#280
Technological Revolution (2)
“I heard you requested an interview.”
The director’s office of the Azerion Imperial Hospital.
When the owner of the room opened his mouth with his usual cold expression, Hesperon, seated across from him, nodded gravely.
“Yes. It concerns the prosthetic eye in my eye…”
As he spoke, he raised one hand and stroked the eyepatch over his right eye.
After losing his eyeball on the day of Riley’s attack, the right socket had been fitted with a prosthetic eye the hospital had implanted at its discretion.
It had been done because leaving the empty orbit as it was could ruin the balance between the left and right sides of his face. But since it had been prepared by the imperial hospital, it was also an item of the highest quality, not something one could easily find.
With a magic stone used as its core, it could be called a magical tool layered with all sorts of beneficial effects related to health—
“I would like to replace this.”
That was why the director’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly when he saw the milky-white sphere Hesperon presented.
A smooth, milky-white bead the size of an ordinary adult’s eyeball.
Even to him, a man deeply knowledgeable in many fields, it looked extraordinary enough that he could not guess what material it was made of. However, he did not feel any particular power from it.
‘There’s no magic circle engraved on it, nor is it an item under a spell. To begin with, there isn’t even a magic stone inside it.’
To put it bluntly, it was nothing more and nothing less than an ornament.
The director stared at it quietly, then turned his gaze back to the patient.
At any rate, as a doctor, he had a duty to do his utmost.
“The cultivation of your artificial eyeball is nearly complete. Of course, in your case, it will not restore your sight, but at the very least, it can make you look exactly as you did before on the outside.”
Not only the movement of the pupil, but even things like focus adjustment.
The director calmly continued, saying that once that was done, there would be no need for him to wear an eyepatch anymore.
“Of course, replacing the prosthetic eye is not particularly difficult, but we are going to transplant the artificial eyeball in its place soon anyway. Is there any need to go out of your way to do this?”
Even at those words, Hesperon nodded firmly.
He might not have needed to before, but now he did.
“Yes, please.”
“Very well.”
Seeing that his mind seemed set, the director accepted without saying anything more.
After all, such a minor matter would not greatly affect the results of treatment, so he seemed inclined to follow the patient’s wishes whenever possible.
‘Though if he refuses the artificial eyeball transplant later, his reaction will be different.’
He felt sorry for making him go through unnecessary trouble, but since they had said his sight would not return anyway, there was nothing to be done.
Since it was his eye, shouldn’t he choose the option that was most efficient and helpful?
And so, immediately after the prosthetic eye was replaced through a simple procedure.
Hesperon returned nonchalantly to his private room inside the hospital and quietly looked into the mirror.
‘…Just as I thought. As expected, even an archmage can’t recognize it in its current state.’
The milky-white sphere settled in his right eye socket.
Its true identity, which even the hospital director had failed to see through, was the prosthetic eye he had taken from the Lawkeeper, commonly known as “Callicas’s Mechanical Eye.”
Because all of its mysteries and functions had stopped when it crossed dimensions, unless one tore it open and examined the inside, it now looked like nothing more than a bead made of unusual material.
‘Meaning there was no need to go back and forth to Earth just to keep it secret.’
In any case, what mattered more than the procedure itself was how to operate it afterward.
In its current state, it would only be a half-finished thing usable solely on Earth.
‘If I’m going to do that, I’d be better off dismantling it and using it as nourishment for Howard. The best option would be to create an environment where I can not only gather practical usage data, but also conduct regular inspections and analyses.’
And the most optimal subject for that was none other than Hesperon.
For one thing, he was currently missing an eye…
“Whew, then… shall we begin?”
And he also had a secret method that could circumvent even such dimensional restrictions.
Taking a deep breath, Hesperon closed his eye and focused his attention on the prosthetic eye on the right.
“……”
A magical tool from one world could not be used in another world.
That was an absolute law beyond the control of any individual.
However, wasn’t there another major premise that took precedence over that?
The existence known as an Awakened was an exception even to such dimensional laws.
