"Asha, it's our turn."
As I was lost in thought, Connie was the first to snap me out of it.
She pointed to the line, which had shrunk considerably, and to the roller coaster seats waiting for us.
I still wasn't in the best mood to ride a roller coaster; in fact, I couldn't be worse off, but at least the topic managed to divert my focus a little.
I decided not to dwell too much on my photo being leaked without consent and let Connie lead me to our seats.
An intimidatingly tall attendant greeted us with a cheerful smile and collected our tickets. Doug and Connie were checked in without any problems, but a small issue arose when it was my turn.
"Excuse me, sir, you're this child's guardian, right?"
The attendant looked at Doug with a serious expression.
"Yes, is there a problem?"
The man checked the tickets several times before finally sighing.
"Sir, although this ride is 'all ages,' I can't allow children under five years old..."
Extremely outrageous words came out of the attendant's mouth. His words were so absurd that even my usually emotionless face couldn't hide my shock.
"The ticket you gave me strangely meets the minimum height and age requirements. I can't legally stop you here, but I must warn you that document forgery is a serious crime punishable by law."
His tone was impartial, but the meaning behind his words was clear. He was accusing Doug of lying about my personal information.
Silent eyes turned toward us as Doug's face paled slightly.
"There seems to be a misunderstanding. I can assure you that the information is true. Here are the documents..."
Doug moved quickly to handle the situation. With a rigid expression, the man took the documents Doug offered and examined the seal of authenticity with a sharp eye.
But after confirming that the document was genuine, his rigid expression softened into one of shame.
"Excuse me, sir, I made a mistake." The man bowed apologetically.
"Oh, it's okay, you're just doing your job."
Fortunately, Doug didn't seem too affected by the man's attitude, though the anxiety on his face was still noticeable.
Thinking back, between the incident at the library and now at the amusement park, Doug had probably received several uncomfortable looks in a row because of me.
I felt a little embarrassed about that. It was true that this body was ridiculously short, but mistaking me for a five-year-old was too much.
I'd never experienced anything similar before. In my past life, I stood at a solid 180 centimeters (5.9 feet), above average height.
It wasn't the first time my height caused trouble either. Not long ago, Priyanka had taken the TV remote from me and held it high just because I insisted on watching one more episode of Super Drill.
The cruel truth was that short people in this world barely had any human rights.
'When I get home, I'll figure out a way to get taller.'
It was a problem I'd been putting off, but one I'd eventually have to face if I wanted to live in human society.
Gems could shapeshift naturally, but the process was temporary, and the region responsible for it was damaged. I could add a few inches through transmutation, but adding matter to my form was much more costly than simply modifying it.
I already suffered from constant energy consumption just to maintain basic operations, and transforming dark energy as an extension of my body didn't seem like a smart idea, considering the cost.
Perhaps I could increase my height by about two inches if I stretched certain regions, but maintaining more than that twenty-four hours a day, along with other simultaneous operations, would be unsustainable.
Even my Gem had a limit to the number of partitions it could manage.
My mood darkened as I thought of alternatives to increase my height.
I looked at the huge attendant with well-defined abs. Every time he bowed in apology, his abs seemed to tighten, mocking my lost masculinity.
Just looking at him seemed to make a nerve pop in my face
'He was doing that on purpose, wasn't he?' I knew this thought was baseless, but that didn't mean I couldn't hold a grudge.
As I gazed at his toned abs, I wished every tall person in the world would explode.
After resolving the height issue, we began choosing our seats. There were two seats for each section; Doug sat in the front while Connie and I sat together in the back.
Connie sat down as if she were used to it and fastened my seatbelt. The design was very simple and intuitive. There was also a space to securely place my feet, which was a relief, as it saved me the effort of having to control my legs from the friction of the air.
Just to be safe, I also examined the overall structure. Some chairs seemed poorly made, and there was dust and dirt in some areas, but unless you had sharp eyesight, you wouldn't notice.
"Are you nervous?"
