Chapter 127 – Memory
A wooden bucket sat filled with a thick, deep-blue liquid.
A wool brush was dipped into it, lifted dripping, then dragged again and again across the stone walls, sketching strange symbols in steady strokes.
Some of the patterns resembled eyes—horizontal and vertical, orderly and twisted, intact and malformed.
From nothing to something, from sparse to dense, countless blue "eyes" gradually spread across the stone walls until they covered the entire chamber.
This was an unused room somewhere inside the King's Tower. Once word spread that he needed it, the black-cloaked brothers quickly cleared the place out for him.
It became Charles's private laboratory.
Yes—an experiment.
What he was testing now was knowledge taken from the Undying Ones: the Eye of Fate, or rather, the creation of illusionary realms.
The so-called threads of fate were still too obscure to grasp. Things like the Phantom Turtle required too many rare materials and far too much preparation time. At present, the only knowledge that could be put to immediate use was this ancient magic array known as the Eye of Fate.
Thanks to his influence in the North—and under the logistical coordination of the Lannister dwarf—the necessary materials had been quietly gathered. Now they all existed as that deep-blue liquid inside the bucket.
All that remained was to turn this special dye into a functioning magic array.
Because this knowledge had been obtained through "combat leveling," it was already etched into his memory. He could use it flawlessly himself, but teaching it to others was out of the question—at least for now.
So there was no one to help him. He had to paint every wall himself.
Which made the process… slow.
By the time every stone surface in the chamber was covered, an entire day had slipped by unnoticed.
...
With the final stroke complete, Charles casually tossed the wool brush back into the bucket. He surveyed the walls filled with blue "graffiti," exhaled, then walked to the center of the room and sat cross-legged inside an eye symbol painted onto the floor.
Strange, jagged incantations spilled from his lips.
They were completely different from his spiritual tongue—muttered half-whispered, half-chanted, rising and falling unpredictably. His throat quickly grew dry, as if rejecting the sounds themselves.
These were not words meant to be spoken by a human mouth.
They were difficult—painfully so. But the knowledge rooted deep in his memory allowed him to finish the chant without rushing.
And yet—
[You attempted to activate the Eye of Fate. Activation failed. Incantation syllables incorrect.]
...
The notice drifted silently before his eyes.
Charles wasn't surprised.
With incantations this convoluted, failure was normal—even for veteran sorcerers. Expecting success on the first try would have been absurd, unless one possessed a truly abnormal throat.
He cleared his throat and began again.
Once.
Twice.
On the third attempt, every deep-blue eye painted on the walls suddenly began to glow, releasing a soft azure radiance. Almost immediately, mist of the same color seeped out from the symbols.
At first, the fog was thin and sparse—like cold air leaking from an ice cellar—floating lazily in the air.
As time passed, it thickened.
The eyes bled mist faster and faster, until it poured out like wastewater from factory drains, gurgling endlessly.
Before long, the chamber was completely engulfed in blue fog.
The air was heavy. Everything was dyed deep blue. Flickering images flashed before his eyes like broken reflections, and a faint dizziness crept into his mind.
It felt like the onset of hallucination.
And yet, no matter how long he waited, Charles never entered the vivid, world-like illusion Daenerys had described.
Still, compared to last time, he felt more immersed—perhaps because this time he was present in a physical body.
Expecting this outcome, he calmly reached for a cup of blue liquid placed nearby and tilted his head back, drinking it in one gulp.
The stench hit instantly—like rotting corpses.
The icy liquid slid down his throat, carrying a rancid, fishy chill that made his face twist in disgust. He nearly vomited.
This was shade-of-the-evening, the same drink Daenerys had consumed. Its purpose was to enhance synchronization with illusionary magic arrays.
Forcing it down, the stench gradually faded—then transformed.
Sweetness.
Sourness.
Bitterness.
Salt.
The flavors shifted endlessly across his tongue, lingering far longer than expected.
"…This drink is actually pretty good?"
The thought barely surfaced before a cool current spread from his stomach through his entire body.
And then—
Everything changed.
...
Brilliant light flooded his vision.
When Charles looked up, he found himself sitting in the middle of a vast grassland—not the stone chamber he had just left.
Green grass stretched endlessly beneath the sun, vibrant and refreshing, offering a sense of openness that cleared the mind.
And yet—
The ground beneath him was hard, lacking any softness.
The sunlight carried no warmth at all.
Everything quietly proclaimed its falseness.
Scanning his surroundings, Charles realized he wasn't alone.
Groups of people wandered across the grasslands—some close, some distant. Nearby figures were clear in appearance and clothing; those farther away varied in size, from black dots to shadowy silhouettes.
He wasn't surprised by the simplicity of the terrain.
After all, he had constructed the array himself. He could control how "difficult" the environment would be. There was no need for elaborate trials or theatrical obstacles.
What he didn't understand was how the memories would manifest.