‘In that case.’
What would happen if he could bind that magical tool and an Awakened together as one?
If he could make it be recognized entirely as part of his body, beyond the relationship of user and tool?
‘It would be impossible for others.’
But he had an ability that made it possible.
Soon, that ability, 「Chains of Covenant」, activated and began to commune with the prosthetic eye whose operation had ceased.
———!
A sharp pain began around his eye and shot all the way to his brain.
He felt an intense resistance greater than anything he had experienced so far.
He had sensed it during the sealing orb on his right arm as well, but as expected, the higher the level of the target, the more difficult it became. From the very entry stage, it was exceedingly tight.
Moreover, this prosthetic eye was currently in a state of complete inactivity, was it not?
Naturally, establishing communion with it could only be more difficult.
‘But… I already expected this much.’
That was why Howard’s 「Technological Revolution」 was necessary.
An ability that allowed him to intervene in the system composing an item from another dimension and modify part of it.
‘If the problem is that each dimension’s laws are different, then I just need to make adjustments so that part becomes compatible!’
He would readjust the internal structure and enable, even if only partially, functions that originally should have been unusable.
Of course, since it had not been long since he acquired the ability, a complete reboot was out of the question for now…
But a very small part, for example—
Something like breathing a faint breath of life into a function that had gone completely silent was something he could do even now.
Ziiing—
As the conditions he had set in advance were fulfilled, a small vibration was felt around his eye.
A minute operating sound that did not leak outside at all, one that only he could sense through his skull.
‘Done.’
In that fleeting instant.
「Chains of Covenant」, having swiftly infiltrated the interior, did not miss the opportunity.
‘Now, come this way.’
Encounter, negotiation, coordination, compromise, coercion, control…
And then the process of completely seizing the target and binding them together as one proceeded smoothly in a single flow.
At the same time that the entire sequence ended, countless green symbols appeared in his blacked-out right field of vision and began to flash upward in an instant.
And one sentence sat at the center of them.
“…It’s a success.”
Hesperon, who had been staring blankly at that phrase, turned back toward the mirror.
On the smooth surface of the prosthetic eye, which had been a simple milky-white, rows of all sorts of symbols rapidly swept past.
Like a computer that had just begun to boot.
Only a few seconds after that.
His half-lost field of vision opened wide in an instant, and everything around him began to enter his sight at once.
***
《The individual has implanted a new body part. Acquired the skill 「Mechanical Eye: Callicas」.》
In truth, when he thought about it, the Lawkeeper, whose spiritual body had been torn away by Hans and had lost his sight, and Hesperon, who had gained power by offering his eye as a sacrifice, were in quite similar circumstances.
In that it was not simply a matter of physical injury, but permanent loss of sight for a more spiritual reason.
In that sense, this special prosthetic eye was the perfect solution to it.
After all, its principle was not to use the optic nerve, but to project the image captured by a camera directly into the brain and draw the picture inside the mind.
“But… I didn’t think it would be to this extent.”
As he slowly looked around, an exclamation escaped his mouth on its own.
It was not merely that his field of vision had recovered to the level it had been when both eyes were intact.
It far surpassed not only the viewing angle according to focus, but even the range of movement that a human should naturally possess.
‘Huh? This can see through things too?’
He could even roll only the eyeball and look through his own head to see behind his back.
It was literally as if he had eyes on the back of his head.
Needless to say, his vision could sometimes become a microscope, and at other times a telescope.
‘Come to think of it, they say an ostrich’s eyesight is 25. I wonder if it feels like this?’
Hesperon turned his gaze forward again and looked at the mirror.
The smooth surface that had looked like a bead when its operation had ceased was nowhere to be found, and a mysterious eye that had appeared at some point sat naturally at the center of the prosthetic eye.
A blue border encircled the iris, and geometric patterns filled the inside of it, glowing with light.
“…Cool.”
It was a one-hundred-percent objective impression without a shred of personal bias.
A stylish cyborg eye like this—wasn’t that a romance no man could resist?