Connie asked as she took in my listless figure. Maybe I was a little cautious in the beginning, but after seeing that safety measures had been taken, there was nothing to fear.
[No.]
She checked my seatbelt a few more times and my general condition before going to talk to Doug. I just watched the people getting on, disinterested.
A few minutes later, the roller coaster began to move. It was very slow at first, but little by little, we got higher and higher. After a few seconds, we finally reached the peak.
I could see the passengers' breath stop at that moment, their hearts pounding faster as if they were being injected with adrenaline.
The cart tilted downward until it began to fall rapidly. Perhaps because I had no access to a view, I didn't really feel intimidated. I couldn't hear the passengers' screams, feel the air pressure, or even my own heartbeat.
Each time the cart moved up and down, the passengers seemed to react, while I remained constant. The only thing that signaled I was moving was the dark energy; I had to exert extra effort to see the passengers' reactions, even while moving.
I had to constantly reconnect with the energy in the air; keeping the connection moving required more cognitive effort than doing it while standing still.
As the way I was handling energy wasn't very efficient, I decided to simply focus on my own body.
No matter how varied the movements, how strong the wind, or how frightening the "view," my impression was the same: boring.
Although the scene before me was the frantic setting of a roller coaster, perhaps because of the lack of visual stimulation, everything felt duller.
When I observed the people around me, everyone was smiling or enjoying the ride in their own way. Doug, in the seat ahead, had his heart pounding rapidly as he clung tightly to his seat.
Connie, sitting beside me, seemed a bit more composed. Her eyes were looking upward as if she were admiring something. Her reaction was clearly different from everyone else's.
She always seemed to look at things with a sense of admiration. It had been the same back at the restaurant, and now it repeated itself again amidst the frantic rhythm of the roller coaster.
Since I was bored, I started analyzing Connie's eyes once again. Seeing through the reflection of someone's eyes required great effort because of the small scale and the fact that we were in motion, but it was not impossible.
As I analyzed the images reflected in Connie's eyes, two frames of vision formed in my mind. They were not perfect flat planes but circular images shaped like her eyes. They were a little harder to interpret clearly, but when I combined both images in my mind, they complemented each other.
I was using my imagination and Appraisal together to enhance the image quality, similar to how modern image filters work in editing software.
It was a difficult task, yet surprisingly fun. I found myself immersed in applying layers of enhancement over the images reflected in Connie's eyes.
I increased the contrast to make the details easier to perceive and flattened the image while minimizing distortions. It was as if the view I received through Connie's eyes had been a 240p video, and after processing, I managed to raise the quality to 720p.
The image of the roller coaster then became clearer to me, almost as if I were seeing the world through Connie's eyes. I could even simulate the sensation of movement to some extent.
It was not completely accurate, more like wearing a virtual reality headset. None of it was truly real, but through the continuous flow of images, a subtle layer of realism seemed to appear.
Connie's vision trembled with every climb. Her eyelids would close when the wind grew stronger, and I could see the lights of the park below us, illuminating the path ahead.
There were so many stimuli that my mind nearly went blank. The world through Connie's eyes was far more fascinating than my own. Even the slight distortions in her vision added a unique touch of realism to the image.
I was immersed in the image before me, so absorbed that I did not realize I could no longer focus on anything beyond Connie's eyes.
When the roller coaster reached its peak, her eyes shut tightly for a moment, and her hands gripped the safety belt as if bracing for the fall. Seconds before the descent, Connie cautiously opened her eyes and looked up at the sky.
At the highest point of the ride, the lights appeared more vivid than ever. A starry sky spread clearly across Connie's gaze. It was not bright enough to see everything in perfect detail, but the blurs of light resembled hand-painted frames. And like any artist, I could not help but appreciate the view before me.
I felt breathless, perhaps the same way Connie did at that moment. However, that vision did not last long. The cart, having reached the top, tilted forward, and the starry universe was replaced by the frenzy of the descent.
