After standing still for a moment, Genichi opened his eyes again. They were calm, like an ancient well without a ripple.
He did not go looking for a room right away. He checked himself first.
With a small flicker of intent, a crimson glow seeped up from beneath the skin of his left hand. The Boosted Gear silently surfaced, sheathing his forearm. Its savage contours and the faint gleam of its jewel looked especially stark in the dim corridor.
"So the falna didn't count the Boosted Gear."
He studied the Skills listed on his status sheet. From [Devour] to [Ascend to Godhood], every one of them was rooted in his soul or in the fundamental nature of his body.
The Boosted Gear, a Divine Dividing-grade Sacred Gear from another world, was bound to his soul now and responded like a part of him, but in the falna's judgment system, it seemed to be classified as an external object, equipment, rather than something innate or intrinsic to his soul.
"That's reasonable."
The falna system, at its core, excavated and formatted a person's inner potential, turning it into rules and numbers.
A clearly external artifact like the Boosted Gear being excluded from the initial falna assessment made sense. It was not a nerf. It was a boundary.
The falna would strengthen the vessel. The artifact was the weapon he wielded. The two did not conflict.
He dismissed the Gear, and only then began searching for a place to stay.
As Demeter had said, there were plenty of empty rooms on the farm. He could choose.
He had planned to pick the most secluded corner possible, somewhere out of sight and out of mind, convenient for hiding things and training in ways he did not want others to see.
But when he asked a thick-set, honest-looking middle-aged farmhand who was trimming flowers in the courtyard, the man scratched the back of his head and smiled apologetically.
"Ah, the new kid. Sorry about that. Lady Demeter gave special instructions just now. Your room's already been arranged. Second floor of the main house, right next to her room. She said it'd be easier to look after the new child."
Genichi paused.
Next door?
Next door to Demeter's room?
That goddess's follow-through was a little too fast.
Or maybe her level of attention toward him was higher than he had expected.
Was it because that absurd status sheet had made her uneasy?
Or was it simply a god's instinctive care for her child?
"…"
Genichi fell silent for a heartbeat, then nodded. "Understood. Thank you."
He did not object.
If she had already arranged it, requesting a change now would look suspicious, and it would only sharpen her focus on him.
Besides, living next to his goddess might cost him privacy, but from another angle, it might be safer. At the very least, it could keep other Familia members from poking at him out of curiosity.
He followed the farmhand to the second floor. At the end of the hallway were two adjacent rooms. One door was slightly ajar, and a faint scent of herbs and flowers drifted out, similar to Demeter's room.
The farmhand pointed at the neighboring wooden door, closed tight, no different from the others. "This one. The bedding and furniture are clean. If you need anything, just call for me."
"Appreciate it."
Genichi opened the door.
The room was wider and neater than he expected. A window faced the fields and windmills in the distance, letting in plenty of light.
A simple wooden bed, desk, wardrobe, chair. Plain, but spotless. Clean linen sheets, a fluffy quilt, and even a clay jar of fresh water with a cup set beside it.
He shut the door, cutting off outside voices and eyes.
He placed the grimoire gently on the desk. It made a soft tap.
Looking around at this space that was, for the moment, his, a faint ripple passed through him. So faint that even he almost did not notice it.
From accepting him by coincidence, to the shock that followed, to taking responsibility, to arranging his room, to giving him something as precious as a grimoire, Demeter had gone far beyond a momentary act of kindness.
"I'm piling up debts," Genichi murmured. His tone was flat, without emotion.
Then the corner of his mouth tugged almost imperceptibly, a cold sort of acceptance.
"But when you've already got debts, one more doesn't change much."
He had always been the kind of person who used every resource available, including other people's goodwill. That instinct sat in his bones.
If Demeter chose to give him this much, he would accept it. Calmly.
As for repayment…
A flash of Demeter Familia's future crossed his mind.
In the original story, the Demeter Familia, a peaceful agricultural Familia, was dragged into a conspiracy.
Dionysus, the wine god, used a taboo substance known as divine wine, an intoxicant capable of controlling the minds of gods and mortals alike. He secretly took control of Demeter Familia's members and used them to threaten Demeter herself.
