the roof of a nearby house. I went to the side that was facing the sun, dangled myself down from the edge of the roof, and dismissed [Honest Man’s Deception].

My vision went dark. New and foreign senses sparked to life in return. I spread my wings out to bask under the sunlight.

Although I was happy [Honest Man’s Deception] had let me return to human form, I wasn’t sure what happened to my “base body” while I was transformed, which was why I’d found a place to finish drying my wings. I didn’t want to miss the critical period for my insect self to stabilize. After all, this was my body now — it would be really dumb to ignore what it needed.

It was going to take a while to finish drying. How long did it take for butterfly wings to dry? I guess I would be relying on Verica to complete our report.

The sun was warm and comfortable, and the ambience of wind and distant conversation soothed my nerves. It wasn’t long before I began to drowse, half awake and half dreaming. Patchwork scenes surfaced in my mind’s eye.

I saw the city spread beneath me like a quilt, before I dove down towards a bird feeder full of seeds that someone had hung up in their yard. A pair of claws stretched out to snatch the startled sparrows scattering away.

I saw furry paws diligently digging up plant roots from the dirt. My vision shook as a great shadow fell over me. Green leaves streaked past me as I dove into the underbrush.

I saw hands cooking food, taking care of the garden, counting out coins and handing out change at the counter. There were faces of every age and gender, speaking to me, looking back at me, passing me by. Occasionally, my classmates and teachers surfaced in the sea of images, only to be submerged again in the flow.

Then I saw a butterfly-robed man standing in a familiar street. My vision tilted to follow his gaze up to the eaves of a nearby building, where a large butterfly’s slowly fanning wings shimmered in iridescent shades of blue.

“Is that a Kalos butterfly? Aren’t they supposed to be underground?” I heard a deep voice say.

“It might’ve been flushed out by the students’ activity,” a woman replied.

“It’s strange for it to come all the way out here, though.”

“It’s not. Bugs show up where they’re not supposed to be all the time.”

“But the Kalos butterflies don’t leave the caverns. It’s not the right period of history for that.” I shifted and flapped my wings. The butterfly in my vision did, too, causing the patterns on its back to blur and distort. My vision flickered in and out like a rapidly blinking eye. “No one but the usual staff should have entered the caverns yet, so it shouldn’t be that the guests disturbed them. Oh, its eyes look abnormal. Do you think—”

“Who cares about the damn butterfly? Can we focus on the issue at hand?”

The man rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. Have you found the missing lens?”

“What do you think, genius?”

“No need to be so touchy. One malfunctioning tracker won’t ruin our plan.”

I jolted like a bucket of cold water had been poured on me.

What did they say?

“It’s better to be safe than sorry. They’re Nithemoore students, after all. Who knows what they’re capable of?”

“Relax. It was probably just broken in an accident.”

“Do you really think we can afford to overlook an ‘accident’ like this today?” the woman said acerbically. “If it’s an accident, it’s fine, but if it’s not, it means someone purposefully destroyed their tracker on the day of our great plan.”

Crap.

The perspective playing in my head hadn’t gone away, even after waking up properly. Was I seeing through someone else’s eyes right now?

The man groaned. “You’re so paranoid. Relax a bit, will you? We’ve made so many preparations; there’s no way any of them will escape.”

“Carelessness is folly. There’s a reason the leader sent us to confirm the situation.” Shoes tapped firmly on the stone as my vision swept back and forth. “Come on. Let’s investigate the surroundings.”

“Seriously? We don’t know how long it’s been. We probably won’t find anything at all.”

“Is that any reason to be negligent?”

Their bickering voices faded away as they moved down a nearby alley.

What kind of conspiracy had I just overheard?

I tried to keep my focus on their perspective, but it slipped away like a fleeting memory of a dream, buried in a stream of other perspectives flashing by. Damn, how did I control this thing?

This perspective-surfing power had to belong to the [Last Genesis]. But if the [Last Genesis] was blind… We learned the meaning of our vision relative to our own body and our interactions with the world. If its only reference was through others’ eyes, how had it understood what it was seeing and mastered its power?

Damn. But I shouldn’t worry about that for now. There were more important things to focus on.