I could not help but feel a twinge of regret as the image was suddenly cut off. It was like watching the end of Super Drill Season 1 again and facing that damned cliffhanger of little Drill betraying Super Drill.
Before I realized it, something strange appeared at the edge of Connie's vision. What was that? Curious, Connie turned her head slightly, and the image of a young girl with dark hair and green eyes appeared in her sight.
A small hand reached toward Connie's face as if trying to grasp the image that had been lost in the fall. In those dull, empty eyes, Connie's reflection shimmered faintly as though it were the only thing filling them.
And in that reflection, I noticed something I had not been able to see through her eyes alone. At that exact moment, Connie was smiling brightly.
With her left hand, Connie grasped the hand I extended toward her and intertwined our fingers. I could not feel her touch, yet for a moment, I had the illusion of warmth in her palm.
Through the reflection in the girl's lifeless eyes, I saw Connie looking back at me. With a smiling face, she slowly moved her lips even amidst the chaotic descent.
"It is pretty fun, isn't it?"
A question asking if I found this experience fun. My reflection in Connie's eyes seemed to pause for a moment, until a faint smile formed on that lifeless face.
I had to admit, it was one of the most enjoyable moments I had in a long time.
*
The roller coaster ended faster than expected. Connie seemed to really enjoy the ride, while Doug appeared to struggle a bit along the way, though he managed to survive until the end.
Naturally, after the roller coaster, we went on other rides, but none were as fun. There were also many limitations due to my condition. Attractions like haunted houses or bumper cars required legwork that I couldn't perform.
None of them mentioned it directly and deliberately avoided such rides, but it was a real shame that my condition caused these concerns.
We spent a little over an hour at the amusement park, and during that time, I experienced the attractions while analyzing Connie's eyes. I had never used my imagination much to process the images analyzed by Appraisal, unless I combined it with Transmutation.
However, by using Appraisal at a lower intensity on Connie's eyes or glasses and interpreting the images in my mind, I expended less energy than I would have with a deep analysis. What I was doing in my mind was similar to what consoles do to process complex FPS games: taking lower-quality images and filtering them to appear higher quality and improve performance.
There was no need for the base image to always be high quality. If I applied a little power to Appraisal, I could visualize the shapes of objects in black and white. With more power, I could see every detail down to the smallest molecule.
But was that really necessary?
Using my imagination, even a low-quality image could become clearer. And even without color, as long as I interpreted the shades of gray, I could guess the approximate colors in my mind.
I thought nothing useful for my rehabilitation would come from this trip, but I ended up reaping benefits I hadn't imagined.
Not by increasing my processing power, but by reducing the amount of data my gem had to process. It made the images less reliable but far more economical and viable for daily use. And that was exactly what I needed.
I estimated that at least about a third of the energy I used daily for vision could be saved. Of course, this also came with a cost, since using my mind required processing power as well. I couldn't process such detailed images all at once.
It was easy to assume that processing smaller images was simpler, but that wasn't true. Sometimes analyzing small details was harder than analyzing large ones. The key wasn't the size of the image, but the amount of information it carried. That was why I usually spread my energy broadly to perceive only basic shapes.
The traditional process I used to analyze my surroundings involved using the dark energy around my body to touch the surface of objects. This process consumed almost no energy. In short, what I saw by default wasn't the object itself, but the dark energy that surrounded and shaped it.
By activating Appraisal on the analyzed surface to "see" rather than "feel," the ability became active instead of passive.
Perhaps, aside from Appraisal and Transmutation, dark energy manipulation was my only passive ability. It wasn't truly an independent power; rather, it was one of the tools included in the Transmutation package. Still, Appraisal relied heavily on it to the point that I couldn't imagine how anyone could use that ability without being able to manipulate dark energy.
Not only was Appraisal dependent on Transmutation, but Transmutation also depended on Appraisal. I was only able to see dark energy because that was the minimum Appraisal provided to me. Without it, I doubted I could even perceive it solely with my gem.