To protect her children, those who had been controlled and could not resist, Demeter endured humiliation and carried blame that did not belong to her.
"This debt…"
Genichi's gaze moved to the fields outside, green and alive. His eyes sharpened, cold and precise.
"When I'm strong enough, I'll deal with Dionysus and his little games."
It was not noble justice. It was not affection.
It was a delayed transaction.
He would pay back today's acceptance and gifts with tomorrow's strength.
Fair.
He stopped dwelling on the debt and brought his focus back to what mattered now: the grimoire.
Sitting at the desk, using the last light filtering through the window as dusk bled in, Genichi opened the thick, antique volume.
The pages were not ordinary paper. They were pliant, tough, and held a strange affinity for magic.
The writing was not common script either. It was closer to patterns, runes, and condensed intent, something that demanded focus and feeling rather than simple reading.
At first, Genichi stayed lucid, trying to decipher the profound shapes.
But as he poured his mind into it, a heavy drowsiness surged up like a tide. His eyelids grew impossibly heavy.
The power within the grimoire, meant to guide the soul into resonance with magic, seemed to be acting directly on his mind.
"So this is the prelude to awakening magic?"
That was his last thought before his head tilted forward.
He collapsed onto the desk and sank into sleep.
Yet his consciousness did not fall into pure darkness.
In a haze, he found himself standing in a boundless, immaculate white space.
Above, below, left, right, all was soft white light. No direction. No horizon. Silence so deep he could hear the motion of his own thoughts.
"What is magic?"
A vast voice echoed through the white, impossible to place, impossible to judge as male or female, young or old. It sounded as if it spoke directly from the center of his soul.
As the question rang out, the white space began to change.
Images appeared around him, impossibly vivid, like the most lifelike projections, suspended in the air.
He saw Natsu Dragneel's dragon-slaying fire roaring in his hands. He saw Lucy Heartfilia swinging a golden key to summon a Celestial Spirit. He saw Erza Scarlet's armor shifting in an instant through requip magic.
Fairy Tail's magic, brilliant and explosive.
The scene turned.
He saw a young wizard flicking a wand, speaking spells. Light. Disarming. Killing curses. He saw Hogwarts, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, owls in flight.
Harry Potter's ancient, secret craft.
Then more. Much more.
Toaru's magic.
The Nasuverse's complex foundations of magecraft and the swirling Root.
Even flashes from anime, films, and games he had only glimpsed, worlds he could not even name, each showing strange and varied forms of magic.
Flame. Ice. Lightning. Storm. Healing. Summoning. Transfiguration. Curses. Barriers. Time and space.
Nearly every imaginable way of using supernatural force unfolded in this white theater, dazzling and overwhelming.
"Do you want them?" the vast voice asked again, calm, flat, and yet seductively direct. "These magics."
As if it were asking: one? several? or…
Facing a panorama that seemed to contain the possibilities of magic across worlds, Genichi's heartbeat thundered.
Not with excitement.
With hunger.
Each spell, each system, was a path, a tool, a shortcut to power and survival.
If he could grasp them…
He did not hesitate.
In the pure white space, his black eyes lit with a fierce, unwavering fire. He answered the unseen presence, clearly and without doubt.
"Yes."
"Then…"
The vast voice carried a faint nuance, unreadable.
"Take them all."
The instant those words fell, every image around him erupted into blinding brilliance.
They were no longer displays. They became torrents of information, fragments of rules, condensed realizations of power, like billions of meteors falling backward through the sky, surging toward Genichi at the center.
Boom.
His consciousness was swallowed whole by an endless ocean of magic.
In the real world, in the quiet room on the second floor of the farmhouse, Genichi's body trembled faintly where he lay slumped over the grimoire.
Fine sweat beaded on his brow. The sacred script on his back began to glow faintly without his control. Especially the area corresponding to the empty magic slots, as if something was being forcibly poured in, stamped in, colliding and fusing at a violent pace.
Outside the window, night had fully fallen. Stars speckled the sky.
The windmill's huge silhouette turned slowly under moonlight, like a silent witness.
(End of Chapter)
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