An unknown faction was plotting against the Nithemoore students with ill intentions, and they were making a move in a Fantasm World with an apocalyptic force practically guaranteed to kill us if it arrived. The Broken Kaleidoscope’s lenses might be trackers, and I’d attracted attention by breaking mine; the unknown faction, at best, had hijacked the Broken Kaleidoscope’s operations, and at worst, it was the Broken Kaleidoscope itself.

The Broken Kaleidoscope was in charge of all our exit procedures.

What should I do?

First, to be safe, I needed to secure a means of escape from the Fantasm World.

Second, if possible, I should deliver a coherent warning.

That was going to be hard, because I had no concrete details and no proof but my own testimony. And right now, I was “Acacius Duval,” the guy that basically no one trusted. Could I just fake a bomb threat and get everyone to evacuate that way…?

Maybe Professor Raoul would be willing to listen to me. I transformed back into human form and accessed the Broken Kaleidoscope’s communication network on my lens.

Professor Raoul had changed his system name to “Raoul Sattari,” which made him easy to find. I pulled up his information and requested a private communication channel with him.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: Professor, where are you? I need to talk to you about something.

He didn’t respond right away, so I messaged Verica too. Since she’d been worried about my safety in the Fantasm World, I figured I might as well reciprocate.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: Verica. Where are you? Let’s meet up.

sys_node_44: What’s this about?

Your Trustworthy Classmate: I have something important to discuss in person.

sys_node_44: Fine

sys_node_44: Meet me by the central tower in the city

I checked the city skyline, estimating my distance to the tower. The position of the sun had shifted. If I had to guess, there were about three hours before everyone met up again for the tour.

Your Trustworthy Classmate: See you in half an hour.

With that message sent, I set off for the tower. I kept the lens on, despite its potential nature as a tracker. If someone really came to ask me about it, I could just say that I’d turned it off for a while. But if I got rid of the lens created by [Honest Man’s Deception], my message to Professor Raoul would be erased.

The streets grew more crowded as I entered the downtown area again, so it took a while before I noticed two people in local garbs following me.

I meandered a little just to make sure. They were good at meandering, too. They kept looking at the bronze compass in their hand, circling around as if they were lost and unsure exactly where they were going, but they kept coming in my direction eventually.

That couldn’t be anything good, right?

I turned onto a quieter street and climbed up onto a closed shop front’s overhang to wait.

The tall man holding the compass led his shorter companion past me, then came to a stop. “Wait, the needle swung around,” he said, backtracking to the shop. “Is it in here…?”

“Why would it be in there?” the short man said, baffled.

I swung down from the overhang to land on the taller man’s shoulders, twisting my legs. The momentum spun him down to the ground. He gasped as I landed on his back, twisted his arm up, and pressed [Caller of What Must Be True] against his neck.

“Back off,” I said to his wide-eyed companion. “Who the hell are you?”

The short man raised his hands placatingly. “Just Keepers running an errand for the Council, that’s all. And you are…?”

I frowned. So were they from Kosmonymia or not? I jerked my chin at the compass that had fallen to the ground.

“Toss it over.”

The tall man shifted when I let go of his arm, so I dug my knife in a little before catching the compass with my free hand.

The compass wasn’t inscribed with the four cardinal directions. Instead, there was a golden plate upon which a word had been written in thick and fragrant ink.

Kaleidoscope.

I swung the compass around a little bit, and the needle kept swinging around to point directly at me. The short man’s gaze followed my movements.

What the hell? Why would a compass looking for the Kaleidoscope point at me when all those lenses and fancy towers were all over the place? Was it because of that stupid butterfly’s title?

Just then, a sweet and fragrant scent drifted past me. I looked up sharply at the short man.

A golden daffodil was blooming in his hands. It turned its face towards me, unfurling its petals to reveal a hollow white face in the middle, with no nose, empty holes for eyes, and a black slash of a mouth. It writhed as it began transforming into Acacius’ visage.

I moved my knife up to the tall man’s eye, pressing it hard enough to draw blood. He swallowed back a whimper. “Put that away if you don’t want him to lose an eye.”

The daffodil trembled and the face collapsed.

And then, it morphed into the head of a butterfly with ghostly white eyes.

“We’re all friends here,” the short man said. “You can trust us. It’s okay.”

The daffodil swayed in his hands. The sweet scent in the air grew thicker.