Many Gems in the show used their powers, but they never seemed capable of performing such delicate tasks as I was.
These abilities were so complementary that it was almost suspicious that I possessed them. Everything fit together too perfectly for it to be a mere coincidence.
Even though these powers came from my soul, I had never truly considered another factor. Why do I have them? Why did my soul carry such powers? Was it a natural process, or did someone deliberately give them to me?
Such questions filled my mind, though none had clear or definitive answers. I decided to jot this down in my notebook to theorize about later. I doubted I'd find any solid answer, but it wasn't like I only had a day or two to think about it.
In fact, there was something even more important to consider than the origin of these powers.
I could see Connie pushing my wheelchair through her eyes. In an hour of analyzing only her eyes, I saved not only a third, but almost half the energy I normally would to see in that capacity.
Even with the limitation of a narrow visual field and the difficulty of interpreting speech only with images instead of using dark energy to track jaw movement, this method proved more economical than my usual approach.
It was much simpler to just focus on a single image than to form several in my mind to get one piece of information.
I might expend a little more energy if I used this method constantly, but overall, it would still cost less than what I used daily, and it offered the added advantage of seeing at a distance.
With this in mind, I decided to test my body.
The eyes naturally produced weaker images, but I could gradually modify my body. The region responsible for reflecting images in the eyes was the cornea, and even Gems had equivalents to it. By making the corneal surface smoother and more solid, light diffusion would decrease, and vision would become clearer. In short, I was turning my eyes into true mirrors.
Of course, I kept my eyes closed. After all, we were in public, and drastic changes would be easily noticed. My goal was to improve their mirroring capability and slightly enlarge the iris and pupil area to make them more effective for reflection.
After completing the process, which took a few minutes, I finally opened my eyes.
My eyes didn't look much different from before. If I had to point out one change, it was that there seemed to be a little more life in them.
The mirror effect, in one way or another, added a faint glimmer to my eyes, and with them slightly wider, my appearance looked a bit more childish. Still, it wasn't a very noticeable change at first glance.
Although the visual result was satisfying, it was time to see whether the reflected images were truly functional in practice.
I spread the energy around my body and focused on manipulating the energy already within me. I wrapped my eyeballs in it.
Two similar images appeared before me. The quality wasn't as clear as that of a mirror, but they were far sharper than the ones I had obtained from Connie.
I repeated the process once again, removing the image of my nose from the edges and merging the two views, creating a sense of depth.
With each movement, I replaced the images to form the illusion of motion. I could even control how many images I processed at once, much like the frames per second in a video.
It was different from analyzing static objects around me since these images were always changing. However, because my energy was concentrated entirely in my eyes, even that complex process became manageable.
For the first time in a long while, I could "see" my body from a first-person view instead of the third-person perspective I had been using. My first realization was how short I really was.
The tents and people around me looked so tall from this viewpoint. I could see only the bottoms of their chins and had to put real effort into adjusting the movement of my eyes and head.
My vision wavered occasionally, though it was still steadier than Connie's, probably because I was sitting in a wheelchair.
I lifted my hands and placed them before my eyes, staring at them as if it were the first time I had ever seen them. I watched the light pass between my fingers and the delicate way they moved.
These were the hands I used every day to draw, and also the same hands that built the tools for my escape. They were so small and fragile that they seemed like they would break with the slightest touch.
Yet, for who knows how long, I had lived recklessly in this unfamiliar body, to the point of not even noticing how foreign these hands truly were.
Perhaps if I hadn't lost my senses and felt detached from this body, I wouldn't have realized how quickly I was adapting to it.
The image of my human hands overlapped with these smaller ones, though the image of my former body was much less accurate than the memories I had as a gem.
I picked up my pencils, opened my notebook, and began to sketch. Little by little, an image took shape on the paper. Based on my memories, I drew a young man.
He had a slender frame, a few scars scattered across his body, and the plain clothes of an ordinary worker. He was tall and strong, like someone who had trained his body since childhood.
