"A pair of eyes."
"!!??"
Cheng Shi's whole body jolted. The words flew out: "The Eye of Mockery?"
Skart in the coffin paused, confused:
"What's that?"
"I don't know any Eye of Mockery. All I know is that what I threw out... was my own eyes."
"Huh?"
Cheng Shi blinked, not processing: "Your eyes?"
"You gouged out your own eyes and threw them out?"
"But you've been trapped in this coffin clinging to life for ages—how did you manage to throw your eyes outside?"
"If you could throw out your own eyes, then couldn't you just dig—"
He stopped midsentence. Because he rembered the small hole in the statue's eye socket—the one that looked worn through by years of friction. So the one who made that hole was Skart?
"I have been digging. But that's all I could manage."
"I knew that passively drinking blood wasn't safe, so every ti I regained so strength I'd let a little of my own blood, tear strips from my burial shroud, harden them with blood, and use them as tools to chisel the coffin."
"As a Scarlet Hunter, blood is second nature to . Blood-soaked cloth becos hard as iron. But to avoid alerting the Folly believers outside, I could only absorb tiny amounts of blood essence each ti, limiting my digging to brief sessions."
"Ti, however, I had in abundance. So over the span of a century, every ti I woke I'd chisel a little more—until I bored a small hole through the coffin and followed the statue's only ventilation shaft to drill a gap through the statue's eye."
"Then I spent several more centuries accumulating Folly's power of faith, wrapping my eyeballs in it to preserve their vitality."
"That way, once I threw my eyes out, I could reverse the blood-absorption process—feeding on my own blood through the eyes—and use them as a foundation to rebuild my body."
"Even if the reborn shell would be weak, at least I'd be free."
"And so, after preparing for heaven knows how long, the opportunity finally ca."
"I sensed soone approaching outside, investigating my sounds. I knew they'd leave soon and clear the area to prevent drunks from defiling the statue in their stupor."
"So the mont I heard silence outside, I executed my plan and threw out my eyes..."
"But you didn't realize Koshna hadn't left—he'd just fallen asleep." Cheng Shi's expression was priceless—torn between laughing and crying.
"...Yes."
Who could've imagined that Skart's escape plan, centuries in the making, would be foiled by a modern-day hangover?
Koshna, investigating the statue ravings incident, had drunk wine to replicate the conditions. But he couldn't hold his liquor and fell asleep during his worship. Skart, thinking the coast was finally clear, launched his eyes.
Then Koshna woke from his nap, mistook the thing for a divine gift, and carried it away.
Without sensing his own blood essence, Skart's eyes couldn't rebuild his body. He'd failed—and lost his eyes in the process.
And Koshna receiving the "gift" had been witnessed by Kandert, who then orchestrated a Knowing Folly case to get at Koshna and stole the dead man's eyes.
But Kandert's actions were in turn discovered by Max, leading to everything that had unfolded in this trial...
From the mont Skart entered the coffin—no, from the mont he crash-landed on this soil—Redi Core's chain of foolish acts had never once been broken.
The sha of it was: the so-called divine gift was no divine gift at all. Just a pair of Scarlet Hunter eyeballs.
Did this an the trail to the Eye of Mockery had gone cold?
No—not necessarily.
After all, the Eye of Mockery was part of that mask, making it one of Deceit's "creations." Whether or not it was Folly's divine gift didn't matter. What mattered was whether it carried Deceit's codic gene.
And as it stood, these eyes—even originating from a Death follower—were absolutely hilarious.
So he couldn't rule out the possibility that Skart's discarded eyes were the Eye of Mockery.
One question remained, however: even if Kandert had witnessed Koshna receiving the "gift," what made him certain the divine gift was hidden in Koshna's eyes?
Unless he'd actually watched those gifted eyes rge with Koshna's. Otherwise...
Thinking of this, Cheng Shi frowned and asked:
"If soone else picked up your eyes, how would they maintain their vitality?"
"I refuse to believe that a plan centuries in the making had zero contingencies. Tell . This is the last question. Answer it, and I'll bring you back to the light."
The coffin fell silent for a mont—an internal struggle. But in the end, the desire for freedom overwheld everything, and Skart yielded:
"There was a contingency..."
"If the eyes were unfortunately picked up by soone else, and that person had any wound on their body, the eyes would burrow inside like a parasite and fuse with that person's own eyes to preserve themselves."
"But that's all they can do. In my weakened state, I couldn't arrange anything more. I could only hope that soday, after escaping, I'd track down my eyes through the connection."
"But I know that's unlikely. The faith force sustaining them cos from Folly, and I'm not a true Folly believer. Once they're away from
for too long—no, not even a few days—they'll probably stop being mine..."
"Eye of Mockery?"
"Nice na. Eyes that return to folly—what else would you call them but the Eye of Mockery?"
"..."
Cheng Shi pursed his lips, thinking: 'The Eye of Mockery I'm talking about isn't Folly's contemptuous gaze.'
Still, the eyes Skart had lost matched every known characteristic of the Eye of Mockery. To avoid dismissing a lead through premature judgnt, Cheng Shi decided he still needed to search.
The question was: where exactly had Kandert hidden these eyes?
'Could they be in his own eyes?'
"If the eyes have already fused with one person, could they fuse with a second person's eyes?"
As he spoke, Cheng Shi produced Kandert's corpse from the Molten Coffin.
The coffin-bound Skart considered briefly: "Of course. Think of my eyes as the most primitive lifeform possible—no intelligence, just survival instinct. To stay alive, their only option is to parasitize..."
"Then check whether this body has your eyes."
"..."
A long silence. Then Skart sighed: "Setting aside the fact that I have no vision right now... You haven't let
out. With the coffin lid between us, I can't see anything."
'Oh right, forgot about that.'
Cheng Shi laughed awkwardly, glanced at the sky outside, stowed the corpse, and said with a half-smile to the coffin:
"Then co on out."
"...I'll need Your assistance for that."
"Tch—"
"I think not."
"When you were weak, you managed to chisel through this coffin with nothing but bloody rags. Now that you're well fed, don't tell
you suddenly can't?"
"You keep insisting I do the work. Is it because you're trying to provoke —make
feel resistant or concerned so I leave?"
"After I leave and there's no more external threat, you can just break out on your own, right?"
"Nice little sche."
"Too bad for you—you've run into the big sche."
"Co out!"
"I'm counting to three. If I don't see your head, don't bla
for sending you to et your Benefactor."
"THREE!"
"!!??"
BOOM—
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