“Oh,” I said.

So it was like that. Silly me.

I relaxed my grip on my knife, and when the tall man under me hesitantly tried to crawl away, I obligingly let him up. Before he could escape to our friend’s side, though, I hooked an arm around his neck, forcing him to bend down to my height.

“Sorry about that misunderstanding, friend,” I said with a smile. “I only did that because I thought you meant me harm. It’s a good thing that’s not true, right?”

Yep, it was true, which meant I didn’t have to threaten him at all. I was only threatening him because I was unhappy, and I was unhappy because they’d been following me and I felt like they had bad intentions…

But that couldn’t be true, because we were friends and I trusted them.

One of the daffodil’s shining golden petals withered and fell, turning into gray and rotten ashes on the ground.

“Ahaha. Yeah. Not true,” my tall friend said with an awkward smile, reaching into his coat pocket. I didn’t raise my knife. He took out a few green sticks of incense and a bronze incense burner. “You must have been stressed. Here, this will help us all relax.”

Wow, how considerate. I watched him light the incense with a match. A pleasantly woody smoke intertwined with the daffodil’s sweet fragrance in the air. All the smoke in my face was unpleasant, though, so I released him and let him back away out of grabbing range.

“Say, friend,” my short friend said. “What identity did you get when you entered the Fantasm World?”

I frowned. “Let’s not talk about that. Just thinking about it pisses me off.”

“What are friends for if not sharing the burden?” said the tall man. “At least, talking about it will make you feel better. And you can trust us not to spread it around.”

That was true. I sighed and crossed my arms. “I got chosen by some butterfly spirit called the [Last Genesis of the Kaleidoscope]… Because I’m a ‘nonhuman that understands humans.’ How does that make any sense, though? Aren’t I clearly human?”

My friends exchanged significant glances.

“Don’t you think so, too?” I said impatiently. “You know who I am.”

Even before transmigrating here, I’d clearly been a human. But maybe I should be forgiving; my friends didn’t know about that. Huh? They didn’t know it. Then how could they be my friends?

“Hey,” I said. “You remember my name, right?”

Why didn’t I know their names, either?

My tall friend glanced at my clothes and answered easily, “Of course. You’re Acacius Duval.”

So he wasn’t my friend. I shouldn’t trust him.

Another of the daffodil’s petals rotted away.

No, wait. I understood. A friend didn’t have to know everything about you to become your friend. Not even your real name! That was why, even at the end, towards Chen Xiarui, I…

Ah, damn, I didn’t want to think about it, or I might have to build a shrine and pray for forgiveness every day.

The tall man rested a hand on my shoulder. Which was only natural to let him do, as a friend.

“Don’t worry, you’re human,” he said comfortingly. “No matter what the Scribe might say.”

I cheered up. That was right. My friends understood me just fine, which meant that we could focus on the important things.

“Do you know how to leave the Fantasm World?”

“Why do you ask?” the short man asked.

“Because there’s some bastards up to no good, that’s why. So…” I trailed off and gave a large yawn. Huh. I thought I’d gotten enough rest earlier. “…So we should all leave to be safe.”

“What do you know about the intruders?”

“Almost nothing.”

They weren’t from my school, they were from Kosmonymia, and they were suspicious.

Just like my friends.

Which was why I’d attacked them earlier. After all, they’d been following me right after I’d heard that hostile force talking about targeting Nithemoore. But I’d been mistaken, because they were my friends and I could trust them. The short man had said so, so it had to be true.

Huh? No. People were liars. They lied all the time. Why would I…

Another petal from the daffodil withered and fell.

Ah, I knew what it had to be. My trustworthy friend definitely didn’t lie to me about who he was. It was just that in addition to being my trustworthy friend, he was part of something terrible. This kind of thing happened all the time. Why did I forget something so simple?

I put a hand to my head. The scent of incense was growing stronger. I felt dizzy and tired. My thoughts were getting slow.

“You seem tired. Why don’t you sit down and rest, friend?” my short friend suggested, stepping forward. “Here, we’ll watch your back while you close your eyes. You can trust us, after all.”

“Mm,” I said, letting my two friends guide me by the elbows to sit down on a bench. My eyelids were drooping. I watched my short friend ease the knife out of my loose fingers and set it to the side. My tall friend gently removed my necklace of artifacts, too.