And his face was...
'...What did my face look like?'
No matter how hard I tried to remember, only a vague and blurry image appeared in my mind. Unlike my recent memories, my human ones seemed so hard to grasp.
Without finishing the face of that figure, I drew another image—a girl who barely reached half the man's height, with a thin and delicate body. Every detail had been perfectly transferred to the paper, almost like a photograph, and even the apathetic expression was identical.
I looked at both drawings with my own eyes, and then at the hands that had created them.
I couldn't see myself as the fragile figure on the right or the strong figure on the left, and that realization felt strangely suffocating.
Between the two figures, a new sketch began to form, but unlike the others, it had no shape. My hand stopped after the first line, unable to continue.
When had my former self become so unfamiliar to me?
When I reincarnated, my reaction to this body had been a mix of admiration and anxiety. Yet over time, walking day by day on those small legs in an abandoned world, I stopped caring. Eventually, I just accepted it without much thought. I hadn't had many choices to begin with.
But as they say, the effects of war don't show themselves on the battlefield, but when you return home and realize that your old life will never come back.
I had been avoiding this issue, buried under worries and daily concerns.
But now, at this amusement park, as I watched children play with their parents and visualized my own reflection among them... fear welled up inside me.
Because the reality in front of me was becoming increasingly immersive.
I was forgetting who I was while being forced to live with my worst traumas. My human identity was always there, not in a pleasant way, reminding me of who I once had been.
I was already far from who I used to be and uncertain about who I was now.
And, apparently, I was having an identity crisis.
I sighed and closed the notebook resting on my lap.
Why did the human mind have to be so troublesome? I wasn't even human, but somehow, only the worst parts of those traits had carried over with me.
Even though I kept telling myself that my past was gone and this was my new life, emotionally, a part of me still resisted.
Perhaps only time would bring an answer.
In the middle of this melancholy, a shotgun suddenly appeared in my field of vision.
"...?" I looked at the object with puzzled eyes.
When I turned around, Connie was standing beside me, holding the rifle out with an innocent expression.
Behind her, Doug was arguing with a suspicious-looking man with a mustache. On the counter between them, other toy guns were lying without ammunition, and inside the tent, several target toys were on display.
It seemed that while I was drowning in thought, the two of them had been amusing themselves with target practice. Judging by the amount of money left in Doug's wallet, though, the outcome didn't seem very good.
"Want to try too?"
The gun Connie handed me had three of the five available rounds. She must have tried a few times before giving up.
The situation was a bit sudden for me, but I nodded and accepted the gun.
I moved my wheelchair closer to the counter without much enthusiasm and glanced at the toys on display. I doubted anything there would catch my interest.
Or at least that's what I thought.
At the back of the shelf, hidden behind all the other toys, I noticed a Drill Man figure. The way his cape seemed to sway majestically, even though it was covered in rust, was simply divine. It was the image of a hero sacrificing his life for others.
It was clearly a reference to the events of the second season, when Super Drill, after being betrayed by Little Drill and thrown into the junkyard, kept fighting against the filth of society, even while suffering from the effects of radioactive rust.
'I-I can't believe it...'
A premium, exclusive edition, only for collectors. I thought it was all just an internet urban legend, but the toy in question existed, and it was right in front of me.
All the previous complex thoughts and even the slight, imperceptible, unstable glow vanished from my gem.
The luxurious image of the limited edition filled my thoughts more than all the debts my father had left behind after dying combined.
At that moment, only one thing was certain in my mind.
'I need it!'
I was going to get that toy, even if it was the last thing I did.
*
Author's note
It was never my intention to be away for so long, and I apologize if I've been less active here. Surprisingly, the reason is a little strange; my studies have been going so well that I lost track of time for my writing. I had serious problems balancing the two, but thanks to the support of my Discord and Patreon readers, I somehow managed to get back on track (still trying tbh).
There are several notifications to read, probably! I'm a little scared just looking at them, but I'll try to read everything 🍪
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