As he watched the scattered groups, a sense of dazed realization crept over him.
"…That was easy?"
He had expected trials—layers of memories to fight through, perhaps a labyrinth leading to buried knowledge.
Or maybe only his own memories would respond, while those of the bandaged man and his aunt remained unreachable.
But what he saw now told a different story.
Those wandering figures—weren't they clusters of memories, quietly replaying themselves?
Some were unfamiliar. Others were known.
And clearly, they weren't all his.
Just a few steps away, two teenage boys wearing black-and-white suspenders stood close together, speaking in hushed voices.
As Charles approached, their conversation reached his ears.
"Mr. Ian's world history class is pointless. He just reads straight from the textbook. We'd learn more studying on our own."
"But Mom said we have to pay attention in class…"
"Then your brother says you're not allowed to attend anymore."
...
A black-haired, black-eyed boy, and a brown-haired, green-eyed one.
They spoke to each other as if no one else existed, completely oblivious to Charles's presence—indeed, they could not see him at all. In truth, these two were nothing more than a cluster of memories.
A fragment belonging to the body's original owner.
[September 7th, 1832, Afternoon — Dulin Royal Academy — The Cranston Brothers]
...
Even this had been neatly parsed into data by the Eye of Reality. There was no need for Charles to strain his memory.
He only needed to watch.
Once the memory replayed to a certain point, the scene looped back to the beginning.
"Mr. Ian's world history class, I really think—"
The arrogant elder brother and the timid younger one spoke again, reconstructing the entire scene.
Looking more closely, Charles realized that this so-called brother—whom he had never met—looked nothing like the original body at all. Brown hair, green eyes, delicate features, almost fragile.
"Not a blood relative?"
A trace of malicious speculation flickered toward that long-unseen "father," but Charles quickly dismissed the thought and turned away, walking toward another nearby scene.
This one was a ballroom.
The original body was fighting with a spoiled noble youth from Dulin over a woman—jealousy, fists flying, blood spilled.
Nothing worth lingering over.
After a brief glance, Charles moved on.
He continued like this, scene after scene.
The sunlit grassland was dotted with countless fragments: conversations, reading, meals, arguments.
These were not only memories of the original body, but also those of his aunt—and the bandaged man as well. Seeing this, Charles finally let out a quiet breath. This was exactly what he had hoped for.
Yet as he continued to search, something felt off.
He could not find a single fragment from his own previous life.
Not even a trace.
"Is the spell unable to retrieve them… or is it something else?"
The thought lingered as he wandered from memory to memory, watching familiar and unfamiliar faces alike, listening to them discuss known and unknown facts, secrets, and scraps of knowledge. The experience was fascinating.
But there were simply too many images.
After a long time, he still hadn't found anything truly useful.
Until, at last, he stopped before a scene involving three figures in black cloaks.
They sat around a round table, speaking in low voices, as if in a public place.
One of them folded his hands on a pinewood tabletop and said quietly,
"The time to explore the tomb is approaching. We should begin preparing the living sacrifices for the ritual."
"I've already prepared mine," another replied casually, then added with excitement, "What do you think we'll find inside the tomb? Will there really be a key to open the rift? Ha—I've been looking forward to this for a long time."
"Open the rift? One-Eye, are you insane?"
"What's insane about it? I'm not willing to hide in the sewers forever like a rat."
"But—"
The third cloaked figure interrupted sharply,
"Enough arguing. Whether the tomb even contains that thing is uncertain. Our primary objective is the Bone Scripture. That, at least, is known to exist."
...
The scene abruptly ended—then began looping again.
Judging by the voice, the second cloaked figure was undoubtedly the bandaged man. The identities of the other two were unclear, though that hardly mattered.
Charles watched the secret-laden scene repeat several times, committing every detail to memory.
This, at the very least, explained why the bandaged man had been hunted—though the full story was still unclear. Whatever lay behind it, the secrets were deep.
"And likely full of danger… and opportunity."
As he murmured this, the world around him began to blur.
Scanning his surroundings, Charles saw the once-clear grassland fade, as if covered by a thin veil.
"The array's power is running out?"
Understanding dawned. He pushed the matter aside for now and broke into a run, hoping to uncover something else before the illusion collapsed.
One scene.
Two scenes.
Three scenes.
Finally, he saw a familiar figure.
His aunt.
The aunt he had only ever seen in oil paintings—no longer young, her face lined with age.
She wore a gray wool sweater and sat in a rocking chair on a balcony, a blanket draped over her legs. In her hands was a notebook she slowly caressed.
A notebook Charles knew all too well.
And her fingers rested on its final page—the page that appeared blank, yet concealed secrets.
"Will she say the method to unseal it…?"
Under Charles's tense gaze, his aunt lingered there for a long moment. At last, she whispered softly,
"Feike will always love Rhine."
As the words fell, faint lines of tiny handwriting slowly emerged on the once-blank page.
The image shattered.
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