“Go on. Everything is okay,” my tall friend said softly.

I nodded and yawned again.

I just needed to figure out one thing first.

Why was that incense putting me to sleep, anyways? Could it be that since they were plotting against Nithemoore students, they were going to target me, too?

As I struggled to keep my eyes open, I saw one more petal turn to rotten ash, leaving only a single lonely petal hanging on that flower.

I was being silly. Why would they target me, when they were my trustworthy friends?

“How much longer?” my short friend said over my head.

“It’s almost done. Don’t worry.”

No, wait…

That was wrong.

It was precisely because they were my trustworthy friends that they could betray me.

Just like what happened to Brother, and Sister, and Teacher.

I didn’t know what had motivated these friends to move against me, but even now, they’d tried to disarm me and drug me, and I didn’t know what they would try next once I fell asleep. Could I walk away before they went any further? … But if they’d already gone this far, would they really be willing to let me walk away?

They were my trustworthy friends, but they wouldn’t be for much longer, would they?

I felt sad. I hadn’t wanted to lose any more friends like this. Maybe they should all just go to hell.

I forced my heavy eyelids open.

“Hey, friend?” I said to my tall companion.

“What’s wrong? Go to sleep, we can talk about it when you’re awake…”

I reached up and put a hand on his shoulder and smiled, sad, angry, despairing.

“I’m sorry that things turned out this way.”

I re-materialized [Caller of What Must Be True] in my hand and cut his throat.

He stood up sharply, incense burner clattering to the ground. Blood flowed down his neck like a river, staining his robes, dripping over his desperate hands, spattering the street. With a single light kick, his body hit the ground.

My short friend scrambled away, face pale, looking between me and the daffodil in his hands. “What? But there’s still—”

I threw my knife. It planted itself in his eye. He opened his mouth, but he didn’t manage another word before he fell backwards onto the street.

He didn’t get up again.

The daffodil in his hands withered away. The fallen incense hissed as the growing pools of blood extinguished them. My jaw cracked open in my most intense yawn yet.

Wow, that was scary. How did they manage to twist my brain around so badly? Even now I was still feeling sad. Thankfully, the sensation was fading. It was a good thing they’d chosen to implant suggestions with so many holes in its construction, or I really would have been in trouble.

Actually, no.

I was lucky they’d only been trying to capture me, not kill.

I got to my feet, swayed, and fell next to the bodies. I wanted to close my eyes so badly. Distantly, someone was screaming.

It was a bad look to leave two bodies in the street, but I didn’t have the confidence to do something about them without passing out. Still, I crawled over to collect the compass and tried to destroy it with [Caller].

My knife slipped off the glass cover without leaving a single scratch.

It would just have to come with me, then. I put it away along with the remaining incense and incense burner, dismissed [Caller], and stumbled away from the scene of the crime.

Somewhere safe to sleep… Where could I go without being caught…? I didn’t want to wake up in jail…

Ah, it would be fine as long as I wasn’t human, right?

I dragged myself down a few streets, found a patch of trees and bushes in front of a nice building, and dismissed the effects of [Honest Man’s Deception].

My freshly collected goods tumbled into the dirt. I didn’t have the energy to care. Drowsiness swept over me like a tide.

It took all I had to crawl under a bush, where the shade comfortably hid me from the heat of the sun.

If I had any thoughts after that, I didn’t remember them.

Slumber overtook me.

---

When I woke up, other than a slight muzziness and a notable sense of thirst, I felt okay. I felt my way out from under the bush and transformed back into human form, taking a moment to collect my spoils of war. They were important clues, after all.

How long had I been out?

I looked up at the sky and blanched.

The sun’s position told me all that I needed to know. Hours had passed. I’d long missed my appointment with Verica.

Fuck.

I had a really, really bad feeling.

If I was targeting the Nithemoore students, when would be the best time to strike, making sure that no one escaped?

Perhaps at a time and place everyone was gathered together, at a location I knew about beforehand, where I could make all the preparations I wanted.

When did the Broken Kaleidoscope’s guided tour begin, again?

Please, I prayed. Don’t let me be too late.

I took off into the streets and ran.

Chapter 19 Chapter 21