He even felt a fresh surge of gratitude toward the Lawkeeper, who had generously given him this and that until the very end.
Soon, he quietly shifted his gaze and looked at the sentence floating in one corner of his right field of vision.
「Chains of Covenant」 included not only simple synchronization, but an additional effect that strengthened the target.
It seemed to recognize such things as updates.
However, perhaps because of that, there was something that bothered him a little…
‘What a useless thing to do. Enough. Stop.’
The auxiliary personality of the prosthetic eye, the AI that would originally have been moderately passive, had also improved in performance.
Of course, since it was firmly subordinated through 「Chains of Covenant」, it did not particularly matter.
‘A black flame dragon dwelling in my right arm and an AI dwelling in my eyeball. I feel complicated somehow.’
Still, the AI… nicknamed “Cali” after the dimension it came from, would not run wild as it pleased like 「Right Arm of Desire」, so it was not entirely a bad thing.
“Good. Then now I’d like to properly test its performance.”
If one obtained a new ability, it was only natural to want to try using it.
Hesperon was about to head straight out of the private hospital room, but paused for a moment…
‘Mm, it would be better to hide it for now. It might draw unnecessary attention.’
After a brief moment of thought, he put the black eyepatch back over his right eye.
Of course, even then, he could easily see through his eyelid and the eyepatch, so there was no problem with its function at all.
“Now then, shall we go? First, I’ll take a full walk around the path…”
And so the New Hesperon, evolved one step further than before, strode forward with majestic confidence.
***
“Mm?”
The hospital director, who had finished his paperwork and then completed his rounds of the patient rooms as usual, suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Because, as he casually turned his head toward the window, one person entered his sight.
After standing there for a moment, his head slowly tilted to the side without him realizing it.
The person Princess Riley had specially asked him to look after.
The man named Hesperon was behaving suspiciously near the walking path.
He would stand blankly as if looking into the distance, then look down at the flower bed and concentrate.
Every time he encountered another person, he would flinch in surprise and turn his gaze away. Then, when he looked at the bathroom wall nearby, he grimaced fiercely as if he found it unpleasant.
In the end, he tightly shut his one remaining eye, only to soon let out a sigh and look blankly up at the sky.
“…Hmm.”
It was certainly a peculiar pattern of behavior he had never shown before.
The hospital director, who had been watching him seriously, slowly stroked his chin.
Come to think of it, earlier he had brought in some unknown prosthetic eye and said he wanted to replace the existing one with it.
Seeing him act like that immediately afterward made him suspect that perhaps some mental issue had arisen.
‘Well, it would make sense. The reason he was hospitalized this time was because of the perpetrator who had left him with a permanent disability in the past. Still, he had shown fairly good signs until now, so I was somewhat relieved.’
Moreover, he was still continuously under the influence of a curse, was he not?
If anything, it was strange that he had seemed fine until now.
‘I should prepare psychological counseling for tomorrow as well. Come to think of it, I heard he wanted to go outside. I should think of a way to compromise… hm?’
While the hospital director was frantically writing something on the chart in his hand…
His gaze, which had briefly glanced toward Hesperon, stopped once more.
To be more precise, at Hesperon’s right eye, still covered by the black eyepatch.
“…How strange.”
And he muttered a word without realizing it.
But when he looked again, there was nothing particularly strange about it.
That made it all the stranger.
‘The flow of mana is calm as well…’
His intuition held a sense of incongruity, but his reason could not find anything particularly abnormal.
‘…Is it just my imagination?’
That thought continued until the person engaged in his strange behavior disappeared completely from sight.
However, the hospital director, slightly frowning, soon let out a short sigh and began walking again.
He was far too busy to keep wasting time on an ambiguous issue.
Meanwhile, Hesperon, the subject of his concern, had…
As soon as he finished his light walk, which doubled as a performance test for the prosthetic eye, and returned to his private hospital room, he issued the first instruction to the AI Cali.
“Ahem.”
No matter what anyone said, he was a proper gentleman.